Chapter 6 Annie
Lake Lumin Road was rougher up where it burrowed into the foothills, and the Jeep teetered and bounced over large rocks and gaping potholes as Annie drove to the lake with a tight-fingered grip on the steering wheel.
The last of the day’s light was falling sideways through the trees, brassy and tired, and a violet dusk was spreading outward from deep pockets of fir and fern, but Annie’s eyes were not on the loveliness around her.
Her gaze was fixed on the road ahead as she scanned the trees for the first NO TRESPASSING sign that was sure to pop up at any moment.
She was sore and tired from the long hike back up to Lewis Ridge, and the dense forest outside the Jeep only made her warier about the confrontation ahead.
The Wagoneer swung around a gentle curve and Annie’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
“Here we go,” she said as the first NO TRESPASSING sign appeared, nailed to a crooked post leaning out over the road. The second was fixed to a tree trunk, as was the next, and the one after that. For a quarter of a mile, she passed sign after sign as the road climbed upward toward an unseen peak.
In her head, Annie ran down the list of bullet points she’d need to cover with the man who had posted these signs. The cougar near his property. The access she needed to his land. What he should be looking out for, and instructions to contact her if he came across any trace of the big cat.
The terrain leveled out at last, and ahead a brighter swatch of land appeared through the trees, flat and open with the glimmer of sunlit water beyond. This had to be it.
The road took a final turn around a narrow bend and the Jeep went with it, Annie slamming on the brakes at the sight of an aluminum gate blocking the way ahead.
The tires juddered on gravel like the grinding of teeth, and her entire body tensed up as she skidded over the road, slowing, sliding, finally screeching to a stop less than a foot from the gate.
Annie slumped back in her seat, blowing out a relieved breath before killing the engine and taking in her surroundings.
Beyond the gate was a large clearing, ringed in firs.
The lake rippled like pink satin in the light of the setting sun, and on the shore closest to her, a grove of slender trees, alders, if she was guessing right from this distance, pressed close to a small wooden building with a rust-colored roof and a sagging dock jutting out over the water. The boathouse.
Annie climbed out of the Jeep, slamming the door loudly enough to give the man somewhere behind the gate ample warning that she was here, but the boathouse was dark, and the clearing empty, except for a dinged-up forest-green Ford Ranger, parked at an angle beneath the trees.
Annie cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Hello?”
Her shout echoed across the clearing and faded out into the open air above the lake. Only the wind answered, stirring the alders, setting their leaves murmuring.
Annie opened the door of the Jeep and leaned inside, pressing her palm down on the horn and holding it there for five full seconds, the sound blaring across the clearing and reverberating around the foothills like a phantom bugle.
That ought to do it.
For a minute, no one emerged, then a shadow moved in the grove of trees behind the boathouse. Someone was coming out of the woods.
Annie straightened the collar of her uniform and took her professional stance behind the gate: feet slightly apart, shoulders squared and hands clasped at her waist, firearm on full display in its holster.
A man stepped through the trees and into the clearing, his face angled toward the ground, white T-shirt bronzed in the golden light.
Annie’s mouth popped open in surprise.
He was young. Very young. She had somehow imagined the “loner in the boathouse,” as she’d come to think of him, to be in his forties or fifties, but this man was younger than she was; mid-twenties at the most, and built like a jaguar, lean and muscled in the taut, springy way suggestive of power.
Annie’s mouth stayed open as he crossed the clearing with the sure gait of an athlete.
His hands were in his pockets, and closer up, she saw that his shirt and face were dirty, his jeans torn across the thigh.
He looked like he had stepped straight out of an ad for some edgy new brand of denim, the exact opposite of the scruffy and cantankerous middle-aged men she was used to dealing with on the job.
Still, given the circumstances—and the small fortune he had spent on NO TRESPASSING signs—she wasn’t about to let his appearance disarm her.
