Ancient Echoes

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

First light cast a gray hue over the sky as Michael loaded a box into the back of his rented Cadillac Escalante. At the sound of a car engine, he turned and watched a truck careen up the gravel drive toward him, and come to a stop at his side. “Sheriff Sullivan,” he said.

Jake got out. “Going somewhere, Rempart?”

“Why not? We now have somewhere to go.”

“Are the two Feds inside?” Jake asked.

“Only Charlotte. Quade helped us pick up our rental cars last night, but didn’t return with us.”

“Where did he go?”

“I have no idea. Charlotte and I decided if he doesn’t come back soon, we’re going on without him.”

“Great! That’s all I need! A missing Fed!” Jake stomped into the cabin, Michael behind him.

Charlotte stuffed beef jerky into a backpack. Camping gear was piled by the door. She stopped as Jake entered and her body stiffened. “This is a surprise.”

“But that isn’t.” Jake bellowed as he gestured at the gear.

“You can’t stop us, Sheriff.” Charlotte turned her back on him and continued packing.

Jake eyed her, then Michael. “I don’t intend to. In fact, I plan to join you. The old lady’s story about the six missing men was true. From all accounts, they went into the wilderness, and no one ever saw them again.”

Suspicion gripped Michael. “How is it you didn’t know about them before? That disappearance has similarities to this one.”

“That’s why I’m interested. They were well-armed, paramilitary types. Such guys are taught survival and how to take care of themselves. Before this, apparently everyone assumed those men had a reason to disappear, and going into the wilderness area was a means to do it.”

“And now?” Michael asked.

“Now,” Jake admitted, “I’m not so sure.”

Charlotte shut her eyes a moment. She didn't like hearing him express doubts. He was a rock. Or had been. Just as quickly she grew irritated with herself and had no idea why she cared what he thought. Despite all that, she asked, “We’ve heard the superstitious reasons that cause Polly and old-timers to stay away from that part of Idaho. I’d like to know what you think, Sheriff. Why is the area so empty?”

“It’s simple,” Jake said. “No one goes out there because there’s nothing to see, hunt or fish. For some reason, not even game animals are found there in any number. Guess they don’t like the food. Who knows? But that’s why no one goes. Everything else is just hearsay.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Quade said as he entered the cabin. They each did a double-take at his heavy shearling jacket, Wranglers, hiking boots, and wide brimmed cowboy hat. He removed the hat and put it on a chair. “A theory is that once away from the area, something makes people forget the details of what they see and experience, and they’re left with a vague dream of an unnamed and unnamable fear. They rationalize the feeling by saying they saw nothing.”

“I say it’s time we find out what the truth is,” Michael suggested. “Any luck with the map?”

“Not much,” Quade said with disgust.

“What map?” Jake asked.

Michael showed it to him. “My associate found it in Lionel’s files back in Washington D.C. Mountains, creeks, and two straight vertical lines annotated ‘two pillars.’ Does any of this look familiar to you, Sheriff?”

“No. And there are no pillars out in that wilderness, if that’s what you’re hoping,” Jake said. “I don’t know what the map is showing.”

“How well do you know the wilderness area?” Charlotte asked him.

“I was born here.”

Quade added, “But you left for twenty-five years, and didn’t return until three years ago.”

Jake’s brows crossed. “So?”

Michael took over the questioning. “To become a sheriff so quickly, you must have had some law enforcement experience.”

Jake didn’t like being interrogated and particularly didn’t like Quade or Michael Rempart knowing anything about him. Charlotte said nothing, but he felt her waiting for his answer. He took a deep breath. “Since all of you are so all-fired curious, I was a Robbery-Homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.”

Michael looked at him skeptically. “Why leave?”

Jake’s eyes drilled him. “How about because I’d had it with the s**t in L.A. and came home to get the stink out of my nostrils. The prior sheriff had a heart attack, and the county asked me to hold down the fort. He passed away, and now it’s my job until the next election. Anything else you want to know?”

“Yes,” Michael said. “Are you riding with us, Sheriff?”

