Savaged

by Mia Sheridan

  His sweatshirt. And it was in the grass in a circle of sunlight so it was only a little wet. Shivering, he grabbed his jeans and his coat, which were both close by, his coat hung over a rock like it’d been set there to dry. He put the coat on quickly, sighing at the warmth that hugged him. His jeans were a little wet, too, but he put those on anyway and stuffed the bottom of his pullover sweatshirt in his pocket. He’d find a spot of sunlight to set that and his pants on until they were all dry. He had to hunt a few minutes longer for his boots, but he finally found those, too, both wet, but he’d have to wear them for now.

  Jak had gone to bed in his blue PJs. He wondered who had dressed him in warm clothes. Who had known he’d be out in the cold and snow?

  He stood in a patch of light for a few minutes, his face raised to the sun as it warmed his skin. He pictured the pups, two of them still alive in their den as they waited for their mother, who must have died.

  He stood unmoving. He didn’t know anything about wolves, but he’d read a book about dogs once, though he couldn’t tell anyone that. His baka had made him promise he would never ever talk about the reading or the books, or the numbers, or any of that. It had to be a secret, she’d said. He must never tell anyone or very bad things would happen.

  He couldn’t leave the two living wolf cubs alone out there. His baka would send someone for him soon. Would she even know where to start looking for him? He didn’t know how he had gotten there to that unknown place. He didn’t know who the bad man was who told him it might be the night he died. The man, who was the reason those other boys went over the edge of the cliff. Yes, the ice had broken, had made the snow slide, but they wouldn’t have been there except for the man. But he didn’t want to think about that now because it made him want to cry, and he knew this wasn’t the time to cry. He had to be brave. For himself, and now for those two little wolves who were all alone, except for him.

  He went back to the den and picked up the two wolves, checking to make double sure the other ones were dead. They were even colder now, and their bodies felt sort of stiff. He knew they had gone to wolf heaven.

  He picked up the two live wolves, their ribs sharp on his hands, and he carried them out of the woods and into the bright light of an open field. “It’s okay. You are strong boys,” he whispered to them both, even though he had no idea if they were boys or girls. When he sat down on a rock in the sunshine to warm them, he realized that one of the cubs had died like his brothers and sisters and he let out a shaky breath, holding back a sob and placing the wolf’s body down on the grass next to where they sat.

  Everyone was dying. The boy with the twisted body had been dead. The one he’d pushed up onto the ledge was probably dead, just like the blond boy, who must be buried under snow. Dead. Now five wolf cubs had died and the last one would probably die soon too, his body getting cold and stiff. And then Jak would die.

  The skinny little wolf looked up at him, his eyes tired and sad like he could hear Jak’s thoughts. “I think it’s hopeless,” he whispered to the wolf.

  The wolf stared up at him, his small pink tongue darting out to lick Jak’s hand. He was hungry, just like Jak. They both needed to eat, the wolf more than Jak, he could tell. But how do I keep you alive? What do I feed you?

  Jak bent down and scooped up some water from a puddle on the ground where some snow had melted. He held it up to the wolf’s mouth and the wolf stuck his tongue out, lapping at the water like he hadn’t had a thing to drink forever, his eyes not leaving Jak’s face.

  “That’s better, right?” Jak asked. He kept on feeding the wolf water until he seemed to have enough.

  They both sat there for a long time, Jak’s clothes drying, his soreness getting better, and the wolf’s fur growing warm under the pale yellow winter sun. There was a spiderweb stretched between two dead plants sticking out of the snow. It sparkled, moving slowly in the cold breeze. It reminded him of his baka’s lace. His chest hurt.

  He petted the tiny wolf. “I’m going to call you Pup,” Jak whispered, afraid each time he reached over to touch him, that he would find him cold as well. Stiff. Gone to heaven, a place someone never came back from even if they wanted to.

  And then Jak would be alone again. Lost and alone.

