Canyon Echoes

by Miranda Nading

  Gracie told her everything. She told her about the body, the voices and the flashes of the little girl, reaching for the doorknob. “I don't know why I was so afraid of her opening that door, but it terrified me. There's something bad back there, something evil.”

  “I don't understand, it's always been better for you here,” Julie whispered “What's changed?”

  “I don't know, nothing; nothing that I remember,” She could feel panic starting to edge its way in and took a deep breath. “Winter was the usual. I found a quiet spot on the coast and just kept my head down.”

  “Are you writing?”

  “Yeah, every night.” She shook her head. Other than her dogs, writing was her best therapy. It was a way to get the voices, the images out of her head so she could play with them, make them less frightening by exposing them to the light. “It's going a little slow right now; I just started a new book so I haven't found my click yet, haven't gotten into the zone. But that's never caused anything like this before.”

  Julie rubbed her arm and nodded. No one knew her better than Julie did. She'd seen Gracie at her best, as well as her worst and agreed with her. “I've seen you in the pre-zone before. It was never a trigger. What about the body? Are you sure it wasn't real?”

  Gracie shivered, and then admitted the truth. “I'm not sure of anything.”

  “Then our first step is Sulphur Caldron.”

  The chair slammed into the wall as Gracie bolted away from the table. Her thumb snuck toward her mouth and her teeth locked onto the thumbnail even as her head twitched back and forth. The dogs had been quiet, playing with their toys. Now their high-pitched barks tried to outpace their claws as they scratched against the front door, demanding entrance.

  Gracie's mind locked onto them. Her thumb dropped away as she went for the door. Julie refreshed their coffee and sat at the table, keeping her distance from Gracie until she could regain her footing. Fifteen minutes passed while the dogs reassured themselves that their human wasn't in danger, before they calmed down.

  Embarrassed, it took Gracie a few more minutes before she could look up and meet Julie's eyes. The love and understanding that met her gaze was overwhelming. She leaned back on the couch, closed her eyes and let the tears fall, silent and warm.

  “Here,” Julie nudged her with a coffee cup and settled in next to her. “It's okay. I'll go and find out. I think, for you to be able to make sense of it, to put it behind you, you need to go with me, but I won't push. You know your limits; what you can handle and what you can't. If you choose to go, I can promise you I will be there every step of the way. You won't have to do it alone. Whatever is happening, we'll figure it out.”

  Gracie rested her head on Julie's shoulder, wanting to thank her, unable to speak. Her puppies, sensing her turmoil, used their noses instead of their kisses to wipe away her tears.

  Canyon had always been home, Yellowstone was her backyard. She tolerated winter, finding quiet locations where she could be alone, only moving when it became too crowded or someone got too friendly. If she lost Canyon now, she would have nowhere left to go. Nowhere would be safe.

  5

  “Lester just landed in Bozeman,” Mike slammed the door on his truck and joined Hudson on the steps of the Pagoda in Mammoth. Ice pellets clung to the grooves in his windshield wipers and in the vents above the hood, but they were quickly melting after leaving the higher elevations. “At first glance, coroner said it will be tomorrow before they'll even get the preliminary started.”

  Hudson finished gathering up the files he had strong-armed out of Wilderness Resorts' personnel department and asked, “Too icky?”

  Mike laughed and popped the top on his Yellowstone Nalgene, watching the cars as they fought for a place to park in front of the hotel. “Understatement of the year award is yours, my friend.”

  “They hand a new Nalgene out every year and you're still drinking out of that thing?”

  Mike looked at his bottle and ran a loving fingertip over the grizzly bear pasted on the front. “Never knock the power of nostalgia. What have you got on Lake employees?”

  “The maintenance shop is the only thing open just yet. Two present-day carpenters, one electrician, one locksmith, one plumber and four general maintenance workers.”

  Mike held the door open for Hudson and followed him up the narrow stairs to their office. The building had been built in 1903; in good old military fashion, it was compact and efficient. “Present day?”

