Silence answers. I haven't heard whatever Dalton and the animals must.
Then he says, "Storm? Get ready . . . ," and there's a rustle in the undergrowth ahead.
A boy steps onto the path. He can't be more than twelve. I see him, and the first thing I think of is Dalton--that this boy is already older than he would have been when the former sheriff took him from the forest.
The boy looks so young. It's easy to think of twelve as the cusp of adolescence, but it is still childhood, even out here, and that's what I see: a boy with a knife clenched in one hand, struggling to look defiant as he breathes fast.
Dalton looks at the boy, and his jaw hardens. Then he aims his glower into the forest.
"That's a fucking coward's move, and you oughta be ashamed of yourselves, pushing a kid out here. Did I mention we have guns? And a dog?"
The boy's gaze goes to Storm. He tilts his head, and I have to smile, remembering how Jacob mistook her for a bear cub.
"Storm?" I say. "Stand."
She does, and her tail wags. The boy isn't the threat she smelled, proving Dalton is right about there being others.
"If you're planning an ambush," he calls, "you do realize that the person I'm going to shoot at is the one I see, which happens to be a child."
"I'm not a child," the boy says, straightening. He pushes back his hood . . . and I realize he's not a boy either. It's a girl, maybe fourteen.
"And I'm alone," she says. "I came hunting and--"
"Yeah, yeah. There are three other people over there, who obviously think my night vision sucks."
"Sucks what?" the girl says.
I chuckle at that, and she looks over at me. "You're a girl," she says.
"Woman," Dalton says. "And a police detective. Armed with a gun. Now sit your ass down."
"You can't tell me--"
"I just did." He points the gun.
The girl sits so fast she almost falls.
I say, "Storm, guard." Which is a meaningless command, but I pair it with a hand gesture that means she can approach the girl to say hello. The girl shrinks back as the big canine draws near. Storm sits in front of her and waits to be petted. Patiently waits, knowing this is clearly coming.
"Three people," Dalton calls. "I want to see you all on this path by the count of ten. Your girl seems a little nervous, and if she runs, I can't be held responsible for what our dog will do."
Storm plunks down with a sigh, her muz
zle resting beside the girl's homemade boot, as if resigned to wait for her petting.
"Just don't move," I say to the girl. "You'll be fine."
Dalton begins his countdown. By the time he finishes, a man and a woman have emerged from the trees. Both are on the far side of fifty.
"It's only us," the woman says. "You have miscounted."
"And you have mistaken me for an idiot incapable of counting." He raises his voice. "I see you coming around beside me. Do you see the gun pointed at your fucking head?"
Silence. Then a dark figure appears from the shadows, heading for Blaze.
"Yeah, no," Dalton says. "If you're planning to spook my horse, thinking he'll unseat me?" Dalton lowers the gun a foot over Blaze's head and fires. Cricket does her two step and whinnies, but Blaze only twitches his ear, as if a fly buzzed past.
"Now get up there with the others," Dalton says.