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spacedogfromspaceThe Vanishing
Chapter 4: A New Investigation
Nyota has an idea, and returns to the woods to find Christine.
Nyota was picked up at the trail-head by Janice an hour before sunset, as they had arranged. As it took nearly half a day to hike out to Christine's camp, and another half day back, she had only had about an hour to talk to her new friend before she had to turn back. She had hoped that Christine would go back to the White Wolf Lodge with her so they could continue filling each other in on what they knew, and what theories they had, but Christine said that she had to stay in the woods. Nyota was quick to accept that, she had a job to do, after all. Nyota was also tempted to stay at Christine's camp overnight, leaving the following morning to give them time for a proper briefing, but she knew that Janice would be waiting for her and would sound the alarm if she didn't appear at the trail-head by sunset.
"So, what did you find out?" Janice asked when Nyota jumped into the passenger seat of the pickup with the enthusiasm of someone who hadn't spent the majority of four days walking, and with an excited glint in her eye.
Nyota flashed a quick smile at her before diving into the pack she stowed between her knees, fishing for her water bottle. "I didn't find out anything," she said, before finding the bottle and taking a long, greedy drink from it. She sighed from the refreshing feel of the water wetting her parched throat. "But Christine— the ranger out in the woods, she wants to find answers too. We're going to work together. She'll have a whole different perspective on the cases, she'll probably be able to see things I haven't, not to mention that she works for the Parks Service, and might be able to get some insider information."
Janice started the ignition and put the pickup into gear, steering them out of the parking lot and back onto Glacier Point Road towards White Wolf Lodge. She was quiet until they were on the road, and had accelerated to just under the speed limit. She used that time to process all the things Nyota had told her, but the question she asked only regarded the last point. "What kind of 'insider information' would you hope to get from the Park's Service?"
"Things that they haven't told me," Nyota replied, simply.
Janice's brow furrowed. "But you requested tons of documents from them and they hadn't refused you any of them. Couldn't you just request more?"
"I think they've been withholding information from me," Nyota said, turning her head to grimly stare out the window and watch the trees roll past. "From everyone. They know something we don't."
Janice allowed herself a moment to direct a worried look at Nyota. Not a long moment, because she had to return her attention to the road in front of her. Not that Nyota could see her pointed expression, as she was still staring out the passenger side window, lost in thought. "I'm starting to worry about you," she admitted with a sigh, her eyes boring into the road ahead of her. She didn't want to make eye contact with Nyota, even if she did turn her attention from the scenery to their right. If she met her friends eyes, she might not be able to say what needed to be said. "You're starting to sound... paranoid."
Nyota bristled, snapping her head around to glare at Janice, her heavy ponytail whipping around and thumping audibly against the window. "I am not paranoid," she insisted in a low and deliberate tone, one that made Janice flinch.
"I know," Janice said, frowning at her automatic response. She wasn't supposed to give in so easily. "It's just that... you're starting to sound the way you did... you know, before you left." 'Before you left' was said in a euphemistic way. Nyota knew what it meant.
Her face softened, and she leaned back in her seat, her gaze drifting out the front windshield. "I know," she sighed. "But I don't think it's paranoia. There are just so many things that are unexplained that should be able to be explained. We should have found remains. We should have found clues. I really think that maybe there really is something that they're keeping out of the public eye," she explained, then leaned forward to prop her elbows on her knees and rest her head in her hands. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"
Janice looked over at her hunched friend, feeling sad and concerned. She briefly allowed her hand to rest on Nyota's shoulder comfortingly before returning it to the steering wheel. "I don't think you're crazy," she said, reassuringly. And she meant it, too. "I'm just worried that this might be getting to you again. I don't want to see you go through what happened last time all over again."
"Yeah..." Nyota sighed, straightening up in her seat again and realizing for the first time all day that her body was fatigued. Every muscle in her body seemed to be sore, and she was so tired that she wondered if she would be able to walk from the pickup to her cabin once they got to the campsite. There was another, familiar type of tiredness that she felt, too. The kind that told her that Janice was right. This was all getting to her again. This investigation was terrible for her mental health, but she knew that if she didn't get answers, it would haunt her for the rest of her life. "I'll try and take it easy, this time," she said to assure Janice. Though, she wasn't confident that she was capable of doing so when it came to these cold cases. Especially those of Shahaab and Jim. "And besides. This time I have an investigation buddy. It's harder to lose your mind when you're not just talking to yourself," she joked.
