Chapter 56
I made the call at nine in the morning. A couple of weeks ago, I had been surprised that there was cell phone service this far out in the forest in Montana, but I was not surprised this time. Here I was again, a cell phone in hand, calling 9-1-1, standing over a dead body.
“9-1-1, Teton County. What is your emergency?”
It wasn’t the same operator I talked to previously. This one sounded professional, but had an edge in her voice, as if she was tiring from answering too many calls that weren’t emergencies. No matter. I calmly told her the situation. Two dead bodies on the south rim of Spring Valley. Foreign prisoners being held illegally in the valley by heavily armed AWOL soldiers. Big fire burning a field of opium poppies. The row of graves dug in the dirt next to the huts in the valley. Large stash of cash in a safe. The operator kept asking questions, probing about all these improbable events, clearly choosing to be extremely skeptical about all of it. I just plowed on, repeating it all, throwing in names of those involved, such as Andrew Pine, Jefferson Wells, Matthew Gates, and Jeremy Mason. I told her my name and gave her the cell phone number from which I was calling.
She was overwhelmed. This was probably the biggest call she would ever take. It might be bigger than all the other calls she ever received combined. She told me to stay right where I was until emergency response personnel arrived. I politely told her that I was in the wilderness and was not going to wait. I couldn’t wait. I needed to transport two wounded persons to medical help: Allison and me. She protested, and I said something about the signal breaking up, and then hung up in mid sentence. I turned the phone off. She might try to call back. But when she couldn’t get through, she might simply conclude the signal had been lost or the phone battery had died. I hoped she wouldn’t consider it a crank call. But I didn’t think so. I had told her about so much mayhem that she had to report it to someone.
I reached the bottom of the hill, climbed over the barbed wire fence, and picked up Jeff’s walkie-talkie. There were no voices yelling any longer. There was just the crackle of static. They were all busy fighting the fire in the valley or packing up their opium and cash to run for their lives. They’d know that the valley soon would be swarming with fire fighters, county and state police, EMTs, and eventually DEA agents.
I fired up the ATV and headed for Jake’s cabin. On the ride, the reality of what had just occurred struck me. Before yesterday, I had never used a weapon of any kind on another human. Now, I had done more than that. I had killed people. All of it was justified, and I felt no remorse for them. They brought it on themselves. And I wasn’t keeping a tally as a badge of courage, though it gave me a certain sense of pride that I had fulfilled my sworn oath, to protect and to serve. Yet they were bad experiences that I could easily go without repeating.
While I didn’t regret these justified killings, one of them would haunt me. Allison might be forever angry with me. She had to believe me completely now. I had been right. But what was the cost? So many had died in my wake. And what hatred might she harbor when she learned I had killed her brother? Regardless of the outcome of that, I hoped that Jake had felt the blast and heard or seen the bigger signal. Then he would have taken Allison to a doctor. I would be forever grateful to him if he did.
There was less light now in the forest as I drove the ATV toward Jake’s cabin. The thick black smoke was blotting out the sun. When I got to the cabin, Jake’s truck was gone. I sighed with relief. With Allison safe, now I felt like it was finally over.
A wave of fatigue hit me like a tidal surge. I was dead on my feet, bleeding from wounds in my body and face. I was tired, filthy, thirsty, and hungry. It was time to follow Jake to town for medical help.
When I arrived in Willow Run, the town seemed deserted. Many were probably heading toward the National Forest to fight the fire, just like they did a year ago. I parked in front of the medical clinic next to Jake’s truck, walked through the front door, and collapsed just inside. I saw a blurred flash of two white-coated figures hustling toward me, and then slipped into blackness.