Page 77 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
In answer, Dalton shouts, “Hello!” He waits a moment and then repeats it, adding, “It’s your neighbors. We were just coming to leave a message for your boss.”
It takes a few minutes to get a response, and I can imagine the men conferring. Then one shouts back to meet at the message spot. That’s close enough that it worked for Dalton’s excuse, and we head there.
We arrive first. Soon after, two men appear on the path. They’re part of the mining company’s security team. I don’t know how many there are. That would require being able to tell them apart. These are two guys in their late twenties, both white with brown hair clipped short, both dressed in khakis and carrying rifles, which they have trained on us.
“You see us holding guns on you?” Dalton calls. “Lower them.”
The men glance at each other.
Dalton continues, “Out here, approaching with your weapon drawn is acceptable caution. But once you see that the other party isn’t armed, you lower yours. Or else you’re telling us it’s okay to take out our weapons. That what you want?”
“There is a hostile individual in the forest,” one of them says. “We’ve been told to be armed and ready at all times.”
“Fine.”
Dalton reaches for his gun. I train mine on the closer guy’s forehead.
“Head shot?” Dalton says. “Now you’re just showing off.” He aims his gun at the other man’s chest. “I’m not as good. I’ll have to go for biggest body mass. Okay, we’re all set. Let’s talk.”
The men exchange another look. Then one lowers his rifle muzzle. When the other does the same, we drop our handguns to our sides.
“Whew,” Dalton says. “That was gearing up to be a very awkward conversation. And we hadn’t even gotten the dog involved yet.”
As if on cue, Storm growls.
“Stand down, pup,” Dalton says. “We have reached an understanding. Now, we heard you boys shouting out there. You seem to be looking for someone.”
When they glance at each other, Dalton sighs and turns to me, waving toward them. “See? This is the problem when no one is in charge. You just keep gaping at each other, waiting for the other person to make a decision.”
“Nah,” I say. “That’s just them. With us, if no one’s in charge, we’re both making decisions. That’s why I’m the boss.”
Dalton snorts and shakes his head. Then he turns back to the two. “I don’t actually care whether you have a man missing. I thought you might want our help—and our dog’s nose—but that’s your own business. We were coming to say that we have a boy missing. We think he just wandered off—you know kids—but with that yahoo in a bearskin wandering around, we are concerned. We need to speak to Mr. Rogers and obtain permission to search on your side of the boundary. If you are also missing someone, we would grant the same permission. But that means we’re both missing someone, which is a little concerning.”
“Mr. Rogers?” one says.
“Our friendly neighbor. He hasn’t given a name so we assigned him one.”
The one man’s lips twitch. The other says, “We’re supposed to post something at the message spot if we don’t find our man today, but since you’re here, I guess there’s no sense denying it.”
“Good call. So you are missing someone?”
“Affirmative.”
Now I’m struggling not to exchange a look—or an eye roll—with Dalton. I’ve decided to stand back and let him handle this, and I continue to do so.
“What can you tell us?” Dalton says.
“He’s an employee. One of the miners. He went for a walk the night before last and never came back.”
“You let your employees wander around the forest?” Dalton says.
One of the men shrugs. “They know the risks.”
“Even when you’ve already encountered a threat in these woods?”
“How he went missing isn’t important,” the other man says. “He left of his own volition. We’re certain of that. He told his roommates that he was going out for a walk, and he never returned. They didn’t realize it until morning. We’ve been searching for him since then.”
“Can you give us any details?” Dalton asks. “Physical description? Clothing?”
