by Brynn Kelly
“Hey, Cowboy,” she called.
He killed his smile and swiveled. She was leaning into the helicopter, writing something on a clipboard.
“You got insect repellent?”
“Don’t usually get bit. No malaria here, right?”
She looked up. “It’s not the mosquitoes you need to watch for. It’s the sandflies.”
“I need to watch out for a fly?”
“You’ll see.” She pulled a spray bottle from a bag on the rear seat and lobbed it. He caught it one-handed. “I’ll add it to the tab. Oh wait, you prepaid, didn’t you?”
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“On the house, then. And watch out for wild pigs.”
“Pigs? For real? I fucking love this country. You’re saying the most dangerous wildlife out there is flies and pigs?” He was crossing into flirt territory, drawing this out as long as he could. He wasn’t even sure why.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. “Less Porky Pig and more a rhino crossed with a bull. I’ve seen boars up here twice your weight. There’s also stags but they won’t take you on unless you corner them. And chamois and tahr—wild goats—but the smell is the biggest danger there. At least they’re herbivores.”
“Unlike the sandflies?”
“Spoken like a guy who’s never stood beside a New Zealand river at dusk.” She pushed off the chopper. “And watch out for kea—big green parrots. Cheeky buggers. Don’t turn your back on your dinner.”
“Noted.” He stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his shorts. “Okay. Guess I’ll go look at this river of death, then.”
“Good luck.”
“I don’t intend luck to be a factor.”
She nodded, again with that almost-smile. He forced himself to turn and walk away. Seeing her again would be his reward for surviving this paddle.
Of the ten wildest kayaking runs in the world, he’d kayaked numbers ten, nine, eight, seven, six and five. How dangerous could one little forbidden river be?
* * *
TIA TURNED BACK to her flight log, resisting the temptation to watch Cody right up to the moment he pushed through the trees and disappeared. Yep, it’d be a damn shame for the world to lose a specimen like that—and it’d break her heart to locate that body. He was muscular but easy with it, like he spent as much time doing yoga as lifting weights, like his power wasn’t for show but function. A kayaker’s shoulders, a soldier’s athleticism, with the lived-in look of a guy who spent a lot of time outdoors.
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.
She dragged her feet to the chopper. No sign of Cody but at least he was near. Suddenly the isolation wasn’t so friendly. She reached the pilot’s door and froze, her instinct pricking again. Oh God, what now? A pair of fantails flashed and dived beside the hut. The tea towel snapped in the breeze, making her flinch. Nothing amiss, so why did she have the urge to run? Maybe she was just strung out. A dead body could do that.
Her ab muscles tightened. Fuck it. Better to be paranoid than dead. She sucked in a breath and took off for the hut, her sneakers flicking up stones.
Crack. An echoing gunshot, from behind her. Shit. She upped her speed. A hunter, thinking she was wildlife?
“Stop shooting!” she yelled. “Identify your target!”
Another pop, the clank of a bullet hitting metal, the shot reverberating. The chopper. Potshots from a rifle. A hollow smack, a thump, and something flicked her hair.
Jesus. She clutched her head, the hut bouncing around in her vision. Her hair was hot but no wound. A third crack, another thump, and the hut’s front window shattered. The shooter couldn’t have her confused with wildlife—he’d have stopped by now. He was hunting her. She veered off course and plunged thigh-high into tussock beside the hut as a bullet punctured its front wall, a meter away. She rounded the back of the building and pushed her spine against the cold wall, chest heaving. A half-second gap between the sonic boom and the thump, so he was maybe four hundred meters away, elevated—any closer, she’d be dead. Holy shit. What now?
A burst of fire this time, spraying the other side of the hut, shattering glass, pinging into tin. Automatic fire. Not your standard hunting rifle. Hosing the place because he’d lost line of sight?
She couldn’t stay here. Too obvious. And a matter of time before a bullet went right through the hut.
Cody. Where was Cody?
Wait—a military loner with a death wish? Had she got him all wrong? Exactly what had he stashed in that kayak?
No. The tourist—the hole in his chest. That was no goring. What about his girlfriend and the other couple? The search had concentrated on the river but maybe the river wasn’t the culprit.
Whatever the situation, she had to retreat, one good, quick decision at a time. Get Cody; get out of here. Maybe lure the shooter away from the chopper and double back to it. Raise the alarm over the radio, alert the police Armed Offenders Squad. Alert the fucking army. Fly over the glacier, find the climbers.
The shooter had stopped. Gone stealth to stalk her? The forest had silenced, the birds flown off. She couldn’t even hear the river with her eardrums blown by the gunshots, just her own fast breath. She leaped across the tussock, to leave less of a trail than striding through, and ducked into the trees. Her jacket was black, at least—unlike Cody’s bright blue one.
