Page 70 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
An unearthly yowl splits the air.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We run outside. The sound comes again, sending shivers through me. The undulating “ahhh” sounds like a cross between a spook-house ghost and a pain-racked human.
“Lynx,” Dalton says.
I knew that. Or I would have after my initial creep-out passed. It’s two lynx in a territorial dispute, and knowing that almost makes it creepier, because it really does sound human.
“Go see what they’re fighting over?” Dalton says.
“We’d better.”
The sound comes from a couple of hundred feet away. We’d veered off the old path onto this fork, and the lynx seem to be farther down the main one. We have our guns out, and Storm sticks close. She’s not overly concerned about the lynx. They can be as tall as her, but they’re a third of her weight, and on the rare occasions we spot one of these ghosts of the forest, they melt away as soon as they smell her.
The sound gets increasingly loud, until I’m wincing. They’re so wrapped up in their argument that they don’t hear us, and soon we can see two leggy felines with short tails and tufted ears. They’re staring at each other, making no move to attack, just arguing with those eerie yowls.
“Hey!” Dalton shouts, and they turn, like people who’ve been caught arguing in public, startled and annoyed at the same time.
Storm growls. They look at her. They look at us. Dalton takes another step forward, and then they are gone, as soundless as wraiths.
“Okay,” I say. “Now let’s see what you two were fighting over.”
“Probably territory,” Dalton says. “I don’t see anything else here.”
I keep walking, gun still out. He’s right. The path stretches past where the lynx had been arguing, and there’s nothing there.
Then Storm whines. It is the politest little whine, as if she hates to interrupt and point out that we’ve missed something but …
I look around. She glances to the left, and I follow the direction of her gaze to see what looks like an empty spot in the undergrowth. The brush has been flattened by something. From here, I can’t see what, but when I take a step, Dalton says, “Hold up.”
He crouches by the side of the path, his hand to the ground. At his fingertips is the clear outline of a boot heel. Beyond that, crushed vegetation leads toward that small cleared space about ten feet away.
We start in that direction, one step at a time.
The smell hits first. It wafts over, faint enough that I have to hesitate, not sure I caught it. We’re upwind of that cleared spot, but after another few steps, Dalton’s putting his hand to his nose, and my still-unsettled stomach flips.
The first thing I see is a hand. It’s outstretched, with the fingers poking through the undergrowth, and at the sight of that, I relax a little. Yes, that’s a terrible reaction to have when the smell of putrefaction tells me I’m dealing with a dead body, but seeing the size of that hand, I know it’s not Max.
I take another step, and the figure becomes clear. It’s a large man lying facedown in the undergrowth. His back looks wet until I shine my flashlight to see it’s dried blood, the rear of his jacket a patchwork of stab wounds.
“Shit,” Dalton says as he steps through.
My light passes over the man’s body. It’s not just his back. He’s covered in blood, his clothing nearly in ribbons. There are some signs of predation from small scavengers, but the preciseness of those holes speaks to knife work.
Someone stabbed this man to death and then kept stabbing long after he stopped moving.
My mind slips, almost traitorously, to the small penknife Dalton gave the boys. But whatever blade killed this man is larger, and no matter how panicked Max might have been, he wouldn’t have stabbed his captor this many times.
I’m also not sure this was his captor.
The man is dressed in work clothes—heavy canvas trousers with a myriad of small pockets, plus what looks like a flannel shirt showing through his torn windbreaker. He’s wearing the sort of boots I’d expect from someone in construction. All of it shows signs of wear, but it’s new and sturdy, and not what our man of the woods would have been wearing under his bearskin. There is also no sign of a bearskin. Not here and not in the shack.
I dig my phone out of my backpack and hit Record.
“The deceased is a white male. Indeterminate age, as he is lying facedown and I’m not ready to turn him over yet. Height approximately…” I look from the dead man to Dalton, who stands silently with Storm, letting me work. “Six foot one, possibly six two. Heavyset, perhaps two twenty-five. He’s lying on his stomach with one hand outstretched. We’re approximately ten feet off the main path. I didn’t see blood spatter or drops that would indicate he was injured on that path, but we’ll take a closer look.”
Dalton motions to ask whether I’d like him to do that, and I nod. Once he’s gone, I hit Record again.