  Suddenly in the distance, a helicopter moved across the sky. Jak sucked in a breath, jumping to his feet and waving his arms in the air. “Here!” he called. “I’m here!” He jumped up and down, yelling, running back and forth, until his voice was gone and his muscles were screaming with hurt again. The helicopter circled and circled but was too far away to see him. After what seemed like hours, it turned and disappeared out of sight.

  Jak picked up a rock and threw it at the empty sky, crying out, his voice nothing more than a broken croak of sound. He returned to the rock where he’d been sitting when he spotted the helicopter and sat on it. Pup looked up at him sleepily and then lowered his head once more, closing his eyes. Were the helicopters looking for Jak? Had his baka sent them to find him in the middle of this wilderness? They’d be back then. They had to come back.

  The sky turned orange, then a swirly purple, and then the sun hid behind a mountain. Jak was so tired. His hunger grew and grew, and he didn’t know what to do. The night got colder and Jak started to shiver. He realized he needed to find a place for Pup and him to sleep where they could keep each other warm.

  And if no one found him by morning, if the helicopters didn’t come back, he’d have to try to find something for them to eat. Pup let out a tiny whimper sound and curled into Jak’s thigh like he agreed with the thought.

  “I won’t let you down, Pup,” Jak said, and it felt good. But it felt bad that he had no idea how to start or what to do. Jak put his hands in his pockets, lowering his head against the cold, almost-night air, and startling when he touched something solid and smooth in his pocket.

  The thing the dark-haired boy had passed to him before they’d fallen.

  He pulled it from his pocket and looked at it. It was shiny and he ran his thumb over it.

  A pocketknife.

  Jak’s heart jumped. Live! he’d told the other boy, and maybe . . . maybe this had been that other boy’s way of telling Jak to do the same.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The cabin was small, dim, and somewhat shabby, with dirty wood planked floors and a few pieces of worn, mismatched furniture. Definitely not the rustic getaway Mark had pictured when he’d learned that Isaac Driscoll had taken early retirement and moved out there immediately afterward. Mark flipped the overhead light switch and then stood just beyond the doorway and gave the room a once-over before stepping inside, Harper entering behind him.

  She pulled her jacket around herself and moved to the right of the door as she put her hands in her pockets. “Is it okay that I’m in here?” she asked, her breath emerging as white vapor in the chilled room. “I could wait in the truck—"

  “It’s fine. The crime scene techs have already completed their work. And I might have a question or two.” He smiled back at her. “This isn’t exactly what I’m used to, location wise. You might see something I don’t. If some item or another seems strange or out of place, don’t hesitate to mention it.” He walked to the table next to the kitchen area—really just a counter and sink with a two-burner hotplate and a mini fridge. Just like at the first crime scene, there was fingerprint dust everywhere.

  “I hear you’re from California.”

  “Born and raised,” Mark answered.

  “What brought you to Montana?”

  “Just looking for a change. My wife’s sister lives in Butte and when I saw the opening at the Montana Department of Justice, I applied.” He looked back at her and she was watching him with a small skeptical look on her face that told him she knew he was leaving something out. He almost smiled at the way it was so obvious when her wheels were turning. He’d only known her for an hour, but he could already tell she questioned a lot and didn’t quite know if it was insight or her brain running wild. He could r
elate. That inquisitiveness had turned out to be a good quality for him as far as the job he did. He hoped she’d figure out where to apply it as well, instead of allowing it to run amok. She was young. Very young. She had time.

  Then again, his daughter had been young, too, and she hadn’t had nearly enough time. Not nearly enough. He shut those thoughts down, picking up a notebook on top of a short stack of other notebooks in various colors on the table and leafed through it. It appeared to be a field journal of some sort, with observations about possums and . . . he turned the page . . . deer . . . wolves. Different sections were labeled with chapter headings as though he was outlining a book. Mark flipped through the rest of the notebook quickly and then checked briefly inside the others. Why had Isaac Driscoll taken special interest in those three specific animals, and no others?

