SODIUM Trilogy Part One, Page 4

  The dinner conversation was strained and quickly died down. I began to notice the argument from earlier was still ongoing between Kyle and Susi. I had no clue what it was about and had no desire get in the middle of someone else's squabble.

  But this was my sister and my soon-to-be brother-in-law, and I really liked them both, so I opened my big mouth and asked what the issue was, which only served to begin a new argument. This time they did not have the privacy they had while on the trail. Again, being without tact when it came to relationships, I laughed and asked for the juicy details.

  My question brought dagger eyes from my sister. Kyle rose and walked over to the creek. Susi followed after him where they could have their discussion in private. Dusk was approaching, and from the looks of it, the argument was not going to be resolved anytime soon. Bull gave me an angered look, telling me I had poked my nose where it hadn't belonged.

  After getting a bit too loud, the argument ended all at once as Susi turned and made her way back over to the tarps. Kyle followed a moment later, grabbing his sleeping bag, and for some reason picking up my bat. He made his way back over to the creek and then across it.

  Bull and Allie moved away from the fire with solemn looks on their faces, going about their own quiet conversation as they stood by the pond. I was left alone. With no conversation to be had, I picked up a stick and began to poke at the fire.

  Kyle had been gone for a half hour, and the darkness was beginning to set in. Bull made his way across the creek and up toward where he had seen Kyle walking. After not being able to convince him to return, Bull made his way back. Kyle had taken refuge on a ridge and had said their argument was very personal. He would need an evening alone to cool down. Bull had carried an extra blanket roll with him and left it with Kyle on the ridge.

  From the ridge, the glow of the fire could be seen, making Bull less concerned for his safety. When Bull returned, he sat down at the fire and just looked at me. I told him I knew I had screwed up, opening my fat mouth. I added that it was my patented and trademarked way of dealing with relationships, always mucking things up.

  I just didn't seem to have common sense when it came to dealing with personal subjects. It was like a part of my brain was missing. I had often wondered if it was partly to blame for the dissolution of my marriage, but I could not for the life of me figure out why.

  Bull didn't laugh at my pun, but instead just turned and stared at the fire, poking at it with a stick. Allie had been offering Susi her sympathy and some quiet personal conversation. As the fire died down, Bull and I made our way over to the tarps to turn in.

  I first apologized to my sister, who was not in the mood to hear it or to even look at me. I had made my bed, and it was now time to lie in it. I was tired from the day's hike, and sleep came fast that evening.

  Around 2 a.m., I was awakened by what I thought sounded like a bear's roar. I woke Bull and mentioned it, and we both sat up silently listening for any more commotion. It was pitch black, and the night air had grown cold. The silence was deafening except for the sounds of the millions of crickets that inhabited the meadow. We sat up for five minutes and listened before Bull gave me a dirty look and laid back down.

  What we didn't know was that Kyle had gotten a nighttime visit from the bear. As he lay mostly awake, no doubt running the day’s arguments with Susi over and over in his head, the bear had managed to come up and corner him on the ledge. It was dark and difficult to see as he tried to hold his ground with only my bat available to defend himself.

  Several feeble swings told him it was not going to get the job done, so he slid down over the face of the ledge to a smaller ledge below. Poking the bat helplessly up at the bear was all he could do in defense as the beast inched ever closer. The bear had leaned over the ledge and swiped at him with a big, nastily clawed fore-paw. The bat was knocked from his hand, falling to the creek below.

  As Kyle squatted uncomfortably down on the small ledge, just out of reach, he thought he might just have a chance. The bear then backed up, disappearing over the top of the ledge. Seconds later it let out a bloodcurdling roar. I didn't know at the time, but it was the roar that had awakened me.

  The bear had managed the single roar before going silent as something cut deeply into its torso. Kyle was splattered with the bear’s blood, but he couldn't see what was happening just above him. Whatever it was had killed the animal and was now hacking away at it.

  Bits and pieces of the now-dead beast were falling over the ledge onto Kyle, who was stooped silently below. The rocks were now becoming slick with the bear's blood. Several minutes later, the carcass was pushed over the edge. In its prime, earlier that evening, the bear had weighed in at six hundred pounds.

  For Kyle, the slippery, bloody rock and the heavy carcass were too much. He was knocked from his perch. It was a ninety-foot drop down into a rocky Rancheria Creek below.

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  We awoke the next morning at first light. I immediately made my way out of camp to try to get to Kyle to apologize. My sister was not talking to me, so I thought I would try the other side. Bull had described to me exactly where Kyle could be found. I carried Kyle's gun with me with the hope of trading it out for my bat.

  When I arrived at the ledge, my jaw dropped. I began to shake as a panic set in. There were bear tracks, and there was blood everywhere. Kyle's sleeping bag had been ripped to shreds, and there was no sign of Kyle. I turned and fired off three rounds into the air.

  Bull made his way up at a full run in under three minutes. When he arrived, he immediately stopped and stared at the blood-soaked ground. As the reality of the scene took hold, he walked slowly over to the edge and looked down into the rushing creek below. He turned and looked back at the bear tracks. He remarked that the tracks came in, but did not leave. And there was no sign of Kyle. We made our way back down the trail and then down Tilden Creek to where it joined Rancheria.

