The others soon distracted me, though, as they began to tease me about missing out on the steaks.
“Took less time to prepare the steaks than it took for old Dave there to make his dog’s dinner,” Merrick said, and launched into an exaggerated tale of David’s elaborate preparation of Bingle’s food.
“Hey, I’ve got to take good care of Bingle,” David said. “¿Estás bien, Bingle?” Bingle, sitting between him and Ben, leaned over to kiss David on the ear.
“Goddamn,” Manton said, “you let that dog kiss you after he’s gone around licking dead bodies?”
“Bingle, he’s slandering you!” David said, in a tone that caused the dog to bark. “Bingle only kisses the living. Of course, a guy with breath like yours might confuse him, Manton, so maybe he won’t kiss you.”
“What is that stuff you feed him?” Flash Burden asked.
“Oh, that’s my own secret Super-Hero-In-Training formula.”
“It produces its own acronym,” Andy chimed in.
“Just don’t step in it like you stepped on my punch line, kid,” David said, but without malice.
Bingle lay quietly, ears forward, watching David. David, I noticed, spent a lot of time watching Bingle, too.
Andy asked about Bool, and David explained that he had injured one of his paws during the search for Kara Lane. “Bool gets involved in finding a scent, he doesn’t exactly watch where he’s going. He’ll be okay, but he’s not ready for a search like this one. I’ve got a friend who trains bloodhounds, he’s keeping an eye on Bool while I’m here.”
“This shepherd must be the smarter of the two,” Manton said.
David smiled. “Bingle is certainly a highly educated dog. He’s bilingual, too. ¿Correcto, Bingle?” Bingle sat up again and gave a single sharp bark. “And besides his cadaver training, he’s had voice training.”
“Voice training?” Manton asked.
“Cántame, Bingle,” David said, and began singing “Home on the Range.” Bingle chimed in with perfect pitch at the chorus. I’d swear we all heard that dog sing the lyrics. Nobody could keep a straight face. Almost nobody.
“Enough, David,” Ben said sharply.
Silence.
Everyone shifted a little uncomfortably, except for David and Bingle. Both dog and man looked at Ben, Bingle cocking his head to one side, puzzled.
“Ah, the discouraging word,” David said softly, without a trace of anger. He began quietly praising Bingle.
Ben stood and walked off.
5
TUESDAY, MAY 16, 2:25 A.M.
Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains
Nothing can keep you up all night as effectively as calculating what sort of condition you’ll be in the next day if you don’t fall asleep soon. I heard soft snoring from most of the other tents, including a double set of saws from the one where Bingle was curled up next to David. I heard the pacing first of Manton and Merrick, and later of Duke and Earl.
My claustrophobia kicked in — not able to stay long in the tent, soon I was sitting in its opening, watching the stars, listening to the insects, wondering what animals were making the other noises I heard — occasional rustlings and snapping sounds. Our food had been hung up high in bear bags, a safe three hundred feet from camp, but I wasn’t so sure we weren’t the object of ursine scrutiny.
I thought a lot about Frank — wondered if he were also lying awake, if the pilot’s radio message that we had arrived safely had reached him. I thought of my cousin Travis, who was staying with us. I thought about my dogs, my cat.
I tried hard to keep my thoughts away from memories of a particular time I had spent in the mountains, in a small room in a cabin, the captive of some rather brutal hosts. The nightmares induced by all that had happened there were fewer now, but I knew what might trigger them again — enclosed spaces, stress, new surroundings.
Think of something else.
I thought of Gillian Sayre. I thought of her mother. I stayed awake.
I was wondering if I should give in to the old memories of captivity, go ahead and think about them — dwell on them for God’s sake, if that would relieve the tension — when there was a sudden brightness on my face. A flashlight, quickly lowered. Both the path of the beam of light and the sound of footsteps made it clear that someone was making his way toward me. As he drew closer, I saw that it was Ben Sheridan. I moved to my feet as he reached me.
“Why are you awake?” he whispered, his breath fogging in the cold air. “It’s three in the morning.”
“Just waiting for my big chance to look through all your gear and touch everything that belongs to the Las Piernas P.D.,” I whispered back.
He was silent for a moment, then repeated, “Why are you awake?”
“Am I disturbing you?”
“No.”
“Well, then, why are you awake?”
“Shhh. Not so loud. You’ll wake the others.”
I waited.
“I did sleep,” he said.
“Not for long,” I said.
“You haven’t slept at all.”
“Ben, if you’ve slept, then how could you possibly know I haven’t?”
He started to move away again.
“I have problems with enclosed spaces,” I said.
He halted, then said, “Claustrophobia? The tent bothers you?”
“Yes.”
“Sleep outside.”
“It’s not just that.” But I couldn’t bring myself to say more.
We were interrupted then. Bingle had heard us, and he emerged from David’s tent, shaking himself as if he had just stepped out of a bath. Tufts of fur around his ears spiked out from his head, making him look genuinely woozy. The effect was comical.
David soon followed him out of the tent. Before I could apologize, David was whispering drowsily, “Hi, Ben. Need to borrow Bingle?”
“She does,” Ben said.
“What?” I asked, startled.
“Okay,” David said, turning to Bingle. “Duerme con ella,” he commanded in Spanish, pointing at me. Sleep with her. Bingle happily trotted over — and flopped down next to me.
“Wait a minute—”
“Keep him warm and he’ll be okay,” David said, and went back into his tent.
I looked up at Ben in some exasperation.
“He’ll wake you if you start to have a nightmare,” Ben said, and started to walk off.
“Who said anything about nightmares?” I asked.
He looked over his shoulder, then said, “No one.” He kept walking.
Bingle was watching me, a look of expectation on his face.
I sighed and got into my sleeping bag. Bingle did a brief inspection of the interior of the tent, then lay down next to me. He moved restlessly for a moment or two, until he seemed to find a position he liked — resting his head on my shoulder.
“Comfy?” I asked.
He snorted.
I buried a hand in his thick coat, and found myself smiling. A few minutes later, I was asleep.
I awakened briefly when Bingle left me the next morning, but slept in a little longer, until the sounds of the camp stirring to life were too much to snooze through.
Not long after breakfast, we left the base camp. Only the pilot stayed behind with the heaviest gear. Parrish claimed that Julia Sayre was buried at least a day’s hike from the airstrip. Backpacks on, we began our journey into the forest.
Our progress was slow. Following the lead of a man who was handcuffed and heavily guarded — and perhaps savoring his last days outside of prison — was only part of the reason for our sluggish pace.
Ben and David had extra equipment to be carried, beyond the usual camping gear, and were heavily loaded down.
The group was large, and within it our level of experience varied from novice to expert. I suppose I fell somewhere in the middle; plenty of time spent hiking and backpacking, but nothing recent. J.C., the ranger, was undoubtedly the most seasoned backpacker, with Andy a close second; Flash, Houghton, David, and Ben only a little less so, but all were certainly at home in the outdoors. Bob Thompson and Phil Newly were the apparent novices. Duke was the oldest of the guards — he had shown me a photo of his new grandson, and a story about his high school days made me guess that he was in his early fifties. He was in better shape than Merrick or Manton, who were in their early thirties. Earl, somewhere in between in age, was also somewhere in between in fitness.