OCTOBER. EIGHT YEARS AGO. GOING UP AN OLD LOGGING ROAD out on the Olympic Peninsula that scantly resembled a road at all. Two faint lines between rows of thick moss the color of key lime ran at a steep grade up the mountain. The road was gated and the gate locked and the only reason Batey was headed up was a report that it had been opened.
Batey had already put in a long day. There was bad weather moving in and the last thing he wanted was to make his day any longer. The radio had squelched. He had been thinking about something important and was annoyed that the voice on the other end interrupted that important thought.
Okay, he said. I’ll give her a look-see.
He had just turned forty-five years old and with that his first gray hairs had appeared. He considered himself pretty lucky up till then. He was in good shape and had no ailments. He had left the DEA for Fish and Wildlife at just the right time. Right when the world seemed to be going sideways. The morning he found the first gray hair he called in Coraline and she called him her old man and kissed his temple. Dee Batey. The old game warden, she said.
Batey drove south into the mountains. He suspected some hillbilly out poaching. Or some punk kids gone up to drink beer. There was a fine mist falling but the wind was up and he knew the dark clouds would bring worse.
At the gate he found the lock had been cut. The metal U-bolt lay snipped in the mud. Just beyond the gate there were slicks in the ground where a previous vehicle had lost traction in the mud and Batey thought it best to put the truck in 4Hi before going on.
The road followed a creek and at some places the runoff nearly washed out the road. The old cedars and Douglas firs stood hundreds of feet in the air and wide as his truck. The going was slow and Batey wondered if he was just chasing his tail. Anyone up here, he thought, is long gone by now.
It was getting on three o’clock which meant in about half an hour it would be getting dark and half an hour after that all dark. He didn’t mind being out past dark but the weather was worsening and he’d rather be home sooner than later. And he was just about to reconcile that sentiment when he saw the fresh marks of tires where the vehicle had turned around. Batey pulled aside and got out and left the engine running. Higher up now and getting colder and the mist was turning to snow. A flake or two falling alongside the rain like a beautiful face in a crowd.
He stood with his hands hooked in his belt. He looked down and there they were: large boot prints leading off the road, into the caged woods where the floor of the forest was so protected by the canopy it was almost dry.
Goddamnit, he said.
He sucked his teeth. Then he spit.
Shit, he said.
He reached into the cab of the truck and turned off the engine. The open door rang like a small clock. He took up his flashlight as if it might protect him. The dome light was warm looking and the cab was warm and dry and he almost climbed back in. Forgot about the whole thing. But he couldn’t stand poaching and he couldn’t live with himself if he pretended he didn’t. He took up the flashlight and closed the door and stepped into the ancient forest following what might be something.
For a while the bootpack followed the trail but at some point it veered and Batey found himself bushwhacking through fern and bracken so dense and seemingly untouched it might as well have been virgin.
But it wasn’t. Wasn’t at all.
Snagged in a tall salal bush was a narrow strip of silk that was white as cow’s milk. He knelt and felt it between his fingers. Gave it a sniff. Nothing. Just the scents of cedar and moss and dirt. Kept it though. Tucked it in his pocket. He gazed skyward. It was all but dark. A deep shade of amethyst and coal-colored clouds to the east.
Goddamnit, he said again.
Then something caught his eye. He trained the flashlight upon it. Walked a little closer.
What’s this? he said.
He said, What the hell?
What he found was a crude doll made of linen and hay and rough stitching and small button eyes. It was hanging by a thin piece of string from the limb of a tree. He grabbed it. Looked at it like it was some kind of ornament. Some red stitching was done across the neck and the hair fixed on the doll looked to be real. Batey shined the beam of light ahead. Through the thicket the bootpack was not so delicate. More of a trough, like something had been dragged through it. He unsnapped his holster and removed his gun and trained it in the direction of the light beam.
He followed that trough a little farther and the ferns and bracken turned to scree and the bootpack had all but vanished. By now it was full dark and the rain had all turned to snow. With the trail gone cold and the light long since gone Batey was beginning to question his judgment. More than that he felt he’d gotten himself into something he couldn’t back out of, like driving into a blizzard in a bad car. It spooked him.
The only way the bootpack could go from there was up the mountain, and the only thing up the mountain that any bootpack might lead to was a cave no bigger than a shipping container.
Well, Batey said. You’ve stepped in it now.
For a reason he did not know he climbed the scree, slipping more than once, cutting his palms, scuffing his shin, cursing the rock, the dark, himself. With a line of sweat frosting his brow, he finally reached the mouth of the cave. Brushed himself off and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A shot of bats exploded from the entrance of the cave, sending Batey reeling backward to the rocks. Lifting himself a final time he shined the light in the cavernous dark where the only breath of life came as a cold whisper from somewhere deep within where not even the bravest dare go and in that shock of cold he fell back again in a start. The flashlight leapt from his hand. He scrambled to retrieve it. The darkness and silence from within the cave pounded in Batey’s ears like kettledrums. Trembling when he ultimately recovered the flashlight, his hat askew. Snow was falling through the beam of light, illuminated for the briefest of moments, and at the end of that light was the body of a young woman, stripped naked, lying stiff and cold on a rock altar. An image of otherwise peaceful repose. Batey went closer. The woman was barely that. More like a child. Maybe between sixteen and nineteen years old. Her throat had been slit and sewn shut again in a nightmarish design using red thread. The stub of a pale candle stood guttered to the rock near her feet. There was the fragrance of lingering woodsmoke and the charred twigs where someone had stayed long enough to make a fire.
He stepped closer. Batey shined the light upon the woman’s face. He reached for her foot. Her skin was cold. Her toes were stiff as roots.
He didn’t know how long he’d been running. He followed his own path back to the truck. Clamoring and stumbling in the vine like a drunk boar. Moans escaping with his harried breath. All around him snow was falling like ash.
Back at the truck his hands didn’t work, as though the joints were seized. Opening the door after some struggle he got on the radio and called out for someone to answer.