The Bangtail Ghost Read online

  “A little more than a little.”

  Martha tugged up her nightgown so it gathered at her waist.

  “Maybe more than that,” he said.

  “How much more?”

  “I was scared to death,” Sean said.

  She pulled the nightgown over her head and shook out her hair. “That’s better,” she said. “Scared to death, I believe. Scared to death gets you the other way to warm up.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Fire in Her Eyes

  The strangest part of dying was the tickling. It felt like a small bird had caught its claws in her throat and was beating its wings. The sensation reminded her of an old boyfriend who had a gunslinger mustache. Every night, he would wash the wax out and work in conditioner to make the hairs soft. Kissing him was erotic once she let herself go, only ticklish on nights when she just went along, happy to bend to his pleasure for the feeling of being close to someone, to hear the words “I love you,” even if they were said reflexively, as a sigh.

  His name was Wyatt—he was in his early twenties; she liked them young then, before she didn’t like them at all—and she couldn’t remember why they had split apart. She had chosen to veil large chunks of the “Tucson years,” as she called them, while painting other parts in a soft, glowing light like the blush of dawn over the Chiricahuas. Wyatt had been a fine young man in life. He became an even better man now as a snapshot in her memory, when her breathing became labored.

  How far had she been carried? She could remember nothing after leaving the trailer, not even switching on her headlamp. In one moment she was shuffling along, the snow so cold that it creaked under her boots, and in another she had come back from some unnamed ether with a tremendous pressure on her throat. She was being carried up the slope of a ridge, her hair hanging down, her head knocking against the downfall, her hands and her boots dragging in the snow. Somehow the band of the headlamp had stayed on her forehead, and its cold white fire cast circles that swirled up through the trees. She could barely breathe, and yet it didn’t hurt.

  I must be in shock, she thought.

  Finally the clamped weight on her throat eased. As she lay in the snow, she heard a deep breathing that at first she mistook for her own, followed by a soft, throaty sound, like a muffled outboard motor coughing to life and then choking out. She turned her head to the sound and that was when she saw the eyes. They glowed in the reflection of her headlamp with a green tint, like the gemstone known as Arizona peridot, the poor man’s emerald. She had worked at a rock shop once, in that half-forgotten, half-misremembered life of adobe and sand and saguaro cactus, where everything had gone right for a while before everything went wrong.

  Instinctively, she lashed out toward the glowing orbs and her hand contacted a nap of fibers like the bristles of a boar-hair brush.

  “What are you?” she tried to say. “Who are you?”

  She heard an angry coughing sound, followed by what sounded like a scream from the canyon below. Hers? It seemed nothing of this Earth. Then the pressure on her throat came back, this time with a searing heat, and she hit at the hard stiffness as she became dreamy until, finally, she was only stroking the stiff hairs with her fingertips, as if tracing a lover’s skin in the dark.

  What was his name?

  She couldn’t remember, though his face had come back. She saw him clearly. Then he receded, like she was looking at his image through the wrong end of a telescope.

  “Wyatt?” The word formed on her lips. She felt happy to have remembered his name. There was a pulsing of light behind her eyelids as her headlamp flickered rapidly and went out.

  She opened her eyes to the engulfing blackness. No, that wasn’t her world anymore. She closed her eyes to try to find him again, and as she did, she felt the fluttering against her throat stop as the bird took flight.

  CHAPTER THREE

  At One with Eagles

  Sean groped for the phone vibrating on the nightstand. It was Sam Meslik, the outfitter Sean worked for, guiding fly fishermen being one of his several jobs that kept the wolves at bay.

  “Sam,” he said. No hellos. There never were.

  “You know where the hunting rigs park up Johnny Gulch Road?”

  “I know it. I was up that way last night.”

  “You were?”

  “A little to the south. Long story.”

  “Well, ah . . . you can tell me about that later. I’m up here now and there’s blood in the snow.”

