by Karen Harper
She grabbed her purse, locked the door and darted toward the lodge. But what if he was out here somewhere, came back to the shop and found it deserted?
She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Spenser! Here, Spenser!”
Nothing. No one. Bird sounds. The wind in the trees.
She tore into the lodge. Suze was wiping some oil on fireplace mantel with a white cotton rag.
“Suze, have you seen Spenser? Or Chip?”
“Chip’s in his room. Meg’s making him read out loud because he starts first grade soon, and he’s nervous. Wait—you mean Spenser isn’t with you?”
“I fell asleep just for a minute or two—and when I looked up, he was gone. I had a customer—Val, that girlfriend of Ryker’s—but she left, and Spenser would have barked if she came back.”
“I’m pretty sure the lodge door’s been closed, but go ahead and call for him inside here, and I’ll go check with Chip.”
Alex ran through the back rooms, the kitchens, the halls. She checked his little bed in her room, however futile that was because her door had been closed and locked. She glanced at herself in the mirror over the dresser as she rushed by. It was as if Allie were distressed, too, rushing to help look. Oh, dear Lord, please don’t let me have brought my Spenser all the way here just for something awful to have happened to him.
She ran back out and saw Suze rushing toward her. “Chip hasn’t seen him, and he and Meg want to help look. They’re leaving the other two dogs in his room. Let’s go along the edge of the forest and call for him.”
Alex felt sick to her stomach as the four of them walked the perimeter of the property, calling into the forest that now seemed so dense and dark, despite the fact that night was still three or four hours away.
“Wish we would’ve taught Buffy or King to be trackers,” Chip said, taking Alex’s hand. “’Cause he might’ve gone after snowshoes or something.”
“Snowshoes?”
“You know, the kind of rabbit. They’ve been around here lately.”
Alex felt as if someone had hit her hard in the stomach. Scottish terriers were originally bred to root out and chase rabbits, even rats. But wouldn’t he have barked to wake her if he’d gone after one? And Quinn had said to keep him out of the forest. Bears, wildcats, even just stumbling into that horrible needlelike bush called devil’s club could be deadly.
But Chip had given her an idea when he’d said that Buffy and King were not trackers, because she knew someone who was. Yes, he was no doubt busy lecturing or demonstrating tracking to his new host of students, but she was desperate. Would Quinn be willing to help after she’d turned him down for a date? But none of that mattered now, at least not to her.
She had to find Spenser, get him back.
“I know Quinn’s probably busy with his new group,” she told the three of them. “Darkness will set in soon, too, but I need to ask him for help. If he’s tied up, maybe he knows someone who could help me. I have to try, or I’d never forgive myself. If Spenser comes back, call me on my cell. I could call Quinn, but I need to ask in person.”
Meg and Suze exchanged silent but very loud glances.
“Sure, but don’t you go into the forest alone looking for Spenser,” Meg insisted. “And if you get too far out toward the lake, cell towers or not, your phone won’t work. Let us know what you’re going to do, because if he can’t help you, we’ll—we’ll do something. But it might have to be tomorrow to get a search party together, and that’s usually just done for people...”
Sucking in a sob, Alex hugged them both and ruffled Chip’s hair. She was out of breath by the time she got to her room to grab a jacket, her purse and Meg’s hiking boots before she ran out the front door to her truck.
10
Alex didn’t care if Lake Road was one lane and twisty, she drove fast. She wished her quest to get Quinn’s help could have happened after she’d been here for a while. She didn’t know the area and neither did Spenser. Talk about babes in the woods!
The modest wooden sign to the Q-Man Tracker and Survival School told her where to turn in. Several trucks were parked in an unpaved open space. A sign shaped like an arrow read Enter and Pick Up Your Feet. Ordinarily, she might have smiled.
“Hello there,” a female voice called to her as she went past a screen of birch trees, then through a gate toward the first building she saw. “I’m Mary Spruce. Are you a friend of one of the new students? They’re pretty busy right now.”
“I’m a—a friend of Quinn’s. I need his help. Sorry to burst in like this, but I’m Alexandra Collister from next door—the lodge.”
“Oh, sure. I heard you had joined our neighbors. I’m Mary Spruce. I’m glad to meet you, but Quinn—”
“My dog is missing. Maybe wandered off in the forest, and I need Quinn’s help—advice. Something.”
She fought from bursting into tears. Mary took her elbow and sat her down on a bench outside a log cabin. The woman was pretty with dark red hair. Her denim floor-length skirt and jacket were complemented by her necklace with some sort of large, dangling claws.
“Please,” Alex said, “time is important. I know he’s busy, but if you could tell him—”
“I’ll tell him. After a first day of work, they’re having a welcome gathering in the dining hall. I was just getting more paper plates,” she said, popping up. “You just come with me, right?”
“Right. Thank you so much.”
They hurried across a grassy space that looked to Alex like a series of alleys each ending in a square soil-filled box where it seemed like one would toss horseshoes at a target or grow seeds in a slightly raised bed.
“Be careful not to step in any of these,” Mary told her, pointing at the squares of sand or soil. “Examples of tracks.”
