The rugged cliffs of the Alaska Range darkened as the clouds pressed from above. I decreased my air speed and descended another hundred feet, hugging the right side of the steep mountain and giving myself room in case I had to turn around in the narrow pass and go back to Anchorage. We were close enough to the side of the mountain to observe a band of grizzlies under my right wing. Most of the animals cringed when we buzzed past, but a huge boar looked up, challenging us. My client barked out a quick laugh.  

I’d already sunk four hundred feet on my way through the pass, and we flew along at an altitude of eight hundred. The lowering ceiling kept forcing us down as I raced an incoming front. I cleared the pass and zoomed out over open ground, trees, and tundra. 

Suddenly, a black cloud materialized in front of me. I slowed further, trying to dip below. As I grew closer, I realized it was a cloud of dark birds. My heart sped up. I dipped my right wing to avoid them, but they moved almost as if they were trying to hit me.  

I increased the dip further, and accidentally stalled the wing—losing lift. We dropped fast. My passenger gasped loudly. I grimaced; teeth clenched with concentration. After some quick maneuvering, I recovered from the stall, sweat running down my back.

A flash of black feathers and a loud whump were all I saw as the ravens bounced off the

plane. “Shit!” I yelled as I dove further to avoid the rest. We were down to three hundred feet. The clouds were still pressing on us, and I worried about the damage the large birds might have caused the cloth covered Super Cub.

“We’re going to have to land.” I straightened out and looked for somewhere to put down. “I need to assess the damage.”

He grunted affirmatively. Rough maneuvering like that can leave your passengers a bit green, so I hoped he was doing well and wouldn’t spray my cockpit with vomit. 

Luckily, we were over a river and even though it seemed to be running higher than usual, there had to be a gravel or sand bar somewhere big enough to land a good bush plane on. The Cub bounced and swayed in the strong wind, and the sky continued to threaten as I located a potential landing spot on a gravel bar.   

A quick glance back showed my passenger’s white knuckles clinging to the back of my seat. I buzzed the gravel bar twice, mentally checking the length, and circled back to land. I came in at an angle, fighting the crosswind, and straightened at the last second to avoid the possibility of the wind flipping us. I could smell the sharp, quick scent of fear. Mine and the stranger’s. It filled the plane as the sudden deceleration pushed us into the seat belts.

The Super Cub is the workhorse of the bush. It’s small, likes to fly, carries a good load, and can take-off and land in a very short distance—luckily. I dragged my oversized Bushwheels through the water, slowing the plane, and bounced gently down the short, makeshift runway. I turned and maneuvered it for a quick take-off before I powered down.

“You doing okay back there?” 

I got another affirmative grunt. 

“You might as well stretch your legs; I know it gets a bit cramped back there.”

I pulled off my headset and opened the door. The wind tore my long braids free and whipped them around my head. I cursed quietly and grabbed my red Tulugaq cap and jammed it down firmly, holding my hair in place.

“That was some pretty good flying.” His voice was husky, deep, and rumbled from his chest.  

I shrugged. I wasn’t happy with my flying right now. “It’s like they came out of nowhere.” I scowled up at the darkened sky. “It’s weird. I thought ravens were too smart to hit a plane,” I spoke quietly, mostly to myself. 

I didn't let on about it freaking me out. Ravens are a personal animal for me. Hitting them made me feel slightly nauseous and unbalanced. 

I helped him remove the bags and gear that were pinning him down, and he stepped out.

 A quick chill raised the hair on my neck and peppered me with gooseflesh. I looked around to see if anyone besides my passenger was around. No one. I brushed off the feeling. How dumb, by worrying about the ravens I’d spooked myself!  

I frowned slightly at my passenger, trying to remember his name. He had a bemused smile on his face. He pushed his hat back a little. His auburn hair was peeking out, some pressed against his head with sweat. He pulled off his sunglasses and rubbed his face. When he looked up, his bright blue eyes immediately drew me in. Wow. He hadn’t looked more than average at first glance, but those eyes were something. I looked away quickly.  

He took a deep breath of the cool, clean air and looked around. “I can see how this country can get under your skin,” he said. “Can I help you with anything?” he added after turning back to me.

“Thanks, uh, Vanice?” I stumbled through the name, hoping I’d got it right. I thought for a moment longer; no, that was right, Vanice Fletcher, but he had some kind of nickname. He flinched; I should have paid closer attention to dad when we were loading up.

“Call, me Fletch or Fletcher,” he said. “Vanice was my grandfather.”

