Darryl had never felt so conflicted or so thoroughly miserable in his life. Though he tried mightily not to resent Emma for her presence, he found himself entertaining thoughts of somehow slipping away. He spent not a single second looking for black cohosh or anything else. His gaze just roamed the shifting shadows before him, seeing nothing, focusing on nothing.
Suddenly, Emma gasped and came to a stop. When Darryl continued another couple of steps, she grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
“Right there,” she said, pointing off to the left. “I’m pretty sure that’s black cohosh right there. A bunch of it.”
In the big tangle of plants, nothing stood out to him, so he had no idea what she was pointing at. However, she walked over and squatted down and grabbed a leaf between her thumb and forefinger.
“This right here,” she said. “Isn’t this what you were looking for?”
Darryl shrugged. It was just one of many leafy green plants, flecks of frost still stuck to the leaves. There was some kind of long twisted stems poking out of the top, withered by the cold. They looked like they might flower once warmer weather arrived. However, Darryl had no idea what this plant was.
“Let’s get as much as we can,” Emma said. She shook the plastic bag open and slid the handle around her wrist. When Darryl didn’t immediately join her, she snapped her fingers at him and pointed at a spot beside her. “Come on. This was your idea, remember?”
He nodded and approached, kneeling down just a little farther from her than she’d indicated. He started to pick the leaves, but then he noticed that Emma was digging up entire plants, carefully preserving the roots. He put his flashlight between his teeth and began copying her, but his vision clouded suddenly. Before he could stop himself, he was crying again, turned slightly so his sister wouldn’t see.
I just miss my dad, he realized. There’s so much he could tell me right now about being a new father. He could at least tell me if what I’m feeling is normal. Is it okay to want so desperately to be alone? Now, he will never meet his grandson. How could I lose my father and gain my son on the same day?
It was a cruel twist of fate. He let the tears fall, trying to focus on the task at hand. Emma was humming under her breath, which he found remarkable. How was she capable of so much joy? Had she forgotten the flood? He wanted to scold her, or at least tell her to stop it, but he bit his tongue and continued to work. Slowly, meticulously, he dug up the roots of a large black cohosh plant, shook off some of the excess dirt, and carefully folded the whole thing. Then he reached back and placed it in Emma’s plastic bag.
He was grateful, at least, for the quiet. He managed to dab away the tears as he reached for a second plant and began to dig up the roots. His crying finally subsided.
“You know what?” Emma said suddenly. “I’m going to be a great aunt. And you’re going to be a great dad. That kid doesn’t know how good he’s gonna have it.”
No, Darryl wasn’t feeling that sentiment at all. How good he’s going to have it? The poor kid couldn’t possibly have it worse. He’d been born in the middle of the wilderness by the side of the road, just hours after losing his grandfather and half of the family’s possessions. He might have thought Emma was being sarcastic if he didn’t know her better. Fortunately, having a flashlight stuck between his teeth prevented him from speaking, so he just ignored the comment and kept digging. When he finally got the roots of another plant free, he shoved the whole bunch into the bag, which was quickly getting too full.
He plucked the flashlight out of his mouth and said, “Should we gather more, or do you think that’s enough? We’re running out of room.”
“Let’s each get one more,” she replied. “I’ll make more room in the bag.”
Darryl ducked deeper into the bushes, stepping over the rough ground where he’d dug up the other plants. He saw one more small cohosh bush growing between the roots of a large evergreen tree, and he reached for it. Just beyond the plant, there was a small open space between trees, where no plants were growing. His flashlight beam happened to pass over this spot, and he realized that there was some kind of strange depression in the soft ground there. He shuffled forward a bit more and aimed the flashlight at it.
Some kind of large animal track. That was his first thought. Then he leaned closer and realized he could see a strange pattern pressed into the mud, like the sole of a boot. There was a second identical impression behind it. As he moved the flashlight, he saw a third and a fourth. Someone had been walking here, and the tracks were very fresh.
13
He stared at the tracks for a while, studying them to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. However, he only became more certain that he was seeing fresh boot prints moving through the woods. Had one of the family members come out here when he wasn’t paying attention? He entertained the notion that Horace had been out here while the baby was being born. Maybe he’d wanted to patrol the area for dangerous animals.
But that possibility didn’t hold up to scrutiny. This person was clearly walking on two feet, and anyway, the shoes on Horace’s prosthetic feet had flat soles. These had a pronounced heel and a deep pattern, like hiking boots made for walking on slippery ground. Emma continued to dig at the black cohosh plant for a while, but eventually she noticed that Darryl had stopped. He felt her tap his shoulder.
“Hey, bro, what are you doing over there?” she asked. “The plant’s not going to uproot itself. Are you trying to stare it to death?”
“Someone’s been here,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone walked through this area recently,” he said. “Look for yourself.”
She shuffled forward, sweeping plants aside, and he pointed out the first boot print. Emma gasped.
“Hiking boots,” she noted. “That’s what it looks like. But, of course, other people would have been in this area before, right? It’s a public trail. It’s not our private property.”
