Winslow- The Lost Hunters

by David Francis Curran

  Less than five minutes later the branch that had broken through the Chevy's windshield and impaled the driver had been cut on both the outside and inside by Billy with the chain-saw Nate always carried for firewood when he went hunting.

  Nate got into his truck on the driver's seat, now covered with one of the sleeping bags from the Chevy, and waited for the Chevy to be backed out. Billy, sitting on the other sleeping bag they found in the Chevy, backed the Chevy out. There was no way to turn the Chevy there, so Billy backed up until he came to a spot where the road was wide enough to turn around.

  Moments later Nate began following the now turned Chevy. Next to him, Bobby opened a new beer.

  "You had to puke on my gad-damn driver's seat," Nate grumbled to Bobby.

  In the passenger seat, Bobby just shook his head and took another sip of the beer.

  "That was good thinking on your brother's part," Nate said. He took a sniff of the air, shook his head, "but shit. You puke again you do it out the window."

  Not quite a half hour after that Nate saw Billy pull to the side of the snow-covered road they were on and pulled up behind him.

  Billy got out, stretched, and then walked over. Nate opened his window. Billy leaned in. "No reason for you guys to go any further. You don't want to be seen anywhere near the Chevy. We've been lucky so far; let's not push it. You guys can park here. Go hunting. I should be able to hide the truck and be back with you in a few hours."

  "I want to help," Bobby said from the passenger seat. He had been sobering fast.

  Billy shook his head.

  "But I was driving," Bobby said.

  "You took the rap for me once. That's enough. I get stopped I'll just say I was going for help. Either of you get stopped, you're screwed,” Billy said.

  Nate turned to Bobby, "He's right, man."

  Bobby just nodded. He watched Billy walk back to the Silverado and drive away.

  "We might as well go hunting," Nate said, opening the driver's side door.

  Darkness

  October 22: Time unknown

  Cassie Carew opened her eyes to darkness. She took in a breath that turned into a sob as pain wracked her body. Her head ached. Her chest and ribs hurt. She was on her back looking upward. Why couldn't she see anything'? She blinked. Still, only darkness hovered in front of her eyes. Her heart began pumping faster. Had she gone blind? She lifted her hands to her eyes. They felt cold. She could not see her hands at all. She closed her eyes and felt around the lids. There was some crusty material all over her face. She explored her eye sockets with her fingertips. Whatever it was, it was not covering her eyes. Realizing her hands were bare she remembered she had taken her gloves off in their truck and left them on the seat.

  How had she gotten here? She had been with her Dad, hunting.

  She listened for a moment. The silence around her seemed almost oppressive.

  "Dad!" She cried out loudly.

  Her voice seemed to echo back instantly as if she were in a small shower room.

  Fear sent her heart racing. She was closed in somewhere with no light. Off to the side of her, she heard a thump. Then another. Something was in the room with her. She had never been this scared before.

  Whatever she was lying on was rock hard. She moved her right hand back to her side and felt the surface she was lying on. It was stone cold and hard. It felt jagged against her fingers, rough, uneven, and gritty. Was she lying on a stone floor? She moved her right foot across the floor. She had expected to hear her boot heel scraping the floor. But instead, she felt the rough floor rub her heel. What had happened to her boot and sock? Moving her other foot, she realized both her boots and socks were gone. Who had brought her here? Who had taken her boots? Suddenly fearful she reached down to her side. Her fingers touched her leather scabbard. Her hunting knife was gone.

  She sniffed the air; there was a scent she couldn't place, feral, musky. She realized the air itself was cold. She felt it on her face and hands. It was not a freezing cold. It was more of a chilly cold. She felt her jacket. She still had her hunting jacket on.

  It took a moment for the significance of this to dawn on her. She had her hunting jacket on! She sat up. The movement made her dizzy. He body ached everywhere. She waited until the dizziness had passed, then fought the pain to rise to her knees.

