The Search

“Something is following us.”

- Rex Nishimura, La Canada, California

Jared, my 13-year-old son, was clearly spooked. We switched off our flashlights and sat in silence, the black forest around us eerily still.

I’d hiked this area many times over the past 30 years, but never so long after dark. What were we doing here? What was our plan? It did almost feel as if some other presence was with us. Before every trip I recite the same Bible verse: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Somehow it felt as though we’d been brought right where we needed to be.

We hadn’t expected to be here this Memorial Day weekend, scrambling in the dark across the rocky terrain that surrounds Courtright Reservoir in the Sierra National Forest. But there were a lot of things about this trip we hadn’t planned on. Originally my wife, Chuie, Jared and I were going to meet some friends at Lake Isabella, almost five hours south, but our friends got sick and couldn’t make it. We heard the fish weren’t biting anyway. So we lit out north. The mountain road to Courtright had been cleared of snow the day before.

We didn’t need much gear. But for some reason I brought the topographical maps I’d downloaded and my GPS. My signaling whistle. Also our ham radios. Jared had thought of that. We’d only gotten our licenses six months earlier, and he wanted to try them out. The fishing was middling at best. Thunderstorms kept us off the lake most of the day. My wife and I wondered whether we should just cut our trip short.

Around 9:30 that evening, I was cleaning dishes at our campsite when a man suddenly came up. He startled me. He was looking for his fiancée, Lynn, and their dog. They’d been missing for about five hours. “Our camp is across the lake,” he said.

“I’ve searched everywhere.”

“I haven’t seen her,” I said, “but I’ll keep an eye out.”