The mine entrance was in the center of a rocky outcropping that resembled a jagged crown. Behind the grate, boulders rose up as high as twenty feet. In a gap between two boulders, Billy had hidden the girl's boots and socks, his backpack with the sling, and the ratcheting jack he'd found in the Chevy.
As he neared the grate, he took the game detector out and turned it on. The device showed no heat was coming from the area below the grate. To confirm that, he snuck close and peeked down through the grate. The girl was not there.
He didn't think that she would hear anything from outside the mine, but he still tried to move quietly just in case.
He climbed up to the boulders above the grate and with the cable he bought secured the winch to a boulder. He connected the marine battery to the winch and extended the winch's cable enough to attach its hook to the front of the grate. The winch's control unit was a two-button rubber-protected box with wires connecting it to the winch. The control's wires were long enough to let the control rest by the side of the grate. He twisted the hook end of one of the hangers around the base of the control and stretched the hanger, so it formed a long loop narrow enough to fit thought the six-inch openings in the grate. He cut the other hanger where the ends twisted together, then straightened the wire out giving himself a long-handled hook to grab the loop on the control with. He planned to hide this wire hook in a crevice in the mine. Lastly, to keep them dry, he covered the winch and battery with the tarp, weighing the edges down with a mix of snow and loose rocks.
Now he wondered if he dare risk seeing if it worked? As there was no sign of the girl, he decided to try. He could always move away from the grate if he heard her coming. As long as she didn't see him, his plan could still work. With a push of the 'up' button, the winch began to hum. The cable pulled taut. The grate began to rise. It worked! He lowered the grate slowly back to the ground.
With the hook, he'd be able to access the control and exit the mine when he needed to.
Into The Darkness
October 26: 2:30 a.m.
In his Ford Explorer, now parked almost a mile from the mine, the little wind-up alarm clock Billy had in the car woke him from a sound sleep. He turned the overhead light on and could see a covering of new snow on the vehicle’s windows. The front seat hadn’t been wide enough for him to lie down, and he woke stiff and sore. He shook off his discomfort and wiggled out of his sleeping bag.
As he pushed the sleeping bag off, he brushed against a stone he had glued to his dashboard that he thought looked like an Indian arrowhead. The arrowhead gave him an idea, and he pulled the piece of flint from the dashboard.
Snow fell on him as he loaded all his supplies that he didn't want to leave outside to freeze into the sled. The snow was good. It would hide all signs that someone had pulled a sled to the mine. He grabbed his rifle and started off.
When he reached the spot where he had originally parked, he reluctantly threw his rifle into the woods. He needed every detail to fit the story he was going to tell.
Before cresting the top of the hill near the grate, he turned his headlight off. In the dark, he walked a few feet closer to the grate then turned the game finder on and listened. There was no heat signature and no sound. He could smell the faint scent of wood smoke from inside the tunnel, but nowhere could he see a spark of light. He risked turning his headlight back on. The entrance was empty but for a few inches of snow that had fallen through the grate.
With the winch he opened the grate and then listened carefully again for any sounds from inside the mine, holding his breath as he did so. He heard nothing.
He used the sling to lower two cases of bottled water, ten more bags of jerky, thirty tins of sardines, saltine crackers, and a big box of energy bars. Lastly, he dropped in the metal clothes hanger that had been converted into a long hook.
He prepared himself for the last steps. Walking over to the crevice where he’d hidden everything else, he took his gloves off and tossed them in. One fell into one of the girl’s boots. Taking two of the three plastic garbage bag fasteners out of his pocket, he secured one somewhat tightly to his right wrist and then secured the other to his left wrist. Next, he took his own boots and socks off and added them to the crevice. The cold snow made his feet instantly ache, and, though he was tempted to kick snow over the opening of the crevice to hide it, he realized that would just be more painful and decided not to bother. Lastly, he turned his powerful headlight off and added it to the crevice. He’d decided against bringing in his headlight. His being too well supplied might make the girl suspicious. He’d make do with the tiny penlight he always carried. He took the penlight out and turned it on.
The snowfall seemed heavier now. After lowering the winch's control through one of the holes on the side of the grate, he removed the flint arrowhead from his pocket and quickly whipped it across the left side of his forehead with his left hand. He could feel the hot blood from the head wound pouring down his face. Keeping both hands, as best he could, away from the blood, with a snap of his wrist, he sent the arrowhead sailing away into the night.
Taking a deep breath, he climbed down into the mine, picked up his wire hook, and laid himself in the snow under the grate. Placing his hands under him, he slid himself forward toward the tunnel entrance until he was past the patch of snow beneath the grate. Only then did he stand. He pulled the winch control to him with his wire hook.
Using the winch control, he slowly lowered the grate until the entrance was closed. Then he used the hook to ease the control back through the grate and lay it next to the grate out of sight. A crack in the stone wall to the side of the grate opening provided the perfect place to hide his wire hook.
He'd thought about taking the supplies into where the girl was as he'd done the last time but thought better of it. There was no point in having his plan ruined because he happened to drop something and wake her.
