Watcher in the Woods (Rockton #4)(11)

There are also smaller settlements, plus people who chose not to join one, like Dalton’s birth parents. They were twenty-first century pioneers, living off the land, hunting and gathering, building shelters and sewing clothing from skins.

Then there are the hostiles. People who have left Rockton and reverted to a more . . . I want to say primitive form. They are tribal. They are also ritualistic—painting and scarring themselves and setting out totems to mark territory. But in no way should they be confused with tribal societies. The hostiles are a grotesque stereotype of that, as if someone read too many National Geographics as a child. I used to think they’d lost what makes us human, but that implies they’re animalistic, and the hostiles’ sheer capacity for violence is far more human.

“His clothes were clean,” I say. “Dark jacket. Jeans. Boots. He didn’t have any more beard stubble than you do. So he likely hasn’t been out here longer than a week.”

“Yeah.”

Dalton opens the back door to our house. Storm races into the kitchen and skids to a stop, knowing better than to barrel through an open door. Dalton goes inside and returns with two flashlights and a Newfoundland on a leash.

“His clothes seem to rule out a miner or trapper,” I say, picking up where I left off. “I don’t think he’s a hiker either. Those weren’t hiking boots, and that jacket was too heavy. Dark hair. I couldn’t make out eye color. I think brown skin, but he didn’t seem Aboriginal.”

I’m running through all the possibilities because I don’t want to jump to the paranoid conclusion. I’m hoping Dalton will find an angle I’ve missed. Instead, as we head into the forest, he says, “You think it’s connected to Brady.”

I don’t answer. I’m hoping not. We both are. Oliver Brady was the serial killer foisted on us two weeks ago. He’s gone now, but I suppose someone could have come looking for him.

“That’s possible, but it doesn’t feel right.”

“You think it’s a new problem.”

“I hope not.”

God, I hope not.

*

Getting Storm is a good idea—she’s a tracking dog. However, she’s still in training, and so far we’ve always given her an article of clothing to sniff. We don’t have that for our mystery man.

We take her to the spot where we saw him, and I have her sniff the ground, but I can tell she’s confused. I know the direction he went, so I head that way as she sniffs. Dalton has grabbed treats, which helps her think this is a new phase of training.

Storm seems to understand what we want, but after about a hundred feet, she loses the trail as it crosses a path. There are other scents there, familiar ones, and she keeps trailing those and then stopping, as if realizing that’s not correct. She backtracks, as she’s been taught, and tries again.

After a few rounds, she gets bored and requests her treats in that half-hearted way that says she knows she doesn’t deserve them. At some point the work outweighs the reward, particularly for a well-fed and well-loved dog. She tracks for the fun of it, and when that wears off, so does her interest.

She can’t pick up the man’s trail on the other side of the path, which may mean he followed the path itself. So we walk her along that. It’s a major trail, though, and well traveled, and I’m not sure she’d be able to find his scent on it. Someday, yes, but at eight months, she’s a little young for tracking training at all.

We stop and peer into the darkness. Storm nudges my hand. She knows she’s failed, and while she may not care about the treats, she hates to disappoint us. I pat her as Dalton motions that we’ll return to where we last detected our intruder, and he’ll use his tracking skills from there.

We’ve walked about ten paces when Storm lets out a happy yip and lunges into the undergrowth. Her nose is up, not sniffing the ground, which means she’s catching a scent in the wind.

“Could be him,” Dalton says.

“Or could be a bunny rabbit.”

He shrugs. “Let her have her fun.”

Even if this scent is our mystery man, we won’t catch him. We have an eighty-pound puppy hot on a trail through dense forest. A charging bull moose would be quieter.

I motion that Dalton could give me the dog and circle around, in hopes of seeing our target, but he shakes his head. He won’t leave me. A stranger in the forest is always trouble.

We keep going, Storm straining at the lead, snuffling and slobbering. Finally, she gives a giant-puppy pounce and lands in the middle of a clearing. Then she looks up at me, her dark eyes glittering.

“Uh, great,” I say. “You’ve found . . .” I look around. Then I grin, lower myself and hug her. “Good girl. Very good girl.”

“Shit, yeah,” Dalton says.

Storm hasn’t found her target, but she’s discovered something that could prove equally valuable: his camp. It’s only a couple of hundred feet from Rockton, and it doesn’t look as if he’s actually slept there. He’s just left his pack. Abandoned it in the middle of the clearing, like he’s on a beach, dropping his stuff to go exploring. Not a guy accustomed to the forest. Otherwise he’d know that, presuming there’s food in that pack, it won’t last long.

Dalton reaches to open the backpack.

“Whoa, hold on,” I say, grabbing him back. “It could be a trap.”