Page 99 of The 9th Man

Cody, Wyoming

Monday — March 30 — 10:15A.M.

LUKE BUTTONED HIS COAT AND STEADIED HIMSELF AGAINST A STIFFnorth wind. They were on the final leg of an eighteen-hundred-mile journey northwest from Dallas. Stephanie had arranged for another DOJ jet and a Ford F-150 pickup waiting on the ground when they landed. They had what they believed to be valid Find3Points, but for all five grid locations Google Earth imagery showed nothing but ragged peaks, thick pine forests, and plunging, glacier-carved valleys. An internet check of the area revealed zero hits on the name David Eckstein. Nothing in the local property records either, which were all online.

Lingering in the back of his mind was the possibility they were on a wild goose chase. But Ray Simmons had left those locators for a reason. He could have just as easily taken them to his grave. While they matched theLEAD~SEA~PROFITformat and were mountainous and remote, which Ray mentioned in his notes, thousands of places fit that description. But it was all they had to work with and it was better than sitting on their hands and waiting for Talley to come find them.

At Cody they’d stopped at an outfitter’s shop and bought hiking boots, jackets, backpacks, multiple layers of clothing, dehydrated meals, a trail stove, fire-making tools, a GPS unit, compasses and maps, headlamps, knives and hatchets, a tent, a pair of sleeping bags, flashlights, a first-aid kit, and extra ammunition for the Berettas.

Everything they might need.

The only thing the outfitter couldn’t offer them was a solution for their biggest challenge. Access. While Highway 14, the only paved and reliable road in this part of Wyoming, eventually reached Yellowstone National Park, where he and Jillian were headed there wasn’t so much as a gravel tract within three thousand square miles.

They needed horses.

According to the outfitter their best option for that was a Shoshone rancher named Hedow who lived near Wapiti, home to 165 people, a post office, and the oldest forest service ranger station in the United States. It’d be their last bit of civilization between Highway 14 and Highway 26 some eighty miles to the south.

“The snow is starting,” Jillian said, peering through the truck’s windshield.

“Coming in fast, too. Some of those peaks out there sit at around twelve thousand feet. It’s only a few months a year their tops aren’t white.”

When they’d left Cody the temperature had been twenty-three degrees. The air now trickling through the F-150’s dysfunctional air vents felt much colder than that. The laptop, flash drive, and other papers were safely tucked within a waterproof backpack lying on the truck’s rear seat.

His phone, which Jillian held, dinged.

“The address is coming up,” she said. “I’m amazed we still have coverage.”

“Let’s enjoy it while we can.”

“Turn right here.”

He turned off and followed the dirt road half a mile to a clearing surrounded by a meadow and backed by dun-colored hills. Standing on the front step of a long, ranch-style log house was a tall bearded man wearing a red parka and beanie in bright hunter’s orange. Luke stopped the truck and shut off the engine.

They climbed out.

“Are you Luke and Jillian?” he called out.

The outfitter in Cody had promised to let Hedow know they were coming.

“That’d be us,” Luke said, extending his hand.

“Kinda surprised to get Owen’s call. It’s a little early in the season for backcountry camping. You two know what you’re doing? Lot of bears out there.”

“We won’t bother ’em,” he said.

“You got experience at this sorta thing?”

“He was a Ranger,” Jillian said. “I was a marine.”

“Last time I checked neither of those were real big on horses. How far are you going?”

“Due south, fifteen or twenty miles,” Jillian said.

“No offense meant, but I’d hate to lose a couple good animals because, you know—”

“A pair of idiots who’ve got no business being out here stepped off a mountainside?” Luke said.

“Your words. Like I said, no offense.”