Old Bones, page 27
They rode up Hackberry Creek to Sugarpine, then turned their horses up the canyon. Nora led the way, occasionally crossing the burbling stream. The rain continued to mist down and the sky darkened to the color of iron. The wind picked up further, the treetops bending before it and exuding the sharp smell of pine resin.
The creek eventually led them into a cirque carpeted by meadows that rose to a series of bare granitic ridges. Here they were close to timberline, and the few surrounding trees were dwarfish and twisted from the harsh wind and weather.
They tied up their horses and started hiking up the grassy slope. It grew steeper, finally turning into a scramble among lichen-splotched boulders. Near the top, they crouched to work their way up to the ridgeline and peered over.
Bingo, thought Corrie. It was a perfect lookout.
About a quarter mile below, she could see the large meadow where the dig site was. The HQ tent appeared as a crisp white rectangle next to the excavated area, which was covered with the bright blue tarps. The trail the expedition had made over weeks of work could be seen winding down through the meadow and into the trees, where it emerged at the campsite half a mile down the canyon. Everything appeared undisturbed, exactly as she had left it the day before, except a whole lot wetter.
She took out her binoculars and glassed the area. There was no sign of Clive, either in the camp or at the dig site. Had he already collected the gold and split?
But then she saw something—a horse. It was Blaze, and he was tied to a tree about a quarter mile above the dig site. Scanning the area, she noticed movement—then spied Clive at the base of the cliffs. He was hard at work, but at what she couldn’t immediately make out. She watched him collect a rock, then another, then carry them to the base of the cliff. There, he fitted each of the rocks into a small cavity at ground level, blocking its entrance.
“I see him.” She handed the binoculars to Nora, who took them and peered through.
“He’s concealing something.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Corrie excitedly. “He’s hiding the gold. Or rather, moving the gold that was already hidden to a more secure location. My forty-eight-hour search must have spooked him.”
“That area he’s in is the red zone,” Nora said. “The portion of cliffs we haven’t dared search because of that huge rotten cornice above it.”
Corrie raised her eyes to the row of peaks far above. The cornice was still there, among snowfields, hanging menacingly. “Makes sense. He knows that’s precisely the place you won’t look. Let me see those binocs again.”
Nora handed them to her. Corrie watched the historian move the rocks, cleverly obscuring the cavity. Then she took a few photos of the scene with her agency camera. “I bet he plans to come back and get it later, once the cornice has fallen. He’ll make some excuse for borrowing the horse and rifle. Then he’ll return once everything has died down—probably in the summer.”
Corrie continued observing as Clive finished placing rocks into the hole at the base of the cliffs, arranging them to look natural. Then he gathered pine needles and leaves and sprinkled them around the area.
“Okay, Agent Swanson—what’s the plan?” Nora asked.
“We can’t face off against a man with a rifle. But we don’t have to: we know where the gold is now. When Clive leaves we can retrieve it. What we’ve just seen is testifiable in court. There’s no need for a confrontation.”
“That means going in the avalanche zone.”
“The overhanging snow has been like that for weeks,” Corrie said. “It didn’t deter Clive. And it won’t fall in the few minutes it takes us to pull out those rocks and retrieve the gold.”
“Clive will get away.”
“One of the first things you learn at the Academy: evidence is key. Get the evidence and you’ve got the perp. The evidence we need of wrongdoing is right there behind those rocks.”
She observed Clive again with the glasses. He was now brushing away the marks he’d left in the grass with a branch. Walking backward, he collected Blaze, untying him and leading him away. Once at a safe distance, he mounted and rode down the canyon. She followed him with the binoculars as he carefully went past the dig site and then down the trail. Another moment and he had disappeared past the camp and into the forest.
They waited fifteen minutes to make sure he was gone before rising and making their way down into the canyon. It was a steep descent, made worse by the slippery pine needles and mud. A rumble of thunder echoed off the peaks and a rising wind pressed down the grass. The rain was increasing.
