No Time To Wave Goodbye Part 14

It was as though he hadn't spoken. The sheriff said, "I'm going to have to call off the formal search until this fog clears off."

"The FBI guy said maybe they could authorize more," Vincent said.

"I hope he does," said Sheriff Switch. "Let them come. As long as they let me organize them, I welcome them. This is a tiny county with limited resources. This is only our second numbered case that wasn't a broken mailbox or a kid with a bag of pot this whole year. The other one ended in a tragedy. It will take time, though, to put this together."

"Could I hire her?" Vincent asked again. "This Lorrie Sabo?"

"She's on leave." The tall sheriff got up and stood looking out her window in the little office that reminded Vincent of every place he'd ever waited to have his oil changed-old-mustard walls and cast-off furniture, the tabletops invisible under layers of long-outdated magazines and strange tracts that called attention to everything from youth baseball to Bible study. She kneaded her lower back and Vincent noticed how slender she really was. Half a head taller than he was but probably didn't weigh as much. She finally said quietly, "I will say this. If it was my niece, I'd pay Lorrie anything she wanted and get anyone else who had brains and any sense of the wilderness to go with me and I'd be out there myself right now. It's not the right thing to do, but I would. And if she gave up, I would not. I would keep going."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

The sheriff herself drove him to Lorrie Sabo's house, and waited with Vincent while he called his father. He asked Pat to call Ben. Then they went inside together.

Lorrie Sabo was making soup. It was something she did every Sunday with her daughters-putting away meals for the week. To Switch, Lorrie Sabo said, "Sarah. I was wondering when you'd come."

"It's up to you," the sheriff told her.

"I have two daughters, sir," said Lorrie, a small, compact woman younger than Vincent's mother, but not by much. "So yes, of course, I'll try. But on my terms. And that means no one except me goes ..."

Vincent said quietly, "I have to go."

"Absolutely not. I go alone, and in this weather, I might take my buddy Greg, or have him come in if I need him ..." Switch nodded. Apparently, everyone knew who Greg was. "No one else."

"I need to go. And my brother needs to go. Stella is his child."

"When was the last time you climbed slick rock in the snow?"

"I've never climbed any rock in the snow. But I have to go. Her father has to go." Vincent added, "You're lucky his mother-in-law isn't insisting on coming. She's a police officer too."

"I'm not going to put up a tent with an air mattress and cook eggs and bacon. I'll eat meals you add a little water to to get them to taste like c.r.a.p. Most of what I carry will be for Romy ..."

Vincent leaned against the wall. Okay, he thought. He'd spent a lifetime faking his way out of most things he'd stumbled into. And he could do this too. He waited until the woman had wound down, her last shot involving something about chocolate and buffalo jerky.

Then he told her, "You might think looking at me that I'm some spoiled little boy from palm-tree land but I grew up in a neighborhood where you wouldn't last ten minutes even with your trail mix and your big old deer rifle over there." This wasn't even remotely true but he had a feeling that Lorrie Sabo would buy the bluff. Already, he saw something in her eyes lift a lid. "I know it's not a matter of strength or how many hours I put in at the gym. I know it's about skill I don't have. But I'm not an idiot and I won't say a word to you or do anything but what you tell me. But this is the bottom line. Where I come from no one would let a stranger take a risk for his family he wouldn't take himself."

The sheriff and her tracker exchanged looks.

"Go on, Sarah. Leave him here. I'll call you," Lorrie Sabo finally said. "I guess I have compadres here."

That had been four hours and about a gallon of sweat ago.

Lorrie Hanna Sabo taught Ben and Vincent to walk on snowshoes-although it took her two hours.

Ben caught on right away. He began marching around as though the big webs were some kind of appendage he'd been born with that had grown along with him until he happened to need them. On winter breaks and at college in upper New York State, Ben had hiked and skied with friends. He and George had taken trips to Colorado and northern Minnesota. Ben already knew how to walk on snowshoes in a rudimentary way and the two pairs Lorrie gave them made it easier. They were common bear-paw snowshoes-without the tails used on flat land that could droop and drag on a leg trying to dig a toe for purchase on a steep grade or rock pile.

But after forty-five minutes, the best rescue tracker in California-according to Sarah Switch-looked ready to throw her entire five-foot-one-inch, hundred-pound body on Vincent and pummel him.

Instead, she sat down on her porch and pulled her thick stocking cap down over her eyes. "Breathe, Lorrie," she said. "Breathe deep." Finally, she got up. "You'll have to be able to do this like a person," she said. "This isn't a Sunday picnic."

"I never acted like it was," Vincent answered grimly. "Give me a minute here."

