Dark against the silver moonlight.
A drop.
Then another.
Then a streak where Gerald had stumbled and caught himself against a piece of an old fence.
“He’s losing blood,” Wolf said quietly.
“He’s still moving,” I answered.
And that was all that mattered.
Gerald was wounded.
Armed.
Angry.
And somewhere ahead of us in the trees.
Sheriff Cooper’s deputies spread out behind us.
Radios stayed quiet.
Nobody wanted to give Gerald a target.
Nobody wanted to give him a chance to disappear again.
I followed the trail past the equipment shed.
Across the east pasture.
Toward the creek bed behind the ranch.
The ground dipped there.
Thick brush.
Tall weeds.
A place a man could crawl into and stay hidden until daylight.
Gerald knew the ranch.
Not like I did.
But enough.
Enough to know where the dark places were.
Enough to know where someone might hide.
“Beast.”
Wolf’s voice came from behind me.
I stopped.