Once they reached the meadow, it took them only a few minutes to cross to the spot where he’d hidden the gold.
“Let me take some pictures first,” Corrie said, camera in hand.
She took a quick series from a couple of angles, then put the camera away. “Okay. Let’s get these rocks out.”
This was it—the moment that would prove her suspicions had been right all along. Heart pounding, careful not to smile out of sheer relief and pride, Corrie knelt beside Nora and began to uncover the cavity.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of a distant gunshot.
“Get down!” she said, instinctively grabbing Nora and pulling her to the ground.
They flattened themselves in the grass as a series of shots, evenly spaced, rang out, echoing off the canyon walls. It was impossible to pinpoint their source, but the shots sounded far away—and, oddly, they didn’t seem to be directed at them.
There was a pause. Then another series of five shots sounded: regular, unhurried, like target practice.
“He’s not shooting at us,” Corrie said. “Those shots are too far away. Besides, he couldn’t possibly see us from down the canyon.”
“So what the hell is he shooting at?” Nora asked.
As Nora spoke, Corrie heard a strange sound like thunder erupt from above, followed by a low vibration and a rising wind. And that was when she realized exactly what Clive had been shooting at.
48
THE MASSIVE CORNICE of snow slid off the top of the cliffs and descended toward them with terrible speed. Nora leapt up to run at the same moment as Corrie, but it was too late: the avalanche hit her from behind, wet and cold and terrifyingly heavy, knocking her down and tumbling her over and over. Abruptly, she was caught up in a horrifying elemental fury the likes of which she’d never known: churned about, beaten, helpless, unable to breathe. She vaguely remembered hearing somewhere that if caught in an avalanche, you should try to swim—breaststroke your way upward. But which direction was up? The sudden fury had left her dazed, disoriented, and half-crushed. She flailed about in a panic, thinking she could just as easily be digging herself deeper into her own frozen grave.
Abruptly the violent motion stopped. Her entire body lay frozen in place, immobilized. Her ears were plugged with snow, and sound was reduced to a cocoon-like whisper. For a moment Nora lay where she was, stunned. Then she opened her eyes—and saw only a dim gray blur. She tried to breathe in, got a mouthful of slush, and coughed it out immediately. She tried to scream, but she had no breath to spare, and a muffled, distant moan was all that resulted. Panic flooded through her; the panic of being buried alive. She could feel her heart pounding faster and faster.
Frantically, she tried moving her limbs—and realized that, incredibly, one arm was unencumbered. It had to be above the level of the snow—and that, at last, gave her a sense of which way was up. She sank her free hand into the icy mush, scooping away the slush, even as she felt the lack of air taking hold. She scooped again, then again and again. Just when she thought she’d black out, her lungs afire, her desperate fingers cleared the snow and ice from her mouth and she took a vast, gasping breath.
She paused to rest, gulping in the delicious air, breathing strength back into her body as the stars cleared from her eyes and the pain in her chest subsided. After a minute or two she began wriggling her limbs, slowly, carefully, checking to see if anything was broken. She felt like a mass of bruises, but otherwise seemed to be intact. Now she began digging again, clearing the area around her face, twisting this way and that to loosen the heavy white tomb that encased her. The snow was wet and dense and it was remarkably difficult work, but within five minutes she had managed to free her upper body, then heave herself up and crawl out of the snowy grave onto the irregular surface.
“Corrie!” she cried, looking around. “Corrie!”
The avalanche had spread out across at least a third of the width of the valley, snow boulders mingled with twigs and branches and bits of debris. She could see no sign of the FBI agent.
“Corrie!” she called again, coughing and staggering to her feet.
She frantically began wading through the slush, postholing with each step, calling out Corrie’s name and looking for a sign—something, anything, a hand, foot, bit of clothing—that might indicate where she was buried. But there was nothing save a vast and lumpy snowfield: deep at the base of the cliffs, spreading and thinning out as it moved toward the center of the valley.
She needed a probe. She looked around frantically, pulled a stick from the debris, then began tromping back and forth, plunging the stick into the snow.
