Angels Fall

tracks Brody recognized as deer, bear—and. he assumed. Rick's boots from the day before.
    "No human tracks leading to the river," Rick pointed out. "Mine from yesterday. 'Course they could've come in from another angle, but I took a good look around. You got a body to deal with, you have to get rid of it. Throw it into the river, might he first instinct, first panic reaction."
    He kept his gait slow, kept his gaze tracking ground and trees. "Or you'd bury it. There'd damn well be signs of that, Brody. No point dragging a dead body far, and it's a hell of a lot harder to dig a grave than you might think."
    He set his hands on his hips, the heel of one hand resting idly on the butt of his service weapon. "It'd show, and the wildlife around here would find it pretty quick. You can see for yourself now, there's no sign anybody came in or out of this area yesterday. I'm going to ask you again, could you have given me the wrong location?"
    "No."
    Through the lodgepole pines, the huckleberry, the elderberry bushes, they hiked northwest toward the river. The ground was moist from the thaw, Brody noted. And shouldve held human tracks as well as it did the tracks of deer and moose. I hough he saw signs animals had passed tins way, there were no human tracks. They skirted a thicket, and as Brody paused to look, crouched down to look for any signs it had been disturbed, Rick waited.
    "I guess you did this yesterday."
    "Did,' Rick agreed. "Get some nice berries around here in season." he's.üd conversationally, "Got your huckleberries, your bearberries." He paused, then looked toward where he could scent the river now. "Brody, if a man tried to hide a body in there, there d be signs of it.
    And by this time, I expect, animals would have caught the scent and come exploring."
    "Ycah."Brody pushed back to his feet. "Yeah, you're right. Even a city slicker like me knows that much."
    Despite the circumstances. Rick flashed a grin. "You handle yourself pretty well in the backcountry for a slicker."
    "How long do I have to live around here before I lose the slicker label?"
    "Might wear off some after you've been dead ten, fifteen years."
    "That's what I figured." Brody said as they began to walk again. "You weren't born here, either," he remembered. "Army brat."
    "Being as my mother settled in Cheyenne before my twelfth birthday, I got a big leg up on you. Local-wise. Hear the rapids now."
    The low rumble came through the quaking aspens, the cottonwoods and red willows. The sunlight grew stronger until Brody could see it reflected off the water. Beyond was the canyon, and the spot high up on the other side where he'd stood with Reece.
    "That's where she was sitting when she saw it happen." Shielding his eyes with the flat of his hand, Brody pointed out and over to the rocks.
    Cooler here. Brody thought, cooler beside the water, with the wind sighing through the trees. But it was bright enough that he pulled his sunglasses out of his pack.
    "I've got to say, Brody, that's a fucking long way." Rick took out his field glasses and followed the direction Brody had indicated. "A fucking long way," he repeated. "Get some glare, too, that time of day. Bouncing off the water."
    "Rick, we've had a friendly relationship the past year."
    "We have."
    "So I'm going to ask you straight out. Why don't you believe her?"
    "Let's just take it a step at a time, first. She's up there, sees this happening down here, runs back down the trail, where she runs into you. Meanwhile, what's this guy doing with the dead woman? Throws her in, she's going to wash up. And she'd have been spotted by now, more than likely. Not much right around here to weigh the body down, and by your timing, only about a half an hour to do it. That was the plan, it would've taken time—more, in my opinion, than it took the pair of you to got back within sight of this spot."
    "He could've dragged her behind those rocks there, or into the trees. We wouldn't have seen her from across the river. Maybe he went to get a shovel, or rope. Christ knows."
    Rick bit off a sigh. "You seen any signs anyone's been tromping in and out of here, dragging off a body, burying one?'"
    "No, I haven't. Not yet."
    "Now you and me, we'll take a walk around, like I already did yesterday. There's not one sign of a fresh grave. That leaves dragging or carrying her out of here, to a car, to a cabin. Long way hauling dead weight, lone way not to leave a single sign either one of us could see."
    He turned back to