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Chapter Twelve: Castle Creek

I never was a boy scout, but knew enough to break branches off my dead tree to build a comfortable pine-bough perch. Curled up like a dog on an Orvis bed, I shivered until the snow inside my parka puddled in my undies, where it gradually warmed from bracing to clammy. For the first hour I watched my entry hole, nervous that the shooter would actually be dumb enough to come down. I looked at my watch too often. The westering light should have peered directly into Keno; instead, the light faded. The storm was full upon us, the hole filling up with snow.

Eventually I figured that the guy wasn't stupid enough to come down the hole. If he wasn't stupid enough to do that, he might be smart enough not to sit in the snow through a Rocky Mountain storm. What would I do if I wanted to murder someone like me?

That was pretty easy. I'd take his skis and descend to Castle Creek. There was no way a man on foot could climb upward out of Keno Gulch, sinking chest-deep in the snow. He'd have to go downhill. When my prey finally floundered out, I'd be waiting for him along the road to town.

That's what the shooter would do -- he'd wait for me to come out Castle Creek Road. What he didn't know is that Maggy was going to call Tug Moran if I didn't turn up at four o'clock, and Tug would patrol the road looking for me. If I rolled down Keno after dark, all I'd have to do would be to hide in the bushes until a sheriff's cruiser motored by. I could hail it, like a cab, and ride home warm and safe.

With a plan agreed upon, I relaxed a bit. The big remaining question was who the shooter might be. Certainly, the same guy, or a partner, killed Marco. "They must have found out, Hildy had said, implying there was more than one bad guy. If Marco had been dealing drugs, he might have been killed by an angry customer, or supplier, or partner. Maybe Marco was blackmailing someone involved with drugs. Marco disliked Dick Bester, but that was too obvious. And Bester wasn't a killer, anymore than I was. I hated Craven, but wasn't about to off him..

It had to be drugs, as Tug suspected. Hildy would know. Hildy had to know what Marco had been doing, and she probably knew who else was involved. So if they were trying to kill me, why wouldn't they kill Hildy, too?

Hildy, of course, was a sitting duck. I needed to get to the hospital, and now.

I couldn't move on the surface without getting shot, and wouldn't be of much use leaky. I sat up on my dog bed, then curled up again, then sat up in frustration. I thought of Hildy, lying in the hospital with her wrists tied to the bedrails, waiting for someone to slip into the room with a long thin blade.

By six o'clock I knew it was full dark. I rubbed a little snow on my face, stretched and, by the intermittent light of the tiny microscope, found my entry tunnel. New snow had sifted in, fine and light as confectioner's sugar. I worked upward, slowly and quietly as I could manage. On the off chance that the shooter had not skied off, that he was waiting for a head to appear, I branched my tunnel halfway up an emerged into the storm, silently, ten feet downhill from the trench.

The wind was black and cold, even down here in the trees, and it made the steady chaotic noise of falling water. Ten feet away, my trench was invisible. I scrambled across the hill, stumbling into the trench after a lot of heavy wading. The trench was drifting in fast, but I followed its curve around to where I had left my skis and pack. They were, of course, gone.

It would be a mile out to the road, 2000 feet downward. With luck, if I didn't fall into a tree hole or break my ankle in a deadfall tangle, I could swim down in an hour.

I soon gave up walking. Upright, I sank to my chest and resorted to a kind of wild breast stroke to keep my balance. With each stride I had to push a leg forward against resistance firmer than any surf. But I still had my shovel. On firm snow I had often ridden the shovel blade like a sled, my butt in the scoop, the handle pointing forward between my legs like a joystick. In the deep snow the shovel slid slowly, but it was progress. Stretched out, leaning backward with my weight spread across the snow, I sank only a foot, and let gravity do most of the work. With my goggles down and my collar up, the snow didn't freeze my face. What bothered me was the dark. Slipping downhill like an otter would be great fun if I could see the tree holes and drop-offs. Instead I slid or rolled three or four feet at a time, feeling ahead with my feet , capsizing often. There were flat spots where I had to roll, and steep bits where I had to drag my boots.

When the bottom dropped out, I was half ready. Something felt crumbly underneath, and then I was weightless. With a sort of questioning grunt of apprehension I whoomped into the cold deep drift at the bottom of some rock band. I managed to hold onto the shovel, but landed feet first and pitched forward. My legs, pile-driven straight into the drift, anchored me, but I flopped face-first into the snow.

I floundered upright and found clear air. Then, twisting at the waist, I used the shovel to dig out my own legs, and resumed the downward lurch.

I went ass-over-teakettle a few more times, tumbling over drops clutching the shovel. The third plunge landed me butt-first on a rock and knocked the wind out of me for a minute.

