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“Ranger Walker to dispatch, do you copy?”
“Go ahead, Walker.”
“What’s the status on the team of trackers? Over.”
“They lost the trail again about two miles from the canine kill site, over.”
“Are they still on the mountain? Over.”
“Yes. They’re moving down and east from Greenlee Pass.”
“I’m going to send you my coordinates. Tell them I’ll be waiting. I think I found something. Over.”
“Will do. Waiting to receive them. Over,” the dispatcher said.
Quinn ran his GPS, sent the location and settled in to wait. At best guess it would take most of an hour for the men to reach him. He glanced at his watch. It was already after 2:00 p.m. Once it got past 4:00, it got dark fast, and he had no intention of leaving Mariah home alone in the dark, nor did he relish a hike off the mountain after the sun had gone down.
He sat down on a rock, shed his backpack and then dug out a bottle of water and an energy bar. It wasn’t home cooking, but it served a purpose. As soon as he finished, he put the wrapper in his pocket, put the empty bottle in his backpack and settled down to wait.
Six
Quinn glanced at his watch, then pulled out his phone to check on Mariah. He made the call, and while he waited for her to answer, he wondered if she was on to him for the sneak visit from his mother and sister, then decided it was too late to worry about that now.
The phone rang several times. Just when he was about to become concerned, she answered, and he could tell she’d been sleeping.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me,” he said. “You sound sleepy. Did I wake you?”
“Yes, but that’s okay. I’m glad you called. I’ve been worrying about you…uh, I mean with the bear and everything.”
He smiled. “I’m still all in one piece.”
“Oh, my God, do not even joke about that,” she muttered. “Your mother and sister were here. They brought food for dinner tonight.”
The tone of her voice took care of one concern. She didn’t sound pissed.
“Oh. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to introduce you. Were you okay with that?”
“Of course I was okay. They stayed and ate lunch with me. I liked them, Quinn. They’re really nice.”
He grinned. “And you were surprised that they were nice…as opposed to me, you mean?”
“Oh, shut the hell up,” she said.
He laughed.
Mariah grinned and then changed the subject. “What’s going on with that bear?”
“Not sure just yet, but I have a theory. I’m waiting for the trackers and their dogs to get to my location.”
“You’d think dogs would be able to track it. Why is that not happening?”
“That’s part of my theory. There’s a creek that winds nearly twenty-five miles on Rebel Ridge before it hits a river. It was close to where the bear first attacked the hikers, and a few miles down the mountain that same creek is also close to where those hunting dogs were killed. I think the bear is using it like a highway, which leads me to think it’s either sick or injured. If I’m right, that’s one reason why the dogs keep losing the trail. It doesn’t just go in and out of water but stays in it, maybe for miles. That’s also why it’s so important to find it. A weakened animal is a desperate one. It’ll take chances it wouldn’t normally take in its drive to survive.”
She shivered. “I didn’t know all that. Now I am worried.”
“I survived the worst the Taliban threw at me. One sick bear is not going to be how I meet my end.”
“And you know this how?”
He had no intention of telling her that he planned on living to a ripe old age with her. Not yet.
“I just do.” Then he began to hear barking. “Hey, I hear dogs. I guess the trackers were closer than I thought. I’ll try to be home before dark. Take care of yourself, and don’t forget to do your exercises.”
“In the meantime, is there anything I could do? I mean for you?”
“Just take care of yourself.”
He disconnected, shouldered his backpack and his rifle, and waited for the trackers to arrive.
* * *
Everyone on Rebel Ridge knew Jake Doolen’s bloodhounds were the best trackers on the mountain, maybe even in Kentucky. Jake was on call with the Kentucky State Bureau of Investigation, as well as anyone else in need, on a twenty-four-hour basis, but to the best of Jake’s memory, neither he nor his sons, Avery and Cyrus, had ever been called out just to track a bear. It wasn’t that the hounds couldn’t do it, because he had faith that they ultimately would. But this was like tracking a ghost bear. Every time his hounds picked up a trail, it always ended when the bear went into the water. And they’d never been able to pick up the trail again on the other side.
When he got the message from ranger headquarters about a possible new lead, he was ready to jump on it. He was sick at heart from the loss of life, both human and animal, and scared shitless the bear would kill again before they took him down.
According to the directions they’d been given, they should be near the site where the ranger was waiting, and when the dogs suddenly began to bay, he realized someone or something was coming their way.
Cyrus took his rifle off his shoulder, while Avery flipped the safety off his. Just in case. Then they saw the ranger coming toward them and relaxed, Cyrus lifting a hand in welcome.
When Jake saw it was one of Dolly Foster’s boys he felt a twinge of regret. If he’d been luckier in love he could have called them his sons, but Dolly had fallen for Tom Walker and that had been that. He’d settled for his Amanda without too many regrets, and he’d loved her in the best way he knew how right up until the day she died.
“Zeus! Blue! Red! Sit,” Jake said sharply, and all three hounds dropped as Quinn approached.
Avery cradled his rifle as he smiled a hello. The Doolens had gone to school with the Walkers and were old friends.
“Hey, Quinn.”
Quinn nodded a hello, eyeing the big raw-boned men. Jake’s hair used to be as red as his sons’, but it had gone fully gray. They were all outfitted in heavy-duty denim because of the rugged terrain into which they’d been sent, with orange hunting vests for safety.
“Avery, good to see you. Cyrus…Jake, you’re both looking good.”
Jake nodded. “You, too, son. I hear you have some information. I sure hope it’s good.”
“It’s a theory with substance, how’s that?” Quinn said.
“Right now we’ll take anything that might lead us in a new direction. So what do you have?”
