Summer Searcher Read online

  “What department?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I went down that rabbit hole when the PhD woman wanted access. I just kept getting the runaround.”

  “Speaking of which, I thought we were going to bring her up. She’s supposedly the mining expert.” The sheriff shook the rain off his yellow poncho.

  “I got a message from Brad. The road is washed out down by Cutthroat Creek. They called in a bulldozer, but it may take a while until the water recedes.”

  The sheriff grabbed a nearby camp chair, collapsed it in one hand, and hurled it away. Apparently, this one had more of a temper than Chapa, although she’d managed to set Chapa off as well last year.

  Jen knew of at least one unmarked, unlocked cave entrance. Every part of her cringed at the memory of the first time she’d crossed its rocky threshold almost twenty years ago. She could help—if she could still find it.

  The two deputies moved away, and she kept her mouth shut. Her one attempt to reach out to these people had almost resulted in her arrest, an event she was not eager to repeat. Don’t you want to help? a nagging little voice asked. Of course, but the kid couldn’t come at the sacrifice of her family.

  She would search the mine on her own. If she found the boy, she would lead him to safety before she disappeared again. The mountains would swallow her, as they always had, and she would reemerge with a new look in a new place.

  When she’d last seen these people, she’d had a blonde bob. For some reason, perhaps from television, she thought blondes seemed more trustworthy, more in need of rescuing. She now wore a light brown ponytail that required very little upkeep, which was still more than the upkeep she gave it.

  With several backward glances behind her, Jen took to a path away from the site. The other searchers, still sorting out assignments for the day, wouldn’t be far behind, and she wanted some distance between them before she got to the entrance. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed at the ease in which she found the trail—trail being a loose term. Despite the overgrowth and brambles, she easily made her way up the mountain.

  The first time she’d come this way, it had been much harder. Her too-tight sneakers and inexperienced legs had stumbled countless times, leaving blood streaming down her calves. It had been a lot worse for her six-year-old brother, struggling behind her.

  The hollowed-out bare tree clinging to the cliff’s edge still pointed the way. It stood thirty feet high and had once been struck by lightning. Once there, she had no difficulty at all finding the actual entrance. Jen put on her headlight and squatted in front of the black hole, barely more than a foot around.

  She hadn’t seen foot prints on the way up, but that didn’t mean much. An eight-year-old on an adventure would take a wandering route, and this wasn’t the only entrance.

  Even after everything, the beauty of the day stilled her constant anxiety. Being around other people exhausted her far more than a thousand-foot jaunt. She savored the sun on her face before turning her back on it and squeezing through the tunnel. Most adults wouldn’t attempt this, many wouldn’t fit. Only her knowledge that the tunnel would soon widen could convince her to move forward.

  She’d been prepared for the dank air and the narrow tunnel, but the memories were what sank Jen to her knees. This was where she’d died for the first time.

  5

  Sol called out Ben’s name and blew a whistle until his throat ran dry. The surrounding high walls muffled the piercing sound. Wherever Ben was hiding, it was either beyond Sol’s voice or the child was beyond hearing. He yearned for the smallest of sounds but only received silence.

  His GPS, capable of sending text messages and linking to his phone, had no signal this far into the canyon. He debated for a second returning to the open air to send out a message but decided against it. If the kid had survived this long, he might not survive the freezing temperatures night would bring.

  Only one small footprint marred the muddy path. With no thought of the cold, he plunged into the rushing stream and pushed forward. The water flowed into the top of his waterproof boots, and his feet went from painful to numb in under a minute.

  Not by skill but by luck, he hated to admit, he spotted a piece of clothing stuck on a bush’s thorn. He took the small piece of blue flannel in his hand. It didn’t match up to the clothing they’d been told Ben wore. Maybe the parents hadn’t remembered correctly?

  Little bits of seed stuck into the material, and Sol had the unnerving suspicion he was following two trails.

