Stampede's Trail

By Eduardo Dávila

Denali National Park, Alaska. During Thanksgiving weekend, Special Agent Harry Dellmonico hasn’t finished adapting to his forced transfer to the far north when he is sent by his supervisor to the remote community of Healy to investigate the strange death of one of its most notorious citizens. What begins as a routine murder case within federal jurisdiction, will lead Dellmonico and his fellow partner, Joe Finney, into the dark fabric that extends beneath the idyllic and peaceful local community with unexpected consequences. Harry Dellmonico, a previously reputed criminologist with the FBI, currently fallen into disgrace within the agency, must resort to his experience and his tarnished ingenuity to face one of the most controversial investigations of his long career, forcing both agents to face their own ghosts in one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet.

Eduardo Dávila immerses us in a vibrant thriller that will arrest you from the first to the last page thanks to his bold narrative style.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eduardo
• Release date: Apr 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781547523160

Book preview

For Alba, for being the best reason.

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Death is a punishment for some, for others a gift, and for many a favor.

LUCIO ANNEO SÉNECA

1

The trail was becoming more and more intense. There was no wind that day and he had scented it from a great distance. It had a strong odor.  Its sweat was easily distinguishable, although it was interspersed with another pungent smell he couldn’t identify, even though he had already noticed it on beings before.  Instinct told him as soon as he picked up that odor to get away from there as quickly as possible, however this was his territory.  There was something that possessed him to try to find out where it came from, especially after losing his entire clan at the hands of those beings the previous winter. 

The perceived trace in the air was very similar to the one he smelled when they finished with them. That could only mean they had come back to finish what they started and finally end him.

Although he had to hurry, he tried to move stealthily to hide the sound of his footsteps.  His physique made him redouble his effort to move swiftly through the soft snow without sinking.  The effort left him gasping to be able to reach the trail before it disappeared definitively.  Fortunately he was relieved to see it materialize at times with extreme intensity, finally becoming something he could almost see and touch.

Newly fallen snowflakes clung to his hair, making him blend with the environment he felt was a part of him. He hoped to be able to get close enough, to see the being without being noticed. The familiar feeling intensified as he approached and he didn’t dismiss it when the combination of smells reached him.  The stench of the being’s blood on the trail was added. If anything could be perceived by the wolves from their ancestry, it was when something was going to die, and he was certain that being was about to meet his maker.

Last Thursday in November

02:32 pm.

The temperature dropped drastically with the sunset. The persistent drizzle of sleet had begun to transform into a dense curtain of flakes reducing visibility to a few meters.

At this time of year the sun set rapidly and Kendrick Wallace knew darkness would flood everything in just a few moments. If he managed to survive until then, maybe he would have a chance. He took a break behind a large fir tree trunk stranded in the middle of an immense forest.

With laboring breaths, he realized that, despite the meticulous tourniquet, his arm continued to bleed profusely into the folds of the temporary bandage. The wound hurt terribly however but at the moment he couldn’t afford to feel sorry, he had to get out of here as he was. He knew if he managed to make it south he would reach the Stampede Trail, a narrow road coming from the vicinity of Healy.  Healy was a small town, about fifty kilometers from where Kenny lived.  It was in the vicinity of a dirt path where he was going to die in the bowels of Denali National Park. He estimated it was only a few hundred meters more to the Trail and perhaps he could ask for help from a passing driver.

The problem was that he knew he was somewhere between the damn tree and the fucking road. It had been bothering him all afternoon.  It hadn’t given him a break since he had been hit, although he was beginning to doubt it had been an accident.  The bullet hadn’t entered and exited cleanly.  It had broken his forearm in the process.  The pain radiated through his arm in a continuous agonizing discharge, from the tip of his already useless fingers to his shoulder.

Kendrick Wallace, who everyone called Kenny had left early that day. Clothed in the darkness of dawn to help hide his big body.  He had set out to check his network of traps hoping to find something interesting. The day would be long.  He planned to look for new places to stalk prey and check his traps before returning home for dinner. On Thanksgiving, those forests, already traveled lightly, would become his domain for the next twenty-four hours. He didn’t have anyone to share the turkey with and he only thanked the customers who were willing to release a few thousand for a good piece, so it was the ideal day for a little excursion.  From experience he knew that nobody would dare to venture there at certain times.

He had taken advantage of the down time to install more traps right on the edge of the national park.  Now that they were already set, he took a look a few hundred meters away.  He knew he was on the park’s peripheral not visited regularly by the guards, so virtually the day was part of his hunting domain.

