Uncertain Justice

Chapter 26

A flatlander by birth and residence, it took Winters a moment to decipher the words spoken by the man from the high mountains. People who live in small towns isolated from the rest of the world for even part of the year by drifting snow tend to develop unique speech patterns.

"Uh ... yeah, that's his name." Winters stumbled through a reply. He was getting tired and it was beginning to show. Today had begun with a normal morning routine in Pueblo until he'd received the call from Denver to take command of the search near Monarch Pass. It was well past sunset now. Winters was a senior administrator and not a man accustomed to being on his feet for such long periods. The ankle he'd broken in a foot chase twenty years earlier was beginning to throb.

Curt nodded in the darkness at the officer's confirmation of his suspicions. Untangling the last of the harnesses, he paused and looked at the commander.

"Looky heah ... yuh reckon I'll be gittin' some of that re-ward money for this feller? I mean, if my dawgs come up on 'im and tree the guy, it's the same as if I captured 'im, don't yuh think?" Curt held still, waiting for the trooper to reply.

"Ahhhh, sir ... I don't know anything about a reward. No one has said anything about it to me ... but," he continued, "if there is one that has been authorized, I'd say you certainly would be in the running for it."

Winters hurried to retract what the dog handler might regard as an official promise. "But what the heck do I know?" Commander Winters exaggerated a fatalistic shrug. "I'm like a mushroom, Mr. Barnett. They keep me in the dark and feed me s**t all the time."

Barnett snickered, sharing with Winters the common man's contempt for those unseen few who rule the lives of ordinary folk. His interest in the reward deflected for the moment, he got busy readying the dogs.

One by one, he pulled the cages to the back of the truck and opened the doors. He snapped a chain lead from each rope to each dog's collar. When all were in their harness, Barnett allowed them to jump to the ground. The four dogs promptly took off in as many different directions.

"HEEL! HEEL, DAMMIT!" Barnett yanked roughly on the ropes to pull them back. Gradually, he restored order and allowed the dogs to precede him toward the group of men highlighted by the flashlight each one held.

"Thet whar they want me to git started?" he queried Winters.

"Yes, sir ... that's right where he was last seen." Winters didn't see Barnett's lip curl in contempt at the city folks who were trampling the place where they wanted his dogs to set up and find this kidnapper feller. Didn't they know they were tromping all over whatever sign they was over there?

When he was near the tower, Curt took the dogs in a wide loop around the group of uniformed officers. They picked up a scent a good distance from the tower. Flicking on his lighter, he knelt to find the deep imprint of a boot. The trail was headed in toward the tower though; this wasn't what he was looking for.

He led his dogs farther around a circle that had the metal tower as its center. If them damn fools hadn't ruined the trail by standing right on top of it, he could probably have let the dogs run in along the tracks he'd already found and on past the tower. As it was, he would have to try locating them on the other side. He wasn't a quarter way round the circle before the dogs began baying again.

Curt let them pull him along for a few steps so he could get an idea of where they were headed. Bending low, he held his lighter close to the ground and saw tracks of a booted man--headed away from the tower. The distance between footprints indicated the man was running; the depth showed the man weighed a lot or had a heavy load.

"Ohhhh, real smart, huh?" he said to himself. "You layin' a false trail for me, Big Guy, or did ya decide to backtrack?" he wondered aloud. Standing, he imagined a line from the tower through this track and extending out in front of him. If the hunted man kept going the way he was, he would go over the shoulder of the mountain about halfway up.

It was hard going up that way, but U.S. 50 was off somewhere in that direction and there was enough traffic at this time of night to make it possible the dogs could lose the scent on the pavement. He'd better get going. Snapping the leashes, Barnett urged the dogs on. He didn't want to lose that reward.

In the poor light, Barnett didn't notice his youngest and largest hound had a collar that was too loose. Another time, he'd have stopped every so often to check things, but another time there wouldn't have been a big reward just out of reach.

It couldn't be said that he slept, or even dozed. It was just that awareness retreated so far Miles couldn't see or hear anything not immediately in front of him. He revived only when trembling in his arms and legs became severe enough to intrude into his consciousness.

He'd cooled off from the exertions of climbing the mountain and now he was cold. The body's automatic mechanism for generating heat had kicked in but that was counter-productive tonight ... he couldn't afford the energy his muscles used to shake his extremities.

He reached around to pull the parka from its lashings. It was impossible; he couldn't reach it with the pack on. Mechanically, he began to take it off. His fingers got all the catches undone finally and he dropped the pack against the side of the log.

"Oh geez...." he murmured aloud as the weight came off. He stripped off the light outer shell and the middle layer of fleece he'd worn all day and pulled the parka over his shoulders, leaving it unzipped a few inches. If he wasn't careful, the night's exertions would cause his body to overheat and that was as dangerous as freezing.