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Nashida built splints for Orroye's leg and arm before heading back to the crash site. The only problem was, he didn't quite remember where to find it. Not that he would admit that to Orroye, or himself. Instead, after 9:30 in the morning, Agent Nashida headed north, the direction he assumed the plane crashed.
This morning was much warmer than the previous few. The temperature was probably around forty degrees, and as Nashida trekked back toward the foothills, he found himself sweating a little.
The agent was tired, hungry, and more than a little unsure of what he would do once he got back to the crash site. The radio was shot and cell service was non-existent. It would be easier to makeshift an SOS beacon, but there was no guarantee another plane would fly overhead.
The idea of sitting around the woods with a wounded Orroye didn't sound right either. He felt bad leaving his partner, hopefully not to die, but options weren't available anymore. Nashida truly believed the crash site would be a better place to hunker down than out in the open elements and lost in the woods. Besides, maybe he could find a few more bags of peanuts in the cabin.
Nashida took a quick breath and wiped his nose. He shuddered and kept walking. The slight heat that morning seemed to make that God-awful smell more pungent. If Nashida had anything in his stomach, it could have gotten ugly. Fortunately, he was starving. But the scent continued to follow him. No matter where he went through the forest, it was there.
The closer Nashida got to what he thought was the crash site, the stronger the stench grew. The starved agent couldn't handle it anymore. Nashida turned his head up to the sky and found a murder of circling ravens. Ravens are scavenger birds who fed on carrion. With this many overhead and the horrendous scent, it didn't take an FBI trained agent to fill in the gaps.
Nashida had no reason to follow the trail. He certainly had better, more important things to accomplish, but his natural curiosity took hold and he followed the flock. Scavenger birds aren't the best source of food, but out here, not much else was. Nashida reached into his waistband and drew his gun as he followed their path.
He stopped when the stench became too much again. He choked back the vomit pushing up from his gut.
Nashida was surprised to find himself inside of a clearing in the forest. The trees seemed to stop and form what seemed like a perfect circle carved in the middle of the woods, with a lone tree in the center. Something hung from one of its branches. Whatever it was, it looked like some hunter caught it and decided to field dress it, but got bored halfway through.
Nashida kept his firearm drawn as he slowly shuffled toward the fir tree. A small human hand dangled from inside the pine needles, almost reaching out to him. Nashida looked up and found the body. Its face was too mangled to recognize, and for a moment, he thought it might be the cadaver of one of his former agents.
Nashida took the barrel of his gun and propped up the dead hand. It was small and delicate, with tanned skin. Far too tiny to be any of the men on this mission. Taking a closer look, it wasn't the hand of a man at all. It belonged to a child, no older than a teenager possibly.
Nashida thought about pulling the remains down and examining the body, but he didn't. He knew all that he needed to know. Something, or more likely someone, killed this child and strung its body up inside the fir tree.
Nashida couldn't think of an animal strong enough or vicious enough to perform this act, let alone one that possessed the opposable thumbs and brain capacity required to achieve such a feat. An animal couldn't have done this. There was no way.
There were only two people who survived the crash who lacked a moral compass when it came to murder. One of them more than likely had already died. Given the elements and lack of supplies, the suspect never stood a chance. On the other hand, one was a natural born executioner with impeccable survival skills and an insatiable lust for death. Like the writing on a bathroom stall, Nashida understood Jericho wuz here.