Brotherhood Protectors: Soldier's Heart Part 2 (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Ilsa J. Blick

  Although their numbers varied from five to eight or nine depending on which members peeled off to hunt and bring back food, the large gray alpha male was always there, never far away from where he and Mac had made camp. Their presence didn’t bother him for the reasons wolves usually gave people the willies. Having read his share of Jack London when he was a kid and hunted as an adult, he knew how wolves operated, following a herd of elk or moose or a dog team and picking off the weakest members. He was certain normal wolves would’ve happily chowed down on him if he’d managed to off himself the way he’d planned. They’d have picked his carcass clean, dragged off bits and pieces, and scattered his remains—and good riddance.

  These wolves, however, didn’t seem interested in making a meal of his sorry ass, or Mac’s. In fact, just last night at dusk, he’d spotted them tearing into several very large rabbits. Seeing as how there was no game this high, pack members were hunting at the lower elevations and then bringing back what they caught.

  And that was odd.

  He took his eyes from the gray to a clearing where Mac worked at gathering wood. He felt a twinge of dismay that he’d resorted to this, following her instead of simply asking what was going on. Right now, Mac believed he was asleep, out cold when she’d slipped out of the tent they shared well before that first silver smudge showed on the eastern horizon.

  Except, here he was, hanging back with the wolves because, like them, he was really, really curious.

  #

  So, for starters, he mouthed the sleeper.

  Mac wasn’t trying to drug him. Well, he didn’t think she was. Being prepared and a combat medic to boot, Mac had a slew of pills: antibiotics, analgesics, stronger painkillers, and some sleepers. He’d needed the meds, too. His face and the right side of his scalp were a mess, the swelling and bruising so bad his right eye—which he was lucky to still have—was practically a slit. His head felt as if something had scuttled inside his skull only to get itself trapped and then decide a sledgehammer was the way to go.

  Anyway, what Mac had fed him knocked him out cold. He never knew or heard when she slipped into their tent or her sleeping bag at night. These last two mornings, he’d awakened to the clatter of pots, the crackle of a fire she’d managed to keep going even in the storm—that carry can she made from tin was a piece of genius—and the smell of fresh coffee. Staggering out of their tent to flounder through snow to their fire ring, he would discover she’d brought back enough wood in those few early morning hours to last the entire day.

  How the hell did she do that? She was strong and capable, but gathering dry wood in snow took a lot of energy and time, but she did it all on her own and by sunup. Except how? He asked, and she only gave him a one-shoulder shrug. Like, dude, you’re banged up as all shit, so don’t sweat it.

  But he did. Mac was a cipher, an itch he couldn’t scratch, the spiky burr of a question that clung to his brain. She was a puzzle over which he fretted precisely because he was banged up as all shit and mortified, to boot. Like, seriously, he practically makes himself into Two-Face, blasts off a good chunk of scalp, and he’s still alive? What sense did that make? Easier to wonder about the question mark that was Mac.

  So, finally, he cheeked the sleeper. Thanks to the painkillers, he’d dozed off anyway but woke at the soft hiss of a zipper being worked. Cracking his lids, he watched the hunched dark shadow that was Mac through his eyelashes as she ducked out. A few moments later, there came a thin squeal of snow protesting under her weight and then the shush of metal running up fabric as she sealed the outer flap. (The inner looked ripped, a trick considering the material was Kevlar. He hadn’t asked and Mac didn’t volunteer.) He lay rigid, practically holding his breath, until her footsteps faded.

  Head throbbing, he’d swarmed out of his bag, stopping for only a few seconds to swallow against a swoop of vertigo. Two days ago, the dizziness had been so bad, he’d barfed enough that the tiny blood vessels in the whites of his eyes burst. (The guy who stared back from the mirror looked as if he had a bad case of rabies.) It was only when he reached for a flashlight—in fact, knew where one would be because Mac always put theirs in the same spot, but he wished instead he could use the headlamp—that he realized.

  Just now, Mac had used no light to dress at all.

