She glanced at her watch. “It’s not exactly the middle of the night. Could be camping or...something.”
“Could be,” he agreed, but didn’t think so.
“Silver Mane’s Lodge doesn’t run night tours as far as I know.” Her voice shifted. Not alarmed exactly, but the tone of someone who has noticed something that doesn’t fit and is deciding what to do with it.
The engine sound peaked and then began to fade, moving away from them through the trees.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
The stoves burned quietly. The snow around them was blue-white in the headlamp, and everything beyond the meadow was dark. Jack looked at the place where the lights had been.
Something felt wrong. He couldn’t have said exactly what it was or why he was certain of it. He’d learned over the years to pay attention to that particular feeling, the one that didn’t announce itself with specifics but simply presented as a wrongness. He’d ignored his gut before and paid the price for it. Not only him but someone he loved.
“We should probably pack up,” Steph said, only she wasn’t packing up.
“Yeah.” He wasn’t packing up either, but he knew they needed to.
She looked at him. He looked at her. The stoves burned between them.
“It’s probably nothing,” she said.
“Probably.” He scanned the area where the light had been. “Still, we should let someone know, maybe make a few calls when we get back to the lodge.”
“No service there.”
“Okay. When we get back into service, then.”
“I’d hate to say anything if it’s just someone doing some winter camping.”
Somewhere in the trees behind them, something shifted, snow falling from a branch, a small noise. Normal. Completely normal.
“It’s probably campers,” he agreed, though he didn’t believe it.
“Or...” she dropped her voice to a whisper. “It might be the poachers.”
“All the more reason to call it in.”
She looked at the far tree line. “A snowmobile would make sense. Get in fast, get out fast.”
“But not silent. You’d think they’d need to be silent if they are hunting.”
“Yeah. Maybe the hunt is over, and they’re...” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Cleaning up?”
It made sense. Hunt until dark and then do the skinning and everything else.
He turned off his stove. “We’d better head out.”
“Let’s take a look,” she suggested.
Jack shook his head, a tight knot forming in his stomach. “It doesn’t concern us.”
“I never said it did. But I’m going to take a look.”
“Steph.” He touched her arm. “Let’s head back. Move fast. Get to the cars and a place we can call someone. You probably have the sheriff’s private number, right?”
“It’ll be two in the morning before we get back into service. I’m not calling him unless I know for certain what I’m reporting.”
There was some validity to her idea, but he hated it. “We need to be smart about this—don’t get too close and make sure we stay out of sight.”
