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face.
    There was
something on the fragment of windshield that remained in the Jeep.  It was
fluttering in the breeze and it took a while for Nick to ascertain just what it
was.  When it finally hit him he gasped again and stood up, staring at it.  His
gaze followed a small trail of dark splotches on the snow that looked like oil
in the available light.  He knew that it was blood.  The trail came out the
windshield and across the hood, where the spots had hit and run down the hood
towards the ground and frozen in route.
    The trail of blood
hit the road where he was standing, continued on toward the opposite side of
the road then abruptly ceased half way there.  This, and the fact that most of
the windshield was laying in pieces on the inside of the cab told him that they
hadn't been thrown from it.  Mike had gone around to the other side of the
Jeep.  Finding nothing, he returned to where Nick now stood and followed his
gaze to the trail of blood.
    "Well, it
looks like they climbed out and somebody helped them.  We didn't pass anyone
though.  Th-they surely wouldn't have gone back the other way?" Mike
offered.  He seemed so calm that Nick just looked at him as if it were the
first time he had heard English.  He was numb.  He raised his arm to point at
the tuft of hair and skin hanging on the fragment of windshield but he could
not feel himself do it.
    "Oh shit
Nick, one of them is hurt!  They must have gone into town to find a
doctor!"  Mike still didn't get it, or didn't want to get it.  Nick felt a
surge of anger rise up in him.  Not really anger at Mike, but anger at the
absurdity of the situation, the helplessness of it, and the implications. 
    "Damn it! 
They didn't walk away!  That's someone's hair and scalp there!" Nick was
still pointing at it, "That's someone's blood scattered across the
snow!"  He looked at Mike in disbelief, "Somebody dragged them out of
there, and not too gently either!  Can't you see that?!"  Nick realized
that he had been yelling.  "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to snap at you.  But…just
look at this."
    Mike was stoic,
apparently trying to absorb what Nick was saying and still maintain control. 
"Get real man!  Why would someone want to do that, out here in the middle
of nowhere?  In the middle of the fucking night?  That doesn't make any
sense!"
    "I don't
know.  But that's how it looks to me.  You got a better explanation?"
    "No.  But
let's not jump to any conclusions.  Let's go back to the Ranger Station and see
if it's been reported, or who we contact, or whatever."  Mike walked past
Nick towards the car, his expression unchanged.
    Nick stood there
for a moment longer, trembling.  As he turned toward his car he noticed the
ravenous cry of the wind.  His stomach churned and his skin broke out in
gooseflesh.  He peered off into the darkness to either side of the road.  He
had a very bad feeling in his gut about everything here.  But even that did not
explain why he was suddenly so afraid.
    Nick ran back to
the car and started the engine.  Driving carefully so as not to fall off the
road and get stuck, he turned the car around and headed back the way they had
come.  He headed back to the Ranger Station.
     
     
     
                                                                                 

CHAPTER 3
     
    The telephone's
ring startled Hayden awake.  It was not a deep sleep, nor was it a restful one;
Hayden was having a nightmare about Ellis.  The wind howled outside his bedroom
and thumped against the window trying to gain entrance.  Hayden ignored it and
reached for the phone.  He didn't have to search for it or fumble around in the
dark as so many people do.  Through many years of his job and simply having it
in the same position for so long he knew exactly where it was.  Hayden liked
things neat and in order.
    He picked it up on
the second ring and beside him his wife