10. Wren
WREN
I notice Cade following me before I’m half a mile out.
He doesn’t snap branches, scuff loose stones, or even breathe loud enough for me to hear, but everyone has a rhythm, and after spending a week on the trails with him, I know Cade’s.
At first, I’m irritated. Then, I’m amused. Then, despite myself, I’m pleased.
I don’t let on that I know, and at the next split, I head in a different direction and make a loop just to waste his time.
He keeps following.
My first night’s work gives me a fox, two elk, and several small nocturnal mammals whose eyes shine in my camera’s light, but no human movement.
The second night brings colder air and a black bear crossing high above the drainage with the slow confidence of an animal that has no interest in my problems. I capture it on video and note the time, location, and direction of movement.
Cade trails me again, but never comes close enough to speak, and I have to admit I find his presence reassuring.
As I approach my surveillance spot on the third night out, something feels wrong. At first, it’s just a feeling, but eventually I realize the air is too still. There are fewer of the usual sounds I’ve come to expect. Even the insects sound subdued.
I get into position a little before ten, angle my field scope through a break in the trees, and mount my camera beside it. The primary pass stretches out below me in shades of gray, some of it illuminated by moonlight, while other parts are in shadow.
At ten, I check in with Rhett on the radio, as I promised, even though he probably gets reports from Cade, too. “In position,” I whisper.
His response comes low in my earpiece. “Copy.”
It’s routine by now and helps me mark the time.
At ten twenty, there’s nothing. Still nothing at ten forty. After two nights like this, I’m not optimistic, even with tonight’s strange silence, but at ten minutes after eleven, the lower corridor changes.
A shadow separates from the other shadows in an unnatural way. Then another, then two more.
My body recognizes what I’m seeing before my mind catches up, and I freeze for a second before I lower my eye to the field scope.
Four men come into focus. They’re wearing heavy packs and moving quietly but swiftly in an evenly spaced formation that makes my mouth go dry. One leads, two are staggered, and another brings up the rear. There’s no conversation and no wasted motion.
They’re definitely not careless locals or vacation hikers, and they don’t act like poachers I’ve seen. They move like a trained team.
I ease one hand toward my camera, my heart beating so hard I feel it in my throat.
I take still photos first, wide enough for terrain reference and closer for the movement pattern.
The lead man stops at the rock formation near the bend, and one of the staggered two moves up to join him. The first man sets his pack down, crouches, then drags out a dark, rectangular shape from behind the rocks and opens its lid.
I start recording as the second man aims a shielded beam of red light and the first man transfers wrapped packages from his pack to the container.
The images won’t be perfect. There’s too much shadow, and it’s too dark to capture faces, but it’s enough.
I look through the scope again. The man at the rear is scanning the slope, and he doesn’t look like someone admiring the night.
My breath stops. I need to leave. I have the information I need. I know where to aim the trail cams. I need to get out.
Moving slowly and smoothly, I begin to ease backward, but I set a foot on something uneven, and my boot slips. A branch snaps under my foot. It’s a small sound, but in the silence, it’s enormous.
A man below swings a flashlight in my direction. White light slices through the trees, and I freeze again. The beam skims left, pauses, then sweeps back. A man’s voice barks something out, and another one answers.
I can’t make out what they said, but their tone tells me everything. I grab my camera, shove it against my chest, and move.
I don’t go as fast as I’d like because going fast would make too much noise. Instead, I stay low, where the ridge hides me from the pass, and angle toward the route Cade insisted on during our planning session.
Below me, a voice snaps an order, and there’s a commotion. I risk a look and make out two of them coming my way.
I turn and run, part of my brain realizing that while two men are coming for me, the other two aren’t panicking or scattering. They’re continuing their work.
Branches scratch my arms and catch at my braid, and loose needles slide under my boots as I flee. I cut across the most obvious descent, then I climb until my lungs burn, and keep climbing.
There’s a service road below, and if the men know the terrain, that’s where they’ll expect me to have gone.
A flashlight beam cuts through the trees behind me. Then closer. Too close. I drop behind a deadfall, crawl over slick bark, and land hard on the other side. Pain bursts through my right knee, but I keep moving.
One of the men’s voices carries to me, and I go faster.
I find the narrow notch between two boulders by feel more than sight and squeeze through sideways, scraping my shoulder hard enough to make my eyes water. The sound behind me changes as the men spread farther apart.
Below me, the flashlight sweeps low across the route I didn’t take. Then a second beam angles higher. They’re not following in a straight line anymore. They’re trying to bracket me. One below, one off to my left, both pushing me toward open rock where I’d be easier to see.
I keep climbing, and a loose stone skitters under my boot and drops through the darkness. A beam of white light snaps toward the sound, slicing across the boulder below my knee.
I go flat against the slope and hold my breath.
The light holds for a second. Then another.
Then it moves on.
I keep climbing as my pulse pounds so hard in my ears I have to concentrate to hear the terrain under my feet.
The trees begin to thin, and moonlight shines brighter over granite. I scramble over the first shelf and drop behind the boulder Cade had marked as a shielded spot when we planned for this. I hadn’t expected to need the escape.
With shaking fingers, I key the radio Rhett gave me. “I’m compromised.”
His response comes immediately. “Location.”
“Rock outcrop above the secondary extraction route. Two men coming upslope. Two others down at the bend. There’s another cache site, and the men aren’t poachers, Rhett.”
“Stay concealed. Cade’s moving toward you. Boone and I are on our way.”