Speaker 1: You're listening to Part two of The Missing Hunter. The
Search that wouldn't Settle. The search for Wade Harlan didn't
fail all at once. It failed slowly in pieces, the
way things do when too many people are involved and
no one wants to admit what they're really afraid of.
It failed in the pauses between shouted names, in the
way radios crackled and then went dead in the creek bottom,
in that long look that men gave the tree line
when they thought no one was watching them watch. On
the second morning after Wade vanished, the number of people
on some late ridge doubled. Word traveled the old way,
through kitchens, through diner booths, through phone calls made from
wall mounted handsets, where the cord twisted tighter the longer
you talked. By mid morning, trucks lined the logging spur,
not official vehicles, mostly pickups with mud on the tires,
and coolers in the bed. Men brought their sons, Brothers
brought brothers. A few wives showed up too, handing out
thermoses and trying not to ask questions that might be
misconstrued that would lead somewhere they didn't want to go.
Deputy Harold Finch stood near his truck, with the legal
pad tucked under one arm and a folded paper map
spread across the hood. He drawn gridlines and nothing fancy,
just enough to give the impression of order. This isn't
a rescue mission anymore, Finch said quietly to Cal Morrison,
as the crowd gathered. We're looking for answers. Cal didn't respond,
he was watching the ridge. Finch noticed, you expecting something,
Finch asked. Kl shook his head slowly. No, he said,
I'm hoping not to. They'd split the search into loose groups,
not enough manpower for anything more disciplined. Finch paired men
who knew the woods with men who didn't, hoping familiarity
would keep panic from spreading if things went sideways. It
didn't work. The woods had other ideas. By late morning,
the first argument broke out near the creek bottom. A
handler tried to force his dog forward, cursing under his
breath as the animal dug in and refused to move.
Another man said they should try a different approach angle.
A third suggested the dogs were reacting to old scent,
nothing more. Then the smell returned stronger than before It
rolled in low, heavy, like a wet blanket throne over
the ground. Conversations stopped mid sentence. Men wrinkled their noses,
some covering their mouths, as if it would help. Who died,
someone asked, Cow's jaw tightened. Nothing died, he said, not here.
The dogs backed away completely, now tails low, whining. One
sat down and refused to move it all. Finch rubbed
his forehead. He was already behind. He knew it. The
sun wasn't cooperating, the terrain wasn't co operating, and whatever
was happening down there wasn't playing by rules. He understood,
all right, he said, loudly. Pull back from the creek.
We'll circle higher ground. No one argued that alone worried him.
Higher up near the ridge, the woods felt different, not better,
just watched. Finch couldn't explain it. He'd been in woods before,
He'd tracked drunks, lost kids, even a couple of armed men.
None of that prepared him for the sensation crawling up
his spine. Now. It fell like walking into a room
where someone had just stopped talking. By early afternoon, someone
shouted over here. Men converged on a small clearing not
far from the ridge, trail. A broken sapling, ly twisted
at an unnatural angle, snapped clean, nearly eight feet off
the ground. The wood inside was pale and fresh. That
wasn't weather, someone muttered. Finch measured it with his eyes,
then raised his hand to compare height. That's about shoulder level,
he said. Cal nodded once. Yeah, bear, Finch asked, though
he already knew the answer didn't fit. Cal didn't reply. Instead,
he pointed across the clearing. Faint impressions marked the ground
where the soil stayed damp longest, not deep enough for
clear prints, but enough to suggest weight movement. Someone crouched.
Looks like big boots, he said, trying to keep it light.
No tread, another man said, and too wide. The word
wasn't spoken yet, but it was there waiting. By dusk,
the search stalled again. Light faded quickly under the canopy,
turning shapes into guesses and guesses into threats. Finch called
it for the night, ordering everyone back to camp. That
decision came too late. As men gathered their gear, someone screamed,
it was Danny. He came running out of the trees,
face pale, eyes wild. He tripped over roots nearly fell,
then staggered into the firelight. Something followed me. He gasped.
Cal grabbed him by the shoulders, slowed down. He said,
tell it clean. Danny swallowed hard. I was up on
the trail, he said, I heard footsteps. Thought it was
Reese or someone else. But every time I stopped, it
stopped every time I moved parallel. Cal asked quietly. Danny
stared at him. Yeah, he whispered, how did you know?
Cal didn't answer. Finch stepped in. Did you see it?
Danny shook his head violently. No. I didn't want to.
