Felicity looks around Rockton and compares it to what she has, and it makes her uncomfortable. Ambition is healthy. Envy is pointless and potentially destructive. It leads to the dissatisfied cry of “Why?”
Why do they have this, and I do not? It isn’t fair. They don’t deserve it. They haven’t earned it.
But Felicity quickly finds the solution to her problem. The only healthy solution to envy: What can I learn from this that will make my own life better? She begins to examine our building construction and asks questions about our sanitary system. We answer, and we continue with the tour.
Afterward, we don’t invite Felicity to join us at home. Petra will take care of her. We need time to rest and be alone. We indulge in a long dinner for two. Then Dalton goes to the station for a bit of work while I take Abby. By eight, we’re asleep.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The next morning, we’re off by seven, walking with flashlights into the darkness. Felicity and Petra are with us. Neither says much, and I get the impression that was the state of things last night.
When we meet up with Dalton, he says to Petra, “You got that gun I dropped by?”
She hesitates only a second before nodding and opening her jacket to reveal her personal handgun. If we get into trouble and Petra pulls out an unauthorized weapon, it’ll tell Felicity we’re lying about our gun regulations. Petra understands this and plays along.
We take Storm with us. Abby stays behind. I do not expect that we’re going to find unfit parents at the end of this journey. At worst, it might be a young couple who, with great reluctance, abandoned a winter-born child. That’s horrifying to us, but it’s the way Sidra was raised, and possibly Baptiste, too, and it’s been the way of hunting societies since time immemorial.
If this is the situation, I’ll struggle to see them as good parents for making that choice, but I must put that aside and ask instead “What if you could keep her?” What if we gave you what you needed to make it through the winter with an infant? If the answer is still no—that they are not ready for a child—then we’ll take her.
If they want Abby, I’ll still bring Sidra back to Rockton to ensure she is her mother. How much of that is healthy caution and how much is a secret hope that we can keep Abby? I don’t know, and I’m afraid to analyze. I do know that I will not stand between these parents and their child.
It’s late morning by the time we reach the area, about five kilometers past where we found Abby. Before Sidra left, she told Felicity that this would be a good area to live, where they had camped and hunted and fished with Baptiste and others from both settlements. Sidra framed it as an offhand conversation.
Hey, you know that spot where we all camped last summer? That’d be a good place to live, don’t you think? Not that I’m planning to run away and fake my own death so I can be with my beloved or anything like that …
Clearly it’d been a hint. A plea even. Like giving an estranged friend your new phone number, in case they find that jacket you left at their apartment once.
If you want me, you know where to find me.
The place is a river valley with abundant game and fresh water and mountain shelter. While that sounds like a settler’s paradise—and therefore, it should already be occupied—it is only one spot in a thousand just like it out here. It’s just a matter of picking the one that suits you best. Like pioneers heading west and choosing their plot of land. The possibilities stretch to the horizon.
When the pioneers headed west, they each got a hundred and sixty acres. Out here, a settler can “claim” even more. There is no actual claim, of course. Anyone can hunt or fish or walk through your territory, and challenging them on it would be pointless. The territory this couple have staked out is huge, so they won’t rush to find exactly the right spot to build a permanent home—perhaps one for summer and one for winter. The upshot is that we’re talking a general area at least couple of kilometers, and that’s not easy to search.
We split up. Dalton assigns me Storm and Petra, and he sends us to check flat and open areas along the river. Meanwhile Felicity knows a half dozen spots where they camped over the years, and she’ll show those to Dalton.
We’ve been searching for over an hour when our paths cross and Dalton asks to take Storm. While he wanted her with me for protection, she’s better sniffing those old campsites to see if she can pick up a scent.
Petra and I continue hunting along the river. She’s been quiet, but now she says, “I heard you brought Maryanne to town.”
I grunt a nonreply.
“Did you get any answers from her?” she asks. “About what the hostiles are, how they came to be?”
