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According to Matt, a large party of hikers, more than twenty disappeared from the trails about five miles south of where Oakley entered the park. Matt didn’t know if that was luck or if they were using drones and had spotted her, and then found the closest egress into the park.
Either way, it upped the urgency to find Oakley ASAP. As Gunner watched the monitor, he thought about the man who was after her. Grady’s wife, Charli, had confessed to Grady what was going on and told him why this man, Samir Abdul Amir, wanted Oakley dead.
Gunner’s respect for both women grew upon hearing the story. Aside from people in the military, it was difficult to find someone who got it. Soldiers don’t kill for fun, or revenge, for sport or because they have a taste for it. They kill because they’ve been given a task. To protect, serve and save, to achieve their objective using everything they have, while giving their best effort to keep any civilians from being harmed.
Having to kill a civilian to stop someone who would kill thousands for his own malicious goals was a tough call, and not one everyone could make. Oakley could. Not because she had, as some called it, the killer gene, or was a “bloodthirsty redskin”, but because she was one hundred percent committed to the mission and seeing it through.
Yes, she killed a woman. A woman whose husband used her as a human shield and gave no care for her life or his children. He’d sacrifice them all to save his own hide.
She’d done her best to see the mission through, and for a time thought Samir Abdul Amir had died from the shot he took to his right eye.
As it turned out, he survived, one eye short and filled with hate for the woman who took his eye. He claimed he wanted to avenge the life of his wife, but every man or woman in service would call bullshit on that. No man who used his wife as a human shield could claim vengeance out of love.
He was just pissed that Oakley beat him. But now, he’d obviously regrouped, reestablished his foothold of power and wealth, and, if the intel was correct, was coming after Oakley and her wolves.
Gunner was there to do everything in his power to prevent that, but he couldn’t help if he didn’t know where she was, so he continued to search. The faint sound of gunfire brought a silence to the land. Small animals stilled their motions, elk on the opposite side of the creek bounded for the safety of the trees, and bird song and calls stopped.
Gunner focused on what he hoped was the area the gunfire came from, slowly and methodically searching. After an hour, he gave up, packed his gear, and hit the trail, feeling an increasing urgency to locate Oakley and the wolves.
If there was going to be a war, he was going to be not just in the middle of it, but at the forefront, daring anyone to get through him to get to her. Whether she had come to the realization he couldn’t say, but he had.
Oakley was his woman. Not his to own or control, but his to cherish, love and stand beside through thick and thin. Now that he’d finally discovered he was capable of feeling that, and had been made to feel worthy of love, he wasn’t about to give it up.
Nor was he about to give up the search. He’d keep going as long as it took, but wished he’d receive some clue or sign that he was on the right track. Two days ago, he saw wolf scat. He wouldn’t have known that’s what it was, were it not for Oakley.
The fact that it was cord-like and contained bone fragments let him know the animal had not just eaten recently. Recent feeds produced runny scat. He kept his eyes open, but since then, he’s seen no other signs.
Gunner checked the time and steered the drone slowly. Mere seconds later, he came to a halt as gunfire brought sudden silence. It was a quick barrage, followedshortly by intermittent shots. The sound echoed over the valley, where he skirted along the edge in the cover of the trees. He quickly brought the drone back to him and packed it away before moving deeper into the forest.”
*****
Four days. That’s how long Oakley had been playing hide and seek with whoever was tracking her. She’d spotted a drone about six days ago, but was far enough under tree cover she wasn’t spotted. But that meant someone was looking, and she might miss spotting a drone if it were high enough.
That’s when she decided to turn the tables. She’d track them.
Fortunately, she had help. Ba’Cho and Nashoba had already attracted attention, and she’d watched intense meetings take place between one of them and another wolf. It didn’t take long to figure out they were earning their alpha status one skirmish at a time. Her biggest relief was that neither had sustained an injury. She had little with her in terms of medical supplies, and feared one of them being seriously injured in a fight.
Now, thanks to their skills and size, they were being followed by six other males and ten females. Oakley wished it wasn’t happening in a time when she feared for their lives if Samir was actually after her. But who else could it be?
Not Gunner. What they found the day before was not the actions of the man she knew. Five wolves and the deer they’d obviously been feeding on had been slaughtered, and it wasn’t from a hunting rifle. Whoever shot those animals came equipped with militaryweaponry, ruling out a normal hunter. And the killers took the wolves’ tails.
That discovery kicked her survival instincts up a notch. Oakley thought about it, weighing the options, and decided she couldn’t run. It was time to take the fight to whoever was out there. So, she and the wolves changed track and started following rather than leading.
At present, they were tracking five men, heavily armed and wearing clothing so new the dye smell made tracking them a cinch. Ba’Cho was in front of the men, leading them in circles. If they faltered in keeping a bead on him, he’d let out a zip or short howl.
“Call Ba’Cho to come,” Oakley gave the command verbally and with sign language to Nashoba. He issued a string of barks and yips, and then went silent. So did everything else around them.
Oakley marveled at the moment, standing there surrounded by wolves, knowing she was safe with them, all because she was considered Alpha by Nashoba and Ba’Cho. In the last few days, Oakley had started to wonder how long she’d be able to experience this. If she stayed with the pack, how dramatically would her presence impact the natural society of the wolves, and would that change put them more or less at risk from hunters?
I wish you were here, Gun. I need to talk to you, to hear your thoughts. What if I’m directing these wolves to their doom?
This wasn’t the time to get distracted, so she signed to Nashoba, and they turned their attention back to tracking the men. Ba’Cho made it back to them before they caught up with the men, who’d slowed to figure out where the sound came from.
It was easy to see how nervous they were. They might hold expensive, high-powered weapons, but they sure weren’t accustomed to this kind of terrain. Nor were they experienced in dealing with wildlife.
Oakley felt a wave of energy from the wolves around her, a sudden complete stillness. With alert stance and noses twitching, the wolves watched. A second later, she understood. A low rumble and rustling in the brush preceded the appearance of the bear. Ahead of them by a tenth of a mile, on the other side of the clearing.
It stopped, sniffed the air, and roared.