They both knew it wasn't really a joke, but Janice nodded anyways. "I won't stop you from doing anything you want to do. I trust you to do what's best," she said, pausing. "But I worry about you."
"I know," Nyota said, flashing Janice an apologetic smile. "But it'll be different this time, I promise."
Janice nodded as she pulled off the road down the drive into the familiar campground. "Alright," she said. "I trust you."
Nyota didn't return to the Ostrander Lake trail and its surrounding wilderness the next day. She had told Christine that she would return the day after next, giving her a day in between where she wouldn't have to do so much walking. She had originally made that decision so she would have time to compile materials to bring back for Christine to review, but in hindsight it also served to assure Janice that she wasn't overworking herself. That being said, her 'day off' had plenty of work to be done.
She started with what she had in her cabin, diving back into her makeshift filing cabinet of cardboard xerox boxes laid out along the wall. She had gone through them briefly when she first arrived, mostly to dig out the summaries she had made of each case. But now, she was on the hunt for the details. She started with the most recent case and worked backwards, reading through every report and examining each map, reorganizing it all chronologically where it wasn't already. The most recent case was of course, Jim's, and it didn't take long for her to get through the material on his case. He didn't even have a xerox box, just a pile of papers on the floor, and not many, at that. She only had her own notes, and maps she had marked up herself. She had requested the case files from the police and the Parks Service, but from experience she knew that it would take weeks and a lot of wading through red tape to finally get them. The other cases were more substantial. It took her about an hour to get through each xerox box, reading quickly and marking details with a green highlighter. The documents in the older boxes had preserved her tracks in previous deep dives into the material, each pass parked with a different colour of highlighter, now adding green as another layer, a fresh set of tracks. When she got to the last box, she stopped, staring at it without touching it.
She checked her watch, the blue numbers on the display telling her that it was just after noon. Despite not being very hungry, and usually taking a later lunch, she decided that a lunch break was in order. She tried to tell herself that she wasn't just procrastinating reading Shahaab's case files.
Borrowing Janice's pickup truck, Nyota drove over to a nearby town, where she knew there was a public library and was fairly certain that there was an electronics store that stocked shortwave radios. She made the latter her first stop, and managed to find a battery operated handheld shortwave radio with a good antennae for a decent price. She also made sure to buy extra rechargeable batteries that were compatible with it.
There was nothing wrong with her old radio, but she was surprised when she mentioned using shortwave radio to keep in contact and Christine admitted that she didn't have any sort of radio at all. This struck Nyota as a bit odd, as someone who lived a half day's walk away from the nearest semblance of civilization should probably have some way of reaching the outside world. What if she got sick, or hurt, or lost, and needed help? It was especially strange since Christine's entire purpose for being out there was to monitor poaching situations. If she saw this kind of activity, how would she report it in an efficient time frame? It seemed strange, but then again, Christine was a bit strange, herself. So, Nyota ignored the feelings of suspicion that cropped up in her at these thoughts.
In any case, she now had a radio to give to Christine the next time she went out to see her. It would be valuable to have a way of contacting one another when they were each in their own bases of operations.
Nyota's second stop was the public library. There was no internet and hardly any cellular signal at the White Wolf Lodge, or in the remote parts of the park that she found herself exploring, looking for any clues as to what happened to all those missing people. The library had public computers and free internet usage, so she sat down in a secluded corner for a couple of hours, gathering what she needed.
When she logged into her email account, the first thing she noticed was that her boss had apparently taken to spamming her with emails demanding where she was once he filled up her voicemail inbox and she continued to ignore his calls. There were dozens of emails from him, subject lines in all caps. She didn't bother opening any of them. She saw the word 'fired' in one of the subject lines and was not surprised, though she did wonder if it was legal to fire somebody over email. It didn't matter though. She had no intention of returning to that job, even after all of this was over.