“Okay, sorry. I’m Piper, by the way, like my airplane. It’s a Piper Super Cub. Only I’m Piper Tikaani. I was a little distracted before. I don’t remember if I told you my name.” I was babbling. I shut my mouth, held out my hand, and we shook. “I’m good, with the plane, I mean. Why don’t you have a look around while I check it over? Just keep an eye out for bears.”

“Sure.” 

As he wandered away, I looked for damage. There didn’t seem to be any marks, blood, or feathers on my propeller, which was good; I didn’t think the ravens hit it, and I hadn’t heard any change in the engine. I checked the leading edge of my wings. There was a small tear in the fabric on the right wing. I got out a roll of duct tape and fixed it. It wasn’t pretty, but it would get me to Vanice’s, ugh, Fletcher’s cabin and back home. I didn’t see anything else other than some blood down the side. I wiped it off. We were good.

I got in, pulled on my headset, tuned the radio to our air service’s private channel, and pushed down the talk button on my throttle. “Tulugaq base, dad, pick me up?”

“Yeah, I got you, Pipe, okay.”

“Hey, dad, we had a bird strike, Cub’s fine. I had to put us down forty-two miles north- northeast of Clyde’s. The front has pushed the ceiling and visibility down, and we’re going to be hustling to the cabin. Would you please have mom or Baylee call and see if they can get me a later hair appointment tomorrow? I don’t know if I’ll make it back tonight, okay?”

“Sure thing, Piper, dad out.”

I was delivering my passenger to an old family friend’s cabin who had died this past fall. Fletcher had inherited it from Clyde and had never been there before. I turned off the radio and climbed back out.

 I groaned inwardly. This was my third drop off flight of the day, and I was ready to be done. All I wanted was something warm in my belly and to stretch out on my comfortable bed.

The wind amped up even more. I looked up, concerned at what I saw. The clouds bore down, and the sky grew heavier and darker. I radioed Anchorage and got a weather report.

“Damn,” I mumbled to myself. “Fletcher?” I called out tentatively, still not sure about his name.

“Yeah, I’m over here.” He waved his hand at me from the brush over by the tree line about fifty yards back from the river. 

His neutral clothing blended in well. He wore a tan shirt and faded blue jeans. He seemed to be five ten or eleven. I was average height for a woman, so he was probably only a few inches taller than me. He started back. Just then, I saw him jump to the side and whirl back to look at the tree line. I walked over to join him, concerned. I scanned the tree line to see what made him jump.

“Someone threw a rock at me.” The sunglasses were back down over his eyes. 

Raven gives me better eyesight than anyone I know, but there wasn’t anything to see through the trees and the brush. I took in a deep breath to see if I could pick up a foreign scent. 

Just then, a loud noise came from behind us and to the left, a thwack like wood being struck against wood. We both turned and faced that direction, spooked. I didn’t have my weapon; it was in my backpack back in the Cub, but I reached behind me to the holster that I usually kept there when I was in the bush.

Thwack, thwack, thwack, again, this time rhythmically and quick. It was about five hundred feet in yet another direction; the wind had shifted, so I still couldn’t pick up a scent. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was sure we were being watched.

“It’s too loud for a woodpecker, or a ground squirrel,” I mumbled.

He grunted an affirmative. We walked faster back to the plane. Fletcher’s hand was behind his back, and I wondered if he had a weapon within reach like I should. I kept catching movement out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned to look, nothing was there. A large rock landed to the left of us. We picked up the pace.

           “I think someone is screwing with us,” Fletcher growled. 

           “Who?” I asked.

There wasn’t anyone here for miles. No cabins. I hadn’t seen any other aircraft from the air, although it was possible some hunters had this area staked out and were trying to scare us off, but I hadn’t seen any signs when we flew over. Bears don’t throw rocks, though.

I quickly got Fletcher resituated in the back seat, and all the gear packed back in. I climbed in and pulled on my headset, checked that Fletcher was wearing his, and flipped the intercom system on.  

           “The weather report stated that the ceiling is down to five hundred feet and visibility is below one mile, we’re going to have to go fast or stay here for the night. It’ll be rough. Are you ready?”

           His answer was immediate. “Yes.”

           Just as I was about to shut the door, I thought I heard an unrecognizable, eerie howl. It sent a primal shiver down my spine, but I shrugged it and the feeling of being watched off as the wind and my overactive imagination. I pulled my door shut securely and fired up the engine. I blasted down the short gravel bar and the Cub lifted fast into the air, the wind screaming over the wings.

