CHAPTER 15
“Thunder has the trail,”Wyatt announced.
He could tell by the way the dog moved. His head stayed lower, his pace steadied, and he stopped checking back every few minutes.
Wyatt followed without crowding him. Thunder knew what he was doing. He always had.
“That’s good news?” Kori asked.
“Very good news. It means Mackenzie came out this way.”
Kori quickened her pace. “How long can he follow something like that?”
“Depends on conditions. Temperature, wind, how much traffic’s been through. In snow like this . . .” Wyatt glanced ahead at Thunder. “It can hold scent pretty well if it hasn’t been disturbed.”
“So this could still be from days ago?”
“It could.” He paused. “Or more recent.”
She hesitated. “How does he even know he’s following her and not someone else?”
“We start with a scent article. Something that belongs to the missing person. He locks onto that and filters out everything else.”
“And he just remembers it?”
“He does.”
Kori let out a quiet breath. “That’s incredible.”
Wyatt watched Thunder angle slightly left, more certain now. “Yeah, it really is.”
A few steps passed before she asked, “You trained him?”
“That’s right. We finished certification together.”
She glanced at him. “So you chose this? Search and rescue?”
Wyatt stepped over a fallen branch, his gaze still on Thunder. “I was a guide in Patagonia before this.”
Kori blinked. “That’s . . . a long way from here.”
“There was a search down there. A hiker went missing, and I ended up helping.”
“What happened?”
“The search team had to bring in a dog. Not mine—I didn’t have a dog. This one was part of a local search and rescue team.”
Kori waited for him to continue.
“The dog picked up the trail when the rest of us couldn’t see anything. Just . . . took off like he knew exactly where to go.” He paused. “Led us straight to the guy.”
“Alive?”
Wyatt nodded once. “Barely. But yeah.”
Thunder surged ahead again, and Wyatt’s focus sharpened.
Thunder hadn’t started out as his dog. He’d been Sarah’s.
