The SK got into the truck. The engine roared.
Just as my heart began hammering in anticipation of getting a read on the license plate, he turned on his headlights and doused the back end of the truck into shadow.
The red taillights disappeared behind the berm.
Fox listened until she was sure the beast was gone.
The engine roared once again.
The SK had traveled north.
I leaned in close to Fox as if I could chase the fleeing truck through this other dimension. It was no use. I let go of her and shook the visions out of my head.
Sundara made a few charging lunges, parallel to the tire tracks.
“North narrows it down,” I said, “but he could be hundreds of miles away by now.”
The truck had to have been parked here for hours. No man’s land or not, someone had to see something that I could act on. If I could get a license plate number, I could call in an anonymous tip. A police APB would be the fastest way to find the truck, hopefully with the SK still inside it.
I thanked Fox and resumed my call for help. Chipmunk barked from midway up a pinion pine. I went to him.
Little critters are tough to read. Their thoughts and memories move as fast as their metabolism, making them hard to grasp, like watching a DVD on super-fast forward. I was able to ascertain that there had still been daylight when Chipmunk heard the truck arrive and park, but he’d been too far away from the SK for me to get any useful details, even if he had been focused on the human and not the magnificent, sharp winged bird that circled overhead.
Turkey vultures don’t kill their own prey, but that was not a distinction Chipmunk could make. The apparent threat from the sky had caused Chipmunk to abscond deeper into the forest, away from the SK, dashing my hope that he might show me more.
The vulture, however, I could talk to.
I went back out into the clearing and motioned to my jeep team to give me a couple more minutes.
As I raised my staff to call the scavenger bird, a caravan of black sedans and SUVs raced into the clearing; each came to a nose diving stop, each at a different angle.
I was lost in billowing clouds of dust.
2:15 p.m.
Agent Delaney had pushed me aside and ordered me to stay put.
David had been going over the few sections of tire tracks that Delaney’s caravan hadn’t destroyed. He was now over with Herb and Delaney. They were out of earshot, but I could tell by their body language that tensions were building.
I wasn’t as resentful about being excluded as I might have been. Raven was perched in a tree above them, eavesdropping for me.
Ravens are excellent mimics, able to reproduce an array of sounds, including the human voice. Most animals hear a human speak and it makes as much sense as the chatter of a house finch makes to us. Raven didn’t understand our language much better, but he could memorize a series of sounds for a short period of time.
The men parted like football players breaking out of the huddle. I slipped into the trees and concealed myself behind Tiara. Raven landed on my shoulder, careful not to grip me too tight with his sharp nails.
“Hi, Gaagii,” I said. Gaagii, pronounced gah-gee, is the Navajo name for Raven.
He didn’t waste time on greetings. The bits of conversation were already falling apart, the spaces in between, filling with static like when the radio reception gave out.
David: wheel base — SUV or truck
Delaney: I want — report — all car fires — hundred and fifty mile radius.
Herb: — saying that’s part of his MO?
Delaney: — found a few —
David: — didn’t think to mention till now?
Delaney: — need to know —
David: — thing else I don’t need to know?
Delaney: long shot — wouldn’t tie him to — never does.
I shared David’s frustration. If I’d known there was a possibility of a car fire, I could have had the birds up in the air the moment I learned of the murder. If the truck had still been burning, they could have spotted the plume from miles away, providing, of course, that it wasn’t mixed up in the smoke from the forest service burns.
I would have expected the SK to be fleeing as fast and as covertly as he could. Maybe he’d lit cars on fire in the past, but drawing attention to his location by sending up a plume of smoke, seemed too risky in this day and age of cell phones and ever expanding population…unless he had intentionally used the smoke from the controlled burns as camouflage.
Delaney had said a hundred and fifty mile radius. I cut that in half since I knew the SK had headed north. I considered how many of those miles would be covered in smoke. It was still too much wilderness to consider tracking on foot, and even in the best case scenario, my gift wasn’t strong enough to communicate with animals that far away.
Gaagii rubbed his head under my chin and purred like a big cat. We’d been friends for twenty-one years.
“I can’t risk it, buddy. It’s too much ground to cover, even for you.” I walked to a low hanging oak branch. “Step up.”
Gaagii tightened his grip on my shoulder.
“I said no.” I tilted my shoulder and Gaagii stepped off, muttering under his breath.
I met David out in the clearing.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “What did you find out?”
“Freaking Delaney.” He filled me in on the altercation that Gaagii had just relayed. “Maybe the car fires are a long shot, not a reliable MO, but we wasted hours. We could have had the search and rescue air group up all day.”
“You’re still going to call them in, right?”
“Dad’s coordinating with the incident commander in Prescott now, but by the time they scramble the team, considering the terrain and the radius we’re looking at, there’s just not enough daylight left to do much.” David rubbed his eyes. “I swear Delaney is useless. He totally mucked up the egress tracks when he pulled in. At least the place where the vehicle was parked is okay, so we can get plaster casts of the tire treads. There might be some credible evidence there if we happen to find the vehicle and tires intact.”
“And not melted down,” I said.
“Exactly. Anyhow, we’ll run down a list of all the vehicles reported stolen in the area. When the lab gets a look at the cast, they’ll be able to narrow down what kind of car we’re looking for. That’ll help.”
It was in times such as these that I most wished I didn’t have to keep my gift a secret. How much time would it save if I could tell him what Fox had shown me?
“I’m sorry, Abra. I’m venting,” David said. “We just have to work with what we’ve — ”
About thirty ravens had gathered together. They flew in a lazy circle above the trees. Others were flying in from all directions to join up with the ebony vortex.
“They’re doing a wheel,” I said.
“I’ve never seen one so big,” David whispered in awe.
Even the overzealous agents from the city stopped what they were doing and gaped at the rare spectacle.
The wheel hovered above us, growing and picking up momentum as hundreds of wings