Yellowstone Standoff Page 19

The tablet showed a tight clearing in the forest. Randall nudged the console’s toggles with his thumbs. The drone descended into the shadowy opening. The scene on the tablet grew grainy in the reduced light below the treetops. The drone came to a halt, hovering a few feet off the ground. A phalanx of tree trunks and pine branches surrounded the clearing.

  Something moved at the base of a tree.

  The camera continued to focus on the gray trunks of the trees and the green of the tree branches spreading above.

  Seconds passed. Had he imagined it? The drone hovered. The camera streamed the unchanging scene. A burst of light gray entered the video feed, moving fast, straight toward the camera.

  Randall nudged the controls. The drone climbed. On the computer screen, a wolf flung itself at the rising copter. Its mouth snapped shut as it disappeared from view beneath the dangling camera.

  “That was close,” Randall said.

  The drone circled as it climbed, the camera capturing a panning scene of tree trunks and branches and something else, barely visible at the edge of the shadowed clearing, dark on top, lighter below.

  Randall leaned toward the tablet as he worked the controls on the console. The copter and camera plunged back toward the ground.

  Chuck’s heart leapt into his throat. On the tablet screen, the object grew in size and grainy focus until it became a person dressed in a navy jacket and khaki slacks, bound to a tree trunk by loops of rope, mouth gagged, head slumped forward.

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  The tablet shook in Lex’s hands. “That’s...that’s...”

  “Kaifong!” Randall cried, staring at the screen.

  Chuck pointed across the meadow to the west, where the drone had disappeared above the treetops. “She’s there.” He grabbed Lex by the arm, tugging him toward the meadow. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m coming, too,” Randall declared.

  “No,” Chuck said.

  “It’s Kaifong!” Randall pleaded.

  “Chuck’s right,” Lex told him. “We need you to stay here and fly the drone to keep tabs on her. You can use it to fend off any wolves. Its noise will help guide us when we get close.”

  Clarence and Toby appeared around the corner of the cabin.

  “We couldn’t find—” Clarence began.

  Chuck cut him off. “We need your help.”

  Clarence and Toby stared at the scene on the tablet, their mouths falling open.

  “Lex and I are going after her,” Chuck said. “She’s not alone. A wolf almost took down the drone.”

  Toby pressed forward. “A wolf? I’m coming with you.”

  “Good,” Lex said. “That’ll make three of us.”

  He handed the tablet to Clarence, who raised it in front of Randall with shaking hands. An orange light flashed in the screen’s lower corner.

  “That means we only have ten minutes of battery power left,” Randall said. He looked at the leaden sky. “About the same amount of flying time before full dark.”

  Chuck hurried across the meadow behind Toby and Lex. Toby’s knife bounced against his hip. At the edge of the forest, Chuck slowed and swung his pack around to his chest. He dug inside until his fingers wrapped around the .357. While Toby and Lex strode into the woods, he unlocked the trigger guard with the small key stored in his wallet, then racked a round into the chamber from the gun’s magazine. He checked the safety and shoved the pistol into his waistband at the small of his back before setting off once more, catching up as Lex picked a path around downed trees and pools of water ahead of Toby.

  “Faster,” Toby insisted.

  “We’re almost there,” Lex replied between heavy breaths. “We can’t run; I don’t want to trigger any attack responses, even with the three of us.”

  The tall trees allowed little of the waning evening light to reach the ground. Chuck struggled to see what lay ahead. He sensed something behind him and spun, yanking the .357 from his belt and brandishing it at the shadowed forest behind him.

  Silence. No signs of movement.

  He replaced the gun at his back, chiding himself.

  Brighter light showed between the trunks of trees—the clearing. He hurried forward, nearly tripping on Toby’s heels. The drone whined out of sight ahead. The forest grew lighter, the whine of the copter blades louder.

  Lex broke from the trees in front of Toby and Chuck and crossed the small opening, passing beneath the hovering drone to Kaifong. Unsheathing his knife, he slashed at the ropes binding her to the base of the tree. Toby went to her and freed the length of rope gagging her mouth and knotted at the back of her neck. Chuck turned a slow pirouette in the center of the clearing. The fetid smell of wet fur blew past him from somewhere in the trees; the wolves—and, perhaps, the grizzly—were nearby.

