Gabriel Hawke Novels Books 1-3 Read online

  Gabriel Hawke Novels

  Books 1-3

  Murder of Ravens

  Mouse Trail Ends

  Rattlesnake Brother

  Paty Jager

  Windtree Press

  Hillsboro, OR

  This is a work of fiction, Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  GABRIEL HAWKE NOVELS 1-3

  Copyright © 2020 Patricia Jager

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Windtree Press except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Windtree Press

  Hillsboro, Oregon

  http://windtreepress.com

  Cover Art by Christina Keerins

  CoveredbyCLKeerins

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Published in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-1-952447-37-2

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Special Acknowledgements

  Murder of Ravens

  Mouse Trail Ends

  Rattlesnake Brother

  About the Books

  Sign up for Paty Jager's Mailing List

  Also By Paty Jager

  Special Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife division for allowing me to ride along with an officer to learn all the ins and outs of the job. Special thanks also go out to Judy Melinek, M.D. for answering my pathology questions, Dr, Lowell Euhus for explaining about the Wallowa County Coroner’s job, and Lloyd Meeker for his expertise on helicopters.

  Author Comments

  While this book and coming books in the series are set in Wallowa County, Oregon, I have changed the town names to old forgotten towns that were in the county at one time. I also took the liberty of changing the towns up and populating the county with my own characters, none of which are in anyway a representation of anyone who is or has ever lived in Wallowa County. Other than the towns, I have tried to use the real names of all the geographical locations.

  Murder of Ravens

  A Gabriel Hawke Novel

  Book 1

  Chapter One

  The threat of potential poachers wouldn’t spoil Hawke’s day. He glanced up through the pine and fir trees at the late August summer sky to appreciate the blue sky and billowy white clouds. Half a dozen shiny black ravens circled above the trees half a mile away. So much for thinking he’d come upon the poachers before they did any damage.

  He and Dog, his mid-sized, wire-haired, motley mutt, had picked up the trail of two people on horseback with a pack horse at sunrise. He’d started the pursuit after finding spent cartridge rounds at a spot where they had stopped. Only poachers would be carrying rifles during bow season and following an elk trail. From the circling birds, he feared they were too late to stop an unlawful kill.

  He’d used the Bear Creek Trail to patrol Goat Mountain in the Wallowa Whitman National Forest and check bow hunters for tags.

  He whistled for Dog to stop.

  “Easy, Dog. We’re going to go slow the rest of the way.” Hawke dismounted, trailing his horse and pack mule behind him. It took longer to reach the kill site by walking, but he didn’t want to chance surprising a bear, wolf, cougar, or the poachers.

  He picked his way through the brush, being mindful of the scraping noises from the packsaddle being caught in the limbs of young growth pines. Any other time he wouldn’t have minded. The fresh pine scent from the abuse to the limbs, filled his nostrils.

  Dog’s tail started whipping back and forth when they were twenty feet from the area where the birds circled.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve become friends with the bears and cougars on this mountain,” Hawke whispered, easing out of the thicket and into a small clearing.

  A woman was bent over what appeared to be a man’s body. He noted the backpack on the ground by the woman and knew why Dog’s tail wagged. Biologist Marlene Zetter. She traveled this area keeping tabs on the wolf bands that had made their way to Northeast Oregon from the Northern Rocky Mountains.

  “What are you doing with a body, Marlene?”

  The woman in question lunged to her feet and spun to face him. Her gaze latched onto him, skimming from his cowboy boots, jeans, denim jacket, to his face under the brim of a western hat. The panic on her face disappeared as she recognized him.

  “Hawke! You nearly scared ten years off my life.”

  Dog bounded toward the woman.

  “Dog! Sit!” ordered Hawke.

  The animal flopped down on his haunches, obeying the command.

  “What are you doing up here alone and leaning over a man’s body?” Hawke dropped his reins and walked over to the body and woman, studying the ground and taking care to not cover any tracks.

  She pointed downward. “That’s what brought me here.”

  Hawke scanned the dusty camouflage boots, pants, jacket, orange transmitter collar around the man’s neck, and unseeing eyes. He whistled. “Why does he have one of your collars?”

  She shook her head. “We were doing a count in the area. Roger is up in the helicopter. He gave me quadrants for about a mile to the north, but as I worked my way that direction, I stumbled over this.”

  “Did you touch anything?” Hawke walked her fifteen feet back from the body.

  “No. I’d just knelt beside him when you arrived.” She glanced around him toward the body. “Why is he wearing a tracking collar?”

  “I don’t know. Stay here. I’ll start my investigation.” Hawke walked over to Horse, his pack mule, and retrieved a camera. “If you have radio access, notify dispatch. Tell them I have a body. We’ll need the medical examiner and a retrieval team.”

  He didn’t wait for Marlene to reply. His digital camera, radio, and cell phone were the only pieces of current technology he used when on duty as a game warden in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. Before he began documenting the area with his camera, he did a quick look for footprints. He found Marlene’s. She came from a southeast direction. He noticed two sets of tracks, one of which matched the boots on the victim, that came from the northwest. The other set came to where the man lay, there were a few scuffed marks. As if the person were hesitant to view the body. A squeamish killer? He followed the set of tracks that returned to the trees and discovered the distinct shoe prints of the two saddle horses and pack horse he’d tracked all day. This was one of the men he’d been tracking.

