Prey

Dare was nothing if not prepared.

Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to head to the stream he had in mind for a little fly-fishing. The trail to that stream would take him close by Angie’s camp, but so what? It was a free country. If she saw him, she’d just have to deal.

But it wouldn’t hurt to let those two guys she was with know there was someone nearby, someone who knew Angie, and who was also armed. Dare didn’t mind doing the menacing act, because for the most part it wasn’t an act. He’d lived through too much, done too much; menacing came natural to him.

Chapter Nine

Angie eased forward, ears straining for any snuffling noises, any sounds of twigs being broken. She tried to keep the wind in her face, because bears stank to high heaven, and her nose might pick up something before her ears did. On the other hand, she kept constant watch behind her, because a bear’s sense of smell was a jillion times sharper than hers and one could easily be downwind of her. Just the thought of turning around and seeing a bear behind her made her heart squeeze in terror.

Out here by herself, there was no hiding from or disguising the fact that she wasn’t just uneasy about hunting bear, she was downright afraid of them. The only thing that gave her the confidence to be out here looking for bear scat was the rifle in her hand, loaded with heavy-duty ammunition. But a big bear could keep coming another forty, fifty feet or more after taking a fatal hit, and if the shot was off by a little the animal could do a tremendous amount of damage before going down.

When she’d come up here to scout out the territory, she’d been terrified every minute, even though she’d done everything she could to mitigate the danger. She’d made her clothes as scent-free as possible, but that was standard. The last thing she wanted was for a big blackie to catch her scent and either vanish from the area or, worse, think dinner! and start stalking her. The absolute worst thing that could happen would be that in the heavy brush she’d stumble too close to a sow grizzly and her cub, or cubs, and be on them before she knew it. If there was a more ferocious animal on earth than that, her imagination wouldn’t stretch far enough to envision it. A female grizzly protecting her cubs was a buzz saw of destruction; even male grizzlies would give her a wide berth.

Damn Mitchell Davis. Why couldn’t he want an elk, or a bighorn sheep, or a moose? Moose were dangerous, but she wasn’t terrified of them. Bear … the very first nightmare she could remember having, when she was five or six years old, had featured a bear. She had no idea what had triggered the nightmare, but it had been so vivid, and in technicolor, that to this day she remembered almost every detail. She’d been running, and a black bear had been after her. Various people had tried to help and the bear had killed them all, and kept coming. She’d awakened, whimpering, before it reached her and she remembered lying curled up in bed, shaking in terror, with the cover pulled over her head until morning came.

Viewed in that light, becoming a hunting guide wasn’t the smartest move she’d ever made. This was bear territory; every guide trip she made, even if it was a photography expedition, brought her into their backyard. She didn’t have a phobia about bears, exactly, but she was definitely afraid, which she hoped meant she was less likely to have a close encounter of the bad kind because she was extra cautious.

Bears weren’t the only big predators around; there were cougars, too. Strange that she wasn’t as afraid of them as she was a bear, because she wouldn’t want to come face-to-face with a cougar, either, but she supposed she was allowed her points of illogic. She waited for five minutes, listening hard and hearing nothing more than very small rustles—no grunts, no coughs, no sounds of branches being snapped or logs rolled out of the way—before she ventured closer to the game trail she’d located.

There was the tree with the claw marks, the thicket of chokeberry bushes where the black fur had been snagged. She mentally mapped out a grid and walked it, taking her time, carefully examining the ground as well as constantly checking her surroundings. The silver ribbon of creek below helped her keep her bearings, so she always knew exactly where she was in relation to the camp. The ground sloped away to the right of her, punctuated by groups of boulders, stands of trees. Something metallic caught her eye, over by some of the rocks, but bear scat wasn’t metallic; probably someone had left some trash, which ticked her off. She’d pick it up on her way back to the camp.

No scat. She moved upward another hundred yards, but though she found some scat it wasn’t as fresh as what she’d found a few days before. Reversing directions, she began working down toward the creek. Water was a lodestone. Eventually, every creature in the mountains needed water.

When she reached the steep drop-away where she’d seen the glint of metal, she left the game trail and carefully worked her way over to it. A careless step could mean a sprained ankle, or, God forbid, a broken leg or a concussion, and she didn’t trust either Chad Krugman or Mitchell Davis to help her. She’d told Chad in detail where she was going, but as inept as he was in the wilderness she didn’t have a lot of faith he could find her. Davis had still been in his tent when she left, so he didn’t have any idea where she’d gone. If anything happened, she’d have to depend on herself; there was no one else.

A camera. The metallic glint came from a microdigital camera. She leaned down and picked it up. It was scuffed up, dirty, and probably wouldn’t work after being left out in the open. She examined it, saw that the switch had been left in the “on” position. When she flicked the switch again, the little screen lit up. Out of curiosity she hit “playback” and scrolled through some shots of the scenery. There were a hundred fifty-three pictures, but after viewing a few of them she turned the camera off. She’d look at the rest later, though she doubted there’d be any way of telling who the camera belonged to. It must have fallen out of the photographer’s pocket, who knows how many days ago.