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     The ranger station on Culver Mountain had been built by trappers William Smith and Samuel Clark. The pair had foraged here and took shelter during the brutal winter of 1907.

     Today, the rustic cabin, which bore concise old-style craftsmanship that could not be found in this time and age, stood as a hub for safeguarding the entire Whispering Peaks stretch of the Sierra Madre.

     Through the broken mist, far above the redwood tips, the rocky minarets spired ever higher, reaching upward as if to touch the very heavens themselves. This rugged and unforgiving range was well known for its desolate terrain and treacherous mountain passes, but when looked upon from afar it was pure unadulterated and ceaseless beauty that stuck in one’s mind. Nowhere else on earth could two such diverse and contrasting elements be brought together as one, neither marring nor blighting the other’s significant features, mused the wily ranger as he drove.

     Ranger Stoneman wiped a thin line of sweat from his brow and pulled the visor down across the top of the windscreen, shielding his eyes from the glaring sun. The light blazed through the trees, beaming in a staccato pattern that shone brightly upon the dirt road as it lazily wound its way, up the steepening slope.

     It was early morning and still quite cool as he made his way in to the Smith/Clark Ranger Station. Wyatt had held this position for twenty-three years now. Fresh out of high school, he was selected for a brief tour of Indo-China with the U.S. Army, before jumping right into the Forestry Service.

     Being a local boy, growing up in Culver, was a plus. He knew the surrounding area like the back of his hand and everyone who lived in it. Wyatt Stoneman had also followed in his father’s footsteps, carrying on a family tradition as part of a long line of forest rangers.

     Pulling the strap of his “Smokey the Bear” hat down taut about the back of his head, which was SOP for summer wear (under the chin in winter); he climbed out of his International Scout and mounted the wide steps that fronted the old log cabin.

     Park Service personnel for Wyatt’s quadrant were scant to say the least, so he was not unaccustomed to riding his shift alone. Ranger Stoneman was the senior man at the station and had just three deputies under his command. The main office in Tucson, kept promising more rangers but they never seemed to materialize.

     No sooner than he was through the thick wooden door the big twelve band radio, that took center stage of the spacious main room, crackled to life.

     Betty Jean Hawkins’ voice boomed in through the mountain airwaves punctuating the silence with her thick southwestern accent. In all his years of service, very rarely had Wyatt’s seven a.m. shift begun without her radioing in at five till. He figured it was a combination of a compulsive need to be first and just plain old motherly initiative that kept her plugging along. He knew she meant well though, Betty Jean had been the main control forestry dispatcher since before his old man had run the mountain.

     The ranger greeted the old woman with his normal pleasantries, taking notes as she brought him up to speed from the previous shift. Wyatt let the graveyard crew knock off at five-o’clock if all was quiet, as a general rule. So Betty Jean had taken upon herself to make sure he stayed well informed.

     Four hikers were hikers were reported missing the day before. He had been well aware of this situation, though. What Wyatt didn’t know was that late last night the group had been found, huddled together around a large signal fire - safe and sound, with no serious injuries. The ranger on duty, Deputy Cobbs, Wyatt’s second in command, had led the small group down the mountain to waiting family and friends.

     Ranger Stoneman thanked Betty Jean and signed off. He crossed the large room to a modest kitchen and poured himself a cup of mud from the pre-set machine. “Thank God for automatic coffee makers,” Wyatt thought.

     It was September and a fairly busy time of year for the park service, as hordes of campers, climbers, hikers and spelunkers alike swarmed to the weald. So, inevitably there was always someone getting hurt, lost or just plain scared, keeping Wyatt and his three-man crew jumping throughout the season.

     The ranger stepped out onto the cedar deck that protruded off the rear of the cabin and overlooked the canyon and lush verdure below. He pulled out a fresh pack of Winstons and fired one up with his trusty Zippo. Wyatt enjoyed the way a good cigarette complimented an equally good cup of Joe.

Ranger Stoneman was wrestling with his thoughts this morning, trying to gain the upper hand and clear his mind. It had been a rather stressful period for him. Today was the 17^th, exactly six months to the day that his mother had passed away.

The medical examiner had said she died of natural causes, but Wyatt was leaning more toward loneliness as the major contributing factor. His mom had never remarried and had never quite been the same after Wyatt’s father had gone missing. That had been thirty years ago. But he knew how she had felt, and it seemed as if it had only happened yesterday to him as well.

