Natural Drift

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

For my brother, Dennis, an enthusiast―

"I tell you there’re few things in life more exciting

than watching your bobber go down."

D.M.B. (1943-1999)

CHAPTER 1

(Tuesday, October 18)

From a block away, Sheriff Axel Cooper saw her on the deck of the Grant Café, a main street restaurant. She had made it down from Billings. He couldn’t help but smile.

As he approached her, Dr. Anne Lynwood jumped up from her chair.

So, she said, what did the governor line up for you?

They met with a loose hug and he gently pushed her auburn hair back behind her ear and kissed the nape of her neck. As they moved to the table and sat down, he touched his index finger to his lips. He took off his broad-brimmed hat and raked his fingers through his grizzled hair.

The raid is on, he said softly. To hit the ranch before sunup Thursday, we’ve got to leave town tomorrow, late afternoon. The whole crew is already here. The ‘Light Brigade’ is still working on their signals. Stayin’ at the Matterhorn.

Wow, the ‘Light Brigade.’ I thought they got wiped out in the Crimean War. ‘Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred.’

Axel smiled. Strobe lights and 50,000 watt spotlights. Part of the intimidation plan.

"So, what are you going to do? What’s this all about? she asked. A big secret?"

Course. We want them there when we get there. He breathed deeply and leaned across the table. "We’re gonna raid a meth lab at a ranch out east. The Feds are running it and, man, are they. I’ve just spent six hours in a time-warp. Fifty years in the future. The POB, Pre-Operations Briefing, don’t ya know. It was as though I was in a foreign country where they spoke their own language and had a whole different way of doing things. A lot of strange dudes. Then, as if confiding a secret code, he whispered, They don’t need me. Really, I don’t think they even want me. I’m just another burdensome prerequisite. I’m the local liaison. It’s like the federal forty-two-page book on Montana ranch raids calls for a local liaison. So I am their guy!"

He smiled broadly and flipped his palms up to frame his face like a circus clown. Just as quickly he dropped his hands to the table and returned to a serious look. And then there’s Ham Frazier, my old boss. He’s pretty gung-ho.

Axel took a deep draw of the beer that Anne had brought out to the deck table from the bar. Good Stuff!

He sat up straight. At just under six feet, Axel was not tall, but his erect posture, trim waist and broad chest gave him the appearance of greater height. He shook his shoulders to work out a muscle twitch. Ham behaved himself. He was quite civil, showed extreme patience with the Feds—on the verge of sucking up to them. The Feds loved him. Maybe it’s just me who can’t get along with him. I was ready to ask if he had qualified as a local liaison, so he could take my place. No need for both of us. He laughed aloud. He took another swallow of his beer and then peered into the liquid through the clear glass stein.

Anne waited quietly, watching Axel’s every move.

Actually, one of his guys, a young trooper, asked one too many questions and Hilton, the U.S. Marshal from Denver, called him out. Never to return. Axel paused and took another sip of beer. I think Hilton isn’t interested in explaining himself to anybody, let alone to a twenty-six-year-old trooper. Kid asked a reasonable question about backup support. Hilton said the answer is ‘above your pay grade, and if I were you, I’d focus on showing up on time!’ Definitely an edgy guy.

Axel let that sink in and then said, Ham told me that the governor wanted him to line me up, but Ham told the governor to call me himself. Got a laugh outta that. Ham hasn’t forgotten either. Thing is, he’s more local than I am. I only qualify as a local with folks who aren’t from Montana.

Axel Cooper held the distinction of being the first elected Montana County Sheriff in the last sixty years who wasn’t born in the state. Anne twisted her mouth to an awkward smile. Anne was a native Montanan, and Axel knew that it takes a long time to become a Montanan to Montanans.

What happened at the meeting? she asked. She picked up her wine glass and took a sip of the hearty cabernet.