           There are a few unwritten rules of the bush pilot. One is to never fly too low with a client. Alone, I had no qualms pushing myself or my ride, but it’s safer to have extra air between you and the ground in case anything happens—like the raven incident. 

I’d have to skim the bottom of the clouds to get us to the cabin, but I figured it was worth the risk to make it to shelter before the storm opened up and stranded us in the wilds with whatever had stalked us.

           I fought the wind all the way to Fletcher’s cabin. Luckily, I could see the landing strip before the low ceiling and the wind forced us out of the sky once again.

           A landing strip in the bush is not a paved or even an oiled dirt road; it’s equal to a cleared area where there may be a smoothed-out section, or it may just be mown grass, gravel, or a break in the trees. Clyde’s strip was well used in the past, but it hadn’t been tended to for over ten months. Granted, most of that was winter, and it was early enough that the grass that was growing wasn’t very long. There was still snow hanging on in patches amongst the trees, but no brush had quite covered the strip yet. I circled it and scrutinized it thoroughly for branches or other debris before I put down.

Fletcher was quiet the whole way. Not because he was uninterested in talking, but to let me work through the turbulence. Now, we sat and listened to the pinging of the cooling engine. The trees blocked the wind somewhat, but an occasional gust would rock the small plane.  

I radioed Tulugaq and let dad know we were here. The ceiling had dropped again, and it looked like the front that seemed to want to blow past had decided to drop a wallop of a storm after all. I’d be staying until morning. I sighed. Why did I bother making a hair appointment, anyway? I’d just make do, as usual, with hot rollers and charm for my date tomorrow night. 

I huffed out a small laugh at myself, like charm was anything I had to offer.

I was shaky from fighting the stick the last forty or so minutes, and I was starving from the calorie draw. I pulled off my headset and opened the door to help Fletcher unload and get out. We secured the aircraft and started hauling his gear to the cabin.

The cabin was old, but Clyde had done some work to modernize it. It originally had one small window in the front by the door. He’d cut a window into each wall and added good, insulated glass, which slid open and had screens. The door was sturdy, handmade, solid wood.  

Logs are naturally very insulating, but when Clyde had replaced the sod roof, he’d added more peak and insulated under the steel. He’d covered the inside of the roof with boards I’d hauled in with my plane. The floor was also wood, and since the cabin was older than Clyde’s time, I’m sure that originally it had been dirt. He had a wooden framed bed in the far corner with a thick memory foam pad; I’d brought that to him. It was a lot more comfortable for aging bones than the old camp pads he’d used for years. 

The other main corner had his stove. Clyde’d had steel flown in and built his own cook stove. Clyde liked to cook and can. He kept his kitchen area clean and neat, and the stove was a piece of functional art. You filled it with wood, and it doubled as a heater. He kept a small kerosene heater as well; I assume for when it got too warm using the stove. He had a small wooden table, two wooden chairs, and a wooden rocking chair next to a small bookcase, all hand made. There was electricity wired to the house, one outlet, an overhead light above the kitchen, and a lamp by the chair. He kept various things hanging on the walls, furs, a moose rack, some old photos—dad had taken most of those—and shelves with various things. It was a well lived-in home.  

When we walked in, it smelled a bit musty from being shut up for such a long time. It was dusty and damp. Dad had locked everything up and taken care of any perishable foodstuffs by taking them out to burn, so it didn’t smell of any rot; however, it was going to need a good scrubbing just the same.

I wrinkled my nose. “Maybe we should open the windows for a short time and air this place out.”

“Good idea,” Fletcher agreed. 

I opened the windows. I knew we wouldn’t be able to keep them open long, the temperature was dropping too fast, and the wind was still ramping up. I dug through my stuff for the matches and gathered wood to start a fire in the cookstove. Clyde had at least two years of split wood piled up along the house and shed, so it didn’t take too much time or effort to build up a blaze. Clyde also had water piped to the house from the river, so I put a pot of water on to boil. Cocoa sounded good, something warm and sweet.

“I’m going to go have a look at that generator,” Fletcher said after he finished stacking his gear neatly inside by the door. “I’ll see if I can get it up and running.”  

I cleaned most of the surface dust away, washed off the table and chairs, and swept the floor while the water boiled. There wasn’t much more cleaning that could be done without a day and a good scouring, but with the windows open and the bit of cleaning I’d done, the place smelled noticeably better. I have an extremely sensitive nose, so that was an instant relief. Plus, the cold wind dried out the collected moisture quickly. I was wearing my fleece-lined windbreaker, having left my heavier jacket in the plane. It was getting too cold to have the windows open, so I shut them.

