Chapter 3 #2
“You’ll need to drop everything off tomorrow at the ranger station—all of your belongings and supplies.
The Forest Service still provides your water and firewood, like usual, but you’ve gotta do your own grocery shopping.
It’ll all be helicoptered in on Sunday afternoon.
You should plan to be out there in time to meet them at the landing pad.
The crew will help you carry everything up to the tower. ”
“Is there power?” I asked, suddenly nervous. I’d prepared to be physically alone for most of the summer, aside from the days I’d drive into town to restock my groceries, fuel, and water, but I hadn’t prepared to be completely inaccessible from June through October.
Mom is going to freak out.
Honestly, I might, too. So much of this trip was about proving to myself that I could still handle all of the time outdoors my research required—that I could confidently enjoy camping and hiking again without the fear that a flare-up would interfere with my ability to survive in the wilderness.
Also, I wanted to do these things while I still could. Just in case.
“Propane fuels a refrigerator and freezer in a shelter attached to the outhouse, plus a couple of outlets up in the lookout,” Leonard said. “You’ll have to hike out every few weeks to restock your food, and a helicopter will bring it all up along with your water again.”
“Can’t I just ride in the helicopter, then? How far is the hike to the lookout, anyway?” It’d been nearly five months since I did any serious physical activity—I didn’t relish the idea of a spontaneous trek in.
Leonard shook his head. “No. They’ll be fully loaded with supplies and are on a tight schedule to service several towers at a time.
They can’t take additional passengers. You’ll be able to drive out to the trailhead using the park service access road, and from there it’s about a four-hour hike up to the lookout. ”
I blew out a deep breath. In my prime, easy. Now… doable. Maybe. I’d have to set out early and keep an eye on how I handled the elevation.
The image of my old, empty house flashed through my mind. I pictured myself wandering aimlessly from room to room, a ghost of who I was, who I wanted to be.
I shuddered. No. I couldn’t go back to that. “I mean, it’s a change of plans for sure, but it’ll be fine. It’ll be good,” I said, mostly to convince myself.
“Which tower is he assigned to now?” Dad asked, a sharp edge hidden somewhere in the question.
Leonard stared into his already half-empty pint glass.
“We got it all fixed up last month. Cleaned out the inside real good, installed new windows and shutters. Cleared out the chimney, made sure the frame’s structurally sound.
Got the propane and power all hooked up.
Hell, we even replaced the shitter. He’ll be better off in that tower than anything closer to town. ”
“Which tower?” Dad repeated, emphasizing each word.
Leonard grimaced. “Seven.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Wait,” Bobby said. “Tower Seven? You mean Dead Man’s Lookout? The haunted one? I thought no one had stayed there since, well, you know, way back in the eighties.”
Leonard scoffed. “Careful, you almost called us old. And it’s not haunted, we just haven’t needed it until now.”
He didn’t sound convinced.
“No,” Dad said.
“Mike—”
“No.”
“It will be fine.”
“Did they see any ghosts?” Bobby cut in, snickering, clearly too focused on his mozzarella sticks to clock the serious turn the conversation had taken.
Dad glared at Leonard. “I don’t give a fuck about made-up ghost stories.
I’m worried because it’s not safe,” he said, not lowering his voice.
A few people turned to look. “The last time someone stayed in that tower, they disappeared. That girl who just went missing was hiking Dead Man’s Creek trail.
I won’t have Reece up there all alone without a vehicle. ”
“Don’t pretend we don’t know what really happened to that lookout, Mike,” Leonard growled.
A hush fell over the restaurant. The tinkling cutlery and quiet murmurs ceased, pushed to the edges of the room by the giant elephant that’d just trundled in.
People in Ponderosa don’t talk about Tower Seven’s last lookout.
Dad’s eyes flicked over to me, full of an emotion I couldn’t quite place.
I saw the denials he’d so confidently proclaimed on our drive fall away, shattered by the reality that I’d be the next person to walk into those woods without an easy escape, not some nameless stranger.
“We don’t know that for sure,” he said, turning back to Leonard. “Especially now, with more missing—”
“It’s not the same thing,” Leonard hissed, real anger in his voice.
“Don’t you start with everyone else in this paranoid fucking town.
It’s an unfortunate coincidence, that’s all.
We need all the eyes we can get this season, or there might not be a town if the fires get out of hand.
I’m the one who’s responsible for that.”