  Under the brush lay another footprint. Sol left the stream, his boots sinking deep into the mud. A sucking sound accompanied each labored step as he fought through the creek bed to the more solid ground of the canyon’s edges. Had his laces been any looser, he would’ve abandoned a boot.

  Within a few feet, Sol stopped cold at the end of the canyon, facing a sheer rock wall. No other route presented itself. “Ben,” he screamed into the late afternoon sky. “Ben.” He pulled out his whistle and blew again and again.

  If Ben wasn’t close by, there would be no finding him before dark.

  He spotted a pine tree ten feet up—though ‘tree’ was a bit generous for the little nub sticking out of the rock face. There the wall didn’t have quite the steep grade as the surrounding areas. Maybe Ben had thought he could climb out. Sol placed a foot on the slick rock. He hesitated only a second before scrambling up and grabbing onto the tree with a single gloved hand.

  His left foot slipped out beneath him. He swung his other hand around, grabbing onto the branch and pulling himself up. His heart didn’t miss a beat in the almost-fall; he’d survived much worse.

  He stood on the tree to find his next foothold. Above him, two cliffs came together, forming a giant V, where a few aspens jutted out. He hoisted himself onto a ledge about twenty feet wide and covered in thick brush, making a trail impossible.

  With no trail, Sol crawled through the thicket. Thorns ripped at his jacket, tearing into his skin. When the brush ended, Sol crawled out with a small trickle of blood on his forehead.

  Sol took out his whistle and blew again. Only a distant woodpecker answered back.

  “Ben,” Sol yelled. “Your mom is waiting for you. Apparently, you’ve got a tournament next week, and she doesn’t want you to miss practice.”

  He needed Ben to trust him. Hypothermia didn’t affect only the body, but it also messed with the brain. Half the kids he’d searched for had hidden from rescuers when they first heard them calling. Stranger danger had been drilled into them so well, their subconscious made a bad decision for them.

  The emptiness offered no response. Ben was about to spend another night in the cold wilderness.

  6

  The same dank scent of rotting timber and decrepit air hung in the mine, assailing Jen’s nose like it had the first time she’d crossed its threshold twenty years ago. She took a deep breath at the entrance while she still could.

  Not far from the cave entrance, Merrell had sat the children down and told them they had all died. Merrell hadn’t been his name then, but it was easier for Jen to remember him as who he became and not the father he’d once been.

  The children had sat on the floor of a small cavern, a battery-operated lantern their only light, and passed around jerky, oblivious to how close they were to the end of their food supplies. “You can’t go by your names anymore.”

  Twelve-year-old Jen ripped a piece of meat off with her teeth. “What does that mean?”

  “Your name is too unique; you have to pick something generic.” He took the bag from her and tucked it away. “What do you want to be called?”

  “I have a first name and a middle name,” she muttered. “Pick one.” On the cusp of her teen years, snark already flowed through her.

  He went on as if she hadn’t spoken, oblivious to her sarcasm. “No, you need a new name. How about Jennifer? That’s common enough for a girl.”

  “I want to be me.”

  “You,” he empha
sized, “are dead. We’ll have to go into town for supplies, and we can’t risk calling each other by the old names.”

  “Can you just call me Jennifer or something when we’re around other people but my name around us?” She tried to reach for the bag, but he moved it farther away.

  “Jennifer,” he said. “Everything will be okay.”

  The other stereotypical teenage behavior, the stomp-off, was denied her in their small quarters. She settled for sarcasm.

  “Aren’t you dead, too? What do I call you?”

  His chewing stilled. He wasn’t upset by her question, only contemplative as he stared down at his hiking boots and their brand name. “You’re right. Call me, Uncle Merrell.”

  The sharp rock walls scraped through Jen’s thick hiking pants as she squeezed down an old air shaft into a mine. She’d grown since her last sojourn through its dark depths. As before, right as panic was about to set in, the walls opened, freeing her to move more quickly but not yet to stand up.

