Don't Cry for Me. Шарон Сала

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      “I just do.” Then he began to hear barking. “Hey, I hear dogs. I guess the trackers were closer than I thought. I’ll try to be home before dark. Take care of yourself, and don’t forget to do your exercises.”

      “In the meantime, is there anything I could do? I mean for you?”

      “Just take care of yourself.”

      He disconnected, shouldered his backpack and his rifle, and waited for the trackers to arrive.

      * * *

      Everyone on Rebel Ridge knew Jake Doolen’s bloodhounds were the best trackers on the mountain, maybe even in Kentucky. Jake was on call with the Kentucky State Bureau of Investigation, as well as anyone else in need, on a twenty-four-hour basis, but to the best of Jake’s memory, neither he nor his sons, Avery and Cyrus, had ever been called out just to track a bear. It wasn’t that the hounds couldn’t do it, because he had faith that they ultimately would. But this was like tracking a ghost bear. Every time his hounds picked up a trail, it always ended when the bear went into the water. And they’d never been able to pick up the trail again on the other side.

      When he got the message from ranger headquarters about a possible new lead, he was ready to jump on it. He was sick at heart from the loss of life, both human and animal, and scared shitless the bear would kill again before they took him down.

      According to the directions they’d been given, they should be near the site where the ranger was waiting, and when the dogs suddenly began to bay, he realized someone or something was coming their way.

      Cyrus took his rifle off his shoulder, while Avery flipped the safety off his. Just in case. Then they saw the ranger coming toward them and relaxed, Cyrus lifting a hand in welcome.

      When Jake saw it was one of Dolly Foster’s boys he felt a twinge of regret. If he’d been luckier in love he could have called them his sons, but Dolly had fallen for Tom Walker and that had been that. He’d settled for his Amanda without too many regrets, and he’d loved her in the best way he knew how right up until the day she died.

      “Zeus! Blue! Red! Sit,” Jake said sharply, and all three hounds dropped as Quinn approached.

      Avery cradled his rifle as he smiled a hello. The Doolens had gone to school with the Walkers and were old friends.

      “Hey, Quinn.”

      Quinn nodded a hello, eyeing the big raw-boned men. Jake’s hair used to be as red as his sons’, but it had gone fully gray. They were all outfitted in heavy-duty denim because of the rugged terrain into which they’d been sent, with orange hunting vests for safety.

      “Avery, good to see you. Cyrus…Jake, you’re both looking good.”

      Jake nodded. “You, too, son. I hear you have some information. I sure hope it’s good.”

      “It’s a theory with substance, how’s that?” Quinn said.

      “Right now we’ll take anything that might lead us in a new direction. So what do you have?”

      “You know I’m the one who found the two hikers, right?”

      “Yeah, we heard.”

      “As you know, the paw print I found on-site was huge, and the claw marks the bear left on a tree were much farther up the trunk than you would have expected a black bear to leave.”

      “We saw the markings on the tree, but the paw print was gone by the time we got to the site. We did find a big one near where the dogs were killed, but the floor of the forest is thick with leaves or rocky as hell. Hard to find tracks, and with the dogs losing the trail, it’s been frustrating.”

      “Follow me back toward the creek. There’s something I want to show you,” Quinn said, then led the way.

      As they drew closer, the hounds suddenly bayed. They’d already picked up on the scent.

      “You got something!” Jake said, as his dog strained on the leash.

      Quinn paused and then pointed up at a pine tree in front of them. “Look at that.”

      Cyrus cursed beneath his breath. Avery just stared. But Jake grunted in shock.

      “Hell’s fire, that’s got to be ten, maybe twelve feet up, just like the marks where you found the hiker’s body.”

      “There’s more,” Quinn said. “This way.”

      All three dogs were straining on their leashes and baying as Quinn reached the creek bank. He stopped, then squatted, pointing out where the earth had been dislodged.

      “See this? Looks like something really heavy dislodged this chunk as it stepped down into the creek.”

      The men nodded, but in their opinion, it was just more of the same stuff that they’d already seen. The bear had gone into the water. So what?

      But then Quinn didn’t cross to the other side of the creek. Instead he began to wade downstream.

      “Follow me down a few yards,” he said.

      The men walked along the creek bank, paralleling him.

      As soon as Quinn got to the rock where the moss had been scratched, he pointed again.

      “Look there.”

      Jake stepped out into the water with his dog, Zeus. As soon as they reached the middle of the creek where the rock jutted out of the water, Zeus sniffed the moss and bayed.

      “Yeah, I’d say that’s bear,” Jake said. “So, did you find where he went out on the other side yet?”

      “Now we get to my theory,” Quinn said. “I’ve said from the start that something’s wrong with this animal. It’s either sick or injured. So say I’m right, and say it’s feverish, that means it will be constantly thirsty. You agree?”

      Jake nodded. “Makes sense.”

      “And it won’t be able to hunt, so it takes the easiest prey it finds, and that happens to be whatever crosses its path, which is how I view the killings so far.”

      Jake was still listening. “I don’t disagree. But if it’s so sick and crippled, then why haven’t we found it laid up somewhere? Why do we lose the trail at the water’s edge and not pick it up anywhere on the other side? It doesn’t backtrack, because we’ve already ruled that out. And we’ve found numerous places where it’s spent a day or two, but it never goes back to the same location.”

      “Because I think it’s using the water like a highway. There’s that constant thirst, for one thing. And if it’s feverish, or it’s been injured, lying in this cold mountain water at a moment’s notice would soothe the heat and the pain. I think the only time it comes out of the creek is when it hears something that leads it to a kill. That’s why your dogs can’t find another trail on the other side, because the water is the trail. If I’m right, the only chance we have of finding it is to either follow the creek down, or go all the way down to where the creek runs into the river and come up to meet it. And—again, if I’m right—when it kills again, it will be somewhere that’s СКАЧАТЬ