I had turned in my seat, about to back up when I stopped. I was so tired I'd almost missed it. I felt my heart begin to race, and this time not because of game I had seen. The single set of ruts on the road before me went under the tree.
I got out of my Jeep, and again the cold hit me. But I was too excited to grab my hunting jacket. I walked toward the tree, looking up as I did.
My eyes scanned the steep side of the peak. Stone rose some hundreds of feet to where the peaked sloped and I could see sky. Stone. No trees, just stone. Where had this tree come from? There was no way it could have just fallen to where it was now.
I looked down at the single set of ruts in the snow. They seemed to drive under the tree. I scanned the ground outside the ruts. On my left side as I faced the tree there were boot tracks under the shallow new snow. There was a confusion of these tracks by the tree, and then sign that whoever had left them had walked away back toward the main road. The size of these tracks was the same as that of the person, who with smaller boots, had apparently climbed onto the hood of the vehicle impaled by the tree limb.
I knew the mountain dropped off just a few feet from where the tree leaned in front of me. It seemed easier to duck under the tree than maneuver around. I stopped before looking down and looked up at the sky.
Clouds hung low in the previously all blue sky. In the white froth, I saw the image of what looked like a charging horse.
"Lo," I whispered to myself. Lo was Lomahongva, who had been my wife. She had been part Cheyenne and part Hopi, her parents having met at an AIM rally. Her name in Hopi meant "Beautiful Clouds Arising," and together we looked to clouds for inspiration.
I took a careful step forward, watching where I placed my foot, then looked down. About twelve feet below me the Chevy Silverado hung on some rocks more or less upright. I was looking down at the back window of the camper. The rest of the vehicle was covered with a light coating of snow.
Regretting not grabbing my hunting jacket and the gloves in its pocket, I made my way down carefully on slippery white rocks to the bottom. I glanced in the back window of the camper. Neither Greg nor Cassie was there.
I circled to the driver's side window. I saw the obscene hole in the windshield first. As I shifted my gaze, I saw Greg Carew. His body was curled over toward the passenger door on the bench-style seat. The sawed-off tip of the tree limb protruded from his upper chest. Another piece of sawed tree limb rested on the body. His skin looked grey in the indirect sunlight. Blood and sawdust mingled everywhere. I fought the urge to check him for a pulse. There was no way he could possibly be alive, and I did not want to disturb any evidence. From where I stood I could not see Cassie but realized she could be on the floor hidden by Greg's body.
As I moved around the front of the Chevy, I brushed a line of snow off the hood. Smears of blood on the hood indicated I had been right about their deer being tied there.
I went around the vehicle and fully expected to see Cassie. But she was not under Greg. The rest of the passenger side floor and seat were empty but for a pair of woman’s hunting gloves.
My ungloved hands were already starting to sting from the cold as I took my iPhone out and took photos before even checking for a signal. To my surprise, I had cell phone coverage.
While I waited for the sheriff, I tried following the footprints that lead away from the truck. But, I soon found whoever had made sure to walk in the Chevy's tracks as he or she had left the area.
Less than an hour later the whumphing of a helicopter grew slowly to a roar as it sailed under an increasing mass of white cumulus clouds. The sheriff had given me instructions to lay out a landing area, and I had found one between the two roads near where they forked. Fortunately, I carried road flares with me for emergency purposes. As the helicopter approached I lit them one by one, placing them at the corners of the flat area I had found. The Bell the department used settled down between my flares. The snowstorm the blades created forced me to turn my head away. By the time I was able to look back, the sheriff was walking up to me stooped over, and the Bell was rising back into the air.
"Heat imaging cameras," Paul said loudly next to me. "I know after three days her body might be frozen, but it's worth the effort, and the money." He turned and looked at me. "Crime lab is on its way. The helicopter will send them the exact location. Meanwhile, show me what we have."