     Betty Jean Hawkins had taken the call on that fateful rainy night, forwarding it to Wyatt’s father, who was the duty officer on that shift. A couple had gotten lost among the rocky peaks and needed help. With the thunder banging and the lightning flashing through young Wyatt’s bedroom window, the senior Ranger Stoneman went out, braving the rain and darkness of the ominous night in the search…never to return.

     The U.S. Forest Service and the National Guard teamed up for an intense manhunt that lasted three solid weeks before it was finally called off.  Not a bit of evidence of the lost campers or the daring ranger was ever found.

     Listed as “missing in the line of duty” for years, the government finally declared his father dead in ’83. His mother never could accept that, always adamant that he would be coming home, yep, just as soon as he found those poor, dear campers, she used to say, he’d be home.

     Wyatt had left his wife, Mary Ann, and seven year-old son, Willie, named after Granddad, at home sleeping peacefully. He was hoping for a pleasant, easygoing Sunday morning himself. After coffee and a smoke, he climbed the 150-foot watchtower and spent the rest of the morning scanning the range and the menacing crags of the Whispering Peaks. At times, Wyatt wished that he could stay up there forever, seemed like nothing could be wrong in a place so beautiful.

     It was back down the mountain, along the winding road and into town for lunch. A quick stop for gas and a newspaper at the local petrol station, then on to the City Diner, a converted railway sleeper car at Third and Main. Celia Briggs was a middle-aged single woman with a rounded figure and a permanent smile. She was the sole proprietor, head chef and full-time counter gal, and Wyatt had never heard a contrary phrase slip past her lips.

     He took a seat at the counter and ordered the meatloaf special; Celia’s meatloaf just could not be beat. It was known as the best blue plate for three counties in either direction.

     While Wyatt was playing with the mint leaf that floated idly amongst the frozen cubes at the top of his glass of tea and waiting for his lunch, Betty Jean Hawkins strolled through the door.

     She stopped ever so briefly, to pinch his cheeks and ask how Mary Ann and Willie were doing, then continued on to her usual booth. This was an act she must have performed a thousand times, the folks round here were without a doubt creatures of habit.

     Wyatt mopped up the remaining pool of gravy with a piece of fresh bread, then topped the meal off with a slice of coconut crème pie, tipped Celia and bid Betty Jean farewell before heading out.

     Wyatt’s portable Motorola had been quite all morning, and his surveys from the watchtower had all been clear, no smoke on the horizon other than your occasional campfire. So with his mind at ease, he made a left turn by the big Methodist church and observed the twenty-five mph speed limit over the next four blocks to Crawley Field.

     The fifth inning had just begun as he joined his wife on the old wooden bleachers that sat along the first base line. Willie’s team, the Culver Cougars, was playing the Flagstaff Falcons for the third time this season. Both teams had a victory under their belts, so this being the tie-breaker, it held a special meaning. This head-to-head meeting had been an ongoing rivalry for as long as Wyatt could remember, since before his own little league days.

     Mary Ann was glad to see him, smiling warmly as she slipped a slender arm across his broad shoulders. Wyatt returned the gesture, patting her softly on the thigh while simultaneously waving to his son, who was jumping up and down in the team dugout.

     The future big leaguers slugged it out for ten innings before crowning a champ. The Falcons prevailed, pulling off a narrow victory, second year in a row.

     After the team congratulations and the trophy presentation, Wyatt walked with Willie. In one big hand, he carried his son’s glove, and the other rested gently on the back of his little neck. They reached the gravel parking lot, and he helped him up into the elevated Scout truck. He knew just what his little boy needed after a loss like that. Mary Ann kissed them both and waved goodbye as they pulled away.

     The ranger turned the four-wheel drive behemoth into the DQ drive-thru, and Willie’s eyes sparkled with excitement. With mounting anticipation, an upward curving smile stretched its way across the young boy’s face as he was avid fan of Dairy Queen’s soft swirl vanilla ice cream cones.

     Little Willie was the picture of happiness, sitting in that jeep next to Wyatt with his dad’s “Smokey the Bear” hat on and melting vanilla bean smeared across his chin. Ranger Stoneman smiled, reveling in his son’s delight, as he drove back up the mountain toward the Smith/Clark Station.

     The rest of the afternoon was fairly quiescent with only a few distress calls. Two of which, the man in charge was able to handle over the radio, and the other was a bear call. Not as dramatic as one might think, though.

