by Rhona Weaver
The twenty-five-mile drive, with its low speed limit, tourist traffic, and partial-gravel and snow-covered roads, took nearly an hour. They listened to Jimmy’s country CDs, and Win stared out the side window at the cloudless azure sky and the constantly changing terrain. The brown plateaus and sagebrush vegetation around Mammoth had given way to steep, wooded mountains and narrow upland valleys. They stopped to let small herds of buffalo cross the road, and the rangers pointed out a black bear with three cubs near a tree line. The wildlife and beautiful scenery helped as Win tried to pull his attention away from the shooting, but his mind and emotions kept falling behind. Anger? Confusion? Fear? Yeah, there’s fear. Block it out . . . suck it up . . . deal with it later. . . . Face the issue in front of you. He leaned his chin on his fist and tried to sharpen his sight out the window. His inward view was much more murky.
He’d been watching the map and the GPS to determine their location as they drove. They were half an hour in and they’d long since lost cell service. Win concluded they were officially in the middle of nowhere. Jimmy finally pulled off a sloppy gravel road by a set of stout log buildings and corrals that looked like an Old West postcard from the early 1900s.
The structures sat at the base of a tall, rounded mountain predominantly covered with bare trees, victims of the massive 1988 Yellowstone forest fire. Win had read that the historic inferno had wiped out over one-third of the park’s woodlands. Thousands of towering blackened trees covered portions of the big mountain and stood as stark reminders that regeneration is often a slow, painful process. Is it that way with people too? Some scars heal in time, but for other wounds, the gray, gnarled stumps remain. He breathed a deep sigh. Ease up, Win. You’re letting it get to you.
Win’s escorts were gathering their gear and calling to colleagues who’d been waiting for their arrival. He could feel eyes on him as members of the group began sizing up the outsider. He grabbed his coat and backpack from the rear of the rangers’ Tahoe and pulled his hat on. He had a feeling they weren’t expecting much from him. Ranger Jimmy walked ahead to the ancient wooden corrals where a small group of men in gray and green had gathered to look over a map. They paused briefly for quick introductions and handshakes with Win. Friendly, but not overly so.
Jimmy was still in the lead. “Want you to meet our incident commander for this search. He’s over there working his horse.” On the opposite side of the large corral, Ranger Hechtner was going through reining exercises on a big bay horse, looking very much like he’d been born on one. Ah, gee, not this guy again.
Hechtner brought the tall gelding to a sliding stop in front of them, let him settle, then reined the horse toward them as they approached the graying rails of the enclosure. He pulled the bill of his Park Service ball cap up slightly and dropped condescending eyes directly onto Win.
“I warned you about the shot avenues from the hills behind your house,” the ranger chastised him by way of greeting.
“Yeah, yeah, you got that right.” Win wasn’t in the mood to take any crap from this guy.
“One team went out hours ago. We didn’t want to give them a late start. If you can’t ride a horse, you can stay here at the station. If you stay here, I’ll leave two men with you while the rest of us do the search. We’ll be back no later than noon tomorrow.” The haughty expression and the cold tone of voice—the other men had to notice. Win had the sense the man was counting on him not being able to ride. Hechtner wanted nothing to slow them down and as little as possible to do with Win.
“No problem. Where’s my mount?” Win didn’t even meet Hechtner’s gaze. Jimmy raised his eyebrows, dropped the planned introduction, and moved ahead of Win through the gate.
“You think Domino?” Jimmy looked up at Trey for direction.
“Whatever. If he can handle him. Just get him set up. I’ll be on the satellite phone for a few minutes. We leave at 1500 hours—in ten minutes—going up High Point Trail east of the warming cabin.” He slid off the big bay and looped the reins around the top rail. He still hadn’t met Win’s eyes, and he brushed past him as he left the corral. Win thought they’d worked out a little understanding back in his office on Saturday. Apparently not.
“Huh. Real nice guy,” Win said sarcastically as he turned to watch Hechtner’s retreating back.
“Trey’s actually a great guy.” The slight Hispanic ranger shrugged and scanned the corral. “But he’s got a burr under his saddle over something today, that’s for sure. . . . Well, let’s get you a horse!”