  Chuck gave a thumbs up to the drone hovering overhead, the camera facing his direction. The copter rose into the air with a noisy whine and sped east above the treetops toward camp.

  Toby held Kaifong in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder. The loops of rope, which Chuck recognized as multi-purpose line from the camp’s store of supplies, fell away from her body as Lex worked at the back of the tree. She collapsed forward against Toby with a half-cry, half-sob. Lex cut the last of the cord at her ankles, freeing her from the tree. Toby clutched her to his chest. Her head fell back. Her eyes remained closed.

  A canine-like snarl sounded behind them, from the section of forest through which they’d just passed. A second snarl followed, this one from the forest in the opposite direction, beyond the tree to which Kaifong had been tied.

  Toby propped Kaifong in his arms. Lex entered the clearing, his eyes darting. Chuck pulled the .357 from his waistband. He held the pistol in both hands, barrel pointed at the ground. A pair of glowing yellow eyes shone from the trees beyond Toby and Kaifong. As Chuck watched, a second pair of eyes appeared, unblinking, alongside the first.

  Chuck stepped past Toby and Lex and aimed the .357 at the wolves. The creatures were more than thirty yards away, too distant for an accurate shot with the handgun. He considered assembling the far more accurate rifle from Toby’s pack, but rejected the idea as too time consuming.

  The wolves held their distance. Chuck turned toward camp, pointing with the barrel of the .357. “Let’s go.”

  “There was a growl that way, too,” Toby said.

  “It’ll fall back,” Chuck replied, summoning assurance he didn’t feel. “If it doesn’t...” He lifted the pistol.

  Knife in hand, Lex took long strides through the opening and back into the forest. Toby draped Kaifong over his shoulder and crossed the clearing behind Lex.

  Chuck looked back. A third pair of eyes glowed alongside the first two. He edged across the clearing, gun raised, and entered the trees behind Lex and Toby.

  The forest stretched at least three hundred yards from the clearing to the foot of the meadow below the cabin. Chuck covered Lex, Toby, and Kaifong from the rear with the pistol as they headed for camp. Twenty yards into the woods, he turned to see three forms, just visible between intervening trees, trotting across the clearing toward them. He hurried on. Lex and Toby, with Kaifong over his shoulder, moved steadily through the forest. In the gathering darkness, Chuck stumbled on the uneven ground, righted himself, and made his way around a pool of water behind them.

  Where was the meadow? It had to be near by now.

  A flash of gray rocketed from the shadows. A mid-sized wolf leapt at Toby and Kaifong, slamming into them with gnashing teeth before Chuck could so much as lift the .357.

  “No!” Toby cried. He fell beneath the onslaught while clutching Kaifong. He turned his back to the animal and hunkered over Kaifong’s limp form on the ground.

  The wolf clamped its jaws around Toby’s shoulder and tore at the researcher’s backpack and jacket. Chuck aimed the .357 but didn’t dare pull the trigger; in the commotion and deepening shadows, he was as likely to shoot Toby or Kaifong as he was the wolf. He stepped forward and grabbed the creature by the scruff of it
s neck. He yanked, and the wolf spun with a snarl and went for his forearm, jaws snapping.

  “Look out!” Lex yelled.

  Chuck let go and stumbled away. Lex leapt forward and buried his knife in the wolf’s spine. The animal yowled and ripped into Lex, who cried out as he fell to his back next to Toby and Kaifong.

  The wolf planted its forepaws on Lex’s chest. Lex gashed the creature’s snout with his knife. The wolf snatched Lex’s wrist in its mouth and slung its head back and forth. Droplets of blood flew from Lex’s arm. He transferred his knife to his free hand and again slashed the animal across its face, cutting into one of its eyes.

  The wolf sprang away and crouched. It snarled, blood streaming from its wounds. The animal jumped at Lex, its legs spring-coiled, returning to the attack. Chuck swung his arm, tracking the wolf as it sailed through the air. He fired, aiming for the chest cavity behind the foreleg, where the wolf’s heart was suspended between its lungs.

  The gun blast ripped the night air, the flash of the shot bright in the gathering shadows. The wolf collapsed atop Lex. Its legs twitched, then went still.

