Page 88 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
“The attacker gave chase but couldn’t move very fast. Max could outrun him.” I take a deep breath. “I hope he outran him.”
We don’t say why I hope that. We both know. The obvious answer is that if Max outran his captor, Max is still free. But the underlying one is a bigger concern. Max hurt him. If his captor catches up, he will retaliate.
I squint up at Dalton, the sun in my eyes. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Take Storm and follow Max’s trail while you gather what you need from the scene?”
“Yes, but also take Will. I’ll stay with Lilith.”
He shakes his head. “Will stays with you. I have Storm. When you’re done, Will can whistle and we’ll meet up.”
* * *
Anders and I process the scene as thoroughly as we can while I tell myself that Dalton and Storm have the tracking under control, and if they do encounter Max’s captor, he will be no match for a .357 Magnum and a Newfoundland. That is true, and so I must get this done because when I look up, the sky whispers “rain.”
What really messes with my focus, though, isn’t Dalton’s safety. I know he’s fine. It’s not even that I desperately want to be out there, searching for Max. It’s that I want to be searching for Max … and I don’t know if there’s any point to what I’m doing instead.
I can tell myself that Max’s pursuer might not be the bear-man, but it doesn’t take long before I find the brown grizzly hairs that say otherwise. This scene isn’t going to tell me who the bear-man is, and ultimately what matters is what he has done, and I cannot take this evidence to trial for that.
Yet we do have a murder—Sandy’s—and this is the presumed killer. While I don’t think Mr. Rogers is going to insist on a trial either, I need to compile the evidence. It is not my place to decide whether it’s useful.
Lilith returns to her house with Nero while Anders and I process the scene. We take photos and measurements and even samples, bagging bearskin hairs and blood-speckled leaves and bloodied clumps of dirt. Only once I have everything does Anders whistle for Dalton.
I don’t expect a response. It’s been nearly an hour since Dalton left. Normally, we’d use flares or even the sat phones, but Dalton has one sat phone and the other is in town with Phil.
If Dalton doesn’t answer, we must stay where we are. We don’t have Storm. We cannot go tramping into the forest in the vain hope of locating Dalton and, more likely, giving him two more lost people to find.
It’s Anders’s second whistle that gets answered with a sharp birdcall we both recognize as Dalton’s. He’d followed the trail east, but the whistle is from the northwest, meaning Max circled that way.
We set out in that direction, periodically exchanging calls in a game of forest Marco Polo. Dalton won’t have stopped to wait. It’s up to us to catch up.
He continues heading west. We can’t tell how far ahead he is. We’re sticking to trails where we can, but they’re so overgrown that we wander off them without even noticing. I’m about to question the wisdom of this plan when we hit an actual trail, one clear enough that I glance over at Anders.
“We’ve crossed into Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.” I point at saplings cut low to the ground, where they’ve cleared a path.
“Is that a problem?” he asks.
“As long as we don’t head south, we have permission to be here. And even if we need to go south, I’m not stopping to ask permission. Also, whatever I might think of our neighbors, if Max stumbles over their camp, I trust they’ll give him back.”
“Yeah. They’re corporate assholes whose concern is someone stealing their claim. That’s not an issue with a ten-year-old kid.”
I walk a few more steps, thinking before I say, “I am bothered about how much security they have.”
“How much do they have?”
“I don’t know. They’re mostly military types, and I’m not sure whether I’m seeing the same few over and over … or not. We know they have at least three at a time, and that makes sense, right? Given the nature of their operation?”
“Like everyone says, miners are a paranoid bunch. If I were in charge, I’d want each work detail to have at least one guard. Two or three for that, then, plus two back at camp, one on duty and one off duty, resting for the late shift.”
Anders oversaw our militia in Rockton, and he’ll do the same here, with Kenny taking charge in the field. Anders knows scheduling, and which situations need which amount of security.
“So five or even six total would be reasonable,” I say. “Even if they only have a couple dozen miners.”
He waves at the forest. “Their biggest concern would be keeping the workers safe from men, bears, and men dressed like bears. Now, they could put miners on guard duty, like us letting residents join the militia, but if they can afford full-time security personnel?” He shrugs. “I’d take it.”
Good. That’s what I wanted to hear—that the security-team size and level of expertise weren’t suspicious. We know Rogers is an asshole, but it’s best for everyone if he’s just a very ordinary sort of asshole. The face of a corporation with deep pockets and valuable mining interests they want to protect.
Those in charge of other settlements around Rockton were paranoid and sometimes dangerous, but we could work with them. That’s what we need. High fences yes, but behind them, nothing more sinister than a corporation that’ll gut you if you steal their assets. Which is fine with us, having no intention of stealing anything.
