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  At length he got himself squared away. The fog lifted and Anna was treated to another one of those Van Slyke boy smiles. "Glad's not the half of it," he said. "I have been out of my mind with worry. Anything could happen to a boy out here. Just anything. You name it. And helpless? My! I wanted to go with the searchers but I guess I've let myself get out of shape some and . . . well..." He drifted off apologetically, spreading his arms in a half-shrug to show her his concave chest and rounded potbelly.

  He was out of shape. Had Anna been in Buck's place she would have kept Mr. Van Slyke close to camp as well. He carried twenty extra pounds, all of it in the gut. The muscle tone in his arms was nil and his legs were white and spindly above the tops of brand-new hiking boots. Obviously not a seasoned backwoodsman. His forearms were grayish with old bruising and there were marks on the few inches of thigh Anna could see below his hiking shorts. Some old and a couple fresh and angry looking. She wondered if he had one of those skin or circulation disorders where the slightest bump will leave a bruise for weeks.

  "Then there was the thing with Carolyn," he finished.

  Anna wriggled out of her day pack, sat down by the one he'd been rummaging through and began unlacing her boots. They were old and, given they were great heavy lug-soled boots, comfortable enough, but her feet yearned for cool air and her toes for unfettered freedom.

  "His stepmom pretty anxious?" she asked to be polite.

  "I don't know. I mean, I'm sure she would have been. Didn't they tell you? Carolyn's been gone since yesterday morning."

  That got Anna's attention. She looked up from her bootlaces. "Gone?"

  "I woke up and she'd gone. She does that. I didn't think anything of it, but she hasn't come back yet."

  An emotion flickered behind Mr. Van Slyke's pale clear eyes. It looked like relief for an instant then was clouded over with concern. A faint line, an old cleanly healed scar, traced white across his brow and down the side of his nose as his face muscles tensed.

  "Usually she's not gone so long. Not overnight. At least not in a place like this. I mean, where would she go?"

  "Have you reported it?" Anna asked cautiously.

  "This noon when she still wasn't back, I got worried. I told that young fellow, that ranger, when he came with the news you found Rory. I kind of thought maybe she was with you guys."

  "Not with us," Anna said, then realized that might not be strictly true. She replaced her boot. She needed to talk to Harry Ruick.

  7

  Anna crept off to be alone. It seemed like months since she'd been free of human chatter, the pressure of words on her brain, eyes on her skin. Even in times of no trauma she felt the need to escape, to decompress after a day in the society of her fellows. Distracted as she'd been by the many threads of human drama woven over the summit of Flattop, she'd not noticed how heavy the strands had become till she'd crawled out from under them.

  Now, safe in a secluded crook of the creek's wandering arm, boulders as high as a horse's withers forming haphazard fortress walls between her and the squalid hubbub of Fifty Mountain Camp, she found herself imbibing huge drafts of air, sucking and sighing like a woman too long underwater. Hyperventilation brought tears. Not healing tears that flow freely and wash away grief, but the niggardly hot tears that merely sting the corners of the eyes. Peevish, self-willed tears for her own weariness and because the woman's butchered face still clung to the back of her retinas. Perhaps if she'd cried for others, the tears would have been more generous.

  Joan had cried when Rory came back from the gastrointestinal tract of the bear unchewed and unclawed. Cried for joy from her warm mother's heart. Anna envied that in some unidentifiable way, envied Joan's deep connection with the human race. She was a member of the club. Anna was half convinced she'd been begotten by a passing alien life-form on a human woman. It was as good an explanation as any for the sense she had of being an outsider.

  "I need my head examined," she muttered and wished she could call Molly. Instead, she forced herself to sit up, to rinse the self-pity from her face with the icy milk flowing down from the glaciers. Face free of dust, mind loosed from self-involved thoughts, she lay back again on the stone, felt the sun on her skin and began to draw strength from the earth. But for the quiet laughter of the stream, the high country was wrapped in its peculiar silence. Birds did not twitter. Squirrels did not scuffle. Even the insects did not hum.

