Afon #2
Whoever this was, they weren't stumbling around like a concussed lawyer from the Upper East Side.
They moved with purpose.
After about eighty yards, I find exactly what I was hoping I wouldn't.
My trail camera is mounted on a pine trunk at roughly head height, angled to cover the northwest approach to the cabin. It's a Stealth Cam, motion-activated, nothing fancy. I put it there in my first week. It captures ten-second clips of whatever triggers it.
For the most part, that's been deer. The occasional coyote. Once, memorably, a black bear.
Now, though, all it's capturing is the canopy and the sky.
Someone has turned it.
They did it as carefully as they walked, because the housing isn't damaged. Nor is the mount broken. The camera has simply been rotated on its bracket, roughly ninety degrees skyward, so that the lens is now caked with fallen snow.
Deliberate. That's what this is. No animal was here. This was the work of a man—or several—with a goal in mind.
I stare at the camera for a long time. Then I rotate it back into position, wipe the snow off the lens with my sleeve, and follow the boot prints another thirty yards until they meet a set of snowmobile tracks that head north and disappear into the deeper forest.
Gone.
I stand there in the silence between the trees and let the facts settle.
Someone found me. Someone with the skill to approach the cabin without tripping Wolf's instincts until they were already leaving. They knew I had cameras, too.
The list of people with that particular combination of knowledge and competence is very short.
None of the names on it are friendly.
I turn around and walk back. The snow is already beginning to soften my tracks. By tomorrow morning, the boot prints along the tree line will be gone, filled in and smoothed over as if they never existed.
But I'll know they were there.
When I reach the cabin, I climb the porch steps and stamp the snow off my boots. I can hear Wolf whining softly behind the door, and Caroline's voice murmuring reassurances, though she hardly sounds any more confident than he does.
I open the door and step inside. The warmth of the cabin wraps around me immediately. It's almost suffocating after the clean bite of the November cold.
Wolf rushes to me, sniffing my boots, my hands, my jacket. He can smell my unease. Dogs always can.
"Hey, buddy." I let him sniff his fill, then give him a firm pat on the ribs.
Caroline is standing by the window, arms crossed, weight on her good ankle. "Well?"
"Branch," I lie. "Big one. Came down on the far side of the clearing."
She narrows her eyes at me. I hold her gaze and give her nothing. I've been lying to better interrogators than her for thirty years. I don't enjoy it, not least because she squints at me the exact same way Bill used to.
But enjoyment has never been the prerequisite for the things I do.
Ultimately, she seems to accept it, or at least to shelve her doubts. "You were out there for a while."
"Wanted to check the perimeter, make sure no trees are leaning on the roof."
"And?"
"There's one, but if it falls, it'll only crush you, not me."
"Is that supposed to be funny?" she snaps, unamused. "It's not very reassuring."
"It was for me."
I shrug out of my jacket and hang it on the hook. Then, acting as nonchalant as I can so as not to set off Caroline's alarms, I lift the Remington off the rack above the door and lean it against the wall by the armchair. I want it within arm's reach of where I sit.
Caroline doesn't fall for the charade. "I thought we were fine."
"We are," I say, though I'm lying again. "Rifle was getting dusty up there."
She opens her mouth, no doubt to call me out on my bullshit, but something in my face must discourage her, because she turns away without talking.
At least she has some sense of boundaries.
I cross to the stove, scrape out the cooled eggs in the pan, and start breakfast over again. For a few minutes, it's only the crackle of the fire and the sizzle-pop of grease. When they're done, I make a plate for me and a plate for her, then set them on the table.
"Eat," I tell her. "Or don't. I don't give a shit either way."
She sighs. "Such a charmer."
But she limps over and sits down across from me. Wolf settles at her feet with a contented groan. The only sounds are the clink of forks on ceramic and the wind outside pressing against the walls.
Caroline finishes first. She sets down her fork and fixes me with a hopeful look. "So," she says. "Story time?"
I shake my head. "Not today."
She blinks. "What?"
"Which word was confusing?"
"But you said—"
"I know what I said."
Her hope curdles into anger. "You just told me—like ten freaking minutes ago!—that you'd tell me everything."
"And I meant it. But not today."
"Why not?"
Because they're coming, I want to tell her.
I don't yet know who they are, but I have plenty of guesses, each more dangerous than the last. I don't know if you brought them here or if you merely have a fucking terrible sense of timing, if you're caught in the middle of something you will not survive.
But either way, I won't have blood on my hands.
I've had enough of that to last a lifetime.
"Snow's got me in a bad headspace," I mutter instead. "Need to think."
She erupts. "You've had six months to think! You've been up here in the wilderness with a dog and enough firewood to heat the Eastern Seaboard, and you need more time to think?"
Her eyes are crackling with anger, fists clenched on the table. I can see the fight building in her, and I can hardly blame her. I made a promise and proceeded to break it almost as soon as it was spoken aloud. That's a rotten thing to do to a woman who suffered like she did just to find me.
But I can't give her what I promised. Not with what I just saw outside.
And I can't let her stay. The moment the snow clears, I'm putting her on a bus. I'll drive her to the trailhead myself if I have to. I'll carry her if her ankle won't hold. Whatever it takes, I'll get her out of these mountains and back to Manhattan, where she belongs.
Where she's safe.
And then I'll come back here and figure out who the fuck was in my woods.
"I'm sorry," I offer.
She doesn't bite on that for even a second. "No, you're not."
I set down my fork. "You're right. I'm not."
She stands up hard enough to scrape the chair legs against the floor. Wolf lifts his head and whimpers at the display of anger. Caroline grabs her plate, limps to the sink, slaps it down, and then limps past me toward the couch without another word.
The rifle leans against the wall, two feet from my right hand.
Outside, the snow keeps falling, burying everything.
But they're waiting in the woods. I know they are. The question is…
Why?