Speaking of which, she had work to do. Firstly, she scanned through the unread emails for anything that wasn't from her ex-boss that may have been important. When there was nothing, she went into her cloud-storage to retrieve a handful of documents. Some of them were ones she had just read through that morning, but others were from the boxes she had left in her storage unit back home. Those boxes contained valuable notes and maps that she hadn't scanned into her online storage, but the police reports and Park Service documents would do. She needed all of her cases. This was going to be a very thorough investigation. All these people had a link, and she knew it. She just had to figure out what it was.
It cost a small fortune for her to print out all the pages she needed, despite printing on both sides of the page and shrinking down the pages to fit two to a sheet. With her stack of papers— still warm from the printer —settled into her backpack, she took a few more minutes of internet advantage to do some web searching, doing cursory searches on Jim Kirk to see what was being said about his disappearance, along with doing more general searches concerning missing people in national parks. She knew this phenomenon wasn't unique to Yosemite. There had to be others looking for answers elsewhere. Maybe someone had found answers, maybe the disappearances in the different parks were connected. She searched, but didn't find anything she didn't know.
Nyota hiked back out to Christine's shelter, using her GPS again. Though she felt she could find the way without it, she was well aware that much of the forest looked alike, and that it was easy to get lost and turned around. So, to be on the safe side, she walked with her GPS and compass on hand, referencing them frequently. The sky was clear, allowing dappled light to reach down through the high canopy, making the woods seem like something more magical than they were. Nyota didn't let the pretty atmosphere tell her any different though. The woods were not magical— they were full of hidden corpses, refusing to give up their dead. She could never forget that she was walking through her brother's graveyard, and could only hope that it wasn't also Jim's final resting place too.
"Nyota," a voice beside her made her jump nearly out of her skin. Nyota had gotten so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn't noticed when the woods darkened and silence befell the trees, the signal that she had wandered into Christine's territory. But even if she had been paying attention, she had a feeling that she wouldn't have been any less startled— Christine had the uncanny ability to sneak up on someone without even meaning to.
"Christine, hi," Nyota said distractedly, pressing a hand to her chest. She could feel her heart beating hard through her skin. "You should wear a bell," she added.
Christine tilted her head to the side, like a curious dog, yellow eyes squinting slightly. "A bell?"
"You know, so I can hear you coming," Nyota explained, shrugging awkwardly.
Pursing her lips, Christine considered for a moment before shaking her head. "No. If you can hear me coming so can everything— and everyone —else."
Nyota smiled. "It was just a joke."
"Ah," Christine said, seeming only faintly embarrassed. "In any case, I apologize for startling you. I will try not to do so in the future."
"Thanks," Nyota said, then swung her heavy backpack from her shoulders, letting it rest at her feet as she opened the main compartment. "I brought something for you," she said, fighting to dislodge the tangled mess in her backpack. Christine leaned forward, peering into the dark innards of the bag with curiosity. Finally, Nyota emerged with a small collection of items clutched in her hands. "I found you a handheld shortwave radio, since you didn't have one," she explained. "And extra battery packs, since you know, you don't have electricity out here to recharge stuff."
Christine smiled, but her smile was tight and her eyes didn't meet Nyota's. "Thank you," she said, her voice awkward, perhaps nervous.
"What's wrong?" Nyota asked, suddenly fearing that she had somehow caused offence. "I'm sorry, I—"
"No, it's okay," Christine interrupted, sparing Nyota from having to figure out what she was apologizing for. "This is very kind of you. It's just that... I don't know how to use one of these," she explained, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly, bowing her head to avoid eye contact.
"Oh," Nyota said with a surprised blink. "I'm sorry, I just assumed that since you worked for the forest service that you would know how to operate radios." Nyota felt another twitch somewhere in her chest. Something didn't seem right. This park ranger posted out in the middle of the wilderness not only didn't have a radio, but didn't know how to use one? Nyota pushed her suspicions away. The forest service was probably just worse at managing employee training and equipment than she would have thought. "I can teach you how to use it," Nyota said, brightening at the idea of spending more time with Christine. Sure, she had a job to do, but she also wanted to get to know her mysterious new search partner.