  “I didn’t hear any shots. How did they get a wolf collar?” He glanced around at the ground, brush, and trees, searching for any sign of a struggle or blood.

  Nothing.

  Aware he’d left Marlene alone with the victim, he took photos of the impressions and hurried back to the opening.

  The biologist remained in the same spot he’d left her. Her back to the victim.

  “Do you know him?” Hawke asked, approaching the body and snapping pictures.

  “He looks familiar, but I can’t put a name to him.” She held up her radio. “I contacted Roger. He’s calling dispatch.”

  “Thanks.” Hawke patted Dog on the head when he walked by. “Stay.”

  Once he had all the photos, he walked over to Horse and pulled evidence bags, a marker, and latex gloves from the pack. He never knew what would help in an investigation and made a thorough search around the body for anything that didn’t appear to belong in the clearing. He had gathered a small collection when he crouched by the body.

  A long hair clung to the victim’s shoulder. It wasn’t coarse like mane or tail hair. The color was close to Marlene’s two-tone brown-blonde. He’d give her the benefit of the doubt that it could have fallen when she looked down, but it was evidence and went in a bag.

  Hawke had come across dozens of deaths as an Oregon Fish and Wildlife State Trooper. Judging from the bulging, blood-shot eyes, red dotted face, and scratch marks on the neck where the victim had tried to take the collar off, he’d say the man had been strangled. A check of the bolts and the tightness of the collar made him wonder how someone could have wrestled with a man this size to get the collar tightened. The bolts would have had to have been in place. He mimicked the actions it would have taken to put the collar on and then tighten it. Not an easy feat on a man of the victim’s size.

  Yet, there was no sign of a struggle. “Accidental or on purpose?” Talking to himself was his custom from spending so many days and hours alone with his horse, mule, and dog.

  “What did you say?” Marlene asked.

  “Nothing.”

  He felt the pockets for a wallet or identification and noticed the victim’s belt wasn’t latched in its natural hole. It was one hole looser. Had someone else tightened his belt? Or had the belt been the murder weapon and the collar put on after the man was incapacitated? He took a photograph.

  A cell phone was in the coat pocket along with a wad of tissues. These were placed in evidence bags. Rolling the body on its side, he scanned the area under the body. The ground appeared more disturbed than from a body lying on it. Tuffs of grass had been unrooted. The retrieval team would look for evidence under the body. He found a wallet in the back pocket of the man’s camo pants. A quick flip r
evealed a driver’s license. Ernest Cusack, 20456 Elm Loop, Alder, Oregon. The victim was a local.

  The wallet was bagged along with coins, a pocket knife, and lip balm found in his front pockets. There didn’t seem to be any other evidence to collect.

  Back at the mule, he put all the evidence bags in the pack and pulled out a small tarp. He walked back to the body and placed the tarp over the victim, using rocks to hold it down.

  “Now what do we do?” Marlene asked.

  Hawke walked over to his horse and started unsaddling the animal. “We wait.”

  “You know no one is going to get up here before tomorrow.” She shouldered her pack.

  “Put that down. You’ll have to remain until the others get here.” He walked over and slipped her pack off her shoulder. “Make camp. You’re staying here.”

  She peered up at him. “I didn’t bring overnight gear.”

  “I’ll share.” He walked over to his horse.

  After placing his saddle upside down on the ground under a tree and tying Jack, the horse, out on a weighted tether away from any trees, he took the pack and saddle off Horse and tethered the mule as well.

  Dog settled himself on the ground between Marlene and Hawke.

  “I didn’t bring a lot of supplies with me.” Marlene leaned her pack against a tree, using it as a backrest.

  “How did you plan to get off the mountain before dark?” Hawke tossed her a package of vacuum sealed jerky. His forefathers had survived for days with pemmican, a mash of dried salmon and berries. He survived most trips on the mountain with jerky, freeze-dried meals, and granola bars.

  “Roger planned to pick me up at Wade Flat.” She opened the jerky. “Thanks.”

  “You’ll have to radio him to come back for you tomorrow.” Hawke studied the woman. They had met at several Fish and Wildlife public meetings where the locals voiced their concerns about the growing population of wolves in the county. Ranchers had lost cattle to the wolves, making them angry at the animal and at Fish and Wildlife.

  Some had tried using the nonlethal methods biologists suggested to keep livestock safe. But the wolf was cunning. Hawke’s ancestors had revered the wolf for his fur, his cunning, and how they worked as a pack to feed everyone. His ancestors also knew the consequences of too many wolves in one area. Not only did cattle get eaten, but so did deer, elk, and mountain goats, staples of the Nez Perce over a century ago.

  “Roger, this is Marlene,” the woman said into the large radio she held in her hand.

  Garbled words crackled in the air. “Dispatch wants Hawke to call them.”

