Free Hunter’s Dance by Kathleen Hills Page B

was compelled to placate them by agreeing to make a statement back at his office in the Chandler jail. He neglected to mention that he wouldn’t be going directly back to that office, a subterfuge that necessitated driving in a manner calculated to leave the trailing press corps well behind before he turned off onto the track that led to the Salmon River. It wasn’t easy. The reporters were not faint of heart. McIntire was, and he willed his bacon and eggs to stay down as Koski fishtailed around mud-slicked corners and took ruts, roots, and potholes head on. Geronimo’s rhythmic snoring didn’t miss a beat. It wasn’t much on speed, but the Power Wagon proved its worth. The tortoise trundled in where hares feared to tread. When their pursuers had been left to continue leaderless into Chandler, Koski slowed to an even more sedate pace. They meandered through a maze of twisted tracks and logging roads.
    â€œHow the hell do you know where you’re going?” McIntire asked.
    â€œI didn’t spend the last thirty years sipping tea at the British embassy.”
    McIntire hadn’t either, but it was a nice thought.
    The road came to an abrupt end in a mucky stream bed. A black panel truck was wedged into a semi-cleared spot. Otherwise all was alder brush and stunted cedar.
    Koski left his wagon in the middle of the road. He made a careful circuit of the panel truck, Geronimo at his side anointing each tire.
    McIntire walked a short distance back the way they’d come. In places, the tread marks of the truck were obliterated, not only by the tracks of the Power Wagon, but by those of a vehicle with a much narrower wheel base. Bambi’s Morgan had been here, and gone, since the truck had been parked.
    They waded through the mud to the higher ground. A trail took them another quarter mile to a hut of narrow cedar logs, positioned vertically in the Finnish style. It sank into the earth on one side, and its roof was covered with a thick bed of moss. A narrow pillow-ticking mattress, rain-soaked and mouse-nibbled, lay in the weeds outside the door.
    The professor was nowhere about, and, after a single thump on the cabin’s door, Koski lifted the latch. The interior was too dim to see much and too low to stand upright. They stumbled toward the middle of the room where the roof rose up to meet its center beam. Koski yelped when his head struck a kerosene lantern hung on a nail.
    â€œGood work, Pete, you’ve found the lights. Got a match?”
    The flame flared and smoked. McIntire turned down the wick and let the chimney drop into place. The yellow light revealed a single crowded room, a cast iron stove, unpainted wood table and two chairs, an iron daybed, and a set of narrow bunks built into the far wall. The lower bunk was obviously the source of the discarded mattress. It was heaped only with rumpled clothing. The top one supported a pad similar to the one outside the door, only slightly less chewed, and a rumpled army blanket. The space that wasn’t taken up by furniture was filled with what McIntire assumed to be the implements of prospecting, among them shovels, a surveyor’s transit, and the now-familiar Geiger counter. Both the table and the rumpled daybed were strewn with maps of every imaginable sort: survey maps, topographical maps, geological maps, maps showing vegetation and soil type, and township plat maps. Mingled odors of bacon fat and unwashed socks hung in the air. McIntire unhooked the lantern and put it on the table.
    â€œAll the comforts of home. No wonder the boys kept Mama away.”
    A stifled gasp sounded from the doorway. A sturdy-looking man stood in the opening, a pail of water dangling from one hand and a slingshot from the other, looking as if he didn’t know whether to bolt or faint. Koski stepped forward before he had a chance to do either.
    â€œPete Koski,” he put out his hand, “sheriff of this county.”
    The professor