Page 48 of Dead Mountain

“He looked sincere to me,” Gardiner said.

“Sincere?” Wright cried. “I’ve been waiting fifteen years for the truth and now I’m done. We all asked questions, wrote letters, got some petitions going. And God knows we answered all their questions, so many questions—over and over. And for what? Nothing. And now it’s starting up again. Maybe all along, we’ve just been as meek as a bunch of frigging sheep. We meet like it’s some annual holiday, eat casserole, sing kumbaya . . . Well, guess what: that’s what they’re counting on. And now: coming back again fifteen years later, asking the same questions over again, evading any meaningful answers . . . Jesus H. Christ!”

“You think they’re covering something up?” Gardiner asked.

Wright stared at him. “Hell, yes.”

There was startled silence. But then whispers of assent began rising from around the room.

“What really happened to my boy?” Wright looked around. “What happened to all our kids? The fact is, what we’ve heard about their deaths makes no sense—undressed, radioactive, eyes missing, crushed, knife wounds—and the FBI won’t even give us the first clue as to what really killed our children! I’ve waited for fifteen years, but what I heard from the government today . . . well, I’m not going to just keep eating the shit they’re shoveling us. I’m going to get to the bottom of this—I swear to God.”

For a moment, the background chatter ceased. And then Doris Hightower said, “He’s right.”

“We need answers, not evasions,” said Ray Martinez.

“I’ve tried to move on, but I can’t. It just feels wrong—and, to be honest, it always has!” This was from Terry Van Gelder, who just a couple of nights before had been a voice of reason. “I’m tired of being brushed aside. Something’s been fishy for a long time—and I think what happened today only proves it. We’ve just never had the guts to face the truth. The problem isn’t just our personal tragedies—the real problem is the contemptuous disregard for our right to hear the truth!”

The discussion grew in volume, everyone speaking at once, until Melody Ann raised her hands again. When silence finally fell, she looked around and spoke, quietly for a change.

“Nobody’s going to help us,” she said. “You all understand that, right? We’re on our own. We need to find out what they’re trying to bury—and expose them. This is what we owe our children. We, and only we, can do this. I’m with Cosmo. Are we all in this together? The Manzano Families Memorial Association has a new mission now, one we should always have put at the forefront: to learn the truth. So who’ll join us? Raise your hands!”

All was quiet. A hand went up, and another, and soon they were all up, except Gardiner’s. He looked around and, finally, raised his as well, feeling a flush of emotion as he thought of his son Henry, half-naked, terrified, and freezing to death in a blizzard. And as his eyes misted over with tears, he could still make out Melody Ann O’Connell standing in the middle of the circle, somehow looking less and less like a bereaved parent—and more like a triumphant general.

26

THE MONUMENT MARKING the site of the Dead Mountain tent was a mile walk from a Forest Service road that ended at the edge of the Manzano Wilderness. Nora had parked at the small turnaround and exited the Institute vehicle with Stan Morrison. The well-traveled trail to the site ran northward along a high, alpine ridgeline, with spectacular views looking east over the New Mexico plains and west across the Rio Grande Valley. It was a gray, windy day, with snow forecast in the afternoon. Nora was anxious to get to the tent site before the snow began to fall. Most of the snow from the previous storm had melted, creating a window for her to do the survey of the tent site she’d promised Corrie. But up here, the weather could turn ugly in a flash—given the altitude and the mountainous terrain, not even Skip would think of riding a snowmobile in this remote spot.

Thinking of Corrie reminded her of why she was doing this survey in the first place, which in turn reminded her of Skip and the fix he was in. As much as she respected and even liked Corrie, it seemed like every time she did the FBI agent a little favor, it drew her into a gigantic mess. She closed her eyes and exhaled deeply, trying to rid herself of these distractions. But this time the mess was with her brother, and that made it worse. She’d tried so hard for many years to keep him out of trouble, and now this.

The trail to the monument circled just below the crest of Shaggy Peak, a barren knob of broken granite. It had lately seen traffic, no doubt a result of the fresh news on the case. Stan trailed behind Nora, humming as was his wont. It was one of his characteristics, or maybe quirks, that Nora had learned to live with. Stan would hum songs from the Great American Songbook under his breath, but what came out was more a series of grunts and quavers, with many of the notes left out or wrong. Nora usually tried to tune it out, but on occasion she found herself attempting to identify what song he was endeavoring to hum, or quaver, or whatever.

On the far side of the peak, where the shoulder of the mountain temporarily leveled out, stood a cairn of cemented stones ten feet high. A bronze plaque set into it recorded the grim event, and around the base were scattered the remains of various offerings, from withered flowers to beads and semiprecious stones, along with a large miscellany of other items: a glass Buddha, a string of jingle bells, coins, keys and locks, and other weird offerings of uncertain meaning.

Nora looked at the site in dismay. Time, weather, and curious visitors had spread the offerings everywhere.

“Some archaeological site,” she said.

“How are we supposed to distinguish all this stuff from artifacts left by the hikers?” Stan asked.

Nora looked at him. “We can’t.”

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

She slid off her pack and took a turn around the monument, taking photographs. Then she paused to read the plaque:

On this site, on the evening of October 31, 2008, nine hikers from the New Mexico Institute of Technology set up camp. That night, a tragedy of an unknown nature drove all nine expedition members from their tent and into a blizzard, where they perished. This monument was erected by the Manzano Families Memorial Association in July of 2010 to honor the memory of those who lost their lives:

HENRY GARDINER

LUKE HIGHTOWER

ANDREW MARCHENKO

LYNN MARTINEZ

MICHAEL MASTRELANO

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