About noon, after checking half a dozen traps, he had found a recent trace of a caribou heading north, towards the nearby edge of the park. That was good news.  If there were caribou in the area, he knew more than a dozen people who would be willing to pay ten thousand a head to have those pieces from a trip for a couple of days. Kenny didn’t want to miss the opportunity and decided to follow them. Although he went into the protected area to stalk them, he didn’t think it would be a problem. Who knew? It was possible dinner tonight would be caribou instead of turkey sausages.

Dense, grayish clouds gradually covered the sky announcing an impending storm.

Kenny knew those autumn skies used to bring the first serious snowfalls. Over time, guards seldom ventured out of their shelters, let alone during the day. He knew their habits well.  The guards on duty that day would have organized a lunch in the park’s central office. 

The trail was cool thanks to the wet mud still visible under the thin layer of snow and he hoped to have the piece loaded in the truck before it got dark. Crossing a small clearing he observed the weak breach of the branches trampled by the animal, beyond the brush.

Then he saw him. 

A dark figure, armed with a rifle, turned off at the edge of the clearing about eighty meters to his right. Initially surprised by the unexpected appearance, Kenny remained motionless. Only a guard would wander through here at this time.

A guard or another poacher.

The figure also seemed startled by Kenny’s appearance, so he relaxed suddenly. Two companions of misdeeds surprised each other with their hands in the mass wasn’t reason to worry.  I cover you, you cover me. Kenny hesitated a moment and then smiled uncertainly, raising his right arm in greeting. What happened next certainly surprised him.

Everything happened in a tenth of a second. The figure responded to the salute by raising his rifle and firing.

Kenny felt as if his raised arm had exploded into a million burning pieces.

For a second he stood there shocked, staring at the large smoking hole which contained splintered bone. Suddenly a throbbing pain rose in his shoulder and he screamed.

-Damn it! Bastard! Son of a bitch! Kenny managed to hiss between howls of pain. Don’t shoot! I'm not a fucking guard!

He didn’t know if the figure at the edge of the clearing heard him or not, since it instantly was no longer important.  The figure fired again.  The bullet whizzed a few inches from his left ear. It was clear, the bastard wanted to kill him.

Throwing his rifle over his shoulder with his good arm, Kenny fired a blind shot and ran into the undergrowth like the devil was after his soul, clutching his bloody forearm. He knew how to respond in these situations.  He had been a Marine during the First Gulf War and it was not the first time he had been shot, but the first time he was hurt. The corps had taught him that this type of bleeding had to be stopped quickly or he could bleed out in a few minutes.

A new shot rang out and a branch, a foot and a half from the narrow path where he ran like a buck, splintered into pieces. He continued running another two hundred meters. At the age of fifty, he carried several extra pounds, of which his growing gut was a witness, however he was used to exercising and moving around in the woods. When he stopped to crouch breathlessly behind a dead tree stump, he realized this sprint had triggered his pulse, in turn increasing the blood flowing freely through both of the wound holes.

Resting his rifle on the rotten stump, he removed his parka with great difficulty.  With the weight of his knee, he tore his left sleeve. Near fainting, he inserted it in the wound as best he could while enduring the terrible pain.  He held the bandage tightly with his belt and, once the bleeding had almost stopped completely, he began to rethink his situation.

That bastard, whoever he was, wanted to kill him, and was going to sell his hard, leathery skin expensively. Kenny hadn’t seen the figure well, although he knew he wasn’t a very popular person in the area due to his trade. Even like this, he could name half a dozen people who wouldn’t mind seeing him dead. It could also be some crazy son of a bitch, deaf and half blind, who confused him for a bear. For a second he considered exposing himself to get his attention and try to explain that he was not prey.  Suddenly, he realized the guy had continued to shoot at him.  No, it was not an involuntary incident.  That piece of shit knew what he was doing.

He crouched with difficulty to look under the twisted dead trunk. At first he didn’t see anything, only brush.  A few seconds later he heard the soft cautious footsteps in the dirty snow of someone trying to go unnoticed. This area of ​​the forest was full of vegetation and he didn’t believe his tracks left a recognizable trail. For the moment he was safe in the burrow.

He could see the leg of one of his pursuer’s dark boots.  He stopped about fifty feet from where he was crouched. He thought about ​​aiming the rifle through the small hollow to try to hurt his attacker.  Although he would have to do it with one hand and the lack of blood was beginning to make him dizzy.

