by Carol Miller
“Over there.” Daisy pointed toward two of the dark areas that had the most movement. “Those must be the entrances to their roosting caves.”
With a grumble of pain, Bobby switched from nodding his head to rubbing his knee.
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
“Stupid stump,” he muttered.
“You should sit down. Give it a rest.”
“But, Laurel—”
“Wherever Laurel is,” Daisy interjected, “I’m sure that she can wait one extra minute for you. You’re going to have to walk a lot more tonight, so you better take it easy while you can. I’m not carrying you down the mountain, Bobby.”
Still rubbing the knee, he didn’t protest further.
This time Daisy squinted around their immediate environs. There was a fallen birch a few feet off the trail into the undergrowth.
“That trunk will work,” she said, reaching for Bobby’s arm. “How much help do you need?”
With her assistance, Bobby hobbled over to the provisional birch chair. Daisy seated herself next to him. Although her knees felt fine, she didn’t mind the break. They had been trekking hard and fast for a while now. A short breather would be nice, both for them and the batteries in their flashlights. Clicking off the lights, they sat together in silence amid the inky gloom.
The noises of the night enveloped them. The final shriek of a jay before it settled down to sleep. The first shriek of an owl about to strike out on a hunt. Something was burrowing through the dried leaves on the ground not far behind them. A possum digging for slugs, perhaps. Something else was rustling off in the distance. The respite and relative peacefulness gave Daisy an opportunity to think about the bats and their caves. The swarm that she and Bobby had seen obviously belonged to the colonies living around Fuzzy Lake, which meant that they were sitting smack in the middle of the area that had been closed off in an effort to halt the spread of the deadly white-nose syndrome. The bats—and the fungus killing them—were in all likelihood immaterial to anyone searching for lost treasure. But what about the caves?
She had never considered the caves before. Caves by their very nature made outstanding hidey-holes, and although she hadn’t examined them up close, Daisy had little doubt that these particular caves were old enough to hold Confederate treasure. As far as she was aware, there had been no modern-day mining in the vicinity of Fuzzy Lake, so no new caverns or shafts had been created. It was the same with the trail. The unending switchbacks and its dogged route over the mountain resembled an old wagon trail much more than a new recreational hiking or bike path. That brought her back to the maps which had been stolen from the historical society. If the trail could be on them, then maybe so were the caves.
The problem with the whole idea, however, was that if the caves were the key, the geocachers couldn’t go searching in them, not when the area was specifically closed because of the bats. While the ATVs could help the geocachers explore more of the trail quicker, they couldn’t help them get into the actual caves. The only possibility that Daisy could think of was they were somehow sneaking in at night, when the entrances were less visible and less protected. There didn’t appear to be any sort of guards around or even admonitory postings. Nobody had stopped or questioned her and Bobby at the trailhead. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why the geocachers had wanted Laurel after all. Since she had permission to enter the area, she offered them a bit of cover in case they did at some point get stopped or questioned about their activities.
Bobby touched Daisy’s elbow. “Did you hear that?”
“No.” She had been too busy with her musings to hear much of anything.
“Listen,” he said.
Daisy focused on the sounds around her. The presumed possum was still digging for slugs in the leaves behind them. A whippoorwill issued its haunting refrain. More leaves rustled in the distance.
“There it is!” Bobby exclaimed in a low tone.
“You mean the rustling? That’s been going on ever since we sat down.”
“I know, but it’s moving.”
“That’s what animals do, Bobby,” she replied dryly. “They move. Especially when they’re nocturnal and looking for food.”
“There it is again! It’s getting closer.”
He wasn’t mistaken. The rustling did indeed seem to be getting closer. Something was moving through the leaves in their direction.
“It’s probably a raccoon,” Daisy said.
“That ain’t no raccoon,” Bobby retorted. “I know my critters, and that critter is a lot bigger than a raccoon.”
She didn’t argue with him. His ability to distinguish between animals in the dark was far superior to hers. For better or worse, Bobby had been a hunter in rural southwestern Virginia from the day that he had learned to walk and hold a weapon. So if he decided that it wasn’t a raccoon, it wasn’t a raccoon.
“Okay, then what is it?” she asked him.
“I think it’s a person.” He paused. “I think it might be two people.”
Sitting up straighter, Daisy listened once more. The rustling continued. Was it footsteps? She couldn’t really tell. Suddenly the rustling stopped.
“Where did it go?” she whispered. “What happened to it?”
Bobby put a finger to his lips. He was concentrating. She watched him and waited.
“They’re on the trail now,” he reported softly after a minute.
Although she concentrated too, Daisy couldn’t hear whatever it was that he heard.
“They’re coming down,” he added after another minute, “not going up.”
It was an impressive skill. Bobby may have had trouble on occasion locating his fiancée’s cabin, but he had absolutely no difficulty determining what direction unidentified people on a mountain trail were heading.
Daisy was about to ask him how positive he was that there were two of them, but she answered the question herself a moment later when she finally caught the sound of boots scuffing against clay. They were definitely walking on the trail, and there was definitely more than one set. A voice followed.
“Damn, it’s hard to see out here at night. I sure will be glad when we get back to the truck.”