“You know I’m the one who found the two hikers, right?”
“Yeah, we heard.”
“As you know, the paw print I found on-site was huge, and the claw marks the bear left on a tree were much farther up the trunk than you would have expected a black bear to leave.”
“We saw the markings on the tree, but the paw print was gone by the time we got to the site. We did find a big one near where the dogs were killed, but the floor of the forest is thick with leaves or rocky as hell. Hard to find tracks, and with the dogs losing the trail, it’s been frustrating.”
“Follow me back toward the creek. There’s something I want to show you,” Quinn said, then led the way.
As they drew closer, the hounds suddenly bayed. They’d already picked up on the scent.
“You got something!” Jake said, as his dog strained on the leash.
Quinn paused and then pointed up at a pine tree in front of them. “Look at that.”
Cyrus cursed beneath his breath. Avery just stared. But Jake grunted in shock.
“Hell’s fire, that’s got to be ten, maybe twelve feet up, just like the marks where you found the hiker’s body.”
“There’s more,” Quinn said. “This way.”
All three dogs were straining on their leashes and baying as Quinn reached the creek bank. He stopped, then squatted, pointing out where the earth had been dislodged.
“See this? Looks like something really heavy dislodged this chunk as it stepped down into the creek.”
The men nodded, but in their opinion, it was just more of the same stuff that they’d already seen. The bear had gone into the water. So what?
But then Quinn didn’t cross to the other side of the creek. Instead he began to wade downstream.
“Follow me down a few yards,” he said.
The men walked along the creek bank, paralleling him.
As soon as Quinn got to the rock where the moss had been scratched, he pointed again.
“Look there.”
Jake stepped out into the water with his dog, Zeus. As soon as they reached the middle of the creek where the rock jutted out of the water, Zeus sniffed the moss and bayed.
“Yeah, I’d say that’s bear,” Jake said. “So, did you find where he went out on the other side yet?”
“Now we get to my theory,” Quinn said. “I’ve said from the start that something’s wrong with this animal. It’s either sick or injured. So say I’m right, and say it’s feverish, that means it will be constantly thirsty. You agree?”
Jake nodded. “Makes sense.”
“And it won’t be able to hunt, so it takes the easiest prey it finds, and that happens to be whatever crosses its path, which is how I view the killings so far.”
Jake was still listening. “I don’t disagree. But if it’s so sick and crippled, then why haven’t we found it laid up somewhere? Why do we lose the trail at the water’s edge and not pick it up anywhere on the other side? It doesn’t backtrack, because we’ve already ruled that out. And we’ve found numerous places where it’s spent a day or two, but it never goes back to the same location.”
“Because I think it’s using the water like a highway. There’s that constant thirst, for one thing. And if it’s feverish, or it’s been injured, lying in this cold mountain water at a moment’s notice would soothe the heat and the pain. I think the only time it comes out of the creek is when it hears something that leads it to a kill. That’s why your dogs can’t find another trail on the other side, because the water is the trail. If I’m right, the only chance we have of finding it is to either follow the creek down, or go all the way down to where the creek runs into the river and come up to meet it. And—again, if I’m right—when it kills again, it will be somewhere that’s not far from the creek.”
Jake’s shoulders slumped. What Quinn was saying nullified the chance of the dogs being able to locate the bear.
“This sucks.”
“I agree,” Quinn said.
“We need more men for sure,” Jake said, then eyed the sun through the trees. It was too close to sundown to set this new plan in motion. “And I can get them, but I need to notify your ranger station. What I am saying is we’re not doing this in the dark. Not with this one.”
“I agree,” Quinn said. “So, unless I’m ordered elsewhere, I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Jake nodded. “Yes, and for the record, that’s one damn good theory.”
Quinn shrugged off the compliment. Knowing the animals and the region was just part of the job.
“I’m headed back down to where I left my truck,” he said.
“We’ll go with you,” Jake said. “I have a lot of phone calls to make and some extra plans to figure out.”
“And in the meantime, we pray to God no one else gets hurt before we find that bear,” Avery added.
* * *
The sun was about to slip behind the peak of Rebel Ridge when Quinn got his first glimpse of home. He could not deny that his anxiety had nothing to do with wet feet and an empty belly. It was all about Mariah. As a grown man, he’d never had anyone to come home to before. It felt good.
Mariah came out onto the deck as he pulled up and parked, then frowned when she saw the expression on his face. She’d seen that look before. It spelled both mental and physical exhaustion.
“You look tired,” she said, as he came up the steps.
“You look good,” he countered, smiling as a blush of pink swept up her neck and across her cheeks.
“Well, that’s a lie, but thank you anyway,” she said.
Quinn stopped at the door and pulled off his hiking boots and socks, then started to strip out of his clothes when it hit him that he couldn’t do that anymore without an audience.
“Um… I usually strip out here and throw my clothes straight in the wash,” he said.
Mariah crossed her arms. “Okay with me.”
His eyes narrowing, he tried to decide if she was kidding or if this was a test. It wasn’t like she’d never seen him naked before.
“It’s your call,” he said, as he shed his shirt and dropped his pants. His thumbs were in the waistband of his briefs when she sighed and walked away.
“Whatever,” he muttered, then picked up the wet, muddy clothes and headed for the utility room.
When he emerged the washer was filling with water and Mariah was outside, walking the deck with a stiff, lopsided stride. He couldn’t decide whether she was pissed or just frustrated. Either way, he could identify. He felt a little bit of both himself.
Determined not to make an issue out of this, he went straight upstairs and into the shower. By the time he came out, the scent of heating meatloaf brought him down the stairs double-time. Mariah was at the sink washing her hands. He walked up behind her.
