Fredrick Delacroix pulled up next to a navy-blue cruiser similar to his. It too had Cherokee County Sheriff written in bold letters along its side. Illuminated by the red of his brake lights, the white coroner’s van was reflected in his rear-view mirror. His eyes flicked over to focus on his own reflection. Fredrick’s gaze traveled over his fresh buzz cut and down to his face. Deep honey-colored eyes stared back at him and took in his almond skin tone.

Damn, I look good! he thought, smiling at the mirror. Fredrick stroked the thin stubble on his chin before reaching for the door handle. He hadn’t had time to shave, and he hoped no one would mention it.

Fredrick opened the door and made a thorough scan of the ground to choose his footing before he slid from his cruiser. Eyeing the waterlogged dirt road, he tried to avoid the larger accumulations of water and mud. Fredrick pulled his crisp, navy-blue uniform shirt down at the waist. His shoes sank a quarter-inch into the soil, nothing he could do about that. Fredrick ran his hand along the back of his shirt to make sure it was properly tucked. Stiff cloth greeted his fingers from his bulletproof vest under the shirt. As he adjusted his duty belt, he passed a black truck splattered with both fresh and dried mud, Game Warden stenciled in gray on the front fender. Even in the soft morning light, the large, blue Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation sticker popped against its cool black paint. With his left hand, Fredrick snugged his service weapon in its holster.

Once he stepped off the road, he let each foot slide along in the damp grass to remove the worst of the muck. Fredrick gazed across the landscape. Down the road, near the river, a thin layer of fog faded in the morning light. He followed a vague trail recently trampled through the trees. This section of woods contained many types of trees. Small trees spread out densely on either side of the trail. Times like these, he wished he knew more about them.

The trees thinned as he approached a clearing about the size of a football field. Yellow crime scene tape contrasted the greens and browns of the surrounding vegetation. A couple of hundred feet into the clearing stood a royal blue, four-person tent with a thick yellow stripe around it. His eyes shifted to a circle of heavy stones filled with ash and burnt wood. Beyond the campfire stood a cluster of men and women blocking his view of the rest of the area.

Fredrick ducked under the police tape and walked up to his colleagues. Glancing to the east, he squinted into the brightening light on the horizon. Sunlight broke through the tree cover.

“Hey boss, what have we got?” Fredrick asked.

“Glad you made it Freddie. Sorry to call you in on your day off, but we need all the help we can get,” the sheriff replied as Fredrick gave a slight nod, faintly gritting his teeth. He disliked it when people called him Freddie. He never made a huge deal about it; It wasn’t worth the hassle, nevertheless it grated on his nerves. Still, would it be so hard to—with a sigh he shook his head banishing the thoughts. No reason to brood over it.

A glance at his watch prompted him to calculate his coming overtime. Now, there was something to consider.

With a flick of the wrist as he stepped away from the group, the sheriff motioned for Fredrick to follow. “Well, it’s not good. It looks to be an animal attack. We have three bodies and another missing presumed dead. If that wasn’t enough, a small thunderstorm rolled through a couple of hours ago, compromising much of the evidence and destroying any scent trail the search dogs could have used. The cell phone coverage out here is spotty, too, so…” he trailed off.

Fredrick let out a grunt as he continued to follow the sheriff. He spotted two occupied body bags lying in the grass beside a crimson tent. The sheriff flipped a page back to peruse his notebook and his eyes reabsorbed the information.

“These two are James Epps, age 22, and Hannah Maitland, age 19,” he said motioning toward each of the body bags in turn. “And over there.” The sheriff indicated a third black, heavy plastic, body bag. “We have one Steve Pascall, age 28.” Between the tent and the tree line, a coroner’s assistant zipped the final bag closed. “All three were mauled,” he concluded.

As he circled the red domed tent, Fredrick noticed the vinyl material torn open along the back. Bent over to investigate the interior of the tent, Fredrick saw a substantial amount of blood on the slate gray floor. A tangy copper-like smell invaded his nostrils.

