GPS coordinates were then given, which I knew Colm was marking on the station’s master map.
Occasionally, Colm’s voice broke the radio’s silence. “Command, Air One. Anything?”
But the pilot’s report remained the same as everyone else’s.
The wind bit and stirred beneath my layers of clothing, running currents over my skin, despite the working of my muscles.
“The weather’s changing,” I told Jeff.
“I think you’re right.”
“Don’t your ears get cold?” I asked.
“Frostbite got them years back. I don’t feel a thing.”
Though we reported in to Colm every half hour or so, we had no news other than the points of our location. Kona picked up no scent either.
“We’re in the wrong place,” I finally said. “Kona’s not getting anything. Not even a trace from the wind.”
“Despite these clear skies, some snow fell pretty hard last night,” Jeff said. “Blue Mountain got hit with more than a foot.”
Blue Mountain was just west and slightly north of Rangely.
“If she’s covered in snow, then she’s not alive.” I hated the way those words sounded. And yet I felt something true in what I’d said. For the most part, Kona was an air-scent dog, but because of his cadaver training in avalanche certification, he was considered a trailing dog as well. Other than a few earlier traces near the subject’s vehicle, so far Kona wasn’t showing any sign of air scent associated with the subject. If a person was covered by snow—during sleep or unconsciousness or in a state of hypothermia—the person’s body heat would melt some of the accumulation, which, as temperatures dropped, would freeze around the person, sealing off the body’s scent. The subject might then just as well be trapped under frozen water. In those cases, Kona would be of no help. Because of the winds, the low humidity of the West, and the ground’s topography, snow accumulation in a single mile radius could vary dramatically, from a couple of inches where it might have scattered like fine grains of flour, to large mounds or drifts piling up several feet in arroyos and rocky fractures.
Jeff and Kona and I covered more ground, and after about twenty minutes we came upon one of the oil well disposal pits.
“Don’t suppose she fell into one of these,” Jeff said.
“It would have to be a deliberate suicide attempt. And there are much better ways to commit suicide than that,” I told him.
As we continued on, I felt something taking hold of me—something black and looming. Despite Jeff’s and Kona’s presence, this was pure aloneness. Maybe it was from the thought of someone falling into one of the disposal pits, or maybe it was triggered by the very fact that we were looking for someone missing, someone integral to a community of life. It was the same kind of loneliness I had felt after Brody was gone, a kind of companion, that in some ways I was still afraid to live without.
More than four hours had passed when Colm made the call. “Command, calling all search teams. We’ve got a large storm pattern due west of here. It’s moving in quicker than we’d thought. Start making your way back to the command station.”
Each group responded in turn to Colm’s call—Alpha One, Team Two, Team Three, and so on.
“Colm’s right,” Jeff said. “You can taste the snow. Feel it blowing in.”
I knew what Jeff was talking about. I tasted it, too, like a faint mineral deposit on the back of my tongue, a cold in my airways that burned metallic. We hiked the two miles to the vehicle and then drove back to the station.
Kona followed Jeff and me into the command headquarters. A group of people—mostly men, a couple of women—were talking to Colm around one of the tables. Colm motioned Jeff and me over to him. “I want you to meet someone,” he said. “This is Farrell Latour. Amy Raye’s husband.”
When Farrell said hello, I was surprised by the timbre of his voice, much like a teenage boy’s. He carried a down parka in the crook of his right arm and wore Sorel boots that laced up to his knees. He’d come to find his wife. I was certain the two men from the hunting party had wanted to search as well. I also knew their assistance wouldn’t be allowed. These men weren’t trained in search and rescue, and any fresh track they made would have to be looked at as a potential sign of our missing person.
The husband had brought pictures. Colm had laid them on the table.
“This one was taken over the summer,” Farrell said as he pointed to a photo. The woman’s hair was dark blond. She wore a Rockies cap, was holding a bottle of beer. She was smiling coyly, as if teasing the person behind the camera. Her eyes were brown.
I looked at another picture. The husband picked it up.
“This is our boy, Trevor. He’s four.” Farrell set the picture down and picked up another one. “This is Julia. She’s twelve.”
“You have a beautiful family,” Jeff said.
Farrell laid the picture on the table, still holding on to the photo’s edges.
“Where are the kids now?” I asked.