CHAPTER 18

"it's Seven A.M., and this is Sugarloaf Sam, greeting the morning and lifting your spirits from now until ten! It's a cold morning in the Sugarloaf Valley, and promising to get colder before It gets warmer Good news for the skiers, bad news for the farmers, but as Honest Abe Lincohl used to say, you can please some of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, and none of the people some of the time. right, so that's not what he said, but you know what I mean! You know what I mean! And here we go with the first cut of the day!"

Sam hit the play button on the console in front of him, and the Montovani Strings began playing "Summe@,,, which struck Sam as absolutely appropriate for the unseasonably cold September morning. It was his station-all five watts of it and if the audience didn't like it, that was their problem, not his. He swiveled around on the chair that took up nearly all the available floor space 'in the one room studio, and began checking over the list of 66guest hosts" his tiny radio station would be broadcasting that day. Arne Svenson was coming in for an hour starting at ten, to talk about getting cars ready for winter.

Nearly everyone in town would be waiting for that one. Though Arne had been running Sugarloaf's only gas station for nearly @ years, his Swedish accent was still so thick as to make what he said nearly unintelligible, so he always brought his wife, Naomi, along to translate, and Naomi never failed to communicate everything Arne said.

By the end of the hour they would appear to be On the verge Of divorce, and then Arne would grab the mike. ,Yust bring da car in!" he'd IxUow.

"I do it all for nutting!"

The rest of the day would be much the same, for Sam Gilman let pretty much anyone who had something he wanted to talk about come in and take over the mike for an hour or so. On days when no one wanted to talk, there were plenty of tapes for him to play. In a pinch, he had a few tapes that could run up to eight hours, and no one would ever be the wiser. But the kind of programming he loved best was the sort of unpredictability he got by inviting the townspeople to come in and unburden themselves. As long as what they had to say wasn't obscene or patently offensive to any particular minority (Sain's policy allowed for pretty much any kind of offensiveness to an individual, Sam liked people to speak their minds whether they agreed with him or not. Indeed, he had taken to running the disclaimer announcement stating that the opinions of the speaker did not necessarily reflect those of the station or its owner, even when he himself was on the air. When asked about that little ploy, he always replied that he often found himself in violent disagreement with his own thoughts, and was merely protecting himself from the possibility of "suing his own ass from here to Boise." Sam Gilman's methods of running his station hadn't made him much of a profit, but they certainly kept the town tuned in.

Thus, when Sam swung around on his chair and saw Milt Morgenstern, his eyes red, peering through the glass panel in the tiny studio's door, he immediately sensed that Milt had something he felt was too hot to hold for the next edition of the paper, which wouldn't come out until tomorrow. He waved the editor and publisher in, grinning mischievously.

"You know, you and I could set up a media cartel around here, if we wanted to. Between us, we could have absolute mind control over this town. If we set our minds to it, we could probably elect a moose as mayor."

Milt failed to respond to Sam's attempt at humor, and the broadcaster's grin faded. "Something going on, Milt?"

"We've got another killing," Milt told him. "And something's not looking right, and not smelling right."

The last traces of Sam Gilman's grin disappeared. "You mean it's the same as the one up at the campground?" he asked, slipping one of his tapes into the second player and pressing the start button just as the last chords of "Summertime" faded away.

"You got it," the editor replied. While the tape began to play, he told Sam what had happened the night before, from the moment he'd heard Rick Martin start organizing a search party until the deputy, together with Olivia Sherborne, had returned to El Monte Ranch with the report of Bill Sikes's death. "The thing that really bothers me is that he didn't want me to go up there." Morgenstem's eyes hardened as they met Sam Gilman's.

"I mean, he didn't want me at the ranch, he didn't want me to go along when they went out searching for Joey Wilkenson, and he sure didn't want me going up to take a look at the body."

Gilman's lips curved into a knowing smile. "Which I assume means that you went up there anyway."

