Dead Man Not Walking

When my husband and I got married it was a case of country boy marrying city girl. Prior to our wedding we each took the time to write out a list of places we wanted to take the other. It was almost comical when we compared our lists. Mine had places like the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of History and Industry and the Space Needle on it. His listed places like High Rock Lookout, Bald Hills and the Hoh Rain Forest as priorities. Wisely, we combined our lists and did it all. As we raised our three children we tried to expose them to a wide variety of activities, from camping in the wilderness to experiencing big city life in places such as Seattle, San Francisco, Reno, Denver, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., New York City and our family favorite, Honolulu.

Camping in the wilderness wasn't my idea of fun. I did a lot of tenting in my childhood, and I wasn't anxious to repeat those experiences. While I was willing to camp in a tent at 9,000 feet in the Rockies for my husband's family reunion, deep in my heart I knew I was a five-star hotel kind of a girl. We compromised with an old trailer complete with a bathroom---that was a must. Later we traded up to a much nicer and bigger trailer with a queen size bed and bunks, even a small tub. We made a lot of happy memories in those trailers, and I cried when we had to sell our trailer before moving to Hawaii.

While I had hoped to only camp in state parks, my husband convinced me to go with friends and my parents to the wilderness. It was opening weekend of fishing, and the guys found a big spot on a logging road above Eatonville where we could put all three rigs. My husband told me I was going to love the peace and quiet. He said, "You'll never see another living human being," and those were prophetic words. Looking back, they were pathetic words.

At the time our daughter was two and our older son was a nursing baby. We were there five days, and it poured down rain the whole time. The streams were so high, fishing wasn't so good. We could hardly sit outside to enjoy a campfire. Our daughter did find something she could do:

 On Saturday we three ladies and my two little ones drove down into Eatonville for a much-needed change of scenery. When we came back we were met on the road by my friend's husband, who said, "We have some trouble back at camp." My mother's immediate question was, "Is the dog okay?" I wonder why she didn't ask about my father first, which I was ready to do. Actually, my parents' dog had run off, and in looking for her the guys came across a dead body! Note: This was NOT "another living human being." This was a dead man NOT walking.

To make a long story short, in short order they had the police on their way up to our camp spot, and then here came the coroner, photographers and reporters. We women and my children spent hours holed up in my friend's trailer. She made coffee for our 'visitors,' while I watched men carry bags by my window, with the victim's clothes, hair, false teeth, boots...all too close for comfort. When their work was done, the yellow tape with 'Crime Scene/Keep Out' cards attached to it was strung clear across behind our three rigs.

To this day my friend and I wonder why we continued to stay there, why we didn't just pack up and leave. We continue to refer to that place as Dead Man's Curve.

It was a creepy experience to be sure, but with the passage of time it has become a story worthy of a blog post.