  As we started our run up Rancheria toward under the ledge where Kyle had been the night before, I stopped Bull. I pointed to an object sticking up from the rushing water. It was stuck in a heavy current along with several tree limbs, but it was easy to see it was my bat. We began looking along the creek for any sign of a body. There was none to be found.

  I wanted to recover the bat, but Bull pressed on; finding Kyle was much more important. As we continued, I could not help but look back at my bat caught in the swirling torrent. The bat was my security, and I wished I had it back in my hand. Even with Kyle's gun, I still somehow felt vulnerable.

  It took another three minutes for us to arrive below the ledge. The surrounding rocks had blood spatterings and bits of animal gut on them, but Bull could not immediately tell if they were from Kyle or the bear. The creek was deep at that point, but not deep enough to break a ninety-foot fall.

  There was no other evidence of either body on the side of the creek below the ledge. We made our way across with Bull putting out his twisted hand with the palm facing backward, giving that familiar gesture for me to stop.

  On the southeast side of the creek, there were not one but two sets of bootprints leading away, heading up the creek. And there was evidence of a bloody body having been dragged along with them. I wondered who had done this... and why? The questions were popping into my mind faster than I could answer them. I could see the gears whirring in Bull's head as he too surveyed the situation.

  We turned immediately to make our way back to camp to get the girls. Bull would fill them in on what may or may not have happened. As we hurriedly climbed our way back up Tilden Canyon, all I could think about was how my sister was going to hate me for the rest of our lives. After all, it had been my prodding that had elevated whatever spat they were having to the level that drove Kyle from Susi.

  The girls met us as we made our way into the camp. Bull told them of what we had seen and Susi immediately broke down. I wanted to comfort her, but I just didn't know how. My total lack of being able to deal with relations
hips continued to rear its ugly head.

  Allie stepped in, and Bull signaled for me to help start packing up the camp. It took half an hour to break camp and to calm Susi enough to get her pack on her shoulders. Bull hoisted his and Kyle’s and we began our walk. We stopped at the edge of the creek where the two sets of tracks had been found and Bull let Allie assess the site for herself.

  He reasoned that whoever they were, they had been there right about daybreak, which would put them a good two hours ahead of us. Allie felt we should be able to catch up since we were not dragging anything along with us.

  We made haste up the trail along Rancheria Creek, then in search of one of our own. It was hard terrain, but we had reason to travel it as quickly as we could. We had not gone far when we came across evidence of blood and guts on a rock beside the creek. After that point, the evidence of anything being dragged disappeared; there were only the two sets of bootprints moving away.

  I could not imagine how frustrating it would be for us to slip farther behind and then to lose track of whoever it was that had our friend. As my brain slowly churned through the scenarios that may have happened, I couldn't help but get the feeling this was not going to end well.

  Were the two tracks from whomever we had spotted in the woods a few nights before? Were they armed? Were they a couple of crazies, and did they wish us harm? These thoughts at least kept my mind busy and off the fact the terrain was quickly sapping my energy. I would not be able to keep this pace up for long, and I did not want to be the one that held the others back.

  During our hike, Susi remained completely silent. I could not tell what she might be thinking, as she was largely expressionless and just following the others blindly. I could only imagine the level of guilt she had been feeling, having had her last conversation with Kyle as an argument. I guessed I would have been silent too.

  As we came upon a big bend in the creek, Bull stretched out his hand. As we stopped I could see him sniffing the air. Immediately I could smell that familiar essence of a campfire. We were close to whoever it was we had been following. I pulled Kyle's pistol and fumbled with the safety. I was not going into this without being ready to pull the trigger at whoever or whatever might lie ahead.

  We continued on, only at a slower and more careful pace. Bull stopped us, climbing up a hillside edge so he could get a good view from on top of a large boulder. As I waited down by the creek, I was a nervous wreck.

  I turned to look back to where we had come from, and for an instant I was certain I saw someone move in the trees a hundred yards back. I was standing on a large rock by the creek’s edge at the time. When I turned back to warn the others, I lost my footing and began to slide.

  I fell from the rock and into the rushing creek below. Allie looked back just as I went over the edge and came running to give me a hand. I had been injury-free since we left base camp, but my fun time was over. I hit the rushing water on my back with the full pack on.

  I was immediately sucked under and then spewed out of a torrent between two large rocks. I next tumbled-over several times before coming to a calmer section of the creek. Allie had shed her pack and jumped in about waist deep in the water to rescue me. I was dragged over to the side and then pulled out onto a large, flat rock.

  Susi had stayed up on the trail and just watched with a stoic look on her face. She only had her mind on Kyle, and any of my little sideshows were not going to break her from her funk. During my tumbling, I managed to crack my right wrist hard on a rock on the bottom of the creek. I had also managed to lose Kyle's pistol.

  I thought it just as well, as I would have been lucky to hit anything with it even if it had been right in front of me. I figured it would probably work to keep me from shooting myself. Once again I longed for my bat.