All of the family group was gathered in Lorrie Sabo's yard. Each snowshoe was forty-eight inches long and twelve inches wide, but they were beautifully light and supple and st.u.r.dy, handmade by Lorrie's husband, Doug. He used a straight-grained wood that wouldn't crack or buckle on a half-buried stump, the cross bars painstakingly mortised tight. He strung them with lightweight lamb's hide. Doug skinned those lambs, too, Vincent learned, while he wasn't working as an economics professor at San Francisco State.

The ewes would be lambing any day, Doug said. Vincent looked at the pregnant sheep and thought, You'd better run for it.

Meanwhile, he had a h.e.l.l of a time with the snowshoes.

He figured it was nerves. By mid-afternoon, precious time had pa.s.sed.

The need to get up to the land Bryant Whittier owned-its location now confirmed by the other Whittier brothers, Cooper and Ames, and pretty well located on Sarah Switch's big topographic maps-before another second of daylight escaped them ... it was overpowering. In his haste to adapt to this way of moving quickly, Vincent's natural athletic grace deserted him.

In sports, everything had always come easily. Speed made up for a lack of size. He'd even mastered surfing, first try. But now, although he was twenty pounds lighter than Ben, Vincent seemed made of some kind of gelatinous stuff that hefted to the left or right like water balloons in a sack. If the situation had been anything but what it was, he would have laughed at himself as, repeatedly, he clomped around the Sabos' front yard and fell over backward or got one shoe trapped under the other. Pat had come up and stood watching him, shaking his head, and Vincent knew that Pat might have laughed too, had he not felt the way he so visibly did. Pat had chewed his nails down to b.l.o.o.d.y stubs with crescents of something at the bottom that didn't look like it belonged on a man-especially a man like Pop. Pat usually had his nails buffed in perfect squares, as a man of business should. He was wearing the tracksuit again. Vincent realized that it was the only "sports" clothing he'd ever seen his father wear. On Sundays, when he didn't have to work, Pat wore a silk-blend s.h.i.+rt and Mantoni slacks to turn on the automatic sprinkler, fifteen minutes before it would have turned itself on anyway.

Pop didn't go without eating.

Pop didn't go without calling the restaurant five times a day.

Since the Oscars-just a week ago today-Pat's skin seemed to have slipped so that what once sat high on his cheekbones now hung from his jaw. So far as Vincent knew, Pop had taken only one call from Grandpa and talked for about five minutes. The rest of the time, he spent looking at Vincent as if he could twist him or turn him some way and a window would appear that read, "My sources say yes."

Finally, Vincent got the walk on snowshoes down enough that Lorrie put her hands on her hips, sighed and said, "Good grief, it's not going to get any better." Then she added, "At least you're young. Geez, though, Vincent. Listen. I've taught five-year-olds to do this more easily. Tell me there's a way I can talk you out of going with me and Romy. I'll give you some of your money back."

Roman was a 170-pound smooth-coated Saint Bernard, a trained air-scenting dog to whom the family had not yet been introduced. But they had heard about him.

No ordinary tracking dog was this.

Ordinary tracking dogs would imbibe a smell off an article of clothing or a shoe and then put their muzzles to the ground and follow a single smell. They would do what the motley pack of searchers' German shepherds and border collies had tried to do after they nosed the house slipper of Bryant's that Claire Whittier had given the sheriff. They tried to pick up one person's particular scent on the ground. But they had run in circles around the verge of the road up to the summer house. Roman apparently could detect any sign of human scent in the air, no matter what human the scent belonged to. Roman had been trained for three years in a complex game of hide-and-seek known only to him and Lorrie Sabo.

Not even trackers who trained air-scenting Search and Rescue dogs knew exactly what the dog was scenting: It could be human hormones or skin drafts, the tang of evaporated perspiration, respiratory gases, or, in the case of cadavers, the bacterial action on human skin or tissues that created the unmistakable overripe lily stink of decomposition. Whatever was out there and human, living or dead, the Saint Bernard would find it. He worked off-lead, looping in large parabolic areas of terrain, his trainer literally making tracks behind him.

"I'll take your brother," Lorrie said now, trying to placate Vincent. "Stella's his baby. And he's got this walking thing down."

"I'm paying you," Vincent told her, tramping grimly. "I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I have to go or I have to find someone else."

"No one else will be able to find her," Lorrie said. "I'm not trying to be a jerk either, but that's the fact."

Ben said nothing.

Vincent and the small muscular tracker took each other's measure and Vincent marveled at the wild circ.u.mstances that had brought him to this place.

He sighed and so did Lorrie Sabo.

"Let's get the packs stuffed and go. What the h.e.l.l," she said.

Pat and Beth had swept through the aisles at Pitch's Sporting Goods and the local Walgreens, which were going to have to restock their goods based on purchases made by the Cappadoras alone.