  “It’s elk season.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think this is elk blood.”

  “You want to elaborate?”

  “There’s blood in the fucking snow. Meet me at the trailhead. Bring your fiancée.” He clicked off.

  Sean reached across the sleeping Siamese cat and snoring Aussie shepherd to rub Martha Ettinger’s shoulder.

  “It’s four in the morning,” Martha said.

  * * *

  • • •

  IT WAS FIVE and change when the headlights of Martha’s Cherokee shone on Meslik’s three-quarter-ton parked at the trailhead. No other rigs, just an old Airstream trailer that must have been hauled in before the first heavy snowfall and wouldn’t be going anywhere until the weather changed.

  Sam clambered out of his truck. “I had one all but roped to a tree. This ruined my hunt,” he said.

  “You did the right thing by calling,” Martha said. “I didn’t think you’d get reception here.”

  “Smaller state every day. Won’t be long before a man can’t take a piss without using his free hand to answer his phone. Actually, I had to drive about a mile to pick up a bar. Last day of the fucking season, too. And I’m being a Boy Scout.”

  “You’re becoming a contributing member of society despite yourself.”

  Sam grunted.

  “So what’s up?” Sean said.

  The big man fingered his beard. “I don’t know, but I stepped into shit, sure as we’re standing here. That’s supposed to be your department, Kemosabe. Anyway, I got a real bad feeling about it.” He pointed to the trailer. “Tracks start at the door. I didn’t touch nothing.”

  “But you went inside?” Martha said.

  “Fuck, yeah. It was unlocked. I thought somebody might be hurt in there. But the way I read it, whoever it was stepped outside and started walking toward the outhouse. I saw where somebody fell and I saw blood and I did my civic duty.”

  He turned to Martha. “She’s a pro, you ask me.”

  “What makes you think it’s a she?”

  “Go see for yourself.”

  “I will, but right now I want to see this blood.”

  “You’re the one with the badge.”

  Until the next election, anyway, Martha thought. She rubbed the hammer of her holstered revolver, one in a long line of nervous habits.

  She wore the badge, all right. But in the mountains, she often found herself deferring to the trackers. For nearly a decade, the best tracker on the force had been Harold Little Feather, whom she had met when he was teaching a field course at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy in Helena and she was a cadet. But Harold had been lured from county employ to the State Investigative Services, which left Sean Stranahan, a licensed private investigator who had contracted out to the sheriff’s department on several occasions, as the only person associated with the county who was better than your average elk hunter at reading sign.

  Martha unholstered her Carnivore tracking light and handed it over.

  “Does this mean I’m on the county nickel?” Sean said.

  “You’re employed until we get to the end of these tracks.”

  Sean switched the light on. He could discern five boot trails, two double trails up and back, as well as one single trail with no return trip to the trailer. Sam’s track was easiest to distinguish because the impressions were freshest and he
had the biggest boots. Shining the light ahead of him, Sean saw a stack of pine quarter-rounds partly covered by a tarp. Stuck into a splitting block was an ax, the steel glinting in the LED cluster.

  From this woodpile all the trails angled toward the silhouette of the outhouse, and Sean had progressed no more than twenty feet when he saw where a person had fallen or been taken down in the snow. A drag mark led to the west. One set of tracks reversed direction, heading back toward the trailer. Sam Meslik’s continued to follow the drag for another thirty yards. Then they, too, turned around, the impressions going out superimposed on the tracks coming in.

  Sean waited for Sam and Martha to come up behind him. “This is as far as you followed,” Sean said. He pointed with the flashlight beam.

  “Hereabouts,” Sam said.

  “You saw blood, you said.”

  “I kicked a few spots out that were under the snow.”

  “Where?”

  “Back by the woodpile.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “No, it was food dye from my daughter’s Easter egg coloring kit. Yes, I’m sure. Blood is blood.”

