She laughs. "If that means, 'Ah, so you two are an item,' the answer is a resounding no. Eric's a little young for me. And a little moody. A little difficult. A little demanding. A whole lot of other things, as you may have noticed." She hesitates before we sit. "You aren't interested in him, are you?"
"After that glowing recommendation?"
She smiles and shakes her head. "Eric's a good friend. As a romantic partner, though? I ... really wouldn't go there, Casey."
"I'm not. Believe me."
She nods. "Good. Lots of women like the bad boys ... then they realize Eric's not bad--he's just cranky."
I laugh.
"He's a good-looking guy, so he gets more than his share of attention. Rumour has it that when he was young, he took full advantage. These days, though, he's a lot more discreet. Given his position, it's difficult to get close to anyone." She goes quiet, her expression thoughtful, a little sad. Then she gives her head a sharp shake. "If you're looking for company, I'd turn toward Rockton's most eligible bachelor: Deputy Anders. Looks, personality, and a sweet, sweet guy. Who has definitely taken notice of you."
"Thanks, but I'm not looking. I ..." I finger my necklace from Kurt.
"Left someone behind?"
"Kind of. But as a friend, Will seems great."
"He is, and if you're happy with that, he'll be, too. That's the thing about nice guys. Now back to lunch. If you're five minutes late, you'll hear it from the boss."
Thirteen
"We're going for a ride," Dalton says as I walk into the station.
"ATV?"
"Horse."
"I'd prefer ATV."
"Stables, Butler."
I salute. "Yes, sir."
We head out. He says nothing until we're halfway to the stables. Then, "You're happy today. Found what you wanted, I take it?"
"Maybe."
He nods. "You can tell me on the ride."
"Mmm, you said not to trust anyone."
"I think I like you better when you're not in a mood."
"This isn't a mood."
"Yeah, it is. A good one. Normally, you don't have a mood at all. You're just there."
"I'll ignore that jab, since I'm in a good mood."
"It's not a jab; it's an observation. And you are going to tell me what you found, because I'm your boss. That's why we're taking the horses, not the ATVs. So we can talk. Also, so we don't scare off the ravens."
"Ravens?"
"Hunting party spotted a flock of ravens." He pauses. "Which, technically, is an unkindness."
"What?"
"Murder of crows. Unkindness of ravens. And they can be pretty damned unkind if they're scavenging something, which they seemed to be doing."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
Our route takes us toward the mountain, and I ask him about a rodent that darts across the increasingly rocky path. He says it's a pika, also known as a rock rabbit, coney, or whistling hare. He even stops, so I can hear the noise it's making--more of a loud "meep" than a whistle. Dalton says it's warning us off its territory. I ask what other rodents are local, and that gets him talking as we ride, about wood rats and flying squirrels and marmots and others.
"We're in a good spot for wildlife here," he says. "Fly another hour north and you're into the Arctic. And you'd better not have been taking an interest to distract me from asking what new information you got from Beth."
"I wasn't. I am interested."
"Good. Did you find any sign Irene's story wasn't legit?"
I move aside a branch. "What?"
"That's what you were looking for, right? Evidence that she'd been abused. Skeletal evidence, I'm guessing, since the soft tissue damage would be long healed." When I hesitate, he says, "No, Beth didn't tell me what you talked about. It's a deduction."
"Remind me why you needed a detective?"
"Because I'm not the one who thought to check."
"Did you 'deduce' my theory, too?"
"Yeah, but that would be showing off."
"In other words, you didn't."
"Harry Powys was involved in selling illegal organs. Jerry Hastings may have murdered his mother for his inheritance. You were checking on the possibility Irene was also here under false pretences."
"Okay, you did figure it out."
He lifts a hand, telling me to stop, and he scans the forest. Then he waves for us to take the left fork on the path.
"That is your theory, then," he says as we continue.
"It's a starting point. The problem is not knowing how many people were smuggled in. The fact that three of the four victims fit that profile might be no more significant than three having the same colour hair. That's presuming there's a connection between the victims at all."
He's nodding. Then he stops and tilts his head, and I catch the croak of a bird.
He motions for me to dismount. We tie the horses to trees. His gelding--Blaze--starts pulling at grass, unperturbed. Cricket looks around, as if to say, I don't want to stop. I rub her neck and pull an apple from my pack and she decides maybe a break isn't such a bad idea.
I spot a raven then. People from the east often look at big crows and think they're ravens, but seeing one now, I don't know how we make that mistake. The raven is the size of a hawk. It's black from its beak to its feet. That beak is thick and curved. Its neck is different, too--thick with shaggy feathers.
Dalton says, "Yukon raven." Then, "Technically, it's still a common raven, but they get bigger up here. Territorial bird."
"So steer clear."
He looks over as if confused, and then says, "Nah, I mean it's the Yukon Territory's symbolic bird."
