The hardwood floors in the cabin echoed his steps as he turned on the lights and moved into the kitchen area to make coffee. As soon as it was done, he took his first hot, steamy cup outside to the wraparound deck to wait for sunrise.
Disturbed by Quinn’s appearance, an owl suddenly took flight from the A-frame roof and flew into the trees.
Fog hovered waist-high above the ground all the way to the trees. He caught a glimpse of something moving off to his left and waited until a large buck with a massive rack slowly emerged from the fog. It was the prince of the forest, and the antlers were its crown. The buck suddenly stopped, as if sensing he was no longer alone.
Although Quinn didn’t move, he knew the buck smelled him—or at least smelled the coffee—but it wasn’t enough to spook him. After a few moments the buck moved on through the clearing in stately fashion and disappeared into the forest. It was a far better greeting to Quinn’s day than his nightmare had been.
He sat on the top step with his elbows on his knees, waiting for the coffee to cool, remembering when this had been his grandparents’ place, and he and his family were still living at home. Only this cabin wasn’t the house that had been there then. This one was new. Quinn had built it with the help of the family after the old home place was blown up during a gunfight with some hired killers from L.A.
They’d come to silence a witness who was hiding here in the mountains, intent on keeping her from testifying against their boss. That witness was not only a distant relative but his brother Ryal’s long-lost love.
The bad guys lost the fight.
Ryal and Beth and their baby daughter, Sarah, were living happily ever after.
Quinn was still trying to outrun a war.
A few moments later a coyote came out of the tree line near where he was sitting, lifted its head then tucked tail and disappeared.
“Yeah, I know, I’m screwing up the status quo this morning, but mine got screwed up, too,” Quinn said, and took a quick sip of coffee before he was satisfied that it cool enough to drink.
He sat with one eye on the meadow, watching the night creatures going to ground and the day creatures coming out, all the while waiting for sunrise.
As a backcountry ranger for the Daniel Boone National Forest Service, the area he kept track of was off-road and unpopulated except for the wildlife. The fewer people he had to deal with, the better he liked it.
Finally the sun did him the honor of rising to the occasion, and Quinn went about the business of getting to work.
By midmorning he was on the opposite side of Rebel Ridge, hiking up Greenlee Pass to look for Robert Lane and Wayne Hall, two hikers who were over a day late checking out of the park. He wasn’t expecting problems, but in country this rough, having an accident and no way to get medical attention could mean the difference between life and death. He carried food and first aid, and was in contact with ranger headquarters by two-way radio. The last reported contact with the hikers was at a location just above Greenlee Pass. Since he hadn’t met them on the trail on his way up, it stood to reason they were still ahead of him. Unless they’d done something stupid like diverting off the hiking trail and getting themselves lost, in which case the search would turn to air, horseback and rescue dogs. In the eighteen months since he’d been on the job, they’d only had one such search, which had ended on a happy note. He was hoping that would be the case again.
He’d been walking for almost three hours when he paused at an outcrop to use his binoculars. A careful sweep of the area revealed nothing that alerted him. No smoke. No distress flag. Nothing. He pocketed the binoculars, got a drink of water and continued upward.
Less than a hundred yards later he found the first sign of blood. He would have missed it but for the unusual number of ants swarming on it. After the first sign, he found another and then another. He couldn’t tell if it was human or animal, but either way it wasn’t good. He didn’t want to walk up on an injured animal, but he had no option but to keep following the blood trail upward, in case it was his hikers.
It didn’t take long to find the source. Another hundred yards up and he caught the scent of something dead. A few yards farther he found one of the hikers—or at least part of one. An arm and a foot were missing, along with most of the internal organs.
The sight spun Quinn’s head back to Afghanistan so fast that for a moment he nearly lost it. He grabbed for the dog tags he still wore and held on as if his life depended on it. The metal dug into his palm, and it was that pain that helped him focus.
He turned away from the sight and began looking at the scene, trying to figure out what had happened. There was one backpack about twenty feet up from the body, hanging from a limb. It appeared to have been ripped apart by teeth and claws. There were black bear in the park. This wasn’t good.
When he found claw marks on a tree trunk where the bear had marked its territory, he stopped and stared. The claw marks were nearly ten feet high. That was one damn big bear.
He grabbed his radio and quickly called in to dispatch.
“This is Walker, come in.”
“Go ahead, Walker,” the dispatcher said.
“Found one of the hikers. Dead. Looks like a bear attack. I’ve got claw marks on a tree a good ten feet high.” He gave the GPS coordinates of the body. “I have a blood trail that leads down the mountain, and I’m going back to follow it. We’re still one hiker short. Stands to reason it might be him.”
“Copy that, Walker. Stay safe. Over and out.”
Quinn slipped the rifle strap off his shoulder, took the gun off safety, jacked a shell into the chamber and headed back down the trail.
Now that he knew what he was hunting, all his instincts kicked in. The forest had gone silent—like everything was holding its breath. He stopped, listening. Not even the air was stirring. After a moment he kept moving, following the blood into the trees, keeping his eyes on the ground and his ears tuned to the sounds around him.
About ten yards in, a twig suddenly snapped. He crouched instantly as he swung his rifle toward the sound. A few moments later a raccoon ambled out from under one bush and disappeared just as quickly beneath another one.
Shit. He let out a slow breath and kept moving.
The earth beneath the trees was spongy—covered in dead leaves and pine needles—but it wasn’t the type of ground cover that held prints. It wasn’t until he came upon a place void of leaves that he found his first footprint. It was human. Now that he knew he was trailing a man and not a bear, he started calling out loud. He didn’t know which man was dead and which one had walked away from the bear attack, so he shouted both names.
“Hello! Hello! Robert? Wayne? Where are you?”
He kept shouting as he walked, following blood drops, broken limbs and the occasional footprint. He’d been on the trail for a good twenty minutes before he heard a faint sound. He stopped to listen, then called out again.
“Hello! Robert? Wayne?”
He heard the sound again. It was a faint call for help. His heart skipped a beat.
“Keep yelling! I’m coming,” he shouted, and ran toward the noise.
One moment he was pushing through a thicket of brush, and the next he had to jump to keep from stepping on the body.
The man was lying on his side, covered in dirt and leaves and an abundance of dried blood. One leg had claw marks all the way from thigh to calf, with ants swarming the wounds. When he rolled over onto his back and saw Quinn, he started to cry.
“Thank God, thank God.”
“Are you Robert or Wayne?” Quinn asked.
“I’m Robert Lane. Wayne is… Wayne is…”
Quinn