  Hudson leaned against the wall and made a great show of sucking in his stomach to let Mike pass and unlock the door. “Real world jobs include a computer technician, a school teacher, two factory workers and the rest are young'uns who haven't had a chance to have a real world life yet. That doesn't include Lester's family connections at Lake.”

  Mike grinned. “I got you beat. About the same present day set, but their real world jobs include a retired rocket scientist, an aircraft technician, an environmental scientist, a novelist and two retired veterans. The rest look like your typical, run of the mill Yellowstone driftwood.”

  Hudson cocked an eyebrow at Mike before making sure he had heard him right. “Canyon has a retired rocket scientist? As in NASA rocket scientist?”

  “Yep.”

  “And he chose Canyon Village to spend his summers?”

  “Yep.”

  “I'm officially impressed, and more than a little confused.”

  “You're telling me. I'd be spending my days on a beach in Cancun, with a couple of beach bunnies in one hand and a beer in the other.”

  Hudson laughed and dropped his files onto his desk before turning to the high window at the front of the building, “You'd end up with a flea-ridden dog and rotgut hooch.”

  The United States Army Corp of Engineers building, or USACE, was cramped, old, and drafty. From the moment it opened, it was dubbed the Pagoda because of the green tiled roof and its gently uplifted edges. The front porch and twin chimneys gave it an exotic air in the rustic national park.

  As far as Hudson was concerned, it also had the best view in the park. The grassy knolls in the center of U.S. 89 would soon become a midday resting place for cow elk while on the other side of that, Officers' Row—with all its old fort history—spread out before him. Standing at the window, looking out at the old parade grounds, Hudson could almost feel the provenance. He could almost hear cadence called, rolling off the surrounding hills, as the old soldiers mustered for drills and inspection.

  How Janette had loved walking Officers' Row after dinner, an evening constitutional that ended with them hiking the back trail to the upper terraces more often than not. They usually found their way back to their little house by starlight.

  To his right the terraces caught the sun and stood white and gold in the late afternoon light. Shrouded in mist in the early morning hours of winter, it was easy to imagine women in billowing dresses with heavy petticoats, men in formal coats with top hats and bowlers, rambling around the old fonts, dipping small trinkets into the mineral rich water to coat them in travertine.

  Mike cleared his throat. “Not to be an ass, but—”

  “Not being an ass is easy, Mike,” Hudson cut him off. He knew where this was going, and after five years, was tired of hearing it. “Just mind your own business.”

  “What happened to respecting your elders?” Mike blustered. “Look, boy. I loved Janette like a daughter—you know that. What happened was tragic, but living your life like a damned monk doing penance needs to stop. Move on. She would have wanted you to be happy and you know it.”

  “My life is just fine, Mike. Leave it alone.” Buses, yellow and silver with seventies-style orange and brown racing stripes down the sides, empty except for their drivers and escorts, rolled past the old hotel on their way back to Gardiner. Grateful for the chance to change the subject, Hudson asked, “What about new arrivals? Looks like we had some come in this morning.”

  Mike made a big deal of sighing behind him before accepting defeat. “M
ost of the kiddies are headed for Lake and Old Faithful and have been herded through orientation as a group. No way they could have gotten up to mischief at the mud pots between sessions. Canyon had a few lone rangers check in this morning, though. Six, all together, and they won't start work until tomorrow.”

  Hudson slid behind his desk and fired up the technological dinosaur he used as a computer. “They didn't have to be in orientation?”

  “All returners. Got one that's on her twentieth season, the rest have been coming back for the better part of five to fifteen years,” Mike flipped through the pages of his notebook. “Several resort monkeys. Two coming in from ski resorts and three coming in from Ocean Reef in the Keys.”

  Hudson tried to remember the savages he'd talked to, who'd spent their winters at the resort in the Florida Keys. “I seem to recall the Reefers don't get here until the week before opening.”

  “These are Yellowstone Lifer's. Work out a special contract to make sure they're free to pull the long season here.”

