A Shadow in the Wild

Whit Masterson

• Publisher: Prologue Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781440540622
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature
• Index: Literature

At last - they had found their quarry. Gib put his field glasses to his eyes and the pilot held the copter motionless above the mountainside. Gib lowered the glasses, his expression stony. "Let's go down.""What is it?" Restibo asked anxiously, reaching for the binoculars."It looks like a body." Gib hesitated and, though he knew the answer already, put it like a question. "What color jacket was Janie wearing?""Red, " Restibo said unwillingly."Yeah, " Gib muttered. "I guess we lost the race... "

FRIDAY

FRIDAY dawned hot and still over the Encanto Mountains. The first person to glimpse the sun’s orange edge as it broke the jagged eastern horizon was Ted Copitas, lieutenant (j.g.), United States Coast Guard. He elbowed the man on the adjoining seat of the helicopter. “You can relax now, Pappy — we’re going to get some light on the subject.” He had to shout to make himself heard above the clatter of the engine.

His companion grunted. “About time.” His name was Peck, a middle-aged taciturn petty officer who doubled aboard the craft as observer and wireless operator. Despite the pilot’s reassurance, he kept his eyes fixed on the greyness below. “Wouldn’t be surprised if we’re lost ourselves.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t do at all,” Copitas said cheerily. He was young and garrulous, a flier who loved his job. “Not in the best traditions of the service, you know.”

“Blast me if I know what the Coast Guard’s coming to, anyway,” grumbled Peck. “Sending us off to the mountains in the middle of the night. Show me where you find that in regulations.”

Peck was right. Their present mission was a departure from routine and somewhat outside the authority under which they operated. The helicopter squadron had been established as an adjunct to the Coast Guard’s air-sea rescue service. Their duties were defined as protection of life and property on the high seas, on the coast and in inland flood disasters, none of which exactly fitted this assignment. Furthermore, the Forestry Service operated a small helicopter fleet of its own, a fact which Sheriff Thoreau had forgotten when he called the Coast Guard. But, as it turned out, he had saved valuable time, because the Forestry ships were all some distance north fighting a week-old blaze in another mountain area. Since the Coast Guard possessed the only other trained helicopter rescue unit near the Encantos, the commandant decided to bend the rules for the sake of Janie Cooper. He had a grand-daughter her age. Copitas and Peck, as the stand-in crew, had drawn the duty.

They had left the Coast Guard base in the city while it was still dark, following the main highway east by means of the car headlights below. Their bright yellow helicopter was a medium-sized bubble-nosed craft known at the base as the Beach Buggy because it was equipped with landing skids instead of pontoons. A single three-bladed rotor spun above with a small vertical propeller behind to counteract the rotor’s torque effect. It had dual controls and a passenger load capacity of eight under ideal conditions. It could cruise at ninety miles per hour with a range of over two hundred miles and a ceiling of eight thousand feet, all more than sufficient for the job at hand. And, like all its breed, the Beach Buggy was without equal in a search operation, being able to go up and down, backwards and forwards and sideways, or to hover motionless — valuable qualities at any time but particularly so over choppy terrain.

“I figure we should be nearly there,” Copitas said. “What do you see?”

“Bunch of trees.”

“You’re a big help. Anything else?”

“The highway. There’s some sort of truck down there, food or something, I guess.” Peck craned his neck to the left and then used his binoculars. “Some buildings over there on the port side about a mile. That might be it.”

“Let’s go see,” said Copitas and moved the levers that tilted the rotor and altered the thrust of the propeller. The ungainly craft slid away to the left. At the same time Copitas decreased the rotor speed, causing the helicopter to begin a gradual descent. They passed over the cluster of buildings at about a thousand feet.

“Lots of cars,” Peck said. “Horses, too.”

“Den dis must be der place,” cried Copitas with the accent of a Dutch comic. “Pick us out a nesting place, Pappy.”

As they circled Hannah Crossing, the two men in the plexiglass bubble had a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. Despite the earliness of the hour, the scene below presented a picture of considerable activity. The parking lot between the lodge and the ranger station was cluttered with cars, most of them with attached horse trailers. Men hustled to and fro, or stood in conversing groups. They waved as the helicopter passed above them. To one side, saddled horses waited patiently. In the exact centre of the lot was parked a black official station wagon, a tall radio antenna sprouting from its roof.

“How about that meadow?” asked Peck, pointing at the broad expanse of Chinese Flat. At the mouth of Portal Canyon, the Cooper camp stood deserted, its bonfire extinguished. In the distance, a lone horseman was descending the slopes of Breadloaf. “Looks level enough.”

“Too far away,” Copitas objected. “If I’d wanted to walk, I’d have joined the army. You can do better than that.”

“Only other open space is where all the cars are.”

“Then get on the ruddy phone and tell them to move.”

