“If it was his I’d expect it to be in better shape.” He gestures at the structure. “Stumbled upon it would be my guess,” Jason replies quietly. “Do you think it’s his?” asks my partner, FBI Special Agent Jimmy Donovan. “Probably an old hunting cabin from the thirties or forties.”ĭespite the storm, we keep our voices low, knowing the howling wind could ebb at any time and catch one of us in midsentence, giving away our presence. “One room, maybe a hundred and fifty square feet at most,” whispers Detective Sergeant Jason Sturman as he studies the dark openings through the thermal scope of a borrowed sniper rifle. The thickness of the slabs is likely the only reason the cabin still stands. Even the planks used in the construction of the cabin speak of a different era, a time when sawmills ripped lumber into long wide slabs that both sealed a building and served as siding. The remnants of wooden shutters, where they still exist, hang at an angle, reduced by time and weather. The empty window casings are hollowed out, resembling the sunken eyes of an ancient man looking upon his final days. The cabin is ancient, a relic from a different era now battered and decrepit.įrom our concealed position a hundred feet behind it, I can see the thick green blanket of moss draped over the roof like a half-made bed. Like coiled springs they sit, patient and focused. They wait now for the command, the human word that will send them to finish the hunt. Their prey lies just ahead, injured and exhausted.
With their handlers-their alphas-beside them, the exhausted dogs feel peace and satisfaction-even joy. Their eyes never leave the rectangular shadow resting among the trees ahead, a place of humans, though long abandoned.
With unimaginable discipline, the heads of the police K-9s remain fixed and unflinching as their sensitive noses sample the air, smelling the runner, smelling his nervous fear. One might even feel a chill, a touch of terror at their presence, if not for the quiet presence of their handlers crouched next to them.
Here, in the deep woods of the Olympic Peninsula, one might be forgiven for mistaking them for wolves, these hard hunters with bodies so similar to those of their wild ancestors. Their breathing has settled after the miles-long chase through the woods, and they pay no mind to the keening wind overhead, the whipping treetops, the winter storm that has finally caught us. The dogs sit alert and rigid at the cusp of twilight, unmoving silhouettes cut from stone. And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.
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