She inched into the scrub, watching over her shoulder. Even tiptoeing, her sneakers crunched. When she could no longer see the hut, she exhaled. First task: find Cody.
Movement, to her right. Her breath caught. A weka charged from the undergrowth, its panicked little legs whirring like a squat brown Road Runner.
A noise, ahead. She swiveled and her nose smacked into a big navy-clad shoulder. She lifted a knee to the guy’s nuts but he spun her and caught her tight around the waist, pinning her arms. She stomped but missed his foot.
“Tia! Jesus!” he hissed.
He released her and she wheeled around. Oh God, it was Cody, his eyes wide, checking their surroundings. He’d taken off the blue jacket, leaving a skintight long-sleeved thermal. Damn, how much noise had they made?
“What the fuck is going on?” he whispered.
“Some nutter with a rifle—I didn’t get a look.”
He nodded sharply. “Let’s find cover.”
She followed him toward the river and down a rock bank, ignoring the hand he held out. Ahead, through the trees, the water rushed over stones, lit bright by the sun. A dog barked. The shooting started up again. More automatic fire. She pressed her back against the clammy stone. Next to her, Cody did the same. Ricocheting shots, smashing glass, clanging metal. Another dog joined in. “They must be in the clearing,” she whispered.
Cody’s eyes met hers, his jaw squared. “He ain’t conserving ammo.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“How do you know it’s not a woman?”
His mouth twitched. “I’m kinda more concerned about the firepower. Gotta be an assault rifle—pretty much the same weapon we use to hunt humans.”
“Did you just make a joke about hunting humans?”
“Wasn’t meant to be a joke. Sometimes when you’re looking through the scope, it feels like that... You okay? You’ve gone a little gray. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s not that.” She told him about the body. His expression grew grimmer by the word. Jolted out of holiday mode and into work mode. Lucky for her he wasn’t a lawyer or a...pianist. “He really is hunting humans.”
“Okay,” Cody said, as if that wasn’t at all problematic. “I’ll lure him away while you get to the chopper.”
“Yes. Then you can double back and join me.”
“No. You go without me.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“It makes sense. I’ll have to lead him far enough away that he’s out of range as you’re lifting. Going by that firepower, I’m thinking maybe a mile. No point in me then giving him time to return.”
“You don’t know this bush. I’m guessing he does—and so do his dogs. You might get lucky for half an hour, but...”
“He?”
“For convenience’s sake.”
A flicker of a smile at
his tiny victory. “You said it yourself—I’m a risk taker with a death wish.”
“Cody, I’m not leaving anyone else here.”
“You’re leaving me.” His hand went to his hip, then froze. Checking for a nonexistent weapon. He fisted his fingers, and released. “Look, I’m not some hippie backpacker. I’m good at getting shot at. I’ll lead them away, then swim the river so the dogs can’t get me—assuming they can’t swim.”
“If they’re hunting dogs—and they sound like it—they’re all muscle and mouth and no fat. No buoyancy, especially in fresh water. They’ll sink like rocks.”
“Good. Then I’ll hide until help comes. Easy.”
“That river is basically just melted snow and ice. You swim it without a change of clothes, you’ll be hypothermic by midnight.”
“My clothes are pretty much made of plastic. They’ll dry quick.”
She shook her head.
“Tia, none of the options here are good. There’s no easy decision in a situation like this, no risk-free choice. You know that. You’ll be taking a risk in lifting off. I’ll be taking a risk in running and hiding. But if you don’t get away safely, we’re both screwed, and so are those climbers and the other tourists, if they’re still alive, and so are the next people who come wandering up here.”
Dammit. “Help probably won’t come until first light.”
“I can handle a night in the open.”
“A lot of tough guys say that, going in.”
A dog barked nearby. She shrank against the rock. Cody slung his arm across her belly, pinning her with his elbow. Like she was going anywhere. The gunshots had stopped.
She tiptoed to reach his ear. He was a couple of inches taller. In another situation she’d consider that the perfect height. “We’re downwind,” she whispered. “The dogs won’t be able to smell us yet. I’ll go back the way I came. You—”
She froze. A second later he held up a palm, frowning. Through the trees ahead skulked the silhouette of the shooter, rifle held low across his hip, machete slung across his back like a ninja sword, two dogs running alongside. One was a short dirty-brown mutt, wide across the forelegs, thick neck, big jaw. Bred for fighting. The other was a greyhound cross, its nose skimming the river stones. Pig dogs—an attacker and a tracker? With the sun in his eyes, the guy wouldn’t spot her and Cody, but she stilled her breathing anyway.