  “Okay. Wait here.” Sean switched his headlamp to its tracking mode. Blood drops caught in the beam of the red and blue LED clusters would appear radioactive, seeming to jump off the ground. He saw no such reaction on the surface snow, but there wouldn’t be, as the snowfall had continued on and off through the night. He kicked around as he backtracked. There it was. Blood, all right. Not a lot, more of a sprinkling, like first stars in a clear sky.

  He walked back to Martha and Sam. The three stood in silence, looking at the drag mark that led into the deeper forest. There was death here, as palpable as a pulse.

  “I’ll check out the trailer,” Martha said. “Give us a few more minutes for the sky to get lighter.”

  “I’ll slip a few stogies into Thumper,” Sam said.

  Martha glanced at him.

  “His rifle,” Sean said.

  Martha shook her head. “Whatever’s up ahead is official business. I don’t want to be responsible for any fallout because of public participation.”

  “Bullshit,” Sam said. “If it wasn’t for me, you two would still be breathing dog farts in your feather bed. I was a medic in Iraq One. I trained on the M16 and shot a .338 Lapua with the snipers. I could have qualified if I’d made it a career choice, but I got a soft heart. I drew the line at killing anyone who was picking his nose a half a mile away.”

  “Nonetheless,” Martha said.

  “Then I guess I won’t tell you what it is I hadn’t got around to telling you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You just gave up your right to know.”

  “This isn’t a game.”

  Sean interrupted them. “Martha, let him come. I’m happy to have his rifle.”

  Martha muttered, “Et tu, Brute?” under her breath.

  “I didn’t catch that,” Sam said.

  “I said okay. What was it you didn’t get around to telling me?”

  “When I was driving up here there was a guy driving out, got his truck stuck in a snowbank about half a mile back, the dumb fuck. I winched him out.”

  “What was his name?”

  Sam shook his head. “All I know is he was driving a Ford Ranger, the fucking training bra of trucks, and he was sweating in zero fucking degrees. Of course, he’d been trying to dig himself out for an hour, or that’s what he said.”

  “Wasn’t he going the wrong way? At four in the morning you’re driving in to hunt, not driving out.”

  “He said he’d got lost and spent the night walking in circles.”

  Sean flashed to the lights he’d seen the night before. This might explain them.

  “Describe him?” Martha said.

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. Regular guy. Medium height, I guess. Medium build. Beard.”

  “Hair?”

  “It was under a hat, but there were, like, strands hanging down. So I’d say longish.”

  “The beard. Was it a lumberjack beard, hipster beard, metrosexual stubble?”

  “I don’t recall. He had facial hair, sort of medium.”

  “So your description is regular guy. Medium height, medium build, medium beard, training bra of trucks.”

  “Hey, you asked. It was fucking dark out.”

  “All right, get your gun,” Martha said. “Sean, get my 06 out of the Cherokee. Cartridges are in the glove compartment. I’ll be ten minutes.”

  * * *

  • • •

  LIKE SAM HAD SAID, there was no one home. Martha’s cursory search revealed a chipped Formica table on a post that was bolted to the floor, a sheepherder’s stove that was an addition to the original propane range, and an unmade bed with a string of twinkle lights suspended from an oval track affixed to the ceiling. At the head of the bed was a small stand with an ashtray, a coffee cup, and a paperback novel. Martha opened the drawer. Condoms, a tube of personal lubricant, a soft pack of Virginia Slims, NicoDerm patches.

  She saw a roller bag in a corner and hoisted it onto the bed without touching the handles. She rifled through it, revealing jeans encrusted with butt bling, clingy tops cut to showcase what was under them, panties with hearts, and a slinky Japanese kimono embroidered with three-toed dragons. In with the frillies were country woman clothes—canvas overalls, sensible underwear, and a University of Arizona crewneck sweatshirt embroidered with a wildcat. No signs of violence, nor evidence that a man had ever got beyond the door. But the unmentionables pointed to the likelihood.