They walked across the muddy corral to a covered shed and approached a small, wiry man wearing a battered gray cowboy hat with his ranger uniform. He was at least twenty years older than the other rangers in the group, and his complexion was dark from long days in the sun.
“Hey, Sam, this is Agent Tyler of the FBI. He’s riding with us today. What you got for him? Domino, maybe? He’s really sure-footed.”
The older man turned, wiped his weathered hands on his green pants and shook hands with Win. “Ranger Sam Morris, sir, good to meet you. Call me Sam.” He cocked his head and looked past Win to the unsaddled horses. “Hmmm, don’t know about Domino—might be having to rescue a couple of hikers and an FBI agent if he takes that silly horse.” The best choices seemed to be Domino, a six-year-old spotted Appaloosa with perky ears and personality, or Chief, a tall, older blue-roan who looked as if he’d seen better days.
“Let’s see about Domino—sure-footed sounds good,” Win volunteered. The older man shook his head and sized Win up for a saddle. In just a few minutes the spotted horse stood ready, a little too ready, as he pranced from foot to foot, daring Win to climb aboard. Everyone had loaded their backpacks on the two packhorses, and the other guys were mounting up. Win checked the cinch on the saddle one last time, took a deep breath, and showed them how an Arkansas farm boy could ride. Domino decided to immediately test Win’s mettle and reared several times. Win’s right hand stayed firmly pressing down on his cream-colored mane. He whirled the horse in a complete circle to the left and then to the right before cantering him in tight figure eights to calm him down. One of the rangers was having his own issue with his cold-backed mount, but several of the other men stood or sat in silence and nodded their approval of Win’s skill.
His riding ability certainly came in handy with the skittish little Appaloosa as the afternoon wore on. Domino took every opportunity to jump sideways or spook with any hint of unexpected motion on the trail. And there was plenty of unexpected motion, as Hechtner, Jimmy, Sam, Win, and two other rangers rode single file for miles through forests and across fire-scarred ridges above swollen creeks. Several small herds of elk and mule deer bounded away from the group as they traveled upward on the well-marked trail. Large pockets of snow were still evident in many areas, but the exposed rolling ridges and meadows were soft shades of green. It was beautiful country to see from the back of a horse. If their mission hadn’t carried such an undercurrent of life-and-death urgency, Win would have thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon ride.
The older man, Sam, rode point and was seriously into tracking. About three miles into the ride, he found evidence that two people, one of whom could have been a child, had merged onto their trail from a game trail coming from the southwest. The rangers knew the missing hikers had left their vehicle at Roosevelt and hitched a ride with at least one other hiking party to an area about ten miles to the southwest. It was assumed that they’d continued their hike in that area, but since the helicopter had turned up nothing, the riders had decided to concentrate their search along the benches of the mountain and its surrounding ridges and canyons.
They eventually stopped to rest the horses after a steep climb up the side of a rocky ridge. Win dropped off his sweating horse and stretched. When he was home, he often rode through the cattle just to relax. He’d even done that a few times when he was in Arkansas in early April, but his days of being in the saddle on a regular basis ended af
ter high school. Football consumed too much of his time during college, then there was law school. . . . Oh well. He leaned into little Domino and scratched under his chin. The smells of the lathered horse and the saddle leather took him back to his childhood—it was a comforting feeling with the sun on his back. The men had all shed their coats and jackets in the warmth of the afternoon, and the group probably looked more like an armed posse than a rescue mission. Every man wore a handgun and all the rangers had assault rifles or shotguns in saddle scabbards. Not your typical Yellowstone rescue party, but then they were charged with protecting Win as well as finding the lost hikers.
While they rested the horses, Jimmy walked over and offered Win a PowerBar. Win wasn’t hungry, but he appreciated the gesture and ate it. The small ranger then shimmied up a large boulder and began scanning the lower side of the ridge with binoculars. “Hey, hey, come up here and look,” he called down to Win.
After securing Domino to a bush, Win grabbed his field glasses, climbed the rock, and looked toward the area where the ranger was pointing. At first he saw nothing, but then a huge dark-brown bear came into focus. “Whoa, yikes! Look at the size of that thing!”