  Almost frantically she began patting her coat pockets. In her right inside pocket, she felt something hard--that was where she put it, right?

  For a moment her hopes rose. She quickly opened her jacket, the cold air intensifying the chill she felt, but she paid this chill no mind. She heard but did not actually heed a scratching sound now audible in the darkness off to the right. All she wanted at this point was the tool her father had given her for emergencies. Finally, she grasped the 5-inch leather strap she was searching for and pulled it from her pocket. The strap went through a hole in the top of a small piece of antler from which a bar extended. Also attached to the strap was a thin, flat piece of steel resembling a broken piece of hacksaw blade.

  Cassie swallowed hard. This was the test. In a moment she would know if she could see. She felt the mostly rounded metal bar that extended three inches from its antler base. Two-thirds of the bar's circumference was smooth metal: magnesium. The other third was a 3-inch long sliver of flint embedded into the magnesium rod.

  She didn't need the magnesium now. Taking the flat piece of steel in her right hand, she held it up over the bar extending from the antler, which she held in her left hand. She rotated the antler and its metal bar until she could feel the flint side facing upward. She hesitated just before striking the steel across the flint.

  Almost afraid to, she sniffed the air. The only scent was that feral musty odor. No gas. It was safe to make a spark.

  As hard as she could, she struck the blade down across the flint. Her heart leaped as a brilliant flash of light streaked off the flint and for a glorious micro second lit her surroundings.

  "I can see," she cried out softly. Almost in answer, there was more thumping behind her, somewhere off to the right in the darkness.

  She turned around and facing the sound she began to strike off spark after spark. Her heart beat wildly, her eyes strained to see into the strobe-lit shadows what was making the sound.

  She couldn't see what it was, but what she did see gave her a hopeless feeling: rocks; rocks spilling out on the floor, rocks piled up to the ceiling which seemed to be nothing more than a slab of rock.

  The thumping sounds stopped, and what she felt as she stopped striking the steel to the flint was claustrophobia. Was she in a cave? How did she end up in a cave?

  Her heart seemed to be thumping in her chest. "Think!" She told herself.

  After a moment, feeling the dark edge in on her again, she reached into the right front pocket of her jeans and pulled out the hankie her mother had embroidered her name on. She needed to tear it. She pulled so it hard it hurt her hands, but the hankie wouldn't rip. Reaching down to her side, she touched her empty knife sheath. She had forgotten. The knife had been missing when she woke. She felt around her waist. Her belt was gone. Someone had taken that, too.

  She reached into the right front pocket of her coat and felt around. To her joy, her fingers touched a hard object. She grabbed it and pulled out the small multi-tool she carried there. 'Always carry a penknife,' her Dad had told her. Instead of a penknife, she had opted for a tool that had a selection of screwdrivers and a serrated sawing blade as well as a regular knife blade. Now she was glad she did. He had also told her to always carry a candle. She had gotten out a candle at home to bring before they left on their trip. But she had forgotten to put that candle in her pocket. In her mind's eye, she cursed herself, seeing it sitting on her night table.

  With her multi-tool, she managed to cut through the edge of the handkerchief. Grabbing the two sides of the cut, she ripped the handkerchief into rough halves.

  "Sorry, Mom," she whispered, thinking of her mother embroidering it by the window in her
sewing room.

  Defying the darkness, she put one half of the torn cloth into her coat pocket and the other she carefully positioned on the floor near her knees. Then she took the fire-starting tool and turning the magnesium side of the rod up, she began scraping slivers of magnesium onto the piece of handkerchief.

  The thumping began again in the same corner of the darkness. Cassie tried to ignore the angry-seeming sound as she worked on her pile of magnesium slivers. Finally, she felt she had enough. Turning the rod over so the flint side was up, she struck the flint with the steel.

  Even though her Dad had had her try the starter, she never imagined the effect in the dark chamber where she found herself. The first spark ignited the pile of magnesium shavings she had built up. Magnesium burns at 2300 degrees Fahrenheit her Dad had explained, so it could easily get even damp wood burning. What she did not realize, having tested it outdoors in daylight, was the incredible amount of blinding light that a 2300 degree Fahrenheit flame produced.

