Dalton sighs. “Fuck.”
THIRTY-NINE
Who do we think camped here? The couple I accidentally set on Baptiste and Sidra’s trail.
No, let’
s be honest. The “accident” is that I hadn’t meant to endanger this young couple, but that’s because I’d been thinking abstractly. I offered Cherise an irresistible reward for finding Abby’s parents. I just lacked the foresight, in that moment, to see “Abby’s parents” as people who might be endangered by me setting a dangerous woman on that quest.
I’d realized my mistake the moment I made the offer, which is why we’d labored to make it ironclad, in hopes of protecting Abby’s mother from Cherise’s ruthlessness. Even if we’d rescinded it, though, Cherise would know how valuable this information was, and she’d search for Abby’s mother in hopes of a reward. The only thing we could do was close off loopholes.
It wasn’t enough.
Earlier, Felicity told me I was wrong for making the offer. She might not have said much more then. She does now. I take my lumps, even as Dalton and Petra come to my defense. Baptiste says he understands why I did it, and he’s grateful that I was so anxious to reunite Summer with her parents. He’s cutting me slack, being kind, while I see the worry in his eyes.
In the end, all I can do is apologize, while Dalton insists that Sidra is in no actual danger.
“We were very, very clear on the stipulations of the deal,” Dalton says. “We don’t pay out until we see the baby’s mother and confirm she hasn’t been hurt. Yeah, Cherise is going to make Sidra spin us some bullshit story about how she went with Cherise voluntarily, but we know better. We’ll get Sidra back, and tell Cherise where she can stick her deal.”
“I would exercise more caution than that,” Felicity says. “I understand the impulse. I also want to punish Cherise for what she did.”
“But that’s like punching a grizzly in the face,” Baptiste says. “Even if the grizzly doesn’t come after you, it’s going to strike at the first human it sees.”
Felicity nods. “She will find a way to punish Sidra and Baptiste for the loss of her reward.”
The young settlers exchange a look, acknowledgment of shared ground.
“I agree,” I say. “Ideally, we steal Sidra back from Cherise. If she figures it out and complains, we pay her off, as painful as that will be. And then we never, ever do business with her again.”
* * *
We have two choices here. Return to where Cherise and Owen snatched Sidra or track the couple from here. Sidra and Baptiste’s campsite is a kilometer away, and it seems likely that they brought Sidra back here before they broke camp. Dalton confirms that with the campfire. If they left last night, the coals would be cold by now. Also, it makes no sense to lie in wait for Sidra with all your gear on your back.
Tracking them from here makes the most sense, especially when we know they’ll head for Rockton with their booty. There’s no reason to do otherwise.
We split up, dividing our best trackers—Storm gets Petra and me, and Dalton takes Felicity and Baptiste. We head to the campsite first. If we had any doubt that Cherise and Owen are the couple who camped here, it disappears when Storm arrives. She’s growling even before I ask her to snuffle the ground.
“When even dogs don’t like you, that’s a very bad sign,” Petra says. I wait for her to make some comment on the fact that Storm likes her just fine, but Petra isn’t so ham-handed. The implication dangles there, and she knows I’ll see it.
I snort my response and ask Storm to follow Cherise and Owen’s trail. She grumbles at that, a growling sulk that tells me she really doesn’t want another encounter with the trader couple. I crouch in front of her and murmur reassurances, and she looks at me as if to say, I hope you know what you’re doing. Then she sets out.
Our luck with using Storm as a tracking dog has been sporadic so far. Am I disappointed in that? Yes, I’ll admit it. That’s not her fault. While Newfoundlands are used in search-and-rescue, they aren’t bloodhounds. Whatever Dalton’s excuse for buying her, she really is a companion dog, and she’s brilliant at that, an absolute joy in our lives. The fault may also be ours—we aren’t dog trainers or trackers, and no amount of reading can fully overcome that. We’ve discussed sending her down south for professional training, and we might still do it. Yet she’s still young, and when she can’t find our quarry, it’s not through lack of intelligence or commitment—it’s the fault of challenging terrain.
Today, though, Storm proves that she’s a perfectly fine tracker and the problem is that, too often, we’ve set her on the trail of people who know she’ll come after them and use every trick for avoiding her. When it’s someone who has no expectation of being tracked, finding them is puppy’s play, and we have to hold her back from running along Cherise and Owen’s trail. We get some dirty looks for that—clearly we should be able to keep up.
Finally I spot Owen, and I’m about to grab Storm’s collar, realizing I lack an end-of-search signal. Another oversight on my part. Fortunately, she has no desire to get close to Owen, and she slows, glancing at me as if to say, There he is. Can we go now?
We cannot.
It’s just Owen. He’s sitting. Well, crouching actually, while performing a bodily function that Cherise obviously doesn’t want to witness.
As Petra sneaks up on Owen’s other side, he finishes his business, rising with his hands on his pants, pulling them up.
“Shit that stinks,” a voice says, and Petra and I go still. It’s Cherise. I can’t see her, but it’s clearly her voice.
“Yeah, it stinks because it’s shit,” Owen says. “Yours doesn’t smell like roses, babe.”
“Cover it up,” she says.