Page 107 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
It’s early afternoon when we reach the message point between Haven’s Rock and the mining camp. We don’t intend to stop there, but two guards are waiting.
“Sir, ma’am,” one says. It’s the older white guy, with the Black guard. “Our boss thought you’d come by. We’ve been ordered to wait for you here.”
“And escort us to your camp?” Dalton says. “I hope those are the next words out of your mouth.”
“Sorry, sir,” the older guard says, and manages to sound sincerely respectful, despite Dalton being a good decade his junior. A real military man, accustomed to addressing younger men as “sir” and not sounding sarcastic.
The older guard continues, “Our orders are to ask you to wait here while one of us heads to camp and fetches him.”
“Ask us to wait here?” I say. “Or order us?”
A slight smile, bordering on rueful. “I’m saying ask, and if the boss said something else, it’s slipped my mind.”
“Go on then,” Dalton grumbles. “Bring him here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Rogers returns in about thirty minutes. That suggests the camp is less than a fifteen-minute walk away. I also note that, while the path branches a few times within sight, they definitely approach from the south, as we suspected. Useful.
“Hello,” Rogers calls as he approaches. “I thought you might be coming to speak to me. I hear you found your boy. I’m glad to hear it.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m sorry we had to leave your guard behind when he was wounded.”
His mouth tightens, and I think he’s angry with us, but he says, “He should have gone with you. Made the effort, if he was going to let himself get jumped in the first place. Thank you for treating him. He’ll be leaving us soon.”
And it’s not the injury that’ll win him an early ticket home. Joe had said his boss was an asshole. Yes, we knew that, but we thought he might be different to his men, in the same way that Dalton can come off as an ass to outsiders, but if you’re a resident—and you haven’t pissed him off—you’ll see a very different side.
Apparently, Rogers doesn’t have those layers. To him, Joe screwed up, and it doesn’t matter if the fault ultimately lies with the guy who sent him into the forest alone, Joe “got himself” stabbed and now he’s damaged goods.
“I presume you’re here to talk next steps,” Rogers says. “Finding the psychopathic mountain man who killed one of my men and injured another.” He stops and then adds, “And stole your young man, of course.”
“Who is fine, thank you for asking.”
Rogers meets my gaze. “I wouldn’t be fool enough to bring teenagers here. If he wasn’t fine, that’d be on you.”
His retort is intended to sting. To set me back on my heels. So let’s do the same. “They aren’t the same person.”
Now he’s knocked back, blinking in confusion. “Who isn’t the same person?”
“You said we need to find who stabbed your guard, murdered your miner, and kidnapped our young resident. They aren’t the same person.”
He goes still. Then his mouth forms an expletive he doesn’t utter. “We have more than one wild man? Do you think they’re connected?”
“No wild men.”
I’m talking riddles, like he’s done, and his lips thin in annoyance.
“The wild man was a fiction,” I continue. “A diversion. It was a regular guy wearing a bearskin.” I pause to let that sink in. “You wouldn’t happen to have any decorative bearskins in your camp, would you?”
I expect a swift denial. Instead, he goes still.
I continue, “We believe Sandy took a bearskin from your camp and used it to impersonate a wild man of the forest. We believe he was a pedophile who saw an opportunity to kidnap a ten-year-old boy.”
“Ten?” Rogers says. “You brought children—”
“That isn’t the part of this story you should be focusing on.”
“Isn’t it?” His eyes flash. “I was already concerned that you have women in your settlement. Do you know what sort of men give up a year or two of their lives to work at a place like this? Yes, most of them are decent people. Men willing to give up that time and do difficult physical labor in return for a substantial reward. Like those who work on oil rigs, except this is harder work, in a more difficult climate, with a much smaller crew.”