“Can I help you?” he asked as he approached, eyes on the ground. Annie bristled at his tone. She’d heard it before, countless times, the four words that were spoken as a question but sounded more like a threat.
You better have a good reason for being here is what he meant, and both of them knew it.
Annie lifted her chin. “You live here?” she said by way of introduction.
He gave a single nod.
“I’m Annie Heston”—she extended her hand through the gate—“the new game warden in town.”
Still, he did not look up. A shadow of hesitance crossed his face, but he slowly withdrew his hand from his pocket and took hers, shaking it without offering his name in return.
Annie glanced down. His fingers were filthy, caked with dirt, the nails black and soiled as though he had spent the better part of the day digging in the earth. When she looked up again, eyebrows raised, he quickly dropped the handshake.
“I’m here because there’s a cougar in the area,” she said, resisting the urge to wipe her hand on her pants. “We’ve had a couple of sightings from folks farther north who lost pets. It’s an active male. Big one. We’d like to get it tagged, but so far, we haven’t been able to track it down.”
The collective we she spoke of was just her, but the more authority she could squeeze into her little spiel, the better. He nodded along slightly as she talked, but his gaze roved. He looked at the ground, at the Jeep, and, finally, at the Ruger on her hip.
“Now, my best guess”—Annie nodded over his shoulder in the general direction of the mountain—“is that he came down from Lewis Ridge a day or two ago, and I think he has a den just southeast of your lake here.”
For the first time, he lifted his eyes to meet hers directly. “The cougar wouldn’t happen to belong to Ronnie Boyd down the road, would it?”
Annie’s reply stuck in her throat.
His eyes were older than he was. Much older.
Apple green with warm brown around the pupils, and just the suggestion of blue flecking the iris, but it was not their color that was so jarring.
In that young, lineless face, the eyes were an utter contrast. They wore the same pained look she’d seen in her father’s eyes during the dark and desperate months after her mother died.
The same look she’d seen in her own eyes in the rearview mirror on the drive up here.
They were the eyes of a man who knew with certainty that his best days were behind him.
“No, sir,” she said when she found her voice again, “it doesn’t belong to anyone.”
He blinked, as though the sir had caught him off guard, and when he spoke again, it was with a casualness that sounded forced.
“Right.” He nodded. “Of course not. It’s just… he had this maned wolf…” The nod turned into a headshake. “It’s not important.”
Annie gazed at him curiously, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. When he said nothing else, she nodded past him toward the lake.
“Anyway, I was able to track the cougar from the ridge down to the south side of the lake there, but it sure would be a whole lot easier if I could get in and out by way of the road. I know it’s an inconvenience to have someone coming and going on your land, but the sooner I get him tagged, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair. ”
He brought one dirty hand to the back of his neck and scratched at the skin there.
“I don’t…” His throat bobbed again. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
Annie sighed. Here it comes.
“Then let me be frank,” she said, keeping her voice steady, though her nostrils flared with irritation.
“A federal wildlife officer has the right to enter any land or water, public or private, in the performance of their duty. I don’t need your permission, but given the thousand signs you’ve posted, I gather that you’re keen on keeping your privacy up here, and I thought I’d do the decent thing by asking first.”
She had his attention now. He was gazing at her as though she herself were the cougar, crouched back on its haunches, tail flicking as it prepared to pounce.
For a moment, neither of them blinked. A three-second chess match. And then he cleared his throat quietly.
“All right. If I don’t have a choice, I guess I’ll leave the gate unlocked.” He angled his chin toward the lake. “There’s a trail on the west side. You can take that all the way around.”
Annie nodded, and it struck her suddenly that there was something familiar about this man.
It was in the way he had looked at her, startled, when she told him she would be using his property whether he wanted her to or not.
She’d seen that look before, those bright eyes and the dark brows that hooded them, though she couldn’t put her finger on when or where.
She had never met him, she was sure of that, but where had she seen him?
In town? No, that look was catching at something further back in her memory. Something from years ago.
