Part 4 (1/2)
Kali joined him. A pair of long, thin depressions gouged the spruce needles, mud, and snow. They headed inland in a straight line.
”These are the same width and depth of the lines behind the hill outside Dawson,” Cedar said, ”except those were short and didn't continue into the forest.”
The smell of freshly cut wood mingled with the smoke, and Kali spotted broken branches on either side of the tracks. Some had been snapped, but other larger ones were sawn off.
”Brilliant,” Kali breathed. ”The lower half must be a ground vehicle that can work without the top half.” She had a hard time tearing her gaze from the tracks. Even the hewn branches impressed her-the vehicle must have some sort of fast-working saw created for brush clearing. She hadn't thought to add that to her bicycle. ”Cedar, I think I'm in love.”
”With the vehicle or the woman who wants to kill you?”
”The vehicle, one hundred percent. The woman... It depends on if she's the person who made the vehicle or not.”
”I doubt she'll prove lovable if she works for one of the gangster's trying to collect the secrets in your head.”
Kali sniffed. ”n.o.body like that would work for a gangster.”
”You seem certain about a great number of things for someone so young and untraveled.”
”What great number of things?” she asked, annoyed to be reminded she had been so few places. That would change one day soon.
”The motives of villains. The fact that tracking is so easy a hound can do it.”
Ah, so that comment still rankled him. It had been unfair of her, but she had trouble admitting when she was wrong. ”That's only two things.”
”If we mean to track her down before dark, we can't loiter.” Cedar strode up the center of the broad trail.
”What are you doing?” Kali blurted.
”Walking?”
”Up the middle of the trail? If I was wounded, and I thought someone was following me, I'd b.o.o.by trap the most obvious route. We might get hurt if we presume it's safe to amble up the hill after her.”
”You have an alternative proposition?” His tone held a struggling-for-patience edge.
He probably didn't appreciate her telling him how to track. But this person was dangerous, maybe far more dangerous than the usual thugs he hunted down. He might need her help.
”Maybe we can guess where she's going and avoid the tracks.”
Cedar waited, arms folded over his chest.
”She may have transportation,” Kali said, ”but clearing the undergrowth will slow her, and we did shoot her, so she'll need to stop to tend that wound soon.”
”Likely.”
”Do you have a map?” she asked.
Wordlessly, Cedar removed his packsack and withdrew a compa.s.s and map.
Kali unfolded the latter. Her people had camped up and down these rivers when she was growing up, and she knew the area well, but she wanted to see the overheard viewpoint since their attacker would have been watching the world from above.
”Maybe this ridge.” Kali tapped a stony gray terrain feature on the hand-colored map. ”There are caves up there. Should be about three miles from here. I know a trail that heads up there. It's out of our way, but it should be faster than cutting through the brush, especially since someone won't deign to use his fancy pig sticker-”
”Katana,” Cedar said.
”Right, since someone won't use his katana for brush clearing, it'll be better to go the long way. It'll put us up on top of the ridge where we can look down from above and maybe sneak up behind her.”
She caught Cedar gazing into the woods again, not toward the ridge or the direction of the tracks, but toward the river and the claims.
Kali returned the map. ”This won't take long. We'll capture her and still make it up to Sebastian's claim before it gets dark.”
”Hm,” was all Cedar said.
Late afternoon sun played tag with the clouds, though it did little to melt the snow on top of the ridge. Kali and Cedar knelt in a shadowy hallow, hidden from anyone looking up from below. She scanned the hillside with a collapsible spygla.s.s, hoping to catch the smoke puffs of a steam engine. If they were out there, the forest cloaked them.
”Do you see the tracks?” she murmured. ”If she drove in a straight line, she would have come out about there.”
Her alternate route up had taken an hour. Had the woman already come through and gone? Or was she hiding in a cave?
A creek meandered down into the valley, and Kali checked up and down the sh.o.r.eline. It seemed a likely place for an injured person to stop for water and to attend a wound. The trees hid much, though, and even from the high ground, she could not see everything.
Cedar tapped her shoulder and pointed. She s.h.i.+fted the spygla.s.s, thinking he had spotted their opponent. He was pointing out a doe and her fawn, down from the hills to drink.
”Cute,” Kali said, though she was more interested in finding the woman. They would have to go down there and... She could feel Cedar's gaze upon her. She lowered the spygla.s.s. ”What?”
He lifted his eyebrows, and she had a feeling she had missed something.
”You were pointing at the deer weren't you?” she asked. ”I didn't miss... Oh. Mama probably wouldn't be roaming around down there with her baby if a human was nearby.”
”Especially a human driving a noisy, steam-powered contraption.”
”You don't think she made it this far up?”
He did not answer, and Kali did not ask the other obvious question, whether he thought they had wasted time detouring out of the way.
”She was wounded,” Kali said. ”Maybe she couldn't continue this far.”
”What's next?” Cedar asked.
Kali chewed on the inside of her cheek. He was letting her take the lead, maybe being nice...maybe giving her the rope to hang herself. She had asked for it, though, hadn't she? After stopping him earlier, she could not bring herself to ask him to take over now.
”How about we follow the creek back down toward the crash site?” Kali suggested. ”Maybe we'll find she came part way up to the ridge and stopped to deal with her injury. If she turned a different direction, we'll probably still come across her tracks.”
Cedar held out a hand, palm up. Yes, she was still the leader.
As they traipsed downhill, picking a tedious path between trees and through undergrowth, Kali grew aware of the pa.s.sing minutes. Every time the sun poked through the clouds, her shadow grew longer and thinner where it stretched across the forest floor.
Where were those cursed tracks?
Now and then an animal would startle in the underbrush, and she'd jerk her rifle that way, half-expecting their opponent to jump out at them. Each time Kali would chastise herself-if anything, that woman would lob grenades at them from a distance, not attack at close range-but she remained on edge nonetheless.