Those Feds from Denver got a different view of the way the world works and a vocabulary to match. He slowly turned his head back and forth to scan the empty tables on the deck of the Grant Cafe. It’s a plan only a bunch of techno-geeks could come up with. I swear they went to school in Cal Tech’s military logistics department. They’ve got probability distributions on the most salient variables—the MSVs. Satellite photos, coverage matrices, cognitive disorientation, perceptual exhaustion, terms of engagement, objective lethality. Sounds like an Internet world-dominance game.

He paused to take another sip of his beer. Ya know, Jefferson, our dear, professorial governor, heard this plan and labeled it ‘elegantly simple.’ Could he really come up with that line himself? ‘Bout as elegant as a sledge hammer. And ‘simple’ no, that doesn’t apply either. Simple like the electrical wiring of a new car. ‘Elegantly simple,’ no way!

Axel slid his chair closer to hers. One thing for sure, we’ve got to keep this under wraps until the raid’s over. Nine of us. Hit the ranch just before sun up, Thursday morning.

He paused for a moment. Then he asked her, Have you heard anything about the Irish Kingdom lately?

You guys going to the Kingdom?

Yep! One of their seasonal operations. Pretty far up the hill. On the other side of the Custer National Forest past Arlyn’s place. Axel’s brother Arlyn had a small ranch on McNally Creek about twenty miles east of Grant.

The Irish Kingdom. Mmmmm. Seems everybody’s got their own view. Some talk about it like it’s a private club, others a secret society, a wing of the IRA. I think that’s a stretch. I think it’s a pretty loose family group that cooperates when it can. Not so much illegal as sort of outside the system. They certainly aren’t really public. Keep to themselves. There was one kid in high school, Patrick O’Neill, who always claimed his granddad was the big mover and shaker with them, the king of the Kingdom. Dad, he did business with them in the seventies. But, I think he got stiffed. Never got paid after he delivered the goods—windows, I think. When he told them that he’d have to take the windows back, they said, go ahead and try. Can’t say he holds them in high esteem. Long memory.

Windows?

Yeah, they wholesaled everything, he and my Uncle Don. Doors, windows, farm equipment, plastic pond liners. They loved the role of the middle man. I swear Dad could fill an empty warehouse with ten telephone calls and sell it all with another hundred calls. Dad’d be a good resource if you needed a Who’s Who in the Kingdom. Christ, he’d give you the scorecard for the last fifty years.

Well, I’m not ready for that. The Feds think there’s a meth plant working in the Kingdom, and they’re going in to bust it. One of the out-ranches at 7,000 feet east of Mt. Elliott, off the backside of Dead Horse Plateau. Crestfallen, that’s the name of the ranch. Nobody lives there full-time. Close it up for the winter.

"Yeah, Crestfallen? she laughed. Doesn’t sound too positive."

Axel stared straight ahead, twirling the remaining liquid in his glass.

Well, somebody named it that. I gotta believe this is a renegade operation. From what I’ve seen, the Kingdom’s almost mainstream nowadays, legit. As Rankin County Sheriff, I get zero business out of the Kingdom. It’s got to be a couple of young guys can’t hack ranch work. This isn’t a sanctioned profit center.

She pursed her lips in concentration.

"Are you serious? A commando raid? That’s what your session today was about? They still do stuff like that? Sounds like the Mexicans attacking the Alamo. Remember Grenada? D-Day. Any paratroopers? What do you have to do with it? Out east there’s a lot of federal land, Forest Service, BLM, Park Service. Is it even your jurisdiction?"

Yeah, it’s my jurisdiction. Well, we start in the County Forest Preserve. Go across some Forest Service land, but the ranch is private property. In the county, but, that’s not the point. The whole shebang is a federal thing on an old warrant. A fugitive from a federal indictment. That’s why it is the U.S. Marshal rather than the FBI. They say they need me as an insider—lay-of-the-land sort of thing. No, I’m not looking to arrest anybody. Halfway through the first presentation today, topography, I figured brother Arlyn’s better equipped for this than me, and with all their maps and satellite photos they know as much about Dead Horse Plateau as I do. Hell, I’m just a guide.

So … you’re what … some kind of Sacajawea? she asked, referring to the female Shoshone guide of the Lewis and Clark expedition. But a raid? In the middle of the night? Do they have a drama deficiency or something?

