Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse #4)(51)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Sam was there, and I was so glad to see him I almost began crying again. Sam was the best boss I’d ever had, and a friend, and he always came when I was in trouble. His red-gold hair was covered with a bright orange knit cap, and he wore bright orange gloves, too. His heavy brown jacket looked somber in contrast, and like all of the men, he was wearing work boots. You didn’t go out in the woods, even in winter, with ankles unprotected. Snakes were slow and sluggish, but they were there, and they’d retaliate if you stepped on them.

Somehow the presence of all these people made Jason’s disappearance seem that much more terrifying. If all these people believed Jason might be out in the woods, dead or badly wounded, he might be. Despite every sensible thing I could tell myself, I grew more and more afraid. I had a few minutes of blanking out on the scene entirely while I imagined all the things that could have happened to Jason, for maybe the hundredth go-round.

Sam was standing beside me, when I could hear and see again. He’d pulled off a glove, and his hand found mine and clasped it. His felt warm and hard, and I was glad to be holding on to him. Sam, though a shifter, knew how to aim his thoughts at me, though he couldn’t "hear" mine in return. Do you really believe he’s out there? he asked me.

I shook my head. Our eyes met and held.

Do you think he’s still alive?

That was a lot harder. Finally, I just shrugged. He kept hold of my hand, and I was glad of it.

Arlene and Tack scrambled out of Arlene’s car and came toward us. Arlene’s hair was as bright red as ever, but quite a bit more snarled than she usually wore it, and the short-order cook needed to shave. So he hadn’t started keeping a razor at Arlene’s yet, was the way I read it.

"Did you see Tara?" Arlene asked.

"No."

"Look." She pointed, as surreptitiously as you can, and I saw Tara in jeans and rubber boots that came up to her knees. She looked as unlike the meticulously groomed clothing-store proprietor as I could imagine, though she was wearing an adorable fake-fur hat of white and brown that made you want to go up and stroke her head. Her coat matched the hat. So did her gloves. But from the waist down, Tara was ready for the woods. Jason’s friend Dago was staring at Tara with the stunned look of the newly smitten. Holly and Danielle had come, too, and since Danielle’s boyfriend wasn’t around, the search party was turning out to have an unexpected social side.

Maxine Fortenberry and two other women from her church had let down the tailgate of Maxine’s husband’s old pickup, and there were several thermoses containing coffee set up there, along with disposable cups, plastic spoons, and packages of sugar. Six dozen doughnuts steamed up the long boxes they’d been packed in. A large plastic trash can, already lined with a black bag, stood ready. Theses ladies knew how to throw a search party.

I couldn’t believe all this had been organized in the space of a few hours. I had to take my hand from Sam’s to fish out a tissue and mop my face with it. I would have expected Arlene to come, but the presence of Holly and Danielle was just about stunning, and Tara’s attendance was even more surprising. She wasn’t a search-the-woods kind of woman. Kevin Pryor didn’t have much use for Jason, but here he was, with a map and pad and pencil, organizing away.

I caught Holly’s eye, and she gave me a sad sort of smile, the kind of little smile you gave someone at a funeral.

Just then Kevin banged the plastic trash can lid against the tailgate of the truck, and when everyone’s attention was on him, he began to give directions for the search. I hadn’t realized Kevin could be so authoritative; on most occasions, he was overshadowed by his clingy mother, Jeneen, or his oversized partner, Kenya. You wouldn’t catch Kenya out in the woods looking for Jason, I reflected, and just then I spotted her and had to swallow my own thoughts. In sensible gear, she was leaning against the Fortenberrys’ pickup, her brown face absolutely expressionless. Her stance suggested that she was Kevin’s enforcer – that she’d move or speak only if he were challenged in some way. Kenya knew how to project silent menace; I’ll give her that. She would throw a bucket of water on Jason if he were on fire, but her feelings for my brother were certainly not overwhelmingly positive. She’d come because Kevin was volunteering. As Kevin divided people up into teams, her dark eyes left him only to scan the faces of the searchers, including mine. She gave me a slight nod, and I gave her the same.

"Each group of five has to have a rifleman," Kevin called. "That can’t be just anybody. It has to be someone who’s spent time out in the woods hunting." The excitement level rose to the boiling point with this directive. But after that, I didn’t listen to the rest of Kevin’s instructions. I was still tired from the day before, for one thing; what an exceptionally full day it had been. And the whole time, in the background, my fear for my brother had been nagging and eating at me. I’d been woken early this morning after a long night, and here I was standing in the cold outside my childhood home, waiting to participate in a touching wild goose chase – or at least I hoped it was a wild goose chase. I was too dazed to judge any more. A chill wind began to gust through the clearing around the house, making the tears on my cheeks unbearably cold.

Sam put his arms around me, though in our coats it was quite awkward. It seemed to me I could feel the warmth of him even through all the material.

"You know we won’t find him out there," he whispered to me.

"I’m pretty sure we won’t," I said, sounding anything but certain.

Sam said, "I’ll smell him if he’s out there."

That was so practical.

I looked up at him. I didn’t have to look far, because Sam’s not a real tall man. Right now, his face was very serious. Sam has more fun with his shifter self than most of the two-natured, but I could tell he was intent on easing my fear. When he was in his second nature, he had the dog’s keen sense of smell; when he was in his human form, that sense was still superior to that of a one-natured man. Sam would be able to smell a fairly recent corpse.

"You’re going out in the woods," I said.

"Sure. I’ll do my best. If he’s there, I think I’ll know."

Kevin had told me the sheriff had tried to hire the tracking dogs trained by a Shreveport police officer, but the officer had said they were booked for the day. I wondered if that were true, or if the man just hadn’t wanted to risk his dogs in the woods with a panther. Truthfully, I couldn’t blame him. And here was a better offer, right in front of me.

"Sam," I said, my eyes filling with tears. I tried to thank him, but the words wouldn’t come. I was lucky to have a friend like Sam, and well I knew it.

"Hush, Sookie," he said. "Don’t cry. We’ll find out what happened to Jason, and we’ll find a way to restore Eric to his mind." He rubbed the tears off my cheeks with his thumb.