by Jadyn Chase
He snorted. “What would be the not-smart thing to do?”
I couldn’t stop grinning at him like a fool. “I guess the not-smart thing would be to keep talking to you about not much of anything important.”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I could leave. That would give you the space to concentrate on your….”
“No!” I cried out a lot louder than I intended. “Don’t.”
His eyes widened. “You don’t want to do your work?”
“No. It’s lonely out here.”
“I didn’t bring any cards or poker chips,” he pointed out. “Sorry.”
My cheeks flushed brighter and hotter. “That’s okay. I don’t want to play poker.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Just….” I shrugged and looked around at nothing. “Just hang out and talk to me.”
He burst into a grin and strolled into my camp. “All right. If you want me to.”
He sat down next to the tree and crossed his legs under him. He surveyed the campsite with mild disinterest.
I observed him from a distance for a minute. He looked even more appealing than last night, but for some reason, I just couldn’t place him out here in the middle of the forest. He didn’t seem to fit, even though he said he came from Whistler’s Gulch.
I eased toward him. He smiled up at me, the picture of innocence. At last, I sat down next to him and set my tablet aside. “You said you were helping your relatives build a barn.”
“Yep. My uncle lives on this side of the mountain with his family. My Ma and Pop live around the other side.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” Don’t ask me why I pursued that line of questioning. Now that I said I wanted to talk, I found myself floundering to keep the conversation alive.
“I have a brother and three sisters,” he replied. “My sisters are all married and living elsewhere. My brother still lives at home.”
“What about your uncle? What does he do over on this side of the mountain?” I asked.
“He runs his ranch and tries to make a living.” He grinned at me again. “He has his hands full keeping my cousins out of trouble.”
“Do you get into a lot of trouble, too?” I asked.
“Me?” His hand flew to his heart. “Never! I’m a good boy.”
I burst out laughing. “Yeah, right.”
“You’re the gambling shark around here,” he accused. “Does your Mama know you’re out fleecing all the guys in smoking bars?”
“No, I keep it a secret from her.”
He wagged his finger in my face. “I suspected as much.”
I beamed at him even more. “It was my Daddy who taught me how to gamble.”
“Oh!” he crowed. “Now the truth comes out. So what does he think of what you’ve become? I’ll bet he doesn’t approve.”
My smile evaporated. “He died three years ago.”
Wyatt spun around and blinked at me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I was just joking around.”
“It’s all right,” I tell him. “I don’t mind.”
He peered up into the canopy. “I should probably get going. I’m supposed to be at work right now.”
I jumped to my feet. “Do you have to go so soon? You just got here.”
“Yeah, I have to go, but I’ll throw you a bone anyway.” He pointed across the valley. “There’s another cluster of bats over there. They have another cave system in those rocks. I could show you where they are and you could record them, too—if you don’t have to leave right away, that is.”
“Really? That would be great. I appreciate it.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow.” He started moving away. “If you give me your number, I’ll call you in the morning and take you over there. Then you can set up and record them tomorrow night.”
I eyed him sidelong. Was this a ploy to get my number? He blinked back at me without a trace of guile. What the heck? I wanted to give him my number anyway. I scribbled it on a leaf of my notebook and handed it to him. “Here you go.”
He broke into a broad grin. “Perfect. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
4
Wyatt
I finished hammering the last nail into the shingles and hopped to the ground from the barn roof. I slipped my hammer into my tool belt and crossed the yard to the water trough. I submerged my head and came up dripping wet.
Water saturated my t-shirt and cooled the sweat all over me. I shook the droplets out of my hair and wrung my shirt into the trough. My brother Adrian came over and scooped water into his mouth with both hands.
“Come on and get in the truck,” he told me. “Ma told us to be home by six. Audrey and Simon are coming for dinner.”
“You go ahead,” I replied. “I’m sticking around here tonight.”
Adrian’s head shot up. “You’ll miss dinner.”
“I know.” I unbuckled my tool belt and hung it on a nail in the barn. “I’m staying here tonight.”
Adrian gasped out loud. “What for? Pop will tan your hide when he catches you.”
“I doubt that. I’m too old to have my hide tanned by him or anybody else, and I have something more important to do.”
“Something more important than seeing Audrey and Simon?” He shook his head. “You’re asking for it.”
I turned away. “Tell Pop I’ll explain everything the next time I see him, but I’m not coming home tonight. If he still wants to tan my hide when he finds out what’s going on, I’ll bend over for him myself.”
Adrian cocked his head to study me. “This isn’t like you.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “I found out something yesterday. It’s important I follow it up. Pop will understand.”
“What about Ma?” he asked. “Will she understand?”
“Maybe not, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. You take off. I’ll see you over here tomorrow morning.”
I stood back by the trees and drive away in his truck. I didn’t like letting my parents down, but meeting Piper raised too many questions to leave hanging.
