I caress down her silky hair. “That was incredible.”
She laughs softly. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”
That she would choose me makes this even more surreal. I kiss her gently on the side of her head, my lips trembling with a sudden rush of emotion.
Before I can figure out what to say to keep this light, approaching footsteps startle us apart. It’s Linnea’s friend, her eyes tense. “Pete just got thrown out. We need to go.”
Linnea rushes to meet her friend, giving me a quick glance over her shoulder. Her pretty blue eyes shine and her lips curve into a shy smile. “Bye,” she says, but her word gets swallowed by the music.
Chapter Three
The hard springrain I woke up to has long since saturated my slicker and dripped into my boots. It cascades off the rim of my Stetson, soaking Tupelo’s withers. A smarter man would have turned back already. Which makes me exceptionally stubborn, or stupid. Probably both.
I follow the whine of an illegal chainsaw deeper into the valley. Tupelo’s ears have been perked for the past mile, but I’ve been on alert since we crossed Crooked Pine Creek.
Crack!
The bullet thunks into the base of a tree somewhere behind us, but I’m already in motion, spurring Tupelo toward the dense grove of pine and aspen just ahead, my ragged breaths echoing in my throat. It was bad enough being in the saddle for hours in this shit rainstorm.
Now I’m being shot at?
Once we’re deep into the timber, I pull Tupelo to a stop and dismount to the spongy ground, yanking my rifle from its scabbard. I’m also armed with a Glock beneath my slicker and wool parka, but the rifle has a sighting scope. Tupelo’s breathing hard from our climbinto the basin and the sprint to safety, steam rising from his rump and neck as I listen for movement, voices. Anything that tells me where these yahoos are and what they plan to do next.
But it’s quiet. No whine from the chainsaw. Only the rain drumming on my hat and shoulders, the nearby flooded creek sluicing past its swollen banks.
Engaging in a firefight with illegal loggers alone goes against not just policy but my survival instincts. Yet these pricks eluded me last time. And it’s not just their illegal logging I want stopped. It’s everything they stand for.
If I had radio reception, I’d at least call in my position. A request for backup would earn me a chuckle from dispatch because I’m a full day’s travel from the nearest road. And a helicopter would only be authorized to enter a wilderness area if I was dying. Not that any pilot would fly in this weather.
Tupelo’s ears twitch, and he swivels just enough so I catch the flick of his eyelashes.What’s the plan, boss?
I brace off his flank and sight through the rifle’s scope. Stripes of the opposite basin emerge like snapshots between the big tree trunks sheltering me. Gray rock and clumps of tall yellow grass. Tangles of sage. The stark white of bare aspens. Stubborn pockets of grey snow. A flash of red—I swing my scope to follow the movement.
Loading giant rounds of freshly cut timber onto a sled attached to a hulking snowmachine is a giant of a man—well over six feet tall, and broad. His partner is dressed head to toe in camo gear and holds a long gun in one hand. Their backs are to me as they jump on the snowmachine and tear off, gunning for the opposite ridge, the whine of the motor so out of place in this remote area of wilderness, making my ears throb.
I lunge for my phone to grab a picture of them just as the gunman turns back and squints through the driving rain. Forcing my breathing to steady, I unlatch the safety on my rifle and place him in my crosshairs, ready should he be foolish enough to shoot at me asecond time. But he spins around to grab on to his partner as they crest the ridge, both of them and the contraband piled on the tow sled dropping out of sight.
With a shaky exhale, I secure my weapon and slide it back into the scabbard. Then I grip the saddle and let my head drop for a moment to recalibrate my heartbeat. The thick, wet air coats my lungs, and I breathe in the familiar scents of leather and animal musk, rich pine and rain-slicked granite. The prickle working up my neck drops back, replaced with a shiver that pierces my spine. My left hip is also throbbing again, but I ignore it.
With a hard breath that turns into a nervous chuff, I reach over and stroke Tupe’s neck.
“I’m getting too old for this shit, pardner.”
He jerks his neck, jangling the bit in his mouth, like he agrees.
I walk him back to the open area and search for the tree now sporting a bullet, my boots squelching in the icy mud. When I find it, I dig it out with my pocketknife and bag it, then rock into the saddle and lead Tupelo across the swampy valley bottom, weaving through a stand of spruce and larch to where the men felled a couple of lodgepole pines and a pair of thick hemlocks. They must be taking trips because four trees are already gone, the area littered with fresh sawdust turned pink in the rain. One log is half butchered, and another lies untouched, the tip buried in the muddy creek. In their haste, they left their chainsaw, a thermos, and a jug of water, plus plenty of garbage. I explore carefully so I don’t also find their latrine.
After documenting everything, then bagging and collecting it, I pack up and head down the valley. The approaching dusk closes in, and by the time I reach the trailhead, the rain has turned to a thick, wet snowfall. Combined with the increasing wind, a stiff rime has formed over my clothes. Tupelo’s mane is clumped with the wet flakes, but the rest of his coat is glossy from his sweat and the incessant damp.
Once I have him loaded in the trailer and munching on a snackof grain, my chaps and gear and the evidence I collected stowed in the bed of the pickup, I toss my wet coat behind the seat. Every stitch of clothing is soaked through. My work pants and long underwear, my thick wool sweater, my socks. Before climbing into the cab, I shake out my hair and set my Stetson on the passenger seat that on a normal patrol day would be occupied by Bruneau, my chocolate lab and unofficial Chief of Stoke. The journey today would have been too taxing even for him, and unsafe. Irritation vibrates under my skin. What if I’d brought him along and he’d been harmed by that stray bullet? Or what if Tupelo had been injured? It’s not the first time I’ve been shot at, but it’s by far the most maddening. Do they think that’s going to scare me off?
With the heater blasting and the wipers on high, I pull the trailer onto the gravel road and start my descent. Setting my thermos cap on the dash, I fill it with the coffee I was smart enough to pack for the drive home and take a few eager gulps. I should have packed an extra sandwich because my stomach is beyond empty.
My phone pings with missed messages and calls as I enter cell service range. Without my glasses—which, if I’ve managed not to break this pair, are probably still in my coat pocket—the words are fuzzy, but two texts catch my eye.
One is from the family group chat I share with my three kids, likely about our family get-together this Sunday. Linnea has replied with the contribution she and I agreed on during our drive home from the airport yesterday—some kind of cake she’s excited about—and the others have replied with hearts and thumbs up.
The second message is from my older daughter Sofie but it’s another one of her dating profile “matches.”