Ranger

but the jaw was the same the chipped tooth was the same the shape of the hands on the knees the width of the knuckles the specific way the left ring finger hooked slightly inward from an old brake that dale had gotten as a teenager helping his father split cordwood was the same

I was looking at Dale Riley.

Dale Riley was 66 years old.

He had been missing for 25 years and one month.

He was sitting in a shelter at 9,412 feet in a storm, calling himself Clark Morrison, looking at the stove.

I kept my face flat.

I kept my breathing even.

I did not show anything.

I thought about what I knew.

I knew that in the 25 years since Dale Riley had disappeared, the district had logged 11 missing person cases that were never resolved.

Not all of them were suspicious.

Some were hikers who got caught out in storms, or who left the trail and fell into terrain where a body would not be recovered, or who did not want to be found.

That happens.

But in 14 years of working the district, I had read through all 11 files at one point or another, because every few years one of them would come up again, and I knew that at least six of them had hiked into our range alone, filed a permit, reached a backcountry location, and never come out.

No sign of violence that anyone ever found.

No bodies recovered.

The pattern was not close enough to raise anyone's hackles.

But looking at the man across from me, I understood that the pattern was not coincidence.

I understood that Dale Riley had been living in these mountains for 25 years.

I understood that he had been hunting people.