  Martha opened the door of the sheepherder’s stove. The embers were down to ashes, but the metal was still warm. She walked back out into the pastel palette of dawn, powder-blue wafers of sky layered on top of pink streaks in alternating bands. Montana, yawning awake.

  “Well?” Sean said.

  “A woman. Petite, small feet, fair-haired, by the hairs in her hairbrush. Maybe more generous on the top half than nature intended. Uses coral lipstick, paints her nails black.”

  “Just the type you see so many of in elk country,” Sam said.

  Martha ignored the comment. “Odd thing is no vehicle. Somebody dropped her off here, so that means someone’s coming back.”

  “She’s gotta be a pro.”

  Martha shot Sam a look. “You’re repeating yourself.”

  “Like it isn’t the first thing comes into your mind, too. Christmas lights around the bed, come on.” He shrugged. “Maybe she’s one of Ginny Gin Jenny’s girls. It’s her MO, a trailer parked at the end of the road. You know, the Elk Camp Madam.”

  “I’ve made her acquaintance,” Martha said. “But right now I’m more interested in what’s standing at the end of this drag. Or isn’t. Sean, it’s your show.”

  Sean hesitated, then looked at Sam. “About that long story I mentioned,” he said. And told him about the lights he had seen on the mountainside and his encounter with the lion.

  “Pussycat, huh?” Sam said. “And you think the lights might have been hers?”

  “They seemed to flash from the ridge.” He pointed north and west.

  “You think a lion could have dragged her up that ridge? Have to be pretty damned strong.”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Sean said.

  Sam chambered a cartridge and moved the three-position safety to safe. “Tell Mother I died with my Muck boots on,” he said.

  * * *

  • • •

  THEY HAD TWO RIFLES and one canister of bear spray among them. Sean took the lead, unarmed but for the grizzly juice, Martha two steps behind, her .30-06 at port arms, Sam three yards to her right side, the bore of his .350 Magnum pointing down.

  One hundred yards into the forest, a teardrop of blood here, a teardrop there. Another fifty yards, the blood drops closer together, in places a f
ine drizzle, then nothing. Now they were climbing, grasping tree trunks to haul themselves up, the forest graying, no sound but the shuffling of their boots and their combined breathing.

  Sean stopped. Earlier, he had picked up a few long hairs snagged on deadfall, confirmation that the drag they were following was almost certainly made by the body of the woman who had occupied the trailer.

  Now his attention was drawn to a strip of something that looked vaguely like a Band-Aid. It was clinging to a tree branch, three or four inches long and paper-thin, raw-looking, and, in the coming light, nearly translucent. There were two shorter strands also stringing from the branch. Sean broke the branch off short and held it up for Sam and Martha to see.

  “What is it?” Martha kept her voice down.

  “It’s the skin off her fingers. She grabbed hold of the branch and hung on so tight that it ripped the skin off.”

  “Then . . . she was still alive?”

  “To this point.”

  “Fuck me,” Sam said.

  With the gain in elevation, the snow was deeper here and the occasional tracks were loosely filled pockmarks or indentations, the identity of the maker conjecture at best. Still very little blood.

  Reading the white book. That’s what Harold Little Feather called tracking in winter. Sean thought of Harold for a moment. For three years Sean had lived in an eighteen-pole tipi of Sioux design that Harold had lent him, and at one time or another they had both been in love with the woman who was standing beside him, her thumb resting on the safety of her Winchester rifle. Thinking of Harold was a sure sign that his concentration was flagging. You could only keep that razor edge of focus for so long before you needed a break.

  “Rest a minute.” Sean mouthed the words. The steam from their breathing hung over them in a cloud.

  As they stood there, Sean bending from his waist with his hands on his knees, Sam twisting his torso to get the cricks out, Martha sucking at her cheeks, an eagle lifted from the ridge, then another. The pair flew silently over their heads. They exchanged glances. They knew what the presence of eagles meant.