Pete kept hoping Myra would say something. William felt sorry for Pete.
“Well, back to work.” Pete and Bernie headed east up the valley.
“He, at least, had manners,” Tom said, watching them go.
“You didn’t get creeped out in those dark ledges?” Myra had gone over to join Sarah.
“Dirty in there. Dark. Smelled.”
The place Bob-Bob was buried lay 100 yards west of their camp. It wouldn’t take long to pile the stones on his grave. On their way there they passed a tiny red marker Pete and Bernie had tacked to the trunk of a tree. Sarah reached up and pulled the tag off.
As they stood around the pile of stones, Tom tried joking with Sarah.
“Those crevices you explored, none of them were big enough to hide a big bear, were they?”
Sarah stiffened. “You mean, like the bear I thought I saw but didn’t see? The one I’m lying about? That one? You move these stones by yourself.” She turned and marched back toward camp. She walked fast, arms swinging, exactly as she had marched down the trail the first day. She disappeared in the trees.
“Leave her be,” Myra said, when Tom started to follow. “She’s having a tough time. She’ll calm down.”
They moved the stones, piling them on Bob-Bob’s grave. Soon the mound resembled a grave again. Tom found a big branch and piled stones around the base, making an upright post on top of the stones.
High above, an eagle cried, twice.
Myra started back toward camp. “I better go see if she’s all right.”
Tom finished bracing the post and climbed out of the hole, watching Myra stride between the trees. “Mistake, bringing Sarah, ‘Eye. We get back, what then? Her real parents are dead. There’s just me and Ruth.”
“Maybe you’re going to get the chance to raise the daughter you didn’t raise the first time around.”
“Me, going to parent teacher conferences? Helping her with homework? Me?”
“She’d be damn lucky to have you, Tom.”
“Then, in a year or two, boys will come after her. She’s going to be a looker, like her mother was.”
“You’re lucky, Tom. Just after Myra and I got back from Haida Gwaii, my wife threw me out and I joined the merchant marine. I was still drinking, remember? I hardly saw Myra when she was in high school, not until I sobered up, ten years ago. I was just her drunken father, away all the time.”
“I’d like to say a few words here for Bob-Bob, but I don’t know what.”
“How about, ‘I brought you your great-great-granddaughter. I hope you will guide her strong spirit in the years ahead?”
“Well said, ‘Eye. You always tell me you’re no shaman but sometimes I wonder.”
“Well now that I know we might be distant cousins, maybe I’ll tell you my secrets.”
When they reached camp, it was empty. Then Myra appeared.
“Sarah’s missing.”
Sarah had left them 30 minutes earlier. Her pack was hanging from a branch. Her jacket still lay by the tent, her hat on top.
Myra waved toward the cliff. “I looked over by the cliff. I called for her. I didn’t hear anything.”
“If she’d decided to start back to the main trail she’d have gone right by us,” William said. “Tom or I would have heard her. I think.”
“She wouldn’t be stupid enough to walk back to the trailhead alone without a coat or sleeping bag.”
“She was pretty angry, Myra,” Tom said. “Who knows what she’d do?”
They stopped talking and listened. They heard, very faint, a whistle from up at the head of the valley.
“Sarah?” Tom asked.
“That whistle came from the surveyors, must be over a mile away. Maybe more. Too far,” Myra said.
“If she’s hiding to punish me I’m going to throw her over my knee when we find her.” Tom was staring toward the sound of the whistle.
Myra began tightening her bootlaces. “I’ll search out to the saddle, and then hike down to Godkin. If somehow she went that way I can catch her. You two start checking every void, every niche by the cliff, see if she’s fallen out of sight. We have no idea how deep some of those voids are. She can’t have gone far. We all have whistles, right? Any of us finds her, three sharp calls, all right? Two hours, meet back here.”
It was not yet mid-morning. The sun was fully over the ridge. Traces of high clouds had come in from the southwest, a sure sign of rain. Myra was already gone by the time Tom and William had their boots laced tight.
Tom was grim. “’Eye, you start checking the voids, the niches. I’ll range up toward the head of the valley, see if she went that way.”