Jimmy whistled for the others to look. The bear was moving in the new grass, between patches of snow, about five hundred feet below them. It had the large shoulder hump of a grizzly. Its massive head moved from side to side as it walked, smelling the area like a dog. Win guessed the bear was nearly twice as large as the mama bear he’d seen with the researchers last week. That would put it near eight hundred pounds and Lord only knows how tall. Win was thinking that having all of this heavy firepower with them was maybe not a bad thing—he’d had no idea the bears got that big.
“That boar is one of the largest grizzlies in this area of the park,” Jimmy said. “We’ve seen him up here several times. This area will be closed to hikers until mid-June because of high bear activity. Early spring they’re very active and hungry. Lots of sows with cubs up here too. . . . Not a great time to run into them. Sure hope that guy and his kid didn’t wander off up here unprepared.”
They watched the bear until it disappeared into the trees on the far side of the ridge. Sam pointed out a herd of pronghorn antelope frozen in fear as they stared toward the bear’s last location. A group of elk trotted toward the woods in the other direction.
The tracker was conferring with Hechtner as they all mounted up again. It was nearly six o’clock and the sun was dropping lower in the sky. Win had been wondering why they hadn’t run into other hikers, but Jimmy’s explanation of the area being closed because of bears made sense. Sam was still following someone’s tracks, and he seemed more confident that it was an adult and a child. It had to be the missing hikers; no one else was supposed to be up here. He asked Jimmy about that as they rode along the ridge.
The slender man stood up in his stirrups and turned in the saddle to face Win as he explained. “Nope, just because the area is closed doesn’t mean there aren’t people up here. We’re constantly having folks get lost on the trails or just disregard the rules. It’s a stiff fine if you get stopped in this closed area, but that doesn’t seem to keep people from violating the rules. Two of the guys who’ve been killed by bears in the last few years were hiking alone; that’s a terrible idea. Neither one had bear spray, and both were in high bear-activity areas. Some people just think they’re bulletproof. Then again, sometimes it’s just bad luck—can’t predict wild animals.” He clicked his tongue to move his horse along before he continued. “So the tracks we’re following might be the man and boy we’re looking for and they might not be, but at least they’re fairly fresh, so we may know pretty soon. On a clear day like today, it won’t be dark until nearly eight.”
After another mile, the trail dropped down into a thick aspen grove and an area of evergreen regrowth from the fire. The dense stand of fifteen-foot-tall lodgepole pine trees crowded the trail, and the horses became skittish. The guy behind Hechtner started singing some old cowboy song and Jimmy got in on the second verse. Win asked Jimmy why they were singing, and he told him it was to avoid a surprise encounter with a bear in the thick trees and to calm the horses. Hechtner called out a George Strait song, and they all started in on “Amarillo by Morning.” Win knew the words to that one. It seemed a little silly, but Win would have gladly harmonized on show tunes if that’s what it took to avoid a sudden encounter with that monster bear.
Chapter Seventeen
They were approaching an area above the tree line where the trail was very rocky and the ridge suddenly dropped off sharply, forming the side of a narrow canyon. The ride thus far had been relatively easy, but this area was dangerous, with three-hundred- to five-hundred-foot vertical drops on their right side and a steep bluff rising another couple hundred feet above the trail to the left. The rock-strewn trail was less than five feet wide. Bare sagebrush and a few scraggly dwarf trees were the only living things between the riders and the abyss. Win could hear a rushing stream somewhere far below them. A chill set in as they passed out of the sunlight into the shaded areas alongside the cliffs. Win’s fear of heights kicked in, causing him to subconsciously lean to the left in his saddle, away from the edge.
Sam looked back down their line and told him to straighten up or he’d throw his horse off-balance. “Not to worry,” he yelled, “Domino’s as sure-footed as a goat!”
The other men seemed perfectly at ease, and Win tried to suck it up and not look down. He silently recited the Twenty-Third Psalm over and over to calm himself, hoping he didn’t look as scared as he felt.
