Nowhere to Run Read Free Page A

seen a primitive arrow like this was in a museum. He photographed the arrow with his digital camera, then pulled on a pair of latex gloves and grasped it by the shaft and pushed hard up and down while pulling on it. After a moment, the arrow popped free and Joe studied it. The point was obsidian and delicately flaked and attached to the shaft with animal sinew. The fletching was made of wild turkey feathers.
    It made no sense. The bow hunters he’d interviewed were serious sportsmen, even if they’d hunted prior to the season opener. But even they didn’t make their own arrows from natural materials. No one did. Who had lost this arrow?
    He felt a chill roll through him. Slowly, he rotated and looked behind him in the trees. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see Cheyenne or Sioux warriors approaching.
     
    HE FOUND THE REMAINS of the seven-point bull elk ten minutes later. Even though coyotes and ravens had been feeding on the carcass, it was obvious this was the elk the bow hunters had wounded and pursued. The hindquarters were gone and the backstraps had been sliced away. Exactly like the hunters described.
    So who had taken the meat?
    Joe photographed the carcass from multiple angles.
     
    JOE WALKED back to his horses with the arrow he’d found. He wrapped the point of it in a spare sock and the shaft in a T-shirt and put it in a pannier. He caught Buddy staring at him.
    “Evidence,” he said. “Something strange is going on up here. We might get some fingerprints off this arrow.”
    Buddy snorted. Joe was sure it was a coincidence.
     
    AS HE RODE out of the basin, he frequently glanced over his shoulder and couldn’t shake a feeling that he was being watched. Once he reached the rim and was back on top, the air was thin and the sun was relentless. Rivulets of sweat snaked down his spine beneath his uniform shirt.
    Miles to the southeast, a mottled gray pillow cloud and rain column of a thunderstorm connected the horizon with the sky. It seemed to be coming his way. He welcomed rain that would cool down the afternoon and settle the dust from his horses.
    But he couldn’t stop thinking about the carcass he’d found. Or the arrow.
     
    THAT NIGHT, he camped on the shoreline of a half-moon-shaped alpine lake and picketed the horses within sight of his tent in lush ankle-high grass. As the sun went down and the temperature dropped into the forties, he caught five trout with his 4-weight fly rod, kept one, and ate it with fried potatoes over a small fire. After dinner he cleaned his dishes by the light of a headlamp and uncased his satellite phone from a pannier. Because of the trouble he’d had communicating several years before while temporarily stationed in Jackson Hole, he’d vowed to call home every night no matter what. Even if there was no news from either side, it was the mundane that mattered, that kept him in touch with his family and Marybeth with him.
    The satellite phone was bulky compared to a mobile, and he had to remove his hat to use it because the antenna bumped into the brim. The signal was good, though, and the call went through. Straight to voice mail. He sighed and was slightly annoyed before he remembered Marybeth said she was taking the girls to the last summer concert in the town park. He’d hoped to hear her voice.
    When the message prompt beeped, he said, “Hello, ladies. I hope you had a good time tonight. I wish I could have gone with you, even though I don’t like concerts. Right now, I’m high in the mountains, and it’s a beautiful and lonely place. The moon’s so bright I can see fish rising in the lake. A half hour ago, a bull moose walked from the trees into the lake and stood there knee-deep in the water for a while. It’s the only animal I’ve seen, which I find remarkably strange. I watched him take a drink.”
    He paused, and felt a little silly for the long message. He rarely talked that much to them in person. He said, “Well, I’m just checking in. Your horses