The land climbed steeply, leveled off, then shot downward into a valey. As we moved farther and farther from the road, the trees closed around us, and everything started to look the same. But the landmarks given by the Wahnetah family made sense to the sheriff. She found the path they'd described, and from it a smal dirt road. I couldn't tel if it was the same logging trail that passed by the wreckage field or another similar to it.

It took Crowe forty minutes to locate Daniel's cabin, set among beech and pine at the edge of a smal creek. I probably would have walked right past it.

The camp looked as though it had been thrown up in an afternoon. The shack was wood, the floor dirt, the roof corrugated tin, extended in front to provide shelter for a makeshift bench beside the door. A wooden table and another bench sat to the left front of the shanty, a tree stump to the right. Out back I could see a pile of bottles, cans, tires, and other refuse.

'How do you suppose the tires got here?' I asked.

Crowe shrugged.

Gingerly, I cracked the door and stuck my head inside. In the gloom I could make out a cot, an aluminum lawn chair, and a colapsible table holding a rusty camp stove and a colection of plastic dishes and cups. Fishing gear, a bucket, a shovel, and a lantern hung from nails. Kerosene cans lined the floor. That was it.

'Would the old man leave his fishing gear if he planned to move on?'

Another shrug.

Lacking a real plan, Crowe and I decided to split up. She searched the creek bank while I walked the surrounding woods. My canine companion sniffed and peed contentedly.

Returning to the shack, I secured Boyd to a table leg, swung the door wide, and propped it with a rock. Inside, the air smeled of mildew, kerosene, and muscatel.

Milipedes skittered as I shifted objects, and at one point a daddy longlegs high-stepped up my arm. I found nothing to indicate where Daniel Wahnetah had gone or when he'd left. Or why.

Crowe reappeared as I was poking through the refuse heap. After toeing over dozens of wine bottles, cracker tins, and Dinty Moore beef stew cans, I gave up and picked my way out to join her.

Trees whispered in the wind. Leaves sailed across the ground in a colorful regatta, and a corner of the corrugated tin rose and fel with a scraping sound. Though the air felt dense and heavy, there was movement al around us.

Crowe knew what I was thinking. Without a word she puled a smal spiral-bound atlas from her jacket and flipped through the pages.

'Show me,' she said, handing me the book.