Somehow, Jake knew it would come to this. He’d already left his deputy in charge, saying he was following a new lead. He glanced at Quade, who wore a smirk that Jake would have loved to scrub off his face, and Charlotte whose gaze was firm and steady. “Since my truck’s been modified to handle off-road, looks like you folks should ride with me. Theories be damned. No evil spirits or anything else strange is out there. The only thing dangerous is nature itself.”

“They’re on the move. Roll out.” Derek Hammill gave the order as he double-checked the safety on his 10 mm Smith and Wesson 1076, glad to have it near. He was a country boy, grew up in Alabama, and he sensed a strangeness about this area.

“f**k this!” Nose shouldered his H&K assault rifle as he stared off to the left, his mouth a grim line. “Someone’s out there, boss. I feel him watching us. I say we stop and give whoever it is a lesson.”

“We’ve already checked!” Hammill’s words came a little too quick, a little too loud. “Heat sensors don’t give off anything big enough for a man. It’s some animal. Forget it.”

Nose had joked to the men about the river guides’ delirious stories and old Indian tales about monsters and evil spirits lurking in the forest. Suddenly, the tales weren’t quite so funny. The guys looked ready to blow up chipmunks.

As their leader, Hammill needed to steady them. He couldn’t let nerves get in the way.

“We’ve got our orders. No delay. We’ve got to return with the objective A-SAP. Now, move it!”

“There’s a good reason nobody knows where it’s at,” Polly Higgins said when Jake handed her Thurmon Teasdale’s map and asked if she recognized the landscape. “Nobody goes up there. I suspect this stream is most likely Cayuse Creek. It’s plenty wide, plenty long, and wends its way west from Square Top Mountain. If I’m right, you’ll have to head due west, some ten miles past Devil’s Gulch, just like I told you.”

Using ground area maps Quade had printed off of the CIA’s database, they located the general area they should head toward. “Why don’t we simply fly over and find the pillars that way?” Charlotte asked.

“As good as maps and technology are, there are a lot of things you can only find on the ground surveillance,” Michael said. “Those pillars might be in the middle of a thick forest. They might look like tree trunks from the sky, maybe diseased ones that had lost their leaves and limbs.”

“Michael’s right,” Quade said. “We need to go there. Ready?”

Polly walked with them out to Jake’s truck. The Ford F-250 had traction bars, three-inch coilover shocks, and thirty-five inch all-terrain tires. The four of them had fitted it with tents, backpacks, medical supplies, and enough provisions to last a good ten days, even though they expected to be gone no more than three or four. If they found anyone alive, the extra food, water, and medicines would come in handy. Jake even included four Remington 700 rifles, plus magazines. He didn’t expect to need them, but they were going into grizzly and wolf country.

“That’s a might fine rig you got there,” Polly said with a frown. “But it won’t do out that way. Ground’s too rough, too uneven. I’ll give it twenty miles, tops, then you’ll be walking, that’s for sure.”

Jake nodded. “We’ll go as far as we can. I expect we’ll be in for a long trek.”

“I got horses you can use,” Polly said, “but no trailers. You’d have to ride them from here.”

Michael turned to the others. “That might be faster in the long run. Once we’re in the area, we’re probably going to have to go around in circles before we find those pillars—if they even exist. It would be a lot easier on horseback than walking. We’d cover a wider area quicker. Can all of you ride?”

Jake and Quade answered affirmatively. Charlotte’s expression leaped from scared to worried to defiant. “I’ve ridden a camel in Egypt,” she said. “I don’t know if that counts, but tell me what to do, Michael. I’ll manage.”

Michael gave a half-smile. The city girl was clearly out of her league in this wilderness, and was frightened by it, but she had gumption he couldn’t help but admire. “I suspect Polly has at least one gentle gelding that’ll be good for a newcomer.”

“Be careful with my kids,” Polly said. “They’re like family to me. Still, I can’t help but think none of you should go out there. When people say there’s something evil, they aren’t joking around. You hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Michael said with a smile.

“Humph,” was Polly’s only comment as she led them toward the stables.

Michael stood a moment, breathing deeply and trying to shake an oppressive dread. He agreed with everything Polly had said. He could feel the evil out there, thick, heavy, smothering.

And it waited for them.