“Corrie! Corrie!”
The stick kept getting stuck in the heavy, ice-packed snow, and soon it broke. She threw it away with a curse and cast about for another one.
“A brave show,” came a voice.
Nora whirled. It was Clive—rifle leveled at her.
“You did this!” she said. “You brought down that cornice intentionally!”
Clive nodded. “I knew you were following me, so I set a trap. Too bad it didn’t get you both. Now, get down off that snow pile.”
“But Corrie! She’s—”
“Dead, of course. It’s been, what, ten minutes? She suffocated five, maybe six minutes ago.”
“You bastard.”
Clive raised the gun and fired over her head. “Shut up or I’ll kill you here and now.” He lowered the muzzle and pointed it at her again.
Nora fell silent.
“Now get the fuck down here and do as I say.”
Nora wallowed through the snow and reached solid ground. It was horrible, thinking of how Corrie must have suffered. She hadn’t escaped that horrible, crushing, suffocating whiteness. Nora’s mind reeled, barely able to process the shock and tragedy of the last few minutes.
But Corrie had been right. She’d been right from the start. It was Clive. And he was carrying a blue artifact box, lashed to his day pack.
“So it was just the gold, after all,” she said bitterly.
At this, Clive started to laugh. “Ah, the gold!” He nodded toward the box. “You know what? I couldn’t give a shit about the gold. In fact, when everyone learned about it, my job got ten times harder: Maggie with her bionic ears, people hunting around at night. People like Wiggett. I can’t believe how fast you found his body: maybe some goddamned ghost was helping you after all. Anyway, in the end the gold did prove useful. It got you up here. Right? You bought into the same story as your dead friend.”
He jerked the muzzle of the gun. “Enough chit-chat. Start walking.”
“Where?”
“The dig site.”
He was going to kill her; she knew that. Why hadn’t he already? She’d been supposed to die in the avalanche, like Corrie. Shooting her might raise too many questions and leave evidence: he would probably do it some other way, make it look like an accident. She tried to push away the feelings of fear and horror and figure out how to get away from him. Her mind came up blank.
Just then, she saw movement. Seconds later, a horse and rider appeared at the edge of the meadow, coming toward them through the trees, still in shadow. Nora’s heart leapt. Was it Burleson? Of course. He’d come to make sure they were all right—exactly the kind of thing he’d do.
“Look out!” she screamed. “He’s got a gun!”
Clive shook his head. “You poor, dumb bitch,” he said, seemingly unconcerned about the figure, still in shadow, who was approaching. He waited, gun trained on Nora.
The wind had picked up and the trees were now thrashing about, the rain coming down hard. Nora shivered uncontrollably, and she began to feel light-headed and unaccountably warm. Hypothermia. Maybe his plan was that simple: let her die of cold and exposure.
The figure on horseback emerged into the open and Nora saw, with perfect astonishment, that it was Dr. Fugit.
“What’s she doing here?” Fugit asked Clive as she rode up, nodding at Nora.
“Dr. Fugit!” Nora called, uncomprehending. “What’s going on?”
Clive gestured at her with the gun. “Shut the fuck up.”
Fugit halted her horse and gave Nora a cold smile. “You’re a fine archaeologist, Nora. But when it comes to understanding the way the world works, you’re exactly what Clive just said: a dumb bitch. I’m sorry for you.” She removed a six-gun from a holster under her arm and pointed it at Nora. Absently, as if in a dream, Nora noticed she was wearing nitrile gloves.
“You were supposed to take care of this,” Dr. Fugit told Clive.
“She got lucky. Dug herself out. The FBI agent is dead, though.”
“Well, stop gloating and give me the box. Put your gun down: I can cover Nora. Just be careful.”
Clive put down the rifle, shucked off the pack, and untied the artifact box. He gingerly handed it up to Fugit. Still sitting on her horse, she tucked the six-gun under her arm and opened the box, glanced inside for a moment, then sealed it back up. She slipped it into one of her saddlebags, buckled it shut, and pointed the gun once again at Nora.