For a start, no dragon should have been down in Whistler’s Gulch at that time of night. If one of the Kellys went down there, I would have known about it. I might have been inclined to brush it off the way Piper did, but the video footage didn’t lie. The tracks all over the place confirmed it.
If one of the Kellys had some cockamamie reason to go lurking around Whistler’s Gulch in the middle of the night, he would have done it in his human form. He sure as blazes wouldn’t go flying around as a dragon scaring biologists out of their wits.
That meant that strange dragon came from out of the area. I could think of only one Clan reckless enough to intrude on another Clan’s territory. Clan Lynch waged one war after another against the Kellys with countless dead. They signed one worthless neutrality agreement after another, only to violate them with another incursion and another bloody massacre.
Just when we put them down hard for what we hoped would be the last time, they came up with some new brainless scheme to steal our land. If one of them was hiding in Whistler’s Gulch, he must be up to no good.
Too bad I didn’t recognize him on the video feed. We killed so many Lynches these last few years, I didn’t even know sure who their Clan Chief was anymore.
One thing I could be sure of, though. If the stranger realized Piper got him on video, she would be in serious danger herself. The Lynches would go to extreme measures, not only to hide their presence from the Kellys but to erase any evidence of their existence that might leak to the wider human world.
I didn’t tell Piper that, though. Better for her to think she imagined it all. Better for her to convince herself that image on her tablet was nothing more than an oversized bat that accidentally flew too close to the camera. In the meantime, I would just take a stroll down the mountain after sunset and see what was what.
I stopped by the house and stuffed an apple in my pants pocket. I meandered down the hil
l at an easy pace. I didn’t want to get too close to Piper’s campsite in daylight—not that I thought she would catch wind of my presence. I could hide in the forest with the bears and the panthers so she would never see me.
I inched my way down the mountain, but I made sure to keep my distance until the sun started to go down. I ate my apple and buried the core under a rock. By the time the shadows lengthened, I crept within sight of Piper’s campsite.
She worked over her camp stove and cooked a pot of soup. She flipped the pages in her notebook and jotted down new stuff. Then she collected everything into a pile and packed everything into her backpack. She appeared to be getting ready to leave.
A queer, aching sensation stabbed me in the guts. I didn’t want her to go. None of the Kellys on Smokey Ridge ever enjoyed the luxury of spending time alone, but the few hours I spent with her struck me as different. I never really craved company the way I craved hers.
Talking to her flowed so easily. I found myself smiling at her and trading ideas with her in an effortless exchange that resembled no other interaction of my life. Not even my own sisters made me enjoy talking the way Piper did.
I fought down the urge to barge into the open and talk to her right now. I wanted her eyes to seek me out the way they did in the bar. I wanted to make her laugh and see the color wash over her cheeks and know that I elicited that reaction from her.
She stirred her soup and sucked her spoon while she read her notebook. Out of nowhere, a branch snapped behind her. She bolted upright and whipped around to look in that direction, but she didn’t see anything. She scanned the forest for anyone or anything stalking her before she went back to what she was doing.
She ate her meal and cleaned her cooking pot and bowl. She packed up everything in her backpack until nothing remained of her campsite. She was definitely leaving. My heart wrenched. Did she plan to vacate without meeting me tomorrow? Maybe she only gave me her number to be polite.
When her backpack lay alone on the ground, she took her phone and tablet and made tracks for her cameras. The sky darkened and she huddled behind a bush. I found a hiding place a few dozen yards away and crouched down to watch. I spent enough time in the woods to know how to hide without being seen.
I kept an eye on her until the bats came out of their holes. They flew around the sky hunting insects. Piper sat in her hiding place and monitored them on her tablet screen.
I inched backward making sure to avoid making the slightest sound. I retreated several dozen yards away before I dared to stand up straight. From here, I could make out the unearthly glow of the screen, but I couldn’t see any bats against the black sky.
I circled the site with every sense on alert. If one or more of the Lynches was out here, they would return to the spot where they found Piper. They would interfere with her studies somehow and try to destroy the evidence of their existence.
My one ace in the hole was that they didn’t know about me. They didn’t know I found out about them snooping.
I skirted Piper’s location in widening concentric circles, but I didn’t see any sign of dragons. I stopped every few paces to listen and smell the wind. I crept back to Piper’s position to check on her, but she hadn’t moved.
I hung around for several hours. After a while, she put her tablet away and went back to the spot where she packed up her camp. She took out her sleeping bag and got into it. Darkness and silence descended over the forest. She lay still and didn’t move.
I hid nearby for another two hours, just to make sure no one surprised her. No dragons came. The bats flapped back to their holes and the sky lightened. There wasn’t any more reason for me to stick around.
I dragged my heels heading up the hill toward the barn. I experienced one more time the lingering attraction to stay near her even if she didn’t know I was there. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to watch her sleeping bag rise and fall with her steady breath. I wanted to watch over her and make sure nothing disturbed her.
I found Adrian waiting for me at the barn. He wagged his forefinger in my face. “You are in so much trouble.”