  Now, this wasn’t so odd. Mac kept a very neat and ordered tent. Backpack, clothes, her parka, the rest of her gear. Boots, always to the right of the tent’s entrance. Everything in its place. So, her getting ready in the dark wasn’t such a big deal. She was, after all, trying not to wake him.

  But then why no light once she was out and in the open? He thought back and yeah, he was pretty sure: no snick of a switch, no leap of a fuzzy beam.

  He could barely see his hand. He had to fumble to find anything.

  Mac simply walked off, with no headlamp or flashlight, into the dark. Like a fucking cat. Or a wolf.

  Eyeing those empty boots . . . odd, had she packed in a spare pair? . . . he debated. If he followed now, he would still have to hang back, follow her tracks, but all it would take was one misstep, the crack of a branch, or that peculiar prickle a person got when she knew she was being followed or watched, and she would know. He could visualize her turning a look over a shoulder and spotting the distant blue-white eye of a flashlight. He’d be blown.

  Damn it. He got himself dressed, and then he waited, counting out the minutes until the sky to the east brightened. When he finally headed out, he risked the light only once, to pick out her trail and for a quick sweep to the left where the pack normally overnighted. Just to see.

  Yup. Like Mac, the wolves had vanished.

  #

  After an hour and a half and about three miles heading downslope into denser forest, he heard the rhythmic hollow chock and echoes of a hatchet. The way was harder, the shadows thicker, and he crept along, following both her trail and the sound, though going almost by feel, skirting boulders and trees until he felt a change, a sort of opening up and pulling apart of the woods in a small clearing. If he’d had any doubt, the waiting wolves told him he had the right spot.

  Now, belly to the ground, he raised his head until his gaze only just skimmed a hump of rock.

  Mac was in profile, a dark-gray cutout against a grainy, bluing backdrop of woods and, through the grillwork of trees, the distant mountains. Straddling a Douglas fir that had fallen at some point in the past, she was studying the trunk, which was as big around as a person—with no light at all.

  His eyes came to rest on a neat stack of wood already bundled in a canvas carry. Two more piles lay nearby. She already had enough wood to last them most of the day. How did she do that? He remembered how steadily she’d wielded that hatchet, that rhythmic chock-chock-chock. Even with a headlamp, in this bad light he’d have been afraid of sinking a hatchet into a foot.

  Then, as he was puzzling over that, Mac did the weirdest thing.

  She cocked her right arm at the elbow. The sight stirred a strange swirl of déjà vu: working out in a gym, bracing himself on a bench, doing deadlifts to build up his triceps.

  For a second, Mac hung there, arm cocked, fingers stiff, her right hand like a blade. Then she jabbed straight down, pistoning fast—and he couldn’t help it. He flinched. A gasp jumped from his mouth. He felt this insane urge to jump to his feet and start screaming, Are you nuts? Are you crazy? You want to break every bone in your—

  There was a hollow thuck and then a high, squawww as the trunk splintered.

  My God. Gabriel’s heart lurched. She did that with her hand, with her bare hand! Dumbfounded, he watched as Mac pulled an enormous fist of punk wood from the guts of the tree which she then stuffed into a carry sack at her waist.

  Holy shit. The first night they met, he’d thought her handshake had been strong principally for show, a signal for him not to mess with her. When he pulled her off the rocks, he’d thought it was a miracle she’d hung on, that right hand taking her weight. No one could do that for more than a few minutes. B
ut Mac did. Now, as she jammed her hand into the tree again, he thought she could probably punch through his ribs and take out his heart, if she had a mind.

  Maybe the wind shifted, or he made some sound, but, at that moment, her head came up fast. Her body tensed, went rigid as if on high alert, and then she cocked her head in that odd cant he’d seen often, up and to her left as if listening to something. He had a scant second where he thought, good, he was home-free; something else had grabbed her attention.

  Until she began to turn, slowly, inexorably—towards him.

  It was eerie. For a split second, fascinated, he could only gawp at the way her head swiveled on the stalk of her neck. It was a little robotic, mechanical, as if she were some kind of human antennae. He could imagine her quivering, all her senses prickling and sparking. At the last second, he ducked down behind the rock and held his breath.