Basically, they want to drop down on the ranch from the backside, down from Dead Horse—surround ‘em before dawn. Call ‘em out. Reinforcements on wheels appear only after we’ve secured the ranch. As he started to describe the plan, Axel realized how wild-west it sounded.

Over Dead Horse Plateau in October? she said.

At night.

At night? She pushed out her chin and tilted her head. "So, at 10,000 feet, it’s been snowing off and on since Labor Day. Is there any accumulation? This is on the north side. You could make good time across Dead Horse, if you don’t get blown off, but once you drop down off the far side, even with a full moon, which you won’t have, you’ll be lucky to make two miles an hour. You might miss the snow, but it sure as hell will be cold. Good wind across that plateau could make it feel ten or fifteen degrees colder. Hope you’ve got a helicopter?"

No, too noisy. We’re driving to the end of the gravel to the Ajax trailhead, then hiking up, across, and down. He modeled a flat-topped plateau with his hands.

You’re hiking the whole way? Have you done this before? Do you know what you’re getting into?

Well, I drove an ATV up there yesterday afternoon. Took a coupla hours. Trails up and across are pretty good. No real snow. Couple of patches. Going down at the right place could be hairy. There’s a bit of a trail through the woods. I left a bunch of traffic cones to mark the way. Measured out the miles and marked the cones on the Plateau. Nine-mile hike. Tough part’s gonna be the last stretch, coming down to the ranch. About a mile through the woods.

Anne smiled at Axel. They both knew that regardless of her concerns, the hike was going to proceed according to Axel’s plan. So, what do you think of the U.S. Marshal? Hilton. Did he wear a star with a big ‘U.S.’ stamped in the middle?

No star. Not yet, at least. Yesterday I talked to a friend of mine, Jim Faraday. We worked together at the Montana State Patrol. He’s with FBI—Denver now. He called Jack Hilton a George Patton on steroids. From today’s meeting, I think Faraday’s got it ‘bout right. Hilton was in the Marine Corps. A major, a step above captain. Story is he got passed over for lieutenant colonel—too rough on the civilians in Iraq. Now he’s a one-star general in the Colorado National Guard. Don’t know how that works. He’s about fifty. Shaves his head. Seems mad at the world. Gut ‘bout as round as his head; three times as big. Got to be 6’3, 280. Big guy, more thick than fat, solid, pushy. Uses his body for physical intimidation. I saw a lot of guys like him when I was in the Coast Guard. Only get so far."

Anne nodded, but said nothing.

Axel continued, He’s got a real attitude. This is his gig and he’ll take no flak from anybody. Apparently he’s got some connections. Strong enough to keep him on the job, in spite of some reprimands and shooting two guys in federal custody—one guy a handcuffed mobster.

Anne’s eyebrows jumped up on her forehead. She said, How’d he handle the meeting? Today.

Very much into control. He ran the meeting as though our raid was an elaborate military campaign. As though he was the supreme commander coordinating naval bombardment, air power and the marines on the beach. Very directive, ‘better mind your manners,’ stuff like that. Hilton’s got a plan. Can’t say he’s told us everything. Like, why’s there no one else from the U.S. Marshal’s office in on this raid. This is formally a U.S. Marshal operation, out of Denver. But the team’s made up of Hilton, two guys from the DEA, two South Dakota troopers, Ham and his two remaining MSP guys and me. The DEA guys don’t even report to Hilton. He had a couple of his staffers here. But they’re not hiking. Very strange. He’s in a rush, like this ranch could disappear next week. He’s a real smart-ass. He makes jabs like, ‘Has Rankin County got mobile phones yet?’ and tries to play us off against one another. Like I should care what some South Dakota trooper thinks of me. Spent ten minutes talking about the Langley Rules of Engagement—Level 5 plus. Special rules. Langley, like CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. We can’t shoot first. If they start firing at us, we can’t even shoot back unless they’re really good and have a good chance of killing us. So, we let them shoot at us and wait for them to get really close so we can shoot back at ‘em.

