The Last Run

N
ot long before finding the dead man, the two boys lowered their rifles and squatted beside bear tracks they could not have imagined. Unimaginable, they were, not because of their width or length—although a couple of hefty loggers could easily have stood together in each paw print—but because the prints were so deep. Whatever had left such indentations in the earth had truly been a creature of great weight and, it would logically follow, of great appetite. The scat piled in high, vaporous mounds along the sides of the tracks only served to confirm it: on Shuyak Island, the northernmost isle of the Kodiak archipelago, there was one humongous—and hungry—Alaska brown bear rummaging about.

Such a discovery might have given other hunters pause. Doug Conner and Jesse Evans gazed in wonder, a flush rising into their faces. The great tracks had stirred in them a curiosity, that careless, youthful desire to glimpse reality beneath the surface of pretty appearances, and they wanted to see more. They were seekers of deer but also of adventure. If they turned back then, what tales could they tell their parents once they had returned to the fishing boat anchored in the cove? No, turning back was not an option. They were on the edge of something, of something harsh, perhaps, but they certainly could not turn tail and run simply because of a few piles of steaming dung.

And so they stood in silence at the edge of the beach, the sweat on their brows shiny in the sun of midmorning, and did what they figured woodsmen normally do before pursuing any creature into unknown territory: they smoked. They puffed on two Marlboros nicked from a pack left carelessly by Doug’s father on the galley counter, split a Snickers bar and feigned indifference to the possibilities awaiting them in the forest that stood darkly at the top of the embankment.

Then they stomped out their cigarette butts and let curiosity lead them up the hillside.

It led them along a steep escarpment by the cliffs, to the top of a rimrock formation. They paused and breathed deeply the odors of an aging forest: the dewy tussocks and lichens, the decomposing bark, the crushed, clawed-up tick moss, the mossy, fallen antlers of fawns.

Ahead stretched more trees, more silence, more shadows.

“Listen,” Doug said.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s what I mean.”

They crept along as noiselessly as they could, the blood drumming in their ears and chests, and halted. Through the smoky light beneath the great spruce they saw the trail wind to a brook and then disappear into thin air.

“Stay behind me,” Doug whispered.

“Okay.”

“But not too close.”

Doug scratched where a bead of sweat had slid down his neck, and began stepping in the prints left by the bear. He carried his rifle loosely, as low as his thigh. The jut of the barrel felt cold in his hand. It was a Remington Redfield .308, a fine deer gun—slim, compact, light trigger. Good for a quick gut shot. Jesse had a .4570 brush rifle with peep sights. It had a short barrel, high calibration. The silence quickened his heartbeat. He thought he ought to rehearse his reaction to a bear charge. He would have enough time to get off two rounds and perhaps Jesse would be able to shoot twice, too. He was not sure if four bullets would be enough to stop an angry sow bounding toward him with the speed of a racehorse, but they would have to do. There were certain moments, his father always said, when ahunter had no choice but to leave his fate in the hands of the Almighty.

Doug looked up. In the high tangle of branches he noticed a nest of eagles. He could see the white crowns and beaks. It occurred to him that they might see something at that very moment that he himself did not. He swung his head around. Nothing. He wiped his trigger hand, cold-drying wet, on his trouser leg. Then, hearing a breath of wind and the piling of surf, he took another step.

And felt it under his boot.

He took a step back, tentatively, and looked down. In the trail, between the scat and paw prints, lay a mitten. A red neoprene mitten. Teeth gouges on the cuff.

“Hey,” Doug said.

The other boy came over.

“What you make of this?”

Jesse reached down and picked up the mitten. It felt heavy.

“Cut it open,” Doug said.

Jesse snapped open a pearl-handled hunting knife. He slit a cross through the palm, turned the mitten over, shook it. Out spilled sand and …

He jumped back.

“That’s … that’s …”

Now at his feet in the middle of the trail lay five very soggy, very white bits of skin. Attached to one was a gleaming, human fingernail.

T
he body came in with no eyes or ears. There was no nose, either. No chin, no teeth—not a single, distinguishing facial mark. There was, in fact, nothing to work with from the neck up, except for a few strands of brittle, soiled hair.

“This is all?”

“That’s it.”

“Where did the kids find him?”