That night, the Knox came again, not three, this time four.
The extra strike landed wrong, like a word mispronounced on purpose.
Men jumped, a few cursed. Someone reached instinctively for a
rifle before thinking better of it. Cal stood up slowly.
Nobody fire, He said, you fire, you own what happens next.
The Knox didn't repeat. Instead, something moved along the ridge,
not crashing, not running, walking. Bootsteps sounded wrong out there,
too heavy Two measured the sound crossed behind the tree line,
staying just far away enough to be felt but not seen.
Finch stood rigid, hand resting on his belt, his flashlight
stayed off. Is that a man? Someone whispered, cal listened,
head tilted slightly. No, he said a man would be louder.
That was the first night. Finch slept in his truck
with the doors locked. The third day brought reporters, not many,
just one from the county paper and a stringer from
a regional outlet who smelled something worth printing. They asked
polite questions and took notes. Finch gave careful answers. Search
on going, no evidence of foul play, multiple possible abilities
being explored behind him, men muttered someone laughed too hard
and said Bigfoot probably got them. The reporter's pen paused,
what makes you say that? She asked. The man shrugged,
just stories, he said, tracks knocks. You know how it is.
She nodded slowly that sentence would appear in print two
days later, and once it did, something shifted. The search
changed tone. People started talking louder about things they'd once whispered.
Stories poured out, sightings from years past, screams heard during
winter hunts, silhouettes crossing roads at dawn. A woman from
town claimed she'd smelled something foul near her clothesline one
night and heard footsteps circling her house. Finch interviewed them all.
None of it helped. What did help, what made things easier,
was the narrative forming around the search. People stopped asking who,
they started asking what and what had already made answer.
On the fourth day, they found Wade's hat. It hung
on a low branch near the creek brim, facing outward,
as if placed there deliberately, not snagged, not crushed. Placed.
Finch stared at it for a long time. That hat
didn't fall, he said, No one contradicted him. By now,
the dogs refused to come near the area at all.
One handler packed up and left, claiming illness. Another followed,
unwilling to argue. That afternoon, Finch pulled Cal aside. Talk
to me, Finch said, off the record, Cal looked tired,
older than he had a week ago. You don't want
what I have, Cal said, I already have it, Finch replied.
Cal exhaled that thing on the ridge, he said, it's
been there longer than any of us. It doesn't hunt people.
Then what does it do? Cal thought? For a moment,
It watches, he said, and sometimes it lets people see it.
Why Cal shook his head. I don't know, but it
never comes into camp, never crosses certain lines. Finch frowned.
What lines the creek cow said, and whatever happened to
wade The implication hung heavy. That night, Finch walked alone.
He shouldn't have, he knew that, but the noise of
the camp, voices, arguments, speculation had begun to drown out
his instincts. He needed quiet. He followed the ridge trail
until the firelight was gone, the lantern glow swallowed by trees.
His boots crunched softly on gravel and leaves. The moon
was thin, offering just enough light to be misleading. Halfway
along the ridge, the woods went still. Finch stopped. He
didn't move for a long time. Then he heard it,
a breath not behind him, beside him. Finch turned slowly, nothing,
but the sensation remained thick and undeniable, like standing too
close to a heat source you couldn't see. He swallowed
and spoke softly, more to himself than anything else. I
know you're there. The woods didn't answer, But when Finch
turned back toward camp, he noticed something on the ground
near the trail, a single impression, large deep facing the ravine.
He didn't photograph it. He didn't measure it, he didn't
mark it. He stepped around it and walked away. By
the end of the week, the search was officially scaled back. Unofficially,
it had ended days earlier. Men returned to work, the
camp was dismantled. Trucks pulled away one by one, leaving
ruts that would fill with water and leaves and disappear
by spring. Wade Harlan was declared missing, presumed dead. The
paper ran a final story, local hunter vanishes near Slate Ridge.
Search on going theories very the word theories did a
lot of work in town. People said the woods took him.
Said it with a shake of the head and a
sigh that meant these things happen. They said it because
it allowed life to continue without looking too closely at
the men around them. Cal stopped hunting Slate Ridge after
that season. Finch transferred two years later. The ridge remained,
and whatever stood on it remained too. Because the search
hadn't failed for lack of effort. It failed because something
else had already decided how the story would be told,
and the woods, ancient, patient and watching, let it happen.
Thanks for listening to Big Fittzwilderness Part three coming next Sunday.
Have a great night,