If he missed the shot he was a dead man, so he decided to wait. After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, those boots slowly moved away to the east. Kenny waited a few more minutes, in his hiding place.  When he was certain his pursuer had vanished, he slowly got to his feet, resting the butt of the rifle on the ground to help himself up. He didn’t think he was far from his truck, camouflaged on a discreet path about a mile from the Stampede Trail. Once in the truck, he could radio for help from the State Troopers. He would explain all the necessary details when he was in front of a steaming cup of coffee at the state post in Healy.

Suddenly a thin icy snow began to fall that he knew well and, when it melted on his clothes, it entered his bones. Kenny cursed silently, however he did appreciate the extra reassurance that the snow would hide his trail. Fear made him look over his shoulder every few steps expecting to find the ghost like moron behind him, nevertheless he found no sign of his pursuer. Who was that damned nut? He moved south again and crossed the forest clearing where he had his unfortunate encounter. Although his head was beginning to spin, he knew the area well and knew it would be less than ten minutes to get to his truck.

When he was a few meters from one of the traps he had checked this morning, a shot hit him in the chest, knocking him backwards into the snow.

It was like the heavyweight champion hit him in his solar plexus. Instantly breathless, he began to gasp like a fish out of water, trying to suck in air deeply in the midst of hellish pain. While struggling to breathe, he nervously felt his chest searching for the wound.  He only felt a sharp pang of pain making him moan, exponentially increasing his agony. Yes, they had hit him in the chest though the bullet had not hurt him, at least not in the way bullets usually hurt. He carefully removed the binoculars he carried in his inside pocket. They had been destroyed by the impact but had saved his life, even though they had been unable to stop him from breaking a couple of ribs.

Breathing as leisurely as he could to mitigate the pain, he slipped into the brush without getting up. That bastard had read his mind and knew where he would try to escape. He would have quickly retraced his steps and would be waiting for him, stationed somewhere out of sight.  While crawling slowly through the snow, the pain pulsed down his side to his chest in a continuous discharge, which added to the agony in his shattered right arm, plunging him into a hellish torment. Between the pain festival, Kenny was able to reserve a small plot in his mind wondering how long that son of a bitch would actually follow him.

He couldn’t go back to his truck.  He was sure the asshat would probably know where he was hiding. He would have to reach the road by his own means to flag down help. 

That or kill the bastard.

After crawling through the bushes for a few agonizing feet that seemed like miles, he reached the foot of the great spruce protecting him at the moment. While taking a painful breath, the snow began to fall in an increasingly dense curtain. Dead from exhaustion and about to black out, he realized that going after the guy would take too long. If night caught him there, he would be lost and, in his condition, he would probably never see dawn. Concentrating on blocking out the pain, he had an idea.

The US Fish and Game Service expressly prohibits hunting on public lands without regulatory clothing. To avoid accidents in which a hunter is mistaken for a deer by another hunter.  The federal law is blunt in terms of signaling. Anyone who hunts outside their property in the United States must wear a bright orange parka. Some hunters want to preserve the customs add pieces of camouflage on the sides or forearms, but it is more a matter of principle seeing as the orange color makes any hunter in the middle of the forest stand out like a luminous Las Vegas casino sign. However, hunters who prefer to stay outside the law, as was the case with Kenny Wallace, use a simple stratagem to go unnoticed while stalking their prey. Kenny's parka, like that of any self-respecting poacher, was reversible. Apparently, this type of parkas is indistinguishable from other regulation orange jackets, however if you study it thoroughly, it could be proved that the inner lining is stamped with a more complex camouflage. 

Those types of liners incorporate, to the manufacturer’s great pride, a series of pockets also reversible and capped off at the seams allowing them to be dressed indiscriminately in any of their versions. Kenny was one of their most enthusiastic users. When he went out to hunt he always showed the orange part when he traveled through areas frequented by campers, guards or other hunters. When it was time to enter his current job, he only had to turn the sleeves, to blend in with the thicket.

Leaning against a trunk, he realized he could once again take advantage of his reversible parka.  Now with a sleeve less and with the orange lining impregnated with dried blood and mud.

Kenny made one last effort to crawl out of his last refuge. He could feel the fine snowflakes fusing with the sweat in his shirt, submerging him into an intense cold that penetrated every square inch of his skin. He had to sacrifice his parka, leaving it as a decoy, intentionally ill-concealed behind the spruce trunk. If he was lucky, his pursuer would open fire on the empty coat buying Kenny enough time to reach the road.

When he had traveled a hundred meters to the south, he heard two clear shots, in rapid session.  They had been made somewhere to his left, much closer than expected. He didn’t hear the whistle of any projectile passing close by, so he guessed the abandoned parka was receiving the fire. He moved a little further south and already glimpsed as the forest suddenly cleared a hundred meters ahead of him.  A sign that he was approaching the slope flanking the road.