"Best leave it for the crime scene team," Paul said after I showed him where the Chevy was and pointed out how I had gotten down myself.
After the crime scene team had arrived, Paul and I decided to get our next unpleasant task over with. Paul arranged for a ride home to be waiting for him at the Carew's house. As I drove, I felt a terrible sense of déjà vu. There was nothing to see but snow and trees in all directions. There had been snow the last time I had found a body, too. Now I wondered if somewhere, out there, covered with snow, lay Cassie Carew.
Notification
October 24: Evening
Paul Goldstone looked me directly in the eyes and asked, "Have you ever done this before?"
"No," I answered honestly. I had had it done to me. I had answered a knock at my door, which had turned my entire world upside down.
I don't think I will ever forget the image of William Longbear, my father-in-law, and my sister-in-law, Yona, standing in my doorway. My father-in-law is a handsome man with long black hair and penetrating eyes. Yona is still a beautiful young woman with long dark hair and the face of an angel.
That day the expressions on their faces were dark. The looks on their faces alone told me something life-changing had happened before they said a word.
Callie Carew, I consoled myself, had had time to prepare herself for the worst possible news. And the news we were bringing her was not, at least not yet, the worst possible. Cassie Carew might still be alive no matter how unlikely that possibility might be.
The family lived in Potomac area. When Callie Carew saw us in her doorway, her expression might have been much like mine was when William and Yona informed me that my Lomahongva had died saving Adahy. Adahy had been a toddler at the time. He had seen a bear cub walk into what amounted to the back yard at Yona's where Lomahongva was visiting. The sisters had been hanging clothing on the clothesline that stretched across the yard. The cub had wandered into the yard, and Adahy had apparently gone to look at the "doggy." Lomahongva, coming around the hanging clothes, I imagine smelling of fresh soap as she always did when she did laundry, had been the first to see the boy approaching the cub and the mother bear on a dead run to protect her cub.
Callie began crying before either of us could say a word. She seemed about to collapse, and I rushed forward and grabbed her before she fell. I held her in my arms as she sobbed. Although I was in her home for a while, I remember nothing about it, other than her tears.
When we left some time later, I don't know how long it was that we were with the newly widowed woman, Goldstone had promised that both of us would not stop looking until we had found her daughter. We had waited to leave until Callie's sister and an FBI agent had arrived. The agent would monitor phone calls. But neither Paul nor I believed there would be any ransom demands.
FWP
October 25:
I called Goldstone at 9 a.m. when his office officially opened, suspecting that the heat imaging would not have located Cassie's body. I wanted to suggest search and rescue dogs. The sheriff was way ahead of me.
Dogs had been on site since dawn. The only thing they had found was an untagged dead elk, with the backstrap cut out.
Both the sheriff and I knew I was not up to date on crime scene processing; in fact, what little experience I did have was during my short nine-month stint as an MP. So, when he told me that the headlight and turn light glass I found looked to have been from a 1990 to 1996 Ford at what was now being called the crime scene, I volunteered to go to Missoula and ask some questions at the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
"They found windshield glass from a Chevy Silverad
o where you discovered the vehicle went off the road.” I got no pleasure out of being right. At my suggestion, he agreed to hold off announcing the finding of Greg's body to the media for one more day.
In Montana the FWP, as it was called, set up stations along major routes into cities like Missoula. They always set up in a small fishing access parking area by the Bonner Mill. The check station was only open on weekends. What I needed to know was if the people who manned the station could tell me if they remembered a 1990 or slightly newer Ford truck with a recently broken headlight.
The FWP offices are on Spurgin Road in Missoula, and there are quite a few places with FWP signs. And although I'd been there some years before with a bear I had killed and needed checked, I did not remember the correct turn.
Finally, I found it. The office was empty but for a woman behind a desk in a gated-off area who gave me a friendly smile. The name on her tag was Phyllis.
"How can I help you?" she asked.
