Cold Fear Read Free Page B

to the
station’s huge park map, which covered one of the varnished pine walls. He
tried pinpointing the spot where the Bakers were camping.
    It was a star in the universe of Glacier National
Park, which contained over seven hundred miles of trails and elevated climbs
that webbed through one million acres of glaciers, lakes, forests and mountains
some sixty million years old that joined Canada’s Waterton Lakes
National Park forming the International Peace Park.
    The Bakers were camping in the Devil’s Grasp section of
northern Montana, deep along the new Grizzly Tooth Trail. Mac knew this was
bad. Grizzly Tooth was the most isolated region of Glacier. It just opened this
season. Few people knew of it. According to backcountry permits, less than a
dozen visitors were in there.
    Like most of the mountain country, it is subject to
radical weather because of the elevation climbs, some nine thousand feet. Many
areas had loose rock and were active bear- feeding zones. This is where they trained
park staff. But all members were not yet familiar with every part of Grizzly.
Nineteen miles of rugged, inspiring terrain, curling into Canada.
    Mac swallowed. Twenty-four hours gone already. This was
bad. Why would this family go in there? It’s such a challenge. Grizzly was not
the place for a ten-year-old city girl with no wilderness experience.
Especially now. It did not help that it had rained steadily in that area last
night. The long-range weather forecast was not good. And with her dog. Pets attracted
bears. Not good. Mac forced himself to maintain his professional calm.
    “Better tell Dispatch to alert Waterton on the Canadian
side about a lost girl deep along Grizzly. We’ll send them more details when we
have them.”
    Mac got Doug a coffee and a ham sandwich, insisting he
rest during the short time they had.
    “Got a chopper coming! ETA twenty minutes,” Sally said,
then answered a call. “Mac, it’s Brady Brook and he’s with Pike Thornton, who
wants to talk to you.” Thornton was the most senior level 1 law enforcement
ranger. Not long after the call, the station began vibrating as a helicopter
approached.
    “Doug, we’re flying out now.” Mac raised his voice, “Our
Search and Rescue people urge us to start setting up for a search now.”
    The earth dropped slowly under Doug’s feet, adrenaline
coursing through his body as the Bell helicopter ascended from the Devil’s
Grasp ranger station, its blades swooshing.
    In seconds, the cabin shrunk and then vanished as the
chopper banked and climbed over an eternity of mountain ranges, forests,
rivers, lakes and glaciers. Doug’s stomach fluttered as they glided over
foothills, dipped into basins. Staring at his blood-scabbed hand, exhaustion
and fear worked on his mind. The marine warrior. Gulf War and Somalia
veteran. The hard-ass high school football coach who enjoyed the challenge of
teaching Hemingway and Faulkner to wired teens.
    The luckiest man in the world to be married to a dream
named Emily: eyes the color of deep mountain lakes, with hair the shade of
honey, which she often wore in a soft bun. He loved how strands escaped when
she was engrossed in her photography. Loved how she looked in those white
painter’s pants and cotton tops that she wore. Loved how fast she could slip
out of them.
    Emily was a smart, big-hearted woman whose smile put the
sun in his sky. He could still picture her glowing the day Paige was born.
God’s gift to them. Daddy’s little girl. Happy again, popping the champagne
cork in the living room of the small three-storey Edwardian they had snagged
for a bargain in outer Richmond. Adopting Kobee from a neighbor’s litter.
Building a good life together. And it seemed they were so close to putting
Emily’s troubles to rest. Doug took in the snowcapped Rockies, the dark green
ocean of forest blurring below as if it was all passing before him. All
slipping away.
    Paige could be anywhere down there.
    The helicopter slowed and