Chapter 17 Cam #2
Just before they continued, Aiden approached. “Can I run ahead and hang with the scouts?” He avoided looking at Cam, addressing his question to Kory. “They just left and shouldn’t be too far ahead. If I’m going to join the Watch, I want to learn how to track.”
Kory glanced at Cam, raising his eyebrows. Sending a newbie out when it was dangerous wasn’t the best call, but he was leaving it up to Cam.
“We stick together,” said Cam. His brother had seldom left xTerra’s protective walls and had few outdoor skills.
He wasn’t learning to track in an afternoon, and his request seemed disingenuous.
He must have another agenda, even if it was just getting out from under Cam’s eye.
Of his three brothers, Aiden had been the one he’d least expected to join the Watch.
Cam exhaled, uncertain. Maybe his brother was actually interested in new experiences.
“We can send you to accompany the next pair when they rotate.”
Aiden glared. “They just left. Literally. Like fifteen minutes ago. How far could they have gotten?” He crossed his arms, resembling a petulant teen instead of a twenty-five-year-old man.
Kory turned away, still leaving this to him.
Cam lowered his voice, trying to keep his frustration out of his tone.
“You’re out here under our command. The Slains could be just over the next rise or through those trees.
” He waved at the forest. “All I’m asking is that you wait a few hours.
If you’d brought it up earlier, we’d have sent you with the last two. ”
Aiden turned away with a grunt, shrugging his shoulders and lifting his ungainly pack.
He should be too old to pout, but his face remained sulky as he walked away, sauntering toward the back of the line.
On the way, he kicked a fallen pinecone.
When he reached its landing place, he booted it again before falling in line at the rear with two other prospective recruits.
A few of his words floated on the breeze to Cam, including “Montgomery, boss, and asshole.” His brother might be unhappy, but he seemed smart enough to follow a direct order.
Cam thrust Aiden’s immature behavior from his mind and carried on, remaining watchful.
Twice more gunshots rang out. Each time, their patrol halted, trying to determine their relative distance and direction.
The next crack of a rifle’s report seemed far too close, and the group stopped for longer.
When no additional threat materialized, they continued.
When the scouts rotated back, Walker sent Cam ahead to join them.
Aiden remained at the back with his friends.
The scouts left the primary group and fanned out, keeping each other in sight as they trekked through the forest and across the small open meadows. Each time Cam left the cover provided by the trees, his heart drummed against his ribs, but they didn’t see anyone else.
In his periphery, branches swayed, and he glimpsed something moving.
He signaled to his scouting companion and veered left to check it out.
Twenty yards from the far side of the clearing, a deer jumped up from the tall grass where it had been bedded.
It bounded away, its white rump bouncing out of sight as Cam approached.
He waited, heart racing, then he pushed on. Though he searched the ground for footprints, once more, he came up empty. Returning to forward scouting, he remained convinced someone had been watching from this vantage.
This on-edge sense of danger made progress slow and drained his energy.
The scouts pushed on for several hours before returning to the group with their report.
Kory sent out the next pair, and Cam rejoined the main column.
Like the earlier scouts, they’d seen nothing of interest, and the source of the gunshots remained elusive.
On the march, he shared his scouting experience with Kory. “There was no evidence, but it feels like they’re out there, watching and taunting from afar.” Cam kept his voice quiet as they pulled ahead of the main procession.
“I agree,” said Kory, also keeping his voice low. “But at least they aren’t shooting at us and are keeping their distance. I’ll send Dave up a tree with his scope when we set up camp. He’s a former army sniper. If anyone tries to get close, he’ll keep us safe.”
They continued with Cam feeling better after sharing his concerns.
Maybe the intermittent shooting had been designed to herd them away from something of interest. Or to be a distraction.
Or simply to keep them on edge. He sighed.
If so, mission accomplished. Standing in the cover of a large evergreen, Cam marked a spot on his map where he thought he’d seen someone, drew a large circle around it, and shoved it back into his map pocket.
The Watch might want to come back and search further in this area.
He glanced at the civilians in their midst. Next time.
Keeping his voice low for just Kory, Cam said, “What do you think about sending out a group of the Watch to check the far side of the ridges in a few days? It feels like we skipped checking much that way after the gunshots.”
