The Dark Place

Caller: Now, Joe, don't be funny. I was near that old trail they closed up, near where Seldes Creek runs into Finley Creek, panning for gold a few summers ago—

Mr. Ambeau: Panning for gold. Yes, uh-huh.

Caller: Yes, and I got a little lost, and I fell asleep, and I heard some voices—

Mr. Ambeau: Glory, hallelujah.

Caller: And so I opened my eyes, you know, just a little? So they wouldn't know I was awake. And I saw them sort of sneaking among the trees, looking at me.

Mr. Ambeau: That's really fascinating, ma'am. I could just sit and talk with you all day, but we only have another thirty seconds.

Caller: Well, I lay there very quiet, and I heard what they said. One of them, anyway, a little old man. He said, “kooknama reemee.'

Mr. Ambeau: I see. You sure these were little brown men? You sure they weren't little green men from that flying saucer of yours? Wearing space suits?

Caller: Oh, no, they were little brown men. And all they were wearing were little aprons, sort of.

Mr. Ambeau: Gotta go, dearie. Time for a commercial. Give us a call next time the moon's full, hear, now?

When Gideon looked up, Abe said, “So what do you think?'

'I don't know. It might be true, but—forgive my elitist leanings—my credulity is not enhanced by the flying- saucer bit.'

'Good,” Abe said. “A nice, healthy skepticism. Now, the first question is: Is there such a place as—what was it?—where Seldes Creek runs into Finley Creek?'

'The answer is yes.'

Abe's moist eyes widened. “You know this?'

'No, but I can see you have a topographic map unrolled on the dining-room table, and something tells me that you're about to lead me over there and show me that, verily, there is such a place.” But it wasn't only that. Finley Creek had a familiar ring.

As soon as Abe jabbed his finger onto the map, Gideon remembered. And he knew they were onto something. “That's where Pringle found the spear head; right where you're pointing!'

Abe clucked softly. “So. What do you think of that? You wouldn't happen to remember where those two hikers got lost five or six years ago? The ones who got killed?'

'I don't think I ever knew. They were found in the cemetery. That's only a few miles from there.'

'I did a little looking in the old newspapers. It looks like they were both on a new trail that just opened up, the Matheny trail, that runs from the Queets River—what a name—all the way up Matheny Creek'—his finger slowly traced the line from left to right—'and then to this North Fork Campground along Big Creek. In between, for a few miles, it runs—guess where?—down Finley Creek.'

'Why doesn't it show on the map?'

'It's not there anymore, not officially. It opened up in 1976 and inside of a month those guys disappeared. They closed the trail—a good thing, it looks like—and they never bothered to reopen it. Now the Park Service says it ain't really necessary, and they ain't got funds to maintain it, and so on and so forth. So it's not on the map, and the signs are all down, and it's all overgrown, and nobody knows it's there. If you want my opinion, Mr. Skeleton Detective, that's where your Indians are.'

'But what about the ledge we found? That was up on Pyrites Creek, over ten miles away. So was Claire Hornick's body. And that's where Pringle found two of his points. You're not going to say there are two groups in there, are you?'

Abe waved off Gideon's comments. “Use your noodle. Think about what you know about the Yahi—'

'What do the Yahi have to do with it?'

'I'm just giving you an example,” Abe said. “Keep your shirt on. When the Yahi were hiding in California all those years, they had two villages. In the summer they lived up on Mount Lassen, where it was nice and breezy. In the wintertime, they came down and lived in the valleys. Much warmer. Why shouldn't these Indians do the same thing?'

'You think the ledge on Pyrites Creek is their summer home, and when it turns cold they move down to Finley Creek?'

'Why not? And if you do a little checking, which I did, you'll see that the two hikers on the Matheny trail, they got killed in the winter, when the Indians would have been there, near this Finley Creek. But the Hornick girl, according to you, she's dead two weeks, right? Late summer. The Indians would still be there.” He pointed at Pyrites Creek. “But now that the weather's all cold and crummy, you can bet your life they went lower down, where it's not so cold. Here.” The finger thumped Finley Creek.

That would explain why the ledge had been deserted. The Zanders must have happened on it just after the Indians had left. The same day, apparently, if they'd smelled smoke. The Zanders had been lucky.

'Why are you looking so glum?” Abe said. “Cheer up. Now I really got something to knock your block off. Come.'

Gideon followed Abe back into the study. Abe whistled tunelessly under his breath, a sure sign he was enjoying himself. The old man seated himself stiffly in one of the wing-backed chairs in front of the wall with the photographs and reached for a book at his side. “Come look.'

Gideon pulled up the other chair. The book was a bilingual dictionary: one column was English, the other an unfamiliar language, definitely not Indo-European.

'The lady of the talk show,” Abe said. “You remember what she said the old man said?'