Don't Cry for Me. Шарон Сала

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СКАЧАТЬ head explode all over again and the next moment he woke up. He sat straight up in bed, his heart pounding, his body covered in sweat.

      He threw back the covers and staggered to the window overlooking the high mountain meadow. Less than an hour until sunrise. The sky was already showcasing the imminent arrival of a new day.

      Why did this keep happening? Why couldn’t he let it go? He leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, willing the nightmare back to hell, and wondered if there would ever come a time when that horror faded—when he was able to accept that he was back home in Kentucky?

      The little something called PTSD he’d brought home from the war had an ugly habit of recurring just when it was most inconvenient. It wasn’t like sand fleas, which fell by the wayside after a good dose of tea tree oil. There were no meds, no vaccines, no magic wand to wave and make it go away. It was the gift that kept on giving, night after night in his sleep, and in the bright light of day when he least expected it. A word, a sound, even a scent, was all it took to yank him back. It was the son of a bitch on his back that wouldn’t go away.

      Too early to get ready for work and too late to go back to bed, he made a quick trip into the bathroom, and then grabbed a pair of sweatpants and headed downstairs from the loft.

      The hardwood floors in the cabin echoed his steps as he turned on the lights and moved into the kitchen area to make coffee. As soon as it was done, he took his first hot, steamy cup outside to the wraparound deck to wait for sunrise.

      Disturbed by Quinn’s appearance, an owl suddenly took flight from the A-frame roof and flew into the trees.

      Fog hovered waist-high above the ground all the way to the trees. He caught a glimpse of something moving off to his left and waited until a large buck with a massive rack slowly emerged from the fog. It was the prince of the forest, and the antlers were its crown. The buck suddenly stopped, as if sensing he was no longer alone.

      Although Quinn didn’t move, he knew the buck smelled him—or at least smelled the coffee—but it wasn’t enough to spook him. After a few moments the buck moved on through the clearing in stately fashion and disappeared into the forest. It was a far better greeting to Quinn’s day than his nightmare had been.

      He sat on the top step with his elbows on his knees, waiting for the coffee to cool, remembering when this had been his grandparents’ place, and he and his family were still living at home. Only this cabin wasn’t the house that had been there then. This one was new. Quinn had built it with the help of the family after the old home place was blown up during a gunfight with some hired killers from L.A.

      They’d come to silence a witness who was hiding here in the mountains, intent on keeping her from testifying against their boss. That witness was not only a distant relative but his brother Ryal’s long-lost love.

      The bad guys lost the fight.

      Ryal and Beth and their baby daughter, Sarah, were living happily ever after.

      Quinn was still trying to outrun a war.

      A few moments later a coyote came out of the tree line near where he was sitting, lifted its head then tucked tail and disappeared.

      “Yeah, I know, I’m screwing up the status quo this morning, but mine got screwed up, too,” Quinn said, and took a quick sip of coffee before he was satisfied that it cool enough to drink.

      He sat with one eye on the meadow, watching the night creatures going to ground and the day creatures coming out, all the while waiting for sunrise.

      As a backcountry ranger for the Daniel Boone National Forest Service, the area he kept track of was off-road and unpopulated except for the wildlife. The fewer people he had to deal with, the better he liked it.

      Finally the sun did him the honor of rising to the occasion, and Quinn went about the business of getting to work.

      By midmorning he was on the opposite side of Rebel Ridge, hiking up Greenlee Pass to look for Robert Lane and Wayne Hall, two hikers who were over a day late checking out of the park. He wasn’t expecting problems, but in country this rough, having an accident and no way to get medical attention could mean the difference between life and death. He carried food and first aid, and was in contact with ranger headquarters by two-way radio. The last reported contact with the hikers was at a location just above Greenlee Pass. Since he hadn’t met them on the trail on his way up, it stood to reason they were still ahead of him. Unless they’d done something stupid like diverting off the hiking trail and getting themselves lost, in which case the search would turn to air, horseback and rescue dogs. In the eighteen months since he’d been on the job, they’d only had one such search, which had ended on a happy note. He was hoping that would be the case again.

      He’d been walking for almost three hours when he paused at an outcrop to use his binoculars. A careful sweep of the area revealed nothing that alerted him. No smoke. No distress flag. Nothing. He pocketed the binoculars, got a drink of water and continued upward.

      Less than a hundred yards later he found the first sign of blood. He would have missed it but for the unusual number of ants swarming on it. After the first sign, he found another and then another. He couldn’t tell if it was human or animal, but either way it wasn’t good. He didn’t want to walk up on an injured animal, but he had no option but to keep following the blood trail upward, in case it was his hikers.

      It didn’t take long to find the source. Another hundred yards up and he caught the scent of something dead. A few yards farther he found one of the hikers—or at least part of one. An arm and a foot were missing, along with most of the internal organs.

      The sight spun Quinn’s head back to Afghanistan so fast that for a moment he nearly lost it. He grabbed for the dog tags he still wore and held on as if his life depended on it. The metal dug into his palm, and it was that pain that helped him focus.

      He turned away from the sight and began looking at the scene, trying to figure out what had happened. There was one backpack about twenty feet up from the body, hanging from a limb. It appeared to have been ripped apart by teeth and claws. There were black bear in the park. This wasn’t good.

      When he found claw marks on a tree trunk where the bear had marked its territory, he stopped and stared. The claw marks were nearly ten feet high. That was one damn big bear.

      He grabbed his radio and quickly called in to dispatch.

      “This is Walker, come in.”

      “Go ahead, Walker,” the dispatcher said.

      “Found one of the hikers. Dead. Looks like a bear attack. I’ve got claw marks on a tree a good ten feet high.” He gave the GPS coordinates of the body. “I have a blood trail that leads down the mountain, and I’m going back to follow it. We’re still one hiker short. Stands to reason it might be him.”

      “Copy that, Walker. Stay safe. Over and out.”

      Quinn slipped the rifle strap off his shoulder, took the gun off safety, jacked a shell into the chamber and headed back down the trail.

      Now that he knew what he was hunting, all his instincts kicked in. The forest had gone silent—like everything was holding its breath. He stopped, listening. Not even the air was stirring. After a moment he kept moving, following the blood into the trees, keeping his eyes on the ground and his ears tuned to the sounds around him.

      About ten yards in, a twig suddenly snapped. He crouched СКАЧАТЬ