They came to a larger pool ringed with small-leafed plants growing in patches as thick as a mat. The plants were anchored in the mud, with buoyant stems and leaves above the water. Gray brought out a plastic bag from his backpack, stooped over the pool, and tore bunches of the plant away from the water. He put several handfuls into the plastic bag before returning the bag to the pack.
"What is that?" the detective asked.
"Watercress."
"It grows in streams?"
"Where did you think it came from?"
Coates shrugged. "From grocery stores."
Gray shook his head. "Don't get near those stinging nettles." He waved a hand at a five-foot-tall bank of nettles in front of them. The stem, leaf stalks, and veins on the undersurface of the leaves had stinging hairs that injected poison into skin like hypodermic needles. Gray had to turn sideways to slip between the nettles and the water, sidestepping on a narrow ledge.
"You think I'm a city slicker who doesn't know nettles when he sees them," Coates groused.
He followed Gray, scooting along sideways, hanging his hands out over the creek away from the nettle leaves. The path turned away from the creek for a few yards. They walked over goose grass and creeping buttercup. The stream flowed through a ravine filled with hemlock and mountain laurel. Leaves were still damp from the storm the night before, but the strip of sky visible above Gray, seen from the shadows of the ravine, was rinsed and smiling and lapis blue. Gray smelled the pungent treacly odor of yarrow. The Shoshone had brewed a tea from its fernlike leaves. They passed several bunches of the plant.
Gray looked over his shoulder. "You ever been out here before?"
"Never."
"You'll like Idaho."
"In New York we pronounce it 'Iowa.' "
"Did you bring any outdoor clothing?"
"I wear a tie when I'm on business." Coates's gray sports coat was dappled with water spots from the leaves. He wore a red tie and white shirt. His pants cuffs were ragged from the vines. "And when you said your place was in the mountains, I sort of envisioned the Poconos, not this wild place. Aren't you supposed to put asphalt on these paths, and handrails?"
Gray had picked up Pete Coates at the Hailey airport two hours ago, a Horizon Air flight up from Twin Falls. During the drive, Coates had told Gray of the murder of the three FBI agents. Gray had never before seen the detective's hands tremble. Now, feeling each owed it to the other, both men were trying to generate a good humor neither felt.
"Watch the creek bank," Gray said. "It's soft here."
"Where?" As Coates asked, the bank crumbled under his feet and his left leg plunged into the water to his knee. The creek boiled around his leg and wicked up his pants to his crotch. He flailed the air wildly before his hands seized a laurel branch to lever himself out.
"There," Gray said.
He began climbing out of the ravine along a path he had known since he could walk, a trail so stitched into his memory that a growth of moss on a feldspar outcropping caught his eye as new and a stretch of stones near the rim of the creek canyon was brighter than he remembered; and when he glanced skyward he saw that the bathtub-sized raven's nest that had been in the nearby aspen for a generation was gone, perhaps blown down in a storm, allowing more sun to reach the ground.
Pete Coates scrabbled up the path behind Gray, leaving a wet shoe print every other step. His damp trousers clung to his leg. His eyeglasses flashed on and off in the dappled sunlight below the trees. Near the rim the detective's leather brogans could not find purchase on the pebbles and loose dirt, and he churned his legs, slipping with each step. Gray grabbed his wrist and lifted him over the top.
Coates shook away Gray's hand and said with indignation that was mostly mock, "You think this gives you some sort of moral authority over me, don't you? Out here in the land time forgot, showing me the ropes, watching me cope."
"One of your shirttails is out."
Coates tucked himself in. "Just like I've been showing you the ins and outs of New York all these years."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you asked for the tour of the property."
"Now you get the chance to lord it over this city slicker." Coates followed Gray toward the cabin. "You are positively glowing with it, parading your knowledge. You know what the biggest difference is between you and me, Owen?"
"I'm afraid to ask."
"It's this: I know crime and criminals. I know the underside of life, the rot of the big city, the vicious and the cruel, the myriad ways to squander lives, the complexity of urban life. And you know watercress."
Gray laughed.
"What happened to this garage?"
"It was a rickety old woodshed. Wind probably blew it down."
"Pretty violent storm, must've been, to hack out wood chips from the support poles just like an axe."
"You don't miss much, do you, Pete?"
They approached the home. A panel truck was parked near the porch. The vehicle was unmarked, but Gray knew it belonged to the FBI. On the porch Adrian Wade pointed directions to two technicians who carried a fax machine and computer into the house. The technicians returned to the truck to pull out a five-foot-diameter satellite dish.
Gray muttered, "She's going to make my place look like Houston Control."
A black-and-white police car was also parked on the gravel. The blue bubble was on the dashboard, not on the cab roof. On the door was a complicated insignia featuring a braying elk, a medieval gauntlet gripping a lightning bolt, a miner's shovel, and a fleur-de-lis. The insignia had resulted from a Hobart High School art class contest in the 1940s. Above the insignia were the words "Hobart Police Department." The police officer was sitting on the car's hood watching the truck being unloaded, and watching Adrian in particular.
When he saw Owen Gray, the man's face wrinkled into a grin, and he slid to the ground and crossed the gravel, hand out in front of him. He pumped Gray's hand, and then he continued to hold it, patting it like he might a child's, smiling all the while.
"Tell me you are moving back into the Sawtooths, and that handsome woman is your bride."
Gray smiled. "Walt, I'm only here for a while."
"And that's not your wife?"
"Lord, no. She's a combination ninja assassin and Grand Inquisitor, and I'm not related to her in any way." He introduced Coates to Hobart Police Chief Walt Durant.
Walt Durant had a doughy face. His mouth was wide and his lower lip hung an inch out of his mouth and was always damp. His nose was the size of a light bulb and was lined with burst capillaries. Acne had left pits high on his neck below his ears. With small gaps between every one of his teeth, his smile resembled a picket fence. He was bald except for a horseshoe of gray hair from temple to temple. Durant was walleyed, and Gray never knew whether the chief was looking at him or staring over Gray's shoulder at something more interesting. Durant was wearing a tan uniform shirt and slacks. Above his badge were four citation plates awarded by the city council, each representing five years of distinguished service. Gray had heard the chief complain that it was cheaper for the city to give him a medal than a raise. Durant wore a holstered revolver on a Sam Browne. Also on the belt were a handcuff case and two bullet dumps. He had left his hat on the car seat.