High Intensity (High Mountain Trackers HMT 2G #2)

Chapter 9

Nine

Wolff

The woman is tireless.

I’ve followed behind Jillian for close to two hours now with only a few short breaks. My inner thigh muscles are starting to burn with the slightly unnatural gait, walking on snowshoes.

I’ve noticed though, the trail the dog seems to be tracking is all over the place. He’s taken us in every direction, at some point even crossing over our own tracks. It seemed to throw him for a moment, the scent leading in two different directions but, somehow, he figured it out.

The girl must’ve been disoriented in the storm.

But now the dog looks to be a bit confused. Up ahead he came to a sudden halt and is lifting his nose, sniffing the air around him as if he’s lost track of the scent.

“Okay, Murphy,” I hear Jillian call out to the dog. “Break.”

She drops her pack and fishes out a flask of water and the dog’s collapsible bowl, as I catch up.

“Did he lose the scent?”

“I think he’s running out of steam, but he’ll keep pushing until he collapses, unless I stop him,” she shares when she catches sight of me.

“How long can he go for?”

“He’s good for a couple of hours in decent conditions, but not trudging through a foot of snow. He’s gonna need a good rest soon.”

I glance around me. “Well, we’re actually not that far from base camp. Have you noticed the last half hour we’ve been going almost parallel to the trail we came up with the snowmobile?”

She nods, brushing some snow off a fallen tree, and sitting down. I take a seat beside her, giving my legs a break. I do better on horseback.

“Remember that rock shelf where we took the last break? Murphy really seemed interested in the shallow crevice underneath. I wonder if she maybe rested there for a while. That ledge would’ve given her a bit of shelter.”

“Could be,” I concede. “Maybe she waited for the worst of the storm to be over.”

“That would explain why, since leaving that location, the trail has been straight downhill instead of nearly going in circles like it did before.” She shakes her head. “The only thing that doesn’t make sense is the timing. If she waited out the weather before heading down this way, it most likely wouldn’t have been until morning. By that time the search was already in full swing, she was close, she must’ve noticed the activity. Why didn’t she come look for help?”

She’s right. It is curious, and ties in with one of the theories Fletch floated earlier this morning.

“Someone suggested the possibility she may not want to be found. Like you said, there has been plenty of activity, and we’ve covered all of this ground on horseback.”

“I guess she could’ve gotten hurt in the crash and died trying to get to help,” Jillian suggests somberly.

“Surely we would’ve found her.”

She shrugs. “She may have holed up in a hiding spot.”

I turn my head to look at her.

“What about getting Emo?”

“No,” she responds almost angrily. “I’m not ready to give up on her.” Abruptly she gets to her feet. “I’m gonna give Murphy a rest and get Hunter out here. Let her have a try.”

Clearly, she did not like my suggestion Hayley may not be alive. I decide not to push it. There really is no rush should the girl already be gone.

I pull out the spray can I’ve been marking our trail with and put an arrow on the log we were sitting on. This way we’ll know where we were and when we get turned around. It isn’t easy to keep track of where you are in this snow-covered landscape. Everything looks very similar.

It’s literally no more than a ten-minute walk to the shelter, where we find Jackson and JD.

“Where is everyone?”

Jackson looks up at me. “The old guard left. Home for a rest, I guess. Except for Dan, he was heading to the ranch with the other horse trailer and said he was gonna stop in at home to see how Sloane and the little one are doing. Then he’ll be back.”

“Sloane?” Jillian pipes up from where she is crouched down, greeting Hunter. “Is she okay? The baby?”

Jackson shrugs. “As far as I know.”

“I thought Aspen had recovered,” I direct at Jillian.

“Yeah, she has. I wasn’t…I just thought maybe Sloane came down with it too.”

She waves her hand dismissively before returning her attention to the dogs. She has Hunter out of the crate and coaxes Murphy in there.

“Your turn for a snooze, boy.” She bends down and kisses the top of his head. “You did good.” Then she closes the gate.

She goes to leash up the other dog, and we’re about to head back out when Dan pulls up. He’s got a few hay bales in the back of his truck.

“Your timing is perfect. I brought lunch,” he announces when he hops out of the cab.

