leave a gift of water outside her hiding place? Why try to kill her with rock and gun, then let her sleep unharmed through the night? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Or, like the werewolf, kind and humane by day, ravening beast by night?
Moving quickly, not allowing herself to mourn the loss of the water, she stuffed the goods, including the sleeping bag, willy-nilly into the main compartment of the pack.
Having finished, she turned her attention to the den. During her musings and stuffings she'd never once turned her back on it. Without the flashlight, she was even less anxious to go poking into its shadows than she had been before. But there was nothing for it. Either she looked as best she could or the inspection was put off a minimum of twenty-four hours while she hiked out and made her report.
Approaching the gash from the side, she went down on one knee in the runner's starting position in case a tactical retreat became suddenly necessary. In her right hand she held the can of bear spray she wore at her belt. The stuff was made mostly of pepper. She knew for a fact it worked on people. She had only the manufacturer's word that it worked on bears.
The sun was not yet overhead. Far from shining helpfully into the cave's mouth, it cast a black shadow there. Anna scooched down slightly and thrust her face in under the overhang, listening, sniffing, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. Her nose processed the most information. The smells were many, mixed and strange. Underlying them was the familiar smell of rock and damp in otherwise dry country. Probably one or more seep springs had gone into the making of the cave, though Anna knew better than to hope for any open water. The lesser smells, the newer smells, were what intrigued her. A trace of gas was in the air. Butane maybe. Kerosene, wax, maybe. Perhaps she smelled not the gas itself but the odors left from heated metal, extinguished wicks. Someone had been staying here for a night or more. Someone who'd been willing to smash her to defend his territory.
Though the morning proved quiet, memory of the boulder reminded her not to dawdle. Her guess was the roller of rocks and filleter of faces had moved on after using the time she'd cowered in her crevice to clean all trace of himself out of the cave. Still, he might return. To kill her, if for no better reason.
She sniffed again. Traces of human food, certainly, but something more. The odor was exceedingly familiar but she couldn't place it; sweetish. Hay? Dustier, flatter. Anna gave up. Her eyes had adjusted. The cave was much as she'd expected it would be, shallow and uncomplicated, a shell-shaped cut in the mountain with no passages or rooms. At its maximum it was four feet from floor to ceiling. Using the half-light from outside she did a quick search. On one narrow ledge she found candle wax. That was all. The cave had not only been cleared, it had been swept. Looking back toward the crescent of pale light filtering in, she could see the marks of her own passage crossing a field swept into tiny ridges by a pine-needle broom.
Combing the tidy dirt on the floor she came up with half a peanut, a dime and a piece of what looked like dog biscuit. She sniffed it and found the source of the mysterious sweetish, hay-like, dusty, flat odor. Anna was shocked and then laughed aloud and scared herself with her own noise. Why would she be appalled that a person who would commit murder would have the unmitigated gall to bring a dog into a National Park Service- designated Wilderness Area? If they ever caught him, in addition to 'murder in the first degree,' she'd make sure Harry wrote him up for 'dog off leash.'
Evidence bags had been stolen along with film, radio, water and notes. Anna carefully buttoned the peanut, the dime and the dog biscuit into her shirt pocket. She was determined not to return from Cathedral Peak with nothing to show for herself.
It took over three hours to get back to Highline Trail. Knowing she had no water made Anna far thirstier than she would have been otherwise. Knowledge she was in no danger of actually dying before she got to Fifty Mountain Camp, where she would undoubtedly find at least one camper willing to lend her a filter pump, did nothing to alleviate her discomfort. So much for mind over matter.
On Highline she had the good luck to meet up with two women who'd hiked in from Going to the Sun Road. For the first time in her life, Anna wished she'd had children so she could trade her firstborn for a drink. The hikers didn't drive quite so hard a bargain and were glad to have the privilege of rescuing a ranger.
'Drink as much as you like,' a hippy blond with wonderful eyes and badly sunburned cheeks said. 'We'll top off at the next creek.'
Anna took her up on the invitation and, thirst slaked, fell in with them as they hiked downhill toward Flattop. The women were good company. Both were from Oberlin, Ohio. Every year for seven years they backpacked together in a different national park. They collected stories, they told her, stories and pictures. On winter solstice they held a remembrance party and relived their adventures of past years.
'Now we've got you,' the blond said, and Anna had to submit with apparent good grace-they had given her water after all-to having her picture taken, the better to illustrate what would probably be entitled 'The Idiot Lady Ranger' story.
'Two good stories today,' the other woman said. Emma or Ella- Anna had been too busy swallowing when introductions were made to hear properly. She was the older of the two, in her thirties, with inky black hair cut short like a man's. One nostril was pierced and she wore a tiny diamond there that flashed in the sun when she talked. 'A while ago we stopped for lunch. We like to get off trail. You know, not just a few feet but half a mile or so, so we can really be here,' she told Anna, the diamond winking conspiratorially. 'We were pushing down through some brush to what looked like kind of a nice little clearing with a terrific view. We get there and there's this boy. Just this boy all by himself out on this rocky ledge and he's just sitting there crying his eyes out. Bawling. How weird.'
'There's a story right there,' the blond said happily. 'I mean, I'm sorry he was crying. He seemed like a sweet guy, but you've got to admit it's got 'story' written all over it.'
'No picture though,' the possibly-Emma woman said.
'Maybe he was ashamed.' Anna was still feeling mildly humiliated at her own story potential.
'Oh, we didn't shove the camera in his weepy little face like some demented newswomen,' the blond said. 'We believe in leaving no trace, not even footprints.'
'Especially on people's faces,' the other woman threw in and laughed, a boisterous, barroom laugh that tickled Anna. 'He was really an unhappy citizen. We tried to talk with him but he wasn't much for that. He dried up the minute we showed. Real sweet fella.'
'Till the camera came out. Then he became Mr. Freaky.'
The story was beginning to interest Anna. 'What did he look like?' she asked.
'Around five-ten. Young, exceedingly young. Too young to be out without his momma. He couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen, tops. What do the you think, Emma? Fifteen?'
'Thereabouts,' Emma concurred.
'Soft, soft brown hair. Some wave. Big old hazel eyes with lashes out to here.' The blond held a stubby forefinger adorned with chipped burgundy polish a couple of inches beyond her nose.
'Boxy jaw,' Emma said. 'Square guy. Not fat, square. Looked strong.'
It was about the best description of a person Anna had ever gotten in her years as a law enforcement officer. These women were of that rare breed that saw what they were looking at.
She compared the description with her memory and decided they had seen the elusive Geoffrey Mickelson
Nicholson. 'Did he wear a length of chain wrapped around his waist and have a smile like St. Francis of Assisi?' Anna asked. 'I was getting to that,' Emma said, in the injured tone of a raconteur whose flow is interrupted. 'Do you know him?' the blond asked. 'I've met him,' Anna said. 'Do you know why he was crying? He wouldn't tell us.' Anna didn't. It crossed her mind that his heart was broken because the boulder he'd rolled down the mountainside had failed to squash her, but she didn't say so. The stories she collected weren't the kind that made for good memories on a deep winter's night.
'How long ago?' Anna asked. 'Maybe an hour,' Emma said. Too much time had passed to follow him on foot. Anna needed film, a weapon, a horse, water and a much better plan. She continued on to Fifty Mountain Camp with the ladies from Ohio.
Chapter 19
