Lindsay Buroker - Hunted

She caught Cedar gazing into the woods again,not toward the ridge or the direction of the tracks, but toward theriver and the claims.

Kali returned the map. “This won’t take long.We’ll capture her and still make it up to Sebastian’s claim beforeit gets dark.”

“Hm,” was all Cedar said.

Late afternoon sun played tag with theclouds, though it did little to melt the snow on top of the ridge.Kali and Cedar knelt in a shadowy hallow, hidden from anyonelooking up from below. She scanned the hillside with a collapsiblespyglass, hoping to catch the smoke puffs of a steam engine. Ifthey were out there, the forest cloaked them.

“Do you see the tracks?” she murmured. “Ifshe drove in a straight line, she would have come out aboutthere.”

Her alternate route up had taken an hour. Hadthe woman already come through and gone? Or was she hiding in acave?

A creek meandered down into the valley, andKali checked up and down the shoreline. It seemed a likely placefor an injured person to stop for water and to attend a wound. Thetrees hid much, though, and even from the high ground, she couldnot see everything.

Cedar tapped her shoulder and pointed. Sheshifted the spyglass, thinking he had spotted their opponent. Hewas pointing out a doe and her fawn, down from the hills todrink.

“Cute,” Kali said, though she was moreinterested in finding the woman. They would have to go down thereand… She could feel Cedar’s gaze upon her. She lowered thespyglass. “What?”

He lifted his eyebrows, and she had a feelingshe had missed something.

“You were pointing at the deer weren’tyou?” she asked. “I didn’t miss… Oh. Mama probably wouldn’t beroaming around down there with her baby if a human was nearby.”

“Especially a human driving a noisy,steam-powered contraption.”

“You don’t think she made it this farup?”

He did not answer, and Kali did not ask theother obvious question, whether he thought they had wasted timedetouring out of the way.

“She was wounded,” Kali said. “Maybe shecouldn’t continue this far.”

“What’s next?” Cedar asked.

Kali chewed on the inside of her cheek. Hewas letting her take the lead, maybe being nice…maybe giving herthe rope to hang herself. She had asked for it, though, hadn’t she?After stopping him earlier, she could not bring herself to ask himto take over now.

“How about we follow the creek back downtoward the crash site?” Kali suggested. “Maybe we’ll find she camepart way up to the ridge and stopped to deal with her injury. Ifshe turned a different direction, we’ll probably still come acrossher tracks.”

Cedar held out a hand, palm up. Yes, she wasstill the leader.

As they traipsed downhill, picking a tediouspath between trees and through undergrowth, Kali grew aware of thepassing minutes. Every time the sun poked through the clouds, hershadow grew longer and thinner where it stretched across the forestfloor.

Where were those cursed tracks?

Now and then an animal would startle in theunderbrush, and she’d jerk her rifle that way, half-expecting theiropponent to jump out at them. Each time Kali would chastiseherself-if anything, that woman would lob grenades at them from adistance, not attack at close range-but she remained on edgenonetheless.

“Kali.” Cedar pointed toward a muddy stretchof land to their right. The parallel tracks of the woman’sdevice.

Kali jogged to the spot. “Huh. Good eye. Iwasn’t expecting them this far over.” She turned to get herbearings. The ridge stood over a mile away now, meaning they werealmost halfway back to the wreckage. She sighed. Prudence bedamned. She had wasted a lot of time trying to second-guess thewoman. “They’re paralleling the ridge now, aren’t they?”

“Appears so.”

She gave him a flat look. “I know what you’redoing. You’re hoping I’ll be proved wrong, that tracking isn’t aseasy as I claimed.”

“Shall we follow them?” Cedar asked. “Or doyou still fear booby traps?”

“Follow,” Kali said, eyes narrowed. “Butlet’s keep our eyes open.”

“As you wish.”

The tracks only ran parallel to the ridge fora quarter of a mile. Then they surprised Kali by angling backtoward the main river and the route she and Cedar had been on whenthey were attacked.

Her heart lurched. “We’re heading back towardthe cabin.” And the SAB.

What if the woman, deeming her own transporttoo damaged to keep, stole Kali’s vehicle? While they were not sofar from Dawson that they could not walk, she hated the idea oflosing her latest invention. She had so many refinements she wantedto make. For one, a brush cutter was a brilliant idea. And shecould add an-

“Kali!” Cedar grabbed her arm.

She tumbled back against him. “What isit?”

Nothing stirred in the brush, and birdschattered in a nearby thicket. When she detected nothingout-of-place in their surroundings, she searched his face. He waspeering at the tracks a few feet in front of them.

“What’s that black rectangle?” he asked.

It took Kali a few seconds to find theobject. There, mostly buried beneath needles and leaves, laysomething flat and dark, the size of poker card.

“Back up,” she said.

When they had gone ten meters, she grabbed arock and tossed it at the object. Her projectile clipped thecorner. A boom thundered through the forest, and rock and dirt flewtwenty feet into the air, pelting branches overhead and landing allabout. Kali lifted an arm as shards rained down upon her andCedar.

“There’s my booby trap.” Kali had no reasonto be smug, not when she would have blundered onto it if Cedar hadnot stopped her, but being proven right about her hunch mollifiedher. The woman was someone to employ protectivemeasures.

“And now the owner knows exactly where weare,” Cedar said, an eyebrow arched.

“Oh.” Yes, that sound had probably beenaudible for miles. Kali closed her eyes. Idiot. “Guess we couldhave gone around it without detonating it.”

“Likely.”

She would have given him a lengthy glower,but she was worried about her bicycle. With an eye toward thetrail, she strode forward again. They passed-and avoided-three morebooby traps before reaching the cabin.

“There’s the SAB!” Kali blurted, relievedwhen it came into sight.

She kept herself from running over to checkit since the tracks led straight toward it. She and Cedar steppedcarefully, searching for hazardous deposits on the ground. Theyfound nothing more treacherous than a pile of bear dung, but Kalilingered a few feet from her vehicle without going close enough totouch it.

“Let’s be optimistic,” she finally said.“Maybe she knew we were after her and went straight through.” Shepointed to the tracks, which continued past the bicycle and backdown the road she and Cedar had followed up the river. It madesense that the woman would need to return to town to have her woundtreated.

“She stopped here.” Cedar pointed to theground next to the bicycle. “The tracks are deeper where thevehicle came to rest.”

Kali groaned. She spent the next fifteenminutes inspecting the SAB, checking all the spots she would boobytrap if her goal were to incapacitate someone’s steam vehicle.

Cedar spent the time leaning against a tree,cleaning beneath his fingernails with a knife. “Shall I set upcamp?” he asked at one point.

“No, but I wouldn’t mind something to eat, ifyou’re offering,” Kali said, her voice echoing oddly since she hadher head stuck in the furnace. The fire had burned out while sheand Cedar were roaming the hills. When he did not respond to hercomment, she withdrew her head and looked at him. “Oh, was thatsarcasm?”

His eyebrow twitched. “Possibly.”