  Into this bone-deep peace, images—scenes that had made little or no sense at the time—began to resurface.

  After Anna had told the chief ranger of the disappearance of Lester Van Slyke's wife, Harry took him and his son away from the others. Rory was old enough he, too, was to be burdened with the news that the body they found was very probably that of his missing stepmother. To her relief, Anna had not been asked to participate in this interaction. Fifteen feet away, leaning comfortably against a snag, she watched the three men with interest. Ruick had his back to her but she could see Rory and his father clearly.

  Over the years Anna had broken enough bad news to park visitors that she knew the stages of acceptance. Predictable as sunrise, she saw them flow across Les and Rory's faces. First was blank stupidity, the brain refusing to understand, then the dawning of fear as a tide of it rushed in from the darkest oceans of the mind. Third was either disintegration or coping. Both Rory and Les coped, but before the fear had been stemmed by courage—or hope—there came a moment that didn't fit the pattern.

  Shock had momentarily rendered their faces free of artifice, and the look they exchanged had been naked emotion. What emotion, was the question that troubled Anna. She could make a few assumptions as to what it was not. But she had to take them separately, father and son, because though the look had come from both at the same instant, there was no conspiracy in it and no empathy, merely two different unmasked thoughts broadcast simultaneously.

  Les had not turned to his son with love or with concern. Near as she could tell, he had not been seeking to give or receive comfort. The closest she could get to deciphering the sudden dark flash of energy she'd witnessed was a flare of horror turning to shame. The vision was fleeting, quickly reverting to the blank of denial. Then Les appeared, if possible, even more downtrodden and ineffectual than he had before.

  Rory's glance had been even more puzzling. Maybe anger. Maybe respect. Anna was just guessing. Reading faces was an art, not a science. Sometimes the muse was on one's side. Sometimes she merely toyed with one.

  Given that the first suspect in a murder case is invariably the spouse of the victim, Anna found the exchange noteworthy. It was hard to picture self-effacing Mr. Van Slyke creeping out of his tent in the dead of night—presuming the missus had been offed in the traditional dead of night—in his brand-spanking-new boots, following or luring his wife several miles from camp, then killing her and mutilating her face. Facial mutilation usually bespoke great rage, great hatred toward the victim in particular or, less often, the gender in general. Only close friends and near enemies cared enough to rip one's face off. Lester Van Slyke didn't seem capable of that kind of emotion, but looks were consistently deceiving.

  In the midst of these ephemeral and possibly imaginary weirdnesses—Anna knew she was quite capable of seeing ne'er-do-wells where only solid citizens existed—was a very real anomaly. Lester Van Slyke's wife had been missing in the wilderness between twenty-four and thirty-six hours before he bothered to report it. That in and of itself was highly irregular.

  If she was right about the horror and shame on Lester's face, could it be horror at what he'd done? Or horror at what he thought Rory might have done?

  Rory. Anna let her mind float over the boy for a while. He was an enigma. People of his age were such cauldrons of emotion, hormones, burgeoning pride and inherited misinformation that assigning motives to their actions was nearly impossible. Half the time even they did not knew why they did a thing. From what little she knew of Rory, he was devoted to—or at least greatly admired—his stepmother. And he'd not
gone out in the night intentionally; he'd fled half-dressed from the predations of a bear.

  Half-dressed; something about that bothered Anna. She stretched in the sun like a lazy cat and opened her mind to pictures of Rory in dishabille.

  The mysteriously missing shirt he avoided discussing was odd but not earth-shaking. That was not the pea under Anna's metaphorical mattresses that bruised her thoughts each time they turned over. The sweatpants, the slippers, the sunburn, the cut foot: these things were as they should be. Anna stopped making lists and merely let the chips of memory run movies in her head: Rory talking, sitting on his stump, laughing, drinking water.

  Drinking water; he'd been drinking out of his fancy filter-it-anywhere, special-order, latest-gimmick-on-the-market water bottle.

  Why would someone with diarrhea, rushing into the wood to relieve himself, bring along his water bottle? According to Rory, after the bear had come on the scene, such had been his haste to "go for help" that he'd pulled up his trousers and dashed off without slowing down enough even to take his flashlight.

