Death Is Contagious

The riders were no longer visible. The advance party, following the winding trail down the mountain, was obscured from Paige’s view. The woman had first observed the hunters on their homebound trip about fifteen minutes earlier, as they snail-paced their way along the rock-scarred ridge. She silently pled for speed from the horses that seemed to move in slow motion.

On her right, Hand Mountain extended northerly, casting its shadowy, ghostly profile across the plains. Configured like an arm severed below the elbow the weathered range portrayed a macabre rendition of a human right hand. Along its southern tip extended five ridgelines, or fingers. The hunters, winding along the near slope of the middle ridge, cut the distance to the lodge.

Why were the hunters moving so slowly? Paige’s anguish intensified with every passing moment. If their arrival was delayed, it may be too late, she thought.

Even with binoculars, Paige had been unable to distinguish specific individuals among the hunters. The distance had been too great. Lashley would probably be in the lead cluster following Frenchie’s guide, she reasoned. That team should be the first to arrive at the lodge, the base camp for the hunting party. Lashley arriving first was not just her silent request, Paige considered it more of a desperate prayer. Heather was missing. She had been gone for more than four hours.

Extensive search efforts, initiated by those who had remained behind at the lodge, proved fruitless. Heather had not been found. Paige, now fearing the worst, urgently needed the assistance of two particular men in the inbound parties. Among all of its members, only those men held her confidence. If the lost woman was to be located, Lashley and Frenchie would find her.

"Be careful," Crisco, the barrel-cheated cook, had shouted when Heather Baldwin announced to Paige her determination to jog along the trails leading from the lodge. "This mountain ain’t called ‘The Death Hand’ for no good reason. The Hand will close into a fist and hard strike a stranger with little warning."

Several guests scurried into the porch area to eavesdrop on the verbal exchange as the cook expanded upon his warning.

"The Hand ain’t too kind to even us who’ve lived here a lifetime. Don’t get out of sight of the lodge," continued Crisco, gesturing toward the weathered mountain that served as a backdrop for the remote hunting camp. Its fingered ridges, broken and scarred, like the rough hand of an old saw mill worker, callused by usage and age, dominated the landscape.

"The mountain acquired its name from earlier pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail. Legend says the mountain had grown from the missing, right arm of Venus de Milo," added the cook.

"I just need to get some exercise," Heather told Paige. "I’ve not exercised since we left home."

"Besides, these mountains are gorgeous," Heather continued. "This is my first time to the west, and I want to see them in their splendor. I didn’t join on this hunting trip with the intentions of being cooped up in a rustic lodge for a week."

The woman’s decision to jog had occurred late that morning. Heather, after finishing an early light lunch, accepted the cook’s warning to stay clear of the ridges and departed. Two hours elapsed before Paige expressed concern about her long absence. An unstructured, halfhearted search had followed, consisting primarily of yelling Heather’s name out the front and back doors of the lodge.

At Paige’s insistence, the base camp members launched a greater effort. Major Jerry Greer, an air force officer, with an abrasive autocratic approach, assumed command. He divided the lodge’s guests into groups. Captain Tyrone Mitchell, a muscular black man in his early thirties was assigned to coordinate the second command, consisting mainly of the female guests.

Prior to departure, the major assigned one pistol to each group with the instruction that, upon locating the missing woman, the party -should fire two, well spaced shots. Should the circumstances require emergency assistance, an alarm of three shots was planned.

Any visitors repeating a trip to The Hand knew and understood the mountain’s deadly power. Lashley spoke to Paige often that this magnetism was the primary reason why many hunters selected the rustic Cottonwood Guest Lodge. He claimed it was an outdoorsman’s challenge to face the danger the mountain offered, an opportunity to successfully surmount each appendage. In the process, each hoped to bag a trophy animal from secluded crevasses. Hunters knew that however challenging one of the mountain’s fingers might be, another ridge always appeared, even more revealing, equally as demanding, and just as prone, in turn, to conquer the intruder. As such, the search for Heather Baldwin had been undertaken with vigor.

Knowing more clearly the winding contours of the trail leading westerly up the steep canyon behind the lodge, Greer opted for this route. Ray Horne, the assistant cook, volunteered to join the major. The cook was youthful and strongly built, slightly hampered by a crippled leg. Cottonwoods and yellow-leafed aspen bounded the trail as it rose sharply, twisting and hair spinning up the canyon like a carelessly discarded rope.

A swift, forty-five minute climb produced no discovery and left the major completely exhausted. Even hobbling from his handicap, the youthful cook made the climb with minimal effort. Greer was impressed by the man’s tenacity.

The wind changed abruptly in an uncomfortable, gusty, down-trail direction, making the men’s attempt to break the tree line difficult. Upon reaching a gentle sloping point just beyond the timber break, Greer called a break.

The lodge, far below, had been obscured by vegetation for the final fifteen minutes of the ascent. During the upward climb, an occasional dim sight of the lodge served as the men’s fixed point of reference. The building quickly disappeared, as the trail would switch back.

As the men rested, the Cottonwood Lodge lay spread below and appeared as if it were an aerial photograph.

The sunlight reflected on the fishpond, shimmering with the wind in silver white, erratic designs. The lodge had a high-pitched roof over the primary structure, set in a cluster of supporting buildings. It was the setting and not the architecture that counted. The wooden lodge, accentuated by the rusty red barn, corral, and assorted support buildings, contrasted with a towering white structure serving as the cold storage unit. The layout was a miniature arrangement for a model train display.

From what the major understood, the Cottonwood Guest Lodge had been constructed by Frenchie Hebert’s grandfather over a hundred years prior as a two roomed log cabin. Over the ensuing years, modifications had been added to the original structure, first by Frenchie’s father who attached a kitchen along the western side and glassed porches along the southern and eastern sides. The youngest Herbert, now in his early fifties, added the bunkhouse and a closed walkway connected to the base structure. These additions were adapted to service the demands of hunters and dudes desiring to experience a western-style survival, with only the bare necessities of modern living.