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tomorrow?” Ukiah asked.
    â€œIt’s a fifty-fifty chance that it will clear up enough.” Kraynak said. “We’ll know tomorrow.”
    Max sighed, fidgeting with his unlit cigar. “Oh, hell, Kraynak, I hope we find Alicia tomorrow—open and shut.”
    â€œYou getting a bad feeling about this?” Kraynak asked.
    Max nodded. “Real bad.”
    Ukiah winced. The last time Max had a bad feeling about a case, Ukiah got killed.

CHAPTER THREE
    Bear Wallow Creek Campground, Ukiah, Oregon
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
    They took I-395 out of Pendleton an hour before dawn, running nearly straight south by the GPS. After passing through a small town called Pilot Rock, the road began to climb through bare, rolling hills. All signs of civilization fell behind, except for the unbroken fence that paralleled the highway on either side. From road edge to horizon, the vegetation stayed at a constant four-inch height. After years in Pennsylvania, where chest-high weeds and scrub trees would spring up if not constantly cut back, the landscape seemed otherworldly and almost lifeless.
    They had traveled nearly thirty miles before pine trees appeared. The trees started deep in the steep valleys, scattered and few. Slowly, as they drove farther south, the pines increased and crept up the sides of the hills until they blanketed everything.
    During the next thirty miles, they passed only one or two houses and a handful of dirt turnoffs. The first true intersection was the lonely road back to the town of Ukiah. Only two signposts marked the crossroad. The first signpost merely labeled I-395 as it continued and the crossing road as State Route 244. The second sign read UKIAH and pointed eastward, down 244, though nothing seemed to lay in that direction.
    â€œThey left out signs for you, kid,” Max said to Ukiah, buthis eyes were on Kraynak, who had grown silent and tense during the trip.
    Kraynak’s eyes narrowed at the desolate crossroads and the road that had been empty of all other traffic. “Damn it! Alicia couldn’t have found a place more fucking isolated.”
    â€œWe’ll find her,” Max said quietly.
    Â 
    It was odd that Ukiah could remember the town he was named after perfectly, and yet completely wrong. The city of his memories was large, imposing, loud, and frightening. Three streetlights shined on the same exact buildings, only now the structures appeared few, small, and rustic.
    The tin man made out of welded parts, marking the only gas station, had terrified him as a child. Why? Even with his perfect memory of his terror, he couldn’t recall the mindset that viewed the metal scarecrow with horror. It looked quaintly harmless to him now.
    The lone bar, decorated with a hundred pair of antlers tacked to its wood siding, made him laugh. Even the junkyard seemed pitifully tiny. And then the town was passed. At forty miles per hour, it had taken less than a minute to drive through it and back into wilderness.
    â€œI thought it was bigger.” Ukiah turned to watch the town vanish behind them. “It seemed bigger.”
    â€œYou had nothing to compare it with,” Max said. “You’re used to Pittsburgh. Of course it seems smaller now.”
    Â 
    Bear Wallow Creek Campground was fifteen miles out of Ukiah. The only building they passed, once clearing the outskirts of the town, was abandoned and collapsing. They arrived as the gray of predawn set in. A narrow dirt road crept through a series of primitive campsites, showing no water or electric hookups. The bus that served as base camp for the Umatilla County search-and-rescue team sat wedged into one of the campgrounds. Kraynak’s tan Volkswagen van with Pennsylvania plates sat parked across the narrow lane from the bus, seeming horribly out of place.
    They climbed out of the rental car, yawning and stretching in the chilled morning. Ukiah breathed deep themountain air, filling his lungs with the sense