Meanwhile, Alex was moving in the opposite direction. She wanted less and less. She didn’t need an expensive car or an extensive wardrobe. She was happy with her twenty-year-old Toyota Corolla, which got amazing gas mileage. As for clothes, she needed only sturdy boots and hiking pants, warm shirts and fleece jackets. Brad started to act embarrassed when they went out, even when Alex wore fancy dresses.
He’d started working later and later, and their time together grew extremely limited. Finally Alex told him that she didn’t see the point in staying in the city to be with him when they spent so little time together. They’d had a huge blowout fight over it, and he’d packed up his stuff and moved out that night, saying they needed a break.
But they had rarely communicated since then. Being out here in Montana, with Brad not even knowing she’d made such a major change in her life, made her realize that it was truly over.
She leaned back in her chair, feeling sad. But something in her also told her she was moving in the right direction. Helping wildlife was the right thing to do, and she had to go where the work was.
She shut down her computer, her thoughts returning to the man who had appeared on her camera. She wondered if subsequent camera traps would catch him again, or catch other people.
She locked the lodge door and went to sleep, feeling a little uneasy, wondering if other people were out there even now, wanting her to leave every bit as much as the man who’d driven her off the road.
Ten
The next day, Alex hiked out to her fourth camera site. It was a hot day, the sun beating down on her back as she climbed. She was grateful every time she entered a forested section and took the opportunity to drink water in the shade. She frequently took off her sun hat to fan her face. It was only seventy-five degrees, but the high-altitude sun made it feel twenty degrees hotter. Climate change was wreaking havoc in the mountains, which were warming three times faster than lower elevations and experiencing longer summer seasons.
Since it was toward the end of September, she knew eventually it would grow colder. Currently snow dusted only the very tops of the peaks around her, but soon the ground would cool and the big snows of winter would arrive. For now, though, hiking without the obstacle of snow was a blessing. Come winter, she’d strap on her skis or snowshoes when the going became more difficult.
When she neared the location of her trap, she saw a board lying outside the treed section where she’d set up the camera. It was part of the hair capture frame. The board’s end was splintered. Frowning, she reached the small cluster of trees where she’d built the trap and stood stunned at the scene before her. The entire trap was destroyed, torn violently from the tree.
The run pole lay broken on the ground, the support beam beside it, all the nails torn out. The frame that formed the hair snare was lying in pieces, sharp nails exposed, the wooden sections fractured apart. Checking the bait, she looked up to the tree branch above to find the entire deer leg she’d put up there missing. The bone had been ripped right off the cable.
She stood unmoving, taking in the damage. It hadn’t just fallen down in a high wind. It was like something had torn it down in anger. Anxious to see what had done this, she turned toward the camera, only to find it missing as well. Even the straps that had held it in place were gone. For a second she just stood, blinking in disbelief at the wreckage. Then she made a circuit of the site, looking for the camera and the deer bone. She searched the entire area, expecting to find the camera bitten or crunched by a grizzly perhaps, lying in parts, or maybe even to find strewn batteries or bits of fur from the deer leg. But she didn’t find anything.
She went back to the hair snare, examining the clips. Most had been set off, likely from the fall, because they contained no hair. A few remained open. Three had very dark brown fur, and two of them held white hair. She tweezed out the hairs, placing them in separate envelopes, though without a camera record of what had set them off, she didn’t know what good it would do. It was possible the white hairs were from an ermine who was just getting its white winter coat.
She shook her head, puzzled. The trap was unsalvageable. Had whatever caused this damage also dragged off the camera? She pulled out her digital camera and snapped photos of the trap, then sat down on a rock to decide what to do.
She could come back tomorrow, rebuild it in the same area, though if a grizzly had torn this down, then maybe she should pick another location or wait to put it up in November, when bears would be hibernating. But if a bear had torn it down, why had it dragged away the camera, too?
Or had a human done all this damage and stolen the camera? Why would someone do that? She thought of the man she’d captured on her other camera. Maybe he was a poacher after all and hadn’t noticed the first camera, but when he’d seen this, knowing he’d be caught on the images, he’d taken it with him. But why destroy the trap itself? To frame a bear?
Discouraged, she drank the last of her water, her stomach rumbling from the long hike. She’d have to find a stream to replenish her water supply, a place where she could think and eat.
Stuffing as much of the ruined trap as she could in her daypack, she headed back down. Consulting her topo map, she headed toward a nearby stream a mile away. At the bank, she knelt and filtered fresh water into her bottle.
Then she shrugged off her pack and sat down on a large lichen-covered boulder. The stream trickled along in front of her, an almost magical tinkling of notes. Above her, mountain chickadees chattered in the trees, scolding one another and calling out their characteristic chee-dee-dee. In the distance she heard the call of a varied thrush, which had always sounded like a police whistle to her.
She took in a lungful of the sweet scent of the forest and pulled out her sandwich. Before this disaster with the camera trap today, she’d fallen into a nice rhythm. Hike out to one of the traps, change out the memory cards, stop and eat lunch by a stream. Being out here, moving her legs, taking in the forest around her—all this was incredible. Her soul hadn’t felt this light in years. The destroyed trap was a setback.