  He gave the cabin another once-over. Was that the reason the guy had been out here? To write a nature book? “Harper, you’re a wildlife expert of sorts,” he said, and she opened her mouth as if to disagree with the statement, but he went on before she could. “If you were going to observe animals and say, write a book on their behaviors, would you want to live among them?”

  Harper furrowed her brow. “I mean . . . yeah, maybe. But I can’t think of any animal that hasn’t already been highly observed in its natural habitat, especially around here . . . a hundred books written, etcetera. It wouldn’t be new material.”

  “That’s what I was thinking too,” he murmured, slipping the notebooks into a folded paper evidence bag he removed from his pocket. The techs hadn’t deemed them important, but something told Mark he might want to look through them later.

  “Unless,” she said, stepping into the room, “the animal or animals were being observed under very specific circumstances that were different in some way.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth in thought for a moment. “Like if the data being recorded was about how an animal would react to something it hadn’t previously been exposed to? Like what they do in labs.”

  “Yes. Only, Isaac Driscoll was a researcher with a doctorate at Rayform Laboratories. He took early retirement sixteen years ago and moved here. He left the lab for the wilderness.” Albeit, not the kind of lab that studied animals from what Mark gathered.

  Harper shook her head. “I don’t know what to make of that. Unless he was just observing animals for his own interest.”

  Could be. The real question was, why would living alone in the wilderness observing possums get you murdered? And in such a violent fashion? He needed to see the spot where Driscoll had been killed. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Harper, and she nodded as he walked toward the room where the murder occurred.

  The technicians had taken some of Isaac Driscoll’s blood for processing, but the majority was still there on the wall and floor—a large, dark, congealed puddle.

  He wondered if the victim had a next of kin—he was still waiting for that information—and if he did, if they’d even want this dingy cabin in the middle of nowhere where their relative had been killed. Would they want the property? And if so, what would happen to Lucas with no last name? He sighed, staring at the large, dark stain. What the hell had happened here?

  It hadn’t been a quick death—again, the arrow had been shot with enough force to pin the victim to the wall so he was rendered helpless. His blood had drained from his body. The same as the Jane Doe in town, though this shot had hit the victim in the chest, and he’d remained conscious long enough to reach his phone and dial 9-1-1. Maybe it had been in his pocket? Accessible enough so he could reach it even in the throes of death.

  There was malice in both cases—hatred even. Neither was a random crime, though the arrows found in each body were slightly different in appearance. Whether that meant there were two killers, or whether a singular killer had simply used different arrows, he didn’t know. The crimes were too similar not to be related though. But how? Why? That was the most important thing to figure out really. Find out why and he should find out who.

  And whomever had shot the victims certainly knew his or her way around a bow and arrow. He would double-check with an authority on the weapon, but from his own educated guess, both were kill shots, carried out expertly and swiftly. Powerfully. How strong would someone have to be to shoot through a human body? He’d have to look into that. What he did know, was that neither victim had been shot by a novice.

  Mark took one last look around the sparsely furnished room: a bed, stripped now of bedding, and a dresser. Hanging above the dresser was the only piece of art Mark had seen in the house. He moved closer, studying it. It was a depiction of an old-fashioned battle. Men with shields and arrows stood facing another group with the same weaponry across a great divide. He wasn’t a big history buff, and didn’t recognize the uniforms, if they could be called that, many of the soldiers bare-chested and wearing what appeared to be short skirt-type bottoms. Was it an historical Roman battle? Mark took a picture of it with his cell phone so he could look it up later.

  He opened the top drawer and found it full of boxes of matches, lined up in two rows. The rest of the drawers held a few random clothing items, folded haphazardly. Mark closed the drawers, left the room, and returned to where Harper waited for him.

  The rest of the information he needed would come from the crime lab. He hoped to God there was something for him to work from—a lead of some sort. He knew the department had thrown him this case because no one else had the desire to trek through the frigid wilderness in the middle of winter. And he didn’t either, but he was going to do his damnedest to work this case well. To settle into this job, and this new life he and Laurie were trying to accept. Mostly separately.