Once the water was rolling in the kettle, I poured it into two mismatched, quickly cleaned mugs for the cocoa. The lights blinked on as I was stirring. Fletcher had gotten the generator running.

We’d brought up some lamp oil and candles, but we knew Clyde had refilled his fuel storage before he’d died, so we didn’t need to bring any other fuel with us. The extra light unveiled the cobwebs in the corners, and the dust that had collected on the inside of the logs. I tried not to let it bother me. It wasn’t my place; I could live with the dirt. 

With the windows closed, the place grew toasty quickly. My stomach rumbled, and I had the beginnings of that grouchy, lightheaded, “I need to eat soon” feeling. I don’t let myself get too hungry; I have a lot less control over hiding my differences when I am. I pulled a military Meal Ready to Eat cheese tortellini entrée out of my backpack. Fletcher walked in with a blast of icy air as I sorted through my backpack for a candy bar.

“Wow, it’s really picked up out there,” Fletcher said.

I looked around; it had grown darker. I could hear the brush of tree limbs against the metal roof, and the rattle as debris blew clear. 

“Do you think it might snow?”

I frowned. It wasn’t out of the question even in June, but I didn’t want to get trapped here if a major snowstorm came through. “I hope not, but I guess it’s possible. The weather service predicted wind, followed by fog with a slight chance of precipitation.” I handed him the other mug of cocoa. We sat at the small table. “I just boiled water, and I was thinking of opening an MRE. Are you hungry?” I asked politely, although I planned to eat whether I had company or not.

“Starved. Let me dig something out of my stash,” he replied.

I heated my MRE as he mixed up some of his freeze-dried food.

“Did Clyde ever mention being afraid of something out here?” he asked as we started tearing into the food like refugees.

“No, why?” I replied, curiously.

“Well, I’ve noticed a couple of odd things. First, look at the doors into this place.” I glanced at the rear door that led to the woodpiles and outhouse, and then the door we had come in. “What about them?” They didn’t look any different from the last time I was here.

“They’re absolutely solid.” He opened the door so I could see the edge. “They have a steel core. Look, why does he have these reinforced bars?”  

He lifted the wooden bar and slid it into its slots after he shut the door. Clyde’s doors had those old-fashioned steel brackets bolted into them and the cabin, with thick boards that slid into them. I just assumed he liked that look, and it was cheaper to make them than to buy some deadbolt set.  

“Why did he need floodlights?”

I thought about it for a while. Even having something that needs a light bulb, let alone a generator and electricity in the bush, is beyond extravagant. Everything that can’t be brought by river had to be flown in and was extremely expensive.

Fletcher continued, “The windows are also too small to allow anyone to crawl through them. They should be bigger to let in light.”

“I don’t know, maybe he liked the way it looked?” I said uncertainly.

“There isn’t another cabin or person for miles. He built this place like a fortress. Who’s going to break in?”

“I guess I just assumed all gold miners are a little paranoid.”

“The shed is the same way. It’s also built from logs. He has enough steel roofing out there he could have much more easily built a metal covered shed. Yet, it has the same handmade steel core doors, and wooden braces, same with the outhouse. Also, both have food and water stashes.”

I frowned; how had I failed to notice those things during the many trips I’d made here? Especially since I’d spent my growing-up years exploring every inch of the property in my various forms. 

“I just never thought about it. That is odd. I’ll ask dad when I get back to town if Clyde had ever said anything to him. They were friends. He hasn’t ever said a thing to me, though.”

I thought a little longer; my rational self overruling the nagging, instinctual alarm in the back of my head, “There is a rational explanation for everything if you think about it. In the winter, it is possible to get lost in a whiteout from here to the shed or the outhouse; there probably should be an emergency stash of food and water if you get caught in one. 

Also, Clyde was a craftsman. He liked to make things; the doors could simply have been something aesthetic and functional to him. Same as the logs, they all match, and you have to admit the place looks good because it’s not all mismatched and rusty. 

“He also liked to work with metal.” I gestured around the room at the various handmade metal objects, like the stove. “The windows are small to conserve heat and the bars, well maybe they were the easiest way to secure the doors, short of going into town and buying a lockset. It also gets dark in the winter, maybe he had the floodlights just so he could see from here to the shed.”

There, that made me feel better. Everything could be rationally explained, even though it was totally impractical and expensive to haul such things out to the bush.

