Page 49 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
I’m moving slowly, my gaze on that jacket. I can only see enough to know that it is Max’s and it isn’t lying on the ground.
Dalton grabs my arm. I’m turning to frown at him when I catch another angle. An angle that places the jacket higher than it should be.
It’s in the air.
Hanging in the air.
My heart jams in my throat, but I force myself to keep moving at that slow and steady pace, to not think about why Max’s jacket is suspended in the air, turning slightly in the breeze, as if its owner is hanging—
Not thinking about that.
One more step, and I clear the trees blocking my view, and when I do, I let out a simultaneous exhalation and a curse.
“Fuck,” Dalton says behind me, growling the word.
It is not Max hanging from a tree. It’s just his jacket, suspended by the shoulders.
I start to stride forward, but Dalton catches me and murmurs, “Trap.”
Yep, I’m really not myself today. I motion that I’ll cover him while he approaches. In this mental state, I can’t be trusted to do it.
He steps into the clearing past the trees and lets out another profanity.
“Clear,” he says. “Come on in.”
As soon as I step in, I see what prompted the profanity. Max’s jacket hangs at the northern compass point. At the other three are those same feather stick figures we’d found earlier. And in the middle of the clearing, another of those strange fires made of bones and unburned dried plants.
This time, I don’t pause to examine the scene. I set Storm on it. At first, she’s enthusiastic. She smelled her target—Max—and so he must be here. But it doesn’t take long for that enthusiasm to evaporate. She circles the clearing three times before walking toward his hanging jacket and whining.
“He was never here,” I say. “Someone just hung up his jacket. That’s what she smelled.”
“Whoever did it exited here,” Dalton says, pointing to signs in the undergrowth.
I bring Storm over. She lowers her nose and then huffs, like she did before.
“Same thing as the other one,” I call after Dalton, who’s disappeared into the woods. “They’re disguising their trail by covering it with a scent.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered much anyway,” he says as he returns. “Trail goes straight to a stream. She’d have lost the scent there.”
We spend more time searching for evidence, but there’s nothing except those signs of passage. We hope to find a footprint in damper soil near the creek, but it’s all rock.
When we return to the clearing, I walk to where Max’s jacket hangs.
“Two clearings with these stick figures and ritualistic firepit. The jacket suggests both are connected to Max’s disappearance.”
“Seems so,” Dalton says.
“Which means we really should be hunting for a wild man of the forest.”
“Seems that way.”
“Seems,” I say, and catch his eye as he nods. “Because this might be a clue … or it might be someone feeding us a clue.”
“Yep.”
“So are we looking at the work of an actual wild man of the forest, performing some strange ritual, having kidnapped Max for it?” I glance over. “Or are we looking at someone who kidnapped Max knowing he saw a bearlike person in the woods, and is doing this to divert attention?”
Dalton considers. Then he says, “We know the bear-man exists.”