I bend and check what looks like a boot print in well-trampled snow.
“I know you thought the council was responsible for them,” she says. “Did you find anything to support that?”
If she said it with even a hint of mockery, I wouldn’t answer. But her tone sounds genuinely curious … with a hint of trepidation. Is that fear I’ll uncover the truth? Or fear that there is a connection?
Her gaze shutters, giving me nothing.
I consider. Then I say, “Tea.”
Her brow furrows. “What?”
I twist, still hunkered down. “The hostiles consume a narcotic and a hallucinogenic tea. Same as the Second Settlement, who seem to use the latter for something that seems almost like prehistoric rituals.”
“Prehistoric people consumed ritual hallucinogens, probably because the altered state made them feel as if they were seeing and communicating with their gods.”
I nod. “Whatever the hostiles have added to the Second Settlement’s brew makes theirs far more potent. And more dangerous. Theirs is addictive, and it affects free will—they’re happy and content, and they stop thinking about their other life, eventually stop remembering they had one.”
She listens, saying nothing.
I continue. “In high doses—or maybe with an added ingredient—it induces frenzies. Heightened id, lowered superego, if you took Psych 101.”
A strained smile. “I did. Does that explain the violence, then?”
“Apparently.” I rise. “I believe it’s a natural evolution of something that began in the Second Settlement. They discover this root that makes a ritualistic tea. Someone from the settlement experiments and creates a new version and then breaks away from the group—or is kicked out—and starts their own community, which devolves into what we have today.”
I wait for her to jump on the fact that I’m absolving the council, but she still seems to be processing, so I say it for her. “A natural evolution based on natural substances, with no outside influence. I still, however, hold the council responsible for allowing the devolution. Rockton has been reporting hostiles since Tyrone was sheriff. Yet the council dismissed the claims as…” I throw up my hands. “I don’t even know what they thought people were seeing. Bears? Settlers?”
“I was told it was both,” she says, unexpectedly. “That some settlers were more violent than others, and some had ‘reverted’ more than others—not being as ‘civilized’ in their dress and their mannerisms. The more extreme accounts were thought to be wild animals mistaken for humans, probably bears.”
I wait for her to add a justification, a defense. Being a thousand miles away, the council understandably questioned the wild stories, like the tales of ancient sailors spotting manatees and somehow mistaking the ugly sea mammals for beautiful women. Isolation plays tricks on the mind, heightens fears and desires. To the council, Rockton’s hostile sightings were no different from Bigfoot sightings. Even I will grant them that, and I expect Petra to point this out. Maybe she thinks it’s obvious. Maybe now that I’ve acknowledged my mistake, she doesn’t want to rub my face in it.
When she says nothing, I continue. “The point is that with so many sightings and encounters, they should have encouraged investigation. Better yet, they should have sent a team to investigate. What they’d have found isn’t a tribe of happy former Ro
ckton residents gone native. It was a drug-enslaved cult where at least some of the members, like Maryanne, didn’t sign up voluntarily. She was from Rockton. Her whole party was—the two men the hostiles brutally murdered and the two women they took hostage. Maryanne played along, expecting the chance to escape, and instead fell under the influence of the tea. The other woman did escape—and was hunted down, tied up naked, and left to the elements and the predators and the scavengers. This is what the council allowed.”
Petra looks as if she’s going to be sick. I don’t expect that either. She takes a deep breath before straightening with, “All right.”
“All right what?” I say, a little sharply.
Silence. Then, “All right, I understand, and I agree this has been handled badly.”
I wait for more. When it doesn’t come, I’m annoyed, and I don’t like that. Am I spoiling for a fight? My mistake with the hostiles and the council has bruised my ego, so now I want Petra to say “I told you so” so I can light into her?
Today’s hunt has me on edge, and Petra’s not giving me the response I want so I’m being cranky.
Forget hostiles and the council and Petra. None of them have anything to do with returning Abby to her parents.