  Harper was standing by the door where she’d first stood, her hands in her pockets again as if ready to leave as soon as possible. He didn’t blame her. There was something . . . depressing about this place. And not only that a murder had been committed there—though that would increase the dismal factor anywhere. No, the whole place felt oppressive and dark. He had the urge to fling open the door and escape outside, which was saying something since outside was a virtual ice box.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Yup. I want to ask you about something that was found here, but I can do that in the truck. The crime lab was supposed to email it to me after it was processed, so I’ll have to make sure it’s there first.”

  She seemed even more eager to get out of the gloomy cabin, taking two quick steps to the door and pushing it open with perhaps more strength than necessary. It banged against the side of the porch, and she glanced back with a sheepish look on her face but didn’t slow her descent down the two rickety steps. Mark closed the door behind them and took a deep breath. The cold air filled his lungs and it felt good—cleansing. Vital.

  As they trudged to her truck, Harper glanced toward the three mountain peaks to the south and then back at him. “Agent Gallagher, what do you think about Lucas? Living out here alone on Driscoll’s property? Trading with him? It’s odd, right?”

  Mark nodded. He planned to be the one to talk to Lucas if any evidence arose that involved him, and even if it didn’t, he’d make a point to return his bow and arrow and get a better feel for the man. “I’m going to look into his situation. I’m confused by it too.” He hadn’t been very forthcoming at the station, and whether that was because he was hiding something or that he simply didn’t have the answers to many of the questions he and Dwayne had asked, Mark didn’t know. Hell, Lucas didn’t even seem to be certain about how old he was or his age when he’d come to live on Driscoll’s property. Fifteen winters, he’d said, the look in his eyes so bleak, Mark had cringed inside. And it’d been a damn long time since someone had said something that made him cringe. If Mark had to guess, he’d say the man was about Harper’s age—young, early twenties probably, and very sheltered, though obviously toughened too. Mark stared at the frozen landscape, the mountainous terrain blocking the last of the dying sun. You’d have to be tough, living o
ut here. And maybe “tough” didn’t even begin to cover it.

  He wondered how Lucas factored into this whole thing—or if he did at all. He’d made it sound as if his relationship with Driscoll was extremely limited, and that he only saw him a few times a year, if that. The quiet, watchful man was difficult to read, but Mark sensed he was holding something back.

  Harper seemed troubled as she started up the truck and turned the heat up to high. The snow flurries had died down, but it was still below freezing according to the temperature gauge that had been hanging on the house next to what had been Isaac Driscoll’s door. Why the hell would anyone want to live out here? This sort of cold was miserable. Biting and painful.

  Mark swiped his phone, relieved to see he had service. He pulled up his email and was glad that the message he’d been expecting was in his inbox. He clicked on the attached PDF and a scan of the “map” that had been in Isaac Driscoll’s bedside table filled the small screen. He handed it to Harper, and she stared at it for a minute before looking at Mark questioningly. “Is it a map?”

  “Seems to be. Only I don’t know what it’s of. And what these”—he used his index finger to point to two red boxes containing X’s and an empty black box—“might indicate, if anything.”

  Harper turned the phone so it was horizontal, enlarging the picture and zooming in on the X’s and then back out again. She studied it for another few minutes, her brow furrowed in concentration. “This squiggly line might indicate water? There’s a river in that direction.” She pointed off behind Driscoll’s cabin. “Or maybe it’s a trail?” She shrugged. “But there are a hundred trails in this wilderness. There’s really nothing here that speaks of any landmark I’d recognize.”

  “I figured. What about when the snow melts?”

  She thought about it. “If we used his house as a starting point, we could hike out around the area, look for something that might provide some information about what he was marking.” She gestured her head toward the phone. “It looks old though with all those creases, and the ink faded the way it is. He might have been marking the location of water or something he found necessary when he first moved out here? Maybe even a location where he was observing the animals you mentioned.”