Iris Johansen - Dead Aim

"Okay." Judd gazed out over the mountains. "I'll give you fifteen minutes' head start. You take off and hide from me. Get going." "You're tracking me?" Alex said. "How am I going to learn anything?" "You make the trail and then we go back over it and see what you did wrong."

"What I did wrong?"

"Sorry, wrong phrase. I'm used to hunting prey who don't want to be found. But it's the only way I know how to teach you. Take it or leave it." "I'll take it." She took off running down the slope.

"Found." Judd pulled Alex out of the brush. "You must be getting tired. You were really clumsy that time."

"Thanks." She grimaced. "That's the third time. I'm getting depressed. If it's that easy to track someone, why couldn't we find that little girl?"

"It's not easy. It takes practice. There are all kinds of things that obscure signs. She might have wandered in the shallow part of the river for a while. Rain could have washed the signs away. Children don't weigh much, and her feet probably made little impression in the grass. If she walked for a long time in the mud, she might have picked up enough of it on her shoes to form a pillow of mud. That makes it almost impossible to identify a human footstep except by the stride. A large animal might have walked over her prints and destroyed them. Or maybe you were at the wrong place at the wrong time."

"What does that mean?"

"The angle of light." He studied her face. "You're tired.

We'll go over your mistakes and then go back to the house." He turned away and moved up the slope. "You dislodged rocks over there." He pointed. "You flattened ground cover when you first started down this hill, and the color is a little different." He pointed again. "You broke the stem of that plant when you went into the bushes." He knelt down. "And here's a clear footprint."

"It doesn't look clear to me."

"See the curve where your toe pushed into the ground?" She nodded. "It's like learning a foreign language."

"Your eyes just have to train themselves to see the signs. There are four indicators to watch out for. Flattening, when dirt, rocks, or twigs are pressed into the ground by the weight of a foot. Regularity, which is an effect caused by straight lines or geometric shapes or anything not generally found in nature. Color change, which is a difference in color or texture from the area that surrounds it. Disturbance, which is a recent change or rearrangement." He moved ahead of her. "Come on, we'll go to the first place you hid and we'll go over the signs there."

She hurried to keep up with him. "I might as well have left a sign pointing to where I was." "Well, yes. But I didn't have to look at the ground when I got near those shrubs."

"Why not?"

"I smelled you."

She missed a step. "What?"

"Deodorants, toothpastes, shampoos are the scents of civilization. But nature gives everyone their own individual scents."

"You're saying I stink?"

He looked at her. "No, you smell intensely female. It couldn't be more enticing." She glanced quickly away from him. "Or identifiable, evi dently."

"I'd know you in the dark."

She inhaled sharply and searched wildly for something to say. "And did your Apache friend educate your nose as well as your eyes?"

"No, it's a talent. I just had to refine it."

"Sarah's dog, Monty, has a wonderful nose."

He started to laugh. "You're comparing me to a dog?" The tension was gone, she realized with relief. "Well, he's an exceptional dog." "Then I guess I'll have to accept that as a compliment." He knelt down and pointed to a spot some forty yards away. "Here's where I first picked up your trail. Do you see the shine?" She squatted down beside him. "Yes, how did I do that?"

"Your footprints pressed into dirt particles, which formed a reflective surface. But you can only see them in an oblique light angle."

"As shine."

"But you might miss them if you were right on top. That's why distance is good."

"Well, you're definitely an expert on distance."

"I'm not bad on top either."

She didn't make the mistake of looking at him this time. She quickly rose to her feet. "Let's go. I can't wait to see what else I did wrong."

"You're pretty incredible out there." She stared into the fire as she slowly sipped her hot chocolate. "How did you meet this Indian who taught you to track?"

"The Army sent me to him. It was part of my training." His pencil moved swiftly over the sketch pad. "You never know when you're going to have to seek out and find. Actually, it took me longer than it should have to become proficient. At first, I didn't like hunting. I had to learn to block out the thought of the final kill and concentrate on the chase itself. You know, you look really good in the firelight…"

"You'd better draw fast. This heat is making me sleepy." "Just a little while longer… You said you went hunting with your father. That surprises me. I can't see you with a rifle." "We didn't take rifles. My father didn't like shooting animals. We took cameras."

"Now I understand. Much more in character."

"Do most people in your profession have problems learning to"-she searched for a word-"hunt?" "Kill. Say it." His gaze remained on the sketch. "Some do, some don't. Occasionally, you find someone who loves it. Loves the hunt. Loves the kill."

"Not you?"

"No."

"But you've known someone who does?"

He nodded. "And for a short while he infected me with his enthusiasm."

"Was he as good as you?"

"No, but he came close." He put the sketch pad on the end table beside him. "Go on to bed. I've captured the essence. I'll fill in the rest tomorrow."

He didn't want to answer any more questions. Well, she probably shouldn't ask any more. She wasn't sure whether those moments in the cold mountains or these last hours beside the blazing fire were the most intimate.

She rose to her feet. "You may have the best part of our deal. I have a hunch I'm not going to be very good at this tracking business."

"You'll be good. You have good eyes. You're smart and you learn fast. Tomorrow you'll remember everything I've said and it will be harder for me to find you."

"Until you get close enough to smell me. I'm still not sure I like that idea."

He smiled. "The teacher has to have some perks. Then the day after tomorrow I'll let you take me back over your trail and tell me how I tracked you."

"That soon?"

"Like I said, you have good eyes."

So did he. Ice blue, and yet right now they didn't look cold at all… "Good night." She moved toward the bedroom. "I'll try to give you a little more of a challenge tomorrow." "Don't try too hard. Believe me, you're a constant chal lenge, Alex."

Where was Morgan?

Alex stamped to keep the circulation going in her feet. It had turned colder in the last hour and she was ready to go back to the ranch. It had snowed during the night, and Morgan had called off her tracking lesson because the snow would hide the signs beneath its white blanket. She was surprised how disappointed she'd been when he handed her camera to her and then left her on the hillside. She felt… abandoned.

God, how pathetic. Forget the cold. Forget Morgan.

She lifted the camera and focused on the tops of the Tetons, now wreathed in a cloudy mist.

"Are you ready?"

She whirled to find Morgan behind her. She should have been able to hear him on the ice-crusted snow, but she hadn't. "Where were you?"

He gestured to the tree-dotted hill to the south. "I needed to stretch myself."

"And I was keeping you back."

"Yes." He went past her down the slope that led to the ranch. "But you've kept up damn well the last couple days, considering your injury. I ran you hard." "Considering my injury? How patronizing." She smiled. "Even if it's true. Give me a couple weeks and I'll meet your pace."