“Just the vehicle. A couple of miles into East Dry Lake Canyon.”
I knew the Douglas Creek area well, a coarse arrangement of pipelines, oil and natural gas wells, and a vast expanse of boulders and draws. I’d surveyed maybe thirty sites in that area, rock art and shelters once occupied by the Fremonts, predecessors to the Shoshonean tribes. East Douglas was also one of the wild horse management areas. The herd was nonviable and was in the process of being zeroed out. There just wasn’t enough genetic diversity anymore. The band used to be part of the Hill Creek management area in Utah. The horses would travel across the border back and forth between Utah and Colorado, but with the development of towns and highways, the herd in East Douglas had become isolated. There were only about thirty horses left. In all my time working the area, I’d never seen the horses, and they were becoming more and more difficult to catch and auction off. A bigger concern was the level of inbreeding that was going on with the ones that might be caught.
“Colm says there’s fresh snow up there,” I told Dean.
“Probably six to eight inches. Maybe a foot in the higher elevations. It’s windy as hell. There’ll be some bald spots on the western slopes. Dry powder. Didn’t stick to the back brush or sage.”
“Search and rescue been called yet?”
“Dispatcher’s gotten hold of about ten volunteers. They’re planning to stand by until I call. Colm wanted you out there first.”
Dean and I climbed back into our vehicles. I followed him about sixteen miles south on Highway 139 to the East Douglas Creek turnoff and made a left into Rocky Point Draw. The road twisted through the gulch, an arterial spread of arroyos surrounded by sandstone bluffs. The wind had already cleared a lot of snow from the base.
He stopped just before the steep muddy pitch leading to the Weatherman Draw site, a Native American Fremont shelter that had been excavated over the past three summers by different field schools led by Glade, the BLM’s area archaeologist. I had been part of the excavation efforts by maintaining the surveillance of the site. This entire area was part of my own jurisdiction.
About fifty yards to the right of Dean’s Cherokee, amid knobs of silver-green sage and fallen rocks, was the black Ford.
“Hell of a place to get lost,” I said as I got out of my truck.
I opened the back of my Tahoe. “Okay, Kona.” He jumped down beside me, wagging his tail. I buckled his tracking harness over his neck and shoulders, then attached his leash to his choker collar and led him to the black pickup, where Dean had already opened the driver’s side.
“Up!” I said.
Kona jumped into the truck, acquainting himself with the hunter’s smells, a pair of women’s-size mittens in the passenger seat, an atlas of Colorado, a half-empty bottle of cinnamon schnapps. I knew too well the effect of blood alcohol in the cold. “Is the Hot Damn hers?”
“I don’t know. The truck belongs to one of the guys.”
In the backseat of the extra cab were a plastic container of hollow-point bullets for a .357 Magnum, a black leather compass pouch, a blaze orange cap with earflaps, and a small cooler. Inside the cooler were an empty sandwich bag coated with crumbs, a container of yogurt, and a half-eaten Snickers bar.
“She had lunch,” I said. “What about the hat?”
“Could be hers. Could be one of the guys’. Colm’s on his way out to their camp now. Without their vehicle, they’ve been stranded.”
Using my gloved hand, I picked up the mittens for a scent item and placed them in a plastic bag. Maybe the woman was wearing glove liners. Most likely she wasn’t planning on staying out long. From the way things looked, she’d probably hunted from the vehicle. Gone out that morning, and come back to the truck for lunch. If that was the case, she wouldn’t have packed much water, and more than likely hadn’t carried in much food.
On the seat of the extra cab was a packing frame. A lot of hunters would leave the packing frame at the truck. Kona climbed over the console into the front seat, his tail wagging furiously. He looked at me and let out a yip. He was ready. I switched his leash to the tracking collar and backed out of the truck.
“Go find,” I said.
Kona leapt onto the ground. I led him around the vehicle. At the tail of the truck he held his head between his shoulders and the ground. I knew he’d picked up a trail. He circled behind me. After about fifty feet, Kona raised his head.
“He’s lost it,” I said.
“I’m sure the rain they got out here yesterday isn’t going to help anything,” Dean said.