  “If they were true Lifer's, they'd be here, freezing their asses off with us in the winter.”

  Hudson's computer finally gave him the green light. USB ports accepted the adapters from his cellphone and the department camera Mike had used. He sent the files to the printer without opening them and pulled up Outlook.

  He cringed as the list of background files on the employees, in and around the Lake area, filled his screen. He had pulled personnel files from Wilderness Resorts, but hadn't taken into account the multitude of contractors, Bull Crew, High Country Concessions, National Park Service, Yellowstone Park Service Station, or Yellowstone Association employees who would be included.

  He had always wanted to be an investigator. As a kid, he had envisioned himself as Billy Dixon or Fred Dodge, taming the old west and saving damsels in distress. Neither lawman would have been sucked into to this kind of grinding deskwork.

  As the printer kicked into gear and began spitting out eight by ten photos, he linked the files COM sent to his email to an excel spreadsheet and sorted by male and female, then further sorted by company. They had their share of petite men in the park, but the shoe print had been slender, where a man's would have had a wider bridge. It might turn out to be an assumption that would come back and bite him, but he had to start somewhere.

  Just like his assumption that whoever killed Lester probably worked for the same organization. The different groups didn't exactly alienate on another, but their circles didn't mix by much. Besides the competitive loyalties between the concessionaires, most employees worked their butts off during the summer, using their free time to get into the backcountry and enjoy the park whenever they could.

  “Thank God the internationals haven't shown up yet,” Mike grumbled from across the room, pounding the down arrow as he scrolled through his own list. His reading glasses were parked on the end of his nose, his chin resting on his fist.

  “Are you whining, old man?” Hudson teased, but he felt Mike's pain. There was nothing more tedious than poring through background checks, especially with a list this long. “There is no whining in the Pagoda.”

  “My eyes are crossing.” He glared at Hudson over the top of his glasses. “I think they're going to stick this way and I'm just getting started.”

  Hudson sifted through the folders he'd picked up from Wilderness Resorts. He pulled out the files for the Canyon employees. There were only five women, who were either already working on location, or had checked in that morning. He put their files on top and passed it over the back-to-back desks to Mike. “Start with these and get your eyes off that screen before you go blind.”

  When the printer fell silent, Hudson pulled the stack of glossies out of the tray. Leaning over the bankers boxes of old files that lined the far wall, he used tape to hang them. Starting with the pictures leading up to the blood trail, he tried to keep them in order, ending with Lester swimming in Sulphur Caldron. What little evidence they had—snowshoe and tennis shoe prints, the busted railing, Lester's glasses—took center stage.

  He stepped back and tried to take in the big picture. Mike leaned on the desk behind him. “Not much to work with.”

  The phone rang behind him, but Hudson was focused on the images with the snowshoe prints. He barely heard Mike talking to someone on the other end of the line, as he stepped closer to the photos.

  “That was Doris at Lake.” Mike dropped the phone back into the cradle and sat back down, making the chair groan. “The family is handling the news about as well as we'd expect. No one seems to have any idea why he was at Caldron this morning, but his office has been sealed for you.”

  “I'll head that way first thing in the morning.” Hudson tapped a finger against a shot taken away from the caldron. “Look at this, Mike. The prints back behind the caldron have the waffle-slide pattern of an experienced snowshoer. Closer to where we think Lester died; they're smeared, dragging, like a beginner.”

  Mike stepped over and took a closer look at the photos. “What do you make of it?”

  “Not sure. But there are tracks leading away from the caldron that are even worse. You ever try to run in snowshoes?”

  “Not since I was a kid,” Mike laughed.

  Hudson nodded his head, and then shook it. “The deeper the snow, the harder it is to keep those damned things under you while you're shagging tail. It's a good way to break an ankle. The front edge catches and puts you flat on your face. Besides that, it's exhausting. They weren't meant to be skis.”

  Mike grabbed the phone and dialed. “David, this is Mike. Does Canyon rent snowshoes?”

