High Country- Pigeon 12 Read Online Free PDF Page B

was one he'd used before.
     
    An hour passed amiably enough. Mary charmed by her mere existence, Mark by his art. Mark let them know he was a dear old friend of Dix's. Unwittingly Mary fed Mark his answers by embedding them in her questions.
     
    Did you meet Dix climbing?
     
    He'd met Dix climbing.
     
    Was it on that expedition to Patagonia?
     
    Yes, it was on that expedition to Patagonia.
     
    From there, Mark managed without help, building on general human experiences. Dix had offered the use of his cabin should Mark ever come to Yosemite. He'd arrived to find the tent cabin empty and was hanging out, climbing, waiting for Dix to return. Without coming out and saying so, he managed to get across that Billy Kurt, Bobby and Ben were recent acquaintances who'd horned in on his quarters when the weather turned cold.
     
    Anna listened and watched. By the end of the beer she might have believed Mark's version of events. He was that good. But she noticed Mark gave out very little information, yet deftly managed to get everything Mary knew about Dixon Crofter, his disappearance and the subsequent search.
     
    And she remembered the man he'd been when he'd first opened the door, before he knew they were there.
     
     
    CHAPTER 3
     
     
    Anna and Mary skipped cocoa at Yosemite Lodge. The atmosphere of Dix's invaded tent had left its stench, both physical and metaphysical. Anna needed to be alone, Mary needed to call her mom. Both wanted to get to a hot shower and shampoo the reek of cigarette smoke out of their hair.
     
    These were luxuries Anna was to be denied. When she entered her room her dorm mates were in a flutter. The two of them were young, just out of high school, and had fled California's central valley agricultural towns seeking adventure and romance in the high Sierra. Except for housekeeping habits that rivaled those of the Billy/Ben/Bobbsey triplets in Crofter's cabin, they were pleasant enough. Anna considered them dandelion fluff: lovely lighthearted, light-headed girls whose lives and thoughts were dispersed by any wind that blew their way.
     
    During the first few days, she'd surreptitiously questioned them about Trish Spencer and learned only that she was "cool" and "fun." Anna suspected Trish, older by nearly ten years, was one of the winds that affected the two, blowing them into parties and introducing them to cute boys.
     
    "Boy, it's a good thing you showed up," the plump one, Nicky, said as she pulled on her black uniform trousers. "Tiny's doing her Gestapo-waitress bit." The effort of standing on one leg while threading the other through a polyester tube proved too great and Nicky fell over sideways onto her bed. Further communication was lost to wild gales of laughter from Nicky and her partner in inanity, Cricket. It went on. And on. Anna guessed their natural good cheer had been chemically enhanced.
     
    Drugs in the National Parks wasn't new. In Yosemite it was an old story, dating from the classic drug days of the sixties and seventies, complete with hippies, "pigs" and altered states. Since the early seventies, when the drug culture centered in San Francisco had decided to make Yosemite its summer playground, illegal substances had become part of the park's law enforcement history. The jail, a bleak modern set of cells walled into an historic stone building above the fire station, was kept busy housing the perpetrators of assaults, batteries and disturbers of the peace whose uncivil interactions were fueled by consumable evils imported from cities.
     
    "What's Tiny on about?" Anna asked when the giggling finally subsided. The toking of busgirls was not her problem.
     
    "They got this last-minute reservation for thirty-two. A wedding party or something. We got to take another shift. You too. We're to wait tables. Big promotion. She said if you didn't show she would fire your sorry ass."
     
    The gale began again. While it rippled and guffawed at full blow, Anna took off her reeking clothes,