She tried to take a mental break and just observe the things around her. She noticed that the longer she sat in a place, the more tiny details she noticed. Her gaze fell on a goldenrod plant beside her, its delicate gold flowers blooming in the sun. Then she noticed a tiny jumping spider sitting on one of the blooms. She smiled, taking a bite of her cheese sandwich, as the spider moved about. She loved how agile they were, turning their heads and watching all around them, their large eyes alert.
As she ate, the stream tone changed, almost sounding like it was talking in a soft murmur. As she listened, she could almost make out words, and it sounded like it was getting louder. She put her sandwich down, tensed. She could hear words, and it wasn’t the stream. It was coming from somewhere on the far side of the brook—soft, barely audible words.
She put her sandwich back in its bag and zipped it up in her pack, then stood up. The words were getting clearer, louder, but she still couldn’t make them out.
Tentatively, she picked up her pack and slung it onto one shoulder, then moved toward the sound. It was definitely someone’s voice, but the person was either far away or speaking quietly. She crept to the stream’s edge and then stepped in a few shallow places to cross it, counting on her waterproof boots to keep her feet dry.
She followed the sound of the voice, and the farther she went from the stream, the more she could make out. It was a man, mumbling, somewhere up ahead. Cautiously she crept forward, passing through a dense section of pines. She stepped over fallen logs and around brush and rocks, trying to be as quiet as possible.
“Don’t know . . .” the man was mumbling, followed by a series of words she couldn’t make out.
A rustling sound made her slow, and she knew she was only a dozen or so feet away from him, but she couldn’t see anyone. Ahead of her lay a dense cluster of huckleberry bushes. She crept up to the edge of them and peered over.
Stretched out on his stomach lay
the man in the white T-shirt and jeans that she’d captured earlier on her camera. His face lay pressed into the dirt, his fingers clutching the soil, his lips barely moving. “Got to get . . .”
She stepped around the brush and knelt down next to him. He flinched and jerked away, lifting his head up enough to stare at her with wild, frightened eyes. She drew in a sharp breath. He was definitely the one who had left the warning note on her truck. Taking her in, he sighed and his head slumped back to the dirt. “Help,” he mumbled.
She placed a gentle hand on his back. “It’s okay. I’ll help you.”
At her touch, he flinched again, then started to turn himself over.
“No, don’t move. It might make your injuries worse.”
He flipped over anyway, staring up at her, dried tear tracks cutting through the dirt on his face. She took in his state and gasped. He was in far worse shape than he had been on the camera. Before, he’d had the cut on his leg and head, but now she saw with horror that both of his kneecaps were broken, maybe even shattered. His jeans were torn and shredded from dragging himself, and blood stained them from the thighs down. He held his hands up, pleading, and she saw that all of his fingers had been broken at odd angles, some of them forward, some back, some to the side. She winced.
His face was swollen and badly bruised, one eye sealed shut and the other one nearly the same. Both of his cheekbones were sunken in, likely broken, as was his nose. Blood streamed freely from his mouth, and she looked down at his feet, which were indeed bare. Like his fingers, many of his toes had been broken, as well as both of his ankles. She turned away when she saw that he was missing three toes on his left foot. She couldn’t even imagine the agony he must be in.
“What happened?” she asked.
He struggled to talk. As she leaned closer, she saw that his jaw was painfully swollen on one side.
It was clear from the state of his jeans and shirt that he’d been dragging himself for a long time. It had been three days since the camera had captured his images. What had happened? It looked like he’d suffered a terrible fall, and she knew that the myriad cliffs in the area could be dangerous.
He clutched at his chest, and she gently peered under his shirt to find his rib cage black and blue, but she didn’t think any ribs were broken.
“Did you fall?” she asked him.
“Can’t find me.”
“I have found you.”
“No, they can’t find me.”
“Who are they? Search and rescue? How long have you been out here?”
He looked at her, his eyes wild, mumbling incoherently through bared teeth. She pulled her water bottle out and let some drops fall into his mouth. He choked, then drank more. She didn’t know how long he’d been without food, but there was no way he’d be able to chew it, even if she gave him her sandwich.
She also knew there was no way she could move him. She had to get search and rescue up here with a litter. She gave him more water, then left the water bottle by his side. “I’m going to get help. I’m leaving this water here.” She fished her jacket out of her pack and draped it over him.
Then she took out her GPS unit and created a waypoint for the exact location. Being off trail, with much of the forest looking the same, the spot might be easy to miss, and she knew no time could be wasted.
“You stay right here,” she told him. “Okay?”
He gasped something that might have been yes.
She wanted to be sure he didn’t keep dragging himself. Wanted to hear him agree. “Can you do that for me? Can you stay put?”
His eyes met hers. “I don’t think they can find me,” he said again.
“You’ve been found now. You’re going to be okay.” She gently touched his shoulder. “I’m going to run, and I’ll bring back help. You’ll be in a hospital by tonight.”
He blinked at her, then his gaze went to the sky, tears streaming down the side of his face. She stood up, putting her pack on again.
