Mountain Rampage Read Free Page B

March.
    Now, a week and a half into August, the leaves and needles on the trees that made up the aspen and pine groves around Estes Park had a desiccated, pale green hue, and the park’s famously rugged alpine landscape was so parched that lichen peeled from rocks like scabs. Clumps of bunch grass, brown and brittle, crumbled at the slightest touch.
    The hint of rain the night before hadn’t even been enough to wet the ground. The students’ work boots kicked up small clouds of dust with each step along the path leading around the mountain to the mine three-quarters of a mile ahead, as they had every weekday morning for the last two months.
    The breeze was cool this early in the morning. Chuck buriedhis hands in his jacket pockets and burrowed his chin in his collar. He wanted only to reach the mine site, set the students to work, and put last night behind him.
    Clarence fell back from the last of the students and spoke so only Chuck could hear. “You really think we should be here, jefe ?” He glanced at Chuck over his shoulder, displaying a wan face and bloodshot eyes.
    â€œThree days to go,” Chuck said.
    â€œThat doesn’t answer my question.”
    Chuck rubbed an eye with a knuckle.
    Clarence continued. “Rosie was so sick you took her to the emergency room, the cops spent the whole night climbing all over each other outside the dorm, nobody got a bit of sleep, and you make us come up here like nothing happened?”
    â€œBecause nothing did happen.”
    â€œYou were there. You saw what I saw, what we all saw.”
    â€œThe cops thought it was a homicide. I get that. But they were wrong.”
    â€œIt was a pretty big puddle.”
    â€œAnd that’s all it was: a puddle of blood. No dead body, no nothing. As for Rosie, she’s back at the cabin with Janelle, doing great.”
    Clarence huffed in exasperation. The wind whipped his long, raven-black hair around his neck. He gathered it in his hand and shoved it into the collar of his heavy cotton work jacket. His baggy jeans dragged at his heels, a mark of his urban upbringing with Janelle in Albuquerque’s gang-ridden South Valley.
    Clarence was big-boned and round-bellied. Thick silver studs pierced his ears. His nose was pressed like putty above his thick lips, which were encircled by a black goatee. Different as he was from his lithe older sister, Clarence shared Janelle’s natural magnetism—she with her eye-popping looks, he with his big laugh, dancing eyes, and devilish grin.
    An hour ago, in the dining hall behind the two dormitory buildings, the students’ thumbs had been a blur of motion over their phones. They hadn’t stopped texting until the van left cell-phone range on the drive into the mountains. “You know as well as I do,” Chuck told Clarence, “the kids would’ve spent the day tweeting and texting like mad.” He shoved his hand back in his jacket pocket. “No telling what Sartore’s going to make of it all.”
    â€œAs if he doesn’t already know.”
    â€œI texted him.” Chuck hadn’t received a response from the professor before they’d left phone range. “I’ll call him as soon as we’re back this afternoon.”
    Clarence clambered over a waist-high boulder protruding from the middle of the unimproved trail. “Sartore’s not the only one you’re avoiding today. What about Janelle?”
    â€œRosie was fine this morning, like last night never happened.”
    â€œExcept it did happen.” Clarence spun from the boulder and headed on down the trail. “You know Jan’s not at all okay with your coming up here today.”
    Chuck threw his leg over the boulder. “She’s got the truck. The doctor said she could bring Rosie back for another look, no charge, if she needed to. But he was pretty clear that everything was okay. Said it was just a virus.” Chuck continued despite