Peck went to the rear of the cabin and adjusted his headset. He switched the transmitter to the police frequency. “Coast Guard 319 to Sheriff’s party. Do you read me?”

“Ask them what’s for breakfast, too,” instructed Copitas with a grin. “I’m as hungry as hell.”

At the sound of the cars clearing the parking lot, Al Hoffman had rushed outside hopefully, believing that the Tabakin Company truck had arrived. But now he returned, swearing under his breath. “If that food doesn’t show up soon it might just as well not come at all,” he declared. “For two cents I’d call up the dispatcher and give him a piece of my mind.”

But even this course was blocked to him since the instrument was in use. At the far end of the lodge, Matthew Cooper leaned wearily against the jukebox, occasionally speaking in low tones into the mouthpiece but mostly just listening to the person on the other end of the line.

“Already sold out everything I got just to the deputies,” Hoffman fumed, pacing along behind the counter. “Nothing left but coffee and beer. Biggest chance of my life and all I can do is watch it go by. And when the real crowd gets here soon …” He stopped in front of where his daughter sat and demanded, “What am I going to do?”

Alys was too tired to care, too tired even to be disgusted. Her legs ached from walking and her hand was numb from carrying a lantern. She had spent the hours of darkness in searching rather than sleeping and now she rested against the counter in a sort of daze, occasionally straightening to sip from her coffee cup since — as her father had said — that was all that was left.

“You’re a lot of help,” Hoffman complained. “Seems to me that you could at least show a little interest in my problems. They’re your problems too, you know, and — ”

He broke off as Sheriff Thoreau strode in, followed by Restibo. “I can’t wait any longer to meet a ranger,” Thoreau was saying, as if concluding an argument. “Time’s important, man. We’ve got to get this show on the road.” In his boots and fringed jacket and broad-brimmed hat, he appeared to have stepped directly from a frontier daguerreotype.

“I know,” Restibo agreed patiently. “But Gib should be back any minute.”

“Where is he anyway? Why isn’t he here where he’s needed?”

“I already told you. Gib and that school-teacher fellow went out a couple of hours ago for another look around. He promised to be back in time for — ”

Thoreau was no longer listening. He went to the wall where the big map hung and stood studying it for a minute. “Don’t think we need him, anyway. It all looks pretty simple. Only two ways she could have gone — through Miner’s Gap or into Devilgut. We’ll just split the posse in two, half one way, half the other. I don’t have to wait for some half-ass ranger to tell me that much.”

“It looks easier on paper than it really is,” Restibo demurred mildly.

“I don’t ask for it to be easy, mister,” Thoreau stated. “But I do expect a little action — and that’s what I’m not getting standing around here.” He glanced down the room at Matthew Cooper as if hoping that he had heard this ringing Statement but Cooper was still talking on the telephone. “Come on — let’s get those men slapping leather.”

As they left the lodge, Alys Hoffman rose to follow them. “Hey,” her father called, “where do you think you’re going?”

She regarded him with weary surprise. “Out looking.”

“What about me? I need your help around here.” He had to raise his voice as the thunder of the helicopter settling to earth in the parking lot outside, increased in volume. “You can’t go off and leave me alone now.”

“Janie’s alone,” Alys said simply.

“Well, who’s more important — ” Hoffman found himself shouting as the engine noise outside suddenly died away and he lowered his voice. “What I mean to say is, there are plenty of people to look for the kid now. You can do more good here than you can traipsing around in the brush.”

“Just the same I want to go.”

“And I’m telling you I want you to stay here,” Hoffman retorted angrily. “After all, I am your father — a fact you seem to be forgetting — and I don’t think it’s too much to expect to be obeyed once in a while. I let you get away with it last night because you were pretty upset but I got to draw the line some place.” Outside a car-horn began to honk and Hoffman made an impatient gesture as if to brush aside the noise. “You understand me, Allison?”

Alys drew a deep breath. “Dad, I don’t want to quarrel with you.”

“Then do as I say.”

“I won’t be ordered around like that. I’m not five years old any more. I’m twenty-one, old enough to know what I should do and what I shouldn’t.”

“Now, you look here!” cried Hoffman. “I don’t care if you’re a hundred and one, you’re going to show a little respect for me!”

Alys eyes flashed but, before she could reply, a man leaned around the doorway. He wore a peaked cap and overalls. “Al Hoffman around?” he asked. “I got a load out there from the Tabakin Company but — ”

“I’m Hoffman.” He ran around the counter, grinning happily, his anger forgotten. “Boy, am I glad to see you! I thought you weren’t coming. What kept you? You can start bringing the stuff in right away.”

“I been honking my horn for the last five minutes,” the driver told him. “Bunch of cars in the road got me blocked so I can’t get any closer. What’s going on around here, anyway?”

“Oh, a little excitement. Come on, I’ll clear the way for you.” Hoffman rushed outside and Alys could hear him shouting at the deputies to move their vehicles.

She sighed. She re...