     Wyatt and Willie drove about five miles up the mountain fire road to where a good-sized Kodiak was busy ransacking a campsite picnic. The trio of campers, who had fled down the service road and phoned in from a nearby way station, waited expectantly as the ranger and his son scared off the hungry bear.

     With little Willie’s help, Ranger Stoneman salvaged what he could of the campers’ equipment, most of it had been ripped, torn, crushed or broken. Back at the station, the ranger gave the three teenagers a quick but explicit lesson in what not to leave lying about in an unsupervised campsite to avoid attracting predatory animals in the future. And while the young men had lost most all of their precious gear, and the majority of their pride, Wyatt felt pretty sure that they were just grateful to still have their skin.

     Willie and his dad made it home just after dark and were pleasantly greeted by the distinct aroma of frying chicken. They both turned to look at each other, Wyatt smiling and little Willie giggling, as this was their favorite meal. Marry Ann was well aware of that; it was her culinary contribution to brighten the mood and lift her son’s spirits after the disappointing loss at the park. She was quick to shoo the boys off to wash up, as they hovered hungrily over the tantalizing spread she had laid out.

     They were discussing the day’s events and enjoying the warmth and comforts of each other’s companionship when the base station radio in Wyatt’s study began to crackle and pop. He gave Mary that “duty calls” expression, slowly rose from the sofa and left the room.

     In h is compact office, with his headphones on, Ranger Stoneman tried to reel in the weakening signal. He jotted down the date and time, while turning the tuner dial back and forth, catching only snippets and mere fragments of the distorted message.

     Once again, though, no sooner than it had started, it abruptly stopped. This had become a rather common occurrence over the last two weeks. So much so that Wyatt had begun recording the riddling events. Some transmissions came during the day, but most sought out his base station in the dead of night. All were very diffuse, spread out and scattered, full of static and gnarling squelch.

     At first, the ranger thought it must be heat lightning or something of the sort, sending electrical disturbances through the airwaves. But then he had heard the faint and unmistakable susurration of voices. This he was sure of, as sure as he was that his father had not run off on them, he heard voices.

     After a solid hour of persistent searching and listening to the empty void, Mary Ann came in and softly massaged her husband’s neck, working the tension and stiffness away that he was unable to hide. Taking off the radio headset and with an exaggerated effort, she pulled him from the swivel chair and off to bed. Wyatt lay awake for what seemed like hours, thinking of his mother who had sat by the same dispatch radio listening to similar transmissions, hoping and praying. He finally drifted off into a fitful, restful slumber.

     The following day, Betty Jean came through on the big band radio at the station, prompt as ever…6:55 a.m. Ranger Stoneman replied, telling her of the strange messages he’d received the night before. The elderly dispatcher confided, telling him that she as well had picked up unusual transmissions again late last night. The pair took a minute and compared notes; as usual, they were both still stumped as to the origin and urgency of the broken voices. Wyatt wrapped it up, and they got on with the business at hand. Today was the 18^th, the Third Thursday of the month…Tour Day.

     Wyatt worked all morning preparing for the tours, and by 10 a.m., he was ready. All in all, it was worth the effort, whether for the mere distraction or the huge financial boost it brought to their economy each year.

     As the expectant crowd milled off the highly reflective, oversized, silver bus, Roger Stoneman stood by the front door of the cabin turned forest station looking like the poster boy for the U.S. Forestry Service, with his neatly pressed uniform, complete with razor sharp pleats – thanks to Mary – and the wide, rigid brim of his “Smokey Bear” hat sitting acutely on his brow.

     The groups themselves were not so large, though, so after a guided tour of the station itself, he took the small congregation out onto the expansive deck with its panoramic view and began his spiel.

     The impressive looking ranger started the saga the same as always; he’d recounted it a hundred times or more over the years. The tour group hung on every word as he unfolded the fantastic adventures of William Smith and Samuel Clark. How their expeditions and surveys of the Sierra Madre were legendary, and how they had become permanent icons of Culver Mountain.

     The winter of 1907 had been unexpectedly harsh; a violent blizzard suddenly smothered the peaks and trapped the mountain men at this very locale. The two had worked diligently, constructing a crude cabin, which was later refurbished in ’35; a few parts still remain in primordial condition, to ride out the tempestuous storm and portentous aftermath that followed.

