The Nowhere Bones by Dwight Holing
The opening scene of the book is the spring outdoor wedding of Nick Drake, the protagonist, and Gemma Warbler, the local veterinarian, who is the daughter of the local sheriff. The Nowhere Bones is the fifth book in this series that features Nick, a traumatized veteran of the Vietnam War, who is a wildlife ranger in Oregon. Gemma is the only vet for hundreds of miles so she’s also a pilot who can fly to treat sick animals. The day after the wedding, Nick and Gemma, who is pregnant, are off to their honeymoon in her plane when a freak snowstorm causes a crash. The very pregnant Gemma is hurt badly.
In Chapter 2, we flash back to a few months earlier. This is the style of the book, moving back and forth from now, right after Nick and Gemma got married, to then, a few months before the wedding when Nick was working to solve crimes committed at an archaeological dig that uncovered old bones and artifacts.
After returning from Southeast Asia, Nick spent six months in Walter Reed Hospital being treated for what we now call PTSD. He got a job as a ranger and was confronted by several crimes that he helped solve using his outdoor skills. In this book, Nick visits two Paiute Indians, Tuhudda and his grandson, Nagah. (They were still called Indians back in the early 1970s which is the time frame of the books.) Tuhudda and another Paiute, Nagah, had been hired by a University of Oregon professor to help identify old bones found in an archeological dig.
Nick meets Professor Paxton Sizemore when he goes with Tuhudda to the site. The professor learns that Nick did three years in Vietnam and proceeds to criticize America’s involvement in the conflict, not the most tactful approach in meeting a guy who was very damaged in the war.
The professor is trying to learn more about the native people in the area. Nick is very close to the Paiutes who live in an area called No Mountain so he and the professor have a good conversation about Native American roots and such. Pax - everyone calls the Professor Pax - is trying to disprove the traditional wisdom that the first people in North America were the Clovis who came over the land bridge from Asia around 14,000 years ago.
Pax introduces Nick to his two student assistants, Stephanie and Jelly, a guy who is a tad plump. They all go to the site to check out an arrowhead Stephanie had found. The professor talks about how much the flora and fauna has changed over the past 15,000 years. Back then the area was warmer and lusher, with giant bison and Saber tooth big cats roaming around. There is a lot of exposition about how scientists decipher the past using modern technology. The professor, who started out in the book like a clueless academic, actually is a pretty good guy.
Pax wanted Tuhudda to help identify bones because the remains were probably related to the old Paiute.
Stephanie, a much better student than Jelly, painstakingly uncovers the arrowhead. The process of finding an artifact is meticulous; you don’t want to damage it. She has indeed discovered an arrowhead from 10,000 to 14,000 years ago. Stephanie is happy. Pax is happy. Jelly is jealous.
Pax takes Nick into his confidence. He’s worried that Jelly, who is in on the dig because he sued the university, will do something stupid. Pax also said that Stephanie’s ex-boyfriend, Carson, has been threatening him. Stephanie broke up with Carson years before but he won’t let her go. He thinks that Pax is dating Stephanie which is not true. Another problem for Pax is that a colleague, Professor Cecil Oliver, claimed that Pax stole his research and published it. The charge was dismissed but the professor still blames Pax for stealing his work and works incessantly to discredit him. Oliver lost his teaching position because of his erratic behavior and recently threatened to “blow up” Pax’s latest field research, the current dig.
Nick leaves the site and meets up with his partner ranger, Loq, a Klamath Indian who also served in Vietnam. Loq tells Nick that a levee broke on a river in an animal refuge. The two of them need to get to the site and help keep the animals from panicking. Being a wildlife ranger is not boring.
Back to the present at the plane crash, Nick extricates Gemma from the crash. She is totally unconscious but she has a pulse. Nick finds Gemma’s medical kit so at least he has some drugs and bandages to treat her. He grabs his duffle bag and moves Gemma away from the plane which could explode at any moment. It is getting dark and cold so Nick makes a shelter out of wood and brush in the forest. They are safe for now but Nick realizes that no one knows where they are. The storm blew them off course so the air patrol out of Portland will not know where to look.
