He’d wearied over this so many times he was determined to do it no more.
THE CAVE was covered in new snow. They tied the horses to the trees and took turns handing out the kilos and stacking them in the paniers. When all four paniers were full they loaded them on horses’ packsaddles while the horses snorted and stamped, their eyes white with anger.
They bundled the leftover kilos in two tarps and tied the tarps across the packsaddles. The horses, overburdened now, shook their bodies to undo the loads, swinging their backsides ominously.
Steve pulled at the pinto, trying to turn her. In a frozen instant Zack saw the pinto’s hoof pulled back to strike, come fast at his face as he dove aside raising his right arm that the pinto’s hoof smashed knocking him down.
His arm raged with pain. He rolled over and over yelling then caught himself.
“Zack! Zack!” Steve was shaking him, grabbed his arm. Zack screamed and passed out.
Steve rubbed snow on his face. “Are you okay? Are you okay?”
“Oh Jesus Christ!” Zack sat up, cradling his arm. “Both bones. Just like football.” He glared at Steve. “You did it. You spooked that damn horse.”
“Oh shit. Oh damn.” Steve sat beside him. “I’m sorry, man …”
The horses had quieted, huffing under their loads. “Maybe we should just get out,” Steve said, “leave the coke, take the horses back, forget all this.”
Zack stood, holding his arm. “Cut some of that extra tarp, make me a sling.”
“Like I said –”
“Move the coke back down? What about the burned plane?”
“I know, but –”
“We can’t quit now. It’s already way too late.”
KENNY STAUFFENBERG parked his cruiser on the shoulder of 191, got out tugging his pistol belt up around his hips and sauntered over to Curt. “The snowmobiles are right behind me.” He glanced at Kiwa. “She okay while we’re gone?”
“She don’t like to be in the trailer by herself.”
“So your dude found this plane? And told you where?”
“Up the long valley above Goose Creek, like I said.”
“You can ride with me, on the first snowmobile. Show the way.”
“Fine. What you think happened?”
“That’s what we’ll find out.”
“Planes don’t normal fly over here.”
“Not normal.” Kenny spat tobacco, glanced down 191. “Here come the Cats.”
The big black Ford towing the trailer with the four snowmobiles pulled to the shoulder. When they were unloaded Curt climbed on behind Kenny and they rode up into the mountains toward the crashed plane, more snow starting to fall.
BEFORE ZACK AND STEVE reached camp their horses began to whinny and the ones in camp answered. They snatched their gear from their tents, piled them into their pack frames, tied them atop the heavy tarps on the horses’ saddles and followed the same trail Curt had taken down the mountain toward 191, the horses shaking their heads angrily and rattling their halters.
Steve went first leading the pinto then Zack with the gray. Every time the gray tugged its halter the pain in his broken arm was unbearable. There was no position he could hold the arm where it didn’t hurt beyond belief. So he just kept going, one foot in front of the other. Like a bad hit in football and you hop to your feet and jog back to the huddle, twisting your head from side to side to see through the pain.
By now Curt would have reached the Highway. Called it in. But wouldn’t be coming back up this trail. He’d take the cops straight for the crashed plane, then maybe follow the tracks Steve and he had made with the two horses.
Behind Steve the pinto skidded sideways, banged a panier into a tree and fell to its knees. It staggered up, the paniers spilling kilos that the horse stepped on as it tried to stand. It jerked its head back pulling Steve off his feet and knocked him down. “Zack, you got to hold him,” Steve called. “So I can reload him. Hold them both.”
Zack led the gray around the pinto and took its halter. “What’s that?”
“What?”
“The noise.”
“A plane maybe? Already they’re doing flyovers?”
“They’ll see your goddamn burnt plane.”
“Maybe they won’t.”
The noise wasn’t a plane, Zack realized. “Snowmobile. Coming up the trail.”
“Shit. See those junipers? We’ll hide the horses!”
“He’ll see our tracks.”
“Give me the gun.”
“No, I’ll keep it.”
“Gimme, now!”
They ran the horses into the junipers, dashed back, laid down a tarp and piled it with fallen kilos. Some had broken, the powder melted into the snow. They dragged it back to the junipers, Zack reeling in pain, telling himself the way he always did, the pain’s happening to someone else. Keep going.
THE SNOWMOBILE clattered to a stop fifty yards downhill. As if the driver sensed something.
The engine died.
This meant the guy was walking up the trail toward them. Steve turned to Zack, gestured for the gun.
Zack shook his head. With his good hand took out the Ruger.
No sound but the smallest of breezes flicking through the massive trees, its whisper over needles and bark, the heartbeat of all the lives crouching in the cold.
Zack checked that the Ruger’s safety was off, and waited. Steve watched him, looking for a moment to grab the gun.
The snowmobile coughed, revved. Zack raised the Ruger. His heart thundered, he couldn’t hear. He went forward till he could see down through the trees. A blue machine, one rider. It revved again, turned and wandered across the hillside toward the crashed plane as if the guy knew where it was.
FROM AFAR the burnt spar of the plane’s wing seemed to stand up like a cross. “They didn’t tell me it burned,” Curt said. Everything but the up-jutting blackened wing was snow-covered. “C’mon you guys,” Kenny said to the three deputies. “Let’s dig it down.”
They had good shovels on the machines so it didn’t take long to reach the flame-twisted fuselage. “Enough,” Kenny said. “We have to get forensics in on this.”
“Wait a minute,” a deputy named Lopez said. “What’s that sound?”
Lopez turned and stared up the mountain, shading his eyes. “A machine,” he pointed. Up in those aspen. See it?”
Curt heard the sound, faint but steady. Saw a flash of blue snowmobile among the trees.
“Some recreational guy,” Lopez said, “out for a ride.”
“Or a hunter,” Curt said.
“This’s a Roadless Area,” Kenny said. “No machines allowed except for search and rescue.”
“You