As though he felt her trying to place him, his gaze dropped to the ground, and he scuffed at the gravel with the toe of his shoe. “You said you’re new in town. You like it so far?”
Annie’s brows rose at the unexpected question. The attempt at small talk.
“I do.” She nodded. Loosen him up. Compliment his land. Show him you’re not a threat.
She gestured to the lake behind him, the sunset light gone now, the water deep and amethyst with dark forest on all sides. “I’m still getting used to the woods up here, to be honest.” She laughed. “They’re incredible, really. The exact sort of place where you lose your mind, but find your soul.”
“John Muir.”
Annie’s eyes flew back to his face. “You know that quote?”
“Yeah, John Muir. You know, ‘Into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.’ ”
For a second, Annie stood gaping at him as he scuffed the ground with his shoe again.
“Who are you?” she asked finally.
“Does it matter?” he asked with a too-casual shrug.
He was clamming up. Shutting down. He didn’t want her to know his name, and in response Annie pushed back harder.
“Not strictly speaking, but we’re neighbors.” She smiled. “I’m staying at the Proudys’ down the road. I just transferred up from Bend.”
At the word Bend, his nostrils flared, eyes widening for a split second.
Bingo. Bend. At some point, they must have crossed paths back in her hometown.
“You ever been down there?”
“No,” he said with a tight smile. “No, never. I’ve heard it’s beautiful though.”
He was lying. This man was lying straight to her face.
If there was one thing the job had taught her, it was how to spot when someone wasn’t telling the truth. Annie’s gaze slid upward, to the tiny beads of sweat rising along his hairline.
For a minute she said nothing, letting the silence swell between them, then she looked over his shoulder at the boathouse again.
His home. Even from this distance, she could see the tanks of propane lined up along the dock, the firewood stacked up to the eaves behind the house, and a broken window that had been patched with cardboard.
What are you hiding back there?
“Quite the place,” she said.
He gave an unnecessary glance over his shoulder. “Thanks.”
“It’s a boathouse?”
“Used to be. Converted now.”
Annie swiped an insect from her forearm without looking down. “Well, you seem good and ready for the apocalypse up here.” Her tone was light, but her eyes were serious, and he gave a stuttering laugh in reply.
He wants me out of here.
Another beat of silence passed between them, then he said, “Well, I’ll keep an eye out for the cougar.”
It was an obvious attempt to steer the conversation back to why she’d come, to wrap it up.
The first drop of sweat was sliding down his temple, and Annie watched it all the way to his jaw before she nodded toward the forest again, launching into a list of things he should be on the lookout for.
As she used her fingers to show the size of the animal’s tracks and detailed exactly what its scat looked like, he nodded along, his expression mildly interested, nothing more.
When she was finished with her lecture, Annie cleared her throat and fished a small white card from her shirt pocket. On it, she’d written her name and the number of the landline in her room at the Proudys’. She offered it to him through the gate.
He took it, his fingertips smearing the edges with dirt.
“That’s my number. If you see any tracks or if you hear him, and believe me, you’ll know if you do, give me a call.” She reached out and double-tapped the card with a finger. “Annie Heston.”
She waited, eyebrows raised, for him to offer his name in return.
“I’m Daniel,” he said after a pause. “Daniel Barela.”
“Daniel Barela,” she repeated, and he nodded once. “It’s nice to meet you, Daniel. Give me a call if you hear the cougar. Day or night.”
He flipped her card over, and back again.
There was nothing left to say, and Annie turned toward the Jeep, reaching for the door handle.
“See you around,” she said as she climbed inside.
“See you,” he muttered, and she closed the door with a bang.
It took several minutes of inching forward and reversing before she managed to turn the Jeep around on the narrow dirt lane. As she backed up for the final time and pulled away, she took one last look in the rearview mirror at the man on the other side of the gate.
He had not moved, but stood tight-jawed where she had left him, turning the soiled card over and over in his hands.