Back to a few months ago, Nick sits down with the sheriff, Pudge Warbler, and fills him in on the dig and the potential problems with Jelly, Stephanie’s ex, Flip, and with the nutty professor who is out to ruin Pax. The sheriff will have his researcher, Orville Nelson, do some digging on these characters. This is the early 1970s so you couldn't just Google someone. Orville started out as a volunteer in the sheriff’s office. He is great and getting information so he soon got a job finding things out. During one of the novels, he was shot and paralyzed but he is undaunted.
The next day Nick gets to the wildlife reserve. (p 66 - great nature description.) He and Loq go to the levee break and determine that it was probably done to divert water to some individual’s land for livestock or growing crops, both no-no’s. They find a recently-installed sluice gate that diverts the water illegally. While they’re figuring out what to do next, someone shoots at them.
They aren’t hit and go after the shooter who is a 13-year old boy, Silas Grazier, who lives with his brother, Ebal, and survivalist father in the middle of the woods, really off the grid. Nick and Loq convince Silas to drop the rifle but he’s afraid of what his father will do to him for talking to strangers. Dad and Ebal are in the trees with rifles trained on the rangers. Nick convinces Mr. Grazier to drop the weapons and talk. Grazier is an engineer who worked on US missiles in the early 1960s. He freaked out during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962 and took his family to the Oregon wilds. He’s been diverting water for some purpose but won’t say why. He claims that he owns the river and the land, which he inherited from his family. Nick offers to help him file a claim to get his land back from the government. Grazier hates the government that he blames for taking his land. He also was made angry by what happened at Kent State University in May of 1970 when troops fired on and killed students.
Grazier eggs on Loq, a former Marine. Grazier hurls all sorts of racist insults at him but Loq just leaves before he retaliates. Grazier vents against Nick and threatens him. Nick leaves and joins Loq who saw Glazier’s wife hiding behind a tree. Her face was bruised as was Silas’s. Grazier hits people.
Loq has figured out what Grazier is doing with the diverted water. He’s growing marijuana, which in 1970 was a major offense. The rangers figure that with what Grazier’s done - threatening federal law enforcement officers, beating up his family, and illegally growing weed – they can have him arrested and removed from his family. Loq’s sister works in a local social service agency and she’ll be able to connect Grazier’s victims to the help they need.
Nick goes to Sheriff Warbler who figures out how to arrest Grazier and get him behind bars. The sheriff also called up police at the University of Oregon who told him that the former professor who was harassing Pax was probably harmless but that Flip Carson, Stephanie’s ex-boyfriend was dangerous. He had served time for various assaults and was a suspect in a recent murder.
After dinner that night, Gemma tells Nick that she wanted to get married on March 20, the vernal equinox in 1971. He’s fine with that.
Back at the crash site, Nick and Gemma, who has not woken, spent the night in the pine branch shelter Nick made. The snow finally stopped and what’s on the branches insulates the shelter. Nick scavenges things from the plane including a flare gun, a survival kit, a first aid kit, and a propeller hub that he uses to melt snow to drink.
Back to a few months before the crash, Nick calls Pax to let him know he’s on his way to the dig but he gets no answer. When Nick gets there, he finds only Jelly who says that he’s been shot and demands to be taken to the hospital. He does have a small wound but Nick is more concerned about the fact that Stephanie and Pax are missing. Jelly says that he heard someone arguing with Pax. Jelly says that someone fired at him and he shot back before he was hit. Nick calls Sheriff Warbler who sends an ambulance for Jelly.
Nick investigates the dig site and finds that the arrowhead Stephanie found and the cache of old bones that Pax and the students were studying were gone. The two Indians, Tuhudda and his grandson, Nagah, are also missing. Nick also finds Pax, who was killed by being stabbed in the heart.
Nick and the sheriff find several sets of footprints. One set is from Pax. The other set has a distinctive sole pattern and the prints go much deeper in the ground that they should. Nick and Sheriff Warbler figure that someone was carrying a person which would explain the deep footprints. They figure that Stephanie was literally grabbed and spirited away on her assailant’s back.
Back in No Mountain, Nick gets a call from the regional director of his agency who wants Nick to come to Portland to be a manager. It means a big pay boost but it also means that Nick will be stuck in a city at a desk. It also means that Gemma will either have to give up her rural vet practice or have Nick or Gemma do the weekend-commuter thing and only be with each other two days a week. He stalls his boss.
