Page 47 of Dead Mountain

That wasn’t the main reason it was formed—and this woman wouldn’t know anyway. But Gardiner held his tongue. He looked at Cosmo, Cassy’s husband. He was sitting very still, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

“Why don’t you tell the group what else the FBI said?” Melody Ann urged.

Another silence.

“Did they, for example, tell you anything else that might give you closure?”

“They told me Gordy appeared to have been involved in a knife attack,” the woman blurted out, twisting the tissue around and around her finger. “A knife fight with the other person in the cave. They wouldn’t know for sure until they did the autopsy.”

This time, the gasps circling the room were far more audible.

“Did they tell you who he was found with? Who that other person was?”

Cassy dropped her head. “They refused. They said it was confidential.”

“We all know the reports spoke of two bodies. And yet they refused to tell you who else was found?”

Cassy Wright simply shook her head, breaking into tears.

Melody Ann rose again to her full height, then turned away to face the rest of the group. “I can’t speak for the rest of you,” she said, her voice trembling now, “but when I got that call from Cassy, I didn’t know what was more awful: her loss . . . or our not hearing about Rodney!”

More gasps, followed by a murmur.

“A week ago, three of our children were missing. Now, it seems, two have been found. I called the FBI. They refused to tell me if Rod was one of them. They wouldn’t tell me anything. Anything!”

She stopped, and the murmuring ceased.

“God help me, but, when they refused to tell me if my boy was one of the bodies . . . I couldn’t help myself. I called Paul.”

Gardiner froze, willing himself not to look at Paul Tolland, sitting directly beside him.

“I asked him if he’d had a visit today.” She swiveled toward Tolland, as if willing him to speak. “Paul, do you want to tell the group about that visit?”

By now, the rest of the room had turned their gazes to him as well.

“It seems,” said Tolland, “that my son was the other body they found in the cave.”

Another outpouring of sympathy began, but Melody Ann stilled it by raising her hands. “Here’s what we know so far. The FBI visited Paul and the Wrights earlier in the day. Two agents, a man and a woman—that same young woman, it seems, who refused to answer media questions outside the FBI office. And . . . well, I’ll respect Paul’s privacy in the matter, of course . . . but they told him basically what they told Cassy. That his son had been found. Under the same conditions: vague talk about violence, a knife fight—God knows what. In other words, they drove all the way from Albuquerque to tell him more riddles—but they refused to come out and give him the cause of death! Meanwhile, two other agents disrupted the peace of Terry and the Marchenkos, asking yet again the same questions they’d asked fifteen years ago. What I want to know is, What about Rod? My boy? Why can’t they find him? But nothing. Nothing! You want to know the saddest thing? The answers are right on the internet, for anyone to see—and the feds are just hoping we’re too stupid to see them.”

“What answers?” somebody asked.

“Oh my God!” Melody Ann said in disbelief. “Half a dozen of the theories I’ve studied—maybe more—fit all the facts. But for my money, our kids were victims of the Boston Project.”

“The what?” Ray Martinez asked.

“The Boston Project. It was started back in the fifties, like so many other lame-brained government initiatives. They wanted to create super-soldiers that could fight, and conquer, in the third world war they assumed would break out at any moment. They tried a lot of different things—including crossing humans with Yetis.”

“Crossing humans? You mean . . .” The voice faded as the implication, and perhaps a mental image, apparently became clear.

“There used to be Yeti sightings all the time in the mountains,” Melody Ann said. “Why do you suppose they stopped? The ones still left are up there at Kirtland, waiting to be put out to stud. Now: Do you really think the authorities are going to admit to that?”

Gardiner couldn’t stand it any longer. He took a deep breath. “We’ve all heard our share of speculations. Once the authorities know something for sure, they’ll tell us.”

“Will they?” It was Cosmo Wright. Up until now he’d remained silent, head turned away. But now he was looking at Gardiner, eyes like coals. “Easy for you to say. You put it all behind you fifteen years ago. Well, we didn’t have that luxury. We’ve been waiting fifteen years without knowing.”

His voice was loud, uneven. “Cosmo,” Gardiner began again, “that’s not what I’m saying. I know what you’re going through—I’ve been there too, even if it was years ago. But after all this time, shouldn’t it be . . . well, more of a consolation than anything else?”

“Maybe that’s enough for you!” Cosmo said, almost shouting now. “You had someone to bury. But we had nothing, waiting for the FBI to do something, anything, promising us the truth but never delivering. Oh, that Agent Gold put on a show, didn’t he? All the promises he made.”

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