I took out my badge and showed it to her. "I'm a part-time deputy, and I'm afraid that I'm investigating a suspicious hunting death."
"Oh, no," she said.
"You are aware of the father and daughter reported missing a few days ago?"
"They're dead?" she asked.
"We found the father. But the daughter is missing. So it is essential we find out what we can as soon as possible."
"How can I help?" she asked.
"I need to contact the men stationed at the check station in Bonner this past weekend. That's when we think the father died."
"But how can they help?" she asked, concerned but confused.
"There was an accident that we believe led up to the death. Do you have video of the check-ins?"
Phyllis shook her head no. "We only have the budget to man the stations on weekends. If we had video, there wouldn't be enough manpower to check it."
"Then I need to ask the people who manned the station some questions about hunters who checked in."
"I tell you what," she said, "since you're not at the sheriff's office right now, I'll call them for you. If they see it's my phone, they might be more inclined to answer than if they get a call from an unknown number."
I gave her a quizzical look.
"This is their day off since they worked the weekend."
I nodded my understanding.
In just minutes I had the first of the men who manned the station over the weekend on the line.
"Jim Bridges," she said as she handed me her handset.
"Mr. Bridges," I said, "this is temporary deputy sheriff, Winslow Doyle."
"Jim, please," Bridges said. "How can I help Deputy Doyle?"
Phyllis had told him about Greg Carew being found, and that I was calling in reference to that before handing me the phone. It made my job easier.
"First, were you there at the check station the whole time or did you take breaks during the day?"
"No, we were so busy all of us ate lunch while working. No one got to take a break."
"Do you remember any check-ins where there was an older Ford truck with a newly damaged headlight. It's likely there were more than one man and at least one deer in the vehicle.
There was a moment of silence on the line. Then Bridges spoke hesitantly. "There may have been, but I didn't check the vehicle I'm thinking of in myself, so I didn't pay that much attention to it.
"You'd have to ask Shawna Edwards or Tim Bobbins about it. They were the other checkers with me that day."
I thanked him, got his contact information in case I had to get back to him, and hung up.
"I've got Shawna on line two," Phyllis said nodding at the phone.
I looked at the handset and saw buttons across the bottom numbered from one to six. Two was lit up. I pressed it.
"Shawna Edwards?" I asked.
"Yes, Deputy Doyle. How may I help you?"
I asked her what I had asked Edwards. Shawna thought for a few moments. "Yes, I remember some men in a Ford extended cab truck with a broken headlight. I even mentioned it to them. They had been drinking, though I didn't think they were drunk when they stopped. They smelled like beer."
"Do you have their names?" I asked.
There was another long pause. "Well, I didn't actually check them in. I started to and Tim Bobbins, one of the other checkers there, said he'd take them. Tim is kind of protective, and sometimes if he doesn't like the way the men look at me, he'll take over. It isn't necessary, but Tim was my senior on the job there," she paused, "This is late Saturday, right?"
I hadn't thought to discuss the day we were talking about with Shawna. Greg and Cassie Carew had failed to come back Saturday night. Whoever had moved the car probably would have checked in late.
"Late Saturday works," I said.
"Well, normally we look at the tag, and if it looks okay we ask where the deer or elk was taken and take a back tooth for aging. We don't record license numbers or anything like that unless there was a problem."
"Was there a problem?" I asked hopefully.
"As I said, I did not check them. But there may have been. I was checking the next hunter and heard one of the men raising his voice. But Tim calmed him down. So it's best you talk to Tim," Shawna said.
"Thank you," I said after getting her contact info. She said "anytime," and the line went dead.
Phyllis looked at me and shook her head. I can't get Tim on the phone. He must be out. I don't think he often carries his cell phone on his day off. But I can leave him a message and have him call you."
"The sheriff's office is good for that call too if he can't get me," I said.
"I hope you catch the men you're after," Phyllis said.
"Thank you."