“Not as much trouble as I’m going to be, I’m sure.” I buckled on my toolbelt and turned to work.
Adrian gaped at me from behind. “Don’t you want to know what Ma and Pop said about you not showing up?”
“Not really.” I took out a nail and pounded it in.
He opened his mouth to say something when my phone vibrated. The screen read, Unknown Number. I opened the message. Hi, Wyatt. It’s Piper from the Watering Hole. Are you still willing to show me where to find those other bats today? Can we meet at the junction between Road 10 and the Southern Turnpike?
I slotted my hammer into its loop and grinned at the phone. “What are you doing?” Adrian asked.
I unclipped my toolbelt. “I’m taking the day off. See you later.”
I made tracks for the driveway. Adrian called after me. “Hey! What are you gonna tell Uncle Isaac?”
I didn’t answer. I was too busy sending a return text. I’ll be there at nine o’clock. Send.
I skipped down the mountain with my heart as light as a feather. She really wanted to meet me. I could turn this into the best day of my life. It would take me hours to show her the other flock of bats and their holes. Then she had the rest of the day off before she needed to record them. I could get all kinds of close to her in that time.
I let the barn and work and my family fall out of my head. I was going to see her again. A thrill of excitement ate away at my insides on my way to the junction.
5
Piper
I almost lost my nerve when Wyatt’s text came back accepting my invitation to meet at the junction. Was I really going to go through with this? All the advice said never to meet a strange guy anywhere away from people, especially not miles from town on a deserted country road where you don’t know anybody and nobody knows where you are.
Now I was going to do exactly that, but my heart fluttered in anticipation, not fear. Something about him told me he could never hurt me, even though he was big enough and strong enough to hurt somebody.
I put my backpack in my rented Jeep and puttered out to the junction early. I parked and got out my phone to while away the time until he came, but I couldn’t help glancing over my shoulder at the woods.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching me, stalking me, sneaking up on me from behind. I sensed it all night last night, even though I never saw anything besides the bats.
I kept expecting to see those red eyes glaring at me from out of the dark. I never experienced anything like it before on all the nights I spent in the field. I jumped at the slightest sound and shrank from shadows. This wasn’t like me at all.
Daylight didn’t help matters, either. That creeping sensation should have dissipated with the rising sun, but it only intensified. I imagined eyes peering out at me from behind every tree trunk. I wasn’t safe anywhere in these woods.
To my surprise, Wyatt drove up right away. He parked a battered old Jeep next to mine and shot me a cocky grin. “You’re early.”
“So are you,” I fired back. “What’s the matter? Don’t you have anything better to do than to meet lonely biologists on vacant mountain roads?”
“Anything better to do than to meet you? No, I don’t.” He hopped out of his Jeep and bounced into mine. “Let’s go.”
I blinked at him. “What? Now?”
“Do you know a better time?”
I shrugged and hit the gas. I motored onto the main road. Wyatt pointed to the left. “That way.”
I followed his directions, and that awful feeling of something lurking in the woods waiting for me drifted away behind me. I was sitting in the seat next to him. He demanded all my concentration—beyond driving, of course.
He directed me around the mountain. I lost track of where he took me until he said, “Park over there.”
I parked. The minute the Jeep stopped, he got out and st
arted for the trees. “Hey, wait a minute!” I called. “Where are you going?”
“To show you the bat holes,” he returned over his shoulder. “Isn’t that the whole point of this expedition?”
“Yeah, but….” I stammered getting my map kit and GPS unit out of the back.
“Yeah but what?” he asked. “You study bats, don’t you? I’m showing you the bats.”
I checked my watch. “It’s a little early, isn’t it? It’s not even nine o’clock.”
“What did you think you were going to do?” He cracked another one of those wild grins. “Did you think we would sit around discussing the meaning of life while we waited for nightfall?”
My cheeks colored so I had to look away. “Not exactly.”
He strode back to where I stood. “Look. If you want to discuss the meaning of life or whatever, we can go up there after I show you the holes. We can look out over the mountains and talk about anything you want. Now come on. You won’t see any bats at this time of day, but at least you can document where their holes are for later tonight. Isn’t that what you usually do?”
He walked away into the undergrowth without waiting for an answer. Why did he have to be so damned right? What did I come out here for if not to study bats? Well, I didn’t need him to study bats, did I? I might not be able to find this new conclave without his help, but I already got more footage than I planned. I didn’t need to hang around.
I did it to spend time with him, and he knew that as well as I did. I wouldn’t have texted him otherwise. I fooled myself into thinking I could keep that little nugget to myself. I should have known he’d be astute enough to pick up on it.
I slung my kit over my shoulder and hurried after him. I came upon him smashing his way through dense undergrowth to a clearing next to a tiny stream. No one would ever have known this was here.
Grassy banks lined the trickle of water singing over rocks and snarls of deadwood. The sun danced through the canopy and sparkled on the turbulent ruffles. It created a little pocket of beauty in this forbidding wilderness.