  My wrist began to swell, and I could tell from the numb feeling I had broken a bone. Bull was still up on the boulder surveying the area in front and had kept an eye on us during the fiasco. Since Allie had been right on top of it, he did not bother to come down to help. He knew how capable she was in dealing with the situation and if anything, he would just be getting in her way.

  The bone in the palm of my hand going from my wrist to my little finger was broken. As Allie looked it over, she motioned for me to look back down at the creek. When I did, she pulled on my hand, setting the bone back in place.

  The pain was intense, but it was over quickly. I was glad she had done it without me being prepared, as I would likely have once again screamed aloud. As Allie prepared a splint, I noticed Bull coming down from his perch. He said the area in front of us indeed looked like a campsite, but there was no one there.

  The fire was just a few smoldering embers. I then remembered why I had fallen in the creek to start with, and this time I let Bull know I was certain I had seen something. Either someone else was following us or the other two had somehow doubled back. Allie quickly finished my splint, and a new plan was devised.

  Allie and Susi would head forward to the campsite and inspect it further, while Bull and I would head downstream to investigate whoever was following us. I thought it was a really bad idea to be splitting up, but as the gimp of the group I did not have much of a say.

  When we arrived at the area where I thought I had seen someone, Bull began his investigation. He had tracked animals for years as an outdoorsman, so I had no doubt if someone had been there, he would find evidence of it. We searched for half an hour and found nothing more than a small, broken twig with a leaf on the end. Bull speculated that whoever it was knew how to move about without disturbing the soil. He also told me that someone had definitely been there, because live branches don't break by themselves.

  Bull pulled out his small binoculars and began scanning the trail down along the creek. Had anyone been at the spot I identified, they would have had to have gone back that way. This section of the creek was guarded by steep inclines on either side. He reasoned only a mountain goat would have had a shot at scaling the walls in the best of places.

  I did not like the feeling of now being cut off from the way we had originally come. My thoughts were that we needed to find Kyle and to make our way back to civilization as fast as possible. If we could not find him soon, it would be better to let the authorities come up and deal with it themselves. I thought this was especially true for me, given my now somewhat crippled condition.

  We turned back toward the girls and made our way to the abandoned camp. When we arrived, Bull was uneasy as the girls had continued forward. Allie had scratched a note in the dirt saying it looked like we were only about twenty minutes behind whoever it was. She was going after them.

  Bull turned and followed at a fast pace. I knew I was going to have trouble keeping up, but I was not in the mental or physical condition to be left behind. Nor did I want to be the one who kept us all apart. I pressed on as best I could.

  We had come to an open meadow with a heavily forested area to the right. Allie and Susi were standing about halfway through the meadow with their hands raised. Bull put out his hand in the stop gesture, and we quietly moved over behind a large rock.

  Slowly we made our way, under cover, up into the tree line. Just as we stepped into the trees, we saw two men emerging from the stand, walking toward Allie and Susi with their rifles raised. Bull took off like an elk and moved quickly and silently around to get a good position behind the men. I knew he was fast if he wanted to be, but I was shocked by how fast he had disappeared into the woods.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  Moments later he came out behind the two men with his .45 ready. He demanded they drop their weapons and drop to their knees. They complied. Allie stepped over and picked up their rifles. Each man had an additional sidearm strapped to their hips. Those were collected as well.

  Bull began the questioning. The two men claimed to be hunters, which made them poachers since we were in a national park. I had stayed in the woods during the encounter and had come across their packs. With my good hand I
dragged the two packs out into the open where the others were standing. One of the packs had a large bear fur rolled up and strapped to the top of it.

  Their names were Craig and Scott, and they claimed to know nothing of our friend Kyle. They also claimed to have not been following us a few nights before. They only moved up and down this end of Rancheria Creek looking for bear and fox for the hides.

  Craig made note of the bear pelt they had collected that very morning. He thought it strange the bear had fallen over the ledge down to the creek bed below, and that it had been carved up. But the animal looked to have been abandoned, so it was taken. They had not seen Kyle, nor had they seen any evidence that he had fallen over with the bear.

  Bull was now confused, needing time to think. He turned further interrogation over to Allie. She would be fair, but she would also not have any issue with using advanced methods to get information out of the two. She immediately began the threats, and and it was evident the two could tell how serious she was.

  We talked for a good twenty minutes, with the men telling their story of the past several days. Then one of them mentioned the mutilated animals. Bull immediately took over the questioning once again and then listened as the two talked about the number of carcasses they had come across that looked like they had been dissected. They were of the opinion that whoever had been doing that had been wasting a lot of good meat and did not know a thing about acquiring and preserving furs, as most of them had been left unusable.

  When the two had come across the bear carcass early that morning, they had taken what was left of the fur and the good meat and sent the rest down the creek. They again reiterated the fact they had not seen our friend or anyone else.

  In an attempt to appease his captors, Craig volunteered to help look for our friend. Bull did not trust the men, but felt it would be good to have the two of them as extra eyes. They knew the area well.