Antler Dust (The Allison Coil Mystery Series Book 1) by Mark Stevens Read Free Book Online Page B

whole flock. Maria Nash was back, but she was now flanked by a stringer from The Denver Post and two—count them, two—television cameras from two Denver stations that had managed to show up at precisely the same moment. One of these TV types was proving particularly obnoxious. Ellenberg wanted to clock him, but it probably wouldn’t look good on TV.
    “So you didn’t find the note until this morning?”
    “Correct.”
    “And he had left it on his sleeping bag?”
    “Correct.”
    Ellenberg tried to remember her training in media management. Never reveal anger. Be calm, especially with cameras recording every blink. She counted six television cameras, five photographers and ten reporters. They fanned out in a semi-circle in the trampled field.
    Ellenberg was tired and emotionally drained. The walk down from camp to the county road through the snow had been grueling. A thin snow was still falling, but splotches of blue could be seen through the clouds to the east.
    “But you knew this individual was missing more than twelve hours before you looked in his tent, correct?”
    “Yes,” said Ellenberg. “There didn’t seem to be much we could do.”
    Ellenberg noted that the reporter’s oversized parka included a fur fringe. She wanted to point out how animals were being used to make him appear warm.
    “What do you think the note means?”
    This question was from good old Maria Nash. Ellenberg wondered if she would hear the phrase “meat-eating statistics” if Robert P. Calkins III was not there.
    “I’m not sure.”
    Never get trapped in a cycle of speculation. Answer facts and always bring questions back to your themes and issues.
    “Did you have any standards, were you doing any checking for physical fitness for your ... your whatever you call it?”
    The badger again—Robert P. Calkins III.
    “Protest,” said Ellenberg.
    “So the answer is no?
    “That is correct.
    “And so you basically would have let anybody join your event?”
    “It was a peaceful protest against a particularly invidious form of violence,” said Ellenberg, with an ever-so-slight smile. “Not an event. We welcomed all those who wished to help show the world about the level of barbarism being committed every day right here in Colorado.”
    “Would you have called it off had you known that the snowstorm would be this severe?”
    “I think,” said Ellenberg. She checked herself. “Yes,” she said, working to be emphatic. The reporters stood around waiting to see if the badger had another chomp left. Calkins looked at the others, who stared back. The badger tucked away a pen he had never used. The press conference was over.
    Ellenberg took a deep, invisible breath and drifted off toward the FATE trailer that had been used as headquarters throughout the protest. A giant banner had been draped along the trailer’s side: FAIR IS FAIR. LET’S ARM THE ANIMALS. She reached the door of her trailer, turned around with a feeling she was being followed.
    She fought the impulse to gasp.
    The man stopped inches away. For a second she remembered one friend’s suggestion that she consider having a bodyguard. The man was solidly built and over six feet tall, dressed head to boot in hunter’s camouflage. His face was smeared with green-black paint and the look on his face was serious, cast in a snarl.
    “Dawn Ellenberg?”
    Maybe he was a reporter for Field And Stream ( “Fire And Aim,” as they called it).
    “I wanted to tell you ...”
    “What ... ?
    “Your protest. I mean, I’m a hunter. But I’m finished. What happened here has...”
    He stopped to fight back tears.
    “What is it?” she said.
    “Are you okay?”
    “I stopped and thought ... what’s the point?”
    “It’s okay,” said Ellenberg.
    “No, it’s not. I’m giving up hunting. I want to help.”
    “Help?”
    “Volunteer. Help. Whatever.”
    “There’s certainly plenty to do.”
    “It took guts to do what you did.”
    “Several hundred others, too,” she