Flight of Death - Richard Hoyt Page 0,55

the party of bird counters, brandishing their university degrees and government titles. He possibly had a point.

Ha-ha-ha-oo-oo-oo-oo!

Did I know that loon? Could it be Donna or Willie? I thought: Willie Prettybird, you crazy, wild-ass son of a bitch, wonderful; if that’s you, do it again!

The loon treated the fleeing ornithologists with a peal of laughter that was so demented and mocking it was downright spooky. Ha-ha-ha-oo-oo-oo! Ha-ha-ha-oo-oo-oo! Ha-ha-ha-oo-oo-oo!

The coyote began baying again. Ow-wow-wow-woooooo! Ow-wow-wow-woooooo!

The panther screamed.

Ha-ha-ha-oo-oo-oo!

I cranked up the bus and headed for Calamity before any of the counters spotted me.

Chapter Twenty-Four — When the Bean Dip Runs Out

By the time I got back to the Kokanee Vacation Cottages, the moisture in the air had begun to freeze, and the frost sparkled like crushed zircons on the oil-soaked gravel of the parking lot. I breathed great soft bursts of vapor as I walked quickly from my microbus.

The cabin was murderously cold. I turned up the thermostat on the ineffectual baseboard heater and leaped about on the icy linoleum flinging clothes this way and that. Finally, I dove, shuddering, into the musty bed.

I lay there warming my spot, thinking about the Harkenriders’ story of Jenny MacIvar and Lois Angleton going in and out of both North and South Forks preparing for the owl count. I know what she saw. Jenny MacIvar had seen something on one of those trips.

What had she seen? Something at the caved-in shack on the North Fork of Jumpoffjoe? Something having to do with the pot found on the Harkenrider place on the South Fork? It was hard to believe anybody would shoot her over some weed. What about the threat mail she and Lois Angleton had received? Did it have something to do with the accuracy of the owl count? Possibly, but I had a feeling the reason for her murder was deeper and more basic than that.

I had no sooner gone to sleep than I was awakened by a slamming door and voices, then raucous laughter that all but burst the thin and rotting walls of my cabin. I heard Willie’s voice, then Donna’s, then the crunching of feet on newly frozen, crisp frost, then another burst of laughter. I slipped out of bed and used the heel of my hand to clear a spot on the moisture that had accumulated on the inside of the window.

I peered out; Willie Prettybird and Donna and four Indian males, including the one I had seen at the parade with Donna, were unloading beer and sacks of goodies from Willie’s beater and Donna’s old pickup. They looked ready to celebrate.

Willie had a half case of beer under each arm. “Denson!” he called.

I quickly slipped on a pair of shorts and was at the door in two strides, holding it open so they could hustle their beer and groceries inside. No North Fork loon joined in their laughter and merriment, but this group had guilty-as-hell written large on their triumphant faces.

“Crap it’s cold out there,” Donna said.

Willie ripped the tops off the cardboard boxes of beer and began stuffing the cans into the refrigerator. “Well, by God, everybody, we woke up the Lone Ranger. Sleeping on the complexities of murder, Denson?”

“Helluva Tonto you are,” I said.

Willie gave me a hug. “What would you do without me, Kemosabe? Your noble redman sidekick.”

“I’d have a whole lot less grief is what I’d have.”

Donna retrieved bags of Fritos and potato chips and bean dip from a paper sack, and assembled them on the counter of my tiny kitchenette.

“You folks been having a little fun on the North Fork tonight?” I started the business of introductions. “John Denson.”

The first Indian, who was in his early forties with a bulging belly and a black-and-red checked shirt, extended his hand and said, “Melvin.” Melvin peered over his nose at Willie and added, “I’d think Prettybird’d have to be somewhere near the bottom of the Watson barrel.”

“A man does his best with the cards he’s dealt,” I said. “It’s not always easy, I can tell you that.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Willie said.

Duke, in his mid-thirties, wore a huge silver belt buckle studded with turquoise and a high-crowned cowboy hat that rarely left his head. He gripped my hand tightly, with much sympathy and pseudogravity, as befit the razzing of Willie Pretty bird. “You poor son of a bitch,” he said solemnly.

Toro, a broad-chested man in his early fifties, sported earrings and a pigtail. “You can see how even we get a little tired of his noble-redskin