Anne shook her head and said, Sounds like a supreme court case to me. You’d better bring an objective observer or three to authorize return fire!

Axel started up again, Then in the afternoon, he’s in the back of the room while a guy from the DEA tells us about how dangerous meth production is: exploding gases. So we don’t blow up the place. Hilton lights up a cigar. We’re in the basement of the county building—no smoking. So I told him he’d have to smoke outside. He stands up, stops the presentation, gets right in my face and says, ‘Whatcha gonna do, Sheriff? Arrest me?’ His stomach was about six inches from my fist. I swear he did it to create a confrontation. Smoke alarm went off before we came to blows.

Anne was back to working on logistics. She said, And you’ll have to have night-vision goggles. You guys sporting flashlights coming down off the Plateau, you’re gonna look like the seven dwarfs with their lanterns. ‘Hi ho, Hi ho, it’s off to work we go.’ Or the night grooming crew at the ski hill. ‘Here we are!!’ Who thought this up? Hilton himself or some committee of brainiacs? Tell me they’re not from L.A. Are those terms of engagement normal?

Axel had learned that Anne had a particular disdain for Los Angeles. She had little interest in most big cities. She would occasionally pronounce that God didn’t put her on this earth to support mass transit in Manhattan. Today it was Los Angeles.

To many Montanans, Axel was an Eastern flatlander, a relative urbanite. So he was on high alert whenever Anne landed on an urban-rural issue. Axel wasn’t an advocate for one over another, they were just different. He didn’t disparage his hometown of Evanston, Illinois, the first suburb north of Chicago. It was just the place where he grew up. While he had good family memories, he was happy where he was and wasn’t looking to go back or even get into extensive comparisons.

His personal coming-of-age was in the Coast Guard in Florida, dealing with drug runners, drunken boaters and illegal aliens. After that, the sedate family insurance business had little appeal, so Axel chased down his older brother in south-central Montana. At first, it was going to be just a month break. But then he met a girl and started looking for work. The MSP needed troopers and his Coast Guard service gave him a ten-point bonus on the entrance exam, so he stayed. Now, Montana was home.

Brother Arlyn, an electrician and a part-time fishing guide, had once called Axel’s life adventure a natural drift, comparing it to the desired movement of a fisherman’s trout fly floating downstream at the same rate as the stream’s current: going with the flow. Axel couldn’t deny the lack of an overarching plan for his life, but wasn’t ready to embrace Arlyn’s analogy.

Anne was proud of her family’s Montana heritage and her firsthand experience with avalanches, below-zero temperatures, six-foot snowdrifts, bears, moose, snow on the Fourth of July and a forty-eight-day growing season. Simple, independent, basic, pure, strong, even rough were high-order attributes. Axel considered her disdain for Los Angeles another element of her Montana-ness, and let it ride.

Well, Denver’s not L.A., exactly, but might as well be. I don’t believe most of these Federales have left the safety of their cubicles since training. Axel enjoyed his pronunciation of Federales, with a phony Spanish accent, tacitly comparing them to the much-maligned Mexican federal police.

But Jack Hilton’s something else. He’s never seen a cubicle. He’s a wild man.

The waitress interrupted to bring out the dinners Anne had ordered, and as Axel called for another beer, they lapsed into silence. He picked up his fork and pushed the fried potatoes off to the edge of the plate.

After three bites of his steak he looked up at Anne and smiled. He leaned back. Her voluminous hair, which she usually tied back in a bun or ponytail, was loose and catching every deck breeze. The so-faint freckles across her nose and her gymnast’s stature made her look much younger than she actually was. High cheekbones and a ready smile. A midlife Little Orphan Annie.

As the sun dropped below the horizon, a quick chill sent Anne and Axel off the deck into the restaurant. Nursing the last of his beer, Axel said, I’ve got some pretty decent coffee at my place, and we might be able to catch the end of the White Sox play-off game from the neighbor’s satellite.

She smiled at his indirect invitation to spend the night. It was not a surprise—she had her own key. He obviously was not up to saying, Hey honey, let’s go to my place and go to bed.

