Mountain Rampage by Scott Graham

once over the last seven weeks had the students been forced to don their raincoats.
    Chuck and Clarence sat facing west on a pair of rocks, the summit of Mount Landen high above them, Fall River Valley more than a thousand feet below.
    â€œTime to figure this thing out,” Chuck said.
    â€œWhat’s to figure?” Clarence asked. “My knife, human blood, white-man cop ready to lock me away.”
    â€œWe’re not in the South Valley, Clarence.”
    â€œI’d be better off if we were. At least a few Albuquerque copshave the same skin color as me.” He flicked an angry hand. “You saw how he treated me. He’s got my arrest warrant all ready to go.”
    â€œHe’s just getting started on his investigation.”
    â€œEasy for you to say. It’s not your knife they found.”
    â€œNo one knows if a crime’s even been committed yet.”
    â€œDoesn’t matter. Whatever happened, he figures I did it.” Clarence gave his Latino accent free rein. “ El Chicano . El spic. ” His voice grew bitter. “I never should’ve come here this summer.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    Clarence gave Chuck a level look. “Jan knows. Even the girls have felt it.”
    Chuck studied the north slope of Mount Landen. Narrow, stone-walled couloirs cut into the bare, alpine slope every couple hundred yards. Where the pitch of the slope lessened, the couloirs came together to form a funnel-like drainage that twisted and turned before disappearing into the forest on its way to the river below.
    He pressed his fingers into his thighs. For a year now, Janelle and the girls had shared their lives with him—a middle-aged white guy making his way through the world with his brown-toned stepdaughters and mocha-hued wife. He’d seen the heads turn; he’d read the appraising looks in people’s eyes.
    â€œThey don’t mean anything by it,” he told Clarence.
    â€œSo what. We’re still plenty different from the upstanding, white-bread folks of Estes Park, and different is all that matters.”
    â€œYou’re overreacting. We’ll head back to town, find a lawyer, get this thing sorted out.”
    â€œ No . No lawyers. I’m not guilty of anything. Somebody took my knife. I had nothing to do with it. I don’t need a lawyer.”
    â€œWe’ve got to make sure—”
    â€œI said no ,” Clarence repeated. “What we have to do is figureout what happened. And we have to do it on our own, before the cops stick it to me.”
    â€œThey’ve got nothing to charge you with.”
    â€œThey’ll come up with something. Just you watch.”
    â€œI was watching. I saw a cop doing his job.”
    â€œWe need to think beyond him—to the students, the workers next door. Somebody saw something. They had to. You can get Kirina to talk to the students. I’ll talk to the Falcon House people. They won’t say anything to the cops, but they’ll talk to me.”
    Chuck lifted an eyebrow. At the beginning of the summer, he’d made it clear that the field school’s female students were off limits to Clarence, full stop, no exceptions. Chuck had seen the looks every one of the Fort Lewis girls, even Kirina, had aimed at Clarence when he was at his most alive and magnetically electric. To his credit, however, Clarence had taken Chuck at his word and had focused his charms on the flock of female, college-age resort workers from Eastern Europe boarding for the summer in Falcon House.
    â€œYou really think,” Chuck asked, “that whoever sliced somebody with your knife is going to turn around and confess what they did to you?”
    â€œSomebody’s sure to know something. And there’s plenty who will let me know what they know.”
    Chuck eyed Clarence. “How many are we talking about?”
    Clarence avoided Chuck’s look. “It’s been a whole