  Hudson couldn't hear the other end of the short conversation, but grinned and nodded. “Do me a favor and lock 'em up. I'll be there in the morning. Meet'cha around seven at the station.”

  He turned to Hudson and clapped his hands. “Now we're cooking. The recreation office at Canyon isn't open yet, but some pre-season employees have access to the equipment. David's going to confiscate the snowshoes for me. The sign-out sheet, too.”

  “After a hike from Sulphur to Canyon, I doubt there would be any DNA left on them.”

  “True, but it's more than we had five minutes ago.”

  Hudson crawled back behind his desk, lifting a coffee cup toward his lips only to find it empty. “Did David happen to say who the last signature on the sign-in was?”

  “Thought you'd never ask,” Mike grinned and tapped the top folder on the stack Hudson had given him. “According to David, she's a sweet little thing that looks like she's afraid of her own shadow.”

  “Doesn't sound like someone who could beat a man bloody and throw him into an acid bath.”

  “Maybe not, but it doesn't sound like someone who could write horror stories, either. Yet according to David, she writes stuff that will curl your toe hairs.”

  The file Hudson pulled was frozen halfway open. “The novelist?”

  “The one and only,” Mike leaned back in his chair, hands locked behind his head and beamed at Hudson. “Gracie O'Dowdy.”

  6

  Driving through the park—when you weren't fighting the tourists who passed you in frustration, speeding, only to slam on their brakes in the middle of the road and fling their doors open to get a picture of a chipmunk—was always soothing. Gracie had about two weeks left before she would not be able to handle the bedlam that would become Yellowstone roads and public buildings. Two weeks until she only sought the refuge of her shop and motorhome.

  Now, however, she held tight to her coffee mug and watched Hayden Valley drift by with something far deeper than dread gripping her heart and turning the coffee in her stomach sour. She focused on Julie's side of the car, watching the valley spread out toward the river and beyond, a white field, pure and innocent, waiting for the sun to melt the thick blanket of snow so that the dance between predator and prey could begin again.

  On the right side of the car, a wall of snow loomed far above her, waiting to fold under its own weight and retake the roadway. Eve
ry spring, motor graders, which were pulled by D9 Cats as they fought to clear the thick snowpack that held the park in its winter grip, cut a swath over Grand Loop Road.

  If the body had not been real, if it had only been a product of her bad wiring, it meant she was standing on the edge of a cliff, like the top of those road cuts. Fragile and unstable, those walls could crumble any day now.

  If the body had been real, seeing it may have acted as a trigger, creating a short in her brain chemistry—like touching two bare wires together to get a spark. If Gracie believed in the power of prayer, part of her would be sending up a request to make this the case.

  Yet, if the body was real, it opened a whole new can of worms. She had never wished harm on anyone, not even the people who had hurt her as a child, making her the damaged goods she was today. She did not want to believe a murderer slept within her, waiting for its chance to escape.

  Yet it had happened before, hadn't it? Thankful that the voice speaking up was her own, she quashed it down and focused on the curve in the road, the curve that would tell her whether she was standing on a cliff, or beneath a looming avalanche.

  Letting the car coast to a stop as they turned the last curve, Julie eased the car to the edge of the road. The chances of another vehicle passing through during pre-season were slim. At four o'clock in the afternoon, it was almost unheard of. For just a little while longer, this edge of the park would remain a wilderness.

  There was no need to leave the car. Yellow police tape caught the post-storm sun, turning it into a glowing ember, centered in a field of white. As they eased forward, it became a scar. A yellow knife-edge cutting across the pristine landscape.

  “I hate to celebrate death,” Julie whispered, “but thank God.”

  “What if—” Gracie began.

  Julie cut her off, turning in her seat to take Gracie by the shoulders. “Don't. Don't even think it. I know you, Gracie. I know you better than your own mother knew you. You-Did-Not-Do-This. Do you understand me? There is no way. This is a good thing, it means you walked into this mess and it triggered an episode.” Julie dropped Gracie's shoulders and opened her door.