“Well, we got to find him. Forget clearing out of here, Laura; we got to find him right now.” Tense, Allen glanced out a tiny window. “There’s probably not more than four hours of light left out there.”
Laura was perfectly calm. “No problem. We’ll search the appropriate trails, find this guy, and just leave a little later than we thought.”
Allen rapidly opened a park map. They talked it over, quickly decided where the jogger must have entered the park, then divvied up trails to search. As Allen went outside, Laura put Samuel in a chest Snugli, grabbed his chair, joined her husband, and headed toward a massive parking lot within the trees.
“Taking the chair?”
“Just in case, Allen. You know how crabby he can get.” Samuel was prone to screaming fits, and the swinging chair could calm him down like nothing else.
“You’re still charging your walkie-talkie?”
She nodded. “It’s in the truck.” Neither bothered mentioning cell phones. Even under normal circumstances, coverage here was spotty, but with the recent problems with the co-location switch, fewer than one in ten calls went through.
As they entered the parking lot, they passed a pair of helicopters, one enormous, one small, gifts to the park after the Gulf War to assist in fighting forest fires. They passed their own jam-packed Honda Civic and walked toward a pair of ancient white Chevy Blazer SUVs with green park emblems on every door.
Laura strapped Samuel into the back of one, confirmed the walkie-talkie was still charging, then waved to her husband and drove off.
Allen Meyer turned in the opposite direction on a double-yellow-lined road, then sped away amid the trees. Where the hell’s that jogger?
THE GREAT body twitched. Once, then again and again.
Unseen in the depths of the blackened central cavern, the predator was asleep. Its entire body, from the tips of its horns to the end of its torso, twitched repeatedly, an enormous sleeping dog.
In its semiconscious state none of the animal’s sensory organs was tuning per se, but just like any animal, it would awaken if it heard, smelled, or otherwise sensed something.
It continued to sleep.
DARRYL WALKED faster. “What’s wrong is this trail we’re walking on.” Earlier, the trail had been in the woods, near a campground, but now it had twisted.
Jason looked down, realizing they weren’t walking through untamed tall grass anymore but on tilled black soil. Still, he didn’t understand why Darryl was so agitated. “So you’re saying…”
“This trail’s on the water, Jason. So people could be on the water. And if someone was on this trail at exactly the wrong time… I don’t know if one of those things would know to distinguish between a person and a bear cub.”
Jason scanned ahead with renewed unease. “I get your point.”
Darryl tightened the grip on his rifle, and they all walked forward quickly.
CHAPTER 52
LAURA MEYER pulled over. Moving very quickly, she got out, put Samuel in the Snugli, slung his chair over her shoulder, and started walking. When she entered the first trail, she immediately noticed. It was quiet here, more so than normal.
Tough. She walked forward, the only sound from the occasional twig snapping under her boots.
She continued for a few minutes when she heard something off the trail. She froze, staring toward it.
The sound had come from near a huge patch of redwoods. But now there was no movement of kind, no sign of life.
She focused on three massive trunks lined up next to one another. Was something behind them? She stepped off the trail and walked closer. Then… A rifle appeared, pointed right at her.
“Oh my God,” she stammered.
Standing before her were three very large men in red-and-black checked shirts, hunters.
“Son of a bitch.” The one with the rifle looked devastated. “I am so sorry, miss.”
Ranger Laura Meyer exhaled. “You scared the hell out of me!”
The guy noticed the baby. “I am very, very sorry.”
She gave the guy a filthy look. “We have signs everywhere that the park’s closed. I should probably ticket you, you know.”
“Ranger, I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but is there any way you can let us off this time? We are so sorry; we really are.”
Laura looked up at the guy. He was fiftysomething, balding, bearded, and enormous—six-five with a big belly. Went by the name Big Tim. The two other guys were in their early twenties; one, the spitting image of the older one, clearly his son, and the other his son’s friend.
“We’re good citizens, really. I’m Tim Jameson. This here is my son, Timmy. And this runty guy is Tim’s buddy Greg.”
Laura chuckled. Greg was six feet and didn’t have the belly that father and son had. She looked them up and down. They didn’t look like criminals, and she didn’t even have her ticket book with her. She considered calling the police, but they were seventy miles away, and with the phone problems… She had more important things to worry about.
“How’d you get here?”
“We drove, ma’am.” Big Tim waved. “Truck’s back there.”
“Leave immediately.”
“Yes, ma’am; thank you. Have a good night.”
As they walked off, Laura considered asking if they’d seen the missing jogger. But no. If they had, they would have mentioned it. They disappeared behind some trees, and it became perfectly silent again. Laura glanced at her baby, then continued down the trail.
ON THE riverbank, Darryl halted.
So did everyone else—quizzically.
“What is it?” Jason said, looking around.
Darryl stared into the forest, dark and shadowy. “Something’s in there.”
Craig shook his head. “Gimme a break.”
Darryl said nothing. Rifle in hand, he walked to the edge of the trees. Then slowly entered.
“OH, WILL ya look at that.”
Crammed in next to Timmy and Greg in his red Chevy pickup, Big Tim shook his head. Right in front of their speeding truck, six deer, one a big-horned buck, dashed across the road, then disappeared into the forest on the other side.
His son turned excitedly. “We gonna go get ‘em, Dad?”
“Ah, you heard what that ranger said, Timmy.”
“Gimme a break; what’s she gonna do? Ticket ya? I thought you were gonna teach me to hunt.”
Big Tim shook his head. Something didn’t feel right. What was that ranger doing out there anyway?
“Oh come on, Dad!”
Big Tim suddenly jammed on the brakes. “You’re right. What’s she gonna do?” They parked and quickly got out of the truck. “Come on, boys. Big Tim’s gonna show you how to do it right.”
ALLEN MEYER saw the footprints immediately. In dark soil in the dead center of the trail. They were widely spaced, clearly from someone who’d been jogging. He removed his hat and studied one closely. In the middle of it was a fat letter N. New Balance running shoes. He removed his walkie-talkie.
“Laura?”
He waited for a moment, but there was only static.
“Laura, you out there? Laura?”
He waited again. Still nothing. His wife was no doubt still charging.
He holstered the walkie-talkie and followed the prints.
The trail was eerily quiet, but the prints continued, right down the middle of it. He followed them for a few hundred yards, passing a two-and-a-half-mile marker, a small footbridge, and then… The prints went off the trail.
Allen Meyer paused. Was he seeing things?
But no, plain as day, the prints went straight into the woods. His blue eyes began darting. Why the hell would the guy have left the trail? Only one way to find out.