Page 2

Chapter Two

Now

On an unseasonably warm early October day in the Sierra Madre range of south-central Wyoming, elk-hunting guides Joseph “Spike” Rankin and his new hired man, Mark Eisele, climbed out of Rankin’s pickup and opened the rear doors to where their gear was stashed. When Rankin drew his binoculars from their case, Eisele did the same. Battle Mountain loomed over them and they quietly studied its timber and terrain before setting out on a scouting hike.

Neither man had any idea that what they would encounter that day would not only change their own lives but possibly alter the trajectory of the nation itself. Their conversation, conducted in tones barely above a whisper, was muted and all about the next few hours ahead of them.

“I think I see a bull moose up there in the aspen,” Eisele said.

“That’s a bull, all right. There’s a couple of cows farther down that same mountain meadow.”

Eisele lowered his binoculars to find them.

Rankin pointed with a gnarled finger. “Do you see that ridge about halfway up the mountain with the red buckbrush on top of it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s where we’re going. From up there, you get a great view of the valley and meadows on the other side. It’ll take about an hour of hard climbing to get there.”

Eisele nodded. He knew to be completely deferential to the older man. Spike Rankin was a legend in this part of the state and he’d been guiding hunters in these mountains for over forty years. When Rankin had hired him two weeks before, he’d told Eisele that he “didn’t want a lot of lip.”

Eisele had responded that he’d get none from him.

“Especially in front of my clients,” Rankin had said.

“Understood,” Eisele had said.

—

Battle Mountain was massive and its unique conical outline could be seen from forty miles away in any direction. It was one of many mountains in the Sierra Madres of south-central Wyoming, but it was by far the most prominent. Its southeastern face was veined with sharp arroyos that stretched from the valley floor toward the summit, which was nearly ten thousand feet in elevation. The peak emerged from the dark timber at around nine thousand feet and formed a bald, snow-dusted knob that was stark against the cloudless blue sky. From the summit to the foothills held a world of diverse ecosystems. Dark, old-growth pines covered the face of the entire mountain except for open meadows that looked like errant punctuation. Splashes of yellowed aspen broke up the sea of timber. Halfway up the mountain was a slash of gold exposed granite where a piece of the mountain had fallen away years before, leaving the scar and a huge hillock of broken scree at its base.

Eisele vaguely recalled learning about the mountain and where it had gotten its name in his third-grade Wyoming history class in Cheyenne. There had been a frontier battle there, obviously. He couldn’t recall the details.

But, he thought, it probably looked the same now as it did then. No road scars across its face, no fencing, no power lines, no structures of any kind. It was excellent habitat for mule deer and elk. Moose apparently liked it, too.

“Take water, lunch, your optics, and a first-aid kit in your daypack,” Rankin said. “Do you have protection?”

“Protection?” Eisele asked with a sly smile.

“I’m not talking about rubbers,” Rankin said with irritation. “I mean bear spray and a handgun.”

“I’ve got bear spray and a .357 Magnum,” Eisele said as he clipped both to his belt.

“I’d rather it was a ten-millimeter or a .44 Mag,” Rankin said. “I don’t expect to run into any grizzly bears around here, but when it comes to those beasts, the bigger, the better. You heard what happened a year ago.”

“Of course,” Eisele said. Everybody knew about the murderous grizzly attacks that had occurred across the state the previous fall.

“Them bears can move fast,” Rankin said. “Maybe faster than you can draw your weapon if it isn’t handy.”

“Maybe I can get a bigger handgun before we come back with our hunters,” Eisele said. “I think I can borrow one from my father-in-law.”

Rankin indicated his approval.

“Did you bring mountain money?” he asked.

“Mountain money?” Eisele said, puzzled. He had about fifty dollars in his wallet.

“Toilet paper,” Rankin said. “It’s more valuable up here than dollar bills.”

“I’ll remember it next time,” Eisele said.

“Do that,” Rankin said. “I can share mine if you need to take a shit.”

Eisele was dressed head to foot in Kuiu high-tech hunting clothing and Zamberlan Italian hunting boots that he’d spent a small fortune on. Rankin wore weathered jeans with a sagging butt, a Wyoming Cowboys football T-shirt, a bloodstained camo vest, and ancient Red Wing hunting boots.

When they were ready, both men eased the doors shut on Rankin’s pickup as quietly as possible and started up the mountain.

—

Eisele tried to keep up with Rankin as the older guide led the way. Rankin was short and stocky and in his midfifties with a salt-and-pepper beard and close-cropped hair. He moved in a relentless and deliberate pace that was as sure-footed as a mountain goat, Eisele thought. And he did it almost silently. It was as if he were gliding a few inches above the loose rocks, dry twigs, and haphazard pine cones that Eisele seemed to find with every other step.

At one point halfway to the buckbrush ridge, Rankin stopped, turned around, and glared at him.

“Look ahead of you before you step,” Rankin said. “Then place your foot on something that won’t make noise. You’ll spook the elk away long before you can get to where you’re going. You make as much noise as a bunch of drunk monkeys trying to fuck a football.”

