Tyler nodded. “Okay, but listen, we need to stay on high alert. We check it so we can give accurate information to law enforcement. And then we all need to get out of this area as quickly as possible. If there’s a grizzly defending those kills, we’re all in danger.”
The woman seemed to process that, weighing her options. Trust them or run. Tyler saw the calculation happening behind her blue eyes.
“Look, I know you don’t know us,” he said. “But I’d like to think you know that if we were going to hurt you, we would’ve already done it instead of standing here talking. Let’s get this done. We all work together. We stay safe.”
The logic seemed to reach her. She lowered the bear spray—not putting it away but no longer pointing it at him.
“Okay,” she said. “But we need to be fast.”
“Agreed. Let’s keep talking. Loud voices. Make sure we don’t sneak up on anything out here.”
She led them through the trees, moving with the efficient stride of someone who was comfortable in the wilderness despite her obvious fear. Tyler followed, his senses on high alert.
Every sound in the forest suddenly felt threatening. Every shift in the wind made him tense.
He, Sue, and Robert kept up a steady stream of words. He wanted to include the woman, but it wasn’t a true conversation, just noise to alert a bear they were there. If a bear was defending a cache, it wouldn’t matter much. But if one were strolling along, it might make them keep moving away from the group.
The smell hit first. Not overwhelming, but present. Death and decay, unmistakable.
His stomach tightened.
Then he saw it. The mound of disturbed earth. The bright blue fabric. A high-heeled shoe with a pale leg still inside it.
“There,” the woman whispered. “And there’s another one. I fell onto it.”
Tyler moved closer, careful to watch his step. The caches were exactly as she had described, mounds of dirt and forest debris covering most of the bodies. One revealed a leg, the other a hand with painted nails, some torn off. The caches looked fresh, and the covering was methodical, the way bears hid meat to save for later.
His stomach turned, but he forced himself to look, to assess. Females, obviously. The faces were covered. There was about ten feet between the caches. And bear prints were everywhere, scat along the edges of the small clearing. Staying there was dangerous. Too dangerous.
Sue stepped closer to the second cache. “I don’t think it’s a second body. I think...this is only an arm. Part of the first body.”
“We need to go. Now,” Tyler said quietly. “Robert, can you add another marker? Make sure officials can find it.”
The woman was already moving, putting distance between herself and the bodies.
“Go with her,” Tyler said to Sue. She nodded and followed.
As soon as Robert had a piece of his own paracord in place, they followed the women. He was impressed to see they’d stopped ahead and were tying an additional marker into place.
“It’s about two miles back to the cars,” Robert said, his voice steady but tense.
“Right,” Tyler replied. He turned to the woman. “Are you parked at the main trailhead?”
“Yes.”
“You driving the blue SUV?” he asked.
“Why?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Just . . . I saw it when we pulled up.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. “That’s mine.”
“We’ll stick together until we get back to the cars.”
They started moving back toward the main trail, with Sue leading the way. The woman followed, then Tyler. Robert was at the rear of the group, paracord and small knife still in hand to mark the trail along the way. It probably wasn’t necessary on the main trail, but they didn’t want there to be any issues with finding the body. Tyler gave an involuntary shudder.
Even though he was familiar with death, he’d never seen anything like this. And Sue’s suggestion that it was one body in two caches added to the grossness of it.