Monster by Frank Peretti

noted,” Mills finally said. “Sing, take Reed’s camera over to Marsha in the command vehicle. See if she can download those shots of Beck and print ’em up.”
    Sing got to her feet, as if eager to do something, anything. “And then can we please get up there?”
    Mills looked at his watch. “Pete said he’d be about ten minutes.”
    Cap started to say, “We don’t have ten—” when tires growled on the gravel.
    An older brown pickup with a rumbling muffler pulled in and nosed up against the building four vehicles down. The fellow who got out looked as though he’d already been in the woods most of his life and would be out of place anywhere else. He was dressed in tired jeans, a frayed leather coat, and a drooping, wide-brimmed hat with a rattlesnake skin for a hatband. He may have had a haircut three or four months ago but obviously hadn’t thought much about it since then.
    “Ah,” said Mills, “there he is.”
    Pete Henderson, search manager and tracker, was already sizing up the situation when Mills met him in the center of the parking lot. “Huh. Jimmy’s here,” Pete said, “so it was a bear. You’re here, so somebody’s dead. You’ve got me and my searchers here, so you can’t find whoever it is.”
    “Come on.” As they crossed the parking lot, Mills gave Pete an abridged version of Reed’s account.
    “You are kidding me—Reed said that?”
    “Let’s hope his head starts to clear up.”
    They walked quietly, unobtrusively, up to where Jimmy was finishing up with Reed. The conservation officer sat on the edge of the porch, pen and notepad in his hands, questioning, almost grilling Reed in his eagerness to get the information and get going. His conservation officer’s uniform spoke well of his manner, meant for the wilderness, not the town or city; no creased trousers with a stripe, but tough, forest-green Levi’s; no spit-polished shoes, but oiled boots for slogging through rough and often muddy terrain; his gray shirt had a shoulder insignia, but it was rugged enough for the wilderness and had obviously been there. His billed cap with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game insignia rested on the porch nearby.
    Reed was sitting on the bench against the building, seemingly immovable as if he were a fungus that had grown there. His hair was matted from sweat; his face and clothes were those of a desperate man who’d lost his wife and spent the night under a fallen tree. Reed’s voice was barely audible as he said, “It had to be Randy. He had a long black braid, I saw that clearly.”
    Jimmy looked up at Sheriff Mills and Pete. They knew that described Randy Thompson.
    When Reed lifted his face, a tiny hint of hope came to his eyes. “Hey, Pete!”
    “We’re here for you, partner,” Pete said.
    “We’re almost finished,” said Jimmy. He prodded, “How did he look to you, Reed? Was there anything about his condition that would indicate an attack by a—”
    “He was thrown up in the tree!” Reed insisted as if he’d said it before. “His head was practically torn off!”
    “But he could have been climbing the tree, trying to get away from a bear, right?”
    Reed thought a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. That makes sense, if that’s what you want to think.”
    Jimmy looked around, apparently for the right words. “Reed, I’m hating this. You know that.”
    Reed’s head sank. Tears filled his eyes. “If we hadn’t camped there that night, if we’d only buried that garbage, if I hadn’t forgotten to hang up those stupid sandwich containers . . .!”
    “Was Beck having her period?”
    “No.”
    “Did she bring any makeup along?”
    Reed looked at him blankly.
    Jimmy explained, “To a bear, the smell means food.”
    “I didn’t see a bear,” Reed emphasized as if for the hundredth time.
    Jimmy just looked at his notes. “There could have been any number of factors, Reed. You don’t need to blame yourself.”
    “Are we through?”
    Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, Reed.