“You going to, ah, do her?” Clive asked. “I was going to put her in the tarn, make it look like an accident. Like I did with Wiggett.”
“Some accident. You screwed that up rather nicely. I’ll deal with her—don’t you worry.”
“They said you were going to arrange the wire transfer. Has it been done?”
“Don’t worry, Dr. Benton. You’ll be paid. In fact, I can take care of that right now.”
The gun in her hand turned from Nora to Clive. A shot rang out and Clive’s head suddenly snapped back. The rest of his body stood motionless for a moment, then toppled backward as well, hitting the ground with a soft thud. He lay unmoving in the falling rain, except for one finger that twitched a few times before going still.
“Stupid bastard,” Fugit muttered to herself. The gun swung back toward Nora. More briskly now, Fugit raised it, aimed, and fired.
49
THE TWO SHOTS were not quite simultaneous. The first came unexpectedly from behind, knocking Fugit off balance just enough to make her own shot go wide, the gun flying out of her hand. Another shot punched her over the saddle horn. The horse, terrified, reared up and bucked, throwing Fugit’s body up and to one side, and it somersaulted through the air before slamming to the ground. Despite all that, the Institute president was still alive: she screamed shrilly, grasping and tearing at her clothes in the most horrible way, as if trying to find a wound.
Nora whirled to one side and saw Corrie—bleeding, sodden, the snowy Glock in her hand—stumbling toward the edge of the avalanche debris. She fell to her knees, still holding the Glock. She struggled to stand again.
Nora rushed over, catching her before she collapsed and easing her to the ground.
“Help me,” came a feeble voice. Fugit.
Ignoring her, Nora leaned over Corrie. “You’re hurt,” she said.
“I’m alive,” said Corrie.
“How—?”
“Air pocket. And just enough room to work my way out. Thanks to you.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“If you hadn’t grabbed my hand and heaved me up, I would be dead.”
Nora stared at her. “I didn’t grab your hand.”
“Of course you did. I was blacking out when I felt your hand grasp mine…” Corrie’s eyes fluttered as she began to drift in and out of consciousness.
Nora said nothing. Obviously Corrie’s oxygen-starved brain had been hallucinating.
“Please help me,” came the pathetic voice of Fugit.
Nora went over. The president lay on her back, blood staining her shoulder. Nora quickly unbuttoned the woman’s shirt and pulled it aside, revealing an ugly exit wound on her anterior shoulder. Shivering, she tore off a piece from her own shirt and balled it up, handing it to Fugit. “Press down with this.”
Fugit took it. “I’m cold,” she said.
Nora’s teeth were chattering. “We’re all cold. You just keep pressing.”
She went back to Corrie, knelt, and took her hand. The agent’s eyes fluttered back open. “Nora?”
“Yes?”
“Go…see what’s in that blue box.”
Nora turned. Fugit’s horse was standing fifty feet away, sides heaving, still frightened. The box bulged inside the left saddlebag, one corner peeking out.
“That can wait. We need to get you out of this rain.”
Corrie pressed Nora’s hand. “Please go see what’s in the box.”
Nora realized she wasn’t going to leave the subject alone. She stood up and approached the horse, holding her hands out and speaking soothing words. The horse took a few nervous steps back before Nora could grab the lead rope and stroke his neck reassuringly.
She untied the saddlebags, slipped them off, and draped them over her shoulder. Then she tied up the horse and returned to Corrie, who was now sitting up.
Corrie nodded for her to open it.
Nora slipped the blue box out of the saddlebag, unlatched it, and handed it to Corrie. She removed the lid. A wan smile spread across the agent’s features as she stared inside. “I knew it.”
“What?”
“Parkin’s skull.”
She handed the box to Nora, who looked inside. “What the hell? How is this supposed to be worth more than gold?”
“That,” said Corrie, “is the twenty-million-dollar question.”
50
NORA HELD CORRIE tight in the driving rain, trying to think through their situation.