All afternoon, the group had been stopping and using their binoculars to scan the surrounding area for the missing hikers, but now the footing was so treacherous along the cliffs that they continued to slowly move along the trail without stopping. Win was reciting the Scripture for about the twentieth time when he thought he heard a faint cry. The wind had been picking up as the sun sank lower, so he initially discounted the sound. Just the wind in the trees below. He didn’t hear it again, but it nagged at him, and when they reached a wider spot, he called out to Trey that he might have heard something. Trey looked annoyed, but he pulled the big bay to the edge of the trail and let Jimmy and another guy ease on by. Trey hollered back to the man behind Win to ask if he’d heard anything. Win saw the tall ranger shake his head no. Sam offered to walk back with Win to the spot where he thought he heard the sound. Win stuck his sunglasses on his hat and gingerly dismounted into the loose gray shale on the uphill side of the trail. He ground-tied Domino by dropping the reins, and he and Sam walked back down the treacherous path.
“What’d it sound like?” the short man asked as they both shielded their eyes from the dust blowing up the trail.
“Sorta like . . . like the tail end of a call, a person. Uh, maybe more instinct than actually hearing it,” Win said.
He thought the man would think he was a fool, but instead Sam nodded. “Yeah, a spirit call. . . . Sometimes in these canyons you have to be in exactly the right place to hear sounds.”
Sam moved more quickly down toward a slight bend in the cliff’s wall. A small piece of blue cloth was stuck on an old, twisted tree limb about ten feet below the trail’s edge. It had been shielded from view when they first rode past it, but they could see it clearly now. Maybe part of a shirt? Win couldn’t see beyond an overhang on the cliff, but he knew they were hundreds of feet above the trees and stream. Sam cupped his hands to his mouth and called down. Nothing. Just the sounds of the stream and the wind in the trees. Win sighed.
Sam moved a few feet farther along the trail and called down again. Immediately they heard a weak answer that the wind tried to blow away. Another faint cry came from far below. Someone was down there.
Sam raised his hand to signal Hechtner; he in turn signaled the three rangers who were farther up the trail with the packhorses. Sam walked down the trail to a spot where there was more stable footing and the trail was wide enough
for two men to maneuver side by side. Win leaned into the uphill bluff, marveling that the horses had navigated the tricky footing.
One of the rangers was moving all the horses up the trail to a more level area away from the cliffs, several hundred yards away. Jimmy appeared with nylon ropes and other rappelling equipment. A second ranger came toward them carrying more equipment bags and a collapsible metal litter. Win could see nothing to leverage or tie the ropes to on the narrow trail, but this evidently wasn’t the rangers’ first rodeo—they were moving fast and with purpose.
Trey was calmly orchestrating the action. “Jimmy, we’ve got no visual on him. Let’s get you down to scout it out—we’ll lower the litter down separately. If both of them are down there, Sam can swing down for the second patient with the other litter.”
Jimmy was geared up in climbing harness, helmet, and medical bag, while the tall ranger finished tying off the climbing rope’s anchors on two substantial rocks. The small ranger had finished his safety check, made sure he was on belay, and was over the edge of the cliff before Win knew what was happening. Once he began to rappel, progress came slowly as Jimmy tried to keep from dislodging any rocks from the cliff face. Win could hear him calling up instructions to his helper: “Down slow! Stop! Down slow!” Then, faintly, “Belay off!” He’d reached a stopping point. It occurred to Win that he was making absolutely no contribution to their efforts, so he at least sent up a few extra prayers for everyone’s safety.
While Jimmy was carefully rappelling down the cliff with the assistance of the tall guy, Trey was giving instructions to Sam and the other ranger. “Let’s assume we have at least one to come up. For one anchor point, rig the webbing over that boulder on the second ledge up. . . . Let’s put two backup anchors on bolts in the granite directly behind us in the cliff wall.” He moved along the upper wall beside the trail, looking for any possible anchor points. “Okay, got a deep crack in the rocks here—use a couple of chocks to hold that cordelette.” Trey pointed out the narrow crevice where he wanted the metal anchoring device inserted. Sam began drilling and screwing steel bolts into the solid rock with a battery-powered hammer drill and wrenches.