pat, then checked him for signs of heat stress. Youth had its advantages—he was doing fine. Then I pulled Tina’s socks from my pocket. When I held the bag open for Possum, he sniffed the fabric again, lifted his head, put his nose in the air, and wandered in an erratic little circle. He whined again, definitely frustrated.
I oriented my body slightly to the left and pointed.
“Go on,” I said. “Find Tina.”
Possum followed my direction. I counted ten, slowly. When nothing about the dog’s movement hinted that he’d rediscovered Tina’s trail, I called him back. Then I turned to the right and sent him off that way.
Still nothing.
I moved forward several yards and we repeated the process. Left, then right. On each sweep, I sent Possum farther away from me. After that, he needed no direction and followed the ever-expanding pattern on his own. The night was still and humid—bad search conditions for any air-scenting dog. And although he was fit, Possum’s heavy coat made him susceptible to the heat. If he didn’t pick up the trail soon…
Patience, I told myself. Patience.
Minutes later, Possum rediscovered a wisp of Tina’s scent. His ears pricked, his tail wagged and his pace suddenly became faster and more deliberate. He continued through the woods with me at his heels.
Between the darkness and the terrain, it was difficult to know how far we had gone. I knew where I was, generally. Knew that I could turn around and find my way back to the Fishers’ house. But, at the moment, the physical landmarks that were so clearly marked on Chad’s map had little to do with the reality of the forest.
Possum’s collar disappeared. And didn’t reappear.
I could still hear his bell, so I assumed he was simply blocked from my view. I hurried forward, not considering what I wasn’t hearing—the sounds of his movement through the brush.
A spider’s web, strung between two trees at shoulder level, probably saved my life. I walked into it. And somehow noticed that, rather than trailing back over my neck and chin, the strands tickled my cheeks and nose, driven by the slightest stirring of upward-moving air. I stopped in my tracks, heart pounding from a sudden rush of adrenaline, my body sensing danger before my conscious mind registered it.
I switched on my flashlight and, with hands trembling from reaction, aimed it two strides forward. And down. A long way down. Maybe forty or fifty feet. I’d nearly stepped off a soil-covered outcrop of crumbling limestone, nearly tumbled to the stream bed below. Now that I was standing still, I could hear moving water.
The seeping groundwater that fed the stream had carved deep scars into the ravine’s limestone walls. Horizontal fissures marked places where softer rock had been washed away between layers of less porous stone. Soil had collected on the exposed ledges, creating islands of ferns and a network of slippery, narrow paths. In some places, water-weakened towers of limestone had sheered away from the walls, taking mature trees down with them. Everywhere, shattered trunks and branches were wedged across the ravine, creating a crisscross pattern of rotting and overgrown bridges.
I told myself that Tina had not fallen into the ravine. I told myself that Chad was right—that my instincts were good—and that no human monster had abused and then discarded her over the edge.
Possum’s bell jingled in the distance, and my flashlight beam made his collar glow. He had entered the ravine south of where I stood and was moving back in my direction, moving steadily along a ledge that would eventually put him six feet below me.
Just a few steps away from me was a tree that leaned precariously over the ravine. An old cottonwood whose trunk was probably seven feet around. There was a ragged hole in the trunk, partially obscured by vines, that narrowed to a point at the height of an adult’s waist. The wider opening at the base was just large enough that it might look inviting to a child seeking shelter. I got down on all fours and bent my elbows to peer inside the dark scar, hoping to find Tina curled up asleep. Safe. And discovered that eroding soil, crumbling limestone and twisted roots had created a natural chute inside the rotting trunk. A chute that would send a body downward…
I wrenched my light away from the interior, aimed it over the nearby precipice. A tapering curtain of long, thick tendrils hung directly beneath the old tree, the longest of them trailing down to the narrow ledge below.
Impossible to see what those roots might be hiding.
“Tina!” I called urgently.
The slightest echo of my own voice answered me.
She might be lying there unconscious. Or sleeping. She might not be there at all.
The slope beside the tree was steep but not absolutely vertical.
I checked the ledge carefully for signs of her as I considered my strategy. I could walk along the ravine’s edge until I found a place where I could climb down more easily. That would take time and I risked losing sight of Possum, but I’d probably not fall and break my bones. Or I could climb down right here, using the strongest of the tree roots to slow my descent.
I put one hand on the cottonwood for balance and leaned way out into the darkness. Four feet below the first ledge was another jutting outcropping that was at least double the width of the one immediately beneath me. If I could make it down to the first ledge, it was an easy jump to the next one. If I slipped and tumbled past the first ledge, the second one would be my safety net, though reaching it that abruptly was not part of my plan.
And from there? I asked myself. Too easy to imagine me sitting, stranded and broken-limbed, suddenly needing rescue myself. Embarrassing and certainly not helpful to Tina. Especially if she wasn’t even down there.
Air currents in and around ravines are complex, I reminded myself. It was impossible to know if the scent Possum was following was actually directly below me. Or upwind. Or maybe, though unlikely, drifting from the opposite side of the ravine. Common sense overcame urgency, and I decided to spend a few extra minutes searching for a safer way down. I played the light around my feet, taking one last, close look at the terrain before turning off my flashlight.
That’s when I saw the shoe print.
It was tiny, rounded at the toe and angled into the soft earth between two thick roots. The words Stride Rite were lightly embossed into the soil.
That changed everything. Now I knew, without doubt, that Tina had been here. Standing. Walking. Impossible to know if she’d been accompanied or alone, but at the moment she’d stepped next to the tree, Tina had been alive.
And in the next moment? I asked myself. I grasped for hope, for some thought that didn’t involve Tina climbing inside the tree and then tumbling down into the darkness. Or being pushed…
But Possum was intent on working his way down into the ravine.
Trust your dog. That was a fundamental rule of canine search-and-rescue work.
I radioed Chad, told him what I’d found and where I was going, and asked him to head my way. Now.
I spent another minute calling out for Tina and listening. Cicadas shrilled. Mosquitoes buzzed. Frogs trilled. But besides the sound of my own breathing, I heard nothing human. So I climbed down into the ravine. With my belly pressed against the crumbling edge, I controlled my descent by wrapping one hand around one of the thicker exposed roots, then digging the