William started with the tumbled and piled rocks between their camp and the foot of the cliff. Piled next to and on top of each other, they left big gaps. He called Sarah’s name and searched for signs of scuffed rock, footprints, and clothing. He kept hoping Sarah’s face would pop out somewhere, satisfied she’d played a good joke on them.
Two hours later they met at their campsite.
“You see the surveyors?” Tom asked Myra. “When I got to the head of the valley they weren’t there. I saw some red tags, that’s all.”
She shook her head. “I saw no sign of Sarah, or the surveyors.”
“You go as far as their camp?” Tom asked.
“They’ve packed but there’s nobody there.”
“’Eye, you hear them go past you leaving the valley?”
“I heard nothing. I was behind those rocks, in the voids beyond the cliff. I wouldn’t have heard them.”
“You’re sure about the voids and ledges, dad? Sarah’s not there?”
“As sure as I can be without rope and ladder. I’ll check them all again.”
“No, ‘Eye.” said Tom. “Myra and I will check them. You find the surveyors, see if they’ll help in a search. Maybe they have a radio, too. If we can’t find her, we’ll need more help.”
“Same signal,” Myra said. “Three blasts if we see her. If the surveyors have left their camp, blow an SOS on your whistle, dad. Maybe they’ll hear it. Meet back here in 90 minutes.”
When William reached the surveyors’ camp on the Godkin, it was abandoned: no tents, no packs, no hanging lines, and no camp chairs. He saw four sets of boot prints heading downstream toward the Elwha. He pulled out his whistle and blew SOS four or five times, as loud as he could. Then he waited. After 10 minutes, he blew again. He did this for half an hour, then gave up. He made a large arrow in the sand, pointing to their campsite up on Bear Creek. He wrote SOS in the gravel and started back to the cliff.
When he saw Tom and Myra he knew at once they had not found Sarah.
“Myra’s heading out,” Tom said. “She’ll chase down those surveyors, if she can, see if they have a radio. We need rescue up here, as fast as we can.” Tom gave a tired smile. “Guess we’ll see how loud a helicopter is in this valley after all.”
Myra rifled the food stores, grabbing energy bars. “You two geezers be careful. You’ve got enough food. Just save some in case Sarah shows up. Tom, she’s an ornery, angry, defiant kid. She can survive for days up here on spite alone. Dad, get off your feet and eat something. I should be able to get as far as Hayes River before dark tonight. If I catch up with those surveyors and they have a radio we can call for help. If for some reason Sarah is with them or I find her down the trail I’ll bring her back here. You both take care.”
With that, Myra was gone. It was after five in the afternoon. Tom and William were alone, the valley around them empty. William felt a drop of rain strike his shoulder.
“I’ll check the voids again,” William said, and despite his hurting feet and the rain he spent the next hour peering into niches calling Sarah’s name. Tom was further east at the base of the big slide.
When rain began to fall harder, they gathe
red at their camp.
Tom stowed their gear in the tent. “’Eye. You seen the atlatl tube?”
“It was by your tent. You put it there this morning.”
“It’s gone. Missing. Do you think Sarah took it? She was furious with me.”
“Maybe.”
“Could have been those surveyors, too, sneaking back here. Those two guys with sunglasses seemed to be looking for something. I’m sure they overheard what we were talking about last night. But that’s for later. Right now, all I want to do is find Sarah.”
“You came up here to make peace with your grandfather’s spirit. You brought your granddaughter. Now, wherever she is, that spirit will guide her.”
They ate dinner in the dark. The night was long. Rain fell hard. The wind blew. William kept listening for Sarah, hoping to hear a footfall, branches breaking, her voice. Dawn brought gray light. A chill fog had settled in the valley. The ridges were lost above. Behind them, water fell from the cliff in sheets.
They unpegged the wet tents and carried them, with sleeping bags inside, beneath the cliff overhang where the ground was dry. They started a fire. They ate breakfast. Then they searched.
They searched all morning, and all afternoon, moving north and south through the valley, checking the creek edges, shouting Sarah’s name. By five o’clock that evening they had completed five sweeps of the valley. They trudged back toward the tents.
