Chapter 22

Nero – Very Early Sunday Morning

The sun hadn't risen,and Rufus's porch light was still on. It was Magnus who opened the door before they could knock.

"You want to look through my old man's stack of newspapers? I've been trying to get him to recycle the damn things for years."

"I'm glad you didn't," Nero said. "It's possible they hold a clue as to why he's missing. Thanks for letting us come over."

"Not like I was sleeping. Too worried. Make yourself at home."

Forrest led the way inside. It wasn't as tidy as it had been earlier. A blanket was draped over the easy chair and a book sat open-faced on the end table next to it.

Nero set his backpack down on the coffee table and peeled off his jacket. "Where is his collection?"

"Last I knew, in the basement."

"Why does everyone around here store important documents in their basements? For fuck's sake, it floods all the damn time."

Not waiting for an answer, Nero headed for the kitchen and the door to the basement.

"It's a good thing we aren't in a horror movie," he called out as he flicked up the light switch and carefully made his way down the creaky wooden stairs.

The basement was exactly what he expected: the same size as the main floor, slightly musty and damp-smelling, but clean enough. Rufus's tidiness extended down there as well. Nero perused the metal shelves that held everything from two-person and four-person tents to gardening equipment—the quintessential Pacific Northwest weed whacker and several different rakes—to what looked like a homemade log-home play set. Nero wondered if it had been Magnus's as a child.

Eventually, he found the old newspapers.

"Holy moly."

Rufus hadn't been kidding when he said he'd saved them all. Nero estimated there had to be somewhere around two thousand. Rufus stored them in deep plastic containers with lids, but some of them must've gotten damp at some point; he could see old water damage through some of the clear boxes. It was impossible to keep things dry all the time in this environment.

The best part was that Rufus had marked each box with dates by year.

"Yessss," Nero whispered as he scanned for the dates they wanted.

They were easy to find only because the paper had ceased printing in the early 1990s. Dragging the correct box off the shelf, Nero carried it back up the stairs. Magnus and Forrest were still in the living room. They'd been talking but abruptly stopped as he entered the room.

Magnus looked pissed. Forrest looked guilty.

Nero wondered what they'd been talking about—him, probably—but he decided that, whatever it was, it wasn't something he needed to worry about.

"Found the right year. I hope anyway. This box appears to cover the issues published from 1978 to 1980. We may want to look in one of the earlier or later ones, but I thought we'd start here."

Forrest removed the lid and started to pick up the top paper.

"Oh, do I need gloves or anything?"

"No," Nero assured him. "Latex gloves are more harmful to old documents than the oils in human skin. And these aren't all that old anyway, plus they have some water damage already."

"What are you looking for?" Magnus asked, taking a few papers for himself.

"Any article that might mention who else decided to play pioneer with Dina and Witt Cooper."

"I have the idea this is the start of a very long day after an already long one yesterday. How about I make us a pot of coffee?" Magnus set the stack of papers down and ambled into Rufus's kitchen.

"Thanks, Magnus," said Nero, his focus already on the documents in front of him.

It took about an hour before Nero found any mention of the pioneers. He was seriously missing the modern search-and-find function; they had to scan every single page of every edition.

Similar to the article he'd found online in the Globe, this one said that the handfasted couple, Dina Paulson and Witt Cooper, were planning to live life as Mother Nature intended. As of the date of the article, they were expected to leave any day. The title of the article was "An Experiment in Human Ingenuity: Can we return to times of old?"

What utter horse shit.

"What does that even mean, as Mother Nature intended?" Nero demanded. "Sure, back before penicillin was discovered and the smallpox vaccine. I can't hardly wait."

Forrest came around to sit next to him and read the article.

"As far as I remember, it also meant cold and damp."

Magnus rattled the edition he was reading through. "Here's another one. It looks like Robert was doing a human-interest series on the group." He cleared his throat. "‘Hometown pioneers, Witt Cooper and Dina Paulsen, will be joined by Dale and Jane Lockwood from Timber, Oregon, and Karl and Brenda Fossen, who recently relocated from Hayden Lake, Idaho.' Christ, they make it sound like they were on a season of Survivor."

"Anything else?" Forrest asked.

"Hmm, let me see here. Blah, blah, just what they can grow and produce on their own. The heathier, natural, human way of life. In touch with Mother Earth. They sound out of touch more than anything. Oh, and here Dale mentions the Iron Man of the Hoh."

"Who?"

"John Huelsdonk, a real person. One of those one in a million people who defy any kind of bell curve. He was born in Europe, I think, and his family moved to the Midwest, but he ended up out here as a young man. Iron Man John. I haven't thought about him in years. He was incredible. He and his wife built a homestead in the Hoh rainforest and lived there for decades. I read that Dora Huelsdonk spent sixteen years out there and had four children before leaving the farm and traveling to Seattle for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909. She hated it and went back home."

