Page 78 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
“He’s the only one of our men missing, so if you find one, that’s him.”
Dalton chews on that, and now I do cut in, before he gets annoyed.
“What about weapons?” I say. “What can we expect? We don’t want to track him down only to find ourselves at the end of a gun.”
“Our employees are not permitted guns of any variety. They are issued a pocketknife and a multi-tool.”
Well, that confirms who we found.
“All right,” Dalton says. “Do we have your permission to look for our missing boy on your side of the boundary? And we can look for your man at the same time?”
“We can’t authorize that.”
“Unacceptable.”
The man blinks, as if thinking he’s misheard Dalton.
Dalton crosses his arms. “Yeah, I asked for permission, but it was a formality. We have a missing boy. We will be searching for him over here. Now, in the interests of privacy, you can tell us where we’re allowed to begin searching—north or south—and we will restrict ourselves to that section until we’ve had a chance to speak to your boss. We should also get a scent marker from your missing man—a piece of used clothing for our dog. While we wait for that, though, we’re going to start searching. If one of you two wants to remain with us, that’s fine.”
Dalton’s tone might be belligerent, but his suggestion is reasonable. The men decide that one of them will indeed stay with us and the other will return to fetch their boss and a scent marker.
Once one has left, the other wordlessly leads us north.
“Guess this is the direction we’re going,” Dalton says.
“Seems like it,” I murmur, and we follow.
* * *
The direction we’re allowed to search is the direction we want to search—the general area where we found the man who is presumably “Sandy.” We don’t get our guard’s name, even when we ask. We don’t get anything. He leads us north and then moves behind us, and if we feel a bit like we’re being marched off at gunpoint, well, at least there’s no actual gun pointed at our backs. They got the memo on that one.
“Have you found anything while you’ve been out here?” Dalton asks.
“Negative.”
“What areas have you searched?”
No response.
“I’m presuming if you’re leading us this way, you haven’t looked here yet?”
“Affirmative.”
“You actually former military?” Dalton says. “I’m asking, because I’ve got a buddy who served, and he doesn’t talk like that. Seems like an affectation, if you ask me.”
Silence, and I have a strong feeling the guy is trying to figure out what “affectation” means and whether it’s an insult. Dalton’s casual tone suggests it’s not, so he decides not to answer.
Dalton stops and looks up and down the path. “You know your guy didn’t come this way, right?”
Silence.
“Do you see what I do?”
Nothing.
Dalton sighs and glances at me. “How about you?”
“The path back here is open, meaning someone could have passed this way. But up ahead, it’s overgrown. Anyone passing through would have left a trail we’d see.”