As they splashed up out of the creek a quarter mile west of their camp, Myra, Pete and Raymond appeared. William was happy to see Myra but saw that Sarah was not with her.
“Talk about a sorry looking sight,” Myra said. “You two should be on a veranda somewhere, not out doing this.” Raymond had a sour expression. “The other two went on out. They should reach the parking lot late tonight, maybe early morning. They’ll call for help. After a little discussion, their boss, Roger, agreed to let Pete and Raymond come back and help us search.”
“You call that a discussion?” Raymond laughed. The tattoo on his neck was a dragon. “Hellcat, you were.”
Pete nodded. “Roger wasn’t happy, that’s for sure. We brought some food, extra blankets, batteries, lights. If she’s here we’ll find her.”
“She’s here,” Tom said. “And thanks.”
“Not where I want to be,” Raymond said.
“Sarah didn’t want to be here either. The sooner we find her, the sooner we go home.”
Pete and Raymond pitched their tent beneath the overhang a distance away. After dinner, they turned in.
Myra spoke to Tom and William quietly. “No sign of Sarah. I found them at Hayes River. Roger’s an asshole. He didn’t want to help. He was in a big hurry. He could care less about Sarah being lost. But Pete made him realize that if they didn’t help find Sarah, things would look bad for Buckhorn. That got Roger’s attention. Plus, I was pretty insistent.”
“The atlatl’s gone,” said Tom. “Vanished, like Sarah. At this point either she has it or that survey crew does.”
The next day, the fog lifted in the early afternoon. The rain ceased at dusk. They ranged the floor of the valley. Tom and William struggled to keep up with Myra and Pete. Raymond, whining and lagging behind, proved to be useless. Myra drove them all day. No helicopter came.
Nearly three days had passed since Sarah had vanished. The nights had been cold and the rain, icy.
William understood, that evening, Tom was preparing to find a body.
“Never say never,” Myra told Tom. “She’s probably within 500 yards of us. She may just be hidden. She may be sheltered and dry.”
“How long you going to look?” Raymond asked Tom.
“As long as it takes.”
That night, the weather cleared and the next day the temperature rose. They kept searching. Tom and William used the line they’d brought to hang their food to lower Myra into some of the deeper voids.
A helicopter arrived early that afternoon. They heard the rotors clattering long before the machine appeared just above the lip of the saddle, landing at the base of the chute on a finger of snow. Four people emerged, carrying packs, bags, and coils of rope. They included the other two surveyors, Roger and Bernie, and two search-and-rescue rangers. The helicopter spent the rest of the afternoon searching from above, while everyone else again combed the valley.
They searched this way for three more days, the helicopter flying back and forth overhead. Finally, the search was called off. Rain and fog were forecast. Sarah had been missing a full week.
The next day, early, the eighth since Sarah had vanished, the helicopter carried away the Buckhorn surveyors and the two rescue specialists. Tom tried unsuccessfully to convince Myra to take the helicopter, so she could return to work. Myra tried to persuade William to fly back because of the horrible condition of his feet. William chose to remain behind with Tom. Before the helicopter left, the lead ranger gave them additional rations and two radios.
“Keep looking,” he said. “If she was my granddaughter I’d stay up here too.”
“Well,” said Myra, after the last sounds of the helicopter faded. “What’s it going to look like, Tom, you not showing up at work?”
“Same as for you, I expect. ‘Eye, you and Myra should head back. Leave me food, matches. I’ll be fine for a while. I have a radio.”
“Sarah won’t be helped if you decide to die up here, Tom,” said Myra. “There’s still a chance she slipped down to Whiskey Bend, unseen. Maybe she ran off. She’s run off before. Tom, you’ll be fired for sure if you stay up here.”
