“I can see that, too.” Winona was eager to ride, but she could see how much Emily wanted to be in that saddle. “Can you show me how to ride?”
“Sure!” Emily climbed into the saddle.
Winona couldn’t help but smile at the child’s joy as she rode around the riding barn, the horse’s hooves churning up sand. “She rides well.”
“Of course, she does.” Jack chuckled.
A buzzing sound.
He drew his smartphone out of his pocket, scrolled through a message. “It looks like Deputy Marcs, Nate, and Jason are closing in.”
* * *
Jason stopped at Deputy Marcs’signal, weapon in hand. The ground had leveled out, and there were clear signs that their poacher was living nearby—multiple four-wheeler tracks crisscrossing, trees marked with yellow tape, boot tracks with telltale circles in the center of the heel, trash, stumps of trees that had been cut down.
Marcs spoke quietly. “I can see a large tent up ahead, and there’s the four-wheeler. We’ll hold here for now. I’m requesting backup.”
She made the call, then turned to Jason and Nate. “Remember that the two of you are here in an advisory capacity. This is public land. Those firearms you’re carrying are for personal protection, not to go vigilante.”
“Copy that.” The last thing Jason needed before his disciplinary hearing was some kind of firearms charge in Colorado.
Nate nodded. “I hear you Lima Charlie.”
BAM!
Bark sprayed like shrapnel from the pine next to Jason’s head, hitting his face.
Shit.
He dropped to the ground, crawled backward, taking shelter behind a boulder, Nate and Deputy Marcs doing the same.
BAM!
Deputy Marcs grabbed her handset, called it in. “Eight sixty-five, shots fired. I say again, shots fired.”
She quickly gave dispatch the details.
Jason was used to having a radio, so it was strange to be privy to only one side of the conversation.
“They’re sending in everyone they’ve got, locking down all roads in this area, and updating the Forest Service guys, but it will take them at least an hour to reach us. We’ve been ordered to back off.”
“Fuck.” Nate wasn’t happy. “We could fall back to the creek, take up defensive positions, and wait there.”
That made sense to Jason. “If that’s how he’s getting in and out of his little camp, that might hold him in until backup arrives.”
The decision ultimately rested with Deputy Marcs. “Let’s do it. Stay low.”
An engine revved to life.
“Shit.” Deputy Marcs looked carefully around the boulder. “He’s rabbiting, heading north on the four-wheeler. There’s a freaking wolf with him.”
She called that in as well.
Jason took the chance, broke cover, saw just the back of the four-wheeler and the wolf as the vehicle disappeared into the forest. “He’s going to be easy to track.”
“Where does he think he’s going?” Nate looked perplexed. “There are only crags and cliffs in that direction.”
Jason tried to put himself in the poacher’s shoes. “Maybe he’s hoping to outflank us or come up on us from behind. Or maybe he thinks he can find a way out.”