     Speechless and in awe of the mysterious and insufferable demise of the founding pair, the group followed Ranger Stoneman up the fire tower to round out the tour.

     The third and final group had run the gamut and left the station around five that afternoon. Tired and hungry, Wyatt quickly finished up some pending paperwork and was able to weave his way down the mountain to the humble abode he called home.

     Little Willie greeted his father with a big hug as he came through the door and Mary was there to take his hat. She hung it on the peg next to Willie’s Scooby Doo rain slicker and led him to his easy chair. With his feet up and his head reclined, she trotted off to fetch him a nice cup of hot tea. Mary Ann knew how exhausting “Tour Day” was for him, and then there was his son who took joy in the uncommon role reversal. He liked taking care of daddy; playing doctor was what he affectionately called it.

     It was pitch dark and something was abuzz when Mary shook Wyatt awake. He reached out, groping in the blackness and turned on the bedside lamp. The iridescent dial on the Big Ben wind-up clock read 3:00 a.m.

     Betty Jean Hawkins was on the radio and having a fit, beckoning the ranger to respond. Sensing the urgency in the old woman’s voice, he quickly slipped on his pants and went to the tiny office down the hall. There, he promptly keyed the handheld mike stand and acknowledged her call.

     Betty Jean was babbling on at a hurried pace and all the good ranger could make out was that there were two hikers in some sort of trouble. It took Wyatt a minute to calmer her down, but when she did and caught her breath, a comprehensive report began to emerge.

     Dispatcher Hawkins had been roused by her radio as well, not more than thirty minutes ago. A young woman, somewhere on the other end, was pleading for help. Betty Jean said the woman sounded frantic and was complaining that her boyfriend had fallen and broken his leg. She also said that the frightened hiker kept asking why help had not arrived yet as she had already talked to a dispatcher more than an hour ago. Betty reported that she had consoled the poor girl as best she could, telling her that she didn’t know who she had talked to earlier but to rest assured, help was indeed on its way.

     The aging operator went on, telling him that the couple spoke of being chased by something unseen, and that they had taken cover in a small cave. Wyatt asked if she had gotten a location and was given approximate coordinates. He was about to sign off when Betty said, “Ranger, I’m scared. There’s something eerie about this call, the woman, her voice…it…it sounded…I don’t know, it sounded strangely familiar.” Wyatt told her not to worry, that he would leave immediately. In the meantime, she should try to raise the stranded couple by radio again, keeping him informed.

     Ranger Stoneman wasted no time, suiting up quickly, and with a brief stop at the station for supplies, he’d be ready to roll. He alertly called Deputy Cobbs for backup but got no reply. Gently waking his wife, he explained the situation. He asked her to keep trying Billy Cobbs’ number, kissed her lightly on the cheek and went back down the hall. The father stopped for just a moment to peek in upon his sleeping child, and then grabbing his hat from off the peg, he closed the door behind, sealing off the light and stepping into the dark.

     Wyatt made the ranger station in eight minutes flat. Once inside, he took a handheld Motorola off the desktop charger and did a prompt radio check with dispatch. No breaking news had come in, though; in fact, Betty Jean hadn’t been able to reestablish a connection with the troubled hikers at all. It was almost as if they had simply vanished.

     Wyatt asked her to keep trying and spoke of his dilemma with reaching Cobbs. She said she’d stay on top of things and for him to be careful before signing off, leaving him to the task at hand. He clipped the portable radio to his belt, then unlocked the bottom left-hand drawer of the large mahogany desk. Wyatt slid it open and removed a Smith & Wesson .357 caliber snub-nosed pistol and a box of shells, placing them on top of the September blotter.

     The telephone rang beside his arm, breaking his train of thought. It was Mary Ann calling to tell him that she had not been able to reach Billy Cobbs either. Wyatt told her not to fret, that dispatch would take care of it from here. He said thanks and that he loved her before hanging up. Ranger Stoneman got up and went outside, quickly checking the International for extra blankets, ropes and flashlights. With everything seemingly in order, he hurried along.

     Following the route he had plotted out on a state park map, he drove well up into the heart of the Whispering Peeks. When he reached the end of the old fire road, at the edge of the wood line, he parked the jeep and continued on foot. The terrain here rapidly deteriorated into a rocky bedlam where the footing was treacherous, especially at night.

