Page 23

I shine the light along the roadside. We started with the tree that fell, hoping to rip branches off that, but it’d been dead long before it toppled, with only dried stubs of branches, like the one that impaled me. Since then we’ve walked a quarter mile, searching for limbs that fell in the storm. As we were heading back on the other side, Henry spotted this tree, which is obviously dead and even cracked at the base, but the branch isn’t coming off.

“If there’s a storm at my place, I spend half a day picking up debris,” he grumbles. “And we can’t even find a few branches?”

“I didn’t notice much wind.”

He rocks back on his heels. “Yeah, true. I’m thinking of windstorms. But I still expected more.” A pause. “Though this is cottage country. People gather deadwood for kindling.” He reaches for the flashlight. “Can I use that?”

I pass it into his outstretched hand.

He shines the beam and points. “There’s a branch there, maybe twenty feet inside.”

I make a noncommittal noise. He’s right. There’s a tree limb on the ground. It’s about four feet long with plenty of leaves. Exactly what we want. So why are we both standing here, just looking at it?

We can both say what we saw earlier were coyotes, but there’s a reason we walked that quarter mile, searching for roadside branches, instead of just going into the forest.

Something is wrong here. Very wrong.

“We could skip it,” I say. “The hazard lights are still going on both vehicles.”

Henry squares his shoulders. “No, scattering branches is a good idea, and that’s one right there.” He hands over the flashlight. “Just shine it on me. I’ll be right back.”

“Hold on.”

I walk back the hundred yards to the SUV and pick up the crowbar. When I return, I hold it out. “Humor me.”

“Happy to,” he says as he takes it. “I’m too big to be dragged off by a coyote, but I don’t want to deal with a pack empty-handed.”

I shine the light. He clutches the crowbar in one hand as he marches into the forest. When he’s at the branch, he drops to one knee so he can keep looking around as he reaches down. He gives the branch an experimental tug, and I half expect it to stick, but it comes free easily.

Still scanning the trees, Henry rises and backs up with the bough in one hand, the crowbar in another. There’s a partially buried stump right in his path.

“Stop!” I call before he hits it.

He drops the branch and brandishes the crowbar so fast it’d be funny if my heart wasn’t pounding.

“Sorry!” I call. “You were about to trip. Don’t walk backward. I’ve got you covered.”

He nods, bends again, his gaze outward as he retrieves the branch. I don’t fail to notice the hesitation before he turns. One split second where he decides whether or not to put his fate into my hands and his back to the woods. But he does, though he picks up the pace to a jog until he’s back on the road.

He takes a moment to catch his breath. Then he walks to where we put the other branches, maybe fifty feet from the SUV, and he positions the limb.

“See any more in there?” he asks, as he returns to me.

I swing the beam away from the forest, in hopes he won’t see what I do, but it’s too late. He’s spotted another good branch, maybe twenty feet to the left and thirty feet in the forest.

“That one you got is enough,” I say.

We both turn to the road, where those branches seem like twigs.

“One more,” he says. “If we space them out, no one can miss them.”

“We don’t need—”

“It’s not far,” he says. “I didn’t see or hear anything in there.”

I know he’s right. Looking now, I see a normal forest. No shadows. Certainly no movement.

“One more,” I say. “That’s it.”