Loq and his sister, whose Indian name is Carrie Horse because she did that once, visit the Grazier’s property. Carrie knocks on the door of the shabby log cabin and a woman finally answers. Carrie says that she’s there to help, but the woman is terrified that her husband will find out and beat her.
Loq walked up and asks if Silas, the younger son, is there. She nods and Carrie runs into the cabin and says that help is available. The wife, Ruth, says that getting beaten is her fault because she breaks his rules. Carrie tells Ruth that she was married to a man who beat her ands that se got away. Carrie says that for years she thought that getting abused was her fault but she finally got help.
Carrie has connected with Ruth. Silas had told Nick that he had a sister, Rebekah, who died. Nick is suspicious that the father killed her. Carrie asks Ruth about her daughter and finds out that her husband was chasing the rebellious Rebekah in the woods and she tripped and fell and died. Grazier buried her in an unmarked grave. Ruth goes with Carrie and Loq. They drive to the levee where Silas is hanging out.
Silas starts yelling that his father is right and that Loq and Carrie are evil and chaos ensues. Carrie grabs Silas and calms him down just as someone - Grazier and Ebal - starts shooting at the people on the levee.
The shooters take off in a truck. Loq is driving towards them head-on. Grazier turns away at the last minute. Carrie expects this because all bullies are cowards. Grazier is dazed and runs away as does Ebal. Ebal sneaks up on the group and threatens to shoot Carrie. Ruth says that Carrie will help all of them.
Ebal is starting to want to stop being jerk and doing everything his father wants. While people are discussing things, Grazier shows up threatening everyone with a pistol. Ruth talks to him and says that she’ll go with him if he tells her where he buried Rebekah after he killed her. This gets to Grazier who raises the pistol and shoots himself in the head.
Ebal is still out there, back in the cabin. Loq is talking to him, trying to convince him to come and get help.
Carrie is working with Ruth who is afraid that she’ll go to prison because of the marijuana plants. Nick assures her that since she was essentially a captive she has nothing to worry about. Grazier, the criminal, is dead.
Back at the plane crash site, Gemma is awake. Nick checks her condition and finds that she does not have a concussion. She does have a broken ankle but she’s in decent shape. Nick can feel the baby kicking, a relief. Soon Gemma thinks she is going into labor.
Back to a few months before the crash, Loq has convinced Ebal that he won’t be arrested for anything.
Nick drives to Eugene, Oregon, home of the university, and meets with Detective Dallas Skinner, who is from Dallas, Oregon, the other Dallas. The detective had contacted Sheriff Warbler because he found an arrowhead at a crime scene. He knew that an arrowhead had been stolen near No Mountain, and that it had been used to murder a pawnbroker - who fenced stolen articles - in Eugene. Detective Skinner thinks that the arrowhead may have been used to kill Pax before it was used to kill the fence.
Skinner knows Stephanie’s ex-boyfriend, Flip Carson, is a really bad character. He thinks that Carson killed Pax because he thought that the professor was messing around with his girl. Skinner tells Nick that Carson sometimes hangs out at a dive bar so Nick heads there.
Nick goes on campus to see if he can find out where Professor Oliver, the one who harassed Pax and was dismissed from the university, lives. He talks to a student who says that Professor Oliver and Jelly were buddies. Nick finds this very interesting. Nick gets the address and goes to Oliver’s apartment but he’s not home. His landlady tells Nick that he can probably find the professor at Mick’s, a local bar. Nick heads over and after a few hours, Oliver shows up. Nick chats with him and finds him insufferable. He also confirmed that Jelly and the professor know each other. Nick accuses Oliver of using Jelly to get information about Pax that Oliver could use to disgrace him. Oliver denies the charges and walks out in a huff.
Nick had figured out which bar Flip Carson, Stephanie’s ex, frequented and heads over there. He asks about Flip who's not there, but someone snuck off to the phone booth so Nick figures that Flip has been notified that someone is asking about him. Nick goes outside and, sure enough, Flip appears, along with two guys from the bar. Flip and crew attack Nick but he gets the best of them. Nick tells Flip that Stephanie gave Nick a message from the dig. Nick of course assumes that Flip kidnapped Stephanie, but Flip doesn’t seem to know that Stephanie has been taken, or he may be acting. Nick gets Flip alone and tells him that Stephanie wants nothing to do with Flip. Flip freaks out and a fight ensues. Nick had called Detective Skinner of the Eugene Police Department who shows up just as a big fight breaks out with Nick being pummeled. Flip gets away and the chase is on, but the police can’t catch him.
