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“And I told you that your definition of stupid and my definition of stupid might not be the same. This is the first time that we’ve had such a fresh kill. They could be just up around the bend, maybe a mile out. I’m not walking away.”
Maybe it was reckless; she wouldn’t know as she was running on pure adrenaline. All she knew was those poachers were out there, laughing at her expense. This was her chance to be the one with the last laugh.
“Are you with me or not?”
Jeremiah shouldered his own pack and shook his head grimly when he realized she was deadly serious. “All right. Give me a minute to call it in. Can you do that?”
She was anxious to get moving but she could give him that. “Make it fast.” She felt squeezed by time; every ticking second was one second gained by the poachers. She was going to nail those bastards to the wall.
That was a promise.
* * *
JEREMIAH STRUCK OUT behind Miranda, careful to walk where she walked. Her gaze scanned the ground, the trees, looking for anything that might give away the direction the poachers had gone. Jeremiah silently marveled at her skill. What appeared as nothing more than dirt and forest cover appeared as a faint trail to her trained eye. There were times when she would stop and study the ground as if the trees were speaking to her before pushing on with renewed vigor. He envied her boundless energy and he was grateful he’d spent time in the gym as part of his routine when he’d transitioned from fieldwork to administration otherwise she would’ve left him in the dust.
They passed a small hunter’s cabin and he remarked on it. Miranda answered without stopping, “It belongs to Search and Rescue. It’s fully stocked with canned goods and firewood. If tourists get themselves turned around, they can wait it out until help arrives. It’s also a restocking station for Search and Rescue if they’re up here on a rescue and far from resources. Come on. We have to keep moving.”
As the day progressed and their feet ate up the miles, the horizon began to swallow the sun and bite by bite the air took a sharp turn into bitter cold as the storm became a certainty. It’d been a long time since Jeremiah had done any fieldwork. His bones protested but he never slowed. Like Miranda, he was riding on adrenaline. He wanted to catch the poachers, too. Not because his boss wanted the good publicity, but because it was the right thing to do. Miranda had been working hard, putting her life and career in stasis so she could chase down these perpetrators, and he wanted to catch them for her sake. Miranda was like a woman possessed. She didn’t seem to feel the cold or recognize that they had traveled too far on the trail to make it back to the vehicle before dark. When the first snowflake floated down from the sky Jeremiah knew they were in trouble.
He stopped, breathing hard. “Miranda, we have to turn around.”
Miranda stopped and turned to face him, her nose reddened from the cold, her breath pluming before her. “We have to keep going. We’re close.”
“It’s beginning to snow. We’ll lose the trail once it starts coming down hard. We have to turn around before we get buried in snow.”
Miranda glanced away, scanning the forest until her eyes burned with the strain. She knew he was right. Already the snow was coming down with bigger, fatter flakes. “We are so close, I can feel it. What if they’re just around the corner? I haven’t lost the trail yet. They didn’t cover their tracks as well this time. But if we stop, the snow will cover whatever trail they’ve left behind.”
“Yes, but if we keep going we’ll get stuck in the storm and die of exposure. Be smart about this, Miranda.”
Already they were pretty far from the vehicle. They wouldn’t make it back before nightfall. Walking in the dark while it was snowing was dangerous in and of itself. “We will catch them. Just not today,” he said, trying to soften the blow of disappointment.
“No.” Miranda’s cry of frustration pierced his heart. But he couldn’t let her go on. It was simply too dangerous. “Let’s go.”
Miranda’s gaze cut away but not before he caught the glitter of moisture. “Fine,” she agreed with one final look down the mountain. She surprised him when she suddenly flipped the bird, presumably at the poachers, and muttered, “This is for you, assholes. I hope you slip and break your necks.” She exhaled a sharp breath and readjusted her pack, moving past Jeremiah without further comment. He let her have her space, sensing she needed silence to process her disappointment.
But before they’d even hit a mile back, the skies unleashed a fury of white retribution for an unknown offense and the two found themselves in a bad spot. The snow came down harder and faster, quickly covering the ground and slowing their return. After an hour of struggling through the rapidly gathering snowdrifts, Miranda yelled to Jeremiah above the wind, “We’ll need to make camp at the search-and-rescue station!”