“You don’t need—”
Leonard cut Dad off. “I tried to keep Tower Seven empty. I did. But we can’t risk a fire getting out of hand before it’s spotted, and that lookout’s viewshed has the least amount of overlap with any of the others. Besides, Reece is an adult. He can decide for himself whether he stays there or not.”
They both turned to me.
Tower Seven, colloquially known as Dead Man’s Lookout, weaved through the fabric of Ponderosa as tightly as the six missing hikers that haunted the psyche of everyone who lived there, almost forty years later.
Tucked high up on the peak of Nowhere Ridge, it’d sat empty after its last lookout, Charles Randolph, disappeared one late summer night in 1986, never to be heard from again.
Shortly thereafter, the police declared the six missing hikers deceased, and the investigation was suspended indefinitely.
There was never an official statement, but the rumors quickly spread anyway.
Some speculated he’d skipped town and changed his identity after the pressure of the investigation into the disappearances became too much.
Some whispered he’d thrown himself from the tower onto the jagged rocks below, the guilt over what he’d done vanishing along with his body in the bellies of roaming wolves.
In the end, it hadn’t mattered. A mysteriously missing man can’t be prosecuted, even if he was guilty.
The very real horror of that summer morphed over the years into a ghost story.
Whispered under lantern-lit sleeping bags and across crackling campfires, it resurfaced in the paper every few years when a group of foolhardy teenagers ventured into the woods and came out screaming about a knife-wielding ghost chasing them down.
Sometimes it was a hatchet.
The weapon of choice changed depending on who told the story, mostly because no one knew how the hikers had actually died.
A chill ran down my spine, not unlike the one I’d felt earlier at the thought of a predator nearby. I was meant to live in that tower for the next five months. Would I be chased from my bed by the ghost of a hatchet-wielding murderer?
Get yourself together.
Ghosts weren’t real. No one haunted that lookout—it was just old, a little run down, and needed new life breathed into it.
I could fucking relate.
“It’s not the same thing,” I said, parroting Leonard’s words. “I’ll be fine. It’ll be good for me.”
Dad looked ready to argue.
“I’ll be fine,” I repeated. “There’s power. I’ll have the signal booster for my phone and the radio. If anything happens, I’ll call you. I promise.”
Leonard nodded. “Then it’s settled.”
Dad didn’t acknowledge him. “Anything out of the ordinary, and you call me. I can get a bird out to you in half an hour,” he said, gripping the edge of the table hard.
“Anything out of the ordinary, and I’ll call,” I agreed.
Hopefully, I wouldn’t need to.
The late-May evening breeze was cool against my skin when Bobby and I stepped outside, full to bursting after all the food we’d eaten. I zipped up my jacket against the chill.
Cheery bistro lights lined the awnings stretched along Main Street.
Colorful window art advertising sales and specials decorated each storefront, ready and eager for peak tourist season.
Gas-lamp style street lights were dotted along the brick-paved road and sidewalk, brightly lit and welcoming against the inky night.
It all looked different, though, once I noticed the missing persons posters.
Alex Alonso, 39, male, 5’10”, last seen at Sockeye Trailhead on May 3rd
Tony Donalds, 23, male, 5’8”, last seen at Salmon-Challis National Park Visitors Center on May 14th
Haley Thomas, 27, female, 5’7”, last seen at Dead Man’s Creek Trailhead, May 22nd
If you have information regarding these missing persons, please call NOW. No tip is too small!
Now, the quaint, touristy mountain-town backdrop looked less inviting and more desperate. “Nothing bad ever happens in Ponderosa—Gateway to Nowhere! We promise!” it said with a clenched smile.
The spring evening wasn’t cozy, but cold, like the difference between watching a blizzard through a window, warm and safe inside, and being lost in it.
Dad and Leonard left a few minutes before us and stood a few blocks down, talking. Hopefully, settling the tension between them over my lookout posting. Bobby and I meandered a few paces before we leaned against the corner of the building.
“It was great to see you. Tell me when you’re heading into town for a supply run and we’ll get together,” he said.
“You, too.” I pulled him into another hug. “Really, I’m glad to be around more, at least for a few months. Thanks for coming out tonight. Give my love to Jade and Molly.”
Bobby stepped back and smiled, his eyes soft. “Will do. And how about you? Anyone catch your eye lately?”
I scoffed. “I think that’s a long way off for me.”
“Why do you say that?”