Of the two rattlesnakes currently complicating my life, I know for a fact which is more dangerous. It is not the gray-and-brown-blotched one coiled up in the center of the steep rocky trail in front of me at 7,500 feet in the Low Sky Mountains of Cavan County, Colorado. The prairie rattlesnake telegraphs its extreme annoyance at our intrusion as Leda, my five-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever, and talented search and rescue partner and drug detection dog, presses back against my shin in warning and curls her lip in disdain at the snake. Leda got the concept of rattlesnake avoidance training in about thirty seconds flat after we moved to Colorado following a personal tragedy in Ohio, and she has zero interest in getting anywhere near that serpent. It’s not surprising to me in the least that Leda has interposed herself between the danger and me. She’s protected me countless times from threats in the past; she considers it her job. I rescued her from euthanasia at the pound and Leda saves me from just about everything else.
Ironically, the “rattlesnake” that is a much more menacing threat to me exists in human form in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Tommy Arnett lives out his miserable days in prison thinking of ways to terrorize me and get his vengeance. The cold-blooded murderer of eight people (including my fiancé, Zach) makes the reptile rattling on the trail ahead of us look like a mere annoyance.
Summer heat shimmers in the sultry air and the echoing roll of thunder from the valley below us grumbles as we engage in an old-fashioned standoff with the impediment to our way forward. More than an hour’s hike remains before we reach the last known position of our missing person, a novice rock climber. Time is literally slipping away. This mountain range was named by the early settlers in this area of Colorado for the propensity of cumulonimbus clouds to blanket the region with ominous thunderheads sitting below and on top of the peaks like an Elizabethan ruff—coupled with frequent and vicious afternoon lightning strikes, often accompanied by hail. Lightning is a significantly overlooked severe weather risk and the sooner we can get up the mountain and back down, the better. Our hastily assembled rapid search team struck out at the crack of dawn this morning at Sheriff Burnside’s request. This is Colorado, so Sheriff Burnside is in charge of search and rescue situations in his county. He’s a man of advanced age and advanced wisdom, and he likes to cut to the chase (pun intended) and call in Leda at the start of any search. The sheriff had already set up the command post at the Safety Center before we arrived—and completed the missing person questionnaire to provide us with the salient details, including the physical description, personality traits, and tendencies of our missing man, Atlis Murray.
Sheriff Burnside totally understands the value of giving Leda the freshest scent possible. Realistically, if someone has gone missing in these mountains, something drastic or even life-threatening has occurred. The sooner they’re found, the greater their chances of surviving whatever calamity has befallen them. (On the bright side, we’re not searching on federal lands, which comprise approximately 650 million acres in the U.S., including national forests and parks and land managed by the BLM.) Since Leda located a missing hiker this past spring 100 feet down an abandoned mine shaft in the teeth of an encroaching, raging forest fire, Sheriff Burnside has all the evidence he needs to justify recruiting Leda up front. The prompt call-up is a benefit we don’t always get, but it still takes time to navigate from the mustering point to the place we plan to start our search.
We’re fortunate in that regard, as the missing climber had informed a friend where he was headed to attempt a new climbing route. (The more experienced friend, who was scheduled to accompany him, withdrew due to injury, and strongly advised our disappeared party not to undertake the journey alone. Warning ignored.) Fortuitously, my father, Bob, knew that remote camera surveillance was in place very near to that location—keeping an eye in the sky on a valuable water gate on the Repentant River for the local municipal water authority. Dad obtained this critical firsthand knowledge because, as a highly-respected tester and reviewer of products for companies and magazines, he had been asked to investigate this very product for the town. He was able to confirm with the manager of the water authority that their recorded footage corroborates Atlis Murray passing by the location of the remote camera two days ago at noon. Having a verified starting point, or last known position, of the missing person is a luxury I don’t intend to waste. Our probability of containment—or the likelihood that we will be looking in the correct place—seems relatively strong. Atlis was reported as late and missing from this scheduled day trip by his anxious and heavily pregnant wife and I’ve had just about enough of looking at this damn snake.
Sgt. Tim Donovan, the invaluable third member of our core team, moves ahead of me cautiously and uses his hiking pole to encourage the undulating rattler to vacate the trail and sinuously head off into the brush downhill over the sheer rock face and away from us. As my well-trained follow person and a Boulder County sheriff’s deputy, Tim is responsible for navigation, coordination among members of the search team, securing a crime scene if necessary, protection from bears—and now apparently, snake wrangling.
“Alright, Veronica, let’s get this show on the road. We’ll reach 9,500 feet in elevation soon and be above the range of any other prairie rattlers. Leda has a missing rock climber to find,” he reminds me as I watch the vibrating rattles of the snake’s tail disappear, while ardently wishing I could make Tommy Arnett vanish over a precipitous cliff too and into the depths of Hades where he rightfully belongs.