Mary took her into a large, one-story log cabin with a rack of moose antlers over the door. Inside, she smelled food and coffee amid the sounds of mostly masculine conversations and laughter.
“You stand here, and I’ll get him,” Mary said, and gave Alex’s arm a little squeeze as she moved gracefully away through the crowd of noisy men. Oh, there were also three women standing together, laughing, holding their plates and eating. Yes, she’d heard women took this beginner course, so did they take the survival skills one, too? She could use those skills now.
Alex spotted Quinn across the room, talking, nodding. She had the urge to run to him through the crowd. He was looking down at someone and then squinted her way, so Mary must have reached him already. His expression did not show surprise, but his eyes still burned her from that distance as they stared at each other as if no one else were here. She knew Quinn hid his emotions, claiming to be a “direct” person. Well, she had to be direct now, do anything to find Spenser.
He came toward her like a steady, tall ship through the shifting sea of people. Nodding at some, giving a quick answer to questions here and there, he kept coming.
“Alex, what is it?” he said, putting a strong hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong? Something at the lodge?”
So Mary hadn’t even gotten to him or had time to explain.
“I’m so sorry to cut in here, but I’m desperate. Spenser’s missing—walked away from the shop, I guess—and it’s going to be dark soon, and you said it was dangerous for him out there, but he’s never just done this, and his leash was right there, and we all called and searched...”
He took her arm and steered her into the kitchen where Josh was putting plates of food out on a pass-through ledge. He darted a look at them, then went back to serving. Mary came in with Sam right behind her.
“He saw you before I got there, but I told Sam,” Mary said as the two of them hovered together across the room.
“Quinn,” Alex whispered, “I’m sorry about barging in after—after everything.”
“Forget that and try to keep calm.”
“I need your a
dvice and help.’
“Sam,” Quinn said, turning away from her and gesturing his friend closer, “please grab me a number-four backpack and another one full of water and granola bars. And some hamburger to pass for dog food—in a plastic sack, so we don’t draw unwanted guests with the excellent sense of scent.”
Did he mean bears?
Quinn looked down at what Alex was wearing and nodded at the jeans and boots, then turned away again. “Mary, can I borrow a warm jacket for Alex, and make sure there are at least two garbage bags and two flashlights in the rations backpack.”
Sam turned away and went out with Mary right behind him. Josh just shook his head and kept putting bowls of food on the counter. No one but Alex seemed to notice him. Yet she felt he was watchful, even judgmental.
“Don’t take this wrong or let me scare you,” Quinn said, “but we’re going for another walk in the woods. You’ll have to do what I say, and hopefully we can find him before darkness sets in.”
“You—you’ll go with me, take me? Oh, thank you, Quinn!”
“But you’re going to have to promise me that you will focus on what I say no matter what. That requires keeping emotions in check. I know it’s hard, but we can’t have any tears or panic no matter what. We concentrate. Take it from someone who learned the hard way that it does not one bit of good to fall apart.”
Oh, yes, she’d play by his rules. Strange, but even after being so betrayed and mentally, even physically, beaten down by Lyle, she trusted this man. But then, she had to, with Spenser’s survival at stake as well as her own safety deep in the woods.
* * *
Alex hoped it wasn’t her imagination, but daylight already seemed to bleed away, despite the clear sky. Quinn drove her and their gear in his big, black truck to the lodge where they piled out and went in. She had to go to the bathroom, but she didn’t say a word and just concentrated on what he was saying and doing. He’d strapped a backpack on her, one with Mary’s borrowed jacket and supplies inside. He had a larger pack on himself.
“Quinn, you’re here!” Meg cried. “If you can find his trail, can we all help?”
“What’s that old saying?” he countered. “Too many cooks spoil the broth. Same in the woods. It’s gonna be just me and my new student here, and don’t worry if we’re out after dark,” he said to Meg as Suze and Chip ran up.
“Can I go, too?” Chip asked. “I can help, use some of the stuff you taught me on our walk.”
“Not this time,” Quinn told him, and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Okay, please, everybody stay back. We’re going to try to pick up Spenser’s trail from the gift store.”
“Take good care of her and Spenser!” Suze called after them.
“The very best I can,” was all Alex heard from him as he started at the closed door of the shop, held her back with one hand, then crouched to study the ground.
“You and the others have been back and forth out here,” he said.
“Yes. I was desperate. Sorry.”
“To be expected. I’ve seen lots worse than this and with people missing, not a dog. I consult with search and rescue teams in the state and beyond sometimes. Stay back until I find just his trail. I know Scottie footprints.”
She did as he said, trying to steady her rapid breathing. He went farther down several paths, then to openings in the forest, not even so much on the obvious path they’d taken before. He took out his flashlight, though it wasn’t dark yet, however much the shadows had begun to lean long and gray. She saw him slant the beam at what must be prints, maybe to make them stand out in sharper relief.
“Okay,” he called to her. “Over here. My guess is he saw a snowshoe rabbit and went after it. See these tracks? It’s called a snowshoe because its back feet are huge compared to the front, great for traversing snow or any kind of mud or tundra. See, we’re tracking these four separate tracks as well as Spenser’s. Snowshoe hares are forest dwellers who love bushy undergrowth. They’re a lot larger than cottontails. And this time of year in their summer coats, they are grayish brown with white underparts.”
