that her husband had planned to take a stationary position Sunday morning on a hillside while she made a drive just like they had done on Saturday. She was going to walk down through a draw and try to push some deer up his way so he could get a shot. She was going after elk and he was hunting deer. Bruce was carrying a .243-caliber rifle and she was carrying a .270-caliber rifle. She left their campsite before he did on Sunday morning at about 6:00 A.M., telling him that he had to be on the hillside at six-forty-five. She estimated his hunting position to be a half mile from their campsite. She went down and circled the pond then zigzagged the ridge, making the drive through the draw. On her way up the hill back to camp, she stepped into a bog. The bog was large, but she just didn’t see it. “I was afraid I was going to lose my boot in it. I got my shoes and pants muddy and the first thing I did when I got back to camp was to change out of my soiled clothes.”
Roberts interrupted. “How is it you didn’t meet up with Bruce after your drive and walk back to camp with him, like you did on Saturday morning?”
“It was out of the way, I suppose,” Janice said. “I wanted to get back to camp and have everything ready—breakfast and coffee—to surprise Bruce. That way, we quickly could go back out to hunt.”
“I see. Go on, please.”
“Like I said, I was a muddy mess, so when I got back to the campsite I changed my clothes right away. Then I put the ice chest in the Bronco, picked up the trash, put water in the Bronco, unloaded my gun and put it in the Bronco and got out some eggs and oatmeal for breakfast. I brushed my teeth and went over and talked to the hunter at the next campsite for a while. He had game that he was skinning and I wanted to talk to him about it. He was a Texas peace officer, I found out.”
“Your muddy boots were off at this time. What were you wearing on your feet?”
“Rubber sandals. You know, the kind you wear in the shower.”
“Okay. Then what?”
Once again Janice’s eyes began to well up with tears. “Around nine-thirty I started to worry about Bruce. He was very punctual. So I went out to look for him. As I started to walk down the hill I saw an orange vest on the ground. I called his name and ran over to him. He was lying on the ground. I picked up his rifle and tried to shoot, to get help, but it was empty. His orange vest and hat were lying on the ground beside him. I just…I just started screaming for help.”
She was sobbing now and Roberts gave her a few minutes to pull herself together before asking, “Did you see anything suspicious on either Saturday or Sunday prior to the accident?”
Sniffling and dabbing at her eyes, Janice said that on Saturday evening she had seen a guy wearing full camouflage clothing and no orange safety gear. She was off the trail in some oak brush and he did not see her when he passed. He was walking at a fast pace, unlike someone who was hunting and he did not have a weapon with him. Thinking it was odd, she talked to Bruce about it when she returned to camp. She told him how dangerous it was for someone to be out in the woods without any orange. On the way back to camp on Sunday morning, she had seen another man about 200 yards higher than where Bruce was supposed to be. At first, she had thought it was Bruce and waved at him, but he did not wave back.
“What time did you see this man?”
“Early—before the sun came up.”
Roberts nodded and wrote a few lines in his notebook. Then he said, “I just have a few more questions, Mrs. Dodson, then I’ll leave you to get some rest.” He smiled encouragingly at her. “Now when you went out looking for Bruce, you didn’t have your weapon with you. You had stowed it in the Bronco. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Why was that, Mrs. Dodson?”
“I was done hunting for the morning and I figured if Bruce was in trouble and had an animal down, I would need both hands to help him.”
Roberts was inexperienced but sharp. He realized immediately she had contradicted her earlier words. “Oh, I thought you planned on going out again with Bruce after breakfast,” he said quietly, not wanting her to think he was being argumentative.
“Yes, well, I wasn’t sure. Maybe I was going to go out again. And then I thought maybe I would go up higher on the hill and meet some friends who were hunting in the area, so I wanted the gun put away safely and...”
“What friends were these, Mrs. Dodson?” Roberts interrupted.
“My ex-brother-in-law and his wife, Terence and Carla Morgan. We’ve remained friends even though Mark and I divorced.”
“I thought you hadn’t hunted in that area because you didn’t want to run into them after the divorce.”
“That’s true, but years have gone by and I’ve gotten over feeling that way.”
“Was your ex-husband also going to be there?” Roberts asked
She shook her head, growing a bit more distracted. “I wasn’t sure. I knew he had been up there two weeks earlier to help his brother set up his camp, but I didn’t know if he was going to be there this hunting season.”
“What vehicle would Mark have been driving if he was there?” Roberts asked.
“Either a blue and white Chevy pickup or a Suburban, both with Texas plates.”
Roberts nodded and jotted something in his note pad. “Tell me, Mrs. Dodson, how did you expect to be able to find Mark’s brother and his wife up there? It’s a big area.”
“They’ve hunted up there for years and I know their camping sites. I talked on the phone with Carla last week—just to see how her children were doing and all. We talked briefly about hunting and she told me that she and Terence would be on the Uncompahgre, arriving on October seventh or eighth.”
It was the moment to try to pin down the facts. “What kind of weapons does your ex-husband generally use?” Roberts asked.
“Oh, he’s used all types, at one time or another, I suppose. I used to hunt with Mark all the time.”
“On the Uncompahgre?”
“Not in the exact spot where Bruce and I camped, but closer to where Terence and Carla camp on the other side of Snipe Mountain.” Janice looked out the window, a far away expression on her face. “As a matter of fact, I used to work with Mark as an outfitter. He would do guides and drop camps. I would cook in the camp. Sometimes Mark would make videos and show them to Texans to get their hunting trip business. But that was a long time ago,” she said with a heavy sigh.
Roberts realized the interview had been lengthy. He told Janice he appreciated her time, shook hands with her and the other women present and returned to his office to report to Lieutenant Finley. There, Roberts awaited the results of the autopsy.
= chapter 6 =
The color of the Colorado River can change from indigo blue to blood red hour to hour or minute to minute, depending upon the nature of upstream runoff. It was blood red that Monday when the autopsy was conducted at the hospital in Montrose. Oddly, both Bruce
