Page 18 of Midnight Ride

“Okay. Obviously they want to talk to me. Why?”

“They don’t think my office has been looking hard enough for the other hunters who were with the victim when he was killed. In particular, the victim’s sons.”

Wyatt frowned. “So, all this time you’ve been looking for that hunting party? Why weren’t they at the campsite where the shooting took place? Not the murderer—he probably wouldn’t hang around, but the others.”

“We can’t find any of them and I don’t want that in the paper. In fact, I don’t want any of the crazy story in the paper until I know myself what the hell is going on.”

“What does it mean, Travis?” asked Wyatt. “A man is shot. Wouldn’t his sons stop hunting and accompany their father’s body home for the funeral? I don’t understand.”

“Me neither. Steven Oliver’s body is still in our morgue. No funeral home in Pocatello, Idaho, has come to pick the body up.”

“That seems odd, and now the wife is here?”

“Yes,” said Travis. “Nobody in the hunting party—eight of them to start with—called in the shooting when it happened.”

“How did you find out?”

“A neighboring rancher heard several shots fired close together and he was the one who called. He thought it was a handgun, but Doctor Olson has since refuted that. I’m not getting into the ballistics issue. That’s evidence and I can’t go there.”

“What does the victim’s wife want with newspaper coverage?” asked Wyatt.

“She says her sons are missing and she’s threatening to call in the feds.”

Wyatt frowned. “Does she think her boys were kidnapped?”

Travis shook his head. “Those boys weren’t kidnapped. No fucking way. Something dark is going on and I have to find the entire hunting party before another body turns up. The way they’ve disappeared, I’m thinking they don’t want to be found. I’m not sure they’re still in this area, for chrissakes. They could be long gone to Saskatchewan. Monday was days ago.”

“Okay, I’ve got the bare bones of your dilemma. Let me talk to the wife and see what she’s saying.”

“We need to talk again before you print anything,” said Travis.

“Sure thing. Can we meet for lunch?”

“Yeah. Good plan. Find out her plans and meet us at noon at the diner in Coyote Creek.”

“Yep,” said Wyatt. “This is interesting. I’m keen to pursue it and follow the story to its conclusion.”

“I wish I had a conclusion,” mumbled Travis.

Clay Canyon.

Billy parked his truck behind a couple of pickups, and we started walking into the trees looking for the campsite these hunters had set up.

Not too far in from the road, we found it easily enough. A couple of tents and a circle of stones for a fire pit. Looked prettynormal. The guys were getting ready to go out for the day. Four of them. No twins in sight. All four of them young guys and their truck tags said they were from Arkansas.

“You boys are a long way from home,” said Billy.

The guy slinging his rifle over his shoulder grinned. “Yep, we are. Our first long-distance hunting trip. Me and my buddies only done coon hunting with our dogs before, Sheriff. This is our big adventure.”

“Hope you have good luck,” said Billy. “We’re looking for a big group of hunters with twin boys among them. You guys see any big parties like that?”

The guy shook his head.

I added, “The boys are young. Just turned twenty-one. You see any real young hunters?”

“Might have seen about six guys together a few days ago and a couple of them might have been younger, but I can’t remember. We’ve crossed paths with quite a lot of guys so far. All of them seemed okay to me. Just regular guys out hunting.”

“Where did you see the group with the younger guys?”

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