Beth was distressed that she could find no wind pants anywhere near small enough for Vincent's slender frame-except pants made for kids, which would be too short. Reluctantly, she bought an extra-thick pair of fleece pants for the outside layer, knowing as she did so that this layer would soon be wet. She fretted and yet, for the first time in more years than she could count, she felt like a genuine mother-as she had when the children were small, before Ben was taken from them. She was provisioning them, protecting them from harm, harkening back to a time when being a mother was more than sending checks or presents, when it required gear and hands-on time.

This much, she could do.

Even Agent Berriman accompanied the family back to Lorrie Sabo's house. Eliza, who had barely left the Lone Star Inn, was bundled in a child's parka, as none of the adult sizes at Pitch's would fit her. Like a child also, she held Ben's hand as long as he let her, then held Beth's when Ben had to move away.

Beth watched them as Lorrie Sabo directed the a.s.sembly of the long, aluminum-framed backpacks-the little woman dividing the load between the two brothers. She threw aside half the stuff that Beth and Pat had purchased and said, "You might as well not waste your money on this. Tell Jesse Pitch to take it back at the store. Unless I die-and if I do, I give you permission to rob me," she told Ben and Vincent, "we won't be needing more than one ax and one big knife. But they can both have pocketknives. And a mirror. And whistles. Definitely whistles."

Unable to bear the inactivity, Beth squeezed in beside Ben and used the memory of her teenage days as a supermarket checkout girl to make a square load-endless sealed aluminum bags of tuna and other bags of what looked like dehydrated powder. Surprised, Ben glanced up at her and smiled. Boldly, Beth gently touched the cheek she'd slapped and Ben reached up and let his own fingers rest on his mother's for a moment so brief it might not have happened, except that later, Beth would summon that touch over and over to give herself courage.

Lorrie had been specific about their buying a Jetboil stove because hers was acting up and they couldn't count on dry wood, at least all the time. While she was at pains to explain that she would not personally need hot food, she was sure that the men would. Hoping they would find dry wood, she added to Ben's pack one pan and several empty film canisters stuffed with cotton b.a.l.l.s saturated with Vaseline, which she said worked better than any heavier tinder. Pat asked what the dry foodstuff would be when she added hot water.

"Wet protein," Lorrie told him briefly. "They call it chili or stew but it doesn't taste like any chili I'd ever eat."

Lorrie then gave Ben lengths of rope and plastic groundsheets to top off the large pack. Into the "head" of the pack that zipped on top ("Easiest to get to ..." Lorrie said) she asked Ben to cram small silky bags of peanuts and M&M's ("Plastic will rip ..." Lorrie said). To Beth, she gave power bars, two big canteen-type cups, spoons, flares, and matches wrapped in plastic bags and clipped into a solid hard-plastic case. And Beth packed these.

As Lorrie watched, Vincent stacked his own pack with the tent he and Ben would share, their sleeping bags, and Lorrie's first-aid kit. Candy helped Vincent shove things down deep and lay the kit on top.

"You guard that kit with your life," Lorrie said. "I don't think we'll need the bee-sting stuff but I'm bringing it anyway. And I hope we don't need the SAM splint or the pain pills but I have a funny feeling. Blisters can kill out there, if they get infected. So you're both going to pad your piggies with moleskin like ballerinas." She whipped through their clothes, discarding and approving layers, nodding at the Sorel boots Ben had borrowed from Rob Brent, making a face at Vincent's Timberlands but saying they would have to do. She muttered darkly about Vincent's lack of an outer lower layer and went into her house to get two rain ponchos for them to squeeze into a large waterproof "stuff sack" along with an extra pair of wool-blend socks and wool-blend s.h.i.+rt they would wear under a parka sh.e.l.l.

Then she sent them in to dress.

"They'll have blisters in an hour," Lorrie said to Beth. While she waited, Lorrie Sabo asked Beth, "Do you have a family picture?" Beth shook her head.

"Your key chains," said Kerry, who was already crying, wiping her tears away with the chapped backs of her hands.

Beth ran back for her purse and Candy dug into her pockets. They unclasped the identical charms they carried with Stella's picture.

When Beth handed them over, the tracker said, "Well. That's Stella. Yeah. Okay. If she's up there, we'll bring her down."

"I feel sure you will," Candy told her, the quaver in her voice betraying her. "If anybody can."

"How long will it take?" Eliza asked softly. Kerry put her arm around Eliza.

"I don't know, honey," Lorrie told her. "I would love to say by tonight. But I know there's no man-made meadow within the distances I've hiked from here with my kids or even with my dogs. I packed for three days and spare change. If we don't find her by then ... we'll get my friend Greg to drop food for us and the dog."

"How will you reach him?" Eliza asked.

"Cell phone," Lorrie said.

"You can use cell phones? Up here?" Kerry asked.

