Footprints. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ popped her eyes open. Joey’s face was close to hers. “Come on and wake up, sleepyhead.”

      Annja got to her feet. “You found her?”

      Joey nodded. “About a mile farther on. She was in a bad way but I got a fire going and huddled her up close to it. Hypothermia, I’d guess. The rain and wind probably took her down, but she should be okay. I made some pine-needle tea for her to drink, to warm her from the inside out. She was coherent when I left.”

      “What did she say?”

      “I guess she went back to camp and found it deserted.”

      Annja frowned. Of course there was no way she could have let those kids stay in danger with gunmen threatening them. She had to break camp and send the students away. Jenny would understand, Annja felt certain of it.

      “So what happened? She just went hiking around, looking for us?”

      Joey shook his head. “Nah, she says she found her way back to the trailhead. She assumed something must have happened that made the camp leave. She was trying to get to town when the storm came down. Totally disoriented her. Before she knew it, she was in a bad state.”

      “Thank God we found her,” Annja said. “She might have died otherwise.”

      “Definitely,” Joey said. “Another thirty minutes and she would have been a goner.”

      He led Annja over the trail and down a steep precipice. Bits of shale and gravel broke free, skittering along the path toward the muddy lower ground. Annja thought she could hear something in the distance.

      “Is that a waterfall?”

      Joey nodded. “Yep. Better to see it in the daylight, though. At night it’s not the same thing. Unless, of course, there’s a full moon. Then it’s pretty spectacular.”

      “I’ll have to remember that. How much farther along is she?”

      Joey stopped and pointed through the trees. “There. You see the fire? She’s right there.”

      Annja couldn’t see Jenny but she could make out the glow of the firelight. So could anyone else who might be out tonight. “You think that was such a good move? That fire’s like a spotlight.”

      “It was either that or your friend dies,” Joey said. “I thought saving her was a little more important than being stealthy about it.”

      Annja nodded. “You’re right, sorry. It’s just I can’t help thinking about those guys roaming around in the night, looking for someone to kill.”

      Joey waved his hand. “Those guys are probably back in their tents, sleeping off a drunk. I saw an empty beer can in one of their jackets.”

      “What about animals? Would any of them attack Jenny if they knew she couldn’t defend herself?”

      “Highly unlikely. Cheehawk is about as big a predator as we get around here and he wouldn’t bother her.”

      “Mountain lion?”

      “Last report was from twenty years back,” Joey said. “Long before my time. And I’ve explored these woods well enough to think that if there was one around, I would have run into him.”

      “Okay.”

      Joey led her farther down the trail and then the ground sloped upward again. “How she made it as far as she did is pretty amazing. I would have guessed that she’d lie down close to the waterfall, but she apparently wanted to get to high ground and try to use it as a navigational aid.”

      “Jenny’s made of tough stuff,” Annja said. “She knows how to handle herself.”

      “Well, weather can break anyone down,” Joey said. “Even with training and various other tools, the weather can still beat you. You’ve got to respect it. She should have just hunkered down and gotten shelter and waited out the storm.”

      “Good advice,” Annja said. “I’ll make sure she gets the message.”

      Joey smirked. “I already read her the riot act. She knows she screwed up. But she’s looking forward to seeing you.”

      “So am I,” Annja said. “Is it much farther?”

      “Just over the next rise.”

      Annja smiled. It would be good to see Jenny again, even if she was in a state. At least she was alive. That was the important thing. All they had to do was get her back to town so she could be checked by a local doctor to make sure she had no lingering problems.

      Joey ducked off the trail.

      “She went this way?” Annja asked.

      Joey nodded. “As I said before, in her condition, her travel wasn’t orderly. The stumbling kept her going along downhill, but once she started to climb, she veered from the trail and ended up a few yards off the beaten path, so to speak.”

      “How’d you find her, then?”

      “I cast around looking for her tracks and found them. As I got closer, I could hear her murmuring something and that was it.”

      “Lucky the wind died down enough so you could hear her.”

      “I can filter the effects of the wind on my ears,” Joey said. “It’s an old trick I learned a long time ago from my grandfather. It helps to always be able to hear even when the wind is screaming.”

      “That grandfather of yours is something else.”

      “Just old family traditions, Annja. Nothing more.”

      “So you say.”

      Joey pointed. “It’s just over the next hill there. I moved her out of the wind and got a fire wall built to reflect the heat back on to her. Then I covered her up with a bunch of pine boughs. She should be nice and toasty by now.”

      Annja crested the hill with Joey still in the lead.

      Joey stopped abruptly. “Hey…”

      Annja came up behind him. “What’s the matter?”

      Joey pointed down the hill. “What the hell?”

      Annja looked. She could see the fire with its flames still eagerly eating their way through the wood. The fire wall and pine boughs were also nearby.

      But Jenny was nowhere to be seen.

      6

      “Where is she?”

      Joey shook his head. “She was here, I swear it! I left her right there. She was sound asleep. Exhausted. There’s no way she could have just gotten up and walked away.”

      “Are you sure?”

      Joey eyed her. “Of course, I’m sure. You don’t think I had something to do with this, СКАЧАТЬ