"I couldn't," Morgenstern replied. "The son of a bitch wouldn't even tell me where it was."

"So what do you think's going on?" Sam asked, already sensing a major story brewing, one that could keep the phone lines ringing all day and get every radio in town tuned to his station as the news began to spread. "How come Martin's playing it so coy?"

"Have you seen the pictures of the man who was killed up there?"

Morgenstern asked pointedly. When Gilman shook his head, the editor reached into the inside pocket of the heavily lined Gortex jacket he'd worn against the unseasonable cold and pulled out three photographs.

"What do you think might have done that?" he asked as he handed them to Sam Gilman.

Gilman felt a touch of nausea as he studied the pictures, quickly returning them to Morgenstern. "I don't even want to think about it."

"Well, the lab in Boise doesn't know," Morgenstern replied. "I called them yesterday afternoon, and a guy named Hank Henry got real cute with me. So I called back, pretending to @' He hesitated, catching himself just before blurting out the truth that he'd impersonated the county sheriff. "Let's just say I got some information." He paused, building the drama of the moment. "They don't know what killed him, Sam. They say it wasn't human, and it wasn't any kind of animal they can identify."

Sam Gilman felt a thrill of excitement. "You ready to go on the air with that?" he asked.

"Why do you think I'm here?" Morgenstern replied.

Squeezing an extra stool into the tiny studio, Sam Gilman handed Milt Morgenstern a set of headphones, checked the sound level on the microphone his guest would use, then cheerfully cut into the still-playing tape in the middle of Barbra Streisand's nasal wailing of "Memory."

"We seem to have a major problem here in Sugarloaf," he announced, carefully pitching his voice to its most sonorous level. "Milt Morgenstern just came in, and I'm going to let him tell you about it."

He nodded to the editor, who leaned closer to the microphone.

"Bill Sikes, the caretaker of El Monte Ranch, and a man I always called a friend, was killed last night, apparently the latest victim of whatever it was that killed a camper in Coyote Creek Campground on Monday night."

"You say 'whatever it was,' Mil@" Sam Gilman smoothly interrupted. "Does that mean there's some question about what might be up there?"

The editor's lips curved into a tight smile as he lit the fuse to his bombshell. "I'd say there definitely is, Sam," he replied. "All I can tell you is that we know it's not human, and it's not any kind of animal any of us have ever seen.

In fact, from what I've been told by sources in Boise, it's not any kind of animal they can even identify. All they can say is what it's not. And it's not a bear, or a mountain lion, or anything else we normally think of as being in our mountains. But it's very large, and very strong, and very vicious."

To the satisfaction of both men, the term "Sasquatch" came up in the very first phone call. Within minutes all three lines coming into the studio had lit up. By saying as little as possible, and emphasizing Rick Martin's refusal to talk to Morgenstern, Sam Gilman and Milt Morgenstern quickly fanned the small spark of mystery supplied by the crime lab in Boise into a full-fledged panic.

MaryAnne Carpenter's bones were starting to ache from exhaustion. Nearly overcome by weariness, she nevertheless refused to surrender.

Not until Joey comes home, she whispered silently to herself as she began preparing yet another of the many pots of coffee she and Gillie Martin had brewed throughout the night.

It had become almost a mantra, which she endlessly repeated to herself as her eyes, puffy now from lack of sleep, began to sting, and her arms and legs began to feel oddly numb.

I won't go to bed-not until Joey comes home.

Sometime around three that morning, still in the throes of shock at the news of Bill Sikes's death, she'd made up her mind that tomorrow-perhaps even tonight, if the search party found Joey-she would pack up the children and drive to Boise to catch the first plane back to New Jersey.

Better to go back@ven back to Alan-than to try to cope with the honors of what was happening here. Finally, as dawn broke in Idaho, knowing that Alan would be waking up anyway, she'd picked up the phone and called him.

She'd listened numbly when, instead of hearing Alan's voice, she'd heard a woman's voice. A wrong number, she thought; I must have misdialed. But something compelled her to ask for Alan. "He's asleep," she was told.