  The cave opened up, enough to stand, as long as she stayed hunched over. Within fifty feet, she reached the first divide. Had the boy taken a flashlight? She had a feeling he would’ve if he’d left specifically to find the mines. She knew of at least one other entrance. Merrell had said there were more. The entire system was a honeycomb of possibilities for a child to stumble into. It was one of the reasons they’d left it, never to return.

  She called out, but only her echo answered. She could’ve sworn the ghost of another little boy scared of the dark yelled back. “Wait for me,” he’d cried. “I don’t want to go alone.” She’d waited. No matter how impatient she got, she’d always waited for her brother.

  Which way to go? Jen shined the light down each tunnel, desperate to remember their destinations. Years had wiped away the specifics. Water dripped from somewhere, proving the rain had found a way in. It always did. She would take each tunnel in its turn until she found something, anything. A fleeting thought asked her if she shouldn’t go get help to search the labyrinth.

  No, she decided, she would wait. To allay her conscience, she promised herself if she found any sign of the boy she would summon help.

  The first tunnel on the right was a dead end. That didn’t surprise her, and she wished her subconscious would’ve saved her the time. Oh well, she retraced her steps and picked door number two.

  “Why did people build these caves?” a child’s voice asked, her voice from long ago. The memories came faster, thicker down here.

  “They’re not caves; they’re mines.” Merrell’s deep voice had filled the space around her. He always answered every question with a practical answer.

  “What were they digging for?”

  “Silver, mostly, at least in these tunnels.”

  “Like treasure? Will we find treasure?” Her little brother asked.

  “No. Even if we did, it wouldn’t be enough to be worth anything.”

  “I’m going to search anyhow,” he said, with all the hope of an eight-year-old—or had he been six? The memories had melted together.

  Jen wondered if Ben hoped, as another little boy once had, to find treasure.

  As the memories came back, she knew better where she wandered. This cave linked to another branch with another entrance, which had been home for a few winters. The kid may have come in on that side. It wouldn’t be a bad place to search—if she could find her way there.

  The second tunnel went on longer than the first. The hours clicked by on her winding wrist watch. Old-school accessory, she knew, but part of her still couldn’t trust anything that ran on electricity or batteries. She followed tunnel two until she literally became stuck between a rock and a hard place. Her pack snagged on an outcropping. She had to strip off her pack and jacket to wiggle her way out.

  The tunnel had narrowed to become impassable, even for a child. At least she hoped it had; if he’d somehow become stuck back there, there would be no finding him.

  She backtracked to the next branch in the cave. Nothing there brought back any recollection. She ran her fingers over the cold rock as she walked by until an old familiar texture stopped her. She swung her head around, bringing the light to shine on a charcoal symbol drawn on the rock wall.

  A shaky finger traced the blackness, taking some of the coloring onto her skin. Maybe not quite a flashing sign for the rest of the world, but a big one for her brother.

  Three triangles were stacked in a pyramid, forming an upside-down triangle in the middle. A simple drawing, one she’d taught him based on their childhood games, but this version had matured in the years since she’d last seen it. The contours were more detailed, adding a 3D element. Below it was a familiar figure with an eye and more triangles—symbols from a game they’d played as children.

  She dropped to her knees and ran her hand along the wall, searching for the crack that had to be there.

  Nothing.

  “It has to be here,” she pleaded at the darkness. He wouldn’t have made the drawing for no reason. The markings were their way to communicate with each other. Had he known she would come—all these years later?

  “Please, Link,” she whispered. Link’s name had been changed too, but unlike with Merrell, in her memories she always called him by his original name.

  Her nail broke off into a crack. “Yes.” She found the rest of the seam, but the space wasn’t wide enough for her to get a finger through for leverage. She reached to her belt and the large hunting knife she always carried. Once she had the tip in the crack, she had all the leverage she needed to pull the rock back, revealing a small opening. She loosened a few more rocks until she had enough space to crawl through.

