Her days off were uneventful— pleasantly so. She hung out with Slim and sketched out songs with Krista and working and read lying on an old rug in the sun, working on her all-over tan. She looked up that song, "Plastic Jesus," thinking that it might be by Woody Gurthrie, but it was written by a couple guys in the 50s as a parody, recorded by Ernie Marrs in 1965, and then used in Cool Hand Luke. She wrote down the lyrics and wondered if any punk bands had played it. Dead Kennedys played country and western schlock, like "Rawhide," which was brilliant. She wandered through the woods and washed her clothes at Gin's condo and bought groceries. Then it was time to go back to work.
She decided to spend two nights at the shack and do a bit of snooping. The first morning, she got up way before dawn and gave Gris a walk in the dark, then locked him inside. She drove the Saab down and turned out the road where Trapper loaded the deer, then down a branch track where she stashed it behind a dense patch of young pines. She walked back to the two-track and couldn't see it. Good
First she walked a serpentine on both sides of the two-track, up to where it entered a nasty patch of moraine boulders, looking for traces of the poached deer. Nothing. Then she jogged down and followed the edge of timber above the Opening to the Trail Creek road, and skirted it until she could see the cabin Trapper had claimed. Smoke rose from the stovepipe, so she found a spot in the bushes and got out the binoculars.
The screen door banged and Trapper came out, yawning and scratching. He walked to a pine and peed on it. The huskies set up a clamor of barks and howls, capering around the trees to which they were tied. She counted: five. Was that enough for a team?
Trapper went to the box trailer and stuck a key into a padlock, then opened the door with a skreek. So he keeps it locked, she thought. Is that where he stashes his gun collection? He leaned into the shadow and dragged out a big sack— she could see the lettering on it: IAMS Healthy Mature. Bingo! She was glad for the Leica compact binoculars, a gift from Slim.
He poured some out into a bucket and then went to each dog, tipping the kibbles into containers, everything from plastic dog dishes to stubby coffee cans. The dogs quieted down. Trapper leaned into the trailer and pulled out a quarter of meat, maybe from the deer. She couldn't tell. He took it to a big stump and hacked off pieces with a hatchet, tossing them into the bucket. He put it back and made the rounds again, tossing chunks of meat to the dogs, which they snapped out of the air and bolted.
He put the bucket in the trailer and took the empty bag over to a rusty oildrum with a sheet of coarse screen on top. He shoved the bag in and lit it. Getting rid of the evidence. The burn barrel was illegal up here. Some people in the summer home area had them and she was supposed to report it.
He put the screen on top of the drum and then looked around. She had to keep herself from ducking. Slim had told her that a sudden movement was more visible than simply holding still. He'd done his share of surveillance.
Trapper didn't show any sign of seeing her. He went back to the cabin and a puff of smoke came from the stovepipe. Stoking up the fire for breakfast. At least he fed the dogs first.
She sat for a half-hour or so, her feet getting icy. But he'd opened the curtains and she didn't dare move. The screen door banged and he came out of the cabin with a rifle, one of those black Army jobs, and an empty frame backpack. He put a lock on the door, shrugged into the straps, called to the huskies, and set off toward the northwest, as if he had something definite in mind.
She waited another half hour and then tried to stand up. Her feet were numb and she staggered. The huskies all saw her and barked, so she made haste back up the two-track and got into the Saab and crept back to the main road— no sign of Trapper.
Gris nearly turned inside out, sniffing and leaping, when she let him out of the shack. It was just before eight, time to start her normal work day. So she didn't feel particularly guilty for her snooping expedition.
She geared up her daypack and hiked up the disused road above the summer home area, for a look at the abandoned mine.
YOU ARE READING
Sowing on the Mountain
Mystery / ThrillerA Consolata Mary Browne mystery, the second in a series. (To get the most out of it, first read The Feral Strut, which establishes the main characters and background.) After her near-fatal encounter with a grizzly bear, Mary goes to college in Sa...
