Winslow- The Lost Hunters

by David Francis Curran

  The top sheet read: ‘An Analysis of the Dangers in a Typical Abandoned Montana Mine: The Cat-trap.’

  “Do you mind if I read some of this quick in case I have some questions?”

  “You can borrow it,” he said.

  It was impossible to read the small print in Denny’s cabin. I went outside and leaned against my truck.

  Denny came out and stood next to me. I read the first page, and when I was done, I looked up at him. “This is very helpful,” I said.

  “Do you need backup?” he asked. I thought about it a long time. I was losing time reading the paper. He knew where the mine was. From the map, I knew that anyone trying to reach it would have to walk the last part of the trail. If we found Nate’s truck, Denny could watch it. Or wait to see if Nate showed up.

  But the problem was Denny was a civilian. And then Lo whispered in my ear. "You know Nate will have to kill him."

  It took me only a moment to figure out what she meant. That was the solution! I couldn't leave Two-Guns behind because Nate wasn't leaving any witnesses. Nate probably wouldn't be a match for Denny if Denny knew he was coming. But Denny had seen Nate and Bobby together after they'd killed Yash and Ken, and before Nate killed Bobby. Nate could not afford to let Denny live.

  “Yes,” I said, “I’d like backup. But here is something you should know before coming with me. That guy you saw with him was most likely Bobby Wesley. I found Bobby with his throat cut last night after I found the bodies of two university students I believe Bobby and Nate murdered.”

  “You have chains?” he asked.

  I keep good tire chains and heavy-duty bungee cords in the Jeep in winter and often put them on whether I need them or not. But if Denny thought we’d need chains where we were going I was going to listen. Together we put them on.

  A few minutes later Denny sat in the driver’s seat of my Jeep wearing a headlamp. He’d brought his rabbit-eared, double-barrel shotgun, and a thick copper-colored flashlight/lantern with a handle. Both sat between us as we drove toward the Cat-trap. I let Denny drive so I could read as much about the Cat-Trap as I could before we got there. Denny drove somewhat slowly, and I was glad of that. I wouldn’t have been able to read driving over the wilderness roads at a break-neck speed.

  Parts of the paper were about general abandoned mine dangers that I was a little familiar with having rescued two boys from a mine while Lo was still alive. They'd gotten lost not too far in and had been easy to find. But I read up on the subject just in case it ever happened again. Len Polisky, the author, however, had mapped the interior of the Cat-trap mine and had included a topographic map to the mine itself.

  As we drove, it came to me why the laptop had been in the burn barrel at Bobby Wesley’s. Nate had done an Internet or Google Earth search for the Cat-Trap. For all I knew, he might even have found Len Polisky’s paper.

  I looked out the window. It was beginning to snow again. We were climbing higher into the mountains and right into the oncoming snow. I just hoped we got there in time.

  A Breeze

  October 29: 7.59 a.m.

  Cassie Carew woke with new hope. Even the stone that had worked its way under her and dug into her back did not deter her hope. She took a quick inventory of her surroundings. There was only a tiny red speck of a coal in the fire which was on her side of their sleeping bag cover. Billy snored just a few inches away from her, and it may have been his snoring that woke her. But she had to admit, she actually felt warmer with him under the sleeping bag with her.

  But if what she was feeling was right, they would not have to sleep under that sleeping bag another night. Her thoughts were clear. Sure the snow had caved in and put out the fire they’d started yesterday. But they could do it again. This time she would make sure there was no snow above the fire. If it had snowed again, she'd use a stick to get it off before starting the fire. She'd use her stick to get all the snow off the grate before they started the fire whether it had snowed again or not. Her intuition told her it had not snowed again. When she was as sure as she was about this, she was usually right. She would get the fire going hot enough to melt any ice holding the grate in place, and together they’d lift the grate off.

