Page 96 of The Holiday Fakers
“Lucky,” Walter replies. “That’s what Billy called her. She’s a golden retriever puppy, about seven months old.”
“Jesus Christ,” Brody mutters, then looks at me. “It’s the kid from the library this morning.”
“Why would he come this way?” Dad asks as Mom relays what happened to the people Dad called over.
“In the summer, I started teaching him how to track animals. We went on the trails through the reserve, so I guess he thought he’d see what he could find in the snow.”
Ethan’s on the phone. “Yes, I’d like to report a missing child. Let me give you to his grandpa.” He passes the phone to Walter. “The signal isn’t great.”
Dad addresses Ethan. “Round up anyone dressed for the weather, and we’ll start searching now.”
Ethan gives him a grim nod, then hands Martha to Mom.
“Daddy?” she asks him, a frown puckering her forehead.
He kisses her. “It’s gonna be okay, sweetie, but I need you to stay with Grandma right now. Can you do that for me?”
She nods, and he sprints away.
“It’s my fault,” Brody mutters under his breath.
I draw him aside. “How on earth do you figure that?”
“That damn book. We were talking about how to track down a yeti.”
“Brody, that’s crazy. You cannot take responsibility for this!”
He looks around the snowy landscape, then up at the wintry sky. The snow is falling faster now, and I’m trying not to panic.
“I’m just going to check something out,” he says, then sprints off in the opposite direction of the main trails, toward the steep slope of the mountain.
In the next few minutes, Ethan and Dad have a plan in place. The police, Warden Service, and the fire department are on their way, along with the volunteer search and rescue team that Ethan helps with when he’s not on duty. People have also been sent to fetch Billy’s parents.
But they don’t want to waste time waiting for the services, so Ethan organizes a line search. He’s giving people their positions when Brody runs back and straight up to him.
“I don’t think they went on the trails,” he says. “I think they went that way, up the mountain.”
“He wouldn’t have done that,” Walter says. “We always stick to the trails.”
“Ethan,” Brody pleads. “Just let me show you something.”
Ethan hesitates, then faces the group assembled around him. “Set off now, and I’ll follow as soon as I can.”
He gives Brody a nod, and they run off in the opposite direction. I follow, even though I’m so much slower than the two of them, and we head into the tree line to the edge of a gorge.
It’s not deep, maybe twenty-five feet, but the sides are steep, and you wouldn’t want to fall down them. The area was always strictly off-limits to us kids when we were growing up, and not many people trek through it.
“Look,” Brody says to Ethan as I arrive. “He could have gone this way.”
A large tree has fallen, creating a bridge across the gorge, but it’s not straightforward. The side we’re on involves a climb up the tangled root structure to the trunk, and the other end is a mess of snow-covered branches.
“Why?” Ethan asks, his tone clipped. “He’s seven. It’s far too high and difficult for him to get up there, let alone across safely. There’s no way he’d have gone this way.”
“But if you cross to the other side, there’s a cave up on the mountain.”
“And?”
“Billy’s trying to find a yeti, and yetis live in caves.”