Yellow eyes looked up at her as Christine's shoulders relaxed. She smiled through strands of white hair. "Thank you. I would like that," she said. "If it's not too much trouble, that is."
Nyota smiled. "Of course not. If we're going to be working together it would be a good idea to have a way to contact each other. One that doesn't involve me walking several hours, that is."
Christine's face broke into a wolfish grin as she accepted the radio and its accessories. "Indeed. I suppose it wasn't very efficient."
Returning her attention to her backpack, Nyota continued. "I also printed out a bunch of stuff for you. Other cases in the area over the years. Might help to get you up to speed, or maybe you'll see a pattern I haven't found," she pulled the thick sheaf of papers from her backpack and presented them to Christine.
Christine blinked, looking at the stack of papers, then at her full hands, then back again, then over her shoulder to her lean-to that was too far of a distance to go deposit the radio equipment without looking like she was just walking away.
Luckily, Nyota understood her plight. "I'll carry these for you," she said, unable to hide an amused smile despite her best efforts. She closed her backpack and swung it over one shoulder, stepping off towards the camp, Christine falling into step with her, gear held tight against her chest. "So how long have you been living out here?" Nyota asked casually, partly to make small talk and partly curious if Christine's social awkwardness came from her isolated job or if she had always been this way.
Christine hummed, reflecting. "A long time," she said wistfully, and Nyota got the sense that she would not elaborate further if she pressed, so she dropped the subject.
When they arrived at the camp, Christine invited Nyota to sit down on the fallen tree lying near the ashy spot of a campfire site. The tree had been dead for a long time— the bark had rotted or weathered away, and the log was set firmly in place, half sunken into the carpet of organic matter that layered the forest floor.
There was really only space on the log for one person to sit comfortably, but Christine shuffled in anyways, watching at Nyota's shoulder as she turned on the radio and began to explain to Christine how it worked.
"You'll need to be careful though," Nyota warned. "You're not supposed to broadcast without a license, unless it's an emergency."
"What happens if you don't have a license?" Christine asked.
"Well, you can get a fine, obviously. If you get caught." Nyota shrugged.
Christine squinted. "How would they catch you based on an anonymous transmission?"
"Never under estimate the willingness of amateur radio operators to defend their craft," Nyota said. "They're the ones you want to worry about, not the authoroties. There's guys out there who will triangulate your signal and find you if they catch you on the airwaves without the qualifications."
With their close proximity, Nyota sensed Christine tense up beside her.
"What is it?" Nyota asked, head on a swivel, thinking that something had wandered into camp.
"Nothing," Christine said, not even looking up. She relaxed, but it seemed forced.
Not knowing what to think of that, Nyota continued on with her instruction, jotting down frequencies and channels in the margins of one of the printouts so Christine wouldn't have to memorize them. Eventually, the sun began its descent, signalling to Nyota that she had to get going if she wanted to reach the trail-head before the light vanished.
"I'll radio you on the frequency I left your handheld on," Nyota said as she rearranged her gear in preparation for her departure. "Nine AM okay? We can test it all out."
Christine nodded distractedly, looking towards the stack of printouts as if she couldn't wait to sift through them. "Right. Nine AM," she repeated.
After brief farewells, Nyota set off at a brisk hiking pace, directing herself back to the trail-head, her compass and GPS held in front of her like talismans of guidance.
"So this missing hiker," Christine said as she lead Nyota through a thick patch of conifers a couple days later. "You know him?"
"He's a friend of mine," Nyota said, arms up in front of her to catch branches before they could punch her in the face.
"Did he tell you anything about his plans out here? How long, what trails, day hike or camping?"
Nyota grimaced, though Christine wouldn't see. "No... I uh, haven't talked to him for a few years," she admitted, feeling a stab of guilt. "He didn't tell anyone as far as anyone knows."
Christine tilted her head. "If he is your friend, why haven't you spoken with him in so long?" She asked.
Pursing her lips, Nyota didn't answer, and kept her eyes on her feet as she walked. A stab of guilt surged through her. She should have made an effort to keep in contact with him, but she was too... preoccupied.
Undeterred by Nyota's silence, Christine pressed on. "What connection do you have to all those other cases that you have such detailed research on? Surely you didn't know all of them personally as well?"