  “Did you hear that?” Marlene asked.

  Hawke grunted and knelt by his pack. His radio was in the side with all the evidence and his forensic kit.

  “Hawke won’t let me leave. Meet me same time tomorrow afternoon at Wade Flat.”

  “Copy.”

  The crackling sound ended and the forest sounds settled around them again.

  Hawke glanced in the sky. With the body covered, the birds had stopped circling. The rest of the night would be spent keeping the ground scavengers from destroying the body.

  He turned on his radio, listened to the crackle, and held the button down. “Hawke checking in.” He raised his fingers off the button and listened.

  “Is the body contained?”

  “Yes. I’m holding a witness until the others arrive.”

  “ETA for body retrieval is ten-hundred tomorrow.”

  “Copy.” Hawke turned the radio off, replaced it in the pack, and pulled out his filtered water bottle and a plastic bottle of water he hauled around in case he came upon a dehydrated hiker or needed it for cleaning a wound when there wasn’t any water available.

  “Here.” He tossed the plastic bottle to Marlene. “Use this to drink. Should be a small stream to the east if you want to wash up.”

  “I crossed it shortly before coming into the clearing.” She held up the water. “Thanks, again.”

  He nodded and tore into his bag of jerky. The day had been spent in the saddle with only a stop to refill his water bottles and stretch his legs. He’d hoped to catch the two he’d tracked before dark. Instead, he would watch over the victim and keep an eye on his suspect.

  It would be a long night.

  Chapter Two

  A full moon lit up the clearing like early dawn. Grays and blacks were highlighted in golden moon glow. Good for keeping an eye on the body. Hawke waved his hand, and Dog chased away a curious coyote.

  Marlene stirred under the blankets Hawke had given her, but didn’t wake.

  He was thankful she’d not tried to make small talk before making a bed and closing her eyes. By her furtive glances, she knew she was at the top of his suspect list. Not his list. He’d hand her and the evidence over to whoever arrived tomorrow and go after the man’s partner. His best work happened out in the wilderness, not at a desk behind a computer.

  Finding the second poacher would most likely find who put the collar on the victim’s neck and strangled him. It was either a cold-blooded killer or a joke that went wrong. Either way, he would find the person.

  Dog made several circles around the body, before returning to Hawke’s side.

  “Good boy.” Hawke stroked the smooth hair on Dog’s head and scanned the area where he’d tethered Horse and Jack. They were both munching on the grass and flicking their tails.

  By the moon, he guessed it to be after midnight. If Dog stayed vigilant, he could get an hour or two of sleep.

  His eyelids lowered, his mind cleared...

  Howling wolves straightened his spine and raised the hair on his arms.

  Dog sat up.

  Hawke grabbed the animal’s collar before he dashed off.

  Marlene stirred. “Did I hear wolves?”

  “Yes. Go back to sleep. It was several miles away.” The sound had echoed in the draw. He wasn’t positive they were miles away.

  The howling and sharp-pitched, excited yips of the wolves sang of pursuit. He hoped in the opposite direction of them. Keeping a pack of wolves away from the body wasn’t a task he wanted tonight or any night.

  Marlene remained sitting up, her head cocked, listening.

  The pursuit call echoed through the forest, standing his hair on end again. This time the calls were closer.

  Hawke shot to his feet, grabbed the ropes dangling from Horse and Jack’s halters and tied them to the highline he’d made earlier between two trees. He didn’t need the animals bolting and dragging their weighted tethers or getting caught up in the long tether ropes, injuring themselves.

  “They’re close,” Marlene said, grabbing her pack and pulling out her laptop. She tapped the keys and a faint beeping started. “I’m picking up number twenty-four-ninety-three. An alpha female.” Her words came out on a rush.

  The beeping grew in volume.

  “She’s coming toward us. And it looks like two others with her have collars.”

  He heard the excitement in her voice. “You aren’t going after them. If they show here, I’m shooting my rifle in the air.” He didn’t want or need the trouble wolves and women brought.

  “Don’t chase them off before I can get a count.” She pulled a book and flashlight out of her backpack. The sound of pages flipping was followed by accelerated beeping.

  “Number twenty-four-ninety-three is from the Minam pack. They had five grown wolves last year. I hope they have pups with them.” Marlene stared at her computer then into the trees on the far side of the clearing. “That’s the way they’re coming from.”

  Hawke stared into the trees on the far side of the open area. He didn’t know much about what the computer could register, but the way Dog’s hair bristled down his back, the wolves would be upon them soon.

  Limbs cracked, hooves pounded the earth, and the tang of fear filled the air before a wild-eyed horse burst into the clearing followed by three adult wolves.

  Hawke untied a lasso from his packsaddle. “Keep the horse in the clearing!” he shouted to Marlene. “Get ’em,” he said to Dog.

  As Dog deterred the wolves and Marlene ran along the side of the clearing, keeping the horse from darting into the forest, Hawke swung the loop over his head, running behind the horse. He was just about out of breath when the animal darted to its right. He finally had a clear shot of the animal’s head.