  “Gabriel.”

  Shit. All the hairs on his neck bristled. There was no anger in her tone or even a hard edge. There was no question, either.

  She knows you’re here. He should show himself. But then what? What could he say? I was curious? Gosh, Mac, betcha got a mean right hook. Hey, ever do a little karate, chop-chop?

  “Gabriel.”

  Don’t be such a goddamned coward. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He’d followed her and then he’d . . . well, he’d not shown himself, had he? No, he’d spied on this woman who’d been nothing but good and kind and generous. Brave, too. What kind of excuse could he possibly offer? If their situations were reversed, he might be tempted to tie someone like him up, march him out of the woods at gunpoint. You didn’t risk your life for a guy who snuck around like a thief.

  Straining past the hard thump of his heart, he listened for her footsteps, the crackle of a branch, the squeak of snow . . . but, no, he thought that when a woman like Mac finally came for you, she would do so efficiently, economically, as silently as a shadow—or a wolf.

  Warmed by the advancing day, a soft sough of air sighed through the trees. If the wolves moved, he couldn’t tell. Mac didn’t call again, though, a few moments later, his heart stammered to a stop at a loud crack that sounded like a gunshot in a small room but was, instead, a tree limb snapping. He didn’t need to look to know this, either. He could imagine her, wrapping that right hand of hers around thick wood and giving it a sharp, hard yank. In fact, he remembered now that very first night when they’d met, she’d had a stout limb in hand.

  If she wants, she can probably beat you to death. His gun was back at camp. Even if he’d been packing, he bet he’d either miss or never get off a shot off. Maybe he deserved that, too. Get his brains bashed in or his head ripped off because he was such a failure, a fuck-up, and no one worth dying for.

  He waited, head down, eyes glued to the snow, his pulse loud as a timpani in his ears.

  At that instant, the earth twitched under his belly.

  What the hell? A gasp tried to escape, but he caught it behind his teeth. The sensation was odd, a judder that felt exactly like sitting in a D-box seat in a movie theater designed to put you in the center of the action. All around, tongues of snow slipped from the trees to land with muted thumps. Small bits of ice showered over his head and shoulders and face. To his immediate right, a small river of pebbles jounced down a cleft and, from farther left, there came a sharp yip of alarm from a wolf.

  Tremor. The area was lousy with slides. He’d felt a trembling the night of the storm, too, but it was fast, a jerk, there and gone so quickly he almost didn’t register. He had no idea how long this lasted but thought it couldn’t be more than five, six seconds.

  When it was over, he lay there, waiting, listening. Everything was so still, as if the woods had inhaled in a sudden gasp and had yet to let go. He slipped a look to his left, but from that angle, he couldn’t see the wolves. Even if the others had bolted, he’d bet the alpha male was still there.

  A few moments later, another crack shattered the stillness as Mac snapped off another limb.

  It was like a signal for the world to start up again, or maybe he had because he became aware of a faint twitter, the distant caw of a crow. There was another crack and then another and another and still more, and then the chock-chock of her hatchet.

  After another minute or two and under the cover of the noise, he slid back from the rock and low-crawled the way he’d come. When he thought he was far enough away, he made his feet and began to retrace his steps upslope.

  That was when he heard a distant but distinctive crack that was not the sound of a tree breaking. For one thing, it came from the wrong direction, not behind but very far to his left. He listened to the echoes die. No doubt about it, either. That wasn’t Mac.

  Rifle. Someone shooting at something and, he thought, from somewhere below this ridge. Which direction, though? His map was back at camp, but he had studied his route often enough. If he was right, that shot came from east of here. What was out there? Closing his eyes, he pulled up an image of the map in his mind. There were feeder trails that eventually looped down to skirt Chaney Peak. Dead Man lay in that general direction, too. Interesting. Someone trying to hike into the ghost—

  He lurched, suddenly, as something—someone?—gave him a hard, fast shove in the back.

