Chasing a Blond Moon(157)

Service buckled his lap harness and nodded. “Let’s roll.”

The phone rang again as they paused at the end of the runway. Nantz nodded for him to answer it as she adjusted the throttles.

“This is Eugenie Cuckanaw. I’m sorry to take so long. Wan doesn’t own a camp in the U.P., but he uses one in—”

“Alger County,” Service said interrupting her. “Thanks.” He hung up.

Service held up his 800. “Can I use this?”

She nodded. “Be quick.”

“Jake, we’re on the runway, ready to go. Cap’n Grant is arranging backup. Give him a bump and have somebody meet us at Hadley. You’ve definitely got the place. ETA . . .” He looked over at Nantz who held up three fingers. “We’ll be there zero eight forty-five. See you later.”

“Copy,” Mecosta said.

Nantz said into her headset, “Roger, Four Niner Mike Juliet Mike is rolling.”

She pushed the throttles up and Service felt vibrations in his ass as she taxied onto the runway, went to full power, and took off into the wind, pulling the nose up steeply and leveling at eighteen hundred feet.

When they finished climbing to their assigned cruising level, she put the bird on autopilot and dug through her flight bag for let-down charts.

“Hadley’s a grass field,” she said. “Its field closes tonight until May 15.”

She looked at a calendar on her leg-board and said, “Boo!”

“What?” he said.

“Today’s Halloween, big boy.”





40

Service was on the 800 as soon as Nantz set the plane down on the grass. The sky was gray and roily, with an erratic light wind sending leaves fluttering in bunches from trees ringing the perimeter of the field. He saw the captain parked and waiting, and radioed Jake Mecosta. “We’re on the ground, where are you?”

“On the rim, directly above the target.”

“Where do you want us?”

“These guys are back and forth on the route I told you about. Best you come in from the up-water drop, and make sure you stay on the Reagan side.”

The up-water drop was Laughing Whitefish Falls. Reagan side meant conservative, therefore the right, which meant the east as they would come in. “Copy. We’ll call back when we start in.”

Mecosta responded, “Get set and I’ll come to you.”

Service acknowledged receipt with two clicks of the mike button.

Nantz helped him load his gear into the back of the captain’s truck. “I should head back,” she said.

The captain said, “I could use your help first.”

She smiled and got into the backseat.

McCants and the other officers were waiting in the small gravel parking lot at the trailhead that led to the falls. There was a green porta-john, a picnic table chained to a tree, a barbecue pit, and a sign with a map of the walking trail through the area. All of the officers carried packs and MAG-LITEs. McCants and Moody carried their recently issued rifles, Gary Ebony a shotgun.

The captain exhibited his usual calm. “I’ll take keys. This is too public to leave the vehicles. Ms. Nantz and I will move them to the original hide. There’s bottled water in back. Help yourselves.” They each took three one-liter bottles of water and put them in their packs.

Nantz looked like she wanted to hug him, but simply looked into his eyes and nodded. They had reached a point in their relationship when words weren’t necessary.

She and the captain left in two of the trucks as the group started the almost one-mile hike to the falls. It was a wide, groomed trail through second-growth beech and maple. The leaves of the maples ranged in color from red to orange.

There was a wooden stairway at the top of the falls that went down nearly two hundred feet into the canyon. The falls at the top dropped fifteen or twenty feet straight down onto a limestone and slate slope that sent the water cascading at a forty-five-degree angle. Ahead they could see open sky and canopies of forest, the leaves ranging from lavender to red and pink. The air smelled earthy and fishy. They stood on the top platform and Service laid out the situation for them.

“Pairs?” McCants asked.

“You and Gary, Gut and me. I’ll hook up with Jake later. Remember, we’re looking for a bear, one of a kind.” He let that thought sink in, took out the wrinkled computer image and passed it around. “It probably looks like this—blond, ninety to one hundred and forty pounds or so, with a mane like a lion.”

“I think I used to date her,” Ebony joked.

“Right tense on all your women,” McCants said, grinning.

Ebony grimaced.

“Focus,” Service said sharply. “These people have killed twice so far.”