Ancient Echoes

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Idaho

High gray granite walls cast a gloomy shadow over a narrowing trail as six anthropology students, a professor, a teaching assistant, and their guide trudged through the bitterbrush and beargrass that covered the canyon floor of central Idaho's River of No Return Wilderness Area. Jagged mountains, deep canyons, white-water rapids, glaciers, and high mountain lakes filled its scantly charted two and a half million acres.

Little to no human intrusion had been made in the area, ever. Cascading mountains soared to ear-popping heights and then plummeted to cavernous streams and snaking creeks. Even game was scarce.

“There's a reason the Indians avoided this area,” visiting anthropology professor Lionel Rempart said to the students. Rempart had arrived at Boise State University two weeks earlier to spend the school year doing research. A tenured professor at George Washington University in Washington D.C., and one of the country's leading Lewis and Clark scholars, BSU treated his visit as if it were the Second Coming. That he was brother to the dashing, world-famous archeologist, Michael Rempart, who dated Hollywood stars and was a darling of magazines and TV specials, heightened the buzz surrounding him.

The students stopped talking and complaining about the trek and listened.

“Their stories of it being a 'bad' place weren't pure superstition,” Rempart said. “One tribe did live out here, an offshoot band of the Tukudeka. Most Tukudeka were found farther south, around the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The exception was that one small group. And then, they disappeared. Poof! Just like that.

“Legends began not only about a band that disappeared, but of wealth. Of gold.” At the skeptical look of the students, he added, “If we can find their stronghold, the discovery could be unimaginably important.”

“It sounds like a fantasy,” Melisse Willis said. The graduate teaching assistant was one of three women on the trip. Six feet tall, with short, head-hugging pale blond hair, and sculpted muscles, she looked like a Nordic body builder. She grew up near Montana's Flathead Lake, and knew survival techniques in isolated, mountainous terrain. Nevertheless, important people had to pull strings to get her on the field trip.

Melisse softened her tone for the good of her career. “To find something like that in this enormous wilderness, we need more than the five days we’ve scheduled.”

Rempart gave a small, mysterious smile. “I’ve discovered more about its location than anyone else ever has. And we can always come back.”

Melisse hid her skepticism and said nothing.

A chartered bus had carried the university group the three-hundred plus miles from Boise to a place called Telichpah Flat. No more than a few buildings alongside a dirt road, its population reached ten in summer and dropped to zero in winter. There, they met their guide, Nick Hoffman.

From Telichpah Flat, they planned to hike two days in, spend five days at the site, and then two days back out.

Nick Hoffman had excellent credentials as a guide and his references checked out, but the photo he used must have been thirty years old. The six students squeezed into the bed of his old Chevy step-side pickup while Hoffman, Rempart, and Melisse Willis sat in the cab. Hoffman drove out the narrow Salmon River Road, and then onto fire roads heading west. Once the roads ended, they left the truck and hiked inland as far as they were able before they made camp for the night.

Rempart and the guide disagreed with each other almost from the outset, and their disagreements quickly grew. At camp the night before, the students became restless and uneasy, nerves twitched, and in the morning, each complained that when sleep finally came, strange, disturbing dreams filled it.

Now, Rempart stopped and pulled out a map. Hoffman folded his arms and waited.

Watching Rempart and Hoffman, Devlin Farrell knew which one he'd listen to. A second-string wide-receiver on BSU's football team, Devlin found himself on the disabled list when he broke his pinky. He knew, even before that, he'd never have a football career. He exulted in being outdoors and having aced several anthropology classes gave him the edge to be selected for the field trip. The trip offered a chance to decide if this should be his chosen field.

Devlin eyed Rempart, a pasty, soft-muscled man in his fifties, with thinning blond hair, glasses, and surprisingly delicate features. His khaki slacks, white polo shirt, navy blue wind blazer, and Merrell hiking shoes were more appropriate for a stroll through a vacation health spa than exploring a forest. Devlin heard he had been divorced three times, had no children, and enjoyed the company of coeds. That any coed would look twice at the tallow-faced professor told Devlin he would never understand women.

Nick Hoffman, however, looked and sounded every bit as craggy as the surroundings, as if he'd spent his entire sixty-plus years scouting this wilderness. Wiry and hard-muscled, with a long Buffalo Bill mustache, he wore a battered, wide-brimmed cowboy hat, the type commonly seen throughout Idaho with the exception of Boise. A true Idahoan never wore one too new, too high, or with a brim too wimpy.

Rempart and the guide's argument raged on, growing more virulent and bitter by the minute. The trail had been closed due to a landslide, and the surrounding mountains were steep. Nick Hoffman insisted the route the professor wanted to take was too difficult for the students. They were young, yes, but a week at a ski resort was about as grueling as their lives got. Hoffman didn't waste his breath on Rempart's own pitiful physical condition.