"You can use cell phones on Kilimanjaro. They just don't work when you need them. I bring three, charged, anyhow. The trees are hard to plug into." Beth quickly held out her own cell phone, as did Eliza, who then turned and ran to bring Ben's from the car.

Vincent and Ben emerged, suited, and the tracker went inside her house to dress and a.s.semble her own gear.

Awkwardly, the two brothers stood facing the others.

Sharply, Berriman turned and walked away, opening his truck and rearranging imaginary stuff inside.

"Well," Pat said.

"It's all good, Pat," Ben told him. He wore a tight wool cap with a thick padded headband around it. The headband was the only one Pat could find in early April and was luminous hot pink. "Only thing is, I thank G.o.d n.o.body who knows me can see me in all this."

"Just be careful. Look where you are. Be careful," Candy told them. She studied Vincent's gloves and his Blackhawks stocking hat. "Neither one of those is insulated." She pulled off her own stretchy woolen gloves. "Take mine at least."

"They only had one pair that was insulated. Dad got it. Sam should have it. He spends more time inside." Ben and Vincent didn't look at each other. "And I have a band like that, too, from my father. I'm just not secure enough in my masculinity to wear it."

Ben snorted.

"You have to stop fighting, Sam," Eliza said quietly.

"We're not fighting, baby," Ben said.

"You're not speaking," she said. "You love Vincent, Sam. What are you doing here otherwise?"

Then Lorrie was back. As she attached "camelbacks," water bags with hoses, to one side of each of their packs, securing the hoses so they would hang over their shoulders, allowing them a drink whenever they needed it, she said, "We have a good four hours if we go now. I just have to let Romy eat. He's getting his regular raw stuff and some oatmeal too. He's going to be on thin rations for a while." With metal rings, she attached the snowshoes to hang from the other side of each pack.

"Let's go, then," said Vincent.

The tracker demonstrated how to get down on one knee and roll the pack onto her back. First Ben and then Vincent did the same thing.

"You have sungla.s.ses? Lip balm? No? Well, great." Lorrie shouted to Doug, her husband, who, after a minute, brought out what he could find. "Plenty of sunscreen. Flashlights. GPS for me and one for you two ..." She turned to the family. "Is there anything you want to give them?"

Beth gave each of her sons the little framed photo of Stella. Then Pat unzipped his coat and removed his gold Italian horn pendant, which, to Beth's knowledge, he had never removed, even to shower. He nodded to Ben, who opened his coat and let Pat place it around his neck. Pat gave Ben a hard hug and took off his glove. To Vincent he said, "You already have my high-school ring back at your place." Pat removed his ancient, thin wedding band. "This was Grandpa's. You bring it back and I'll let you have it when you get married. If anyone will ever have you."

"Okay, Pop," Vincent said, and kissed his father.

Beth placed her hands on Ben's shoulders and then on Vincent's. "You're my boys. I haven't said this. Not when I should have. Maybe not at all. But I bind you together. I bind you together. Whatever separates you is foolish. It means nothing. Promise me you'll give me at least the respect of hearing what I say."

"I will, Ma," Vincent said, and Ben nodded.

Eliza turned her face into Candy's lapels and wouldn't look up when Ben asked for her.

Lorrie made a low two-note whistle and the dog stepped out.

Beth caught her breath.

Roman's head would have grazed Beth's waist and was the size of a football helmet. He walked paw across paw, as a lion walks, and wore no collar or chain. Almost entirely white, except for irregular patches of red and black along his flanks and a half-mask that covered his blunt, handsome face, he looked up intently into Lorrie's eyes with an eerie, human-like entreaty. Removing a ragged bandana tied around what seemed to be a tennis ball, the tracker let the dog take it in his giant mouth and then jerked on the corners as Romy playfully slung his own great head side to side. Lorrie threw the bandana and Romy bounded back with it, dropping it at Lorrie's feet and lying down beside it.

"This is our contract," she said to Beth. Lorrie removed a sliver of what smelled like spoiled salmon from one of two zippered wallets around her waist and gave it to Roman. "This is his stinky salmon. The rag and the salmon are his reward. Now he knows what we're going to do. No matter when we find her, I'll stop for a minute and give him his play."

"Doesn't he pull it out of your hands?" Pat asked.

"You can't roughhouse with a dog this powerful," Lorrie Sabo answered. "Romy's the gentlest boy on earth but he's too big to ever get the idea that anything but gentle play is okay. He learned that a long time ago." The tracker knelt at the door to hug her little girls and her husband. The little girls hugged the dog. From behind the children peered a second Saint Bernard that Lorrie introduced as n.o.ble, a one-year-old pup in training. The last two things Doug handed his wife were what appeared to be a small Bible and very large handgun. As the three of them set out, the dog trotting ahead at a hand signal Lorrie gave him, Candy put both arms around Eliza.