Then: "Who is this?" She'd stared mutely at the phone for a moment, finally hanging up without saying anything more. So he'd moved someone in, and now she no longer had a home to go back to!

The hours had worn agonizingly on, with only occasional word from Rick Martin through the extra radio Gillie had brought in from the squad car.

MaryAnne had felt fatigue bearing down on her like a physical weight, slowing her step, making it harder and harder to keep moving around the kitchen, fixing the sandwiches the searchers seven of them now-used to fuel their stores of energy.

If they can do it, I can do it, she kept telling herself.

At six-@ she'd gone upstairs to awaken the children.

Alison was already up and dressed. "I didn't sleep very well," she admitted, and from the look of her daughter's reddened eyes, MaryAnne was fairly certain she hadn't slept at all.

Logan's first words when MaryAnne woke him up were to ask if Joey was back, and when MaryAnne shook her head, Logan had voiced the question that MaryAnne had refused to think about all night: "Is he dead?"

"No," MaryAnne had replied instantly, knowing even as she spoke the word that the wish was farther to the thought.

And yet she knew, deep down inside her, that somewhere up in the mountains, Joey was still alive.

But how had he managed to elude Frank Peters's hounds?

It was as if Joey had vanished from the Mountainside, disappearing like a wraith into the night.

Now both the children were at the lutchen table, wolfing down the pancakes Gillie Martin had fixed for them, and MaryAnne was counting scoops of coffee into the basket at the top of the enormous restaurant-sized percolator she had found on the top shelf of the pantry behind the kitchen. She had just measured the last scoop when a flicker of movement far across the field caught her eye, and her pulse began to race.

Joey!

It had to be Joey!

She hurried to the back door, jerking it open, expecting to see the boy running across the field, only as she stepped out into the yard that what she'd seen wasn't Joey at all.

It was Storm, standing at the edge of the forest.

MaryAnne called out to him, but instead of breaking into a run toward her, the dog turned and disappeared back into the trees.

Joey! she thought. He had to be with Storm had to be! Surely the dog wouldn't leave his master in the middle of the wilderness. Wheeling around, she dashed back into the house. "How long before Rick gets back here?" she asked Gillie Martin.

"Maybe ten minutes," Gillie replied, staring in puzzlement at MaryAnne.

"He said@'

"Let me have the radio," MaryAnne cut in. "Show me how to work it, and stay with the kids." She began to shove her arms into the sleeves of the jacket that had been hanging by the back door.

"Where are you goingt' Gillie asked, alarmed.

"Storm is out there," MaryAnne told her. "He's in the woods on the other side of the field. Joey must be there, too! Don't you see? Storm wouldn't come back without Gillie Martin was about to argue with her, to urge her to wait until Rick got back, but even before she spoke, she realized that if she were in MaryAnne's place, she would do exactly what the other woman was doing. She picked up the small radio, handing it to MaryAnne. "All you have to do is press the button on the side and speak into the niike.

It's already set on the same frequency as Rick's radio. But be careful what you say," she cautioned as MaryAnne started out the door. "Quite a few people in town have scanners, and every one of them will be listening in."

As MaryAnne started purposefully across the yard, Gillie closed the door and turned to Alison and Logan, who were still sitting at the table, worriedly watching through the window as their mother ran across the yard. "It's going to be all right," she assured them, sounding a lot more confident than she felt. Though she said nothing to the children, she was almost certain that if Storm led MaryAnne to anything at all, it would not be to Joey.

In all likelihood, the best MaryAnne could hope to find would be the boy's dead body.

MaryAnne climbed over the fence, terrified that by the time she got to the woods, Storm would be gone, vanishing into the trees long before she could catch up. Still, the thrill of at last being able to take an active part in the search for Joey caused a rush of adrenaline to surge through her blood, washing away the exhaustion and giving her a burst of energy that allowed her to break into a run. She was three-quarters of the way across the field when she spotted the shepherd again, barely visible in the bushes, pacing nervously as he watched her. As soon as she caught up with him, he started off again, moving quickly up a trail that wound through the trees, but pausing every few seconds to look back at her as if making certain she was still following.