Fletcher frowned. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess the way he died is making me suspicious of everything.”

“No worries. I will ask, though. I’m sure there isn’t anything really mysterious, but you never know.” I paused for a moment, not sure if I should continue. The primitive urges to hide and flee, flirting in the back of my head, were making me uncomfortable and antsy. So, I shared them. Logically.

“On the other hand, this area, around the lake, has a history of strange happenings, unexplained lights, glimpses of unknown animals, disappearances, UFOs. Lake Iliamna even has a monster like Loch Ness!” I said lightly, jokingly, anything to lighten the mood. Clyde’s place had never felt spooky to me like some places could, but these observations of Fletcher’s were turning the tide on that. It was time to change the subject.

“You know, if you want to solve a mystery, here’s a good one. Clyde always paid us in small glass bottles of flour gold.” I paused for dramatic effect. “He didn’t always know when we were coming, so I know he kept a stash somewhere that was readily available. Also, he mined all the time. So, where’s the gold?”

“You think he found enough to bother hiding?” Fletcher asked.

“Yes, so does dad. We spent a lot of time trying to guess where Clyde had his gold stashed. It wasn’t serious like we would look for it; it was just fun to guess. These old gold miners are notoriously paranoid and overly protective of their stash. Not that I blame them with the price of gold like it is.”

           “The attorney mentioned Clyde had paid him with gold. He’d left enough with the attorney for his burial, and the taxes on this place, so I didn’t have to come up with anything when I took it over,” Fletcher said.

“I guess it is possible he spent whatever he found to survive, but I bet he has something stashed around here, hidden. It might be fun to look.” I shrugged.

“It will give me something to do after I inventory everything and decide what I need.” Fletcher was quiet for a while, thoughtful, then he looked around the cabin. “I feel sort of strange going through this man’s things, living in his home, talking about him, and I don’t even know what he looked like, but here I am a stranger, dissecting his life, living in his personal space.”

I threw up a hand. “Hold that thought!” I grabbed my backpack and dug around. I’d slipped in a couple of photos of Clyde, thinking it would be nice to show them to the new owner, who I thought would be a relative of some sort, but then in the midst of all that had gone on today, I’d forgotten. I handed them to him. 

“This is a picture of Clyde and dad the summer before last. They were fishing on Ship Creek for kings.” I lifted an eyebrow in question. I didn’t know if he knew what king salmon were, but he nodded. I let him examine it. “This one is Clyde, here, in front of my plane.” I watched Fletcher study the photos for a minute, and I tried to look at Clyde with fresh eyes. He had always appeared to be a man haunted to me. His mouth was smiling in the photos, but his eyes were always sad, in pain. He never spoke of what had driven him into the bush, but it must have been devastating to fill his eyes with such despair.

“I have dad’s police statement, about Clyde’s death. I’m not sure if you want to read it, it’s a little disturbing, and since then, my dad won’t talk about it. Reading it is better than me trying to tell you everything that happened, even though I know you know the basics. Dad was quite thorough in describing exactly what happened. I thought it may be something you’d be interested in.” I was nervous about showing the report to him. It felt personal, because dad explained his thoughts and feelings as well as the details of finding his dead friend. Still, I figured it was more Fletcher’s business than mine at this point.

He took the paper gently from my fingers, glanced at me a moment, and bent his head to read. His face remained stoic throughout—even though I knew the content was disturbing.

“Your dad is a descriptive writer.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t talk much, but he gets a little wordy when he writes.”

“Thanks, Piper. I appreciate you sharing this with me.” He handed it back. I folded it and stuffed it back into my pack. “Did the police ever discover any reason why he was on the roof?”

“Just guesses, but the fact he had pulled up the ladder throws all their guesses off.” I shrugged, tired of guessing and of wondering what had happened.

I hurriedly changed the subject. “You said you were a stranger. I thought you were Clyde’s relative?”

He looked at me for a moment. “No. Clyde left everything to my grandmother. I don’t know how they were involved. I’m the only one of my family left, so I inherited everything by default.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded. “Any particular place you want me to sleep?” I asked, although my heart was set on the foam bed.

He gave me a sexy crooked smile, mischief glinting in his eyes, and I gathered up a short retort, when he said, “You have your pick of any spot,” he paused. “On the floor.” He laughed as I turned pink, anticipating some chauvinist remark.

Realizing what he said, I opened my mouth to tell him what I thought.

He chuckled. “You can take the bed, but I’d like to know what you thought I was going to say.”

