Wilderness Pursuit. Michelle Karl

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      She raised both her hands in surrender. “Fine by me.”

      “Sir?” He spoke loudly as the foreman coughed and tucked in his knees, attempting to sit up. Sam didn’t see any visible exterior wounds or bleeding, but that didn’t mean the man wasn’t badly hurt. However, it would take some time to get emergency services out here into the woods, so if there was any safe way for the man to get back to the vehicle that brought him here, it would be a faster process. “Can you tell me your name?”

      The foreman nodded as he rose to his knees—then promptly wobbled and tipped sideways, taking a shaky breath. “What happened? I’m... I’m Mike. My chest hurts.”

      “One of those guys kicked me in the side,” Kara said. “I didn’t see it happen, but they might have done the same to him. He could have broken ribs, a punctured lung...”

      Sam pulled his satellite phone out of his belt. Guess they’d need emergency services out in the woods after all.

      “Don’t bother,” Kara said. “I’ll drive him back. It’ll be faster.”

      Sam narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re hurt, too.”

      “I told you, I’m feeling better already. I played hockey in high school. Don’t you remember how excited my dad was when I joined the team? Hockey wasn’t popular in Korea until long after my parents immigrated to Canada, but he fell in love with the game during the 1976 Stanley Cup Finals when the Montreal Canadians swept the Philadelphia Flyers four games to none. My dad came to every single one of my games and practices, and built me that little rink in the backyard. I still know how to take a hit, thanks to that.”

      “Without gear or a helmet?”

      “Okay, well, no. But I can work through pain. I’m all right, Sam. Honest. I’ll get checked out back in town if you insist, but I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t think it was safe. You know it’ll be faster for me to drive him in.”

      Sam didn’t like it, but he couldn’t deny that the longer they sat around talking, the worse it could get for the injured man. “Fine. I’ll carry him back to the car for you.”

      “You’ll do no such thing.”

      “You can’t—”

      “How well did telling me what I can’t do work out for us before? I’ll take him. You go after the bad guys and find my camera. I dropped it when they hit me.”

      She had a point. Telling Kara what to do had never gotten him anywhere, save pushing her away and ending their relationship. But it had been her decision to go to school thousands of kilometers away, so their breakup hadn’t all been his fault. Could she really blame him for asking her to stay in the province, or even the country, after high school? He’d loved her. She’d said it back to him, so he’d thought she felt the same way. Apparently they’d both been wrong.

      He stood and scanned the ground for her camera. He saw no point in running through the woods after those goons—they could have gone anywhere, and the forest was both vast and filled with dangers. He’d take a look around the site for hints or clues to their identity, but it was never wise to run after someone in the undeveloped wilderness all alone, especially with twilight rolling in and a possible storm coming off the coast tonight. The weather reports had been shifting back and forth all day, but as of an hour ago before he saddled up Brenik, the forecast had swung in favor of the winds shifting and bringing the storm inland.

      “Did you find it? I’m heading to my car.”

      He turned to see Kara with the foreman in her arms. She seemed to be having no trouble hoisting the weight of a full-grown man. What on earth did she do for a living that would bring her out here, anyway?

      “I don’t see it,” he said. “Sorry. We can come out tomorrow and have another look around, if you like. We can also file a report and order a new one in, but it won’t get here for a few days. Did you bring a cell phone you can take pictures with?”

      Kara’s features softened and fell, her hard edge replaced with mild despair. “What do you mean, it’s not there? Did those guys take it? Well, that’s great. And I don’t suppose you see any small pieces of bone near your feet?”

      He shook his head. “No, but that’s a good thing, right?”

      Her expression darkened. “It’s not good at all. When I got here, I thought I saw a piece of bone, and it didn’t belong to an animal.”

      That was unexpected. “How can you know that?”

      “I’m a trained archaeologist, Sam. And finding human remains here means that this is a burial site, which means a lot of other things we can discuss once this man gets help. But if my camera was stolen...let’s just say those guys seemed willing to kill us to get it. Whoever that burial belongs to? Someone doesn’t want me to find it.”

       TWO

      Kara thundered through the forest toward her and Mike’s cars. Her camera, gone? She was even more convinced that she hadn’t been seeing things. The site had definitely been disturbed—quickly and messily—and that had been a human bone in the dirt. The laying of new pipelines was almost always rife with controversy in Canada, especially when a great deal of land was once traditional First Nations territory, with some areas still claimed by First Nations people. As a result, it was often inevitable that a government-mandated archaeological survey—a requirement before a company could start digging—would turn up First Nations artifacts or ancient burial sites.

      The artifacts were manageable. They would be sent first to a research lab and then eventually to either a museum or be returned to their people of origin. Finding a burial, on the other hand, was a whole other situation that could require weeks, months or even years of delays for a construction project. There were further studies to be done, forms to be filled out, relatives to be contacted and specific cultural ceremonies to be conducted. Regardless of how ancient or recent the burial, respect for the deceased and their relatives always came first, but that didn’t mean that everyone was happy to allow companies to dig up the land. If someone wanted her camera—which now held visual proof that the site contained a possible burial—it likely meant that Gaida Industries already had protestors working to stop the dig. It was a tricky situation, because while finding bones would mean stopping the pipeline’s construction for a brief time, it wouldn’t otherwise stop archaeologists from coming in to dig up the land. But protesters usually set up camp next to the area where they were making a land claim—they didn’t just grab evidence or disturb the land and disappear.

      No matter who had attacked her and the foreman or for what reason, it made Kara’s job harder, but not impossible.

      Sam drew alongside her on horseback. She was still having trouble processing it—Sam Thrace, an RCMP officer in Fort Mason. In high school, he’d always said that he’d rather become a transient wanderer than end up in law enforcement like his father. The youngest of three brothers, Sam had always had big, unrealistic dreams that lasted for only months at a time before his interest turned elsewhere. He’d been unfocused, prone to laziness, happier to talk about what he’d like to do in life rather than actually strive toward any concrete goals. Literally the only concrete goal she remembered him having was “don’t end up in law enforcement like Dad.”

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