“What was it? Do we know?” Fredrick asked, running his eyes along the ragged edges of one split in the fabric. Whatever it was had been powerful.

“We suspect a mountain lion,” he replied, “but the O.D.W.C. isn’t sure. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find any clear prints.” Fredrick knew the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation looked into animal attacks this far from civilization.

Fredrick nodded, “What do you need me to do?” he asked as one of the body bags was spirited away.

“We need to find the missing student.” The sheriff glanced at his notebook. “A Ms. June Moon. The valley is a little more than a square mile in diameter. We’ve already searched the woods three hundred yards in each direction, so now, we will send some smaller groups out to look. Each group will have to use their handheld transceivers. We’ll relay any relevant data via the car radios.”

Alan Harris hiked toward the cliffs along the southern edge of the valley. Harris wasn’t happy with this assignment. He knew the O.D.W.C. investigated dozens of mountain lion sightings each year. Of which they confirmed less than thirty. However, it wasn’t the possible wild goose chase that he objected to. He’d been on plenty of those in his time.

Those drunken idiots had gotten themselves killed, and now he might have to kill this poor animal. If there was one thing about the job he hated, it was this. Harris couldn’t fathom why those immature city kids had decided to set up camp in such a remote place. They hadn’t even created a proper camp, nor had they buried their trash. Empty beer cans spread around. The campfire had been right in the middle of the three tents. The scent would have been too enticing for the animal to resist. Of course, Harris was glad the little boy had escaped unhurt, but this incident shouldn’t have occurred at all.

Harris had worked for the Department of Wildlife Conservation in Oklahoma for close to twenty years. In that time, he’d only seen a handful of wild animal attacks. The majority of his job consisted of enforcing fishing and hunting laws. Harris had read somewhere that big cat attacks in Africa and Asia often left little evidence. Those were lions and tigers, of course, maybe a leopard or jaguar in the Amazon. There had been so few mountain lion attacks, so few fatal, he couldn’t be sure what to expect.

Harris looked behind him toward Vasiliy Bodnar, the police detective assigned to be his partner during the search. Vasiliy was a lanky man in his mid-forties with sharp features and a thick accent. Dressed in a long-sleeve, gray shirt and dark jeans, he carried a black tactical shotgun with a pistol grip strapped over his shoulder. His badge hung on a chain around his neck. He certainly wasn’t outfitted for this kind of search.

Harris lifted his tan ball cap and wiped the sweat from his balding head. As he plodded along over the damp terrain, Harris wished he had kept up with his workouts. Under his beige uniform shirt and green pants, he carried seventy-five extra pounds. Maybe a hundred, if he was being honest with himself. Harris knew his tall frame distributed the weight well enough, but he’d still just had to start using the next notch in his belt. At least the ground along here wasn’t too uneven.

Harris knew the forests in this area comprised mostly oak and hickory trees. There were also a few swaths of pine.

The forest’s undergrowth varied widely in density as they progressed. Some areas packed so full of trees and saplings, brush and briar, they could barely wade through. While in others, the mature trees had grown so large as to block out the sun, leaving the ground vegetation unable to thrive. These were the easiest to charge through. In general, the undergrowth’s thickness ranged somewhere between the two extremes.

Rock outcrops also swelled from the soil, sprouting like plants. The partially buried boulders could be a nuisance; however, the real hazard came from the multitude of smaller stones. One wrong step could mean a sprained ankle or twisted knee.

Harris spotted another set of prints in the damp mud. A quick scan of the area revealed nothing of note, so he squatted down to examine the prints. While wet silt distorted the prints, they appeared to be from a mountain lion. The animal seemed to be roaming in a characteristic overstep gait. If he was tracking a mountain lion, it was likely the one responsible for the deaths. Mountain lions were highly territorial, so he doubted there was more than one in the area. However, this whole situation made little sense to him. Mountain lion attacks were very rare, and there were never multiple victims like this. What else could have attacked the campers though?