“Hay?” I observe, hauling one of the bales from the truck bed.

I toss it to the front of the remaining horse trailer. All four horses are tied to the side and covered with blankets. The hay we brought this morning already decimated on the ground in front of them.

“And a tray of burritos and some coffee in the passenger seat,” he adds, grabbing the second bale of hay.

“Maybe we should grab a quick lunch first?” I carefully suggest to Jillian, who is waiting. “We’ve gotta fuel up too.”

Also, passing up on Ama’s burritos is almost sacrilegious, but I keep that to myself.

“Mmm. God, this is so good,” she moans on a mouthful with her eyes closed five minutes later.

The bite I just took gets stuck in my throat as a mental image of Jillian, naked in my bed, pops in my head. I cough to try and dislodge it.

“You okay there, my friend? The heat getting to you?” JD mocks me with a grin as he whacks me between the shoulder blades.

I cough again and mumble, “Asshole,” behind my hand.

The interaction escapes Jillian, who turns to Dan.

“How is Aspen, by the way? All better?”

“Yeah, she’s good.”

“And Sloane? She didn’t catch it?”

Dan’s face splits in a goofy grin. “Not strep, if that’s what you mean.”

I glance over at Jillian and catch her smiling as well.

“What was that all about?” I ask when we’re strapping on our snowshoes outside ten minutes later.

She can’t quite keep herself from grinning again.

“Afraid that’s not my news to share.”

Ahhh .

Gotcha.

Jillian

The brief moment of joy I felt for Sloane and Dan quickly evaporates as we make our way back to where Murphy lost the little girl’s trail.

What was she thinking? I’ve thought about the possibility she hit her head in the crash and wandered off, but nothing really supports that theory. Every step she’s taken has been with purpose, even though I’m not sure of her motivation.

Thinking of myself at age eleven, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have had the presence of mind—or the courage, to be honest—to have done what it looks like Hayley has. I was a girly girl growing up. My parents took me camping one summer and I absolutely hated it. I was into boy bands, bead bracelets, and Easy-Bake ovens, not communing with nature. Obviously, that changed over the years.

But Macy might’ve grown up to be an industrious and brave eleven-year-old. Even at five she’d loved going on hiking adventures, identifying bugs, searching for mushrooms, looking for animal tracks. She was fearless in her explorations of the world around her.

My eyes start to burn and I try to shake off the wave of grief. My focus needs to be on finding Hayley, who may still have a full life to live.

“Is she looping back?”

Wolff’s voice snaps me back into the here and now.

I glance at Hunter, who looks like she may have finally picked up the scent. Her nose is low to the ground as she determinedly struggles through the snow. Murphy’s enthusiasm means I have to keep him on the long leash, but Hunter is much more sedate and will stop on a dime on my command, so I let her loose.

Wolff is right, she appears to be doubling back, heading the other way. For a moment I’m worried she’s retracing our earlier steps and I’m about to call her back when I notice her veering off to our right, away from the trail.

I set course after her as Hunter takes us deeper into the woods. She seems to have a strong scent, and is moving with purpose for the next few minutes. Then she abruptly stops and starts pawing at the snow, sniffing furiously at the hole she created.

My heart sinks, and for a moment I can’t breathe.

Did she find her?

In the next moment she’s moving again, still on the trail, and I blow out a relieved breath. As I pass by where she stopped, I notice something sticking out of the snow. Something bright orange that seems out of place in the woods. Crouching down, I see it’s the corner of a piece of paper and pull it out.

“It’s a wrapper.”

A Reese’s wrapper to be precise.

That explains Hunter’s interest; peanut butter is her favorite treat. It also gives me a strange satisfaction to know Hayley had something to eat. I just hope she has more supplies to sustain her for a bit.

Wolff takes it from my hand and tucks it in the pocket of his coat, mumbling something like, “Atta girl.”

We hustle to catch up with my dog when Wolff points up ahead, past Hunter. Through the trees I can make out a rock wall.

“I’ll bet she went for the rocks in hopes of finding shelter. A dry place to rest,” he suggests. “I actually think this may be the same ridge as at the crash site. From the air I remember seeing it runs almost parallel to the trail.”