Studying the area, she memorized the landmarks—where the stream was in relation to the man, a large boulder field to the south of where she stood. She double-checked that her GPS unit had recorded the location.
Then Alex ran.
Eleven
Leaping over fallen logs and weaving between trees, Alex ran all the way down the mountain. A painful stitch formed in her side. Zoe had always told Alex she should take up running. Hiking was more Alex’s speed, but now she wished she had followed her friend’s advice. With the intense sun above her, sweat covered her body, but she didn’t stop. She reached the meadow by the lodge and bolted across it. Hastily she got out her keys, opened the door, and rushed to the phone. This time she dialed the emergency number.
“This is 911, what is your emergency?”
Alex recognized the voice. It was Kathleen.
“Kathleen, this is Alex Carter up at the Snowline.” She swallowed, trying to catch her breath.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“I found a man on the mountain, badly injured.”
“What is the nature of his injuries?”
“From what I can tell, possibly shattered kneecaps, broken fingers and toes, swollen jaw, broken ankles, bruising of the face and head, broken nose. He’s also been out there for days, dragging himself.”
Kathleen sucked in a breath. “Can you give me the location?”
“I can give you the GPS coordinates.”
“Okay, shoot.”
She pulled out her unit and read off the latitude and longitude. “This guy’s in bad shape, Kathleen. If you have access to a helicopter, now’s the time to use it.”
“Okay. I’ll find out the ETA and call you right back.”
They hung up and Alex waited, then hurried into the kitchen and brought a glass of water back out with her. She downed it and refilled it. Five minutes later the phone rang.
“It’s Kathleen. The chopper is on another call, searching for a lost hiker in the Kootenai National Forest. We’re going to have to go in on foot and stabilize him, but the good news is that the helicopter should be there in time to lift him out.”
“And that’s the best that can be done?”
“I’m afraid so, kiddo. Do you think you can lead the paramedics out to him?”
She swallowed some more water. “Yes.”
“Okay. They will rendezvous with you and the sheriff at the lodge in thirty minutes.”
“The sheriff?” Alex asked.
“He’s one of the volunteer SAR guys. He’s helped out on dozens of occasions.”
“Okay.”
“You hang in there.”
“I will.”
They hung up, and Alex took the opportunity to get her backup water bottle and fill it up at the sink. She made a couple of sandwiches and tucked them into her pack.
Then she just waited, pacing, the adrenaline making her heart pound and her hands shake.
When she got tired of pacing the lobby floor, she opted to pace outside.
Twenty minutes later, the sheriff showed up with two paramedics. He got out of his truck and stuffed a water bottle and some energy bars into a knapsack. She walked to him. “It’s the same guy,” she told him.
“What?”
“The guy I saw on the camera. I knew he was still out there. It just didn’t make sense.”
“I guess I stand corrected,” he said, his tone flat and cold.
The two paramedics joined them. One was a young woman in her early twenties, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, green eyes set in a petite face. The other was a big hulk of a man, likely in his early forties, black scraggly hair hanging around his shoulders, a shaggy beard obscuring his face.
“You can lead us out there?” the woman asked. Alex read her name tag: Lisa. The man was Bubba.
She nodded. “You ready now?”
Lisa asked about his injuries, and Alex went down the list.
“Did he say anything?” asked the sheriff.
“Nothing that made a lot
of sense. Something about how they couldn’t find him.”
The two paramedics went back to their ambulance and gathered their gear. Grabbing the litter out of the back, they each took an end.
They checked over their gear, then rejoined Alex. “Okay,” Bubba said. “Let’s go.”
As they climbed, the sun sank lower, making it a little cooler. She held out her GPS unit, making sure they were headed in the right direction, even though she remembered the way. But she didn’t want to make any mistakes and delay them. She could hear Bubba and the sheriff puffing with the effort of the climb, but both of them were keeping a good pace. She wondered if the sheriff hadn’t quite recovered from their earlier, intense hike.
She slowed to walk alongside Lisa. “Do you have a radio so you can get the helicopter to pick him up?”
Lisa patted her hip, where a variety of tools hung: a knife, a flashlight, a radio, a cell phone, and a satellite phone. “I got it covered.”
Alex checked her GPS unit again. It counted down the meters to their destination, and Alex knew they were getting close just from the landmarks around her. Soon they approached the thicket of huckleberry bushes where she’d left him.
“He’s just over here,” she told them.
She came around the far side of the brush to the open spot where he’d been lying.
The man was gone.
Twelve
Alex stared down in surprise, then scanned the area for him. She checked and rechecked her GPS unit, even though she knew this was where she’d found him. Not far off, she could see the rock where she’d had her sandwich. The boulder field she’d taken note of was just to the south.
“Where is he?” asked the sheriff.
“He was right here,” Alex told him. The flash of green drew her eyes into the bushes. Her Nalgene water bottle lay there on its side. “See? Here’s my water. I left it with him.” She picked it up, then scanned the area once more. “He must have started crawling again. He can’t be far in his shape.”
A Solitude of Wolverines Page 11
