The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(65)

After they made camp, three of them went into the woods in search of firewood. They came running back after a hiker said he spotted a large cat sitting on a log watching them.

One of them claimed that it gave chase to him, but when he looked back, he saw glowing yellow eyes at the same height off the ground as his own.

The other campers dismissed this as a prank or a confused sighting of a mountain lion and decided they would be safe in numbers.

At some point after 2 a.m., when the last of them had left the campfire to go to sleep, several of the campers said they were awoken by the sound of something prowling outside their tents.

One member of the party, who’d brought along a rifle, went out to investigate but didn’t see anything.

Sometime after 3 a.m., the camp woke to the sound of screaming.

This is where the versions begin to differ.

True Tales of Mountain Creatures says a large, catlike creature walking on two legs tried to drag one of the girls out of a tent, only to be stopped by a group of campers, one of whom was clawed to death and carried off.

Big Sky Mysteries says the students saw a ghostlike apparition of a Native American on the outer edge of the campsite commanding a large cougar to attack the campers, only to vanish as quickly as he appeared.

Angel Encounters claims that the boys in the group stumbled upon the girls in some kind of consensual sexual congress with half-cat male spirits and took issue with it.

Perhaps the most accurate account—at least the one that best aligns with the experiences of the campers—is an article in the Montana Tracker detailing the encounter and claiming that one of the students received an injury when something climbed into his tent. The article is accompanied by a black-and-white photograph of four students sitting on a couch animatedly explaining their experience.

There’s an oddness in their expressions that could either be the face a trickster makes when trying not to let on that it’s a gag, or the confusion and awkwardness of dealing with this much attention. From the tone of the article, it’s quite clear that the reporter didn’t take them all that seriously.

It would seem that nobody else did, other than the sensationalist authors of the books I found in the library.

It’s an easy story to discount. You have a group of high school kids off in the woods, already primed for hijinks. Add to that whatever they were drinking and smoking, and you have the perfect opportunity for an actual animal encounter to get blown out of proportion.

But when I look at the photo from the article, the expression of a dark-haired girl on the edge of the couch strikes a chord. She resembles outwardly how I felt when I was first interrogated by Detective Glenn—confused and frightened.

The caption lists her only as Elizabeth L. I don’t know what the other students saw that night, or if they were just trying to push themselves into the story, but she has the eyes of someone who witnessed something she’d rather put behind her.

Unfortunately, a first name and only the first letter of the last isn’t much to go on. Unless . . .

I get up from the table and ask the librarian if they keep high school yearbooks.

Ten minutes later, I’m back at the table with three editions of the Chilton Champions Annual, scanning through the pages for Elizabeth L.

It’s not hard to find her. Each graduating class is only about fifty students.

Her face leaps out immediately. She’s smiling and looking forward to a happy future—a far cry from the frightened girl in the other photo.

The yearbook lists her last name as Lee. Her best friend is Brandy Thompson and her favorite quote is “’Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.”

An Internet search finds an Elizabeth Lee Collins living in the town of Lodge Pine. Property records list an address. When I type the address into a search engine, I get the phone number for Lodge Pine Aquaculture Supply—which I assume sells equipment to fish farms.

I have her number now, but do I call her? Chasing down stories about the Cougar Creek Monster is a long way from trying to find my killer. If I ran down every crazy urban legend in southern Montana, I’d die of old age before I found anything concrete.

It seems silly, especially given how outlandish some of the accounts are—Indian ghosts, animal orgies—but still . . . there’s something about the haunted look in young Elizabeth’s eyes. I want to know what she saw.

Impulsively, I dial the number and curse myself for not thinking up what I want to say beforehand.

“Aquaculture Supply. How may I help you?” A woman’s voice.

“Elizabeth Lee?”

“It’s Collins now.”

“Sorry. Yes, of course. This is rather, um, awkward. But I’ve been doing some research and wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“Oh, dear. This about the Cougar Creek thing, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Listen. That was just a hoax some of my friends pulled. I had a feeling that once these animal attack victims started surfacing I was going to get pulled back into it. I have nothing to add.”

“A hoax.”

“Yes,” she says, rather pat. “If you want to know what that’s about, I suggest you go ask that crazy professor who keeps finding bodies.”

I hadn’t realized how well known that had become. “How do you know about that?”

“My husband is a cop. Everyone knows. Anyway, go talk to the professor.”