He lifted his eyebrows, and she had a feelingshe had missed something.
“You were pointing at the deer weren’tyou?” she asked. “I didn’t miss… Oh. Mama probably wouldn’t beroaming 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 farup?”
He did not answer, and Kali did not ask theother obvious question, whether he thought they had wasted timedetouring out of the way.
“She was wounded,” Kali said. “Maybe shecouldn’t continue this far.”
“What’s next?” Cedar asked.
Kali chewed on the inside of her cheek. Hewas letting her take the lead, maybe being nice…maybe giving herthe rope to hang herself. She had asked for it, though, hadn’t she?After stopping him earlier, she could not bring herself to ask himto take over now.
“How about we follow the creek back downtoward the crash site?” Kali suggested. “Maybe we’ll find she camepart way up to the ridge and stopped to deal with her injury. Ifshe turned a different direction, we’ll probably still come acrossher tracks.”
Cedar held out a hand, palm up. Yes, she wasstill the leader.
As they traipsed downhill, picking a tediouspath between trees and through undergrowth, Kali grew aware of thepassing minutes. Every time the sun poked through the clouds, hershadow grew longer and thinner where it stretched across the forestfloor.
Where were those cursed tracks?
Now and then an animal would startle in theunderbrush, and she’d jerk her rifle that way, half-expecting theiropponent to jump out at them. Each time Kali would chastiseherself-if anything, that woman would lob grenades at them from adistance, not attack at close range-but she remained on edgenonetheless.
“Kali.” Cedar pointed toward a muddy stretchof land to their right. The parallel tracks of the woman’sdevice.
Kali jogged to the spot. “Huh. Good eye. Iwasn’t expecting them this far over.” She turned to get herbearings. The ridge stood over a mile away now, meaning they werealmost halfway back to the wreckage. She sighed. Prudence bedamned. She had wasted a lot of time trying to second-guess thewoman. “They’re paralleling the ridge now, aren’t they?”
“Appears so.”
She gave him a flat look. “I know what you’redoing. You’re hoping I’ll be proved wrong, that tracking isn’t aseasy as I claimed.”
“Shall we follow them?” Cedar asked. “Or doyou still fear booby traps?”
“Follow,” Kali said, eyes narrowed. “Butlet’s keep our eyes open.”
“As you wish.”
The tracks only ran parallel to the ridge fora quarter of a mile. Then they surprised Kali by angling backtoward the main river and the route she and Cedar had been on whenthey were attacked.
Her heart lurched. “We’re heading back towardthe cabin.” And the SAB.
What if the woman, deeming her own transporttoo damaged to keep, stole Kali’s vehicle? While they were not sofar from Dawson that they could not walk, she hated the idea oflosing her latest invention. She had so many refinements she wantedto make. For one, a brush cutter was a brilliant idea. And shecould add an-
“Kali!” Cedar grabbed her arm.
She tumbled back against him. “What isit?”
Nothing stirred in the brush, and birdschattered in a nearby thicket. When she detected nothingout-of-place in their surroundings, she searched his face. He waspeering at the tracks a few feet in front of them.
“What’s that black rectangle?” he asked.
It took Kali a few seconds to find theobject. There, mostly buried beneath needles and leaves, laysomething flat and dark, the size of poker card.
“Back up,” she said.
When they had gone ten meters, she grabbed arock and tossed it at the object. Her projectile clipped thecorner. A boom thundered through the forest, and rock and dirt flewtwenty feet into the air, pelting branches overhead and landing allabout. Kali lifted an arm as shards rained down upon her andCedar.
“There’s my booby trap.” Kali had no reasonto be smug, not when she would have blundered onto it if Cedar hadnot stopped her, but being proven right about her hunch mollifiedher. The woman was someone to employ protectivemeasures.
“And now the owner knows exactly where weare,” Cedar said, an eyebrow arched.
“Oh.” Yes, that sound had probably beenaudible for miles. Kali closed her eyes. Idiot. “Guess we couldhave gone around it without detonating it.”
“Likely.”
She would have given him a lengthy glower,but she was worried about her bicycle. With an eye toward thetrail, she strode forward again. They passed-and avoided-three morebooby traps before reaching the cabin.
“There’s the SAB!” Kali blurted, relievedwhen it came into sight.
She kept herself from running over to checkit since the tracks led straight toward it. She and Cedar steppedcarefully, searching for hazardous deposits on the ground. Theyfound nothing more treacherous than a pile of bear dung, but Kalilingered a few feet from her vehicle without going close enough totouch it.
“Let’s be optimistic,” she finally said.“Maybe she knew we were after her and went straight through.” Shepointed to the tracks, which continued past the bicycle and backdown the road she and Cedar had followed up the river. It madesense that the woman would need to return to town to have her woundtreated.
“She stopped here.” Cedar pointed to theground next to the bicycle. “The tracks are deeper where thevehicle came to rest.”
Kali groaned. She spent the next fifteenminutes inspecting the SAB, checking all the spots she would boobytrap if her goal were to incapacitate someone’s steam vehicle.
Cedar spent the time leaning against a tree,cleaning beneath his fingernails with a knife. “Shall I set upcamp?” he asked at one point.
“No, but I wouldn’t mind something to eat, ifyou’re offering,” Kali said, her voice echoing oddly since she hadher head stuck in the furnace. The fire had burned out while sheand Cedar were roaming the hills. When he did not respond to hercomment, she withdrew her head and looked at him. “Oh, was thatsarcasm?”
His eyebrow twitched. “Possibly.”
He had to be getting impatient with this sidetrip. Might he be wondering why he had bothered to take her along?Aside from providing a mode of transport, what had she done toassist him? Even the transportation was of dubious worth. He wouldbe closer to Wilder’s claim by now if he had walked up thetrail.
Maybe they would catch this woman and findout she was some sort of super villain with a huge bounty on herhead, and that would make this detour worthwhile.
Kali climbed on top of the SAB seat. Thoughthe bicycle was a broad, sturdy contraption, it wobbled under herweight, and she kept a hand on the smokestack for balance. Shepeered inside it. And froze.
“What the blazes is that?”
“What?” Cedar strode over.
Something dark and lumpy nestled inside thesmokestack. It lacked the clean lines of the booby trap from thetrail and did not appear mechanical-or explosive-but Kali stared atit for a long moment before reaching an arm inside. Her fingerscame up a foot short. Her own body blocked the daylight when sheleaned in farther, and the bicycle seat wobbled beneath hertoes.
“I need help,” she said. “Can you hold me, soI can lean in farther?” She must sound ridiculous with her headstuffed in the smokestack.
Hands squeezed her waist, and she squawkedwhen Cedar lifted her off the seat so her feet dangled in the air.His firm grip had the steadiness of steel, though, leaving her moresecure than when she had been relying on her own balance. Thanks tohis height, Cedar could also boost her entire body above thesmokestack without trouble.
“Thanks,” she called, her voice supremelymuffled now. “I appreciate your strength and-” She inhaled soot andbroke into a coughing fit. The stuffy, hot environs pressed in fromall sides, and she could see nothing. Lingering smoke made her eyestear.