Wolf
He didn’t think he’d ever felt as warm, as fulfilled, or as relaxedas he did when he fell asleep with Camellia wrapped up in his arms after the most slow, sensual lovemaking he’d ever experienced.
It was powerful, and in its aftermath, he felt changed and couldn’t identify how.
That feeling lasted right up until Camellia sat up fast, sucking in a loud breath and letting all the heat out of their love nest. He frowned at her, then he sat up, too. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s someone outside.” She sounded certain.
He crept out of the bag, reaching for his pants and pulling them on, followed by his shirt and hoodie, which he’d removed as one and replaced the same way. He ducked down near their supplies and located the biggest knife they had. “Stay here, okay?”
“Yeah, no.” She’d been getting dressed too and was already pulling on her jacket. She grabbed the rubber mallet they’d used to pound in the tent stakes with one hand and a flashlight with the other.
He stepped out, and she came right behind him, her mallet hand resting on his shoulder. She aimed the flashlight beam ahead of them. Something rustled behind the tent, and she swung the light that way fast, but that put her in front of him, and he didn’t like that. He moved ahead of her without a lot of caution but held his knife ready. She aimed the light, and he saw motion caught in its beam. Something darted through the thicker woods. Then he tripped and fell across something. Someone.
He scrambled up, and Camellia shifted her light, then gasped. “Ranger Dan!”
The old man lay on his back, eyes closed, face lax, and there was blood coming from one side of his head. Kneeling beside him, Wolf checked his pulse in the darkness, because Camellia had moved her light away.
“He’s alive,” he said. “I need the light, Camellia.”
“It was him,” she said. “It was Earl. I know it.”
Wolf found the ranger’s radio on his belt and used it. “Ranger down, ranger down. Campsite um—what is it again, Camellia?” Then to the radio, “Is anyone there?”
The reply came immediately, and Wolf answered questions, keeping his eyes on Camellia as she paced away, aiming her light in the direction of whatever or whoever they’d seen. “It was him,” she kept saying. “I know it was him.”
“Camellia,” he said. “Please, I need the light. Ranger Dan is hurt.”
That got her attention. She turned and hurried back, kneeling beside the ranger, aiming the light at the wound in his head. Wolf watched her for a few seconds, trying to see if she was okay. She looked terrified and shocky.
She met his eyes, blinked. “I have a first aid kit in our gear.” She tore away so fast she kicked up dirt, and was back five seconds later with the little white kit from her dad’s everything-we-need stash. She knelt, opened the kit, and passed him gauze pads.
He tore off the paper wrappers and pressed several layers of pads to the Ranger’s bleeding head wound.
Camellia said, “We’re here, Dan. You’re going to be okay. Help is on the way.” She reached for his hand to comfort him, then frowned and said, “He’s holding something.”
“He’s what?”
She pulled a crumbled piece of paper from the old man’s clasped hand, smoothed it, and aimed her light at it. “It’s a list. Names, addresses, phone numbers, dates… Oh! The dates are all yesterday.” She paused a moment. “These are river tour reservations.”
“Looks like it was torn from a book,” Wolf said when she passed the sheet to him. He was still holding pressure on Dan’s head wound with his free hand.
“He was coming to see us, clearly, and he was bringing this,” Camellia said. “This is a clue. He must’ve remembered something or learned something more, and this is related. It has to be.”
“But why would anybody bash him over the head about it?” Wolf asked.
“It wasn’t about you. I’m telling you, it was Earl. Ranger Dan probably came upon him out there watching our site like the freaking creeper he is."
“Did you get a good look at him, in the woods just now?”
“No,” she said and stared into his eyes as if daring him to contradict her. Then the sounds of motors buzzed nearer as four-wheelers’ headlamps bounded out of the night and gathered around them.
Camellia snatched the paper from Wolf’s hand and quickly folded it into her jacket pocket. Medics with cases gathered around Ranger Dan, and the two of them got out of their way. One, the fellow who seemed to be in charge, asked them what happened.
Camellia said, “I heard something, and it woke me. I think someone hit the ranger with that rock there, near where he fell. We saw someone run off. Or we think that’s what we saw. And I think it was my ex-fiancé, Earl Stafford.”
The other rangers on the scene looked at her, skepticism in their eyes. “But you didn’t see him?”
