“They’re cutting it too close at this time of year,” I say. “It’s been warm, but it’ll drop below freezing any night now. Sharing a sleeping bag with no shelter is risky. But my sense was that the husband takes too many risks. If he said to leave all this, his wife might not have argued. They took the food, which is the main indication that they left the rest behind intentionally.”
“And hoped to return for it?” Anders says. “Seems unlikely they’d bother.”
I shrug. “They might have argued over leaving behind valuable gear, so they buried it on the pretense that they could get it later.”
“I can see that. Stop the fight and get moving.”
I walk back to the hole and then to the piles of supplies.
“Still don’t like it, do you?” Anders says.
“I do not.” I look at Dalton. “Do you have another explanation?”
“Nope. My money would have been on lightening the load. They could have hidden it to be considerate.”
I frown. Then I say, “Ah, right. They bumped into us. They’re lost, the husband hurt. Then, later, if we found a bag of their stuff abandoned, we might panic, thinking something happened. So they hid it. That’s a possibility. Another one is that they were caching it.”
Dalton nods. “Come to think of it, that’s what I’d do. Not necessarily bury it, but hide and mark it in case we needed to come back. Ankle feels better after a bit of walking, come back to fetch it. Ankle gets worse, come back for the tent so they can hunker down while it mends.”
“That’s my favorite theory,” I say. “So we put the stuff back? Cover it up in case they need it?”
“Yeah. Point is that they did keep moving west, as planned. We’re good.” Dalton looks at Anders. “Though you will still owe Yolanda.”
Anders sighs. “I don’t mind making it up with a trip to Dawson. What I won’t like is admitting I was wrong.”
“We all were,” Dalton says. “Now let’s get back, tell her, and take our lumps.”
CHAPTER FIVE
We bury the backpack. We’ve been walking for about ten minutes when I check my watch. It’s barely nine. That’s the advantage to getting an early start—I’ll be back in time for Rory’s morning nap. I might even be able to feed her, if she hasn’t fussed enough for Yolanda to do it. We’ve just started giving her cereal midmorning, and Dalton and I usually do it together, both for the novelty and the amusement. We can—
“Hello!” someone calls, and we all stop short. The voice is distant enough that even Storm hadn’t heard anyone out there, but Dalton and Anders were talking, which meant someone heard us.
It’s a male voice. Our injured hiker?
“Hello!” Anders calls back. “Who’s there?”
“We are from the mining camp. Please state your location.”
Anders rolls his eyes hard enough to strain them. The mining camp keeps security guards, who both watch the settlement and accompany the miners. They’re all paramilitary types—well-built guys, mostly white, buzz-cut hair—and we joke about not being able to tell them apart. We also joke aboutthe military affectations, like that “state your location.” That part amuses Anders most of all. He served in the US Army and now he’s serving as law enforcement, but weirdly, he doesn’t go around talking like that.
“The forest!” Anders shouts back. “The Yukon? Maybe Alaska? I can’t tell. But there are a lot of trees.”
“You can hear our fucking voices,” Dalton says. “Follow them.”
“Please identify yourselves.”
“Fuck you,” Dalton says. “Good enough?”
“Are you alone?”
Anders puts his hand to his forehead and shakes his head. “Guys? Cut the shit, please. You know who it is. You can tell where we are. You can tell there are at least two of us. There’s also a third person and a dog, both of whom are retaining their dignity by not joining this nonsense, okay? We have guns, as we always do. We are not taking them out unless you approach us with yours in hand. If you intend to do so, please warn us in advance. You know the drill by now. You really do.”
We keep walking. Within twenty steps, the guards appear. Two men, both white. We recognize the older guy—he’s the only guard over thirty-five. The other is maybe mid-twenties, dark-haired. Have we seen him before? Like I said, we really can’t tell. They don’t give us names, and they all dress in quasi-military gear. What matters is that we’ve finally broken their habit of approaching with their guns out.
My heart still picks up as soon as I see them. At first, the mining camp had been an inconvenience and an exposure threat. Soon, between the military bullshit and the patronizing boss, it became an annoyance. But then we had an incident last fall, and since then, we’ve been on high alert.
We tell ourselves that the heavy security presence is understandable, considering they’re mining gold, but we’re in themiddle of nowhere, and no one from Haven’s Rock has shown the least interest in their claim, yet they have not relaxed one bit.