Rankin’s colorful language and occasional bad grammar belied the fact that he’d graduated from Stanford and that, prior to becoming an outfitter, he’d both built and divested himself of a very successful pharmaceutical company. Eisele’s father-in-law said that very few of Rankin’s clients had any idea that the guide could likely buy and sell them if he chose and that the man liked to play up his facade.

His nickname, Spike, apparently had come from the fact that his mother was sure he’d been conceived in the temporary shelter known as a spike camp while she was elk-hunting with his father.

“Sorry,” Eisele said, using the break to catch his breath. There was a sheen of sweat across his entire upper body and he’d wiped it from his face several times already with the sleeve of his jacket.

“It’s okay to pause,” Rankin said. “Stop, look around, sniff the air, and just listen . The last thing you want to do is walk up on a bunch of elk with your hunter huffing and puffing so hard you can’t set him up for a shot. Besides, he’ll likely be even more out of shape than you are, if that’s possible.”

Eisele leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. His lungs burned and his calves and thighs ached. The higher they climbed and the thinner the air, the worse it got. The exertion didn’t seem to affect Rankin, which was annoying.

—

The elk-hunting season on Battle Mountain was on pause, Rankin had explained. Archery season had taken place from the first of September through the thirtieth. Antlered-elk season for rifles started up October 15, followed by “any elk” season through October 31. Antlerless elk season went from November 1 through November 12.

Since all of Rankin’s clients were rifle hunters, he was booked solid from mid-October through mid-November. He used the two weeks between the end of archery season and the beginning of rifle season to set up his elk camp and horse corrals, scout the area so thoroughly that he knew where most of the trophy animals hung out, note where any other elk camps might be located, and hire a camp cook and an assistant, which this year was Mark Eisele. The aim was to provide the highest-quality elk-hunting experience possible, given the limitations of hunting on a roadless mountain located largely in the Medicine Bow National Forest.

Eisele didn’t know much about the first group of hunting clients coming the next week, other than Rankin’s description of them as “well-heeled fellows from North Carolina.”

—

When Eisele had complained the previous summer at a gathering with his wife’s family in Cheyenne that he was getting bored working remotely in his basement for the Silicon Valley high-tech company that employed him, his father-in-law had overheard the conversation.

“You need to get outside and challenge yourself,” the man had said. “Life is more than a keyboard and a monitor. You need to get some calluses on those baby-soft hands of yours.

“I need to hook you up with Spike Rankin,” he had added while patting his pockets for the location of his cell phone. “Spike’s a good friend of mine.”

Eisele had agreed, and later blamed the three Coors beers he’d had prior to the conversation. He’d been both surprised and dismayed that his wife, Megan, had encouraged him to do it, even though it meant he’d be gone for much of the fall.

“What about my job?” he’d asked her.

Megan had laughed. “You always say that nobody reads your reports anyway,” she’d said. “Just send in the same reports you did last year and see if anyone notices.”

So far, they hadn’t. Working remotely did have its advantages.

—

Eisele was breathing hard again when they breached the line of brilliant red buckbrush that marked the edge of a flat overlooking the distant valley below. He pushed through it, trying not to snag his clothing on the branches. He wished it was cooler and he thought he’d probably overdressed for the hike. Time to peel off a layer, he thought.

As he was reaching for the zipper on his new outer shell, Rankin stopped midway through the brush and turned around.

“We’ll cross this flat and drop over,” he whispered. “There’s a great place on the other side where we can hunker down and scope the entire valley all the way to the river. This is where I’ve seen more big six-by-six bulls than anywhere else in this country. Sometimes, I’ve seen three or four of them at the same time. The trick is to note where they are and not let them see you . We want them to stick around until our hunters show up.”

“Got it,” Eisele said.

“Stay low when you go over the edge so you don’t skyline yourself. And when we get to our scouting location, don’t stand up so the elk can notice you.”

Eisele nodded.

Rankin indicated with a jerk of his chin that he wanted Eisele to follow him. They cleared the bank of buckbrush and crab-walked across the grassy clearing. Eisele stayed about four feet behind Rankin. The high-altitude sun warmed his back as he followed.

When Rankin reached the edge of the flat, he stopped again, then stood up to full height. To Eisele, it seemed as if Rankin had suddenly given up on the hunt.

“Shit,” he snorted. “It looks like somebody’s got our spot.”

“What?”

“Somebody’s in our goddamned scouting location. I’ve never seen anybody up here before.”

Eisele shouldered around Rankin and stood next to him on the rim. The view was absolutely magnificent. Far below the massive sloping hills was a single ribbon of silver snaking through the valley floor: the North Platte River. A distant ranch complex with a slew of outbuildings hugged its banks and Eisele could make out a bridge across the river and a network of roads between the structures. Several corrals held large herds of horses. In the center of the outbuildings was a three-story dark lodge of some kind with a green roof.

“Man, that place looks fancy,” Eisele said.