"Duh, right. I knew that."
Dalton waves for me to fall in behind him. I unzip my jacket and push it back, exposing my holstered gun. He has his in his hand. He takes another step. Then his hand shoots up as a snarl reverberates through the forest.
I see what he does and ... and I have no idea what I'm looking at. It's like a small bear with stunted legs. The beast bares its fangs as it stands its ground, snarling and spitting.
"Do you see a kill?" he whispers.
I look across the clearing. "No." Then I spot something. "There's ... I don't know what it is, but something's hanging from that tree. I think there's blood. But whatever it is, it's up high."
Dalton grunts. Then he shouts, loud enough that I jump. The creature waddles off, throwing snarls over its shoulder.
"What the hell was that?" I ask.
"Wolverine," he says. "Also known as a skunk bear, carajou, quickhatch ..."
"Wolverine? Like the X-Men?"
He frowns at me.
"Sorry," I say. "Pop culture reference. So that's what they look like in real life. Not nearly as scary as the comic book version."
"They're scary enough if you interrupt them at a kill. Pound for pound, they're the nastiest bastards out here. They can take on a wolf and win, no contest, because a wolverine doesn't know when to give up. They keep fighting until someone's dead."
"Dangerous to humans, then."
"Not lethally." He puts his gun away. "Unless you were wounded and it was really hungry. Course, most times they're really hungry. Their Latin name is Gulo gulo. Gulo means glutton."
"Ah."
"You don't want to mess with them. Chances are, though, that's the only one you'll see while you're here."
Dalton peers into the clearing, and his gaze returns to that thing in the tree. He strides toward it.
As I scan the clearing, I see the sunlight glimmer in a way it shouldn't glimmer off anything in a forest. Dalton lifts his foot over a metal bear trap, and I lunge. An eye blink later, he's on his back and I'm crouched over him.
He says nothing. Just lifts his head to look around, as if being randomly knocked to the ground is perfectly normal. Then he spots what he almost stepped in and whispers, "Fuck." I ease off him and rise.
Dalton crouches beside the rusty bear trap. As he's examining it, I ask, "Would that
be settlers? Or do other trappers come through here?"
"The odd hunter, trapper, miner," he says without looking up.
"Miner?"
"There's still gold. Mostly in the rivers. Our locals pan for fun during fishing trips."
He glances at me then, as if expecting a response, and I'm thinking it might be fun to pan for gold. But it seems a little silly, so instead I say, "Don't you worry about these outside miners or trappers stumbling on Rockton?"
He grunts and turns back to the trap, and I think he's not going to answer, but then he says, "There are almost five hundred thousand square kilometres of wilderness in the Yukon. Rockton is less than one square kilometre. Our patrols sometimes get wind of people passing through, but trappers and miners are like bears. If they hear us, they steer clear. Even if they did find the town, we'd pass it off as a commune. People up here mind their own business." He gets to his feet. "This trap, though? It's ours."
"You put out unmarked--"
"Fuck, no. I mean it's an old one of ours. Stolen. Folks out here take our stuff when they find it."
"The hostiles?"
"Everyone out here."
The way he says it makes me scan the forest again, as if it's swarming with hermits and settlers and hostiles.
He sets off the trap with a stick. "Too bad it didn't catch that wolverine. Meat tastes like shit, but the fur repels frost. Good for lining a parka."
"You had your gun pointed at it."
"If it attacked, sure. Otherwise, shooting it wouldn't be fair. I don't need the pelt. Just would have been nice." He looks over at me. "I should say thanks, too. Excellent reflexes. I'll admit, when you told me that, I thought you were full of crap."
"Now you know why I don't carry my gun."
"I'll still argue the point, but I'll accept yours. For now. We'll work on it, retrain your brain to react in a way that doesn't involve firing a gun. And I need to work on paying more attention. I usually do, but ..." His gaze returns to the tree.
"What the hell is that?" I ask.
"No idea."
It looks like a length of thick rope. It's been nailed to the trunk, maybe ten feet up. Claw gouges in the bark say that's what the wolverine was trying to reach, but it was too high. Presumably, it's what the ravens were after, too, but the position would have made it awkward to get at, though I see peck marks where they've tried.
I take another step. Then I stop as my stomach lurches.
"Intestines," I say.
"What?"
"It's--"
"Fuck. Yeah. I see now."
He moves closer, his gaze on the ground, watching every step until he's at the tree. I'm beside him, both of us looking up at about eighteen inches of intestine hanging from the trunk.
KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the internationally bestselling author of the thirteen-book Women of the Otherworld series, the Nadia Stafford crime novels and a new series set in the fictional town of Cainsville, Illinois, which includes the novels Omens, Visions and Deceptions. She is also the author of three bestselling young adult trilogies, and the YA suspense thriller, The Masked Truth. She lives in rural Ontario.
City of the Lost: Part Three Page 8