  Using her headlight, she hurried through the tunnel to the opening. There was no new snow on the grate. Since the snow had slid off the back of the grate, the entire grate was clear of snow. She hurried back to the chamber and checked the slightly burnt wood they’d brought back in after the snow landed on it. She touched a few of the charcoal-burnt pieces, and they all felt coldly damp. It didn’t matter. They could just use new wood.

  She thought about waking Billy up to help gather wood from the packrat nest to build the fire. But she decided to get started without him. She needed him at his strongest to lift the grate. She could gather sticks easily enough by herself.

  Sometime later she had a three-foot high almost five foot around pyramid of wood beneath the grate. Cassie decided to get one more bundle of wood before she lit the fire. She was so positive they’d escape she began humming to herself.

  Billy was still sleeping, but she had no reason to wake him yet. Once she’d melted the ice around the edge of the grate would be soon enough. Besides she was a little worried he’d worry that if they used up all the wood from the packrat nest, they’d have no more for a fire. It was a risk, but one she was willing to take. Her mom always said it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

  The crevice she had been mining wood from now extended back almost nine feet. She had had no idea it extended that far back when she'd first seen the stick pile in the crevice. The area was narrow, but she was small enough that getting to the far end was not difficult. As she reached into the stick pile that was the packrat’s home, she grabbed another large armload and began pulling the sticks out. It was then it dawned on her. The fire would, most likely, melt any ice holding the grate down, but where would they stand? They had no boots, and the coals could be hot for hours. They didn’t have gloves so how could they lift the hot grate? Just as she began to despair the sticks behind those that she had been pulling on fell down and away from her. To her surprise a breeze began to blow in her face, coming out of the black hole the sticks had left behind.

  Back in the chamber she quickly gathered water and food, filling her jacket pockets.

  A moment later she was vigorously shaking Billy. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!”

  “Huh!” Billy moaned.

  She realized the beam of her headlight was in his eyes. She took the headlight off, held it beneath her chin, and pointed it up, so her face was visible.

  “It’s me,” she cried. “I think I found a way out.”

  “What,” he said, rising now. “Through the grate?”

  “No,” she said, barely able to contain her enthusiasm. “Behind the packrat nest, there’s a tunnel. Air is coming out. It’s got to be a way out.”

  From the relative safety of the chamber they’d been sleeping in, Billy pointed his penlight down into the space that had been filled with the packrat’s accumulated nesting material. At the far end, the light illuminated a narrow area with a pile of broken rock on the left and the tunnel wall on the right. It stretched like a lopsided V just wide enough to crawl through. For some reason, the packrat had not built here. Beyond where the tiny penlight penetrated there was a dark hole.

  “It looks like this area caved in a long time ago. The packrat used it to make a nest.”

  “But,” Cassie said, slapping Billy on the back, “can’t you feel the breeze?”

  “Yeah, I can feel it,” Billy said.

  “It could be a way out,” Cassie said. She waited, but Billy said nothing. He just kept looking into the hole.

  “Well, if you’re not going, I am,” she pushed past Billy and got down on her hands and knees. She quickly covered the ground she’d been through time and again collecting sticks, and reached the new section opening into the dark interior of the mine. Here the passage was narrower than the previo
us stretch. Crumbled rock on her left side seemed to be in an infinitely slow slide toward the wall on the right. Cassie found she fit through easily enough and soon emerged in a much wider tunnel.

  In front of her two logs had been set in the tunnel on either side of what appeared to be the main passageway. Someone had dug into the upper corners of the tunnel's roof so that she stood at the apex of a small inverted pyramid. The walls next to her rose at a slant widening as they ascended.

  A noise behind her startled her, and she swung around. Billy was pulling himself through the small passage she had just entered from.

  “You made it,” she said.

  Billy shook his head. “I don’t know about this.”

  Cassie turned her head toward the darkness ahead. “Can’t you feel that breeze?”

  “I can feel it,” Billy said. “But is that a way out?”

  “We’ll find out,” Cassie said.

  “What about the food and water we left back there?”

  “I have two bottles of water, and lots of jerky,” Cassie said holding up one of the bottles. “If we have to, we can go back and get more.”