When he had pulled his cruiser through the line of vehicles early that morning, Fredrick Delacroix thought he’d been prepared. He was wrong, very wrong. Nothing could have prepared him for this nightmare. Fredrick had never seen anything like it.

The young sheriff’s deputy had been to all manner of crime scenes. The worst had probably been two years ago, when a young mother had overdosed, leaving her four-year-old daughter alone for five days before anyone had come looking. The house had reeked of decay and the poor child was dirty and underfed.

However, the pure savage brutality of what he’d seen of this attack was staggering; he was thankful he hadn’t arrived earlier. He had been able to avoid much of the carnage.

Fredrick looked up from the hand-sketched map clutched in his right hand. He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. The fresh scent of the forest filled his nose. Ahead of him, Officer Hernandez’s black ponytail draped through the back of her beige cap and caught the light as it bobbed back and forth. The thirty-year-old game warden carried an old bolt action Remington rifle over her shoulder. Hernandez strode toward their search grid. He hadn’t even gotten her first name; she’d just introduced herself as Hernandez.

Fredrick had never been involved in a search with a dangerous animal like a mountain lion around. He had his share of encounters with dogs, which he knew could be dangerous; however, mountain lions were totally foreign. Hernandez seemed competent at her job, so Fredrick was more than willing to let her take the lead.

Hernandez appeared to be almost a foot shorter than his six-foot-three inches and slender. She looked to be at least half Hispanic. Latin American? His shoulders rose in a slight shrugged. She wore olive colored cargo pants and a khaki polo shirt with an embroidered shield on the left breast.

Eyes cast down, Fredrick surveyed the map again. Lined on three sides by limestone cliffs, the valley was approximately one and a half square miles. To the west of the scene, the river ran along the edge of the valley. A dirt road came up from the southwest, followed the riverbank, then meandered north and east, and ended several hundred yards east of the campsite. Fredrick and Hernandez were assigned to search an area northeast of the campsite.

He followed her northeast, all the while keeping an eye out for the poor Moon girl.

Before long, Fredrick found himself following the ridgeline along the northern edge of the valley. He walked along the side of a gully. To his left, the ground sloped down toward a dry creek bed at about a forty-degree angle. The slope into the gully was strewn with gigantic boulders. On the far side of the creek bed, the ground leveled out for about a dozen feet before meeting the rock face. The limestone cliff face rose approximately sixty feet.

Pausing at the edge of the gully, he scanned the area. Fredrick spotted a split in the rock, about three-foot-wide, along the ridge where the limestone had broken apart. The fissure started about five feet from the valley floor and ran up another five or so feet. Right below the crevice sat a massive boulder, it appeared to be an improvised staircase up to the cave.

“I’ll check that,” he volunteered, pointing at the opening.

“Ok,” Hernandez replied. Fredrick had noticed she wasn’t much of a talker. He didn’t mind.

Fredrick moved to the edge of the slope. It had to be at least twenty feet down the slope to the creek bed. The moist soil along the incline shifted as he made his way down. Going down into the gully, Fredrick used the boulders to assist in slowing his descent. He slid the last few feet, miraculously keeping his balance. As he reached the ground, Fredrick took a few steps forward. He chose a flat rock and dragged his foot along its edge to scrape the mud from his shoes. He heard something behind him and turned to see Hernandez following him, half walking, half sliding down the incline. Boots now covered in mud, Hernandez took her place beside him and pulled the old rifle from her shoulder. She brought the butt up to her shoulder pointing the barrel at the ground, ready to whip it up if she needed. Catching his eye, she nodded.

Left hand resting on his service piece, Fredrick crept up the worn tiers of the boulder toward the opening in the side of the cliff. As he approached the gap in the rock, Fredrick pulled his small, powerful flashlight from its pocket then glanced down at his companion. The OK Wildlife Department officer was watching him as he studied the cave mouth.