Rempart pointed out that taking one of the approved U.S. Forest Service trails around the landslide would add at least a day's walk in each direction, leaving little time at the site. His voice grew high and impatient. “I only brought you here because the University required a guide. I didn't expect you to interfere!”

“It's too dangerous to leave the trails.” Hoffman's wide-legged stance projected no nonsense. “Why do you think that soil slid? The land is steep, and the silt is loose. It's like trying to stand on talcum powder. Step on it, and you get no footing. The question is, why are you so damned determined to get to that particular part of the Wilderness Area? The land out there is all the same.”

“How can you know if you haven't been there?” Rempart snapped.

Hoffman attempted to keep his voice calm and reasonable. “Because those who went said so. If you want evidence of Tukudeka activity, you need to head south, like I told you.”

“Nonsense. I want to see this spot.” Rempart jabbed the map with his forefinger. “And I’m the one in charge here!”

“That’s f*****g pigheaded!” Hoffman shouted. His words stunned Rempart. The much vaunted instructor couldn't believe he'd been spoken to that way. Hoffman continued. “With the trail gone, we can’t safely get there from here in the time you have. Period. Besides that, your map isn't complete. A half mile over is a gorge. It fills up in winter and spring. This time of year it's dry, but too damn steep even for mountain goats. It's not shown on your fancy geo-what-the-hell map, but it's sure as hell there. And once you’re off the trails, there’s no way to easily get help if someone is injured. I won't lead you and a bunch of kids into danger!”

The students backed up as the disagreement spiraled out of control.

“We’re not going around the landslide.” Rempart folded the map and tucked it in his jacket’s breast pocket. “This field trip is no longer your concern. From here, we'll find our own way.”

“This isn't a park.” Hoffman's voice sounded low, threatening. “It’s an empty, perilous land. Your cell phones won’t work, it’s too big to patrol, and the wild life can be deadly. I’m the one in charge of your safety.”

“Not anymore,” Rempart said. “You're fired.”

No one moved.

Finally, Hoffman spoke, trying to sound reasonable despite the rush of color to his face, the vein that throbbed on his forehead. “All right.” He took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have spoken that way. You’re the boss and I apologize, but we need to stay on a trail. We’ll have time to reach an area a bit south and west of the spot you wanted to go, but it’ll be fine, I’m sure. It’s all the same out in that wilderness, believe me.”

Rempart drew himself up to full patrician haughtiness, then turned his back on Hoffman to his preferred route. Over his shoulder he called out, “You know nothing about what’s fine for anthropologists. Pack up and go.”

“I'm not leaving these young people, Rempart!” Hoffman faced Melisse. “You've got sense. Do something!”

Devlin saw the struggle on the powerfully built teaching assistant's face, but Rempart held her future in his hands. Melisse didn't dare confront him. “I'm sure,” Melisse said, “Professor Rempart would never do anything that might endanger himself. Or anyone else.”

Hoffman took his case to the students. “You don't want to do this.”

Devlin's gaze met those of tag-along Brian Cutter, his best friend who tried to do whatever Devlin did and never quite succeeded.

Baby-faced, stocky Ted Bellows jutted out his chin as he waited for Devlin and Brian's decision. He tried to look macho and burly, but with thick carrot-colored curls and a red-tinged pug nose, he only looked porcine. His mother sat on the university's board of trustees and had insisted that her son take part in the activities of the famous Dr. Lionel Rempart.

Vince Norton's eyes showed fright as he peered through black-framed glasses at his fellow students. A wispy man with a boy's body, glasses and shaggy brown hair that never saw a comb, Vince’s claim to fame—and reason for being on this trip—was his ability as a computer nerd. He oversaw care of the equipment, including a satellite computer connection back to the University.

Devlin faced the two remaining students, Rachel Gooding, the Anthropology Department’s best student, and Brandi Vinsome, the child of aging hippies who built their organic farm into a multi-million dollar business. Brandi’s round face was red from exertion, and her overly generous hips and pendulous breasts had been squeezed into too tight jeans and a skimpy red Nautica hoodie. No one understood how in the world she had been chosen for this trip.

The girls, too, looked to Devlin for a decision. Alarms jangled in his head. To stay here without a guide and to be led by someone who knew nothing of the area was foolhardy in the extreme and potentially deadly.

His inner self urged retreat as his senses sharpened to every sound, every smell. Somewhere, a branch snapped like a gunshot, and nearby, an owl hooted. Many Indians considered owls a portent of death.

But it didn’t take him long to realize, just as Melisse had, that Lionel Rempart controlled his future. He stepped closer to Rempart. As he did, his shadow, Brian, joined him, as did the porcine Ted, and scrawny, quivering Vince.

A moment later, Rachel followed, as did Brandi, who looked more scared of going off alone with someone as scruffy as Hoffman than of staying.

Hoffman's world-weary gaze slowly moved from one to the other. “Heaven help you,” he muttered, then spat, gathered his belongings, and without another word, walked away.