  Billy turned and looked back in the direction of the chamber they had come from. “Did you notice there aren't any packrats nesting in the last part of the tunnel we just came through?”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “I wonder if it's because the packrats realized, maybe instinctively, that that part of the tunnel is unstable.” He pointed his penlight at the rubble in the passage.

  Cassie was quiet while she thought about what Billy had said. She pointed her headlight up at the ceiling of the passage they'd just come through. It did not look at all secure. She didn't want to think about what would happen if the ceiling came down while they were going back for more supplies.

  “Let’s just see if we can find a way out,” she said quietly. With that, she moved forward between the two log supports. As she passed through them, she realized they were very old. She resisted the temptation to touch them. She was afraid they’d crumble at her touch. Ahead an almost round tunnel opening offered the only way to go.

  She started forward into the tunnel. Billy’s penlight flicking around her let her know Billy was close behind. She stopped.

  “Can you see well enough with my headlight to not use yours? It might be a good idea to save your batteries as you don’t have extras.”

  She watched the ball of light cast from the penlight that reached past her go out.

  “Good idea,” Billy said.

  They had been following the tunnel for what seemed like a long time when the tunnel opened up on Cassie’s right-hand side. The ceiling here was a bit higher. Two old six-by-six timbers propped up against the ceiling seemed to hold it up. Against the wall in front and to the right head-sized stones seemed to be piled up in a wall-like way.

  “What is this about?” Cassie asked pointing to the wall of piled stones when Billy came up.

  “I think that’s waste rock,” Billy said. “They piled it up rather than carry it out.” He paused and looked at her. “How much longer do you want to do this? I’m getting hungry.”

  Cassie turned toward the tunnel. She could still feel the breeze hitting her face. She reached into her pocket and pulled out some jerky and handed it to Billy. Then took another piece out for herself.

  As she ate, Cassie realized she was exhausted. “Maybe we should go back and get more food and water and start again tomorrow,” Cassie said. “Get as much as we can carry with us. Then keep going until we find a way out.”

  Finding The Cat-trap Mine

  Halloween: Mid-day

  We were following a set of ruts left about an hour or so before that were filling with snow. The Jeep hit some high drifts that would have slowed it down or even stopped it, but Denny gunned the engine before we hit them and bulled us through. Chains are great for traction on slippery ice or snow, and they're necessary if you drift into a snow bank, but if the snow gets deeper than the bottom of your vehicle, you bottom out. I carried a shovel in the Jeep just for that reason.

  We came around a bend high atop a mountain I had not been on in a while. Visibility with the snow wasn’t more than twenty-five yards. But I could make out a dark shape stopped off on the side the road. As we neared it, it took on color. It was Nate Hanassey’s red truck. It had slid off the road into a snow-covered ditch, and it was stuck far enough over that Denny would be able to drive by it by driving partially up on the bank on the opposite side of the road. I couldn't see anyone in the truck. Denny pulled to a stop behind it.

  I jumped out pulling my gun and quickly, cautiously moved forward, and covered the driver’s side of the vehicle. I stepped closer and assured myself there was no one in the vehicle.

  I walked to the front of the jeep. I could see where the rear driver’s side tire had dug down to the dirt of the road. Nate’s truck did not have chains. A quick check in front of the red truck revealed boot tracks walking up the road.

  I walked back to the driver’s side door, opened it, and spotted a bread-box-sized open cardboard box on the floor on the passenger side. Around the box on the floor were black Styrofoam pieces. Since I was already wearing gloves, I climbed in and slid across the seat until I could reach the box. Nate had picked up a parabolic microphone. He was smarter than I had given him credit for.

  After taking in as much as I could of Polisky’s paper on the mine, I knew there were miles of tunnel and multiple branching ways to go. With a parabolic microphone, Hanassey could listen for anyone in the mine if anyone in the mine was still alive.