Walker nodded. “You might be right. I’ll talk to the captain when we get back.”
Soon after their discussion, the leaden skies opened.
Cold gray rain poured down steadily. Everyone tugged up their hoods to slog through the mud as they continued.
The muck grew thick, sucking at their boots, and visibility limited as they struggled onward.
Everyone focused on the way forward with little energy for conversation.
As the afternoon wore on, Cam stayed on the lookout for a likely place to camp. With luck, somewhere with fresh water, and larger trees or tall rocks for shelter from the driving wind. It had turned into a miserable afternoon, and everyone could do with a fire and a hot meal.
Finally, Kory called a halt deep within a stand of pine trees spaced several yards apart, leaving openings to camp, protected from the worst of the slashing rain. Working together, Kory and Cam strung several tarps on ropes between trees, while some others set up three large tents for the night.
With this job complete, he turned, checking on his brother. He couldn’t see him. “Has anyone seen Aiden?” said Cam, twisting one way, then another. He frowned. His brother wasn’t with any of the groups setting up the camp. “Did he join the scouts after I got back?”
“I haven’t seen him since lunch,” said Dave from where he crouched, lighting a fire.
Kory scowled, glancing around the clearing. “He should be helping.”
“I forgot about him when you sent me with the scouts. He didn’t go, probably because I did. I haven’t seen him since.” Cam’s stomach sank. He was so concerned about his report, he hadn’t remembered to check for Aiden when he’d returned.
Dave grimaced. “If you finish the fire. I’ll find out what I can. They’re making a platform for my perch, I’ve got time.”
Cam took over the fire, adding larger wood until it was a hot, steady blaze.
Dave returned a few minutes later. “His friends said he left a while ago. He took something from his pack and asked them to look after his stuff. They told him to stay with the group, but apparently, he said he had something to take care of and would be back soon. When he didn’t return, they were nervous about telling anyone. ”
“Let’s give him a few more minutes before we panic,” said Kory, glancing at Cam. “Maybe he needed a few minutes of privacy. He might have just slipped away.” It was unlikely he’d gotten lost going to the bathroom, but stranger things had happened.
A niggling sense wouldn’t let Cam dismiss his unease, mentally kicking himself for not looking out for his brother.
Ten minutes later, Aiden still wasn’t back. In that time, he couldn’t have gone far.
“Has anyone seen Aiden? The recruit with the red jacket?” said Cam, moving through the camp. He asked each group and checked all the tents. No one had seen his brother since well before they’d stopped.
A sense of dread filled Cam. If Aiden wasn’t here, he’d left for mysterious reasons, perhaps thinking he wouldn’t be missed in the hubbub of setting up camp.
While alone, he could have gotten lost or injured.
Cam’s stomach churned. Or, Aiden had been taken.
Cam made his way to Kory at the campfire. “My brother still hasn’t returned.”
“Maybe he lost something and went back to search,” said Kory. “We could send someone to investigate.”
“I don’t like splitting up, but,” Cam gripped the back of his neck.
“Can someone check our backtrail and contact the rear scout?” At Kory’s nod, he organized two Watch members to return along their trail to search.
If there were no sign of Aiden within the hour, they were ordered to return to camp.
Dusk was already creeping over the land, deepening the shadows.
They couldn’t risk anyone else being out alone at night.
The pair returned after full dark, stepping under the tarp beside the snapping fire, where they accepted bowls of scalding stew before making their report.
In the scant amount of daylight remaining, they hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary.
His brother’s tracks had branched away from the original path almost immediately and had soon petered out.
With Aiden’s lack of experience, he should have been easy to track, so this was unexpected.
Beyond that one find, they’d come up empty. The lump in Cam’s stomach grew heavier.
Dinner was subdued that night. Cam couldn’t sleep well and relieved one of the perimeter guards before first light, taking an extra shift.
A crackling in the brush behind him had him jumping out of his skin, heart pounding.
He let out a loud exhale when a large porcupine waddled out of the bushes.
He resettled, hoping his brother would stumble into camp.
The next morning, Aiden was still missing.