     Crossing a dried up arroyo, the ranger called out, doing so periodically in hopes that the lost pair of hikers would respond. He had been walking now for over an hour, scouring the rugged mountainside, searching the perilous cliffs as he bathed them in a million candle watts of light.

     Hearing sudden movement from behind, Wyatt spun, instinctively reaching for his sidearm, as his hand flashed to his hip only to come up empty, rewarded for his speed with only a fistful of air. A wave of shock and fear simultaneously swept over him as the grave reality of the situation hit home. He could not believe he had actually left his weapon lying on the desk at the station. Never before had Wyatt been so careless.

     Snapping out of his momentary fugue, he panned the powerful light from side to side, but nothing moved, nothing seemed out of place in the artificial luminescence. However, he could not shake the feeling that he was being watched. He listened, frozen in place for what seemed like an eternity; he heard nothing.

     That was the strangest thing of all, the unnerving caesura. No crickets, no whizzer bugs, no agouti running wild, no coyote baying or owlets screeching out in to the vacuum of space by some incredible rouge black hole.

     Ranger Stoneman cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled out, more so just to see if he could be heard than to see if anyone would respond. He sighed a breath of relief as his voice erupted from his throat load and sonorous, the echo resonating back repeatedly off the canyon walls.

     It was then that Wyatt looked up. Midway to the peak of one of the rocky towers that loomed high above, he spotted a small opening. He would have never seen it without the benefit of the powerful spotlight; even in the daytime it would have been almost impossible to find. The slim fissure was naturally camouflaged by a pair of large boulders and some dried convolvulus scrub that grew wild up here among the rocks. It had such a fallacious frontage that even the most observant tracker would have had trouble spotting it.

     He would have to climb from here as the rocky terrain turned vertical. A difficult ascent for the experienced, the ranger figured the hiking pair most be avid climbers or simply driven to the extreme by fear.  About fifty feet off the canyon floor, he was pulling himself up an inverted precipice when his radio came loose from his waist, falling to the rocks below, where it blew apart into several pieces. As there was no sense in climbing back after it, the ranger pushed on. Kneeling at the entrance to the hidden cave, Wyatt observed that the soil amongst the solid rock was loose and appeared to have been recently disturbed. Piquing his interest, he ventured inside.

     The passage was somewhat narrow at first, and while crouching it its confines, he noticed the spoor of several animals. Not far along at all, the cramped space opened up into a more spacious area. It was here that Ranger Stoneman found an old dry cell battery-operated radio and several articles of clothing. The master switch was still in the “on” position, so he keyed the mike just for kicks…nothing.

     No static, utter silence. The battery was shot, completely dead, and after examining the radio closer, it turned out to be at least thirty years old, so it was understandable why.

     A few feet from the ancient radio lay an old jacket and a pair of gloves. As Wyatt picked them up, they literally disintegrated as if molted to a fine ash, totally friable, literally falling apart in his hands. The jacket was in the same condition; both items must have been lying here for decades, slowly decaying on the cavern floor.

     Looking about, he found a tunnel leading off from the main room. After shouting twice more, with no response, he headed in. Not far down, the passage split into three avenues. Picking the one on the right, he continued on.

     Wyatt stopped in disbelief as the underground access blossomed into a spacious theatre once again, this one with several arteries branching off from the ring of the outer wall. His light bounced from giant stalagmites to clinging stalactites hanging low from the concave ceiling above. The cavern appeared empty, and he called out yet again, sure he must be on the hikers’ trail.

     Roger Stoneman picked the opening on the right again, staying consistent as his forestry training had taught him years ago. Fifty feet along, he stopped dead in his tracks; a low rumbling so eerie it sent a chill down Wyatt’s spine and ice to flow in his veins while the tremor throbbed throatily in the air. He waited, unable to coax his feet into action, until all was silent again, then moved cautiously forward…deeper into the belly of the mountain.

     Another 100 feet ahead, with the guttural vibration still fresh on his mind, he entered yet another small enclosure. Wyatt quickly scanned the smooth rock floor and on the far side his lantern came to rest on a corpse lying supine against the condensating wall.

     He sprinted to the corner, only to find a skeleton – loose garments hung from brittle, withered bones. A Jaracaca snake hissed and slithered away, startled by the ranger’s light. The flesh from the bones was long gone, having been eaten off or rotted free in time. As he inched closer, the lantern’s beam seemed to absorb into the dull whiteness of the naked ribs. Wyatt could see that the blighted limbs were striated, ingrained with razor sharp claw marks and stumped on the ends where they had been gnawed by some powerful jaws.