  I put the box on the seat next to me. Beneath the box a box of 12-gauge, double-ought shotgun shells sat empty. Two more cardboard and plastic packages sat next to the ammo box. I picked both up. One had contained two 400-lumen headlights with a 17-hour rating. One of the headlights was missing. The other package was a 16-count Duracell AA battery pack. The battery pack was half empty, and there were no batteries on the floor. The passenger side door opened, and Denny peered in. How he managed to get there, I don't know. I pointed to the parabolic microphone box. He gave me a puzzled look. “It can pick up sounds from far away. He'll be able to find them,” I said.

  “How much farther?” I asked when we were back in the Jeep.

  “Mile, mile and a half,” Denny said.

  I kept my eyes peeled and gun ready searching for a sign of Hanassey walking along the road. But by the time Denny pulled to a stop in a snow-covered dead end in a tunnel of trees there had been no sign of him but for glimpses of footprints filling with snow.

  The first thing I did on getting out of the Jeep was recheck the tracks in the snow. They continued on what must be a path through an opening in the trees.

  There was no sign of Billy Wesley's vehicle. Had he been here? Could he be parked somewhere else? Was the girl still even alive?

  I tried my iPhone and got a signal. I alerted Goldstone and gave him my coordinates. He’d get me backup as soon as he was able. I deliberately forgot to mention Denny.

  Together Denny and I moved up the trail following the quickly filling boot prints. Not wanting to wait for Denny, I pulled ahead. Denny could move pretty fast for a man his age on level ground but not uphill. A good ten-minute climb from where the Jeep was parked took me to the top of the trail.

  I rounded a bend and saw the large, rectangular, snow-covered, metal grate. It had been pulled up to a 45-degree angle by a cable attached to a winch. A tarp that had protected the winch was turned aside, and both it and the top of the winch were white with snow. There was no sign of a battery. Electric cables from the winch lay loose. I assumed Nate had used the winch to open the grate and then had hidden the battery someplace, so the grate could not be lowered. The tracks we had been following covered the area.

  Denny came up behind me. Even though he smoked almost constantly, he didn’t even seem fazed.

  I saw hunter’s orange on the ground near where the far end of the cable was secured to a tree a
nd followed Nate’s boot tracks up to examine it. The blaze orange turned out to be a pair of gloves small enough for a young woman. Next to the gloves were two pairs of boots, another set of black gloves, and a farm-style jack. Were there two prisoners in the mine?

  I mulled it over. One set of boots would fit Cassie. The other set were men's boots. Back at the grate I studied the winch and saw that a wire hanger had been attached to the control. My best guess was that Billy Wesley had used the farm jack to first put the girl in the mine. Later, he decided to set up the winch. The only thing that made sense out of the wire on the winch control was if Billy intended to go into the mine, lower the grate after him, and still get himself out. The two sets of boots might indicate that Billy had gone in pretending to be a prisoner.

  As I turned back to the mine opening, Denny was climbing down inside. A huge pile of snow-covered sticks made getting down easier. There was no time to waste. I hurried to join him.

  Three Forks

  October 30: 8:03 a.m.

  Cassie shook Billy Wesley’s shoulder minutes after she, herself, woke up. Billy groaned, and slowly turned over, opening his eyes reluctantly.

  “Come on,” she urged. “We have to get going.”

  Billy didn’t say anything. It seemed to Cassie he was deep in thought, though what he could be thinking that was more important than escaping, she didn’t know.

  "Look," she said holding up a leg by the knee with green-gloved hands. She had something wrapped around her foot. It took him a moment to realize it was part of the sleeping bag he'd left her.

  "I made a pair for you too." She said holding two pieces of sleeping bag out along with some strips of cloth.

  After he put on the makeshift boots, he rose and began picking up the bottles of water and bags of jerky she had laid out for him. Cassie’s own pockets bulged with water bottles, cans of sardines, and jerky packs. She had taken as much as she felt she could reasonably carry. Once Billy was similarly loaded up, she turned toward the packrat tunnel.