  Almost instinctively Cassie closed her eyes and moved back from the flame, rising to her feet as she did so. Inside her eyelids, a giant white spot hovered. She waited until it began to fade and then opened her eyes making sure she was not looking directly at the handkerchief.

  In the light, she could see the rocks opposite much more clearly. She also saw a thick nest of small sticks and twigs piled into an opening in the rock.

  "A packrat," she said to herself, laughing just as the creature began thumping again.

  The light was beginning to die down; she risked a glance at it. Now only the handkerchief was burning, and she saw what was left would only last seconds. She went to the nest and picked up a few twigs and sticks, then moved back sticking the end of the driest seeming stick into the end of the dying flame. The tip of the stick caught. She held a small twig over its flame. Placing the burning sticks crosswise on embers of the handkerchief she added twigs so that the little fire grew.

  Turning around in a circle, she saw she was in a stone chamber. Six wooden posts dark as charcoal rose from the floor to the stone roof. This was no cave--it was a mine.

  When she had a small fire that she thought would burn at least for a short time she went back to the pile of sticks examining it as best she could in the fire's flickering light. Looking at it she realized this was a very large nest that had been built inside a large crevasse between the rocks. She reached for a stick that protruded from the edge of the stick bundle. As if to confirm that it was something's nest, a quick and forceful thumping began as soon as she started to pull the stick out.

  "Sorry, Mr. Packrat, but I need this more than you."

  Now the smell, which she realized was musky packrat urine, was overwhelming.

  "But, boy, you sure do stink."

  The fire, she saw now, was dying out. Grabbing as many sticks and twigs as she could carry at one time; she went over and added some of the precious wood she had gathered to the dwindling flames.

  However, she saved out the longest piece and thrust the end into the flames until its flame blazed and added its light to the chamber.

  She turned, and the movement made her small torch flicker and go out. The tip glowed red and smoked, but there was no flame to see by. She went back to the fire and thrust the tip back in. This time she held the stick in her left hand and shielded its flame with the bare fingers of her right hand as she turned.

  Moving with the shielded flame, she walked stiffly to the other end of the chamber. Here, on her far right was an opening that led into a lightless black passage. Bravely, she moved forward. This passage ended shortly in a T.

  An ice-cold breeze coming from her right side caused her small torch to flicker. Moving her free hand over the flame to save it, she burned her fingers.

  "Ouch!"

  Luckily, the flame did not go out.

  She froze, listened. There was no sound in the passage to the right, just darkness and an icy breeze.

  To her left, she thought she saw a flicker of light.

  She walked into the left-hand passage. Just a dozen feet ahead, a wall of rock blocked her passage in that direction. The glimmer of light came from a tiny crack in that wall. Looking at it closely she saw that the crack went through four feet of solid stone before reaching the light. Her heart sank. This was a dead end. She'd have to go back. Then she realized she really had to go. Squatting, she made her toilet and soon regretted leaving the roll of toilet paper she'd had in her jacket pocket in the back of her Dad's truck.

  Back at the T, the passage continued then curved around a corner to her right, from which the icy breeze blew. Carefully, shielding her light, she moved in that direction. The floor beneath her feet began to climb. The passageway seemed to curve as it rose. The stone beneath her feet grew colder, sending its chill through her bare feet. She pressed on. Then ahead of her, at a turn in the passage, she saw a much brighter glimmer of light coming around the corner. No longer needing her torch, she walked forward toward the light. She turned the corner. The light grew much brighter. She froze. The entrance to the mine hung above her like a skylight on a flat roof. Over this entrance rested a heavy, metal grate, through which snowflakes were blowing in through openings a half-foot square between railroad-track thick bars. The stone floor she stood on sloped more sharply upward here. From where she stood the grate was out of reach above her, but walking forward put the grate just inches above her head. Snow on the floor sent icy pain through her bare feet. Stunned, knowing somehow that trying to move the grate would be futile, she looked around for a place to put her torch. A tiny section of the mine wall where the cut rock formed a small ledge was within easy reach. Once the torch was safely balanced on the ledge, both her hands went to the metal of the grate. The cold burned into her bare fingers and the palms of both her hands. Her hands hurt like they never had before. Trying to ignore the pain, she pushed with all her strength. The grate did not move. She tried again, this time putting her legs and back into the effort. Nothing.

