Cash scrambled over the last few rocks and arrived at the small meadow edged with bonsai-like spruce trees, gnarled and twisted from years of high wind and deep snow. It was a beautiful spot, perched high on the mountainside, filled with fall wildflowers, offering an extensive view of the valley below. Above it extended a couloir that ran up to a high ridge above the tree line, topped with snow. A rivulet gurgled through the middle and tumbled over the edge, becoming a series of small waterfalls as it made its way down.
She looked around. On the right side of the meadow, below the steep couloir, stood a cluster of boulders the size of houses, jammed together. At their base was a small, dark triangular opening. That, she assumed, must be where the campsite was hidden, because a group of Erebus security guards, who had already been dropped into the site, were standing guard in front.
She walked over to it, and the guards separated to let her pass. She stepped into the darkness of the opening, formed by two boulders leaning together. In the large space beyond, she could see the remains of a stone circle, the ashes of a campfire, and a scattering of bones. It was a perfect sanctuary, she thought, this little hideaway tucked into a giant rockfall, hidden from below while offering a view of anyone coming up, sheltered from wind and severe weather, with a natural opening above to allow the campfire smoke to escape through the gaps in the boulders. No wonder it wasn’t found.
She paused at the edge of the area—CSI protocol prevented her from going in—to take in and memorize the crime scene. She could see, scattered in the dimness about like so much trash, various chopped-up bones and a partially burnt human skull. At the back of the cave-like space stood an altar, not unlike the one in the video, made of sticks and bark and moss—beautifully crafted—with four poles around it from which hung four ornaments like the ones that contained the Monopoly tokens. She wondered what might be in those little packages. There were also some scattered playing cards and Monopoly money, wrinkled and dirty.
She eased the pack off her shoulders as Colcord arrived. Thank God McFaul had decided to go back to the lodge. Hiking was not his gig anyway, judging from the double chins and pasty complexion.
“Another day, another crime scene,” said Colcord. “How many have we taped off so far?”
Cash thought a moment. “Four. Let’s set up a perimeter.”
She and Colcord began stringing the police tape in a wide circle around the rock shelter and its entrance.
As they worked, Romanski arrived with his team, followed by the doctor, Huizinga. They began to unpack their equipment and suit up.
Cash went over to Romanski. “Got a suit for me?”
He looked up. “You going in?”
“I’d like to do a walk-through, get a closer look.”
“Of course.”
He handed her a suit from his pack, and she climbed into it, the fabric smelling new. Mask, goggles, hood, and booties followed. She glanced back at Colcord, who gave her a thumbs-up, and then she stepped over the tape, following Romanski.
The ring of stones surrounded a long-dead fire, once quite large, with many broken and burnt bones mixed with charcoal. She took a closer look at the trash lying about—scattered Bicycle playing cards, wet Monopoly money, a Monopoly board tossed in a corner with some game cards, an old wooden checkers board split in half, with scattered pieces. And a soggy paperback book.
She bent down to read the title. It was a novel—The Cider House Rules by John Irving. It struck her as almost absurdly incongruous—not some anarchist manifesto or radical screed but a sentimental novel about orphans—and one of her favorite novels, no less. Who were these cultists?
Cash turned her attention to the ashes of the fire. She saw a glint and knelt.
“Bart?”
He came over and knelt next to her. She pointed. Lying among the ashes was a partially melted silver medal of Saint Christopher on a broken chain. The photographer came over and photographed it, and then Romanski picked it up with long tweezers and sealed it in a bag. He then used the tweezers to stir the wet ashes—it had recently rained—and another glint came up.
“Oh God.” It was a human tooth with a silver filling.
Romanski scooped that up too.
Cash stood up and looked around. The dirt area surrounding the firepit had been heavily trodden. The bones were flung everywhere, willy-nilly, and she had a vision of the feasters holding a meat-covered bone in one hand, gnawing and stripping off the flesh and flinging it away when done.
“Crazy fuckers,” muttered Romanski.
Cash next walked over to where one of the skulls was lying face down. The back of the cranium was singed and blackened. “Looks like they burned the head.”