“In a bear den.”

“What?”

“That’s right.”

“What the hell were they doing in a bear den?”

“Hunting.”

“Some kids.”

It was chilly in the room. The air-conditioning might have been set too high. The air hung stagnant and smelled faintly of ammonia. Under the hard, fluorescent lamplight, the weathered bits of what once had been a man looked insignificant in repose.

The investigator rubbed the gooseflesh on his arms. “Well,” he muttered, “let’s get this show going.”

“All right,” the pathologist said. “Where’s that recorder?”

“Here.”

The pathologist leaned over the examining table. He wore thick glasses over red-rimmed, blue eyes; a white mask covered his mouth and nose. He had long, bony fingers gloved in latex. He pressed the record button.

For the record he gave his name, Dr. Michael Propst, the date, August 14, 1998, the time, 2:14 P.M. He cleared his throat and began describing what he saw. There was noteworthy biological material. Specifically, bone fragments, hair and skin. The bone fragments showed prédation —a large bear, most likely, judging by the depth of the marks. The bones, from an arm, a rib cage, a leg, appeared to be human. So did several of the hairs, although some of it had likely once belonged to a deer or a seal. There were fragments of a neoprene wet suit, also very much predated, among them a sleeve, a right mitten, a trouser leg and a large section of the upper chest. And there was clothing: two white socks, briefs, a T-shirt, sweatpants and a Casio watchband.

Propst coughed.

The box, he went on, also contained a fair amount of dirt, spruce needles and other organic debris from the crime scene. He paused the tape.

“They bagged this stuff in a hurry,” Propst said. “Can’t say I blame them.”

“Anything else?” the investigator asked.

“Yes.”

Recording again, Propst made note of five skin fragments. Some had decomposed more than others. One had had a fingernail still attached to it. The nail, he said, was most likely human.

He stopped the tape and pulled down his mask.

“Man didn’t clean under his nails.”

“No. What else we got?”

“Look here.”

Now the investigator, whose name was David Hanson, leaned over the table. On the chest of the suit was an emblem, a penguin, and the brand name IMPERIAL stitched across it.

“The manufacturer,” Hanson said.

“Apparently.”

Hanson ran his forefinger along the inside of the collar and pulled out a tag. On it was a serial number, a lot number and a date of manufacture: March 23, 1989.

“Not new,” he said.

“No.”

“And still wet,” Hanson said. The material had a loamy smell, like decaying wood chips. “Hang all this stuff in the back room,” he said to the lab assistant. “Let it dry out.”

As the assistant collected the shreds, Hanson worked his lip with his teeth. He was wearing his navy blue suit, with starched white shirt, tie and black leather shoes. He was neat, clean, shaved and stern. He’d been a cop six years but a member of the Anchorage crime unit just twenty-two days. He was twenty-eight and this was his first case. It would be nice to get it to go somewhere besides a missing persons file cabinet.

He sighed.

“Is this really all we’ve got?”

“There is the skin,” Propst said.

“Right.”

Of the five skin fragments the biggest was no larger than a dime. Three others were brittle, yellow, and the last two as sturdy as wet newspaper.

Hanson squinted at them.

“So?”

Propst scratched a fleshy jowl. “Well,” he said, “they’re human. Remember, they came from inside a survival suit.”

“I remember.”

“If the fingerprint lab could make prints from these fragments, then you could check the prints against what’s on file.”

“And you think we could make prints from these little things?”

Propst snapped off the latex gloves. “Ask Walter MacFarlane that.”

Walter MacFarlane laughed a smoker’s laugh, coughed a smoker’s cough and then smiled. A big, Savannah smile.

“You’ve
got
to be kidding,” he drawled.

Hanson smiled back. “No.”

MacFarlane’s smile soured. He sighed. “All right, what am I supposed to do with this?”

“Make prints,” Hanson said. “Or
a
print. Then ID it.”

MacFarlane reached for the magnifying glass. “What makes you think these came from fingertips?” He was examining the fragments now.

“The fingernail.”

MacFarlane motioned to his apprentice, Dale Bivins. Bivins was short, with dark hair buzzed to the scalp, a prickly complexion and the eager eyes of a freshman on his way to his first college football game. He’d been at the crime lab almost a whole week.