“Where in the mountains?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but I had the impression it was a long hike, pretty high up, where the trees thin out and stop,” she said.
“Anything else that might help us?”
For a while she was silent, and in the end said, “I don’t think so. But if I think of anything, I’ll get in touch with the sheriff.”
I had something I wanted to ask her. “One question, Jessica, about your sister Christina,” I started.
“Christina?”
“Yes. Who was the man stalking her?”
“I don’t understand. Why are you asking about Christina?”
“I just need to know, was it your husband?”
Silence while she apparently considered my question. “Yes, it was Evan,” Jessica said. “That was the one time there was trouble between Evan and Gerard. My sister was beautiful. They both wanted Christina. She didn’t want either one of them. She saw how Evan treated me, and she told my parents that she’d run away before she married into the Barstow family.”
“How did the brothers react?” I asked.
“Evan was furious,” Jessica said. “He and Gerard fought. Not long after that, Gerard was forced out of Alber. I always figured Evan had to be behind it. But how is this related?”
I thought about Sadie’s Seattle letter. So much was beginning to make sense. “Did your family ever hear from Christina after that letter from Chicago?”
“No. Never. Why are you asking about this now?”
I didn’t answer, but made an excuse and hung up.
When I returned to the horses, I approached the tracker, a lanky guy with an angular face named Joe Rodgers. He had a long, thin mouth that tucked high into his cheek on the right.
“Joe, I know this isn’t a lot of help, but we have a source who believes Evan may be heading for a particular cave. One he played in as a boy.”
“Where’s it at?”
“That’s the bad news. Our source doesn’t know, except that it’s rather high up.”
Rodgers chuckled. “Well, that is a problem. There are dozens of caves up there, and a lot of them fit that description. Add in the deserted mines…”
“Shit, a cave high up? That’s no tip,” Mullins murmured. “That’s no more help than throwing a dart at a map.”
We took off, the tracker in the lead. I’d hoped to get night-vision gear, but the sheriff only had two sets and both were out for repair. That left us with flashlights and the full moon. We searched the ground looking for trampled grass and broken branches, hoof prints, shoe prints, debris left behind, anything that gave a clue about which way to head. The drought was our enemy. The sun had baked the earth to concrete, withered the underbrush and grass.
“Looks like there’s an indentation in the lower tree line to the right. It could be a trail,” Rodgers said, staring through a pair of binoculars. “Let’s head there, forty degrees to the right.”
We followed, seeing nothing that confirmed he’d chosen the right direction. No one talked. All of us focused on the ground beneath us and the landscape ahead of us, as we wound between the scraggly pines. The sounds of the horses’ hooves hitting the ground, their steady breathing, gave our quest a rhythm. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances, it would have felt good to be on horseback. It had been years since I had taken the time to ride. We caravanned toward the mountains. Before long the dry brush surrounding us grew denser, and as we approached where the woods thickened, Rodgers pointed out the opening in the forest he’d noticed earlier.
“It’s a trail,” he said. “Could be where they’d head.”
Mullins’s lips curved into a doubtful arc. “These mountains are scarred with them. Lots of old miners’ trails. You go a couple hundred yards down, and there’ll be another. You get farther up, and sometimes they run together. Sometimes they just dead-end and disappear.”
“Mullins is right. I used to go three-wheeling around here,” Max said. “But let’s go. At least this’ll get us into the woods.
“Sure, let’s take it,” I decided. “The choppers should show up soon. The pilots can use the path as a center divide, to plot sections to search.”
We headed up the path, and fifteen minutes later we heard helicopter blades beating overhead.
“They’re here,” Conroy shouted.
“Quiet down,” Mullins warned. “You want to let the whole blasted forest know we’re here? Keep it low.”
The kid, embarrassed, nodded.
“Chief Deputy Anderson,” a voice came over our headsets.
“Here,” Max said.
“We’ve got sights on your party. We’re going to start scanning with the thermal equipment.”
Finally, I thought.
While the choppers searched for the bright images of body heat on their monitors, we continued up the mountain. We moved slowly. We didn’t want to be too high if they spotted Evan east or west of our position.
“We think we’ve got them,” an excited chopper tech radioed. “We can see a group, looks like a horse, maybe three other figures…”
I held my breath. The seconds dragged.
“Not them. A clutch of elk,” the man said. “Sorry, folks.”
Half an hour passed. We had more false sightings, ones that turned out to be a small herd of mule deer and two black bears foraging.
The helicopters kept spreading out. As we traveled higher, the woods grew deeper. The trees massive, shafts of moonlight illuminated the ground between them. Our tracker stayed in the lead. He saw no sign that the trail we were on had been used in more than a year. The forest had begun to retake it, sending up young pines. Nothing in front of us looked disturbed. To our disappointment, Joe announced, “This can’t be the way. I would have seen something by now, broken branches, crushed vegetation.”
I’d made a mistake. Anxious to get started, I’d jumped the gun. “We should have waited for the dogs,” I said to Max. “Find out where they are.”
Max