Nick figures that Flip is heading back to the dig to get Stephanie. Nick also is starting to think that neither Professor Oliver or Flip was in on the shenanigans in Harney County, the location of the dig.
Back at the crash site, Gemma is in labor. As a wildlife ranger Nick does have some training on delivering a baby, but Gemma is in and out of consciousness and they’re in the middle of nowhere next to a crashed plane. Things work out. The baby is born. A search plane had flown over them while he was delivering the baby, so Nick could not fire the flare gun, but the baby and mother survived.
Back to before the crash, Pudge Warbler and Nick visit Jelly in the hospital. He could have been discharged earlier but the sheriff wanted to keep him out of circulation while the investigation went on.
The sheriff and Nick confront Jelly about his relationship with Oliver and how the professor was obsessed with harming Pax. Jelly gets upset and threatens to sue the sheriff at which point the Pudge says that he could arrest Jelly for obstruction of justice. Jelly starts answering their questions but he swears that he had nothing to do with Pax’s death and Stephanie’s disappearance.
The good news is that Loq’s social worker sister found a job for Ruth Grazier and her son, Ebal. Silas, the thirteen-year old, has a tutor so that he can get caught up on his schoolwork.
Back at the crash site, Nick is cutting random pieces of cloth to make diapers for his new daughter. Gemma is in decent shape. They need food. Nick goes out, spooks a flock of geese, and shoots one.
Back to before the crash, Nick has come up with a scenario for what happened at the dig. He now thinks that Flip is the perpetrator, and that he drove to the site to steal artifacts and grab Stephanie. Pax tried to stop him and was killed in the fight. He also thinks that Stephanie used the confusion to run away because when Nick talked to Flip in Eugene Flip had no idea where Stephanie was. If Nick is right, Stephanie is on the run.
Nick goes back to the dig site and reads the crime scene report. Some things don’t add up. There is type AB blood on the ground but Pax, who was stabbed to death, was type B. Whose blood is it? Jelly said he was unconscious in the tent so it’s not his. He also didn’t bleed very much from his wound.
Nick goes into the cave where the artifacts were found. He finds a hidden tunnel to a larger cave with its walls covered with paintings by ancient people. He hears a weak cry. It’s Stephanie who fell down a ten-foot hole. She has no idea how. Nick assures her that he’ll get her out. He calls the sheriff's office and asks for an ambulance and then goes to get rope. Nick extricates Stephanie from the hole. She is in decent shape with no major injuries.
The two Indians, Tuhudda and Nagah, found the tunnel that led to the cave. Everyone was excited about the hidden chamber and paintings, but Pax had them all leave so they could get the right equipment to explore the new find.
That night Stephanie felt sick and got up to go to the facilities. She heard arguing and went to investigate. That’s the last thing she remembered. It turns out that she had been shot and then dropped into the hole. Nick thinks that Jelly shot Stephanie by mistake. He doesn’t know who put her in the hole.
Stephanie said that Pax told Tuhudda and Nagah that they could take the bones and perform an appropriate ceremony honoring the dead. Nick is relieved. That means that his Indian friends are safe.
Nick is sure that Flip was the assailant and Stephanie agrees. He was going to kidnap her that night but after he killed Pax he got spooked and ran away.
The ambulance shows up with a surprise driver - the murderous, controlling Flip. He knocked out the real driver. Nick and Flip fight and Nick shoots him in the leg, a minor flesh wound. Flip comes after Nick with a logging hook. Nick tells him to stop but he won’t. Nick is about to shoot him again but doesn’t get the chance. Stephanie shoots Flip with a shotgun. He’s gone.
Pudge, who joins Nick at the dig, has figured out that Jelly shot himself to deflect suspicion. Orville, the sheriff’s tech guy, figured out that Jelly is on a bus heading out of town. Orville went out to stop it and bring Jelly in for questioning. Pudge interviews Stephanie who is pretty disoriented. Nick wakes up the ambulance driver who goes to give Stephanie medical attention.