His bare feet, now on the cold stone floor, still wet from walking through the snow, ached like they never had before. The cut he had given himself began to burn, and his blood was still running down his face. So as not to leave bloody footprints he had decided to crawl into the mine.
As he crawled toward the dark opening of the mine, he turned his penlight off and put it in his inside jacket pocket. In the tunnel entrance, he put his left hand against the wall to feel his way.
He stopped every so often and listened. For most of the journey, he heard nothing. But as he made his way to the last bend of the tunnel before the chamber, he heard the deep breathing of sleep. He smiled to himself.
Slowly he turned the corner, trying to move quietly. He saw a faint glow of coals from a fire. He would have to ask her how she managed that. Letting his eyes adjust to the dim glow of light, he made his way into the chamber, near the sleeping girl.
He turned onto his back and removed the three pills he had gotten from War from his shirt pocket. He was only going to take two because, at one point, he'd thought about somehow slipping one to the girl in a water bottle, but now he decided to not even try doing that. The girl might find that last pill if she searched him before he woke up. He swallowed all three.
Needing to get it done before the pills rendered him senseless, he took the last plastic garbage bag fastener out of his left front pocket and laid down on his stomach. Working it as best he could, he put his hands behind his back and slipped this fastener, first through the fastener on his right wrist, then through the one on his left wrist. With the plastic garbage bag fasteners arranged so they'd make it look like someone had bound his hands behind his back, he pulled this final one taut securing all three together.
He could still feel his warm blood running down his left cheek. The wound really stung now. He put his bloody cheek to the floor and waited for the pills to knock him out. All he could do was hope the girl would believe that the same person who had put her there, had brought him in also: helpless, handcuffed, and unconscious.
A Dream and its Aftermath
October
28: Morning
Lomahongva ran ahead of me on the forest path. The track, an old forest road, ran by the log cabin we had built together and continued on deeper into the woods where now abandoned mines had once rung with the sound of gold mining.
“Lo!” I cried.
But she did not hear me or chose to ignore me. I began running. “Lo, wait.”
This time she paused and looked back at me. She looked right at me as I ran to her. But, then, without acknowledging me, she turned and ran on.
"Lo," I cried. I could hear the desperation in my own voice. I felt desperate. I could not lose her again.
Snow filled all of the old road but for a narrow track. As the winter snow grew deeper, the dogs and I packed it down by walking on it. The track, eventually, became the only place I could walk without snowshoes and the dogs could run.
I lost sight of Lo around a bend where snow covered pine branches hung like giant tongues. I increased my pace until it felt my heart would burst. In my rush, I knocked snow from branches, which, freed of their burden, sprang at me like snapped mousetraps.
And I came to the cliff where the trail ended. Lo was nowhere in sight.
"Lo?" I cried weakly. The snowy landscape swallowed my voice.
I got down on my knees and buried my face in my hands. "Lo," I whispered to myself. Suddenly I heard her voice behind me.
"Winny," she said softly. Lo was the only one I had ever allowed to call me Winny. I did not move or open my eyes, knowing somehow if I moved or tried to look she would be gone.
"Yes?"
"Your new woman knows why the young man woke up. All you need do is ask her."
"I don't have a new woman," I protested. "I love you. I will always love you."
"I know that," Lo whispered gently. "But I had to scare you. You have to understand that 'you are afraid' is far less important than the question 'what are you afraid of?'
"I will always be in your heart. A new woman will never keep me away," she whispered as I woke up from the dream.
As I sat up, I saw daylight streaming in through the window by the desk.
I thought of the dream and tried to rerun it through my head. I knew the feeling of guilt that overwhelmed me had to do with the feelings I might be beginning to have for Shawna. But what did that have to do with a young man waking up? Or the question, 'what are you afraid of?'
After taking the dogs on their morning walk, I called Nadine to see if there had been any news of the guy that Shawna had described.
“Hello, Deputy Doyle,” Nadine said very formally. “The sheriff would like to talk to you. Please hold.”
“Winslow,” Goldstone said, coming on the line. “I hate to say this, but I don’t know how much longer we can keep you on full-time. We’ve got nothing on this case for now.”
I understood. It was only because Callie Carew had come to me that I was working on the case. But a normal deputy had duties that involved more than one case. And those duties were not of interest to me as a career.
I must have been silent too long as Goldstone filled in the void. “I’ve asked René, Dr. Walters, if we could try hypnotizing that kid Tim again. But she said that given the way he woke up she didn’t feel comfortable trying again. She said she knew the urgency of finding Cassie, but as the connection to the men in that vehicle to the death of Greg Carew and the missing daughter was tenuous at best, she did not feel that any damage to the young man was warranted.”
“Understood,” I said. “Do you want my badge back?” But as I asked that, something began to take shape in the back of my mind.
Goldstone was silent for a few moments. “Why don’t you hang onto it? If anything that comes up that leads out your way, you’ll have it.”
We hung up, and I sat there and tried to construct the idea trying to gel in my mind. And then I had it. What Lo, or my subconscious, was trying to tell me in my dreams.
I had taken down Tim Bobbin’s phone number when I met him. I tried calling. I got his answering machine.