“Right,” said Romanski. “I would guess that what we’re looking at here is a classic sign of cannibalism. It’s been documented at other cannibal sites across the world. The brain, which is one of the most nourishing organs in the body, is roasted by placing the head in the fire, face up, and letting the brains cook inside. And then the skull is broken open from the back and the brains consumed, using the cranium as an eating bowl.” He peered in, leaning close. “You can see marks where they scooped out the cooked insides.”
“Lovely,” said Cash.
Romanski used the tweezers to turn the skull over and shined his light in, illuminating the eye sockets. “This is the woman, I’d guess, based on the lack of brow ridges and the slightly more gracile morphology.”
Cash felt slightly sick to her stomach. She stood up and nodded at the poles holding the balls. “Let’s see what are in these,” she said.
She and Romanski went over. They were similar to the objects that had held the Monopoly tokens, balls of finely woven grass, pine needles, and twigs. As the wind shifted, she caught a foul smell from one of them. On closer inspection, she saw that a vile fluid was draining out of the bottom.
“Uh-oh,” said Romanski. “I don’t like the look of that.”
Cash felt a second wave of nausea. “I’ve seen enough.”
He clucked his tongue. “We’ll get all this back to the lab and start working on it right away.”
“Be sure to collect DNA from those gnawed-on bones.” She hesitated. “And what’s with the DNA results from before? They should have come in by now.”
“The first run was contaminated. There was a lot of human DNA at the earlier site, and it was all mixed up and it proved difficult to separate. They’re doing another run.” He nodded at the bones. “The saliva traces on these might be easier.”
Cash went back out into the sunlight and took off the suit, taking deep breaths and trying to shake off the feeling of nausea and horror. She was dreading finding out what was in those hanging ornaments.
“I have a nasty feeling,” she said to Colcord, “that this thing’s a setup.”
“How so?”
“We were led up here. They wanted us to find this place. They killed the mammoth near the lodge—and then they laid a scent trail way up here that they knew we’d follow.” She gestured. “Before, they covered up their scent, but this time, they didn’t. They led us up here.”
“But why?” said Colcord. “So we could find these cannibalized bones?”
“Exactly.”
“What’s the message?”
“I wish I knew. Strange that they haven’t made any demands or written a manifesto. Even the Unabomber tried to explain what he was doing.”
Colcord took out his phone. “While you were admiring the Christmas ornaments, I was taking a look at our location on the GPS. Here.” He handed her the phone, and she looked at the map and the little orange arrow showing their location.
“Eleven thousand feet,” she said. “We’re pretty high up.”
“Yeah, but I noticed something else,” Colcord said. “This ravine is marked on the map as Hookers Canyon. Up at the top end of this gulch, according to that old guy I visited on Grundage Creek, is an adit to the Jackman Mine.”
“What’s an adit?”
“An access tunnel into the mine, to reach the ore zone. This is a minor one that maybe wasn’t on the main maps that Erebus used. Maybe this adit never got closed.”
Cash looked up the couloir beyond the meadow. It rose steeply between spires of granite to a series of upper mountain slopes, covered with rocks and granite outcroppings, before ending in the snowy ridgeline. “Up there? I don’t see anything.”
“According to his description, it’s only about a quarter mile up from here.”
She squinted. “You think we should go up there?”
“Yes, and go inside. I’ve got the maps on my phone. Are you game?”
“You mean—now?”
“We’re here. We’ve got armed guards we can take with us.” He looked at his watch. “It’s noon. We’ve got time.”
She stared at Colcord. This was a side of him she hadn’t appreciated before, and she liked it. “Okay, hell yes. Let’s go.”
“Better not tell Maximilian,” said Colcord.
She nodded. “I agree.” She looked around and waved over two guards. “How are you guys doing?”
They nodded. “Good.”
“What are your names?”
“Holder,” said one. He was a young man, buff and solid, with a friendly kid-face.
“And you?”
“Johnson.”
“Holder and Johnson. Nice to meet you.”
They nodded.
“The sheriff and I want to climb up this couloir to where we think there might be an opening into a mine. We want to check it out—and we’d like you to come with us.”
They nodded. “No problem.”
“Locked and loaded?”
“Oh yeah. But no night vision—we’ll have to use flashlights.”
“That’ll work. Let’s go, then, Holder and Johnson.”