“I bet you would,” I mumbled as I spread my sleeping bag out over the memory foam.

*

The morning found me waking up disoriented, too hot, and trapped. I lay still and tried not to panic as I attempted to orient myself. Slowly, it came back to me as I focused on the log wall. I was at Clyde’s, no… Fletcher’s cabin, in his bed, with his arm around me. I relaxed.

“What!” I thrashed. “Get off me!” I wiggled my bag to the bottom of the bed and stood up. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Well, I was sleeping, finally,” He stated groggily.

“I thought you slept on the floor,” I whined.

“I tried to,” He yawned. “But between your snoring, and the stench down there, I wasn’t having much success.” He rubbed his face. “Then you turned over and faced the wall, and left that invitingly empty stretch of bed, so…here I am.”

“I didn’t think you’d try something like that.”

“Like what? You were in your sleeping bag, and I was in mine. It’s difficult to steal someone’s virtue from inside a mummy bag.”

I’d lost the argument. It was his bed, after all, and I was as alone in my sleeping bag as he was in his. It didn’t keep me from glaring at him as I redressed in my bag from the clothes I’d shoved down at the bottom the night before. Sure, they get a few wrinkles like that, but they’re toasty warm when you put them back on. After nearly dislocating my shoulders, I was redressed and free of the bag. I yanked on my shoes and my jacket.

“I’m going out to check on the Cub and the weather,” I said as I pulled open the door. It was completely still outside. There was a light fog, but it was enough to make the silence eerie. I’d grown up here more or less. Never did I have as intense a feeling of being watched as I did now. The eerie silence felt sinister.

My radio call ensured that Anchorage was clear, so once the fog burnt off here, I was free to go. I took my time going back to the cabin, embarrassed at how I’d acted. I was mad at being spooked by the fog, and sad to abandon a place that felt like home to a stranger. So, I took my time looking over my plane, did my preflight, and checked on my repair job, all before heading back in.  

“I’m sorry about the way I acted,” I said as I walked in. 

Fletcher was sitting on his bed, dressed, rubbing his hands over his face and hair to wake up. “Don’t worry about it,” he replied.

           “I can leave as soon as this fog burns off. Why don’t I load our numbers into your sat phone while we wait, so you can get a hold of us as you need?”

           “Good idea. Harder to lose that way,” he replied.

           I loaded the numbers to Tulugaq, my satellite phone, and my personal cell into his sat phone so he could reach our flight service anytime. I stuffed my sleeping bag into its compression sack and picked up my small mess. “Do you want me to help you check out the meat cache before I go? I could hold the ladder.” I was still trying to make up for biting his head off for no reason.

           “Sure, at least I’ll have an idea what I’m up against,” he said with a smile.

           I peered up at the meat cache, a good ten feet in the air above my head. The wind had stirred and picked up, slowly clearing the fog. It was blowing away from me, so luckily, I couldn’t smell it, but I could imagine that it wouldn’t be pleasant. Fletcher leaned the ladder he had brought over from where it lay against the house onto the small ledge that ran in front of the cache. I held it steady as he climbed up and opened the door to glance inside.

           “It’s empty,” he yelled down at me.

           “What? That can’t be! I know it was full before Clyde died. Was the door secured?”

           “Yes, it has the same mechanism as the house, just on the outside,” he started down. “Go have a look.”

Curious, I started up the ladder. There was no way that meat cache should be empty, unless Clyde had emptied it shortly before he died. It should be full of meat. I looked inside. I believed Fletcher, but I was still surprised it was perfectly empty. Only the long-gone whisper of old bloodstains and the slight smell of old blood remained. I climbed down.

           “Well, at least you won’t have to clean it out,” I said as I shook my head. “That’s just bizarre.”

           “He could have just cleaned it out before he died, planning for new meat,” Fletcher said.

           “I guess, but I swear dad said he helped Clyde put some fresh moose up there only a week before he died,” I replied, but I could be off by a few weeks. It was hard to remember for sure.

           “Maybe it went bad, and he disposed of it.”

           “Yeah, I’m sure it’s no big deal. At least you don’t have to deal with the stench.”

He looked thoughtful and glanced back up at the cache, measuring its height with his eyes. “I am curious about one thing, though. Last night, on the floor, I got a distinctly rotten odor—somewhere between dead meat, burnt onions, and skunk—coming in on the wind from under the door. It lasted for some time, so I climbed up into the bed. Last night, I told myself it came from the meat cache. The question is, what was it?”