I find a footprint, and I focus on that. It’s near the riverbank, pointing inland.
The river is mostly frozen, but temperatures haven’t dropped enough for it to be a solid sheet of ice, and we’re near an inlet that’s running too fast to freeze. That’s why the snow is so trampled—animals finding this spot and drinking. I definitely saw a boot print, though, and when I search, I locate more. Humans have used this spot for water. Possibly also for hunting. Drops of blood and scattered white fur suggest an Arctic hare was killed as it came to drink.
It’s been two days since the last snowfall. These prints are even more recent, layered on top of animal ones. When I get about three meters from the river, the prints fan out, the animals and the humans going their separate ways. I can get a better view of the human ones here. Two sets, one about a men’s size ten, and one a little bigger than mine. A man and a woman, both dressed in boots like what Ellen wore, thick and heavy, with no tread.
The human prints lead to the remains of a camp. A year ago, I’d have walked right through it. Now I notice the rectangle where a tent stood. I see irregular patterns in the snow where items were set down. I spot blood under a tree nearby, where game was hung and slaughtered. And there’s the firepit. It’s only a circular patch of packed snow, but I dig down to find embers still warm.
“A camp,” Petra says, as if just realizing this.
I nod.
“What’s that over there?” she says.
I twist, still crouched, as she heads toward whatever she’s spotted. When I catch movement in the trees, I start to call a warning. Then I see a dark parka-like jacket on a man Dalton’s size.
She’s looking at something else, and as she bends for a better study, the figure moves from the trees, and it is not Dalton.
“Petra!” I call, my own gun out, rising.
She spins to her feet … and the figure raises a rifle.
“Stop!” I shout. “There is a gun pointed at your head, and there are two more people walking up behind you right now.” I’m hoping I’m loud enough for Dalton to hear if he’s nearby. “We are all armed. Lower your weapon—”
“Lower yours,” the man says. He’s young, and his voice is deep and seems steady, but I’ve dealt with enough situations like this to recognize that tremor, the one that says he’s in a situation he’s not equipped to handle. It’s too easy to pull that trigger when you’re afraid and angry and trying to pretend you are willing to do it. I know that better than anyone.
“Baptiste?” I say.
His shoulders jerk just enough for me to know I’ve guessed right.
“Where’s Sidra?” I ask.
“That’s my question to you,” he says, in a voice that carries the accent of those raised in the Second Settlement. “What have you done with my wife?”
“Nothing,” I say. “We came looking for you. We’re with Felicity.”
“Felicity?” Baptiste spits, and his gaze turns on me. “She took Sidra, didn’t she? Dragging her back to that grandfather of hers. If I—”
Petra flies at him. She dives at his legs, knocking him back. The gun fires. Not a rifle but a shotgun blast.
“Casey!” Dalton’s voice slams through the forest.
“Gun down!” I shout, as much for Dalton as for them, to let him know I’m fine. “Put the goddamn gun—”
“I’ve got it,” Petra says. “We’re both fine, no thanks to this idiot.”
“And no thanks to the idiot who jumped a kid with a shotgun,” I say as I walk over.
“I didn’t expect him to have his finger on the trigger.”
“In the real world, people often do. We aren’t all government-trained secret agents.”
“I’m not…” Petra trails off, shaking her head.
“Not government trained?” I say.
She only rolls her eyes and holds out the shotgun. I walk past her to where pellets peppered a tree. I dig one out.
A buckshot pellet.
Just like the one that killed Ellen.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I turn to Baptiste. He’s about eighteen. Brown eyes. Dark curls cut in a mop that makes him look like the puppy-cute guy in a boy band. He’s trying very hard to play this cool, setting his jaw and hardening his eyes, but those eyes don’t have the life experience to harden. He reminds me of every kid I questioned who got caught up in a petty crime with his friends, struggling to play it tough while two seconds from breaking down and admitting he’s made a huge mistake, but he’ll take the punishment, just please don’t call his parents.
