6. Lana
Lana
Ibit back a groan and readjusted my pack as I followed Toren over a fallen pine. I thought I was in shape, but this terrain was testing that theory.
Stepping over a boulder the size of a mini-fridge, I grimaced at the burn in my calves.
The trails around Juneau and Parker’s Landing were not good preparation for a wilderness hike.
They were too flat and free from obstacles.
Add in a full pack and a guide who, even though he was doing his best to slow down, still had a stride close to twice the length of mine.
“How are you doing back there?”
“Peachy.” Quickly, I erased the look of pain from my face and tried for a more pleasant, serene expression. The last thing I needed was for Toren to march me back to Walker and send me home. I’d come this far. I wasn’t leaving.
I eyed him, wondering at how he wasn’t even breathing hard. It wasn’t fair.
The sound of the river grew louder as we approached the fork. I could hear the rush of water over rocks. It was a constant roar that had become almost soothing as we walked, like a sound machine meant to focus the mind and drown out intrusive thoughts.
Latching on to the sound, I put one foot in front of the other, tuning out everything but the noise of the river and where I planted my feet.
I was so focused I almost walked right past Toren when he paused.
Stumbling to a halt, I glanced over. “Why did you stop?”
He nodded at something ahead of us. “We’re here.”
“What?” I turned and saw the river spread out before us, diverging around a bend in the mountainside. “Oh.”
“I’m going to poke around a bit. Why don’t you take a seat for a minute?”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. “Sounds good.” Taking a few steps to the side, I unlatched the waist strap on my bag and let the pack slip off my shoulders to fall to the ground. I sank onto a flat rock with a sigh of relief.
“I’ll be right back. Stay here.”
Nodding, I watched him walk away.
Head down, he picked his way over the ground as he moved toward the riverbank. Several times, I saw him squat, poke at the ground, then rise and continue down the shoreline.
After ten minutes, he turned around and came back, taking a slightly different route.
“See anything interesting?” I hopped off my rock, my legs feeling much better now that they’d had a rest, and slid my pack over my shoulders.
“Maybe.”
My fingers froze on the buckles as I reattached the waist strap. “Maybe? What does that mean? Did you find signs Dustin’s been here?” That would be great. Amazing, actually. We could just follow his tracks, which would, hopefully, lead us right to him.
“There are some tracks down there, yes.”
“That’s great.” Any vestiges of pain remaining in my legs and feet vanished. “Let’s go. It would be awesome if we could get back to the plane before the weather hits.”
Toren’s hand on my arm as I moved around him stopped me.
I glanced up with a frown. “What?”
“There’s more than one set.”
My frown deepened. “More than one set of prints?”
“Yeah. The ones look similar to the ones at Dustin’s campsite, but the others are definitely different. There are at least three distinct patterns, including his.”
“So, maybe someone else had the same idea to hunt up this way?”
He pursed his lips. “Yeah. Maybe.” His gaze roved over the landscape past my head. “Let’s go. Keep your eyes and ears open, though. I’d say we’re definitely not alone up here. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I don’t know.”
The frown on my face didn’t dissipate at his words. That was just great. Now I had to worry about possible crazy people in addition to the wildlife.
Huffing out a breath, I got in line behind him, following in his tracks as he picked his way back to the river.
“See these?” He pointed to a line of boot prints. They crisscrossed each other and were clearly different. “These don’t belong to the same boot as the prints at the camp. Those are over there.” He pointed closer to the water.
I studied the ground, taking note of the tread shape and the length of the shoe. A tracker I was not, but I wanted to make sure I could recognize the print if we came across it again elsewhere.
Toren kept walking, leading me closer to the riverbank. There, he pointed out the other set of prints. To me, they didn’t look that much different from the others, but I could see some subtle changes. I was glad to have him along, and that he was better at noticing these sorts of things.
Turning left, we followed the tracks up the river. Several times, they broke, interrupted by the water where it flowed over shallow sandbars and spots of pebbled beach. Each time, though, we found it again on the other side.
But there was still no other sign of Dustin.
“Are we sure we’re following the right footprints? What if that wasn’t Dustin’s camp? What if he’s one of the other sets we left behind?”
“Then we’ll double back and try again. I don’t think I’m wrong, though. Dustin came alone. Those others were laid at the same time, which means they came together.”
Abruptly, he stopped.
I stumbled, having just taken a step over a basketball-size rock when he paused. “Would you stop doing that?”
“Do you smell that?” he said, ignoring my comment.
“Smell what?” I sniffed the air. A faint whiff of decay hit my nostrils. “Something’s dead nearby.” As I uttered the words, a feeling of dread punched me in the stomach. “Oh no.” I turned to look at Toren. “You don’t think?—”
“I hope not.” Without another word, he set off, away from the riverbank.
The further we went into the trees, the stronger the smell became.
My stomach turned at the putrid scent, and I couldn’t stop the grimace that formed on my face. God, that was an awful stench.
The buzz of flies reached my ears before I saw it. Toren must have heard it, too, because he changed direction. We walked another fifteen feet before he paused again.
“Well, there’s the source of our smell.” Extending an arm, he pointed at something lying behind the boughs of the fallen pine we just rounded.
I peered past him. Bile rose in my throat. On the ground laid a black bear carcass in an active state of decomposition. The hide, caked with dried blood, hung off the animal’s massive bones. Maggots writhed where there were bits of exposed flesh.
Toren moved forward, crouching near the bear. Picking up a large stick, he prodded the remains.
“Oh, that’s disgusting. What are you doing? Don’t touch it.” I covered my mouth and nose with the collar of my shirt. My eyes were beginning to water from the godawful smell.
“Relax. I’m just poking it to see something.”
“What is there to see? It’s dead, Toren.”
He maneuvered part of the hide out of the way. A cloud of flies rose, making him lean back a bit. Turning his head, he let out a short cough, blinking rapidly. “Damn. That’s potent.” Easing back in, he shifted the hide some more. “There. Do you see that?” He glanced back at me.
“See what?” I squinted at the carcass but didn’t get any closer. “It’s just a mass of rotting flesh. I don’t know what you want me to see.”
“Exactly. Rotting flesh. There shouldn’t be any meat on the bones.”
I frowned. “Why not? I mean, I get it if it was hunted. You’re supposed to take all the edible meat. But how do you know it didn’t die from something else? Bears are just coming out of hibernation. Maybe it got in a fight with another bear and lost.”
“No. That’s not what happened.”
He seemed so very sure of that. I cocked my head. “Oh? How do you know? There’s a gaping hole where the outside of its chest used to be. And from what I can see, no bullet wound in its head.”
“Right. But a competing bear wouldn’t chop off this one’s paws.”
My eyes rounded. “Chop off—oh, man… Are you saying?—”
“It’s poachers,” he finished for me.