"Where's your natives?" Smith asked as I marched up the old Elk Creek Trail. He was standing there in a designer brand jacket, shotgun in hand, flanked by the park rangers and forestry troopers he'd brought. I had just my deputy Stephen with me. Well, him and my revolver.
"The Indigenous men I was thinking of couldn't make it," I said. In reality, the only people I'd ever think to bring on something like this would be my friends Billy and Harry. I couldn't bring Billy out on excursions like this since his accident, and I was hesitant to have Harry doing anything more strenuous than fishing, as we'd planned to do on the weekend.
"I thought they were supposed to be your ace in the hole for tracking around these parts?"
"Yeah, well, we're not so bad at it ourselves, are we Steve," I asked.
"Sure aren't," he replied. "Learned a thing or two from the Quileute at that."
"Well," said Sgt. Smith, who by his tone had made it clear he was skeptical of anything other than the pricey GPS device he had strapped to his shoulder, "let's get a move on."
It was slow going, as the woods were dense and muddy, but the park rangers were surefooted, and Steve and I were no strangers to these woods. It was Smith and the two forestry troopers that were having trouble finding their footing, which I clocked as odd—at least for the troopers.
"We stop here," Smith ordered, pretending to spot some tracks but really just looking like he needed to catch his breath. I didn't blame him—he'd been toting around that heavy shotgun for miles at this point. Okay, I kind of blamed him.
"Where was it those last hikers planned to camp?" he asked the group. I wracked my brain for the last report I'd read, but a ranger beat me to it.
"It's just two miles due northeast of here," he said, consulting his map. We trudged onwards, a steady sprinkling of rain gathering in the overheard boughs, collecting into heavy drops that would occasionally bomb us from above. The forest was eerily silent, as though the wildlife that was so often present could hear, could feel, the strangeness of the intruders. I thought I caught the faint smell of blood in the air, as though a hunter had injured, but not yet finished, its mark.
It felt strange being out in these woods without a Quileute alongside. I couldn't remember the last time I'd conducted any sort of a search without at least Harry along. His absence felt all the larger as Sgt. Smith charged headlong into the darkening woods, using military hand signals as though we were in Iraq instead of Forks, Washington.
"Here," he said, bounding up onto a clearing. "They must've been here."
He was right about that. A small fire pit had been dug beside a still-standing tent. Inside we found a fully stocked backpack, a still-inflated sleeping pad, and a half-finished pot of what appeared to be oatmeal upturned in the corner.
"Could they be around here somewhere?" one of the Troopers asked.
"No," I answered, being careful not to move much of the evidence as I picked up the bowl. "Any overnight backpacker worth their salt would know not to leave food out like this in bear territory. And based on the setup, whoever this is knew what they were doing."
"So what, then? A bear showed?"
"No signs of struggle," offered Stephen. "If it was a bear, this place would be torn to shreds. However..." he stooped down a few feet away from the fire pit. "Those definitely look like something."
He was damn right about that. As we all gathered around beside him, we noticed indents in the grass. Larger than any bear print I'd ever seen, but not in nearly the right shape.
"Those are what, cougar tracks?" asked Smith, crouching down to compare his hand to the frighteningly larger print.
"No," I corrected, noticing dozens more scattered around the clearing. "Wolves."
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