“I get why we’re on the train tracks and stopping near places that might have caves, but what is it about the water? Why did we hike down to that lake?” Amber asked.
“I don’t know,” Alan said. “Just a feeling I have, I guess. Those things felt like they were connected to the natural world, and for me I guess I associate that with bodies of water.”
Amber climbed onto the snowmobile and he started up the engine. It was tough to get the thing turned around. They both had to get off and pull the back end of the snowmobile before they got it pointed the right direction.
Back at the car, Alan unfolded the map again.
“Here’s our next stop. We’ll be able to hit two locations.”
Amber nodded. They went to their separate vehicles and started them up. The brief trip in the car gave the snow on Alan’s pants just enough time to melt into his socks. Getting out of the car the second time, he began to realize that it was going to be a really long day.
They improved the process on the second trip. They hadn’t seen anyone else, or heard any other snowmobiles, which made perfect sense as far as Alan was concerned. The trails that covered the most distance relied on the lakes being covered with ice, and there was hardly any left. In some of the places, the snow wasn’t even very deep. The season was too far gone for most people. Alan realized that he didn’t have to worry about blocking the trail, so when they got to their third location, he stopped right in the middle and they worked together to drag the back end of the snowmobile around to point it in the right direction.
“My ankles are getting tired,” Amber said as they climbed to a place where a stream cut through a pass.
“Me too,” Alan said. “Maybe one more trip and we take a break for lunch.”
Amber nodded.
They visited a spot where they could see the rock face of the side of a steep hill. Icicles hung down over shallow holes in the rocks. There didn’t look to be any caves deep enough to explore. Alan and Amber waited to see if they sensed anything—they didn’t.
Back at the vehicles, Alan was already getting frustrated.
“I’m wondering about this water idea,” he said. “Maybe we should just be focused on places that might have caves?”
“Why not stick to your original plan?” Amber asked.
“Because it was just a hunch. Isn’t one hunch just as good as another?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I like the idea of being methodical, even if the method is unproven.”
“Yeah. Okay. We should see another road about a mile up. We take a right on that and we park at the next crossing.”
“Got it,” Amber said. “Wait. What are these things? They’re not on your GPS.”
She was pointing to a rectangle that was near the pond they had visited.
“I don’t know—old markers maybe? You’re right though. They’re on the paper USGS maps, but not on the GPS. These maps are old. The GPS has brand new data.”
“Okay,” Amber said. She went off to her car. Alan pulled around and led the way. Her question bothered him all the way to their next stop. She joined him at his car when he was still studying the map.
“Your rectangles—there’s one not too far from this pond we’re going to look at. I think it would be worth taking a look.”
Amber nodded.
He got the snowmobile up onto the trail and they started off through the woods. Alan kept thinking about the rectangle. Before they reached the place he had marked on the GPS, he thought he had it figured out.
“Right there,” he said, pointing.
Amber pulled off her helmet and put on her hat.
“Right where?”
“See that gap in the trees? That’s a trail—probably for off-road vehicles or maybe ATVs or something?”
“Okay?”
“Look,” Alan said. He unfolded the map. “If that’s a trail then it leads right to your rectangle. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. That’s a building.”
“Way out here?”
“It’s probably a cabin or something. People call them ‘camps’ around here. Everyone has a camp on the lake somewhere. When they’re remote like this, sometimes they’re not for hanging around in the summer as much as they are used for, like, hunting lodges in the fall. They often don’t have insulation or heat, so that’s why there aren’t any snowmobile tracks going towards it.”
“Okay. You still want to check it out?” Amber asked.
“Yeah. One, I want to make sure that I’m right. But, two, I wonder if maybe there’s a crawlspace underneath.”
Amber’s eyes went wide as she finally grasped what he was saying.
“I was thinking that they would all be together, but what if they dispersed out to different hiding places for the winter, you know?” Alan asked.
“Yeah. Let’s be careful about this.”
“Definitely.”
# # #
“It’s my fault. I should have checked the terrain. We’re going to be right on top of this thing before we can see it,” Alan said. They were already at the self-imposed maximum radius that they allowed. Any farther and they would be breaking the rule about how far away from the car they were allowed to get.
“Let’s see the map,” Amber said.
They went to the nearest tree so they could lean against it while Alan unfolded the map. He had the sites they were going to investigate circled in red.
“Here’s a good one,” Alan said. “Two more stops from now, the place I marked is right next to a cabin. We just have to hike a hundred yards over a hill and we’ll be able to see it.”
Amber closed her eyes.
“Yeah. I
