Page 5 of Blood Moon

On the other side of the ditch, Tomasetti shines his light ahead. Fingers of fog rise from hip-high weeds. We spot the damaged tree at the same time.

“Bark is skinned up.” He points.

“Buggy must have hit pretty hard.” My beam joins his. “Beachy said he was thrown to the ground.”

I’m well acquainted with buggy mishaps. Judging by the location of the hoof and tire marks, the horse crossed the ditch and ran to the trees. There wasn’t enough room for the buggy to squeeze between two large oaks and the right front panel struck one of the trunks, throwing Beachy from his seat.

I walk past Tomasetti and stand next to the tree in question. Ten feet away, the ground is disturbed, grass and weeds trampled, the mud beneath exposed. I go to it and my beam illuminates the shiny spill of blood.

“The mauling must have happened here,” I murmur.

He comes up beside me and kneels. “Ground is torn up.”

I drop to one knee, study the ground. “Any tracks? Paw prints?”

“Nada.” He shines the beam in an arc. “Looks like deer came through at some point. Tracks there.”

He gets to his feet, then squints into the endless fog and dark. Around us, the woods pulse with life. The drip of condensation from the branches. The sound of frogs from the creek. The gurgle of water over rock. The hoot of an owl. All of it tamped down by the dank hush of fog.

“Anything big enough to do that kind of damage to a man’s leg had to have left prints,” Tomasetti mutters.

Training my beam on the ground, I sweep it left and right. “There are no prints, aside from deer. No hair. No trail. No droppings.”

“We know Bambi didn’t attack him.” Fifteen feet away, Tomasetti does the same. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“If this is where it happened.”

“You saw the blood.” He sighs. “A two-hundred-pound Sasquatch would have left prints.”

I laugh, but his attempt at humor doesn’t quite dispel the uneasiness slinking up my spine. “You’re not a Bigfoot aficionado, are you Tomasetti?”

“I’ve been known to dabble in cryptozoology,” he says, his expression deadpan.

I stare at him, not sure if he’s kidding.

I’m about to fan out when I hear something rustle in the brush. Twenty feet away. Too close for comfort. I jerk my beam that way. Tomasetti’s beam blends with mine. The light illuminates an ocean of trees, the spaces in between thick with raspberry and bramble. White mist billowing all around.

“Tomasetti,” I whisper.

“I heard it,” he snaps.

“No more talk about Bigfoot.”

“Or Chupacabra.”

In the periphery of my vision, I’m aware of him reaching beneath his jacket for his Kimber .45, moving closer to me.

The crack of a twig sounds. The crunch of dry leaves. The heavy breathing of something scant feet away.

“Something there.” I ease my .38 from its holster.

“Eyes open.” Tomasetti signals for us to advance. “Two o’clock.”

A guttural sound ahead and to my right. The quiver of tall grass.

He shoots me a puzzled look. “What the hell?”

I shrug. “No clue.”