I left the FWP office feeling dejected. Unless Tim Bobbins remembered something more about the men in the truck, I had no idea at the moment what to do next.
The Accident
October 21: Midday
The impact threw wiry, twenty-seven-year-old Bobby Wesley who was driving, forward against his seat belt. The beer can in his right hand flew against the windshield and bounced off, splashing both his slim, twenty-one-year-old brother, Billy Wesley, and his burly, thirty-four-year-old dark-bearded friend, Nate Hanassey, with beer.
"What the shit?" Hanassey cried, "You drunk Fuck! You just not only hit somebody but you spilled beer all over my truck."
"Man," Billy, who had not been drinking at all, said, "I told you, you should let me drive!"
Bobby, drunk, looked at his little brother and then followed his brother's gaze to the vehicle they had just hit. It had veered off the road and now sat with its back bumper less than a dozen feet from where they sat.
All of them sat there for a full minute or so before Nate opened his door and slid out of the truck leaving the door open behind him. Nate stood near the door just staring at the vehicle across from them. An icy breath of snowy air blew in.
Billy hesitated for only a second and then slid out after Nate.
Nate began to move toward the other vehicle. He had gotten just past the rear bumper on the driver’s side when Billy grabbed his arm. But Nate had already stopped and was just staring.
"Let me check," Billy insisted.
Inside the Ford Bobby watched Nate nod.
Billy walked out of sight around the back of the other vehicle on its driver's side. Bobby could not see what Billy was doing from his position in the truck. Bobby felt his stomach clench as he heard the door of that vehicle open.
Seconds passed. It seemed like Billy was taking forever. Bobby rolled his own window down and took a deep breath of the freezing air. Through his drunken haze, he suddenly was frightened. If the people in the truck reported him as being drunk, if he got a DUI for this, he was going back to prison. He tried to think.
"Nate. Nate!" he cried.
Nate walked back to the passenger door and stuck his head in, shaking it as he did so. "Shit, man, we're fucked."
"Walk away before anyone sees you," Bobby said.
<
br /> Nate, having consumed almost as many beers as Bobby, looked at Bobby puzzled for a moment.
"Associating with an ex-con? And we both have firearms," Bobby tried to explain. "Get lost!"
Nate nodded after a moment, finally understanding. He backed away from the door but then stopped, and shook his head as if clearing it. "That won't work, you dumb fuck! This is my damn truck," he said.
Bobby heard the door of the other vehicle slam shut. A moment later his brother came around the side of the vehicle and joined Nate. Billy looked pale.
"Both dead," Billy said.
"Shit," Nate said.
"We gotta think fast," Billy said. "I have an idea," he said and walked off toward the Chevy.
Bobby had to check. He drunkenly hoped his brother was wrong. Both dead? He got out and made his way to the driver's side of the Silverado.
Billy was taking a sleeping bag out of the back of the Chevy when he saw Bobby rounding the truck. "Don't touch the door," Billy yelled, running back toward Bobby. Bobby looked down; the door handle was smeared with blood.
Bobby shook his head. He had been about to open the door, but Billy was right. Instead, he looked in the window. His eyes went from the branch entering the front windshield to the chest of the man it impaled. Part of the branch was riding atop the Chevy's steering wheel as if for balance. He glanced beyond the man for a moment and saw a figure huddled in the corner by the passenger door, also covered in blood.
Billy was watching him. "If you're going to get sick, get sick in Nate's truck. We don't want to leave no DNA."
A moment later, Bobby was running back to Nate's truck. Almost instinctively, since he'd been driving, he stuck his head through the driver's window and puked.
Nate easily picked the deer up off the hood of the Silverado and carried it by himself to the open bed of the Ford and threw it in. Then he reached in and cut the string holding the tag onto the deer's left antler with his hunting knife. He threw that tag into the snow on the opposite side of the road from where the Chevy went off. Taking out his own tag, he retagged the deer.
Winslow- The Lost Hunters Page 5