Dalton comes at a run, calling a warning before he bursts through, as if we wouldn’t hear him. Baptiste gives a start as Storm races past.
“She’s a dog,” I say, patting her head. “Eric, this is—”
“You!” Baptiste spins on Felicity, who’s trailing Dalton. “What did you do with Sidra? Did you take Summer, too? I swear if you hurt either of them…”
Summer.
The baby’s name is Summer.
That throws me enough that it takes a moment for me to react, and Dalton beats me to it, grabbing Baptiste’s shoulder as he advances on Felicity. Even then, my brain throws up excuses. Maybe Summer is a friend. Or a pet.
Yes, Casey, they have a pet dog named Summer, and this isn’t Abby’s father. It’s pure coincidence that their dog is also, apparently, missing.
Dalton’s hand tightens on Baptiste’s shoulder. “You see those guns pointed at you, kid? Those mean ‘Don’t move.’”
“Just like the one you had pointed at me,” Petra says.
“You moved,” he says.
“And could have gotten you both shot up with those pellets,” I say.
Those pellets.
He was carrying a gun loaded with buckshot.
Like the weapon used to kill Ellen.
The weapon Lane swore he didn’t have.
Yet Lane also swore he murdered Ellen.
A flash of Tomas saying Lane had a friend who died last year. Then Felicity saying she and Sidra hung out with two kids from the Second Settlement.
Shit.
Questions and theories ping through my brain, and I squeeze my eyes shut and push them back. Gather more data. Work this through.
“Where is Sidra?” Felicity says.
“That’s what I’m asking you,” Baptiste says, as they lock glowers. “You took her back to your grandfather, didn’t you?”
“She’s missing?” Felicity’s eyes snap. “You lost your baby, and now you’ve lost Sidra?”
“I didn’t lose—”
“Enough,” Dalton says. “Felicity, go sit over there with Petra. Baptiste, you and Sidra have a baby?”
“Had,” Felicity says. “Had and lost—”
Baptiste swings on her,
and Dalton and I both raise our weapons, ready to order him back, but it’s only a warning lunge, accompanied by a snarl.
“Felicity?” I say. “Sit and be quiet, please. Even if he provokes you.”
“I’m not the one—” Baptiste begins.
“You don’t get along,” I say. “That appears to be an understatement. But we need answers, and we aren’t getting them with you two spitting at each other like bobcats.”
That is really what they look like, backing up, glaring at one another. It reminds me of Diana and Dalton, Diana convinced he’s keeping her from me, and Dalton hating the way she’s treated me. The lover and the friend as rivals. It doesn’t need to be that way, but sometimes it is, and as with Dalton and Diana, it goes deeper, to a fundamental personality clash that the competition only exacerbates. I suspect that’s the same here—that even without Sidra in the middle, these two never got along.
I walk to Baptiste’s other side, forcing him to turn away from Felicity.
“You have a baby,” I say.
He nods, and I see the struggle to remain calm, not to shout that his child is missing and his wife, too, and he doesn’t have time to stand around answering my questions. The fact that he’s trying suggests I was right—he’s not usually a hothead who threatens strangers with shotguns. He’s backed into a wall and acting out of character.
Is he? If he killed Ellen, then shooting Petra wouldn’t be “out of character.”
Tuck that aside. Focus.
“A girl or a boy?” I ask.
“A girl. Summer.”
“How old is she?”
“Thirty-eight days,” he says, so quickly that I suspect, if given a moment, he could tell me the number of hours, too.
“What happened to Summer?” I ask.
“The wild people took her.”
Petra snorts. “Is that the Yukon equivalent of ‘dingoes ate my baby’?”
I give her a hard look, but she meets my gaze, her expression saying she’s already decided these aren’t suitable parents, based on nothing more than the fact that she doesn’t want them to be.
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