  The water bottle could indicate nothing. Rory might have been dehydrated and thought he'd be in the woods with his loose bowels long enough he'd need a drink. Reflex might have dictated he snatch up the bottle when he fled the bear. Or it could indicate that before he left his tent, he knew he had someplace to go a long enough hike away that he'd need to bring along water. With the grim bulk of suspicion squeezing out generous thought, it came to Anna that Rory might not have wished to discuss his missing shirt because he'd purposely left it behind, hidden it so no one would see that it was covered in blood.

  "Yuck," Anna said aloud and sat up. The sun had moved two fingers toward the west. There were several hours of daylight left but they'd want to start for their camp soon. Buck, bless his long-legged energy, had volunteered to walk the six miles round-trip to Anna and Joan's camp on the far side of the mountain top and bring back boots and socks for Rory.

  Despite the very real possibility that the dead woman was his stepmother, Rory had refused to ride down in the helicopter with his dad and Harry Ruick. There'd been no small effort to convince him. Anna had bowed out and left it to Ruick. Again Rory had persevered and they'd flown without him.

  Given her recent unsavory thoughts about the lad, Anna was sorry Ruick hadn't been a little more heavy-handed.

  Having spoiled her solitude by inviting thoughts of others there, she decided to rejoin the human race even if she did so as a half-alien interloper. Her timing was good. As she was lacing up her boots she heard Joan's voice calling her name.

  "Over here," Anna hollered.

  A scrambling sound, then Joan appeared around the side of a boulder. Since Rory'd been found, Joan's looks had improved. The sight of the boy unharmed had eased two days' weariness from her face and eyes.

  "Hey. There you are." She sounded positively chipper. Uncharitably, Anna resented it.

  "Here I am," she confirmed.

  Joan plopped comfortably clown on the rock beside her. "You look a wee bit on the grouchy side," she said cheerfully.

  "Grouchy doesn't even begin to touch it. I've been thinking," Anna explained.

  "Oooh. Not good."

  "Why did Rory have his water bottle with him?"

  "What—" Joan looked baffled, then as her quick mind rapidly put together the pieces, crestfallen. Chipper good cheer burst like a birthday balloon. "Oh, Anna, no . . ."

  "You've got to admit it's a little out of whack considering the story he gave us."

  "It makes no sense," Joan said. "Surely he'd've put on his boots if he knew he was going . . . somewhere."

  "Not if he didn't want to leave tracks. It wasn't that far." Anna remembered something then and added it to the soup. "He could cover a lot of country. He's a long-distance runner. He told me. He runs barefoot."

  "I don't believe it," Joan said firmly.

  "Neither do I, but you've got to admit it warrants looking at."

  Joan sighed. "This is why I went into zoology," she said. "Animals have no hidden agendas." After that they were quiet for a while. So long that Anna began to suffer that uncomfortable feeling that comes when one suspects one has committed an awful social gaffe but can't figure out what it is.

  "You know," Joan said finally. "You are in danger of going over to the dark side, Anna. You need a lot more of rainbows and roses and whiskers on kittens in the daily fare. I think you've been given to me for some serious lightening up. I've got you for two more weeks."

  "God, that's not long enough," Anna said seriously.

  Joan laughed, a noise so filled with that rare essence, gay abandon, that Anna laughed too, and felt sincerely lightened.

  "Change in venue," Joan said when they'd subsided. "Turns out Rory is to go down. We're all to go down for a day. Harry needs us for reports, interviews and whatnot over both the search and the other. It's too late for us to head out today and ain't nobody sending an expensive helicopter for such as we. So we hike back to camp and pack out tomorrow. Harry also said, and I quote: 'Tell Anna she can nose around the campers at Fifty Mountain if she wants.'"

  Tacit approval for her to investigate but with no official standing and no NPS backing. Ruick was a clever fellow. If Anna discovered anything useful, all to the good. If she screwed up, she was of little more importance than a civilian. Unless she screwed up big-time and ended up in civil court. Then they were both in deep trouble. Anna allowed herself to be warmed by the knowledge that the chief ranger counted on her not to screw up.