“I know, Myra. Lynch will use this to prove that I can’t make good decisions, that I’m losing it. He’ll say I took a young girl out of school, brought her deep into the wilderness in bad weather with no prior experience. He’ll say this whole trip was an effort by me to stop Buckhorn’s investment and ruin his legacy, the Clovis Center.” Tom rose and rummaged in Sarah’s pack. He pulled out her sketchpad and turned the pages: a spider web, Myra, William, the bear, detailed sketches of the two sides of the atlatl. “She hates me, hates this place, all of it. She’s the angriest girl I ever saw. But goddammit, anyone that small who could lug a stone that big for Bob-Bob’s grave, who could draw like this, it’s just not fair.” Tears rolled down Tom’s cheeks.
“Tom, I’m staying,” William said. “I’m not due to rejoin the ship for days. Myra, you walk out, go back to work. We’ll stay up here for a bit, Tom and me. All this exercise is great for my figure.”
It was settled. Myra would hike out, while Tom and William would continue the search.
“I hope she did get your stubborn genes, Tom,” Myra said. “If she got even half of them, she could live out here for a month. You are the most stubborn man I have ever known. Next to my dad, of course.”
“Me? Why do you say that?”
For a moment, they were all able to smile.
Myra packed her gear and left, taking one of the radios. She would try to get to Elkhorn by nightfall; get out the next day.
William helped her straighten her pack. “Myra, if the weather really turns, take shelter or even come back here. Okay?”
They watched her leave. Myra was soon lost in the trees. For an hour they searched the voids beneath the boulders, yet again. The sky darkened. They took a break and rested beneath the cliff overhang.
Tom waved an arm. “We could search in here for a month and find nothing. You see some of those tree falls across the creek? Trunks all piled together, with spaces beneath? All the gaps along the base of the cliff? Sarah is small. She could be lying dead in some tiny space none of us can reach. I think she’s here. And I intend to find her, put her to rest.”
Sarah had been missing eight days. She was unfamiliar with being in the woods. She had no matches, no food, and no protection for the cold wet nights. William put a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Like you I have steeled my heart for a heavy bl
ow, Tom.”
They stood beneath the overhang as thunder, black clouds and heavy rain rolled across the Godkin Valley. Soon the storm was directly over them. They remained dry beneath the overhang, but it was hard to see through the downpour to the forest beyond. Out toward the creek the forest floor was nearly dark. When lightning flashed, everything ahead was bright, vivid, yet blurred by the water pouring off the overhang. Between lightning flashes, they were temporarily blinded. Wind raced through the valley. The thunder was deafening.
Tom was shouting at William. All William could see was Tom’s mouth, open. Thunder crashed at the same moment a flash of white light exploded. In that instant William saw Tom pointing ahead. William stared but he was blinded by the flash, hearing only thunder, rain, wind, and somewhere close a great crashing as a tree collapsed in the forest.
Tom was still pointing toward the forest when they could both see again. Ahead, to the right, a tall tree smoked, flames licking, a lightning strike. Adjacent stood the jagged broken stump of another tree, its trunk stretching away, smoking.
“I saw Myra,” Tom shouted.
In the next flash, in the instant before being blinded, there was Myra, stumbling toward them. She was covered with mud, had lost her pack, seemed, somehow, shrunken, as if injured.
Another sheet of light flashed, twice, again with thunder, instantaneous. William blinked and blinked. Already the thunder sounded more distant, coursing beyond their valley as the storm raced east. Nobody was standing before them when their eyes adjusted. The forest seemed empty. The struck tree smoked.
They both saw her at the same time, lying before them, just beyond the overhang, face down, motionless. They both ran ahead. How did she get so muddy? Where was her pack? She seemed broken. William kneeled next to her.
But this was not Myra.
This was Sarah.
She lay, unrecognizable, filthy.
Tom and William carried her to the fire. She smelled. She was covered in mud. Her hair was tangled, her faced scratched and torn, the metal stud from her nose missing, her nose, bloody. Dark shadows rimmed her eyes and her pale cheeks were sunken. She was even thinner than before, a wraith. Her hands were shredded, fingernails broken, palms torn. Half the fourth finger on her right hand was missing. Her pants were torn and soiled, but she still had her boots. She had a badly healed cut on her forehead. She would always have a scar. Her eyes were half-open. She was breathing.
Strong Heart Page 6
