Read Online The Royal Wulff Murders by Keith McCafferty - Free Book Online
Authors: Keith McCafferty
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said it was so dark the bear wasn’t much more than an articulated blob in his binoculars. Maybe, he admitted, it wasn’t a bear. He had never seen a bear before. He was from Illinois.
She trod down the embankment at the bridge spur and crooked a finger at the first fisherman.
“Sir, I’m Sheriff Ettinger. I’d like to ask you a couple questions.”
The young man made one more cast, reeled up, and waded ashore.
As she worked up the bank, a few anglers weren’t so polite. They continued to fish during the interview and Martha let them, studying their body language for nervousness, looking for mistakes in timing that caused the loops of line to collapse. She also made a point to see what flies they were fishing.
It wasn’t a bad way to spend a day. The river was azure blue, the corridor of the current enveloped by a cool, clean breeze. “Big Sky Country” was the state motto, and never truer than here, Martha thought, where you could see mountains sixty miles distant. To the north spread a vast amphitheater of light, where weather systems developed on the limestone escarpments of the Gravelly plateau, dropped curtains of gray rain, sent lightning shivers across the valley, dissipated, and then built again in purple thunderheads on the western front of the Madison Range, all while you watched in a T-shirt with the sun poaching the freckles on your forearms.
Martha sat down on a rock. She dipped her hat in the river and let the cold water dribble down her forehead. Five feet away, a garter snake swam through the rushes at the edge of the bank. It submerged, poking its head under stones to look for sculpins; then its head periscoped, the red-and-black forked tongue flicking, tasting the air. Martha gave it a wan smile. Going stone to stone—that was what she was doing, too. And with about as much luck. She had questioned seventeenfishermen in the first two miles, but there was no public access on this bank of the river. Anyone she found from here to the dam either lived in one of the streamside mansions on the south bank or had to have walked all the way up from the bridge. There wouldn’t be many.
In fact, she found only one more angler, a man standing ankle-deep in the slot of whitewater where the river shot out of the earthen dam of Quake Lake. To her right, the mountainside was a concave scar of rubble deposited in the wake of the disastrous earthquake that had dammed the river completely in the summer of 1959. In the collapse of the mountainside, nineteen campers who were sleeping in their tents had been buried alive. The bodies remained under this debris, and to Martha it seemed their spirits still persisted in the mists that hung over the outlet.
The fisherman who had chosen this lonely spot was broad shouldered, fairly tall, and seemed completely at home in his body. As she watched, he waded from boulder to boulder with a light dancer’s step, effortlessly navigating heavy current in which she’d be hesitant to stick a toe. He cast with none of the gymnastic waving of the inexperienced; he simply pointed his arm and the line followed. She watched his fly dancing along the seams of the current. When he turned to acknowledge her, a heavy bang of jet-black hair fell over his left eye. He scraped it back with his finger, gave her a crooked grin, and waded downstream toward her.
“Beautiful morning,” he said, removing his sunglasses.
“What?” The roar of the river was so loud she couldn’t hear him.
He stepped out onto the riverbank stones, his pant legs dripping water. He wore felt wading shoes but no waders. The stem of a pipe protruded from the pocket of a threadbare blue work shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest.
“I said it’s a beautiful morning.”
Maybe he wasn’t as young as she’d thought. Traces of silver framedhis temples and, as he smiled, lines radiated from the corners of his eyes. Martha caught herself smiling back, conscious of the sweat stains under her arms.
“How’s
She trod down the embankment at the bridge spur and crooked a finger at the first fisherman.
“Sir, I’m Sheriff Ettinger. I’d like to ask you a couple questions.”
The young man made one more cast, reeled up, and waded ashore.
As she worked up the bank, a few anglers weren’t so polite. They continued to fish during the interview and Martha let them, studying their body language for nervousness, looking for mistakes in timing that caused the loops of line to collapse. She also made a point to see what flies they were fishing.
It wasn’t a bad way to spend a day. The river was azure blue, the corridor of the current enveloped by a cool, clean breeze. “Big Sky Country” was the state motto, and never truer than here, Martha thought, where you could see mountains sixty miles distant. To the north spread a vast amphitheater of light, where weather systems developed on the limestone escarpments of the Gravelly plateau, dropped curtains of gray rain, sent lightning shivers across the valley, dissipated, and then built again in purple thunderheads on the western front of the Madison Range, all while you watched in a T-shirt with the sun poaching the freckles on your forearms.
Martha sat down on a rock. She dipped her hat in the river and let the cold water dribble down her forehead. Five feet away, a garter snake swam through the rushes at the edge of the bank. It submerged, poking its head under stones to look for sculpins; then its head periscoped, the red-and-black forked tongue flicking, tasting the air. Martha gave it a wan smile. Going stone to stone—that was what she was doing, too. And with about as much luck. She had questioned seventeenfishermen in the first two miles, but there was no public access on this bank of the river. Anyone she found from here to the dam either lived in one of the streamside mansions on the south bank or had to have walked all the way up from the bridge. There wouldn’t be many.
In fact, she found only one more angler, a man standing ankle-deep in the slot of whitewater where the river shot out of the earthen dam of Quake Lake. To her right, the mountainside was a concave scar of rubble deposited in the wake of the disastrous earthquake that had dammed the river completely in the summer of 1959. In the collapse of the mountainside, nineteen campers who were sleeping in their tents had been buried alive. The bodies remained under this debris, and to Martha it seemed their spirits still persisted in the mists that hung over the outlet.
The fisherman who had chosen this lonely spot was broad shouldered, fairly tall, and seemed completely at home in his body. As she watched, he waded from boulder to boulder with a light dancer’s step, effortlessly navigating heavy current in which she’d be hesitant to stick a toe. He cast with none of the gymnastic waving of the inexperienced; he simply pointed his arm and the line followed. She watched his fly dancing along the seams of the current. When he turned to acknowledge her, a heavy bang of jet-black hair fell over his left eye. He scraped it back with his finger, gave her a crooked grin, and waded downstream toward her.
“Beautiful morning,” he said, removing his sunglasses.
“What?” The roar of the river was so loud she couldn’t hear him.
He stepped out onto the riverbank stones, his pant legs dripping water. He wore felt wading shoes but no waders. The stem of a pipe protruded from the pocket of a threadbare blue work shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest.
“I said it’s a beautiful morning.”
Maybe he wasn’t as young as she’d thought. Traces of silver framedhis temples and, as he smiled, lines radiated from the corners of his eyes. Martha caught herself smiling back, conscious of the sweat stains under her arms.
“How’s
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