  Lex slid the animal to the ground and climbed to his feet. “Are you all right?” he asked Toby.

  “I’m glad I was wearing my jacket.” Toby rose and again lifted Kaifong to his shoulder despite the fresh blood soaking through his coat where the wolf’s teeth had ripped into him.

  Chuck toed the downed wolf. It didn’t move. Death did not diminish its beauty, its lean physique that of a distance runner, its fur sleek and unruffled, its paws nearly as long and wide as his hand. What had led it to attack Toby and Kaifong? And—more important—where were its pack mates?

  He scanned the surrounding trees. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Almost there,” Lex said. He set out for camp once more, his bleeding arm pressed to his chest. Toby followed with Kaifong. Chuck came last. He looked back after a few steps to see the three trailing wolves—one black, one white, and one the big, slate-gray alpha—emerge from the forest and trot silently toward him.

  Chuck backed away, the .357 outstretched. The wolves stopped to nose the carcass of their pack mate. They lifted their heads and growled, their eyes golden yellow in the gloom.

  Before their snarls died in their throats, the three wolves leapt over their downed comrade and came at Chuck.

  39

  The wolves approached too fast for Chuck to draw a bead on them. Instead, he raised the .357 and pulled the trigger, firing past the animals into the woods.

  At the percussive crack of the shot and the bright flare from the mouth of the pistol, the wolves slid to a halt. They crouched ten feet from Chuck, who held his ground. He glanced behind him to find Lex and Toby stopped and looking his way.

  “Go!” he yelled.

  Lex set off through the trees. Toby followed, Kaifong’s limp body over his shoulder, her arms slung down his back. Chuck hustled after them, glancing back every few steps. The wolves stayed crouched until he lost sight of them among the trees.

  Lex tripped over a downed branch and plunged face-first to the ground. Toby stepped past him and kept moving with Kaifong. Chuck hauled Lex to his feet and they hurried together through the forest after Toby.

  Chuck looked back while keeping a firm grip on Lex’s arm. No sign of the wolves. But where in God’s name was camp?

  Lex inhaled mouthfuls of air as he stumbled through the trees at Chuck’s side. Lights lanced into the forest from the edge of the meadow ahead. They emerged from the woods into the open to find several scientists, including Clarence, waiting for them. Clarence and three others lifted Kaifong from Toby’s shoulder and carried her across the grass. Chuck shoved the .357 into his pack. He and Toby propped Lex between them and headed for the cabin.

  Janelle stood aside to allow Kaifong inside, then guided Lex through the doorway. In the lantern light in front of the cabin and mess tent, Chuck held out a hand to Toby, who handed over his pack.

  “The longer barrel will be better in the open,” Chuck told him.

  And the rifle no longer would be in Toby’s possession.

  Working fast, Chuck dug out and assembled the gun and loaded it to capacity, five rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. He hefted the compact rifle. It rested comfortably in his hands. Its open sights didn’t trouble him; he’d developed his initial marksman skills as a kid hunting squirrels and rabbits around Durango with an old, open-sight .22.

  Toby entered the cabin clutching his bleeding shoulder. Chuck squeezed past Clarence and the researchers who’d carried Kaifong as they left the cabin, setting the rifle and his pack on the floor next to the door inside.

  Kaifong lay on her back on the plank table, arms at her sides, eyes closed, a fleece jacket bunched beneath her head. Randall stood over her, his face drawn. Janelle held two fingers to Kaifong’s neck below her jawline.

  Lex sat catching his breath on the bench beneath the cabin’s west window, his glasses fogged. Keith squatted in front of him, wrapping gauze around the ranger’s mangled wrist. Perched at the edge of a wooden chair pushed back from the table, Toby peeled his mauled jacket off his shoulder and down his arm. The girls sat next to Chance on the floor at the back of the cabin, their fingers trailing through the dog’s fur, their eyes saucered as they took in the scene before them. Against the far wall of the cabin, Sarah’s body lay enveloped in the sleeping bag.

  Randall turned to Chuck. “They’re saying you shot a wolf to save Kai. Thank you, man.”

