“Did he know what the note alluded to?”
“He wasn’t sure. He asked if he could have it. I told him we needed to hold on to it for now.”
“Did Dean find anything else?”
“Some personal belongings. Extra gloves and batteries. A couple of books. Pru, I don’t have to tell you, it looks like we’re going to be back out here this spring.”
“I’ll be out here before that.”
“I know you will. But just do your job. Don’t take this on, too.”
—
By two o’clock that afternoon, the snow started up again, and within another hour we were experiencing forty-mile-per-hour gusts, causing temporary whiteouts in places. Jeff and I were working Kona along Big Ridge, adjacent to the clearing where the hat had been found, and just east and north of Cathedral Bluffs, when Colm called the teams in. The weather service was predicting more than a foot of accumulation in the Douglas Pass region and some of the outlying areas. It took Jeff and me two hours to make it back to the station. We were the last team to report in. Then Colm made his announcement.
“As incident commander, I’ve got to make a decision. I have to be cognizant that these people have limits. I have to weigh risk versus benefit. Plans continue, but at this point, search and recovery have been demobilized,” he said.
“Do you have any idea when the search will resume?” a reporter asked.
“This is a tough landscape,” Colm said. “Usually on a search we can get snowmobiles and snowshoers into an area. This isn’t one of those places. I don’t see the search resuming until sometime in the spring,” he said.
Another reporter asked, “What about the reports of a possible suicide?”
“Without recovering the body, we can’t be certain,” Colm told him.
At this point Colm had not made the media aware of the letter that had been recovered, and he’d yet to call it a suicide note, though I knew in his mind he thought it was.
I looked around the makeshift headquarters for the husband and his sister. They were standing toward the back of the room with Dean and a couple of the other volunteers. Dean had his arm on the husband’s shoulder. One of the volunteers was rubbing the back of the husband’s sister. There weren’t many dry eyes in the room. Colm was thanking the volunteers. He thanked everyone from outside the county who had assisted in the search, and he extended his thoughts and prayers to the family.
—
Colm and I watched the volunteers, slow to leave despite their exhaustion.
“They’re good people,” Colm said. “They gave it their all.”
Farrell and his sister were there, as well. They thanked each person who had been part of the search.
“Do you think I made the right decision?” Colm asked me.
“I do. As hard as it is, you did the right thing. Jeff said the same. We’re dealing with snow on sheer rock faces,” I told him.
Colm looked at his watch. “You should probably get going. If you leave now, you can still make the game.”
“It’s hard to keep track of what day it is,” I said. “I can’t believe it’s Friday. You going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” Colm said. “Tell Joseph to break a leg.”
“Not really something to say before a football game.” I tried to smile.
Colm shook his head. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“I’ll have my phone with me. Call me if you need anything.”
AMY RAYE
Amy Raye was now on her hands and knees. The rain slapped hard on her back as she moved slowly through the grass, inspecting each blade, each indention. About four yards from the tree, she found a drip of blood on the underside of a stick. She tied marking tape to the tip. A couple of yards north of it, she found another drip spilling down the veins of a leaf. From there she found nothing. She moved in every direction. Her knees sank into the soft soil. The smell of cow elk estrus lingered on her skin, her clothes, despite the rainfall.
More hours had passed. She wondered how much area she’d covered. She wished she could get word to Kenny and Aaron. Cell phones were useless in these parts, as there was no signal, and the rain could ruin the battery, and so she had left her cell phone back at her tent. If she did not find the elk soon, she would need to hike back to the truck and return to camp. She’d have to solicit Kenny and Aaron’s help. Still on all fours, she raised her head and searched the trees that surrounded the meadow. Perhaps the elk was dying somewhere close by. Perhaps he was already dead. She stood, moved in an outward radius from the clearing, then back, then outward again, looking for some sign: tracks, blood, broken branches.