Nick and the sheriff quiz Jelly and accuse him of shooting Stephanie, which may have been an accident, and then dumping her in the ten-foot hole, which was deliberate. Jelly also admitted that he was working with the disgraced Professor Oliver to grab artifacts. Jelly was also going to sue the university for putting him on a dig where a crazy person would show up - Flip - to grab Stephanie. Jelly figured that the school would give him money to go away, regardless of how ridiculous his accusation was.
Orville has also found out that Professor Oliver posted bail to spring Flip from jail so that he could go to the site and do bad things. Oliver was obsessed with getting back at Pax who he believes ruined him although Oliver really ruined himself. Orville also has proof that Jelly and Oliver made a lot of phone calls to each other as they perfected their scheme.
Nick goes back to patrolling the woods. He finds an elk family and drops off a bale of hay. It’s not quite spring so food is scarce for the animals. Nick goes back to his truck and sketches the elk, a gift for Pudge.
Nature is Nick’s therapist: “I took my time so I could soak in the quiet beauty of the wildlife sanctuary that had proved to be my own refuge from the trauma that followed me home from Vietnam. It was doing the same again by providing solace and understanding after being exposed to Grazier and Flip Carson’s mad and cruel interpretations of love.”
Nick has an idea where the missing Indians are and he’s right. He finds Tuhudda and Nagah with Loq. The bones from the dig have been buried with the appropriate ritual. It turns out that Pax identified the bones as being those of Tuhudda’s grandmother and grandfather. They are no longer nowhere bones.
Back at the crash site, Nick has made a fire, found more birds to eat, and made a cozy place to hang out. Gemma has gotten stronger but she still has a broken ankle. She’s a vet so she fashioned makeshift tight wrap so that she can limp a little bit. Tomorrow they will head out towards what looks like a man-made structure in the distance that he saw with binoculars. Nick built a makeshift sled to carry Gemma, the baby, and their supplies across the snow.
While moving across the land, Nick reflected on his life - his childhood and great parents, his high school graduation and enlistment in the US Army, the men he lost and killed in Vietnam, and the trauma he suffered in the war. He also thinks about how close he was to losing everything, including his life, as he turned to heroin after he got home. He had a lot of help along the way, but he made the journey to sobriety and a worthwhile life.
After two days, they reach the shiny thing. It is a power transmission line and there is a cabin next to it with smoke coming out of the chimney.
They made it.
Bob’s Take
The end of the book, when Nick drags a loaded sled for two days to safety, is hard to believe but this is a work of fiction. Much of the rest of the narrative chronicles solid police work and wildlife ranger savvy which does make sense.
Nature is the major player here, even more so that in the CJ Box, Paul Doiron, and Rich Curtin books. Box’s hero, Joe Pickett is a Wyoming wildlife warden. Doiron’s protagonist, Mike Bowditch, is a Maine game warden. Curtin’s lead, Manny Rivera, is a deputy sheriff in rural New Mexico. He’s not a nature warden but the landscape and weather are major elements in his books.
Nick Drake, like Joe Pickett and Mike Bowditch are trained wildlife officials who are pretty good detectives, although that’s not in their job descriptions.
Nature really saved Nick Drake by helping him overcome his trauma and addiction. He is more connected to the great outdoors than the other three characters and finds needed support as he patrols thousands of acres. The wilds are his security blanket.
Indian/Native American yore plays a major role in the Nick Drake books. Part of Nick’s support group – his real family – include Paiutes and Klamath Indians who are steeped in tribal lore and ritual. “Nowhere bones” - from people who have died but have not been found and given a proper death ceremony – are central to the narrative. Readers of Nick Drake books learn a lot about Indian history, religion, and culture, and the importance of nature to Native American life and death.
This is the fifth book in the series. In the first one, The Sorrow Hand, Nick is a mess. He was just released from six months in the hospital where they healed his physical wounds but he still had not found ways to deal with his trauma. He turned to heroin and eventually was in recovery when he got the job as a wildlife ranger.
Ironically, Nick was an elite Army Ranger in Vietnam. Now he is a different kind of ranger. Over the course of the books, he heals and becomes a whole individual. It’s a nice story arc for the series.
