Page 3 of Battle Mountain

Two down, Nate said to himself as he ran up the stairs.Go, go, go.

—

Since the lodgehad been built for guests, Nate expected to find several bedrooms on the top floor. In fact, there were four. Two closed doors on either side of the hallway were marked by hand-lettered signage inspired by historical Wyoming figures:The JimBridger Room,The Buffalo Bill Room,The Chief Washakie Room,The John Colter Suite.

Nate paused for a second at the top of the landing with both weapons outstretched before him. It was quiet down the hallway with no sign of activity from any of the rooms. He had no doubt that Axel had heard the gunshots and was ready for the intruder. Since the last door on the left was a suite, Nate made a calculated guess that Axel had chosen the grandest for himself. He bypassed the first three rooms and launched himself at the door of the John Colter Suite, hitting it low with his shoulder, just below the doorknob latch.

The doorframe splintered as Nate bulled his way inside. He rolled on the floor and came up on his knees at the foot of a four-poster bed, both weapons aimed at a naked woman sitting bolt upright in a maelstrom of covers. She had tousled brown hair, and her face was smeared with eyeliner that had run across her cheeks, making her look like a raccoon.

She was in her late twenties, thin and bony, and she screamed as she scrambled away from him, clutching the tops of the sheets and pulling them under her chin as if they would protect her.

Axel wasn’t with her. There was no place in the bedroom for him to hide and the window wasn’t open. A pile of black clothing lay on the floor beside the bed and a black bra was draped over a lamp on the bedside desk. Black combat boots poked out from under the bed. There was no other clothing in the room.

“Where is he?” Nate asked her.

“Where is who?” she asked back unconvincingly.

“Axel. Where is he?”

She seemed to be deciding whether to lie to Nate or tell the truth as she pulled the top of the sheets tighter to her chin.

Nate stood up, but kept both guns on her.

“He’s gone,” she said. “He left yesterday.”

“Then why is his car outside?”

“Constantine took him to Jackson Hole. He was going to get a new car there. Constantine brought Axel’s Honda back here so we wouldn’t be completely stranded.”

Nate thought that was possible. “Constantine was the city guy in the leather jacket?”

She vigorously nodded her head.

“Who was the other guy? The ginger?”

“J.R.,” she said. Then she echoed the word “was,” and it seemed to dawn on her what had happened downstairs. She looked up at Nate with horror.

“You killed them?” she asked. “Both of them?”

Nate asked, “When is Axel coming back?”

“I don’t know. We’re supposed to stay here until he contacts us.”

“You don’t have any idea? Are we talking hours? Days?”

“I don’t know,” she said again. Tears filled her eyes. “I got the impression he’d be back in a week or so. He left us a few hundred dollars to buy food and gas.”

Then she shrugged and said, “Axel doesn’t always explain things very well. He keeps a lot to himself.”

“Who are you?”

Again she seemed to be thinking about whether to tell him the truth.

“I’m an activist,” she said.

“I meant your name,” Nate said through clenched teeth.

“Bethany,” she said. “I knew Axel a long time ago, and he came back into my life and sweet-talked me into coming with him. No other dude I’ve ever known could do that, and I’m still a little surprised it happened. But I didn’t know what kind of heavy shit he was into.”