“Have it your way,” Slow Drawl said and stepped back.
Rick had watched all of this without moving. Jack looked at The Kid. He was staring at Jack with the expression of a man watching something he couldn’t stop and wasn’t sure he wanted to be a witness to.
“He’s by himself,” The Kid said. His voice had none of the dismissiveness it carried earlier when they’d been standing at the edge of the camp, and he had insisted their tracks belonged to elk. “Maybe we were wrong about two people. Could be he did circle back.”
Slow Drawl turned on The Kid, moving fast and getting in his face. “You calling me a liar?”
The Kid held his ground. “You know better than that, Todd. I’m saying it was dark. The dark plays tricks on the mind. We’ve had plenty of weird stuff happen while we’ve been working out here. Stuff that’s hard to explain.”
Todd spat on the ground, the wad landing only inches from The Kid’s boot. “You’d better watch your attitude.”
The Kid gave a nod and took a step back.
Through it all, Rick said nothing as he kept his eyes on Jack.
“What do we do with him?” Todd asked. “He’s a loose end, and we can’t leave a loose end.”
Rick shrugged.
“Think about it,” Todd continued. He stepped to the side, moving his hands as he spoke, his voice taking on the tone of a man laying out something he’d already decided. “He’s seen the camp. Seen the operation. Seenour faces. He knows what we’ve been running out here. Did you search him? Check and see if he has one of those satellite doohickeys on him?”
“I searched him.” Rick pointed to the ground, where Jack’s stuff lay in the snow. “He’s clean.”
“Fine, then,” Todd said. “I say we put him down right now. We spent too much time looking for them. We need to pack up and get out of here. Set up a new camp.” He jutted a thumb in The Kid’s direction. “Graham got the product loaded. We’ve got the machines. We cut our losses, and we leave clean.”
Jack kept his face neutral. He kept his eyes on the leader.
Graham, The Kid, stepped forward. “We’re not doing that.”
“You got a better option?”
“I didn’t sign up for this.” Graham’s voice had changed completely, taking on a tight note that bordered on hysterics. “Poaching, yes. The money, yes. That is what I signed up for. Not this.” He gestured toward Jack. “Not this.”
“You’re already in it,” Todd said. He turned to Graham full on. “The second this dude saw your face, you were in it. There’s no version of this where you walk away clean by leaving him alive.”
Graham looked at Rick. “Talk to him, would you? Tell him he’s overreacting.”
“Todd’s right. We need to move,” Rick said, eyes still on Jack. “Where’s your partner.”
Not a question. Jack registered that.
“Told you,” Jack said. “I’m alone.”
Rick looked at him for a long time. The wind moved through the timber above them, and snow came down through the branches in thin curtains, settling onto the ground and onto Jack’s shoulders and into the blood on his lip.
Rick was very good at silence, at fixing Jack with a look that seemed to see right through him. These were tools he used deliberately. Jack understood what he was doing.
Todd had no patience for it. “We are wasting time.”
“Go check the snowmobile,” Rick said.
Todd looked at him. Something moved across his face, quick and unhappy. Then he turned and walked toward the tree line without another word.
Graham stayed where he was, his rifle still in his hands, looking uncertain. He wasn’t pointing it at Jack. He wasn’t pointing it anywhere. He was holding it the way a man holds something he doesn’t know what to do with.
Jack kept his eyes on Rick.
He thought about Steph, about the time he’d bought her to get some place safe. All three of the poachers were here, which meant they weren’t bothering her, weren’t searching for her.