“If Spenser catches it, I hope it doesn’t have the tularemia bacteria.”
He turned to look at her. His eyebrows lifted. “Is that what that sluggish, wasting rabbit disease is called, so you have to cook rabbit meat real well done and don’t handle it without gloves? Are you a scientist or vet? See, we both know things to share. Never mind. Tell me later.”
She had been going to explain about her training and vet tech job, but she could only nod as she leaned down by him when he shone his flashlight beam almost sideways at the tracks again. “Scottie dog,” he said, focusing the light on the paw print she recognized instantly. “And hopping faster and faster away here, the snowshoe, with Spenser chasing it.” He turned and started away at a good clip. “Come on,” he called back. “Stay tight to me.”
Both fearful and grateful, that’s exactly what she did.
* * *
As they plunged into the woods, he was all business.
Why, she fumed, had Spenser left her and safety behind when this was all strange to him? But she knew the answer to that: centuries of breeding that made a terrier a terror to any sort of prey or enemy. “Little terror,” she had nicknamed him at first when she brought him home from the shelter and he didn’t trust her. Yet love had changed him. And now, as scared as she was that something would happen to him, the little dog’s courage gave her courage, too.
After they had walked in brisk silence deeper into the forest, Quinn stopped so fast she almost bumped into him. “The snowshoe is tiring here, thinking of going to ground.”
He could tell all that from what looked like a smear of tracks?
“See, it darts off toward that thicket,” he added.
He veered to the right, so she did, too. In a patch of what looked like grass and weeds, Quinn grabbed a four-foot branch off the ground and lifted some of the thicket. “Yeah, Spenser dug here,” he told her.
She stepped up beside Quinn and looked down at a rough hole.
“I’ve seen him dig like that, in my flower beds before I had them raised. Did he—did he catch the rabbit?”
“No sign of that—no fur, blood or anything. Stand still here, and I’m going to look around the sides and back of this area to see if he rooted the hare out.”
“Quinn I—I have to go—I mean, like, bathroom call. Can I just go over there and—”
“Don’t go far. I won’t look. But you be careful. No poison ivy or oak in Alaska, but don’t let anything touch your bare skin. No wiping with leaves because there’s cow parsnip around here. And uncovered skin is most sensitive, believe me,” he said.
“Yes, all right,” she said, nodding, then turning quickly away.
She had not a clue what cow parsnip looked like and amazed herself by blushing about what he had said, however brusque and matter-of-fact he had been. She went behind a large tree trunk, partly pulled down her jeans and underwear and squatted. I won’t look, he’d said. But when he did look at her it was so intense, even if he was talking about cow parsnip. She had so much to learn, maybe both of them did—about each other.
Yet nothing mattered but finding her second best friend right now, second best after Allie.
11
Quinn was grateful it wasn’t dark yet, but the light level and temperature were falling fast. Darn little dog with that much spunk and energy, but his paw prints seemed to be flagging. He might have a thorn in or have hurt his right back paw, too, because he’d developed a little limp, though he didn’t share that with Alex.
What irony: he’d eaten alone in town last night, though several people had come up to his table to talk. He’d wished she’d come to him at the camp to change her mind about the date. Would she have come at all if she hadn’t been desperate for his help? He prayed they’d find her dog, but he didn’t want her to need h
im just for that. This whole thing hurt so much because it just reopened the wound of his causing his Scottie’s death—and his dad’s.
“Let’s go,” he said when she rejoined him quickly after relieving herself. “I’ve found both sets of tracks again going out the other side of this rabbit warren toward the lake. Keep close.”
She did. They were making their own path now, through low brush beneath trees. He kept his head down, squinting at the ground, using his flashlight if he needed to bring the tracks into sharper relief. They startled a pair of moose who seemed to frown at them, then shuffled off.
“The setting sun and leaf litter on the ground aren’t helping,” he muttered. “I’m going to have to make a guess that the snowshoe would not go out into the open toward the lake, but try to find a hole again, some tundra ground. But I can tell Spenser is finally flagging.”
He stopped and heaved a huge sigh.
“Quinn, what is it? You haven’t lost their trail?” She peered around him. “What are those big five-toed tracks?”
“Bear,” he said, his voice breaking for a moment. “But not tracks laid down at the same time, I think.”
“You think?” she said, reaching forward to grip his arm.
“They veer off a different way, see? We’ll go on this way.”
He could see the slash of distant lake through the foliage. It was getting dark since the sun had dropped below the distant mountain. And despite the mid-August date and the fact he’d been sweating with exertion and nerves, the air was noticeably chilly as if the quickening breeze was breathing on them. He sensed Alex looking to the side now that they’d seen bear tracks.
“Quinn, what if the snowshoe eluded him, or Spenser gave up and was thirsty and headed for the lake? With his little legs, I’m not sure he could have run a lot farther. But I’m afraid he’s come far enough that he might not know his way back. Cats are much better at directional memory, but they can get lost, too, in strange surroundings, especially when everything looks alike.”
