Page 45 of The Fault Between Us
“But isn’t that illegal?” Claire asked. Taking anything out of the park wasn’t permitted—not even wildflowers—Red had told her that the first summer she was here.
Beth nodded. “But Dell had a stash—a cache that he’d gathered and hidden—at Winter Creek, but he needed a way to get them to Helena. So he asked Red to drive him up there, then to Helena.”
She hesitated, and Claire wanted to object that Red wouldn’t do anything illegal—least of all in the park. He followed every rule and regulation to a T.
Beth went on. “They got pulled over by a ranger.”
Claire glanced over at her. “So, Dell got a ticket?”
“Well, no.” Beth’s voice was hesitant. “It was Red who got in trouble, not Dell.”
Claire wasn’t following. “Why Red?”
Beth looked at her with surprise. “It’s the Lacey Act.”
Claire shook her head.
“It’s a law saying you can’t take animals or anything related to them out of the park, but it’s all about who is doing the transporting—and it was Red’s truck.”
“So Red got the ticket?” Claire asked, starting to understand and looking over at Beth. “And what—a fine?” Had he been too ashamed to tell her about it?
Beth stared at her. “It’s a federal crime, Claire. Red went to jail in Bozeman.”
Claire took her foot off the gas and turned to look at Beth in shock, and then outrage. “What happened to Dell?”
Beth looked out the window and her face contorted. “That’s the thing,” she got out. “He put it all on Red, said he didn’t know anything about the sheds in the back of the truck.”
“And the ranger believed him?”
Beth nodded miserably. “I told him to tell the truth, but Dell said that would just get him thrown in jail, too. We were getting married that Saturday. Red was supposed to be the best man.”
Claire dragged her attention back to the road in front of her. Red went to jail? This was the “falling-out” Red had with Dell? Why hadn’t he told her?
“I know it was a horrible thing for Dell to do,” Beth went on. “His parents let him do it, and they spread some awful rumors about Red having a whole setup with people smuggling sheds out of the Yellowstone for him to sell in Bozeman. You know how people here don’t trust outsiders.”
Claire knew all too well. Helen and Tom Eagle had made that crystal clear. But Red doing something like that? He couldn’t. Then she had another thought, about Lem Garrison looking for Red, and her stomach soured.
“Was Dell doing that again—smuggling sheds—when he died?” Claire asked.
Beth nodded, and swiped away tears and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I just cry all the time.”
Claire reached out a hand to touch her arm. “You don’t have to tell me, Beth. It’s okay.” As much as she wanted to know, the poor girl had been through enough.
“No, I want to,” she said quickly. “Dell told me the day before he died that he was going to get us a lot of money quick—to get a place of our own.” Beth adjusted Jenny on her lap. “He said he was going to raft the sheds out of the park into Gardiner. He said someone was helping him, someone he trusted...” Beth’s voice failed her.
Someone like Red? Claire wished she hadn’t had the thought.
Beth took a trembling breath. “The park superintendent talked to Pete a few days later. I was upstairs, but I could hear them through the floor vent.”
Claire put on the brakes for a slow-moving trailer, worry knotting in her chest at the mention of Lem Garrison. “What did they talk about?”
Jenny started to fuss again and Beth moved her back to her shoulder. “Pete said it was Red’s fault Dell drowned,” she said simply.
Claire jerked the wheel and then righted the truck between the white lines. “Why?”
“He said Red and Dell met up at the Slippery Otter the night before. He had witnesses—Tom Eagle, he said—who saw them talking.”
So Red had been at the Slippery Otter, like Grace Miller had said. The knot of worry tightened.