I’m not really that into the White Sox, Anne said with a smile that made his pulse rush.

Glad to hear it.

They settled the bill and walked the three blocks back to his house.

He’d started the rehab project two years ago. It was an authentic coal miner’s shack, built cheap and fast a hundred years ago, long before a methane explosion closed the mine. It had two rooms up, two rooms down with a tiny cement-block cellar. The remainder of the foundation was comprised of un-mortared river rock supporting creosote-soaked railroad ties. Brother Arlyn, the electrician, had ruled the electrical system fragile before Axel ever bought the place. The farther he got into the rehab, the more complicated it became.

For the last year, Axel had spent most nights at Arlyn’s ranch, a dilapidated house and barn on eight hundred acres without any cattle. The appeal for Arlyn was that it bordered the Custer National Forest and had frontage on McNally Creek, a red-ribbon trout stream.

Axel was developing a strange affinity for his city house. It was his and his alone. It had character and what the Realtor called provenance. It had been through a lot. It deserved some attention. And besides, as an unmarried, small-county sheriff, Axel felt he needed a project to keep from getting into trouble.

Just before they rounded the corner in front of the house, Axel swung his arm around the small of Anne’s back, so that as she turned the corner his hand slowly slid to her hips. Anne looked back at Axel in mild reproach. He fought to keep a straight face.

As he got out his house key and stepped up onto the porch to unlock the door, she moved up behind him and with her small but strong hands seized his hips and said, Hey, Sheriff, did you bring your gun?

Axel smiled as he swung the door open. He scanned the living room. Axel said, Well, Pilgrim, I think we’ll have to look upstairs. It’s certainly not down here.

As Axel turned and swung the door closed, Anne again stepped up behind him so that when he turned back to the room, they were face-to-face, inches apart.

He beamed, embraced her, and closed his eyes. His fingertips brushed her hair as they inched their way up her back. She sighed and opened her eyes.

Where did you say those stairs were? she breathed, her voice heavy.

I don’t know …, he mumbled, nuzzling into the side of her neck, slowly kissing the pale, freckled skin revealed as her shirt collar fell open.

He drew her over to the single piece of furniture in the room, an old, dusty Lazy Boy.

Axe, honey, can’t we find something more comfortable? Like a rock pile maybe? She was teasing. Sort of.

Okay, you win. I don’t mind, he said illogically. As she moved, he kept his roaming hands on her.

He side-stepped over the chair’s massive armrest and slid into the wide chair and awkwardly pulled her down, face-to-face. She laughed as she turned and fell sideways into his lap, releasing an explosion of sawdust that neither of them noticed.

CHAPTER 2

(Tuesday, October 18)

A tall, raw-boned man with a long, weathered face, Sven Thordahl slowly crested the sharp ridge of the nameless foothill in his all-terrain vehicle.

He stopped and planted both feet on the ground. As he set the emergency hand brake and slowly swung his stiff right leg over the four-wheeler, Sven saw movement two hundred yards out across the canyon on the near-vertical rock wall. He froze and then settled his airborne knee on the ATV’s padded seat. Then he slowly slid his knee off the seat and crouched behind the ATV. He was riveted on a large animal. It was almost solid black, and was slowly and cautiously picking its way down the sheer face. The rancher’s breathing slowed.

Yes, it was a wolf, not a coyote. He whispered to himself, "Who in the hell thought up the idea of bringing wolves back to Yellowstone, a goddamned zoo without bars? Wilderness, my ass. Probably some desk jockey never worked a day in his life. Bad enough, they let stupid-ass buffalo in there; walking bacteria colonies. Wolves. Who needs wolves? Damnation, might as well hobble the rancher with on-site inspections from the animal rights brigade. Next, they will probably protest branding calves, tagging their ears. Inhumane. Today there’s going to be one less wolf on this Montanan’s ranch.

He slowly drew his rifle from the plastic scabbard bolted to the ATV, careful not to bang the sides. He cradled the rifle while he closely examined a bullet. It was one he had reloaded himself years