Nyota felt her heart rate pick up, and she fought the urge to bolt through the woods to get away from the question. She wondered if Christine's questions were lazer targeted on purpose, or if they were just coincidence. Did she know something that she wasn't letting on?
With a swallow and a few deep breaths to calm her, Nyota stuffed her rising paranoia down as far as she could and moistened her dry mouth to answer. "I only knew one of them, apart from Jim," she answered finally. "But I was part of the search efforts for the others, and I investigated their cases privately."
Christine nodded, taking her eerie yellow eyes off Nyota to focus on the way ahead. "Which one did you know?" She asked.
Nyota felt relieved when the pressure of Christine's gaze was alleviated, and relaxed. It felt hard to confide in someone, but it felt safe enough to do so. "The first of all of them," Nyota answered. "My twin brother, Shahaab."
Christine looked back at her, eyebrows raised in surprise and eyes soft with sympathy. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you lost family out here."
Nyota shrugged. "There's never been any trace of him since he went missing all those years ago," she reflected. "But I keep coming out here and looking. And I keep looking for the others too. Because maybe they left some clue behind that would give me answers."
"You've been doing this for a long time, haven't you?" Christine asked. When Nyota didn't answer, she added, "Is this why you fell out of contact with this friend of yours?"
Nyota felt dread grip her heart, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and let the world pass her by. As she blinked back the tears that prickled at her eyes, she shook her head. "I don't want to talk about this," she said in a choked whisper.
Christine looked down at her boots, feeling remorse for a transgression she didn't realize she was making. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't mean to upset you."
Having regained her composure, Nyota shot her a small smile. "It's okay," she assured her. "It's just... it's a touchy subject."
"I understand," Christine said, returning the smile and feeling relief at being forgiven. "What would you like to talk about instead?"
Nyota hummed. "What about your family?" She asked. "You haven't mentioned them at all."
Christine's lips twitched as she stared blankly into the woods, contemplating. She let out a sharp exhale of bemusement through her nose, and shook her head. "Unfortunately, that too is a touchy subject," she said. "I'd prefer not to talk about it either."
"Sorry," Nyota said.
Christine glanced at her fondly. "You are forgiven."
They hiked in silence for a while, their attention focused on searching for anything that could be considered a clue as to what had happened to Jim, or any of the missing people, for that matter. Anything would be helpful at this point. A shoe, a backpack, even just a scrap of cloth snagged on a tree. But Nyota had been at this long enough to expect that they would find nothing. She still had to hope, though.
"It's like they all just vanished into thin air," Nyota said under her breath, to herself.
Christine's ears were sharp, and she caught it. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that not only were these people never found, but there was not a single trace of them to tell us what had happened, or even give us a hypothesis," Nyota explained. "And sure, it's a big park, it's the wilderness, it's feasible that someone could get lost and never be found, but this many people? Something doesn't add up."
Christine's ears pricked in curiosity. "You think there's something more to it than people getting lost?" She asked.
Nyota grimaced. "At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, yes," she said. "Or at least, there's something that's being kept from the public in regards to these cases." She shrugged. "There's lots of theories of course. That the government is covering up a population of feral people that are somehow responsible for these disappearances. Stuff like that."
"You don't believe that, though," Christine observed. When Nyota shook her head, she asked, "What do you think is happening?"
Nyota considered for a moment. "I don't know," she said. "But I am certain something is being kept under wraps. I've been looking into these cases for a long time, and the Forest Service has always acted suspiciously whenever I've tried to get any information from them."
Christine seemed unsure what to make of that, and stayed silent for a long moment, keeping her eyes on the forest.
"Not the whole Forest Service," Nyota clarified after a long moment. "I didn't mean that you were hiding anything."
Christine seemed confused for a moment, as if she didn't understand. Then, her expression cleared and she smiled. "Of course. I didn't think that was what you were suggesting." When Nyota smiled with relief, she added, "and I agree. Something doesn't seem right. Their reluctance to provide information suggests a cover-up."
"Exactly," Nyota nodded. "But a cover-up of what?"
Christine's face set into a grim line. "I don't know."
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