     The left femur was severed cleanly, confirming the broken leg report. “This must be the boyfriend,” Wyatt thought. The ranger shined his light to the right, then shifting to the left, he spotted the other body.

     The tableau about him was a heinous display; a stage of death had been cast all around him. He started to hyperventilate as a creepy, sickly feeling in his stomach began to rise, climbing the walls of his throat. The bones here were piled neatly in one spot, as if arranged purposely, yet strewn about haphazardly in still another spot.

     A thin, almost inaudible wail came rolling down the passage from which he had just come. Something was stalking him, this the ranger was sure of, even though he hadn’t seen anything, he could feel it, crazy as it was…he could literally feel it. It was as if some being was watching from the shadows, pacing him…sizing him up for the kill.

     He looked again at the pile of bones. On a thin, broken hand, a ring still held true . This was no doubt the woman who had called into the station, but how, how could that possibly be? The radio he had found was dead and had been for quite some time. And dead people…dead people don’t use radios, for God’s sake. Wyatt felt his sanity slipping quietly away; he was trembling now and when something moved in the darkness beside him, he screamed uncontrollably.

     Wyatt scrambled to his fee and ran. Ran. Scared beyond his wildest dreams, he ran for all he was worth. From behind, he could hear the pursuit closing in. Feeding off his fear, the truculent beast roared and the stench that followed was so foul that he could taste the bile as it found its way past the confines of his pharynx.

     The tunnel turned sharply, and Ranger Stoneman crashed into the jagged rock face, dropping the flashlight, which died on impact. He picked it up and shook it to no avail, and the blackness settled in around him, suffocating him like a thick, wet blanket.

     The sound of thrumping feet and the smell of putrid flesh got the ranger moving once again. Into the large room he ran, stumbling and falling, cutting his hands on the crystalline surface of the cavern floor. He could hear the entity coming, relentless in its quest, tracking him down.  Now back on his feet, he felt along the outer wall, not knowing where the passage was that would lead him out.

     Wyatt ran down the first one he found, arms stretched out before him. He thought he could smell fresh air, which sparked a glimmer of hope in him, and it was only then that he realized he was screaming unconsciously…and he forced himself to cease. Through large gossamer webs and into another wall he ran, hitting his head; he could feel the warm blood as it flowed freely down his face.

     Ranger Stoneman was in a panic now, volition escaped him as a state of sheer terror took over, and thoughts of his wife and son flashed briefly through his mind as the unknown continued to pursue.

     Feeling along with his bloody hands, he rounded a corner and ran into a dead end. Wyatt lost his balance on something underfoot and collapsed against the abrasive wall.

     The ranger, now pallid, shirt sodden and shaking uncontrollably, reached into his pocket and pulled out his Zippo. Frantically thumbing the flint wheel, he sparked the wick to life. In the lambent light of the small flame, he saw he was lying amidst another pile of dry, broken bones. Something coruscated, and the glisten caught his eye. He moved aside a withered and fragile tibia with a smooth, cusped end, brushed away the smaller debris and there, lying beneath this forgotten human carnage, was a hat…a ranger’s hat.

     His trembling fingers wrapped themselves around the shiny badge that dangled loosely from the decimated crown, and just as the light was waning, he read the number emblazoned upon the golden star:  It was 641, his father’s.

     Shocked back to reality as the trusted flame flickered out to die, he looked up and saw a long, glabrous snout. Sharp, jagged incisor teeth dripping with noxious saliva glimmered faintly as the beasts enormous head protruded from around the corner.  And then, darkness. He was now left with a set of shimmering, sanguine eyes staring back at him, piercing through the black like a pair of evil beacons, summoning the beasts of hell to come and prey.

     At the end, the veracity of it all fell upon him. Like his father before him, he would be lost. Would anyone find him, would the search parties fare better this time around? Would his son have to grow up as he did, hoping, longing for an answer? His thoughts…again of his wife and the last thing he’d told her, a whisper into the cusp of her ear, a breath that said I love you. Now as Ranger Stoneman laid there wondering, he couldn’t help but think of how many  more calls for help had gone unanswered, lost upon the airwaves, drifting about in the endless void of space, waiting to reach their destinations, just waiting and drifting….waiting and drifting…..waiting…….