Trapped - At the Winding Stairs

Before I continue on with the top five stories of 2012, I decided to tell you my most recent story that I just finished this week. It's a two part story. I hope you enjoy it.

Kinley's first call came in at about nine o'clock Friday morning.
 She was worried. “Mickey and Jordan are not back yet, and I expected them yesterday afternoon!” We talked awhile. Her husband and son, my grandson, had left for a hiking and camping trip on Wednesday, planning to walk up the Little Missouri River three miles or so to the Winding Stairs, a very scenic, remote, and rugged stretch of the river, located three miles or so down river from the Albert Pike campground. One could walk down river to the site from Albert Pike, or walk upriver from a commonly known parking site below, hiking up a trail along the river. They chose to approach from down river, Kinley said, and she did not think they were familiar with the Albert Pike approach, or possibly didn't know about it.

      As we talked, I began to detect a bit of uncertainty on her part about how many nights they planned to stay, one night or two. “If you are not absolutely sure about how long they planned to stay, lets give them time to hike out to a point where their cell phone can reach today before we get too excited. Call me back at 11 AM,” I said. She reluctantly agreed. I was headed to southeast Arkansas with another of my grandsons, Christian, for a few nights of catfishing with JD Dunnahoe, my brother in law. I knew the trail up river well. It was pretty well cut and dried. Just park the car and hike upriver along the trail. Although I knew heavy rains had fallen in that area Thursday night, the trail does not cross the river. Hard to get lost there, just follow the trail. What I did not know was that landowners had fenced off the lower approach, so they would not be able to drive the car into the parking area. And, It would be two months yet before the unspeakable tragedy occurred at Albert Pike, where the suddenly rising river drowned twenty campers, and I did not know the horrible potential of the Little Missouri River to rise very rapidly in those mountains, pushing the water far up against very steep cliffs, completely cutting off that trail out.

At 11 AM sharp, another call. “OK,” I said. “Call the ranger headquarters at Glenwood.” She called right back. “All the rangers are at an in service meeting today. Nobody is available to investigate. “Call the Pike County Sheriff's office,” I said. We were now at JD Dunnahoe's house. His farm is beside the levee in far southeast Arkansas, near the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. There was only a couple of places on that farm where a cell phone could reach, and I waited at one of them for her calls.

      Another call came in. “They have sent deputies in to investigate.” Another call - “He found their car downriver. No sign of them. They are sending several men into the mountains to look for them.” JD, his two grown sons Kevin and Mark, and Christian and I began to prepare for a dash to Pike county, and possibly a very long night. We were five hours away, and darkness would be closing in on that cold March night before we could possibly get there. Another call from the Sheriff's office to Kinley – “We cannot reach Winding Stairs because of high flood waters. We've found no sign of them yet, but we have many men looking.” Kinley was losing it. “Send boats down from Albert Pike,” she said. “Ma'am, we cannot put a boat in that river unless it's life or death.” She totally lost it. “My ten year old son is out there, and it is life or death! Put boats on that river!”

      Kinley called me, so distraught she was hard to understand. I told her, “Call Johnny Barksdale.” Johnny is Mickey's brother. He lives at Amity, only an hour away. He is an expert woodsman, is close, and knows that area like the back of his hand. He would be a major asset to the hunt. As we prepared to leave south Arkansas, I searched my mind for the best help possible, close enough to get there before dark. I got to thinking back to many years ago.

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      The year was 1985. I sat beside the campfire, looking at ten young faces in the firelight. This was a winter camping trip of the Arkadelphia High School Wildlife Club, which I sponsored. We were camped deep in the mountains ten miles or so behind Albert Pike. Johnny Barksdale and Greg Latsha were my stars. They were already expert woodsmen, even in high school. I knew they were destined to spend most of their lives in areas such as this. Greg could imitate the call of almost any bird or animal in these mountains. Sitting beside the fire, he gave a loud, long wolf call. Almost immediately, he was answered by a frightening call right across the creek. Everyone grew quiet, looking at each other with wide eyes. The fast thinkers, I could see, were counting heads, verifying that we were all here, at the fire, making sure one of us was not out in the woods, playing a trick. When the count reached ten, they bolted for the van. The others were right behind, including Greg Freeman, who had earlier just walked up to and kicked a skunk, to see how it would react. He found out, and he became pretty much a loner for a long time.

      The next morning, I cooked eggs and bacon for the group, explaining to them I had seen only one baby chick in all those dozens of eggs I cracked, so they probably would not notice it at all, as I had fished it out of the skillet. I'll have to admit that, in the interest of being interesting, I may have fudged on truthful boundaries on that a little. Funny thing, though, most all the food we had left was eaten, except for the eggs. I got to eat all the eggs I wanted, with plenty left over. Even after I announced I had just been kidding, they would just never touch those eggs

.

      I knew these mountains had been Johnny Barksdale's home territory all his life, and if anyone could find them, it would be Johnny. Unless, possibly, I could find Greg Latsha, who grew into possibly the finest woodsman I know. However, I could not figure out how to go about finding Greg Latsha  Greg is at times a duck hunting guide in season, calling those ducks in for the city guys flawlessly. At other times, He is a salt water fishing guide in Florida, and he had also been a professional wildlife film maker for the Game and Fish Department. In between, he often mows lawns for his brother in Hot Springs. But where in the world would he be in March?

Always very athletic, Greg was a very small, but fast pass receiver, with great hands, on his eighth grade football team. In the tenth grade, he was in my biology class, though he already knew more than I could teach him, when it came to wildlife and the wilderness. Once he brought me a photo he had taken, somewhere around Arkadelphia, of a black panther, as best we could tell. Although such an animal does not exist in Arkansas, Greg not only found, but photographed one. It was not unusual for him to leave a large covered bucket on my front porch. I came to realize the contents were going to be alive, wild, and very angry by now. It might contain the largest black snake I had ever seen, or some other exotic wild animal that always amazed me. I began to get really cautious about taking the cover off one of Greg's buckets. On our wildlife club trips, he never failed to set a very wild and uncontrolled example for the other, less woods savvy guys. But he knew exactly how far he could push me, how far he could go before I kicked him out of the club in frustration. Actually, though I never allowed him to know, I could never have done that. He absolutely MADE the club, and, well, I just loved Greg Latsha. Headache though he sometimes could be.

Greg started growing. He grew into a tall, very muscular man, hitting home runs farther for the HSU baseball team than anybody ever had. His small waist gave way to huge biceps and shoulders. I had been told that he always mowed lawns for his brother Roger's landscaping business without a shirt. I had also been told that ladies just fought to get him to mow their yards, and always peeked out from behind their drapes to watch him, fanning themselves as their house just seemed to be getting warmer and warmer. But there just seemed to be no way to find Greg Latsha in March. But I knew if this turned into a night search, we would need him, as well as Johnny, badly.

Continued in about four days. Thanks for reading!