Thirty-One

“Thanks for volunteering to help out,” Pete McPherson said, climbing out of his green pickup, the Maine Warden Service insignia on the door.

She liked McPherson, had known him a long time. He was in his sixties and had been a mainstay in the local law-enforcement community for as long as she could remember. He’d also been Tommy’s Little League coach the previous spring.

“Volunteering?” she said. “Do people volunteer to pound their thumbs with hammers?”

“Are you saying you don’t want to wander through six miles of trail,” he grinned, “making sure the boogie man isn’t out there preparing to bite the president? You’re as cynical as your father was.”

She smiled. “That’s why you and I get along.” She pulled her backpack from the pickup’s bed and put a Nalgene bottle in the pack’s side pocket. “You knew him well,” she said.

“Old Charlie Cote. Cynical but generous. Word around town was if you needed a team sponsored, even when the economy was down and everyone—even the bank and grocery store—said no, just go ask Charlie Cote. Cote Farm will sponsor your Little League team.”

“Or Pee Wee basketball team,” she said, “or whatever team it was. Old softy. Until he lost the farm.”

“And he’d probably have gone hungry to do so, even then,” McPherson said. “I was at my grandson’s soccer game, week before last and saw you there with your son. It made me think of Charlie.”

“I wish he were here for Tommy, especially since I’m divorced.”

She wore her backpack and her hiking boots were laced. In her pack were spare maps, PowerBars, an extra clip for her .40, a Maglite, and a first-aid kit with several Ace bandages. On her service belt were hair ties, her revolver, her handcuffs, a baton, and pepper spray. It might be a pointless, two-hour hike, but she followed protocol. As a BORSTAR agent, she’d seen what could go wrong when agents and hikers entered the wilderness unprepared.

“Are Wally Rowe and his guys already in there?” She pointed toward the mouth of the trail.

“The Secret Service isn’t coming,” McPherson said, “which, by the way, is a plus.”

“I thought we were leading them through the trails,” she said.

McPherson held his forest-green Maine Warden Service cap out and sprayed it with Ben’s 100. He had a full head of white hair and thick, liver-spotted hands.

“Rowe cancelled,” he said. “You and I are supposed to go through the trail along the brook today, find some nice fishing spots—which is to say easy-to-access spots—and then we’ll lead them through when the president arrives.”

“I think the president is going to cancel,” she said.

“Why?”

“Last summer, when we did this, there were fifteen Secret Service agents with us, and we examined every knot on every tree.”

“I don’t think he’s canceling. I think the Secret Service knows what a waste of time that was last year.”

“And the Secret Service doesn’t mind you and I wasting our time,” she said, “as long as they don’t waste theirs.”

“Again, your old man’s cynicism,” McPherson said and smiled.

He took the lead, moving swiftly on the trail, with Peyton several steps behind. A bed of pine needles covered the path.

“The president and his grandson might actually catch some fish this year,” McPherson said. “Judging from the pine-needle covering, no one’s been out here in a while.”

“So the brook won’t be fished out,” Peyton said, “if they actually come here.” She swatted a fly. “Of course, you have to fight the black flies in order to stand along the water’s edge to cast.”

“That’s why they make Ben’s 100.”

“Ever hear of DEET?” she said. She was maybe ten yards behind him, scanning the edges of the trail.

“Screw it,” he said. “We’ll all die of cancer anyhow.”

The trail was narrow, its sides lined with pines and balsam firs. Through the canopied tree cover, she could see a red-tailed hawk circling.

“There are a few big, flat rocks to stand on,” Peyton said. “Should we mark the trees near them? I’ve got some tape.”

“Not our job,” McPherson said. “They can hire a guide for that.”

“I was also thinking we could flag rocks we thought would give Rowe and his colleagues vantage points to cover the president.”

“Good idea,” McPherson said.

“Wally Rowe didn’t ask you to do that?”

“Nope,” he called over his shoulder.

“Did he give any directions?” she asked. “Did he mention what we should be looking for?”

McPherson turned to see her. “He said just to do a walk-through. See if anything looks out of the ordinary.”

“I don’t see even one footprint,” she said.

They walked for twenty minutes more, McPherson stopping at one point to throw a line in the brook.

“Wish I’d have brought waders,” he said. “This is a good time of year to fish this brook. Ever come out here with Tommy?”

“Not yet. Came here with my father, though. The brook looks deep in the middle.”

“No more than four feet,” he said. “I’ve crossed it in waders.”

“Fast moving,” she said. “Shouldn’t be crossing in waders. You ever slip, the current will pull you away. You’ll drown for sure.”

“Okay, mom. I don’t cross it when it’s four feet, Peyton. I do that in late summer. In the spring, I use a fly, toss it to the middle, and let the current carry it downstream. Caught an eighteen-inch trout last year.”

“My father and I used worms here.”

After several casts, McPherson reeled his line in, and they moved on. They were maybe a mile into the trail when McPherson slowed.

“What is it?” Peyton said from thirty feet behind.

“Just a couple footprints.” He stepped closer and knelt.

“Border Patrol agents call that sign-cutting,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ve heard Hewitt use that term before.”

Sign-cutting meant reading a landscape’s characteristics and deducing what might have taken place there. It could mean noticing a broken tree branch and deciding the corresponding footprints were traveling west. Or it could mean noting the difference between a wind-swept desert or snow-covered trail and one that had been swept with a broom.

“Tough to spot a footprint in pine needles,” she said, moving closer, standing at his side, genuinely interested.

“See how these are turned over and crushed?” he said.

“Animal?”

“Boot,” he said.

“You can distinguish a footprint from an animal track?”

“I do this all day, every day. And when I’m not working, I’m moonlighting as a guide.”

She didn’t dispute it. No one knew the Maine woods like game wardens who traipsed these trails for hours, year after year, checking licenses and looking for poachers. And no one would know these parts better than a warden who also served as a guide.

“What do you see?”

“Someone’s been through here recently,” he said, “maybe within the past twenty-four hours. But it looks like they tried to sweep over their tracks.”

She knelt closer. “I dealt with this in Texas. People would tie a broom to their waist to sweep their tracks as they walked.”

The pine-needle bed didn’t much resemble a desert floor, but she saw similar brush lines.

McPherson continued on. It was eighty-five in the mid-day sun and humid. Peyton paused, took her pack off, unscrewed the top of the Nalgene bottle, and drank. The water was no longer cold, but it was refreshing, nonetheless.

She leaned forward to return the bottle to her bag when the overwhelming, startling rush of hot air hit her. The physical sensation was the same as she’d once had standing near a jet engine on the tarmac in El Paso. The sound, though, was like a shotgun’s guttural rumble, but louder—it engulfed her.

She was on her back before she realized the explosion had knocked her off her feet.