Chapter 19
In the morning, I felt better about myself. It was Wednesday.
I shaved, showered, and dressed quickly. I wanted to go find Cortina. If the past couple of days were an indication of her schedule, she would already be loading her cart for room cleaning today. The Sheriff had said her boyfriend, her Hispanic boyfriend, had returned. I had to meet this guy.
When I stepped onto the sidewalk outside my door, I turned right toward the room where Cortina had previously been loading her cart with clean towels from a small utility room. But no cart sat on the sidewalk, and the door was closed. I tried the knob. Locked. OK, so she’s getting a late start today. Maybe the Sheriff was right. She was having some glad-you’re-home-safely sex. I’d try to locate her later.
Back in my room, I spread out the maps from the ranger station onto the bed. The National Forest trail map was very detailed, showing the access parking areas, the trails snaking across the landscape, and the structures in the park. The topographic map did not show the trails, but did indicate roads, creeks, buildings, and the elevations as contour lines, at five-meter intervals. The two maps were not to the same scale, so it wasn’t possible to simply overlay them. But after a short time comparing the trail map with the topographic map and aligning the creeks that were on both, I located on the topo map the Monarch Trail and the cliff near where I found the body. The cliff was easy to spot since eight of the contour lines nearly merged, indicating a near vertical drop of 40 meters, over 120 feet.
The Hispanic man had come from the west of the cliff. So I scanned west from the cliff on the map. There was no indication of any buildings in that direction, just wilderness area for several miles.
I then located the ranger station and the Official Use Only access road I’d seen. It ran approximately southwest into the forest. On the map, that road did not extend very far. Tracing further southwest, there was again no indication of any structures, just more wilderness.
I folded up two sheets of newspaper to use as long rulers. On the topographic map, I lined up one going west from the cliff, and the other going southwest down where I surmised the gated road led away from the ranger station. Miles into the forest, they intersected at a large area where many contour lines nearly merged. They didn’t completely merge as they did at the cliff, but clearly the terrain was steep. In a very short distance on the map, the elevation change must have been 300 meters, over 1200 feet. This steep elevation change occurred in a nearly oval shape.
On the inside of the oval, the contour lines were more widely spaced, indicating a more gentle descent into a basin that was probably a half mile wide and a bit longer. The rim around the valley must be a couple miles long. There was a narrow opening in the oval on the northeast side where a small creek flowed outward. The opening fell on a straight line from the access road to the center of the basin. Though the name was not on the map, this had to be Spring Valley, the place where the big fire occurred last year. The place where the tree planting crew now worked. The place from which the Hispanic man ran.
I had to see Spring Valley for myself, even though it was posted as off limits. I couldn’t go through the Official Use Only road since the ranger station was situated right there. Way too visible. However, I could follow in reverse the path of the Hispanic guy. It would be a long hike. I would be gone all day. But I had to know what he experienced in running through that forest. I might even be able to enter that valley and talk with the tree-planting crew, something that I felt compelled to do after my failure to connect with them yesterday evening. The only thing between the valley and me would be some barbed wire, if it actually extended around the entire area.
Before leaving, I checked for Cortina again. She still wasn’t at the motel. But Enid was back, spying on me again. He drove by in his patrol car going north, and then south as I walked in front of the motel over to the gas station and convenience store next door. There I loaded up on energy bars and apples for my hike. I secured some of them in my backpack, leaving the rest in the cooler in my car. As soon as Enid’s vehicle was out of sight, I hopped in mine and drove through town toward the south access to the National Forest, with no tail on the way in. I hoped he missed me, and that it was annoying him. That thought gave me a measure of pleasure.
I noted that the Monarch Trail access lot was still closed. I drove past and parked at the Dells Trail access area. Just as before, I hiked on the Dells Trail, took the connector, and joined the Monarch Trail near the cliff. I climbed back up the slope and relocated my pyramid of rocks and the scuffed up ground where I suspected the man had run. I followed that path away from the cliff face and into the trees.
Since there wasn’t a trail through this area, the hiking was rough, pushing through branches, undergrowth, prickly bushes, and uneven ground. But regardless of terrain, I stayed due west by frequently checking against a small compass from my backpack. Occasionally, I saw disturbed ground or small broken branches. These traces soon disappeared, and then I was walking through apparently undisturbed territory.
There were occasional openings in the tree canopy so that a small arc of sky could be seen. The guy didn’t have a compass to steer a course, but he might have stayed on an eastward track by occasional glimpses of the stars or the sliver of moon that was visible in the sky that night. I assumed the Hispanic man had run an approximately straight path. I would stay on a straight path since not only did I have a compass, but the coordinates for Spring Valley were also programmed into the small GPS in my backpack. Technology, what a wonderful thing. Technology assured it was just a matter of time.
I hiked for three hours and finally sat on a downed tree to rest. While drinking water and chewing some of my snacks, I surveyed the surroundings. It was certainly a long way to Spring Valley. Measuring miles on a map is really not a good indication of distance out here. The actual distance was probably as much as twice as far with all the vertical terrain changes and the meanderings to avoid obstacles, such as downed trees.
Another hour of hiking brought me to a steep upward slope. I was still going west, and the GPS indicated I was close to my destination. This had to be the last climb before the valley. This slope had to be the wall surrounding it. So I climbed. Part way up the slope, I encountered three strands of new shiny barbed wire strung from tree to tree as far as I could see to the left and to the right. Spaced along the wire were small metal signs that read No Trespassing, Wilderness Area, Healing in Progress. These signs were identical to the one I’d seen on the road near the ranger station. I had arrived.
I ignored the sign, hopped over the wire, and continued climbing upward. The climb became very steep, just as the topographic map had indicated. It was also densely covered in vegetation. The branches of adjacent evergreen trees formed a tangled web that was difficult to penetrate. I thrashed through them. After several minutes of climbing upward, I was exhausted. I stopped to catch my breath, leaning up against a tree to avoid sliding back down the steep slope. I bent over, my breaths coming in loud gasping gulps. My breathing finally settled, and I convinced myself to keep climbing.
When I looked upward, more sunlight came filtering through the treetops, and some blue sky appeared. The top of the ridge was near. I noisily plowed through the underbrush, grabbing small tree trunks and sturdy bushes to pull myself upward. I only looked upward occasionally, keeping most of my focus on what I would grasp next and where my next footstep would be, slowly trudging upward.
I plowed into a barrier that yielded at first. Then it pushed me back downhill several feet. I heard a metallic echoing sound from above me. My progress had been stopped by a chain-link fence.