Read Online Zero-Degree Murder (A Search and Rescue Mystery) by M.L. Rowland - Free Book Online
Authors: M.L. Rowland
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followed the trail as it meandered along the natural contours of the mountain. In, out, and in again. Rising, falling, then rising again. On its deceptively casual way toward the summit of San Raphael at almost twelve thousand feet.
On the steep canyon walls above and below the trail, their headlamps spotlighted curl-leaf mountain mahogany and huge mounds of manzanita with smooth bark as deep and rich in color as venous blood. All around them, the eerie skeletons of dead pine trees loomed out of the darkness, their needles orange in death, weakened by years of overgrowth and drought, and killed by scavenging bark beetles.
Occasionally the searchers stopped to call out the names of the missing persons or blow long earsplitting blasts on their whistles. Mostly they hiked in silence, the only sounds their own rhythmic breathing, the chink of a trekking pole on rock, the crunch of a boot on grit.
And the wind.
When the trail curved inward into the folds of the mountain, they were mercifully out of its brunt. But most of the time, it whipped around them, howling like a being from the netherworld, rocking tree carcasses and creaking dead limbs, occasionally blasting the searchers so hard with dirt and small stones that they turned their backs, or sought shelter in the lee of a giant boulder or behind the barren husk of a tree.
But in spite of the wind, possibly because of it, Gracie drank it all in—the darkness, the peace, the relative solitude, the sharp, cold air—and felt her spirits lifting. She felt the impulse to burst into song and almost laughed outright at the reaction a Puccini aria would elicit from Cashman.
Gracie often returned from searches mentally spent, physically exhausted, but spiritually renewed. This, she was reminded, was one of the reasons she had joined the team in the first place. The natural world at its purest and most elemental always breathed life into her, reviving her like water to a withered plant.
Gracie was working hard and had descended from the high that came with every callout. Still she felt energized, yet relaxed. Her mind clear, alert. She looked up into the night sky and noticed a deep shadow obliterating the stars in the west. “Clouds moving in,” she called up to Cashman. “Maybe it won’t get so cold tonight.”
As Gracie and Cashman traveled, the hard-packed dirt of the trail gradually softened, growing more malleable, yielding tracks and portions of tracks of hikers traveling in both directions.
Crouching low and off to one side, sometimes on hands and knees, face inches from the dirt, Gracie was finally able to identify a series of fresh tracks laid by someone wearing Reeboks, presumably Tristan Chambers. Selecting the clearest, most complete track she could find, Gracie used the tip of one of her trekking poles to draw a circle around the track, then marked it with pink flagging tape. With her mini measuring tape, she measured the track itself and the stride—the distance from the heel of a right footprint to the heel of the next right footprint. She drew a rough sketch of the tread in her little notebook. Then, again with the tip of trekking pole, she marked the prints, first a left, then a right, then another left, following Tristan’s and hopefully his two, maybe three, maybe five, hiking companions’ progress up the trail.
Theoretically one never tracked alone; rather teams of three tracked with a point person doing the actual tracking with two flankers ahead on either side watching out for hazards. With Timber Creek SAR’s shortage of trained personnel, tracking teams usually consisted of two searchers.
So Gracie examined the dirt, focusing on the Reebok tracks, flashlight held low and parallel to the ground to make even the tiniest portion of a track stand out, with Cashman up ahead on the trail, calling back an occasional “Low-hanging branch” or “Watch it, Gracie. Part of the trail’s eroded away here.”
What she couldn’t afford to dwell on
On the steep canyon walls above and below the trail, their headlamps spotlighted curl-leaf mountain mahogany and huge mounds of manzanita with smooth bark as deep and rich in color as venous blood. All around them, the eerie skeletons of dead pine trees loomed out of the darkness, their needles orange in death, weakened by years of overgrowth and drought, and killed by scavenging bark beetles.
Occasionally the searchers stopped to call out the names of the missing persons or blow long earsplitting blasts on their whistles. Mostly they hiked in silence, the only sounds their own rhythmic breathing, the chink of a trekking pole on rock, the crunch of a boot on grit.
And the wind.
When the trail curved inward into the folds of the mountain, they were mercifully out of its brunt. But most of the time, it whipped around them, howling like a being from the netherworld, rocking tree carcasses and creaking dead limbs, occasionally blasting the searchers so hard with dirt and small stones that they turned their backs, or sought shelter in the lee of a giant boulder or behind the barren husk of a tree.
But in spite of the wind, possibly because of it, Gracie drank it all in—the darkness, the peace, the relative solitude, the sharp, cold air—and felt her spirits lifting. She felt the impulse to burst into song and almost laughed outright at the reaction a Puccini aria would elicit from Cashman.
Gracie often returned from searches mentally spent, physically exhausted, but spiritually renewed. This, she was reminded, was one of the reasons she had joined the team in the first place. The natural world at its purest and most elemental always breathed life into her, reviving her like water to a withered plant.
Gracie was working hard and had descended from the high that came with every callout. Still she felt energized, yet relaxed. Her mind clear, alert. She looked up into the night sky and noticed a deep shadow obliterating the stars in the west. “Clouds moving in,” she called up to Cashman. “Maybe it won’t get so cold tonight.”
As Gracie and Cashman traveled, the hard-packed dirt of the trail gradually softened, growing more malleable, yielding tracks and portions of tracks of hikers traveling in both directions.
Crouching low and off to one side, sometimes on hands and knees, face inches from the dirt, Gracie was finally able to identify a series of fresh tracks laid by someone wearing Reeboks, presumably Tristan Chambers. Selecting the clearest, most complete track she could find, Gracie used the tip of one of her trekking poles to draw a circle around the track, then marked it with pink flagging tape. With her mini measuring tape, she measured the track itself and the stride—the distance from the heel of a right footprint to the heel of the next right footprint. She drew a rough sketch of the tread in her little notebook. Then, again with the tip of trekking pole, she marked the prints, first a left, then a right, then another left, following Tristan’s and hopefully his two, maybe three, maybe five, hiking companions’ progress up the trail.
Theoretically one never tracked alone; rather teams of three tracked with a point person doing the actual tracking with two flankers ahead on either side watching out for hazards. With Timber Creek SAR’s shortage of trained personnel, tracking teams usually consisted of two searchers.
So Gracie examined the dirt, focusing on the Reebok tracks, flashlight held low and parallel to the ground to make even the tiniest portion of a track stand out, with Cashman up ahead on the trail, calling back an occasional “Low-hanging branch” or “Watch it, Gracie. Part of the trail’s eroded away here.”
What she couldn’t afford to dwell on
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