  What the hell? Startled, forgetting that he was supposed to be sneaking away, he spun round, fist bunched and cocked because, yeah, it felt like that: the shove of some pissed-off guy who didn’t like the way you’d been looking at his lady.

  There was no one.

  What is wrong with you? Panting, he forced his fingers to unfurl. It’s just you and Mac and the damn wolves.

  Yet something stirred from a memory. He had a sense he’d felt this before. When? The harder he tried to grab, the slipperier and more garbled the memory was. Something about the cold and that night on the rocks? Was that when—

  From below and deep in the bowl of trees came a faint chock.

  What an idiot. He rubbed his left temple. His skull was pulsing with pain. He’d only tripped over a hidden root. Or the ground had shifted in a quick aftershock. Sneaking a hand to his back, he probed, expecting . . . what? A swelling? A widdle boy owie?

  You moron. With that gunshot, Mac would be on her way back double-quick, too. He needed to be in their tent when she arrived.

  Jesus, he needed something for his head.

  3

  “I don’t like leaving you here alone.” They were out for one last romp with the dogs. Hank swaggered downslope rather than walked, stabbing the snow-shrouded slope with one of two ski poles they’d unearthed. “Especially not if people are shooting again.”

  Scuffling alongside in their second set of Tubbs, Sarah snorted. “Come on, Hank, it was one shot, and that was hours ago. Bet you good money, what we heard was part of a mountain letting go.” Ahead, Daisy scampered after Soldier down the same trail Hank and the dogs had broken that morning. As the little dog darted back and sprinted a quick circle to nip at Soldier’s tail, Sarah felt her mouth tug into a grin. That dog was going to get herself clobbered, if she kept that up. “Hank, it’s just too much of a coincidence that we get shots at the start of the storm and now after it lets up—and it was only one, anyway.”

  “Mmmm. I’d maybe agree except for the fact that rifles sound like rifles, and, now, with no snow coming down, maybe one shot was all it took. That shot sounded closer, too.”

  This, she knew. After the tremor passed, she’d decided to run to the outhouse. That sudden crack had startled her so much, she’d had to sit there five minutes before her bladder would cooperate. “Proving only that they’re moving out of the Black Wolf. Stop worrying, Hank.” The sooner she could get him to relax, the sooner he’d be on his way down to Lonesome. Besides, the talk was going easier between them, nothing fraught. If she could rein in her hurt and feelings of betrayal, he’d soon be on his way and none the wiser. In just two more bends, they’d be at the trailhead, and she could wave good-bye.

  As Daisy worried Soldier
’s tail again, she decided to change the subject. “By the way, thanks for that thing you did for Daisy. I’m not sure Soldier would agree, but I’m impressed.”

  “It’s a good trick. Works best when the snow’s wet like this. Dry powder, not so much. Works on the same principle as waxing skis, except we’re talking Vaseline on the dog’s paws instead. I think it was the ice building between her toes that bothered her.”

  “Great, so now she can be full of piss and vinegar constantly.” A very tiny part of her was a little irked this was something they’d never covered in vet school. “You always been such a dog whisperer?”

  “We had lots of dogs, but”—he offered a one-shouldered shrug—“I guess it was just something I picked up along the way. I like animals. When I bought the old ranch I’m on now, I had ideas about keeping a couple horses at least. Haven’t gotten around to it, but I might come spring.”

  “What’s different now?”

  “Our boy.” Hank gestured at Soldier, prancing ahead. “I figure you’ll be coming through often enough I can get some free advice. Speaking of which, what do you want me to do about his search and rescue training after you head back to Kalispell? I can keep it up if you want. Might not be a bad thing, anyway, considering my job. The department might even spring for additional training. Whenever we do search and rescue, we call in folks like Josie and her people. Be nice if we had a couple dogs of our own. That would probably save time in an emergency, too.”

  “Ah. Well, to be honest, I don’t know. This is my first year training Soldier, but I think snow search and rescue focuses more on avalanches.”

  “Well, we get more of what we felt this morning, we’ll get plenty of avalanches this season. That one this morning felt longer than most. You clock it?”