Upon leaving the thicket the disappointment almost forced him to the ground.

There was no road there. The wide track of compacted dirt characterizing the Stampede Trail simply was not there. He had come to a small path he didn’t know, beset by the undergrowth.  At first it was appreciated that no vehicle had been through there in a long time. The pain, the loss of blood and the flight had caused Kenny to get lost in an area he knew better than his backyard, leading him to an old abandoned mining road.

For a moment, he was seized with utter hopelessness.  He had to make an effort to drive those thoughts out of his mind. He had to think fast. The only way out of this nightmare would be to retrace his steps to his truck, even if he had to kill that guy first. He studied the ground and realized the trail he left was perfectly visible in the snow.  His attacker would arrive soon when he discovered the parka stratagem. 

The only thing he could think of was to ambush him. There was still time, even if he found his trail.  If his pursuer was a clever guy, he would be very careful following him, moving cautiously and precisely aware of possibly falling into his own trap. If he was lucky, he would leave the thicket at the slope of the road in the vicinity where he had arrived. He would have only one opportunity for a single clean shot, however, in his situation, it was way too risky. 

He looked around quickly and decided to stand fifty feet down the road. There, on the edge of the path, was a dense thicket that would conceal him long enough to make the shot.

After stumbling a couple of times, he finally got there.  The blood loss was beginning to affect his peripheral vision.  He noticed how, little by little, the shapes before him began to lose color. The intense pain in his side didn’t help.  He had to make a superhuman effort to lie under the brush and not react to his chipped ribs digging into his lung like red hot needles. 

He was completely exhausted, every inhalation he took was an ordeal. Under the brush he found a flat boulder, about fifty centimeters long. It would be a good support point for aiming his rifle with only his good arm. 

He held the rifle butt between his shoulder and chin, managing to move the bolt without much difficulty. A soft click told him the bullet had slid cleanly into the greased chamber. Resting the rifle carefully, in a small crevice protruding on the flat boulder’s upper edge, he prepared to wait.

He knew time was running out. He was sporadically losing his peripheral vision and shapes were beginning to blur.  All symptoms of blood loss. If the bastard didn’t appear soon, he would bleed out under this bush. For a moment, an uncontrollable terror of possibly dying there crossed his mind, in the middle of nowhere, where his corpse would never be found, or even worse, his body would be torn apart by wolves or other scavengers. 

He immediately pushed that childish fear from his head. If he died, it would be a bitch and in his current situation it was totally absurd, and very bad, to think about what would happen to his corpse.

He waited a few more minutes, trying to control his nerves in order not to accelerate his pulse and bleed quicker.  If his ambush didn’t work, he would have to go looking for the guy as a last resort.  There would be no second chance. While thinking about that, a branch snapped close.  Kenny went on high alert.  A second later, a caribou came out of the vegetation about twenty meters ahead of him, right in the center of his shooting range. It was a fantastic specimen, with a horns worthy of a trophy. This could be the bastard that had been following his trail since this morning. If he wasn’t where he was, at that distance he could have stopped him dead from one well-placed shot over the forequarter.  Straight to the heart.

As he thought about it, between the animal’s legs, he saw a shadow cross the road running a hundred feet ahead of him. Shit, he thought, he had lost a couple of precious seconds. He waited motionlessly, scrutinizing with the telescopic sight the thickness at the height where the shadow had vanished. Perhaps his pursuer waited for a desperate shot to signal his position, and when he didn’t hear one, he retraced his steps to take a look down the road.

The caribou pawed, aware of the threat’s presence, and went back into the vegetation. A couple of minutes, which seemed like hours later, the shadow crossed the road again in a fast race a little closer to his position. Kenny knew his intentions.  He was trying to make him nervous so that he would make a desperate shot giving away his location. Then he would be a dead man.

The shadow crossed into the thicket on the other side of the road again. Kenny had been able to resist the temptation of pulling the trigger. On the third occurrence he had the figure in his sights for half a second, although at that distance he would have had to aim a foot in front of him to nail him. He made the decision to shoot the next time, albeit desperately. He had reached the point like any person subjected to the prolonged danger of death, just throwing in the towel and willing to accept it, reaching an ephemeral moment where all fear disappears. If the shithead had to kill him, let him do it after receiving a lead shower. 

He waited but nobody passed.  For several minutes nothing happened and Kenny convinced himself that his pursuer had moved further west, trying to retrace his trail. As he was about to get up to leave, the shadow slowly appeared on the road, startling him.  A chill ran down his back.

