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Twenty years ago in Vietna worth knowing about putting down and taking off in rugged terrain Now, re in constant radio contact with the LA County sheriff’s deputies ere on the scene already, he had no difficulty locating the site of theuse of natural landmarks At a few minutes after one o’clock, he put his craft down on a wide section of a barren ridge overlooking Boulder Canyon in the Angeles National Forest, just a hundred yards from the spot where the bodies had been found

When Le the crest of the ridge toward the gathered deputies and forest rangers, a hot wind buffeted them It carried the scent of dry brush and pine Only tufts of wild grass, parched and brittled by the July sun, had rowth-including desert plants like mesquite-marked the upper reaches of the canyon walls that dropped away to the right and left of them, and down on the lower slopes and canyon floors were trees and greener undergrowth

They were less than four air miles north of the town of Sunland, fourteen air miles north of Hollywood, and twenty eles, yet it see a thousand ly far from civilization The sheriffs deputies had parked their four-wheel-drive wagons on a crude dirt track three-quarters of ain, Lem’s chopper had flown over those vehicles-and they had hiked with ranger guides to the site where the bodies had been found Now, gathered around the corpses were four deputies, two ers, and they looked as if they, too, felt isolated in a primeval place

When Lem and Cliff arrived, the sheriff’s s The zippers hadn’t yet been closed, so Le and dressed for hiking Their wounds were grievous; their eyes were gone

The dead now nuuilt that haunted Lem At times like this, he wished that his father had raised him with no sense of responsibility whatsoever

Deputy Hal Bockner, tall and tan but with a surprisingly reedy voice, apprised Lem of the identity and condition of the victi, the ht, of Glendale Body has more than a score of nasty bite marks, even more claw marks, slashes Throat, as you saw, torn open Eyes-"

"Yes," Lerisly details

The s It was a cold sound that hung for a moment like a chain of icicles in the hot July air

Deputy Bockner said, "At first we thought Tranken was probably knifed by soet a homicidal nut who prowls these forests instead of the streets, preying on hikers So we figuredknifed first, then all this other dauy was dead But nowwe’re not so sure"

"I don’t see blood on the ground here," Cliff Soames said with a note of puzzlement "There’d have been a lot of it"

"They weren’t killed here," Deputy Bockner said, then went on with his Summary at his own pace "Female, twenty-seven, Ruth Kasavaris, also of Glendale Also vicious bite ain, Leuess before lab tests is that they died late yesterday We believe the bodies were carried up here because they’d be found quicker on the ridge top A popular hiking trail runs along here But it wasn’t other hikers found them It was a routine fire-patrol plane Pilot looked down, saw theround above Boulder Canyon was more than thirty aircae from The Outsider in their van and had later fired at it with a 32 pistol on June 18, twenty-eight days ago The Outsider would have been reckoning north-northwest by sheer instinct and no doubt would have frequently been required to backtrack out of box canyons; therefore, in this mountainous terrain it had very likely traveled between sixty and ninety round to cover those thirty air miles Still, that was only a pace of three miles a day, atthe ti down food

"You’ll want to see where these tere killed," Bockner said "We’ve found the place And you’ll want to see the den, too"

"Den?"

"The lair," one of the forest rangers said "The daers, and cri Lem and Cliff odd looks ever since they had arrived, but Learded him with suspicion and curiosity because they were not accustoency like the NSA show up and claim jurisdiction; it was a rarity But now he realized that their curiosity was of a different kind and degree than what he usually encountered, and for the first ti-the lair of which they spoke-that gave theer than the sudden appearance of the NSA would usually indicate

In suits, ties, and polished street shoes, neither Lem nor Cliff was properly dressed for a hike down into the canyon, but neither of theers led the way Two deputies, the lab ers remained behind with the bodies, which left a party of six for the descent They followed a shallow channel carved by runoff froht have been a deer trail After descending to the very bottom of the canyon, they turned southeast and proceeded for half a mile Soon Lem eaty and covered with a fil burrs

"Here’s where they were killed," Deputy Bockner said when he led the surrounded by scrub pines, cottonwoods, and brush

The pale, sandy earth and sun-bleached grass were ht back here," one of the rangers said, "is where we found the lair"

It was a shallow cave in the base of the canyon wall, perhaps ten feet deep, twenty feet wide, nowhere the hikers had been ht feet wide but low, requiring Lem to stoop a bit as he entered Once inside, he was able to stand erect, for the ceiling was high The place had a h the entrance and through a two-foot-ater-carved hole in the ceiling, but for the rees cooler than the canyon outside

Only Deputy Bockner accompanied Lem and Cliff Lem sensed that the others held back not out of any concern that the cave would be too crowded, but out of an uneasiness about the place

Bockner had a flashlight He switched it on and played the bea so others to flit batlike across the roorass had been piled to a depth of six or eight inches to alvanized bucket full of relatively fresh water carried from the nearest streaet a drink upon waking in the ht