“Oh! Hi,” Shawna said with enthusiasm when I called. “I was hoping you’d call but didn’t expect you too, so soon.”
Suddenly, the phone call felt awkward. I had really enjoyed my date with Shawna. And though I liked her and was considering calling her again for personal reasons, I felt at least some guilt about seeing someone new. I had called to ask her about Tim Bobbins. Now, given her response, I hesitated to bring the actual reason for the call up.
“Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?” I asked. I instantly felt almost fearful that she might turn me down and realized because of that, that I really wanted to see her again.
There was a silence on the other end of the line that left me more and more anxious as the seconds ticked by. “I realize this is short notice, and if…” I began.
“No, I would love to see you tonight,” she said. “But I have a lot of work to do, paperwork that I usually do here on my home computer, and...” she paused. “How about we meet somewhere?”
“Okay,” I said, feeling elated. “Where would you like to go?”
“How about the Oriental Buffet?” she said. “Unless you need drinks?”
“No, and I love that place,” I said.
“I have to run right now. See you around seven?”
“Okay,” I said.
When I had hung up the phone, I wondered if she’d think, once I asked her the question I had called for, that that was the only reason I called. It mattered to me what she would think and this, too, gave me pause.
I called Phyllis at the FWP office and found out that Bobbins had the day off. She gave me the young man’s address. I tried Tim Bobbin’s phone number two more times. The call went to his machine both times. I drove to his apartment in a Victorian style house on Front Street in Missoula, but there was no reply to my knock.
I met Shawna at the Oriental Buffet, a buffet-style restaurant that served American, Chinese, and Japanese food. I had been eating there for a number of years. It sat nestled in the center of the Central Village Shopping Center. Many of the stores in the center, but for a very popular fabric store Lo used to shop at, had changed hands over the years, but the OB stood the test of time. I walked to the glass-windowed front in the crook of the L shaped shopping center. Shawna wasn’t waiting outside.
A guy with a motorcycle helmet held the door for me, and I walked in. Shawna was standing by the fountain across from the checkout counter. She had on a leather aviator’s jacket and matching purse. She wore dark slacks and running shoes. I couldn’t help but admire how pretty she was. She smiled when she saw me, and she got a whole lot prettier.
“Hi,” we both said at the same time, and both laughed.
An older but somewhat ageless Asian woman came up to us. “Two?” she asked. Shawna and I both nodded. The woman led us down to a booth on the far right-hand side, and asked, “What would you like to drink?”
I looked at Shawna.
“Hot tea,” Shawna said.
“Two hot teas,” I added.
As the woman left Shawna took her winter jacket off and put it down on the seat. For the moment I kept mine on. We proceeded to the rows of plastic hooded food tables that lined the back of the restaurant, grabbed plates, and we went our separate ways. I did watch her for a moment. She was a beautiful woman. I noticed at least two men checking her out.
I always started my meals at the OB with sushi. So I headed to the sushi table and helped myself to rice-rolled fish or shrimp and then took four small plastic containers provided for taking the condiments back to your table. I added to three containers small portions of wasabi, pickled ginger slices, and French dressing, and filled the fourth with Sriracha sauce at a different counter where I helped myself to sliced lemons.
Shawna was already at the table when I got back. She had poured both of us tea from the small silver teapot on the table into the small handleless cups provided,
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, pointing to the tea.
“That’s a good idea,” she said, pointing to my water glass.
I looked at her plate. You could tell some things about people by what they ate. On her plate, Shawna had a few pieces of fried chicken wings, some mussel shells covered in an almost white cheese, and spinach covered in the same cheese.
“Those used to be much better,” I said, pointing to the cheesy mussels, “when they used real cheese years ago.”
“Yeah. I know. That’s what got me coming here in the first place.”
I took one of my sushi pieces, wrapped a ginger slice around it, dipped it in wasabi, Sriracha, and the French dressing, and popped it into my mouth.
“How did you come to be living in the wilderness?” Shawna asked. It was a question I was expecting.
“When I was young my father’s family owned a punch-bowl like section of land near Roscoe, New York. They had an isolated one hundred and twenty-five acres, a six-acre lake, and a sailing ship of a house built by the guy who built the Merrimack, not the civil-war ironclad but the frigate whose hull the Confederates built their ironclad upon. I loved it there. I always wanted to live there, but the family decided to sell it when I was about eighteen, and it left me with a desire to live in the wilderness.
“I was wounded in Iraq and met my wife Lo who was my nurse. She was from Montana, I'd gone to college here. We discovered both of us loved the wilderness and eventually decided to buy the place where I live now.”
Shawna nodded. Hoping that she would leave it at that and not ask about Lo, I asked, "How did you end up in Fish, Wildlife, and Parks?"
“I grew up on a small ranch near Roundup, and I loved it. Rode horses, explored. When my brother, he’s two years older than me, was eighteen, he was in a car accident. Messed his right leg up pretty bad. He didn’t have insurance, and my parents went through everything they had to cover the bills. They lost the ranch. I studied Forestry at the University of Montana and ended up taking the job at FWP. I love it.”
Winslow- The Lost Hunters Page 12