Immediately he regained his composure. He turned his back to him, scanning the road, which was cut off to the north. He calculated the figure to be a little over one hundred and fifty feet away. Under normal conditions it would have been an easy shot, however, his left hand was disabled, so he tried to ensure the shot using the crevice in the flat boulder as a support point. 

When the immobile back of his attacker appeared clearly in the scope’s reticle, his target looked momentarily over his shoulder and Kenny could see his face fleetingly.

He knew that face.

He couldn’t believe his eyes.  It couldn’t be.  The blood loss was playing tricks with his mind. When he recovered from the surprise, he fixed the reticle and fired.

He kept his eyes fixed on the scope and could briefly see the projectile flying away from him and grazing his attacker’s right arm at the shoulder, superficially tearing his parka’s lining.  His pursuer, as he could see, turned his head surprised at the impact, the same way you would look at pigeon shit. 

His attacker recovered from the initial surprise and dropped to the ground, rolling rapidly into the dirty ditch’s undergrowth.  Kenny withdrew the rifle from the crevice to move the bolt with his good hand as fast as he could.  He had to drop his aim for a couple of seconds. By the time he re-fit the gun into the crack his prey had disappeared.

He searched through his sights on one side of the road, but there was no sign of the bastard.

A fly flew past his right ear, followed a half second later by the boom of a shot.

Kenny crouched instinctively as a new bullet struck the flat rock, sending splinters of stone towards his cheek.

He stood as best he could, launching himself desperately into the vegetation. Several more shots were fired, in rapid session, although, he didn’t feel any bullets passing close by him. He supposed he was using a semiautomatic rifle.  No one except a sniper could reload a bolt that fast. 

Kenny ran while the pain from his ribs hammered in his chest tormenting him. He could feel the agony hugging his torso, throbbing continuously and each breath was pure torture. After having run a few steps completely disoriented among the vegetation, he stumbled and rolled down a slight slope. For an indeterminate amount of time he lay on his back, glimpsing at the gray sky between the treetops as the icy flakes settled softly on his cheeks. A great tit, with bristling plumage, settled quietly on one of the branches above him and watched as if Kenny was part of the forest’s usual landscape. It was the first peaceful moment he had experienced today.  He realized he wouldn’t have minded staying here, watching the little bird staring at him, waiting for death.

When he got up, from the fallen leaves and the dirty snow, he found his Remington's cannon was completely bent by the fall. His pursuer would be here soon.  He had to keep running but, where? He threw the useless weapon into the bushes.  Hobbling, until he was finally able to stand, he leaned against a fallen branch at the expense of searing pain sweeping down his side.

He already suffered from hallucinations, a wolf howling, hoarse and prolonged, sounded close. His echo traveled through the forest getting lost in the mountains.

He had to head south. Going across the field, he would be protected by vegetation and could walk parallel to the abandoned road where the shooting had originally occurred. The sun was beginning to set behind the nearby solid Denali and the elongated tree shadows announced the imminent arrival of absolute darkness.

After walking with a rudimentary cane after a few minutes, he glimpsed a tongue of red earth behind the trees. Making one last effort, he was able to leave the vegetation to a wide track of compacted dirt. He made it.  He had reached the Stampede Trail.

It was getting late, the sun could only be glimpsed behind the imposing solid Denali figure, but he was still confident in spotting a vehicle. He started to walk east as fast as his battered condition allowed. Taking a quick look at the forest he exited from, he made sure his pursuer hadn’t followed him. He saw nothing, only the undergrowth covered by a thin layer of snow that began to settle on the branches. Encouraged, he began to walk even faster despite his discomfort.  If he couldn’t find a car, he would spend the night at the Magic Bus, where the tourniquet could be fixed to try to stop the bleeding completely, and in the morning he would continue on. 

When he had walked a hundred feet, he heard a click behind him. Instinctively he turned around. He didn’t feel anything, nor did he hear the sound of the shot. Kenny Wallace died before his body collapsed on the bare ground in the road.

2

Friday

10:07 am

Little Piper Seneca braved great surges in the air. The turbulence was quite strong and the five passengers nervously contemplated the two crewmen’s tense backs, who were working quietly to keep the device as stable as possible. In the narrow cabin nobody breathed a word, not only did the situation not allow any kind of conversation, the two turboprops buzzing and the small fuselage vibrating made it almost impossible to hear anything beyond their own thoughts.

Harry Dellmonico exchanged fleeting glances with his partner Joe Finney, not needing to say anything at the time, but wanting to assess the seriousness of the situation with someone