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There’s a wolf pack in the area, which doesn’t worry us. Oh, we’ll need to be careful, but there’s plenty of game, and if we stay out of each other’s way, all will be fine.
Penny wouldn’t know that. She’d crouched here, seen big canine prints, and decided she was getting her ass back to town, fast. Except it was night, and probably dark, and she’d been trailblazing without realizing it. There was no path to get back on, and she seems to have wandered a bit before resolutely striking out ... in the wrong direction.
What Penny followed is a game trail. To a newcomer, the forest seems blazed by endless trails from all the people who came before and surely those trails all lead somewhere interesting, right? Well, that depends on whether you consider “a stream” or “a safe clearing for resting” or “a nice patch of vegetation for grazing” to be someplace interesting. These aren’t human trails. They’re made by animals, often moose and caribou here, carving paths between all the spots they consider interesting—or at least useful. The roadways of the forest.
Penny got on one of these and decided she was obviously back on the trail to town, only she was heading in the same general direction she’d been going before. In other words, she was getting deeper and deeper into the woods.
Since she’s following game trails, Storm is able to followhereasily. We continue on for a kilometer and then a second kilometer. Here she seems to start to realize she should have reached the town by now, as she meanders a bit, as if looking for it.
When Dalton stops, Storm’s hackles rise in a low growl, as if she noticed something a split second after he did.
“And we have a moose,” Dalton says, walking forward and dropping to a crouch. He pulls back undergrowth to reveal one massive hoofprint in soft ground.
“Woman versus moose, to be exact,” he says as he points out a boot print just behind us.
Two boot prints, I see now. As if Penny had stopped short, seeing the moose.
Dalton pokes about, examining the ground.
“She went that way,” he says, pointing slightly off the game trail we’ve been following. “Moose came out behind her. She spun around, saw it, and decided to get the hell out of its way ... by continuing in the direction she’d been already going.”
“Farther from town.”
“Yep. Only she panicked and ran off the game trails. There are running footprints through a softer area just to the left, along with a sign that she fell at some point—there’s a handprint in the dirt.”
He pauses and mutters a curse. “And now that I say that, I see she fell here, too.” He points out the marks. The ground here is harder than where the moose stood, but there’s a scuff mark right behind those two clear footprints. She saw the moose, and it must have done something to make her stumble back. She fell, got up, and then ran.
Ran headlong into the darkening forest.
“What were the conditions last night?” I ask.
“Partly overcast,” he says.
“Which is worse than overcast,” I say. “If there’s no moon, you know it’s dark. She heads into the forest without a light, the sun sets, but there’s enough moon to see by ... until there’s not. She bumps into a moose, panics, and runs back the way she was going, thinking she’s heading toward town.”
“Yeah, looks like she veered—”
Dalton goes still. One hand reaches for Storm. The other drops toward his holster, and as I see that, my own hand does the same.
I touch the butt of my gun as I scan the forest. When Dalton pulls his weapon, I do, too. His gaze sweeps the woods. Then it stops. He sees something. I follow his line of sight, and I tell myself I’m just not aligned right to see whatever he does, but the truth is that whatever he’s spotted is probably right there, too camouflaged for me to make out.
Dalton raises his gun to his side. It’s a revolver. Yes, a modern one—a .357 Smith & Wesson—but still a throwback to another era. I’ve always suspected the gun is more for show than protection. He’s an excellent hunter, but handguns are not his thing, and if he takes it out, that’s more than nerves. It also means that whatever he sees is human.
An animal would have Dalton reaching for his bear spray. Oh, he’d shoot a bear—or wolf or wolverine—if he needed to, but if a predator is charging, the bear spray is more effective. Guns are for threats that will see them and stay back. Guns are for people.
“I can see you,” he says after a moment. “You’re twenty feet in front of me, behind two pines. If you can see me, you know there’s a gun pointed at you. What you probably don’t see is the second gun, to my left. Now, I’m a fair shot. She’s a better one. Still, neither of us has any interest in pulling a trigger today. We’re looking for two people who went missing—”
The crash of undergrowth. My arm swings up, finger off the trigger, but even before it’s raised, I know whoever is in that forest isn’t running at us—they’re running away.
Dalton lets out a string of curses and starts after the fleeing figure. He makes it two steps before glancing back at me.
“Go,” I say. An old injury to my leg means I’ll never run as fast as I used to. “I have a gun and a dog. I’ll stay right here.”
He lifts a hand in thanks, and then he’s gone. I keep my gun raised, my body tensed, waiting for any sign that the person is leading him into a trap. The crashing of undergrowth says otherwise. It’s a panicked run.
Penny? Bruno? Or an innocent hiker who bumped into two people armed with handguns? In their place, I’d run, too.
I’m really hoping it isn’t a hiker. Oh, I’d feel bad for scaring them, of course, but I’d be a lot more concerned about us encountering tourists on our first post-build foray.
