Earl found the first footprints a hundred yards farther on. The first ones were hard to see, so he wasn’t positive yet, but his heart beat a little faster and he hurried on. He found the next set in a muddy depression, and they were much clearer. They had wrapped something around their boots to disguise the zigzag treads. He took in a breath that tasted thick with tantalizing possibilities. “
Rusty and T-Bone scrambled to his side, and he knelt by the prints while the dogs sniffed. He saw their eyes brighten, as though the smell were some kind of drug that actually conjured an image in their brains. They looked at Earl, ran ahead a few steps, then came back, panting and pleading with him. He was sure now. Hatcher and the woman had done the worst thing they could. Maybe it was a piece of a shirt, maybe even a sock. But it wasn’t something they had picked up along the way. They had tied something around their boots that had touched their skin, something they had worn and sweated on. Now the dogs had their scent.
Earl adjusted the straps on his pack, tightened his belt, and said, “
It took the dogs fifteen minutes to reach the place where the prey had spent the night. At first Earl was not sure, because there was no sign of charred wood or scorching, but the dogs showed him the pine boughs, and then he knew.
He headed down toward the trail, and the dogs hurried to beat him there. They galloped off along the trail, no longer set in motion by his command or the pleasure of running along a smooth dirt path in the woods with him. They had picked up the scent, verified it, and found it again. They were eager now, because at each leap they were closer, the scent was fresher.
Earl worked himself back up to a jog. He held his head up, staring into the middle distance and breathing deep, easy breaths. He gauged his speed to keep the dogs in sight and let them work without inhibition. He had no apprehension that they might forget their training. When it was time, they would let him come in and join them in the kill.
29
Jane kept Pete moving through the afternoon, running across the open spaces and walking quickly among the thickets and the stands of gnarled, stunted trees. In midafternoon the air turned cold. She found Chaney Glacier and then the fork in the path appeared as though in answer to a wish.
Jane stopped and turned to Pete. “This is the last place we can hope to fool them if they’re on the right trail. Want to do a good job?”
“Of course,” he said.
She sent him down the slope to uproot small bushes while she began to dig with her knife. She took the trail markers down the path that branched off to the right, then transplanted small shrubs in the middle of the trail that went north. She worked quickly, planting them in random patterns wherever the ground was bare, then spreading dead leaves and pine needles from the adjacent grove to cover the fresh dirt at their roots.
When Pete came back, trying to peer around the thick bushes in his arms to see where to place his feet, she sent him off again to gather rocks.
Jane stuck clumps of weeds into the ground in a second random pattern among the shrubs, then told Pete, “Don’t just set the rocks into the mix. Bury some of them enough so they look like they’ve always been here.”
When she was able to step back along the trail and look at the camouflaged spot without distinguishing it from the surrounding brush, she and Pete went back into the forest and collected more leaves and debris to spread among the bushes.
They stopped to look at their work. “I should take you home with me to landscape the yard,” she said.
“If you get me through this I’ll remodel your whole house.”
“Let’s go. Take the trail signs.”
They set off below the trail into the undisturbed woods, then made a turn to angle back and rejoin the trail a few hundred yards farther north. They moved quickly now to make up for the time they had spent. Jane found a deer run along the trail a half mile on and stuck the trail markers into the ground there.
They moved on faster, and finally Pete said, “We seem to be going down.”
“That’s right,” she answered. “This stretch goes almost due north for ten miles along the Waterton River.”
He gave a tired snort. “Then it goes straight up, right?”
“Wrong. It flows into Waterton Lake. The lake is long, like the Finger Lakes in New York. Ready for even better news?”
“More than ready.”
“It straddles the border. About two-thirds of it is in Canada.”
“Let’s do some more running.”
They jogged along the trail, feeling the lower altitude and hearing it. Somewhere among the big cedars and hemlocks, a woodpecker rapped on bark. In places they had to slow their momentum to keep from losing their footing.
They reached the riverbank as the light was fading. “Are you hungry?” Jane asked.
“Starving.”
“Don’t you want to stop for dinner?”
“I want to do what you said this morning, before dawn. I want to use the light, wring every last bit of distance out of this day. Then I’ll stop and eat a moose or something.”
She grinned as she moved along the trail.
“What are you smiling at? Don’t tell me it’s your turn for a fantasy.”
“Don’t you wish. No, I was worried about you, but now I’m not. You’re doing great.”
“I told you a couple of days ago that I don’t feel like giving up. I like living too much.”
“That wasn’t a couple of days ago. It was yesterday.”
“See? I’m getting more out of time now. I feel as though I’ve lived a year since then.”
Jane said nothing. Exercise was one of the therapies that doctors prescribed for depression, because it increased the flow of oxygen and released some chemical into the blood that fooled the brain into an unfounded sense of well-being. Whatever had happened to Pete Hatcher, she hoped it would last.
It was deep darkness when they reached a deserted campground. Jane pulled out her flashlight and played it around the big clearing until she found the sign.
Pete read it aloud. “Goat Haunt?”
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said. “We made it. The tip of the lake should be right up there.”
Pete waited, but she didn’t move. “Are we going on, or are we going to sleep here?”
She looked around her with the flashlight. “There’s a lot to be said for official campgrounds. The rangers generally put them in the best places they can find, so this is probably the most sheltered spot around here. It’s a lot colder tonight than last night. There are hearths for fires, so if we build one, our ashes won’t be a sign of anything to anybody once they’re cool. People have built fires here all summer.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I’m not.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe because I’m so exhausted from walking and running. Maybe because in order to get through that I had to get scared.” She swept the area on all sides with her flashlight again. “I guess it’s just nerves. I guess we’re not going to accomplish much by tromping on in the dark. Let’s eat and get some sleep and try to cross the border when we can see it.”
This time Pete set off to find soft boughs without her saying anything, while she rummaged in the packs and unrolled the ponchos and sleeping bags. They ate the rest of their canned food with some powdered soup Jane heated over the small fire she had built.
They joined their sleeping bags and slipped into them after Jane had carefully cleaned the pot and put all of the cans into the plastic bag.