  She ducked into the hole, immediately forced into a crawl by the narrowness of the way. With her head hunched over, the headlamp only highlighted the ground directly in front of her. The tunnel narrowed, and she banged her head on the ceiling. Her yelp of pain shot out, only to echo back to her.

  What had her brother hidden back here? Like any older sister at any age, she ignored his privacy and pushed forward. She stuck her face through an opening, and the smell hit her with a force that knocked Jen on her rear.

  It wafted out in a cloud so thick, she could taste it on her tongue: the smell of death.

  With a shaky hand, she cleared a hole about a foot around and shined her light in. A small cavern opened up about five feet tall and fifteen feet long. In the center, under a bear hide Jen herself had once dried out, lay the shape of a body.

  7

  The cold mud soaked through Sol’s Carhart pants as he screamed Ben’s name into the void.

  He could not be this close and fail.

  “Ben, come on. Your mom’s got hot chocolate waiting for you. I don’t know about you, but I’d really like to go home.” His voice broke at the end. He would not fail, not today, not with a kid.

  A scratching noise like sagebrush being dragged across a jacket filled the empty air. Sol closed his eyes and focused all his senses on that sound. He didn’t dare move.

  A small footstep pounded on the rock, and Sol breathed for what felt like the first time all day.

  “I want chocolate.” The voice of a miracle finally answered back.

  A pale face appeared through the thick brush. Sol wanted to sweep him up but didn’t dare scare him. “Are you okay?”

  “I fell.” Ben shrugged. “And I’m cold.”

  “Where were you?”

  Ben pointed up. “In the mountain man’s cave.” He tried to lead Sol back, but they only found the edge. How Ben had managed to find his way to Sol, he didn’t want to know.

  Sol pulled out a foil blanket and wrapped it around Ben before filling his belly with a protein bar. With darkness inching in, he wasted no time and climbed down to the canyon floor with Ben on his back. Within a mile, he had enough of a GPS signal to call for help and an end to the hellish day.

  His lungs burned, taxed at carrying the extra forty pounds. He pushed down the mountain without stopping until a four-wh
eeler’s single headlamp broke through the dusk.

  Sol collapsed to his knees. The search party had arrived.

  Ben was swept up into someone else’s arms while Sol reached for his water. Deputy Mina Park shoved a Gatorade into Sol’s hand. “How is he?” She stood by him while Clint and a few EMTs placed Ben into the back of a side-by-side ATV.

  “Hypothermia and some scratches. We just need to get him home.” He downed the sugary liquid.

  “The roads are still washed out in a few places, making the going rough. They’ll chopper him out. We haven’t told his parents yet,” she said. “Clint wanted visual confirmation. They’re going to . . .” She pushed back her emotion—evidence of his training. “They’re going to be over the moon.”

  The EMTs wasted no time in peeling down the mountain with Ben between them. The three remaining law enforcement officials loaded onto the second ATV.

  “Where was he?” Clint asked.

  “Not entirely sure. I found him in some brush, but I think there might have been a sort of cave he stayed in, maybe a mine.”

  Clint sighed big enough to encompass the fact he was responsible for the safety of an entire county. “Add it to the list of entrances we still need to seal off.”

  They reached the campsite in no time at all. Ben sat between his sobbing parents. “At least this one ended well,” Clint said as he and Sol watched. It went unsaid how many others hadn’t.

  The chopper swept down, knocking over a few tents in the process, and carried Ben and his mom away. The flight wouldn’t allow room for both parents. Clint and Sol loaded the dad into Sol’s van, which had been outfitted for muddy trails, deep water crossing, and a whole lot else he threw at it on a regular basis.

  A few hours and a few hundred miles later, Sol and Clint dropped the dad off at the hospital’s entrance. Their town had only one small medical clinic, and Ben had been life-flighted to the next city over.