“It is,” Rankin grumbled. “It’s the B-Lazy-U Ranch. Have you ever heard of it?”

Eisele said, “I’ve heard of it, but I never thought I’d actually see it, much less spend a night there. It’s like two thousand dollars a night or something.”

“More than that,” Rankin said brusquely. “This is the closest you’ll probably ever get to it. But the ranch isn’t our problem.”

He pointed directly below them down the slope. “ That is our problem.”

Eisele followed Rankin’s finger to see movement behind a breastwork of fallen spruce trees about a hundred yards below them. As he focused on the movement, five figures became clear. They were dressed all in camo and they blended into the terrain so well that, for a moment, it looked like the ground was undulating. To the side of the breastwork were two ATVs partially hidden beneath cut pine branches.

One of the figures abruptly turned and stared right at them. The man wore green and black face paint and his eyes looked sharply white as they widened with the discovery of the two guides standing on top of the ridge. The man said something and the other four quickly turned as well. Eisele could make out four men and a woman, all in their late twenties or early thirties, all brandishing what looked like semiautomatic rifles. Spotting scopes mounted on short tripods extended above the breastwork and were aimed at the ranch below.

There was something in their movements that suggested military training, Eisele thought. They moved with precision and had an ease with their weapons and gear that Eisele knew he couldn’t replicate. What kind of elk hunters were these?

The man who’d seen them first swung his weapon up and shouldered it and threw the bolt back with a metallic click. Eisele felt his stomach clutch and his eyes widen.

“Whoa there,” Rankin called down. “No need for that. We didn’t know you were up here and we didn’t mean to surprise you. I use this place to scout elk every season, and I didn’t see a vehicle parked down on the road. We didn’t know anyone was up here.”

Rankin was trying to sound friendly, but Eisele noted the alarm in his voice.

“Like I said, we’re just up here scouting elk,” Rankin said. “We can easily move to the other side of the mountain, since you folks got here first. It’s a big mountain and we can all share it.”

The man with the rifle looked to two of his companions, said something too low to hear, then turned his attention back to Rankin and Eisele.

“Drop your weapons,” the man said.

“How about we just back away?” Rankin said. “I’ve got clients coming next week and we can hunt on the other side of the range. Plus, you wouldn’t want to leave a man up here without protection.”

That word again, Eisele thought.

“I said, drop your weapons,” the man repeated. As he did so, the four others squared up and raised their rifles as well. Eisele fought against a sudden explosive bowel movement. He couldn’t move. All he could see were five tiny black dots, the muzzles of the firearms.

“Look,” Rankin said, showing the people below the palms of his hands, “I don’t know what you’ve got going on here, but it isn’t our intention to crash the party. We’ll back away and move along. This is a public national forest, after all. We all have a right to be on this mountain, but we respect giving you some distance.”

Eisele’s hand twitched near the butt of his holstered .357 Magnum. His inclination was to pull it out very slowly and drop it at his feet. And then turn and run like he’d never run before.

One of the other men in the group said something to the lead gunman. To Eisele, it sounded harsh and definitive, although he couldn’t make out the words.

“Maybe you folks could tell me what you’re doing up here,” Rankin said. “Does the Forest Service know you’re up here? Does the local game warden?”

Eisele wished his boss would just hand over his weapons and shut up. This wasn’t worth a confrontation, he thought.

Then Eisele clearly heard the woman say, “Sarge, they’ve seen us.”

And suddenly, the morning was split open with booming gunfire. Rankin was thrown backward by the impact of bullets as if kicked by a horse. Eisele dropped and spun as rounds sizzled through the air above him, but as he started to run, he was hit, and the velocity of the bullet sent him sprawling face-first into the grass.

For a few seconds, he lay there, his arms at his sides and his mouth gaping open. He couldn’t move and he couldn’t quite locate his arms and legs to crawl away. There was a severe burning sensation in his right shoulder and from the left cheek of his buttocks.

He struggled to keep his eyes open, and he could hear the scrambling of the gunmen as they ran up the slope to where he lay. As his revolver was roughly pulled out of his holster, someone said, “This one’s still alive.”

“The old man is, too, but he doesn’t have long to go,” someone else said. “We’re gonna have to strap his body on the ATV and take him back.”

Eisele felt someone grip his right shoulder to turn him over. The pain was sharp, and he gasped as he was rolled onto his back.

A foot above him were the faces of Sarge, the lead shooter, and a woman with green eyes and a full mouth. Both of their faces were smeared with paint. Both leaned over him, partially blocking the sky.

“What are we gonna do with these two?” the woman asked.

Eisele felt absolutely hopeless. His fate was up to them, and he couldn’t find the words to try to convince them otherwise. He wished his wife and father-in-law were there so he could say to them, “Look what you got me into.”

As the woman spoke, Eisele noticed something over her shoulder that seemed remarkably out of place. It was a sleek small jet airplane streaking across the sky toward the north. It was descending, and its landing gear was deployed.

The scream of the jet distracted the woman and she looked up.

“Here they come,” she said. “Right on time.”