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wondering how the heck you’re gonna get the nice moron who paid you twenty-five hundred bucks, in advance, out of the woods and into the hospital.”
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    Chapter 3
    I heard the diesel engine long before the two-track snow-cat lumbered into view. A pair of National Park Rangers, both of whom I knew by sight, sat bundled in the cab and a bunch of stuff-sacks, totes and crates, most likely holding emergency gear, were strapped to the pipe frame in the open back bed. That solved my problem of how to haul the body out once we freed it from the snow.
    Randy’d taken off with the horses almost an hour back. No sense in having them standing around getting cold. He’d left us with a bunch of gear and supplies to keep me and Kabe from becoming secondary casualties, then headed on out. Said he’d leave flags along the route we came in on so that the responding officers could find us.
    Once the snow-cat shuddered to a halt, Ranger Nadia Slokum slid out of the passenger side of the cab. Even under a layer of parka I knew that sleek, compact frame. I waved and got a, “Morning, Sugar!” in return greeting. Her dark cheeks, from what I could see over the scarf around her face, were all pinked up from the cold.
    The other law enforcement ranger unfolded his lanky frame out of the small vehicle. Shifting his gloves to cover the gap where his parka didn’t quite cover his wrists, Fred Noces corrected her. “It’s damn near half-past noon.” His smile, flashed out of a dry creek bed of a face, pulled some of the sting out of his words. Fred could come off cranky to folks who didn’t know him, but I never took nothing by his gruff attitude. It’s just who he is and he’d been that way all the years I’d known him.
    Nadia and I didn’t go so far back. When I first met her this summer, she’d been stationed at Bryce Canyon. Sorta helped me out when things got bad back then and kinda adopted Kabe and I like we were her wild children or something. Now that she’d settled in, her actual beat covered the whole of Dixie National, all two million acres of it. Fred and Nadia had likely caught my dispatcher’s call out and headed on over to pitch in.
    Whether or not this body turned out to be on US government property or state land, we all helped each other out ‘round here. My department, Garfield County Sheriff, only had seven members and, while the Forest Service boasted a lot more rangers, most weren’t law enforcement. A state trooper, Sheriff Simple and one of the other Garfield County deputies were on their way over as well.
    Fred dug into the gear on the back of the cat. “Brought you something,” he called as he pulled a heap of black rubber out of one of the sacks and tossed it towards me.
    “You are an angel, sir!” When I caught the package the legs came unwrapped and one rubber sole hit me in the thigh.
    Kabe narrowed his eyes. “Hip waders? You’re going fishing?”
    “No.” I laughed and shook out the bundle. “But I’m gonna spend the next few hours kneeling in snow.” I’d have to take off my boots to put them on, but, luckily, I had on my heated socks so I might actually stay warm during this adventure. “Might as well not get wet while I’m doing it.” I braced myself against a tree and toed out of my left boot.
    “That’s pretty intense work.” Nadia gave us a slow once over, like she thought we might have done lost our minds. “You going to wait for specialists?”
    Left foot half in the wader’s boot, I spread my hands and gave her one of my big ol’ country boy grins. “You’re looking at ‘em.” A little more serious, I added, “I am actually one of the few officers in this county who have advanced training in evidence collection and preservation.” I jerked my thumb over towards where Fred sat on the bed of the cat jerking up his hip waders. “That man there’s another.”
    “Little rusty, but yep.” He stood and stomped his foot into the boot