“Of course,” he said, “but these tracks can’t be more than a day old. Maybe they’ve camped near here. We should make sure.”
“Should we?” she asked. “They have as much right to the mountain as we do.”
“If someone is camped near us, I want to know who it is,” she said, rising. “Let’s not forget the kind of world we live in.”
He rose, pulled the Remington off his shoulder, and held it in the crook of his right arm.
“Well, you’re not just going to burst into their camp and point a gun at them,” Emma said. “That’s a hostile act. For all we know, they’re trying to survive the same as us.”
“I’m not planning on pointing a gun at anyone,” he said. “I just want to keep it handy. You never know what could happen.”
Whoever had left the prints had also cut and slashed their way through the woods. He could see places where a blade had slashed through the underbrush, chopping branches out of the way. This made it easier to follow the path.
“Let me tell you something, Emma,” he said. “Signs of a person are never a good thing. Even if they’re not overtly hostile, other people in the area become competition for resources, okay? You should know that. Surely, they mentioned it in one of your books. Heck, our whole reason for going to the cabin is to get away from people so we can stabilize. Got it?”
“I just don’t understand why we have to provoke a conflict,” she said. She was following him, but he could tell she was reluctant, dragging her feet. “Nobody’s bothering us, and we have a job to do right now.”
“A more pressing job has presented itself,” he said. “I’m going to make sure we’re safe before we go back to our camp. It’s what Dad would have done.”
Emma sighed. “Well, yeah, I’m sure you’re right about that.”
The prints seemed to follow the natural folds of the terrain, opting for the flattest ground as they worked their way roughly west from the trail. However, the farther they went, the more they began to fade into heavier brush and firmer ground. Eve
ntually, they topped a small rise dominated by massive spruce trees, and here the boot prints disappeared completely on rocky ground.
“See? They didn’t lead anywhere,” Emma said. “Whoever it was, they were hiking out of the area, so it doesn’t matter. Can we go back now?”
But Darryl knew he couldn’t let it go. If there was a chance that someone else was in the area, he had to know who they were and what they were up to. He wouldn’t be able to rest until he did. Any possible threat, no matter how small, to Justine or the baby was too much. He glanced around, trying to figure out what to do next. He was tempted to keep walking west, even if he could no longer see the prints, but he knew that was risky, and probably a waste of time.
“Darryl, what are you doing?” Emma said, sounding exasperated. “Can we go back now and finish gathering the herbs?” As if to remind him, she shook the plastic bag full of black cohosh plants.
“Not quite yet,” he said. “Remind me to thank Horace later.”
“What does that mean?”
He approached the nearest spruce tree, slinging the rifle back over his shoulder. It was a towering tree, at least fifty meters tall, with a huge trunk, but it had numerous low branches. He figured it would be fairly easy to climb, as long as he didn’t snap a branch and fall.
“I’m going to climb up and take a look around,” he said. “If there’s another camp in our area, I should be able to see it, especially if they’ve got a fire going. Want to join me?” He gestured at the tree.
Emma stared at him flatly for a second, but apparently climbing a towering tree was just too exciting to turn down, even if she didn’t support his current mission. She tied the handles of the plastic bag and set it down on the ground at the base of the tree.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “This won’t be the first time I’ve climbed a huge tree to survey the land. Heck, I climbed a tree bigger than this one when I was lost in the wilderness with Dad.”
“Good,” he said. “Then this should be a piece of cake for you. Come on.”
He turned off the flashlight, tucked it between his teeth again and reached up, grabbing a low branch and pulling himself up. It didn’t take long to realize that climbing the big spruce looked a lot easier than it was. As it turned out, the branches were very close together, and needles were everywhere. It wasn’t like mounting a ladder. Rather, it was more like dragging himself through dense, unyielding bushes, the needles and branches dragging at him all the way.
He was so deep in the tree that he had little idea how fast he was climbing or how high. Emma was making all kinds of noise on the other side of the tree, grunting and cursing and tearing through the branches.
He paused and plucked the flashlight out of his mouth. “Are you okay over there? This isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.”
“I’m an old pro at this sort of thing,” she said. “Just be careful which branches you step on. Some of them are brittle.”
“I can barely see where I’m going,” he whispered, looking around at the big bundles of spruce needles all around him. A big cone, still mostly green, hung inches from his right eye. He felt around with his right foot, setting the heel on what seemed like a thick branch. As soon as he started to put his weight on it, the branch cracked and broke. Fortunately, he was still holding tightly to other branches, so he didn’t fall.
“I just told you to be careful where you step,” Emma said quietly.
“I prefer to figure things out the hard way,” he replied.
Emma sighed. “You think you’re joking, but that’s just about the truest thing you’ve ever said.”
He continued to climb, feeling his way from branch to branch more carefully now. Eventually, it was as if the branches fell away from him. The trunk of the tree had gotten considerably smaller, and he felt the whole thing swaying slightly. When he looked around, he saw Emma’s face pop out into the open on the other side of the trunk.
“We’re really high,” she noted, the wind blowing her hair in her face.
