Barrett stepped back and leaned against the car.
"Flynn asked for you specifically, Doctor. She even actually predicted that you might be reticent to join us up there. That's her word by the way." He smiled with his mouth closed.
"Reticent."
I thought about Flynn's request for a moment.
"She was right. I am reticent.
When you get back up there, Phil, please tell Flynn she was Prescient." I smiled.
"That's my word. Prescient."
Kimber took a solitary step forward as though he wanted to be recognized. He said, "I won't insist that you accompany us, Alan-actually I can't-but… if Flynn Coe has reason to believe your presence might elucidate something, I would beg that you reconsider your position. We've come quite far, literally.
What're a few more miles?" As he was speaking, I was assessing him clinically.
His symptoms seemed to have totally remitted.
I couldn't imagine what I could offer Flynn Coe at this particular crime scene other than a quick identification of Dorothy's body. Reluctant, I decided I would offer to do that much and then return to the bed-and-breakfast.
"How far is it from here?" I asked Phil Barrett.
"Not far, but dirt roads. Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty."
"Okay. I'll drive up there in my car. When I've done whatever Flynn hopes I can do, I'm leaving. Fair enough, Kimber?"
"I'm grateful, Alan. Thank you."
Phil spoke.
"Where we're going, it's not an easy drive. The last section is definitely four-wheel country. Why don't you drive up with me, and I promise I'll bring you back down to your car whenever you're done" It didn't feel right. I wasn't sure why.
"No," I said.
"I'll follow you."
The dirt road was a well-maintained public access path that wasn't much of a problem at first. The ruts were manageable and the steep sections were short.
Along the way we passed at least a half dozen ghost cabins of homesteaders whose dreams had died in the heavy drifts of long-ago Colorado winters. Phil stopped briefly at a Forest Service signpost about ten minutes from Clark. I drove alongside his Explorer.
"This is where it gets dicey," he said.
"Why don't you leave your car here? I'll bring you back whenever you're ready." I said, "Lead the way, Phil."
As soon as I raised the window Kimber said, "You don't like him."
We started downhill. I adjusted the transmission, dropping it into second.
"I not only don't like him, Kimber, I don't trust him. If we succeed in finding who killed those two girls, its not going to look very good for ex-sheriff Phil Barrett. You know exactly what I mean. And if it turns out that anyone associated with the Silky Road is implicated, which is looking more and more likely, it's going to look even worse for him."
Kimber stared out the side window at the darkness of the forest. He asked, "I wonder who discovered the reporter's body." I said, "It's a good question. Given the terrain we're about to enter, my best guess is that there's a good likelihood that the person who discovered Dorothy's body is the one who put it there."
We drove the next five minutes in silence. I decided to let someone know where we were and checked my phone. This far into the wilderness it didn't have a signal.
As the vehicles cleared a sharp ridge-top my headlights suddenly illuminated the perimeter of the blow down As far as I could see in the narrow beam of light the once majestic section of backcountry forest was now nothing more than a jumble of tree trunks and branches piled at least as high as my car.
Kimber said, "Wow" I was breathless.
Barrett pulled right off the Forest Service access road. I followed him for another quarter mile or so down a deeply rutted lane that skirted the edge of the natural disaster. The mass of fallen trees on our left was a long unbroken wall that was almost as tall as I was. At no point was the mesh of trunks and limbs less than four feet high. When Phil stopped and got out of his car Kimber and I did the same. Barrett pulled a heavy daypack over one shoulder and said, "It's a short walk from here. Have to climb over a few trees, though." He waved at the skeletal forest.
"This is something, isn't it?"
It was something.
"Where are the other cars?" I asked.
In a voice that sounded almost too natural, he said, "The others came in the hard way, from the north. We didn't discover this access until after the fact.
Once you're in there," he said, pointing at the blow-down, "especially at night, it's like trying to navigate in a box of toothpicks. Everything looks the same.
You'll see" The winding path we followed through the blow down wasn't exactly a trail. It was more like a tunnel, never more than three feet wide, at times no wider than my shoulders. In numerous places fallen logs seemed to almost cover us in a thick canopy. The aspen and fir trees hadn't just fallen where they were knocked over; instead, the ferocious winds had actually blown them like snowflakes into drifts, creating immense impassable mounds of unstable lumber. The fallen timber that carpeted the steepest slopes seemed to be staying in place despite the law of gravity.
I assumed that the salvage loggers had cleared the path we were traversing. I kept thinking of chopsticks and Lincoln Logs. I didn't have another context for what I was seeing. The terrain was as foreign and foreboding as if I had suddenly been transported to the bottom of the sea.
Our cars had disappeared from view behind us after we had hiked no more than thirty seconds. There was no opportunity at all to perceive any clues about where we were going. Phil's flashlight beam illuminated fallen trees.
Thousands.
Millions. Nothing else. There seemed to be as many downed trees around us as there were stars in the sky above us.
Twice we reached forks in the trail. Phil didn't hesitate either time. Kimber walked behind me, and I kept checking on his progress. He wasn't losing any ground, agoraphobia and altitude be damned. Once when I looked back at him he said in wonder, "I wouldn't miss this for the world." He was smiling like a climber approaching the summit of a fourteener.
After no more than ten minutes of hiking Phil Barrett said, "Good. We're almost there. Aren't you glad you came?"
For some reason I was as surprised to see bright light in the midst of the blow down as I would have been to find a Burger King or a Mcdonald's. A pair of battery-powered lanterns illuminated a clearing that was no longer than a single-wide trailer. The light was a sultry yellow. The brilliance was disconcerting. Above us, the blown down trees seemed to have created a precarious Tinkertoy mountain at least fifteen feet high. Rising above the immense wall of timber loomed a steep hillside that appeared as foreboding as a steaming volcano. Whatever work Kimber and I were going to be performing there, we would be performing in a wooden canyon.
Phil Barrett called out, "Hello? It's Phil. I'm back with Mr. Lister and Dr. Gregory."
No one answered his call. Phil shrugged. He turned to me.
"Maybe they found something else to examine. The body's right around that bend." Kimber and I crossed the clearing. I turned and glanced at Phil. He had a bemused expression on his wide face. Kimber went ahead, entering a narrow cul-de-sac of broken trees.
I stepped into the cul-de-sac and looked at Kimber. We peered at the ground, which was littered with forest debris, then into the chaotic lumber walls, looking for a clue. Dorothy Levins body wasn't there to see. Nothing was there to see, nothing except the look of terrified acknowledgment Kimber and I recognized as we looked up into each other's eyes.
Kimber opened his mouth to speak. But before he'd formed a word, the sound of Phil Barrett's gun cocking shattered the silence. It was the single most distinct sound I had ever heard in my life.
The next thought I had was about my unborn baby.