Brynn Kelly - Forbidden River

She rapped her stubby fingernails on the clipboard. She’d give him until Wednesday night to call before hitting the phone. She didn’t need another death on her conscience.

A gust swept through the tussock. The nor’wester, picking up ahead of the front. She’d take the downriver route home in case any bodies had been spat out. Or, hope above hope, she found four live ones waving up from the swing bridge above Auripo Falls. She rubbed the back of her neck, staring blankly into the scrub. The disappearances had been gnawing at her since the day it became obvious the Danes weren’t going to arrive at Wairoimata. One missing person wasn’t unusual, even two. But four? She’d flown the river from glacier to sea, back and forth a dozen times, in case she’d missed some hazard that might explain things—a fallen tree, a crumbling cliff, a fresh rockfall.

She straightened, the tiny leaves on the trees coming into sharp focus. Something was out of place. She scanned the clearing. There, on a cluster of stones at the tree line, a twisted gray-brown clump. Damn. She crossed to it.

Yep, a kiwi. Mauled, bloody, decomposing. A big adult with a transmitter on its leg. Breeding stock. Would’ve been raised in captivity until it was big enough to defend itself. She crossed the clearing to the hut’s stoat trap—one of hundreds she’d dropped into the forest this spring, for Koro’s trapper mates. Another reason she wouldn’t turn a profit this year.

The wooden box was on its side, bait untouched. Whatever knocked it over hadn’t got in through the small wire tunnel, so not a rat or stoat. Possums didn’t tear kiwi apart like that. It must have struck since the trappers had swept through on their fortnightly checks. She searched the ground.

There—animal shit. Dog? She swore. How the hell had a dog got up here? One feral dog could wipe out a hundred kiwi—the forest’s entire population. She walked back to the bird, pulled out her phone and snapped photos for the rangers. They’d want to get here quick. If she left soon, she could bring them up before sunset.

Something rustled in the trees behind the chopper. Not a bird, something solid. She straightened. Nothing but tui warbling and trilling, and the rush of the river. Cody, probably. Sheesh, she was jumpy. The only person he was a danger to was himself. There was no stopping adrenaline junkies with an obsession. She’d played dumb earlier, but of course she’d Googled him when he’d emailed her to book, seeing as it was so reckless to kayak the Awatapu solo. He’d competed in the extreme kayaking world champs with his brother—and if he was also a soldier, that was good enough for her. The profile of him she’d found was a decade old and hadn’t mentioned the legion, but there were other hits she hadn’t clicked on. They’d mostly been about some San Antonio software empire his family owned, and she couldn’t care less about that.

The branches of a tall rata swayed. A kereru pigeon had swooped in, the sun catching the emerald of its breast, its weight bowing the branch as it twisted to eat berries.

A legionnaire, eh? What better way to stick it to your wealthy parents than run away to the legion? And she knew all about sticking it to your parents.

She was no sucker for a guy in uniform, but he’d look hot in khakis, with those broad shoulders tapering down to that tight arse, his sleeves rolled up over corded muscle, a serious slant to his jaw. Camo paint. Dirt. Sweat. Oh yeah.

She inhaled—and gagged on a filthy scent. Hell. That wasn’t the kiwi. She’d transported enough bodies to know that smell. Something big and fleshy, and very dead. A pig? She swiveled, checking the leaves on the taller trees. The breeze had turned west. Please, please, please let it be a pig. She unzipped her jacket and pulled her T-shirt over her nose and mouth, her legs working robotically, nerves bringing her focus and hearing into high relief.

She shoved through the scrub, branches scratching her hands and slapping her face. The low drone of blowflies, a lot of them. Her cheeks prickled. After a few minutes, she saw it, a flash of orange on the ground. Not a pig. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She pushed into a small clearing beside a boulder, her heart thumping.

Yep, a body. Curled up, sheltered under the overhang of the rock like it was hiding—that’s why she hadn’t spotted it from the air. The jacket. She remembered that jacket. Orange, with blue stripes. The Danish guy. Fuck it to hell.

CHAPTER THREE

TIA EXHALED IN a rush. Don’t breathe through your nose and you won’t throw up.

The guy had died this close to where she’d dropped him off? Maybe he and his girlfriend got into trouble downriver and he hiked back up to find help. But why not use their emergency beacons? Tia had insisted they each carry one. She crouched and nudged his jacket pockets. In one, a boxy shape. She carefully unzipped it. The beacon, still sealed.

“What the hell happened, mate?” The silence sucked up her whisper.

He had to have died of exposure, hypothermia, at least a week ago. She’d better radio in, get him in a body bag, load him. Cody could help—he’d be used to dealing with death. Once the body’s smell was contained she’d have a better chance of figuring out if another one lay around here.

“Let’s get you started on the journey home, eh?”

She blinked her eyes clear. A few meters away, a broken branch hung from a leatherwood bush. She stood, brushing her knees. A mobile phone lay in the grass. He’d crashed through, desperate? And then what—collapsed? She did a slow three-sixty, pulling back her hair. The roof of the hut was visible. He couldn’t have been lost. But then, people with hypothermia didn’t always think straight.

A tragedy and a mystery. His phone was dead—no surprise there. She followed his trail through the scrub back as far as it was obvious. A lot of broken branches. Her nape prickled. Something else was wrong. She stopped, biting her lip. What wasn’t she seeing? A kereru swooshed overhead—the fat one from the hut. She laid her hand over her heart, willing it to slow, and forced herself to focus on her environment. Her brother, Tane, teased her about her “premonitions,” but he’d long ago learned to pay attention. The number of times they’d saved his arse... It wasn’t anything spooky, as he liked to claim, just her brain taking a while to catch up with her senses, her subconscious registering alerts before her conscious did—hearing or seeing or smelling something out of place a few seconds before it became obvious.

Yes, there—a rusty smear on a brushy branch at chest height. Blood. More than you’d expect from the usual forest cuts and scratches. She walked faster. More blood. Now she knew what to look for, it was everywhere—on leaves, branches, the ground. She bit the side of her cheek as she returned to the body. Nothing visible on his back.

She crouched, taking a closer look. Chunks of flesh had been ripped from his thighs and calves. The dog? A hawk? Pressing her lips together, she grabbed the guy’s shoulder and gently rolled him. A swarm of trapped flies flew up, their fat, furry bodies pelting her mouth. She swiped at them, her stomach lurching. Hold it together, for his sake.

Yep, a big, dark bloodstain on the chest of his torn jacket. Through the tear, a gaping wound. On the leaf litter and grass underneath him a bloodstain had spread into an oval, the liquid long since seeped away. Dogs and hawks didn’t puncture a man’s chest. They might have come by after death. Was he knocked down and gored by a boar? Attacked by a stag? She lowered him and stroked his shoulder. Death would have come quickly, if not quietly.

Forget the body bag. This was beyond her job description. She’d radio it in, leave Cody with the body and go for the cops. It was probably an accident or animal attack but that wasn’t her call.