"Magnus, this is scintillating information, but what's your point?"

Magnus scowled at Forrest's interruption. "Well, I just mean the Huelsdonks built a real farm out there, with chickens and cattle. Even grew vegetables. Iron Man John was a huge man. Even as an old man, he was strong enough to carry a fifty-pound bag of flour with one hand. He carried most of their supplies in himself and earned extra money packing for timber companies in his spare time. He firmly believed that the forest belonged to those who knew how to live in it. When the government started changing rules, he protested. I'm just thinking that these folks may have been influenced by his story, thinking they could best The Deep. But I don't think many people can. And a group of six seems like a recipe for disaster."

"Do either of you know Rufus's Wi-Fi password?" Nero interjected. He was fairly sure they would get sidetracked for hours if Magnus kept on about Iron Man John.

Magnus rattled off the password, very boring compared to Forrest's, and Nero logged on.

"What are you looking for?" Forrest asked.

"Are these modern pioneers still alive? Was this the last time any of them were seen? We already know there's been no sign of Dina or Witt."

Quickly, he typed the names of Witt and Dina's homesteader pals into the search bar. Unsurprisingly, there were no results. Nero didn't know what the women's birth names might have been. Alive, dead? They had no idea.

"Huh," said Forrest. "Here's an article about Kaylee Fernsby's disappearance."

"What does it say?"

"It's a photograph with her stats and a number to call. Not much else. It says here that she'd last been seen the week before. They took their time, didn't they?" He set the edition down and looked through the stack. "Ah, here." He plucked another out and waved it at Nero. "Front page news now. ‘Local Girl Found Dead.'"

"She was found outside of Zenith, right?"

Geographically, Zenith was the next closest town, if you could call it that, connected to Cooper Springs by an incredibly twisty road that doubled the distance between the population centers.

"Yeah, it says here she was found by someone walking their dog."

"It's always the dog walker," Nero muttered under his breath.

"This is a waste of our time," Magnus said, tossing the stack of papers to one side. "For whatever reasons, Pops must have been convinced there could be someone living up there. If he thought the bones were Dina's or Witt's all this time and wasn't bothered with that outcome—sorry, Forrest—he may now believe that one or both of them are alive and responsible for the girls' deaths."

"Or maybe he wants to prove to himself that there's no one up there," Nero offered.

"Magnus, you know better than anyone that just because Rufus didn't take a tent doesn't mean he's in trouble out there. He knows those woods better than anyone," Forrest reminded him.

"I can know it and not have to like it," Magnus said, standing so, presumably, he could pace around and continue to drive both Forrest and Nero to distraction. "I can't go up after him. Someone has to stay here."

"We don't all need to go. I'll do it," said Forrest, his mouth set in a grim line.

Nero tossed the pen he'd been fiddling with down onto the table where it landed with a clack.

"No single person is disappearing into those woods. I've seen the movie and read the book already. One by one, would-be rescuers will be picked off by an unseen monster until we are all doomed. There has to be a better plan."

"Fine," said Forrest. "You and I will go up together. Magnus will stay back and if we don't get back in a reasonable amount of time, he'll contact Chief Dear, Critter, and Mags."

* * *

"Why did I agree to this?"Nero muttered as a droplet of rain dripped down the bridge of his nose.

He knew why though. He'd agreed because he was worried about Rufus Ferguson and the very real concern that there likely was a dangerous human or humans living in the forest.

They'd stayed at Rufus's house pouring over his maps of the area for hours and had headed out just as the sky was beginning to lighten. After barely getting any sleep, Nero was a tad cranky. Nero liked his sleep. Magnus agreed to open the Donkey rather than stay in Rufus's house. Nero had argued that people might come to the pub with tips, and if Rufus returned and discovered they'd all disappeared, who knew what he might do. Magnus had left a note on Rufus's coffee table before they locked up.

"He'd think we were idiots," Magnus grumbled.

Nero had come up with the idea they should post on the town's Facebook page asking if there had been other sightings of the "creepy man" before the day Ned had been killed, and anyone who may have seen something was to contact Magnus.

"What am I doing with this information? The crackpots are going to seep out of the woodwork."

"This is why you're perfect for this," Nero had said. "You know everyone, Magnus. You'll know who is likely to be telling the truth and who might be embellishing or flat-out lying to get attention. Maybe no one saw anyone unusual, but I keep going back to that one comment I saw. So keep track of responses. Oh, and maybe reach out to them and see if we can get a more complete description."

"And if the two of you aren't back by dark?" Magnus had asked. "This scheme has horror movie written all over it."