“I told you we should have left earlier,” a second voice said.
They were two men. That was clear enough. Daisy didn’t recognize either of their voices, but that didn’t surprise her. Aside from Laurel and Chris, she wouldn’t have recognized any of the geocachers’ voices.
“Yeah,” the first man responded, “it would have been nice to go earlier, but we didn’t have much of a choice.”
Lights flickered in between the trees like fireflies. The men were moving down the trail toward them. Bobby started to pull the rifle from his back. Daisy slid her hand into the pocket containing the Ruger.
“We couldn’t just leave the equipment up there,” the man went on. “And I sure didn’t want to come back for it tomorrow morning. Did you?”
“No! I’ve got plans to—”
The second man’s voice dropped away and the flickering lights vanished as they turned on a switchback. Daisy could only catch intermittent words. The first man’s reference to equipment interested her greatly. Her initial thought was that they were using the equipment to dig for the treasure, but upon further reflection, that didn’t seem entirely logical to her. With the area closed, the geocachers would almost certainly be digging at night, not during the day. Now was the time when they would be beginning their work rather than finishing it. They wouldn’t take away their equipment at this hour or discuss coming back for it in the bright light of morning.
“—I’ll tell you one thing, I won’t miss this place.”
“It was the worst assignment I’ve ever gotten.”
Daisy frowned. Assignment? The geocachers wouldn’t get assignments, would they?
“Maybe not the worst assignment, but definitely the weirdest.”
“You aren’t kidding there.”
The men shared a chuc
kle.
It was becoming increasingly evident to her that these men weren’t geocachers. But then, who were they? Who got assignments, used equipment, and climbed around a mountain at night? Suddenly remembering what Laurel had told her earlier that week at the bakery, Daisy withdrew her hand from the pocket and the Ruger.
“Bobby,” she shifted nearer to his ear, not wanting to take any chance that the men might hear her, “I don’t think these guys have Laurel.”
He kept a firm grip on his rifle.
“My guess is that they’re biologists, or something similar,” Daisy explained. “Laurel said that she spoke to a state biologist when the area was first closed and the hunt had to be called off. They’re here about the bats.”
After several long seconds of tense stillness, Bobby relaxed his hold on the Winchester, apparently agreeing with her theory. “What do you want to do?” he asked her.
She hesitated.
“We could just stay where we are,” he proposed. “Let ’em walk right past us.”
That was a mighty tempting suggestion. It was nice and safe sitting on the fallen birch in the black undergrowth off the trail, especially considering that Daisy had no concrete proof the men were in fact biologists. There was still a risk that they could be geocachers.
“They might start asking questions,” Bobby continued, “wanting to know what we’re doing out here.”
And she didn’t have very good answers. She and Bobby weren’t supposed to be on the trail. But then again, how much trouble could they really get in? Was there such a thing as bat encroachment? They weren’t in any way hurting the bats or disturbing them during hibernation, which was usually an automatic death sentence to the poor things. They weren’t even near the bats, most of which were presumably sucking down copious quantities of gnats at Fuzzy Lake at this moment.
Daisy looked into the trees. The flickering lights had returned. The men had rounded the opposite end of the switchback and were getting close. They weren’t speaking much anymore, probably because they had to concentrate too hard on not crashing down the side of the mountain.
After deliberating a short while longer, she said to Bobby, “I think one of us should get up and meet them. They probably won’t know anything specific, but they might be able to give us a clue about Laurel and Chris.”
Slinging the Winchester over his back, Bobby immediately began to rise. Daisy put her hand on his arm to stop him.
“No. I’ll do it, Bobby. When they see you with that rifle, they’re going to pull out their own guns, or they’re going to think you’re hunting. Don’t forget that it’s out of season, and if they are state biologists, they’ll know it. Then you’ll have to spend the next hour arguing with them about licenses and permits and tags.”
This time Bobby hesitated. “I don’t know, Daisy. You’re right about the hunting, but I’m not so sure you should be meeting ’em alone.”
She wasn’t so sure either. A dark trail in the middle of the backwoods. Two men who might or might not be the geocachers who killed Caesar. It was not an exciting new friendship opportunity.
“Rick wouldn’t like it,” Bobby added.
“Well, Rick’s not here,” Daisy stood up, more than a little irritated at that remark, “so it doesn’t much matter what he likes.”
Not willing to debate the subject further now that it included Rick, she walked away from Bobby and the fallen birch in the direction of the trail. She moved with soft, slow steps, trying not to make any noise, or at least no more noise than was absolutely necessary. Hopefully the men wouldn’t pay attention to the gentle crack of a twig breaking against her ankle or the quiet crunch of leaves under her feet.
“Be careful, Daisy,” Bobby whispered after her. “And don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.”
Daisy heard him pull the rifle from his back once more, and it did reassure her somewhat. Without question, Bobby knew how to handle his firearms. And he hadn’t been drinking. That meant he could be a darn fine sniper.
