The Bodies Left Behind

Brynn, “And you tried to arrest them?”
    “There was a nine-one-one call. We weren’t sure what it was about. I got there afterward, lost the car and my weapon. We had to run.”
    “Lake Mondac? Where’s that?”
    “About five, six miles south. We were making for the Snake when they found us. We had to detour. How much farther to your camper?”
    “Not far.” He paused as a sheet of high cloud slippedbetween earth and moon and complete darkness enveloped them. A thin wash of illumination returned and he gestured to their right. Gandy led them farther through the woods. Then pointed out the start of a smaller trail. After they began down it, he stopped and gathered some brush, using it to obscure the path.
    Brynn helped him add more camouflage. Michelle pitched in too, looking over their handiwork and announcing, “Perfect. They’ll never find it.”
    Brynn shivered. The adrenaline from her abortive assault—and the sniper shot—had worn off. She’d dressed once more in the parka and the second set of sweats but the chill was back in her bones. “Are you in a campground?” The search-and-rescue mission here had been limited to the Joliet Trail and the Snake River Gorge.
    “No, there’s an old ranger station and a parking lot. Deserted. All overgrown. Nobody’s been there for years, looks like. Kind of spooky. Stephen King ought to write a book about it. Ghost Rangers, he could call it.”
    Brynn asked, “How far to the access road from there?”
    Gandy considered this for a moment. “There’s a dirt road that goes for about a mile. It takes you to the main road in the park. Then it’s about four miles to the entrance on Six Eighty-two. That’s the closest.” He looked their way. “You can relax. We’ll be on the highway in twenty minutes.”

    “WHERE?” HART MUTTERED.
    The men were moving through the dry streambed where they’d seen their prey disappear.
    “Look,” Lewis called softly. He was staring at a muddy patch of ground.
    “What? I can’t see anything.”
    Lewis pulled off his jacket and made a tent with it. He took a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and, inside the garment, flicked it. Kneeling, Hart could see a series of footprints in the mud. They came from three people. “How old you think those are?”
    “Look fresh to me. Who the hell’s with them? Shit, if it’s a cop he’s got a cell phone or radio.”
    The lighter clicked off. The men stood up and looked around, as Lewis tugged his jacket on. Hefted the shotgun. He shook his head. “You wouldn’t think a cop’d be around this time of night.”
    “True.”
    “But who else’d be here?”
    “No campers this time of year. Ranger maybe. We gotta find ’em fast.” Hart walked a little farther up the streambed. He crouched and ran his hand over another patch of mud. “They’re going that way.” He pointed up the hill. “That a path?”
    “Looks like it.”
    Hart grabbed a fallen tree trunk to push himself to his feet. The wood was rotten and a portion of it crumbled under his grip.
    In less than a second the rattlesnake nesting inside, about two and a half feet long, had launched itself silently into the back of Hart’s hand—on his good arm. Before he could even shout in horror, the dark, glistening stripe of muscle had vanished.
    “Lewis!” Hart pulled off his glove and saw two puncture wounds in the back of his hand, near the wrist. Shit. Was he going to die? One of the fangs had pierced a vein. Feeling faint, he sat down.
    Lewis, who’d seen the strike, flicked his lighter and examined the wound.
    Hart asked, “Should I suck it out? I saw that on TV, a movie.”
    “You’re going to be okay. You don’t want to suck it out. Venom gets to your heart faster under your tongue than through a vein.”
    Hart noted that his breathing was suddenly coming fast.
    “Stay calm. The calmer the better. Let me look.” Lewis studied the wound carefully.
    “You going to burn it?” Hart’s eyes danced as he gazed at the Bic flame.
    “No. Relax.”
    Lewis let the lighter go dark. He took a shotgun shell out of his pocket and, with his Buck knife, carefully cut it open. He tossed aside the pellets and the plastic wad. “Hold your other hand out.”
    Hart did and the man poured the gunpowder, fine little black cylinders, into his cupped palm.
    Lewis told him, “Spit in it. Go ahead.”
    “Spit?”
    “I know what I’m doing. Go ahead.”
    Hart did this.
    “Again. Get it wet.”
    “Okay.”
    Then