Just inside the fissure, a narrow tunnel in the rock ran a few yards before it curved out of sight. He stepped up into the crevice and made his way along the passage. At the end of the passage, Fredrick shifted his flashlight to illuminate the inside of the small chamber. He scrutinized the room while panning the light. On the far side of the cave, he saw another gaping fissure. Along the wall to his right, he noticed what seemed to be a carved design. The cave floor was also strewn with what at first appeared to be debris. To his surprise, Fredrick spotted some Native American artifacts among the objects. A second scan revealed quite a few objects. He recognized the arrowheads and spearheads right away. There were even a few statues. But there were also some things he couldn’t identify.

As he took a few steps forward, Fredrick glanced down. The print his foot made in the damp earth made him pause. He scanned the floor for other prints, human or animal. Due to the lack of prints, Fredrick realized nothing had been in the cave for years. Fredrick figured he should call this in. He shone the light on the artifacts again. He’d better not disturb anything else; you never knew what those science types would consider important.

Fredrick squinted as he stepped from the cave and the bright, warm sunlight hit his face. Hernandez scanned the trees in front of the cave. With a pivot, she twisted to gaze at him over her shoulder.

“Any sign?” she asked.

Fredrick shook his head as he started to make his way down from the boulder.

“No,” he responded as he got closer to her, “but there were some Native American artifacts.”

“Really?” she questioned looking interested.

“Yeah, there were quite a few,” he replied. “There was also a carving on one of the walls.”

“Neat,” she responded.

Once he joined Hernandez, they hastened to continue the search.

Harris scanned the woods thoroughly as he walked. A shape appeared about a hundred meters away under some dense brush. He paused mid-step and dropped to one knee. In a crouch, he brought his rifle up. Harris tilted his head to rest his cheek on the rifle’s stock. He took a deep breath, eye on the object in the high-powered scope. He felt his pant leg grow damp, as it drew moisture from the groundcover. As he peered into the sight, a mountain lion came into crisp focus. The animal gnawed on something; he couldn’t tell what.

Harris slowly exhaled and inched his finger toward the trigger.

He wasn’t keen to take the shot. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to go another way. If he could somehow prove that this animal hadn’t been involved, he wouldn’t have to take the shot. It was eating. The bodies at the campsite had shown signs of being fed upon. The mountain lion wouldn’t still be eating if it had recently fed, would it? Harris tilted his rifle to focus on the animal’s meal. What if this mountain lion hadn’t been a part of the massacre?

As its meal came into sharp focus, he let out a sigh. The object the mountain lion devoured was a human arm. That sealed it. Harris reacquired his target. Finger tight on the trigger, he emptied his lungs and gently squeezed. The rifle bucked against his shoulder as he saw a hole appear in the mountain lion’s torso. Straight through its heart. It spooked and ran a few strides before it collapsed.

He wished he could have used a tranquilizer gun, but unlike the movies, these animals were too robust to be affected in a timely manner. In the several minutes it took for the tranquilizer to take effect, the mountain lion would become agitated. It might have gotten away, or worse, attacked someone else. Mountain lions are quick, powerful predators. Harris hated it, but he couldn’t take the risk.

Harris moved through the trees toward the spot the mountain lion had been. Harris scanned the area as he approached. He spotted a brightly colored object peeking out from under the brush. As he got closer, Harris recognized the bright object as a braided cloth bracelet on the wrist of a severed arm. He scanned the animal but saw no movement; it was no longer breathing. Harris reached over, using the side of his hand, he swept the brush and moist dirt from what remained of the arm. With its long slender fingers and naturally tanned skin, it appeared to be the arm from a young native woman.

He pulled his hand-held radio from its slot and switched it on. Button depressed; he spoke into it. “The mountain lion is dead. I repeat the mountain lion is dead. We have also found what appears to be the left arm of a young woman.”

“Acknowledged,” the radio squawked its reply. “Please secure the animal’s body, as well as the arm.”

As he slipped the radio back into its slot, Harris turned to Bodnar. “Let’s bag it up.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 4