  "Do you know if the campers have been interviewed?" Anna asked. She had been on her rock for quite some time, since before the helicopter carried off Lester Van Slyke.

  "I think so. I know Harry talked briefly to everybody and told them they'll need to stop by headquarters before they leave the park in case any new questions come up or there's paperwork to be done."

  "There's always paperwork," Anna said. "Always."

  She followed Joan back up to camp. They had about ninety minutes to kill before Buck returned with Rory's boots. Anna decided to take up Ruick's invitation to "nose around."

  Already the will-o'-the-wisp population of Fifty Mountain had undergone so much change, interviews were largely a waste of time. Rory had been missing a night, a day, and a night. During that day the body had been discovered. It was not till the following day that they'd found Carolyn Van Slyke was missing. Campers seldom stayed in one place that long. Assuming the faceless woman had been killed the night Rory ran from the bear, as the condition of the corpse suggested, two mornings had come and gone. Mornings during which early-rising campers folded their tents and moved on and new people hiked in to take their places. Witnesses, alibis, the usual round of queries brought on by homicide, scarcely applied.

  Anna wandered from site to site. Only three groups that had been there the night Mrs. Van Slyke went AWOL remained. The compliment she'd inferred from Ruick's suggestion began to lose its luster. Because of unique circumstances, nosing around was a bit of a fool's errand. Still, she persevered. She had nothing better to do and she'd become accustomed to the dead ends in law enforcement. One simply followed them to their natural conclusion, checked them off the list and went on to the next. Without a good lead to follow, most investigative work boiled down to necessary tedium. Doing it out-of-doors in one of the most beautiful places on earth was a definite perk.

  One by one, Anna spoke with those who had been there the night the potential Mrs. Van Slyke was probably killed. Three Canadian college girls could tell Anna nothing. Persons not young and not beautiful were of no interest to them. A couple in their late fifties from Michigan had noticed Carolyn at the food preparation area. They thought she was married to someone other than Lester. That or the wife's description of Lester was kind to the point of absurdity. She'd given him hair and four extra inches in height. They described Carolyn as a vivacious woman with a loud voice and laugh. There was little else they could recall.

  The wife kindly pointed out t
he man they'd mistaken for Mrs. Van Slyke's husband. He was the only person Anna had yet to talk with who had been at Fifty Mountain on the night in question. His tent was pitched in the site farthest from the food area. Like every site, it had a stunning view through the teeth of rotting snags to the glacier-sheared plain that was Flattop Mountain. When Anna saw him, he was sitting on a tarp, his back against the charred bark of a pine that had survived the fire. Two years later it still struggled, half black, half green, like a scarred and wounded woman, looks and strength gone but heart still determined.

  The man beneath this valiant tree wasn't doing quite as well. Like Lester, his backcountry duds and gear were suspiciously new and he wriggled like a man whose backside has known only leather car seats and barstools. Though the sun was setting and the temperature had dropped considerably, he wore only a thin T-shirt and hugged his knees for warmth. Hovering around fifty, he sported rich reddish-brown hair that was still thick. Not a trace of gray showed anywhere. Anna suspected he owed more to Grecian Formula than good genes. She could see how the Michigan couple might have mistaken him for Mr. Van Slyke. Even dead, Carolyn looked more of a match for this man than the stooped, pale, prematurely aged Lester.

  "Hey, sorry to bother you," Anna said, stopping on the perimeter of an invisible circle around his camp. Anna would no more barge into someone's campsite than she would enter a house without knocking.

  "Hi." He slapped at a mosquito. He made no effort to rise. Neither a backwoodsman nor a gentleman.

  "I'm Anna Pigeon," Anna identified herself. "I'm a park ranger. We're asking questions of the folks who were camped here the night that woman went missing."

  "I don't know anything about that. I came here to get away from people. I've stayed pretty much to myself." He delivered this piece of information to a place halfway between his eyes and Anna's knees, punctuating his words with slaps at mosquitoes.