Billy hadn’t slept for shit and Grant hadn’t hesitated to tell him how bad he looked when he got there before dawn the next day. He didn’t care what he looked like. What had been on his mind as soon as he woke up, on the drive to his own cabin above Blossom Hill, and the drive back to the mountains above Canyon Lake, was Joy. He couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d turned her down the night before. And now, when the countdown to when she was leaving for good was on, he had no idea how long this hunt would take him. He planned on scouting as much of the mountain as he physically could and that could take days. When he got back, he would be that many days closer to losing her forever. He couldn’t believe how much that hurt. How could you lose someone that you never really had?
He parked his truck up near the ranger station and started taking out his gear. He was almost finished when he was startled by the sound of a voice and a bright light in his eyes.
“Hey, is that Billy Joe?”
He looked up and saw a young ranger named Vince. Billy had known the kid since he was in grade school and it made him feel old every time he saw him in his uniform. “Hey, kid, you trying to blind me?”
He pointed the flashlight out of Billy’s face. “Sorry about that. We’re supposed to be on high alert with all that poaching going on down in the valley.”
“That’s good. You definitely need to be on alert. That’s actually why I’m here. Anyone been up in the backcountry lately?”
Vince shook his head slowly. “Not that I know of. That area is off-limits to campers and hikers. I don’t think we’ve been up there since those kids ignored all the signs and went hiking up there last year. The girl fell into a gulley and her boyfriend had to leave her there all alone because he couldn’t get cell service up there.”
Billy nodded. “Yeah, I remember that. You have many campers down below?”
“I was just running the numbers when I saw you drive up. There are three registered at Canyon Creek and another four up at Hill Park as of the end of the last shift. We’ll get a lot busier next week during spring break.”
Billy slung his backpack on and grabbed his rifle out of the truck. “I’m headed up to the backcountry. I’ve got a lot of scouting to do, so I might not be back for a day or two…maybe longer.”
“You got a radio?”
“Nah, Marcus and Cade are both out of town right now and Grant and Nate are on other assignments.”
“Hang on a sec,” Vince told him. He went into the little ranger station and came back with a radio in his hand. “Tune it to channel seven,” Vince told him. “You can keep it turned down if you don’t want to hear our chatter, but if you need anything, you can get ahold of us.”
“Thanks, Vince. Does this thing work all the way up in the mountains over there?”
“It gets real spotty up high, but I figure it’ll be better than nothing.”
“It will. Thanks.”
Billy finally got started on his hike as the sun was beginning to come up. He had so much on his mind that the first hour passed in a blur. He was at the Canyon Creek campgrounds before he knew it. He had already finished the large bottle of water he brought with him so he stopped near the creek and filtered two new bottles. Once he’d finished, he looked around at the small campground. There were six tents, but two of them were small and looked like they were for children. The tents were all relatively close together, which made Billy believe that Trent wasn’t there. He doubted he was going to be camping anywhere public. He’d have a lot of blood and guts to wash off of himself at the end of the day and he’d want somewhere a lot more private to do that. Billy left the campers sleeping and moved on. As he ascended the mountain, the trees grew closer together and the brush got thicker. With only his mind to keep him company, he started to fantasize about what it would be like to live in Joy’s world. He tried to picture himself living in a city like LA or Vancouver. Even in his wildest imagination out in the middle of nowhere, he couldn’t imagine it.
The higher he climbed, the rockier the path became. The rocks were smooth and slippery, washed down off the peak by the snow and the rain. Billy had to concentrate more as his bulk moved across them, bracing himself for the inevitable rolling that might send him tumbling down. As he advanced, the bright morning sunlight dimmed in places where dark green boughs arched across from the trees and made his climb more precarious. He didn’t know this mountain as well as he did his own, but hiking was almost as easy as breathing to him and soon he was at the next campsite. When he stepped out of the trees a small child standing near the campfire with a man that looked to be her father gasped and ran to hide behind the man’s legs. Billy smiled at her as she peeked out and then offered the smile to the man as well. The man’s eyes were glued to the rifle he had in his hand.