"Do you have a better idea?" Forrest demanded.

Magnus had admitted that no, he did not.

* * *

They'd leftRufus's house before five a.m. and headed over to the trailhead. First light was around seven, but Forrest had wanted to get going sooner. He'd warned Nero that the hike was difficult and had made him look up the Staircase Trail on the other side of the mountain range so he'd have an idea of how hard it truly was.

Nero was determined not to let Rufus down. If he had hiked up this way after he'd last been seen, he'd been in the woods for too long.

"I feel a bit like the person who can't swim that jumps in the river to try and save a friend," Nero commented now. "Rufus is way more competent than we are."

"At least Magnus knows the route we're taking once we get up past Crook's Trail."

Forrest had texted his sister but not until the last minute.

"Lani's going to be pissed," Nero said, frowning.

"She couldn't come anyway. Her leg isn't fully healed."

Nero snorted. "You know that isn't why she's going to be furious."

"I know," Forrest admitted. "I'll apologize to her when we get back. I don't want to wait around and have to explain everything to her and Chief Dear. Time is of the essence and she and Dear will need to do everything by the book. We just need to find Rufus."

So, here Nero was, huffing and puffing his way up a wooded trail in the cold and rain. After surviving a car accident yesterday. The upside of the hike—if there was one—was that Forrest was in front so Nero got the pleasure of watching his strong form move ahead of him. Forrest may not like hiking into the woods but, to Nero at least, he seemed to know what he was doing.

"If I'm guessing right, we're close to where Nick and Martin found the bones in January," Forrest said, breaking into his thoughts.

Nero sped up a bit. He was interested in seeing the recovery site. But, he reminded himself, this foray into the woods was not about his podcast, this was about Rufus Ferguson, who, as far as they knew and hoped, was very much alive. Nero's thighs were already complaining about the burn as they slogged through several hairpin turns that were inexorably guiding them farther and farther up the mountain.

He was focusing on Forrest's shoulders again, trying to distract himself from his body's reminders that he did not do this sort of thing very often, when he imagined he'd heard something out of place. Something that didn't belong.

Daylight was doing its best to creep in through the soggy, moss-covered branches. There'd been a few bird calls but for the most part, the uphill slog had seemed remarkably silent. Almost as if flora and fauna were holding their breaths.

A bank of Oregon grape and wild rhododendron on the left side of the trail rustled, and the drops of rain that had managed to cling to the leaves fell with a splatter to the ground. Nero spun to face it, not sure what he was expecting to see. Maybe a Sasquatch? A guy could always hope.

"Vik," Rufus hissed quietly. It was Rufus's voice anyway.

Nero stopped walking and peered into the bushes for a moment before the face of Rufus Ferguson resolved into something that made sense to his brain. The older man was peering out from a seven-foot shrub. Forrest was still moving up the trail ahead of Nero.

"Rufus?" Nero whispered back. "We're looking for you," he said stupidly.

"Well, I'm right fucking here, aren't I? And you two idiots are walking right into danger. Get Forrest back here. Pretend you've just seen the largest banana slug in existence or even better, pretend you tripped and hurt yourself or something. Just do it now."

The expression on Rufus's face told Nero this was not the time for questions.

"Forrest," Nero called out. "I need a hand. I think I twisted my ankle."

He sat down on a fallen log and rubbed his leg to give proof to the lie.

About sixty feet ahead of where Nero waited, Forrest stopped walking and turned around to head back down the path.

"What happened?" he asked when he was closer.

Nero rubbed his thighs—they did hurt—and nodded in the direction of the man-height rhododendron.

"What?"

"Look closely and don't make loud noises. But also pretend like you're checking on me. Mostly because I'd like that."

Forrest did as Nero directed, kneeling and running his hand along Nero's thigh and shin without saying anything innuendo-ish—which went to show how anxious he was—while looking toward the bushes.

"Don't say anything. I'm fine," Rufus said. "You two need to get back down this mountain and into town. Just pretend like Vik can't make it any further. Do not ask why, just do it. Now."

Nero had never heard Rufus use a tone like that before and based on Forrest's expression, Nero guessed that he hadn't either.

Nodding, Forrest said, "Damn, Nero, you did a number on yourself. We're going to have to head back."

"I don't know what happened. I tripped and next thing I knew..." Nero stared down at his leg ruefully.

"Don't go overboard with the drama," Rufus said quietly. "Just get the hell off the mountain. I'll meet you at the pub. One hour. Do. Not. Argue."

"Let's get back to town," Forrest said, offering Nero a hand. "There's no point in making your injury worse. Can you put any weight on it at all?"

Nero let Forrest help him to his feet. "A little, but I won't be running any marathons for a while." As if he ever ran marathons.