  She looked up through the grate at the sky. Snow fell into her eyes.

  As she looked over at her torch to retrieve it, a gust of wind blew in through the grate. The flame winked out. The tip of the stick glowed red and sent up a thin ghostly tendril of smoke.

  From the light coming in, she knew it was very late in the day. Her entire body hurt. She felt exhausted. Despair filled her. What was she going to do now?

  After she stepped away from the part of the floor covered by snow that had fallen through the grate, she realized how thirsty she was. She began scooping up the snow and put each precious bit of moisture into her mouth.

  A Suggestion

  October 25: Afternoon

  When I checked in with the sheriff later in the day, he informed me that Tim Bobbins had tried to contact me, and failing that had called the sheriff’s office as I had instructed Phyllis at the FWP office.

  The sheriff, based on the report I had sent him, had asked both Bobbins and Shawna Edwards to come in to see if they might be able to come up with something if they worked with a sketch artist.

  I suggested that we include a hypnotherapist and asked if he knew of one who might help the two FWP employees remember something about the vehicle with the broken lights.

  Goldstone was skeptical at first until I explained that to locate a lost hunter I had found a few years ago, the family had brought in a hypnotherapist who had hypnotized their son. The boy had staggered out of the woods alone but couldn’t remember where his injured father was.

  With the hypnotist’s help, the boy was able to describe his path through the woods well enough for me to backtrack his movements. I found the dad who had suffered a broken leg.

  “In that case, it might not be a bad idea, Winslow,” the sheriff had said. “I’ll see what I can do.” I knew he usually called everyone on his staff by their last name. His using my first name probably indicated he really liked my idea. "Let me look into it, and I will get back to you as soon as possible."

 
"One more thing," Goldstone said. "We found Cassie and Greg's rifles in the back of the truck. But the vehicle's jack was missing. Maybe we'll get lucky, and someone will pawn it."

  I was lying on the bed later, thinking, playing with Blu, and I guess I fell asleep.

  Lomahongva appeared to me. She had a very serious expression on her face. "You have to sneak me into town," she said.

  I was driving the Jeep toward the FWP checkpoint. There was a deer on the roof of the Jeep. "You can't let them see me," Lo said anxiously, from the passenger side.

  "How can I do that?" I asked. "There is nowhere to hide you in this Jeep."

  I awoke, and the dream gave me a helpless feeling. I did not know what more I could do to find Cassie Carew. And yet, I felt I needed to do more. We had no idea where the girl could be. We were pretty sure she had been kidnapped. But, if the kidnappers had taken her into town, which Paul thought most likely, the case would be outside my area of expertise. It hit me again that thinking her kidnapped might just be wishful thinking. That her frozen body was hidden out there was also possible.

  Later in the evening, I emailed the Sheriff with a list of notes for the hypnotherapist. Although I lived far from any landline, I did have satellite Internet. I heard back from him quickly. The meeting was set up for 10:45 a.m.

  I went outside for a breath of fresh air. Large flakes of snow cascaded around me.

  A Visitor in The Night

  October 23: Early Morning

  Billy Wesley had stopped to put chains on his Ford Explorer in Beartown, by the large parking lot the BLM maintained for people who wanted to snowmobile up to Garnet Ghost Town in the winter. It was after midnight, and he hated putting chains on at all much less at night. But there could be more snow higher up, and he did not want to get stuck.