The water was icy cold. Walt was in up to his knees, wading across a small tributary that fed the Middle Fork, leading his gelding by the reins, the creek bottom too uneven to risk riding across.
“How far?” he called ahead.
“The ranch is one-point-two miles due west,” Brandon answered. “It’s closer to three miles, if we turn south and head for the put-in.”
“Keep it down!” his father called out.
“Shut up,” Walt called back to him. “We’re working this out.”
His father had been acting the taciturn, grumpy old man all night, preferring to ride ahead and keep to himself, believing, no doubt, that riding ahead meant he was the leader. He hadn’t been out in the field for nearly twenty years. Walt could understand it if his father were reliving the manhunt for D. B. Cooper, which had both defined him and limited his advancement at the Bureau. He’d gone on to do great things, was considered a leading expert on counterterrorism, but bringing home Cooper and the money would have turned him into a legend. He’d been churning inside over it for thirty years. He’d been taking it out on his family the whole time.
Garman continued his overflights of the ranch, at an altitude and in a flight pattern that kept him invisible from the ground. But soon the rising sun would catch the plane. There was time for only a few more passes.
Walt had made several calls to Kevin’s phone, left three messages. Then Garman had flown in a pattern that allowed Kevin’s phone to be logged on to the repeater for a full fifteen minutes. That, in turn, let the GPS track the cell phone. The coordinates placed it at Mitchum’s Ranch.
Garman was continuing to make calls to Kevin’s phone each time he flew over the ranch. Kevin had not answered any of the calls. And he hadn’t returned any of Walt’s messages.
The good news was, they had confirmation of the cell phone’s location. The bad news was, that information would be impossible to keep from the FBI. Mitchum’s Ranch would be the target of an aerial-and-ground assault by noon.
They had as few as three hours and maybe as many as six to locate and rescue Kevin ahead of an FBI Special Forces intervention that Jerry was convinced would result in a body count.
Brandon had discovered an unnamed dotted line on the map crossing the river near Mitchum’s Creek that intrigued Walt but would require a detour to investigate. Jerry openly objected to any delay. He was currently trailing the pack horse and favored making for the upriver put-in and floating down to Mitchum’s Ranch. Their arguing had continued for the past forty-five minutes, ever since Brandon’s discovery. A call to the office hadn’t helped. No one could find out what the line on the map indicated.
“There are no power lines in a wilderness area,” Jerry reasoned. “The dotted line could mean anything. A dam? A culvert? Whatever it is, it’s not worth the delay to find out.”
Now on the far side of the creek, Jerry remounted his horse and, taking the pack horse’s lead rope, headed due west.
“Dad!” Walt called out after him.
Jerry spun around in his saddle.
“There’s no time to play hunches. We know we can float in. We go with the given.”
“It’s on the map for a reason,” Walt said. “Going onto the river will cost us an extra two hours.”
“No. The waste of time is heading for a dotted line that doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t get you anywhere. Kevin doesn’t have time for this.”
His father couldn’t handle the raft alone and all three men knew it.
“Okay. You and Brandon will get the float gear to the put-in. We have radios. I’ll ride ahead and see what I can see. We’ll stay in touch.”
“We’re not waiting for you,” Jerry said. He turned and rode off.