The lights from the men were growing bigger, and the sound of their boots treading on the clay was getting louder. As she climbed out of the undergrowth and returned to the trail, Daisy slid her hand back toward the pocket containing the Ruger. Although she wasn’t exactly a fast draw, she figured that there could be no harm in being prepared. She strained her eyes in the direction of the stone outcropping that she and Bobby had been standing on when the tornado of bats had swirled into the sky. The men would have to walk down it just like she and Bobby had started to walk up it.
They were coming. They were almost on the other side of the outcropping. Daisy could hear their limbs moving, and she could feel the ground shift ever so slightly from their collective weight. She clicked on her flashlight. She knew that she was going to startle them in any event, but she didn’t want to appear so abruptly out of the blackness that they took her for a ghostly wraith and got a heart attack in the process—or worse yet, that they shot her first and asked for an explanation from Bobby afterward.
One of their flashlights turned the corner. It was followed by an arm, a body, and then a face.
“What the hell are you doing out here!” it hollered as it spotted her.
CHAPTER
23
For an instant, Daisy stopped breathing. Then with the aid of her flashlight, she saw the man’s clothing and took a big gulp of refreshingly cold air. He wasn’t a geocacher, not unless he had stolen both a jacket and a hat with badges on them that depicted the Commonwealth of Virginia and were inscribed with the delightful words Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. It didn’t matter to her in the least if he was an actual biologist. All she cared about was that he obviously wasn’t searching for Confederate treasure.
The second man also wore a jacket and a hat with badges, but his were different from his colleague’s. They featured an illustration of a bat in flight—Bat Conservation International. Daisy almost smiled when she read the name of the organization. It was very welcome double proof that she wasn’t standing in front of the geocachers who had taken the revolver from her bakery and shot Caesar in the parking lot.
Both men stared at her for nearly a minute, trying to catch their own breath and recover from the shock of her suddenly materializing before them like an otherworldly apparition. Daisy used the interval to think of an excuse. Of course they would want to know why she was there. She needed a plausible reason for being out on the trail when the area was closed. She had never been a remotely good liar, so if she had any hope of being at all convincing, it had to be something at least bordering the truth.
Her mind promptly went to Laurel. She was the perfect pretext, especially because she wasn’t really a pretext. Daisy could tell the men that her friend had gone missing and she was looking for her. They might even know who Laurel was—having perhaps seen or talked to her on the trail during the last week—and that way they might also be more inclined to share any current information they had about her or Chris.
“I’m terribly sorry if I startled you,” Daisy drawled, adding an extra bit of sweetness to her tone.
“I was just so surprised to see you,” the possible biologist replied.
The bat conservationist agreed. “We weren’t expecting to see anybody at this time of night.”
“I know I shouldn’t be out here,” Daisy confessed, “but before you read me the Riot Act—”
“Read you the Riot Act?” the biologist cut her off. “Why would we do that?”
She blinked at him.
“It’s not any of our business when—or where—you hike,” the conservationist said.
Daisy blinked again. It wasn’t the response that she had anticipated.
“I do feel obligated to point out, though,” he went on, “that it’s never a smart idea to hike alone, particularly in the dark. If you fall and sprain an ankle or break your leg, no one might find you until tomorrow, or maybe even for a couple of days. You can’t rely on your phone around these parts. The reception i
s pretty much nonexistent.”
Her brow furrowed. “So you don’t mind if I’m on the trail?”
“No.” The biologist’s brow furrowed back at her. “Why would we mind if you’re on the trail? It’s public land.”
“But it’s closed,” she returned, thoroughly confused.
“Oh, that’s what you mean.” His brow relaxed, and he nodded. “Only it’s not closed.”
“Then what about the event?” Daisy countered, partly to him and partly to herself. “The geocaching event that was going on up here a week ago. It had to be called off early because the area was closed.”
“You’re right,” the conservationist said. “All access to the area was blocked. It’s since been unblocked.”
“When?” she asked.
“Yesterday. First thing yesterday morning, if you want me to be precise. That’s when we got the test results back.”
“What test results?”
He sighed. “How much do you know about bats?”
“I know the area had to be closed—” Daisy stopped and corrected herself. “At least I thought the area had to be closed after white-nose syndrome was discovered in some of the caves around the lake.”
“You’re right again.” The man was visibly impressed. “Except it was only discovered in one cave. We were afraid that it would spread to the others.”
“And you’re not afraid anymore? I realize I’m not any sort of an expert on the subject and you are,” she gestured toward the badges on his clothing, “but didn’t you just find the fungus in the cave a few days ago? Is that really long enough to be sure it won’t spread?”
“Ordinarily it wouldn’t be long enough.” The conservationist smiled grimly. “Ordinarily I would have said the fungus will definitely spread. In other caves and other states there has been no way to keep it from spreading. But this is not an ordinary case.”
Daisy waited for him to explain.
“A couple of those geocachers were the ones who first reported it,” he told her. “That was plenty ordinary. It’s usually either spelunkers or Forest Service folks who discover the fungus in a new location. They’re poking around the inside of a cave, and they see the telltale powdery white residue on the muzzle and wings of the bats that are inhabiting it. White-nose syndrome looks pretty much like it sounds, although the wings actually bear the brunt of the attack. When the fungus infects them, they tear and crumple the same as tissue paper.”