Avalanche danger is greatest when snow falls fast. The new snow puts additional weight on weaker underlayers. The woods offer no protection from an avalanche that starts above; the slide can run through the trees or knock them flat. Safety, tonight, would have been snug in my snowcave until light, with avalanches passing overhead. But a murderer waited below, with more certain aim than any avalanche. I wanted out, down, and Maggy's warm dry bed. So I rolled and slid and tumbled.

For awhile I counted. I crept downward one jerky slip at a time, pulling with my feet and rocking on the little shovel blade, like a big inchworm. Bobsleds are so called because in the early days racers weren't allowed a running start. The team had to sit on a stationary sled and bob fore-and-aft to get the runners sliding. That's what I felt like, bobbing my tiny shovel-sled forward for each yard. A descent of thousand yards ought to bring me a mile to the road. But after counting five hundred or so I lost interest. The jerky progress became mechanical. It was doing my back no good.

With lower elevation, the wind abated. Before reaching the river and the paved road, I expected to pass some houses and the snowpacked switchback track that served them. This time of year the dirt road was navigable only by snowmobile, and the machines had beaten out a deep narrow trench, like a bobsled run. It was tempting to run that track on my shovel, but the track was also the logical place for the shooter to wait for me.

So when I fell into the track, I quickly rolled away and continued down through the aspen woods, roughly paralleling the trench. The snow surface changed -- the warmer valley temperatures had created a crust on the old surface under the fresh fall, and I soon found it would bear my weight if I walked carefully. Darkness was still a problem. I walked slowly, a blind man feeling before him with an aluminum shovel to discover a route between the trees.

At a little past eight I came out onto the road, backtracked and dug in. Once more, I'd wait -- either for the shooter or for help.

Half an hour later headlights swung around a curve, coming down toward town from up the creek; the car moved slowly, and a spotlight fingered through the falling snow into the trees. After staring into the blackness for hours, I found the white lights overwhelming. I ducked my head, shielding my eyes until the car passed. I wanted to make sure in was a sheriff's Blazer, and not the shooter, before walking up to those lights.

It was a sheriffs truck. It idled past at walking pace, and when I made out the star on the door, dimly lit by reflection off the airborne snowflakes, it was no problem to step onto the road, run a few steps and bang my fist on the tailgate. The brake lights seemed almost as bright as the searchlight as the truck slid to a stop on the slick road.

The driver's window was open, and Tug himself leaned out.

"Dr. Ruykuyser, I presume?"

I grinned in huge relief. "Christ, I'm glad to see you. Someone tried to kill me up there."

"Warned you. Who was it?"

"Never saw him. But I think he may try to kill Marco's girlfriend. Can you take me to the hospital right away?" I walked around to the right side door and climbed into the warm truck.

Tug turned off the searchlight and reached for his radio. "This is Tug," he said. "Who's near the hospital?"

After a second a staticy voice came back. "Bud's in town. You want him at the hospital?"

"Send him over to keep an eye on Hildy Matteson. She's a patient."

"What's she likely to do?"

"Just tell Bud to make sure no one hurts her."

"Ten-four, Tug."

Tug hung up his mike and started rolling forward. "I've been looking for you since dark," he said. "What happened?"

I told the story. Tug listened without interrupting. When I finished, he had questions.

"You never saw the guy?"

"Nothing. I put my head down and stayed down."

"Did it sound like a pistol or a rifle? Big caliber or small?"

"Small. Like my own gun. A .38 or .32. It's hard to say in the woods with the snow. But if it had been a long gun he probably would have hit me first time. He seemed pretty close."

"Yeah. And you fired how many times?"

"Three or four?"

"Let's see." Tug stopped the truck and held his hand out for my gun. I gave him the pistol and he turned on a map light to check the cylinder.

"I reloaded," I said.

"Yup." He pocketed my gun. "You won't need this right now. I want to show you something." He flipped off the light and made a U-turn.

"Oh, shit. I didn't hit the guy, did I?"

"You mean did we find a bleeder skiing out of the woods?" Tug laughed. "Nah. If you hit him, he's still up there. But more likely he's waiting for you down here."

Tug turned off on the old road up to the Little Annie mine, and shifted into four-wheel low. The snow was almost a foot deep over a slick-packed base, but we were following fresh tire tracks. Bright clouds billowed around the headlights as we labored upward, and geysered across the hood when the truck porpoised over a hump into a hole. We bounced and the engine roared. I held on tight to the grab bars and we quit talking.

Ten minutes brought us to the shaft. The old hoist tower loomed gray and dim in the headlights, obscured by the falling snow. Another truck was parked there, lights off but engine puffing exhaust into the night. I watched a hooded man climb out and wade through the snow toward us, hands deep in his pockets. He came to my side of the truck. I rolled down the window.

It was Dick Bester.

"Evening, Dick."

Bester looked at me without smiling. He didn't even wink. Instead, he took his right hand out of his pocket and pointed a .38 at my forehead.

"Get out of the truck, Sam."