Darryl tightened his grip on the trunk and looked around. Immediately, he felt like his stomach dropped right out of his body. Indeed, they were at least forty meters off the forest floor, higher than most of the trees. Though it was evening, and the light was almost entirely gone, he could see the forest and mountains stretching away on all sides. The river cut a meandering silver line through the trees. It looked so innocuous and peaceful from up here, not the place of sudden death than it had proved to be. With his free hand, Darryl pulled the flashlight out of his mouth and shone it around, but, of course, it was largely useless from this height. The light barely reached the ground beneath him.
“Use the binoculars,” Emma said.
“Yeah, that was the idea,” he replied. He slid the flashlight into his coat pocket. Then he grabbed the binoculars and lifted them to his eyes. However, in that moment, a gust of wind caused the tree to sway to one side, and he felt a shiver of paralyzing fear. But Emma gave an excited cry, as if she were on a carnival ride. “Don’t cheer. This isn’t fun, you know,” he said.
“It just surprised me,” she said. “That’s all.”
Looking through the binoculars while the tree swayed beneath him created a strong sense of vertigo. Darryl pressed himself firmly against the trunk of the tree and steadied his hand as best he could, as he scanned their surroundings. First, he saw light coming from their camp, the flicker of the fire dancing through gaps between the tarps. Distantly, he heard the baby give a loud whimper, though he couldn’t see him. Horace was still seated on a log near the horses, the crutch across his knees.
Darryl moved the binoculars beyond the camp, past the huddled shapes of horses and cattle, across the dark trees, to curve of the river. Finally, he saw another light in the distance, an amorphous glow far away. It took a moment to make sense of what it was. Some kind of lamp or lantern moving down the trail back the way they’d come, not far from where the flood had damaged some of the trail. The small figure of a woman moved in the lamplight. She seemed to be pacing back and forth, as if looking for something or someone.
“What do you see?” Emma asked. “Anything out there? Did you find out mysterious hiker?”
“Yeah, hang on,” Darryl replied. “There’s someone on the other trail. I don’t know what she’s up to.”
The woman finally stopped at the river’s edge, shining her light out over the water. After a moment, another figure stepped out of the woods onto the trail and moved up beside her, someone much larger, probably a man. They stood together there for a bit, heads close as if they were speaking.
“Darryl, tell me what’s happening,” Emma said. “I can’t see anything. Either describe it or give me the binoculars so I can look.”
“Wait, Emma. Just wait.”
Two people at the river’s edge. What were they doing? What could they be discussing? The distance was too great to make out any details. Still, what danger could two hikers pose? Darryl’s family had them outnumbered.
“There’s two of them,” he noted. “Maybe looking for a way to pass the old trail. Not sure.”
But then others came out of the forest, shapes emerging into the circle of orange lamplight. Two, then three, then four, then six. They huddled together at the river’s edge. Darryl felt a mounting dread as the number of them grew. He realized now that most of them were armed. He saw what appeared to be the barrels of long rifles rising above many shoulders.
One of the men strode to the middle of the trail and began gesturing at the ground, drawing what seemed to be a long line in the air. The others gathered around him. Then others began pointing, some farther down the old trail, others back toward the fork in the road. Suddenly, he realized what they were doing, and in that moment, the group seemed to reach a decision. The woman who had first appeared on the trail, strode ahead of the group, pointing back toward the fork, and the others fell in behind her as they started to move in that direction.
“Oh, no,” Darryl whispered numbly. He low
ered the binoculars. “We have to get back to camp.”
“What?” Emma said in a little squeak. “What is it?”
“I think they spotted our tracks,” he said, as he started back down the tree. “Probably the grooves dug by the travois. If I had to guess, they were trying to figure out which way we went.”
He moved fast, sliding from branch to branch, the needles dragging and scratching at him. His grip felt precarious, as if he were doing little more than a controlled fall, but the dread had turned to white-hot panic now. Emma was above him, making her way down more carefully, but he heard her little anxious noises.
“Are they bad? How do we know they mean us harm?” she said.
“Armed strangers following our tracks?” Darryl said. “I’m going to assume they’re hostile until they prove otherwise. And even then, I won’t be sure.” A branch snapped under his foot, and he dropped. Thrusting both arms out to either side, he managed to arrest his fall, but in the process, branches snapped hard on the undersides of both arms. He cried out in pain, but he dared not stop.
“But they could be friendly people trying to help us,” Emma said. “Maybe they saw the flood. Maybe they found some of our stuff that got washed down the river, and they’re returning it to us.”
“These people are moving around the mountains with rifles at night,” Darryl said, resuming his wild descent. “Following the tracks of other travelers. That doesn’t sound friendly to me. Do you remember what kind of a world we live in, Emma?”
“Yes, of course,” she said softly.
Another branch broke beneath him, and this time Darryl didn’t react quickly enough. He fell, broke through some more branches and tumbled out into the open. Fortunately, he was only about two meters above the ground by that point. He landed in a large bush, which softened his fall, then gently rolled onto the ground.
EMP: Return of the Wild West Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 58