  Chuck flushed as he pictured the wolf, majestic even in death. “I’m just glad we managed to get her back here.” He went to Kaifong’s side. “Well?” he asked Janelle.

  “Pulse is strong and steady. She’s breathing evenly. No signs of trauma.”

  Kaifong moaned. She pitched from side to side, her arms and legs jerking. Janelle leaned over Kaifong, holding her in place until her movements subsided and she again lay still and quiet atop the table.

  Janelle lifted each of Kaifong’s closed eyelids. “Her pupils are normal, but she’s showing no signs of awareness. It’s like she’s been drugged or something.”

  “You’ll stay with her?” Randall asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll get back to work next door, then. Let me know if she comes around, would you?” He shot a quick look at Sarah’s body and left the cabin, pulling the door closed behind him.

  “I told him about Sarah and the phone,” Keith said. “I had to.”

  Chuck glanced at the girls.

  “He pushed his way in,” Keith explained, “while you were on your way back with Kaifong.”

  Rosie nodded emphatically. “They had a whisper talk.”

  Carmelita petted Chance. “Rosie tried to sneak up on them,” she said, “so they moved away from her.”

  “But first they made bad faces at me, didn’t they, Mamá?”

  “Yes, they did,” Janelle confirmed.

  Chuck studied the closed door, then scanned the room, his gaze moving from Lex, who wiped his glasses on his jacket with one hand while Keith tended to his injured wrist, to Kaifong, motionless on the table, to Toby, who gingerly probed his shoulder with his fingers.

  A blast of wind rattled down the chimney. The coals in the fireplace glowed bright red, then broke into low flames, casting broken light around the cabin. In front of the fireplace, Carmelita scratched Chance’s neck while Rosie leaned forward and rested her head on the dog’s back.

  “What’s this?” Carmelita asked, her fingers digging into Chance’s fur.

  Rosie sat up. She pushed her sister’s hand away and pressed her own fingers to the side of Chance’s neck, just below the dog’s skull. “Yeah,” she said. “What’s this, huh?”

  Keith left the roll of gauze dangling from Lex’s arm and went to Chance. He buried his fingers into the dog’s fur alongside Rosie’s. His face went white.

  “There’s a cut.” He looked up. “And a lump. Something hard.”

  40

  Th
e lump is right up under the edge of the skull, against the bone,” Keith said. His fingers continued to probe. “The cut’s still fresh.”

  He pressed at Chance’s neck. The dog whined.

  “There, boy,” Keith soothed. Then, to the room: “Got it.”

  He held up a beige-colored object a quarter-inch thick and an inch square, glistening in the light of the fire.

  Chuck studied the object from across the room. Its color triggered something in his brain. He unzipped the outside pocket of his pack and took out the clear plastic bag containing the sliver of bone he’d collected from the wall of ice at the base of Trident Peak. He crossed the room and dangled the baggie beside the object Keith had removed from beneath Chance’s skin. In the firelight, the sliver and object shone with the same off-white color.

  Keith handed the object to Chuck. Like the bone sliver from the glacier, it was moist and slippery in his fingers. He tucked the baggie containing the bone sliver beneath his arm and applied pressure to the object, bending it back and forth with both hands. A tiny, black, rectangular piece of plastic popped from its center.

  “Ah ha,” he said. “The chip was inside.” He held it out for Toby’s inspection.

  “Identical to the one from Number 217,” Toby said. He looked toward Sarah’s body. “What did you know that you shouldn’t have?” he asked her. “What was it you found out?”

  “Whatever it was, we need to find out, too,” Chuck said. Anxious to learn what Randall was up to in the mess tent, he handed the chip to Toby. He returned the sliver of bone to his pack and picked up the rifle from beside the door. “I’ll do a quick reconnoiter,” he said to Janelle from the doorway. “You’re doing great in here.”

  She rested her hand on Kaifong’s arm. “I just wish there was more I could do for her.”

  He stepped outside. The air had chilled with the onset of night. Scientists in clusters of three and four stood watch along the front of the cabin and mess tent. LED lanterns swung on hiking poles in the wind, casting an eerie glow into the meadow. Inky blackness pressed toward the cabin and tent from beyond the thirty-foot perimeter of muted lantern light. Mist and clouds blotted out the stars.