“I can’t get over the fact this is an eleven-year-old we’re looking for. Not even a teenager, and after a horrific crash and the trauma of having her family wiped out, it blows my mind she can even think of things like supplies and shelter.”

“Either she has very good instincts, or she knows a bit about survival in the?—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence and stops in his tracks, sniffing the air.

“Can you smell that?”

I sniff too but my nose is runny from the cold and I don’t smell anything.

“No. What is it?”

He sniffs again. “It’s gone now. I could’ve sworn I smelled smoke.”

“Smoke?” I parrot.

“Like I said, it’s gone now.”

We start moving once more, but I notice every now and then Wolff seems to lift his nose in the air.

I can hear Hunter start whining, when we approach the base of the ridge. She’s pacing back and forth, her nose lifted high and every so often she puts a front paw up against a large boulder.

Walking up to her, I put a hand on her back and tilt my head upward.

“What’ve you got, girl?”

“I smell it again,” Wolff says from behind me. “Something burned at some point.”

This time I detect it too; the way your clothes smell after sitting by a campfire. “Someone made a fire,” I conclude out loud.

“Jillian, come have a look at this.”

As I turn to him, Wolff is taking a few steps back and peering up. I move to stand beside him and follow the direction of his gaze. The ridge is steep, but not impassably so, and as I’m looking up, I’m noticing some ledges and crevices that would make good foot or handholds.

“You think she climbed up there?”

He shrugs and looks at me. “Your dog seems to think so.”

Yeah. She does. Her focus on something—or someone—overhead is unwavering.

Wolff walks up to Hunter, who is still pacing back and forth and seems to be searching for something—or someone—overhead. Then he leans his butt against the rock and proceeds to take off his snowshoes.

“What are you doing?”

He lifts his head. “I’m gonna have a look.”

“And how much climbing experience do you have?” I ask with a hefty dose of sarcasm.

Then I reach in my backpack and pull out my flexible climbing shoes, waving them at him. I have plenty of experience and he knows it from last year’s search with Emo.

“Besides,” I add, as I pull my left foot out of my boot and fit on the flex shoe. “You’d probably scare her. I know I’d be, if I were a traumatized, eleven-year-old girl, encountering a strange, tall man wearing a scowl in the middle of the wilderness.”

I do the same with the other and leave my boots attached to the snowshoes. Already I can feel the cold seeping into my toes.

“I don’t scowl.”

I pause to shoot him a “yeah-right” look.

“Hunter, you stay, girl.” Then I turn to Wolff. “Give me a foot up, will you?”

Not that I need it—I see plenty of footholds to get me up on this big boulder—but I don’t want to make him feel useless either. He does as asked, pressing his back against the rock, and folding his hands for me to step on. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the brief interlude of suspension, where I brace myself on his shoulders and my eyes lock with his.

Then suddenly he hoists me up and the moment is broken as I scramble onto the boulder. From this vantage point I can see what’s above me a little better. One of the crevices I noticed earlier looks a little larger than I thought. The shadows seem darker. Deeper.

It’s not a difficult route to get up there and I reach for the first handhold as I start making my way toward it.

“Careful,” I hear from below.

I’m sure it goes against everything that is Lucas Wolff to stand by and watch me do this.

“Always,” I reassure him.

It’s an easy climb to get to the narrow ledge. I grab on with my hands and heave myself up.

The first thing I notice is the campfire smell, which is much stronger here. Up close I can see the actual crevice is maybe a foot-and-a-half high and four feet long. However, trying to look into the dark interior, I get the sense it’s roomier inside.

A slight shuffling sound from the shadows has me rear my head back, and I almost lose my balance. I should’ve been more careful; this is just the kind of hiding spot where wildlife likes to shelter for the winter.

Wildlife, or scared little girls.

“Hayley? Is that you?”

No answer, but another little shuffle. As if something is trying to hide deeper in the shadows.

I reach into my pocket and fish out the penlight I always carry on me, flicking it on. When I shine the narrow beam into the crevice, it first reflects on something shiny; the metal buckle of a backpack.

When I pan the light around, it catches on a pair of wide eyes in a dirty face, tucked in the far corner. My heart stills and a sob escapes my lips.

“Hey, sweetheart…”