They came to a fork in the trail, and Storm bore to the right. As MaryAnne started after him, she realized where this trail led.

The great cliff from which Audrey Wilkenson had fallen to her death.

Could it be where Joey had gone?

Could he have spent the entire night up there, somehow needing to be close to his mother, and going to the last place she had been when she was still alive? MaryAnne's pulse quickened with the possibility that she might yet find him.

She pushed herself harder, barely feeling the steepness of the climb as the trail steepened.

Then, at last, she was at the top. As she stepped out onto the broad, flat area of bare rock between the edge of the forest and the vertical drop to the valley below, her heart began to race again.

He was sitting at the very edge of the cliff, his back toward her. It looked as if his knees were drawn up against his chest, and some kind of fur blanket was wrapped around him.

Storm, whimpering, had moved close to Joey, trying to lick at the boy's face, but Joey seemed oblivious to the dog's presence as he stared out at the valley that stretched away far below.

Something inside MaryAnne warned her not to call out to him, not to startle him in any way.

She started toward him, moving quietly, finally coming up beside him and dropping down to sit next to him. Still saying nothing, she slipped her arm around him and pulled him close. For a moment he seemed to resist, but then let himself go, his head dropping to her bosom.

"Are you all right?" MaryAnne asked, feeling no anger at all toward the lonely figure she had come upon less than a minute ago.

Joey then shook his head. "No," he whispered, his voice barely audible.

"I'm not all right at all, Aunt MaryAnne. I'm scared. I-I wanted to die."

A wave of pity for her tortured godson broke over MaryAnne, and she felt tears well in her eyes. She pulled him closer. "I'm very glad you didn't die," she told him.

"We've all been very worried about you."

Joey said nothing for a long time. Then, in a tiny voice, sounding as if it were coming from a great distance away, he said, "I bet Alison wasn't worried. I bet she hates me."

"Nobody hates you," MaryAnne told him. "Nobody at all."

"But I tried to hurt her," Joey wailed. "Something awful happened to me, and He fell silent for a moment, unable to finish. Then he spoke again: "Aunt MaryAnne, am I crazy? Is that what's wrong with me?" He began sobbing.

"I didn't mean to hurt Alison," he wailed. "I really didn't!

I just couldn't stop! A-And now Bill Sikes is dead, andand-Aunt MaryAnne, what's going to happen to me?"

MaryAnne held Joey in her arms, gently stroking his head with the fingers of one hand. "It's going to be all right," she told him, as if crooning to a baby. "I'm here, and you're safe, and everything's going to be all right. You didn't hurt Alison at all, and whatever happened to Bill Sikes couldn't have been your fault."

"But-But I don't remember!" Joey sobbed. "I don't remember anything until I woke up, and I was all by myself, and . . ." He went on, babbling almost incoherently, and though she tried to follow what he was saying, none of it made any sense to her. But slowly she realized that he hadn't been here all night, that he'd slept somewhere far up in the mountains, and that when he awoke, he'd been in a bed in a cabin, wrapped in the blanket that was now all he wore.

And when he'd come up here, just after dawn this morning, it had been his intention to kill himself.

"But you didn't do that," she told him as she finally helped him to his feet. "Instead, you waited for help to come. And that proves to me that you're not crazy."

Joey looked up at her, his wide brown eyes frightened.

"Are you going to send me away?" he asked. "Am I going to have to go to a hospital?"

MaryAnne rested her hand reassuringly on his cheek, but couldn't bring herself to make any promises she might not be able to keep. "Let's not worry about that right now," she said. "Let's just get you back home, where you belong."

With Storm leading the way, they started back down the mountain, neither of them saying a word.