“Good morning.” Cade’s company had a good relationship with the rangers, so he didn’t feel bad about what he said next. “My name is Billy Joe Mason. I work part-time for the park service. I’m just on my way up to the peak, passing through.”
“Hey,” the man said in what sounded like an eastern accent. “Nice to meet you. I’m Mark Sanders. My family and I are up here for the week.”
Billy shook the man’s hand and looked down at the little girl and smiled again. “What’s your name?”
She looked up at her father with wide brown eyes. Her father nodded at her and she said, “Grace.”
“That’s a beautiful name for a very pretty girl, Grace. It’s nice to meet you.”
She buried her face again and her father said, “I’m sorry. She’s usually not so shy.”
Billy chuckled. “I can only imagine what I look like to her. I must seem like a giant. It’s fine. I’m still pleased to meet you, Grace.” He looked back at the man. “Do you know the other campers here?” There were two other campsites not too far apart, from what Billy could see.
“Not well. We all shared a meal last night. One of the families has a teenager with them and the other has kids about the same age as ours. Seem like nice people.”
“Have y’all had anyone else come through since you’ve been here?”
“No, not that I know of. Is there a problem?”
Billy looked back down at the little girl. He was torn between telling the man a monster was loose on the mountain and to take his family and run, and not wanting to alarm them. So far, since he’d been in Texas anyways, they didn’t have evidence of Trent killing anything other than animals.
“No, no problem. A buddy of mine mentioned coming up this way so I just thought I’d check. Y’all have fun and be safe, okay?”
“Sure. Nice to meet you.”
Billy could feel the man watching him as he left. He didn’t blame him for being suspicious; subtlety wasn’t one of Billy’s strong suits. He said a little prayer in his head for the families there on vacation and kept moving. Another hour or two he’d be on the remote, backside of the mountain. He had a feeling if Trent was up there, that’s where he would find him.
He trudged along, trying not to think about Joy, but found it impossible. He reached an area where the trees widened and the rocks weren’t so close together and that was when his boot got caught on one and he stumbled. He caught himself with one hand but as he did, he noticed something on the ground. It was some kind of wrapper. He used two fingers and pinched the corner of it as he picked it up. Holding it up toward the sunlight, he saw that it was the discarded wrapper from a granola bar. That wasn’t all that exciting, but the fact that it still held a small piece of the bar was. If whomever had eaten the granola bar did so by biting it and not breaking off pieces, they might be able to get DNA and at least prove Trent was in the area if he didn’t find or catch him.
Billy took a plastic Ziploc baggie out of his backpack and deposited the granola bar. He took out his phone to try and get GPS coordinates, but he had already lost service. With a silent curse, he put it back in his pocket and checked the compass on his watch. He marked the baggie with the loose directions he had at hand as well as the time and date before tucking it away in his backpack. He stood stock still then and looked at the ground around the rocks. There was disturbance, but no discernable footprints. He was about to set out again when he saw the glint of something metallic in the center of a pile of rocks. He crouched down and when he got closer, he could see that it was a spent shell from a rifle. He took out another baggie and did the same thing he’d done with the granola bar. Feeling more hopeful than he had earlier, he began to follow the trail once again. The buoyant feeling of finding a couple of solid clues landed in a knot in his stomach when he came to a bend in the trail. The stare of dark, empty eye sockets stopped him in his tracks.
The deer lay on her side and her swollen, black tongue hung out of her mouth. Flies and insects buzzed and crawled around the open gash in her side. There was a large hole in her neck where the bullet had ripped through it. Billy felt sure that bullet came from the same rifle he’d found the spent shell from. The deer’s insides had been removed, but in this case, unlike the others, they weren’t lying near the animal. Something had feasted on the carcass, but the nearly surgically precise cut down the center of her body could only have been inflicted by one animal—a human. She looked like she had been dead for a while, maybe weeks considering the state of decomposition of what was left of the body. Billy wondered if this had been his first kill and had practiced with the rifle up in the mountains where no one could hear him. He took out his digital camera and snapped as many photos as he could stomach before slipping it back in his backpack and moving on. He was glad that Joy didn’t have to bear witness to this one.