Читать книгу Car Trouble: A Cassidy Callahan Novel - Kelly Rysten - Страница 7

Chapter 1

The white monster truck appeared out of nowhere. I was winding through the narrow mountain roads of the Angeles Forest when it came barreling around a corner. I yanked hard on the steering wheel, pulling off to the side of the road to let him pass. My dog, Shadow, standing on the front seat, yelped with surprise as he lost his footing and hit the passenger door. The white truck barreled past in a cloud of dust. My first thought was the driver hadn’t seen my vehicle in his haste, but then I saw his face as he drove by. The guy was laughing at me.

“Wimpy little Jeep Wrangler,” he seemed to be saying, “stay off my road.”

As his tailgate disappeared behind the billowing dust I hopped from the Jeep to survey my situation. Shadow watched intently as I looked down the embankment. The mountain fell away in a three-hundred-foot drop with only the tall pine trees returning my gaze. One wheel hung over the precipice, one was deeply embedded in the soft shoulder, while the other two were hanging to the very edge of the solid roadbed. I switched the Jeep to four-wheel drive and gently got back in on the uphill side. I cranked over the engine, eased up on the clutch, down on the gas pedal, gently, easy does it. I felt the Jeep move slowly forward. As the shoulder gave way, the Jeep slowly twisted downward and I felt the passenger side tip a little more. Okay, better stop. Shoot, how many times had I needed a winch on this thing then forgotten all about it the next day? Too many times to count. Maybe I should paint notches on the fender or something to remind me. Cass, you know this is the umpteenth time you’ve done this. And there I was at umpteen and one.

I grabbed my daypack from the back of the Jeep, found Shadow’s leash and stuffed it in the pack.

“Come on boy, we have a long, hot walk ahead of us.”

I looked in the pack. Two days of backpacker food, a plastic bag with trail mix, a hunting knife, a change of clothes and a couple of pieces of beef jerky. It looked like the standard stuff for this pack. The backpacker food wouldn’t be used because I didn’t have my stove, but the trail mix and jerky might be greatly appreciated by the end of the day. I found a couple water bottles rolling around on the floorboards and added them to the pack. I tended to take off like this a lot and there was no telling when some water would be needed, so I kept a small stash in the Jeep at all times. I looked for more bottles but only found the two.

“Okay, if that’s what I’ve got, that’s what I’ll make do with,” I said even though no one was around to hear me. I added my wallet and car keys to the pack and then shouldered it.

“Shadow, heel,” I commanded. He took his place to my left and followed me down the road. The command wasn’t really necessary. I was sure that he would stay with me but it was good for him to hear anyway. He understood that this was work, not play, and would listen better now that he was in work mode.

I set my feet to a steady pace and headed downhill. “Just pretend this is the Marines,” I told myself. “Just keep the pace and eventually the hike will end.”

It would have been a pleasant day for hiking except for the heat. It was slightly cloudy but this was Southern California in the summer and it was hot. I walked and kept my focus on the woods around me, hoping to catch sight of the light green paint of a ranger truck or for any other signs of movement. Movement meant animals and I always enjoyed taking a break from these hikes to stalk an animal through the woods.

This was not a new situation for me. My name is Cassidy “Trouble” Callahan; tracker, cowgirl and general all around trouble magnet. I was only called Trouble by my family, which also included the employees of my father’s quarter horse ranch. However, the tendency to get into trouble didn’t always stay at the ranch. It followed me around. Sometimes it snuck up subtly and sometimes it came barreling towards me. Sometimes it meant a hike to civilization and sometimes it meant fighting for my life. So this little episode was actually quite a relief compared to what could have happened. This little bit of trouble was more of an inconvenience. A five-mile hike to the road and a ten-mile hike to a telephone were annoying, but not something to get upset over. I could probably flag down a ranger once I reached pavement.

I soon decided the day was too hot. The animals were sitting in the shade waiting for the cooler part of the day, just as I should be doing. My problem however was an appointment I needed to keep and I didn’t want to be late. I wasn’t sure what the appointment involved but it was with Rusty Michaels and somebody he wanted me to meet. Rusty was a detective I had met during another trouble attack in which I’d been carjacked. After Rusty had helped me to escape and arrested the carjacker we had kept in touch. However, recently it had escalated into more than just keeping in touch. If I was late Rusty would worry. He knew I was generally early to these things but he also knew how often I was delayed by trouble. If I was late, he’d start looking for me. He’d call the house. He’d call my cell phone. He’d call Paul, the ranger at the station I visited frequently. I got out my cell phone and looked at the screen. No reception here. The mountains blocked it. I tried calling Rusty just in case it worked. I got a ring and he answered but I couldn’t hear anything and I doubt he could either. I continued speaking to him in the event he was able to hear me.

“Rusty, I don’t have any reception here. I wanted you to know that I’m having car trouble and might be late. If I don’t show up, don’t worry about me. I’m walking to a phone and I’ll call back later.” I made it sound routine, which unfortunately it was. Shadow followed along, tongue hanging, drool dripping. I shared my water with him but we didn’t have a bowl so he lapped it from my cupped hand. Shadow was good for the long haul. He’d been backpacking with me a number of times, this hiking was just a little more open than usual.

Five miles later we hit pavement, the Angeles Forest Highway. I clipped on Shadow’s leash. Now it was just ten more miles to a telephone. I looked at my cell phone again. It was already five o’clock and maybe Rusty would be off work soon. I headed down the highway but this was tougher going than the long dirt road. There was very little shoulder and cars whipped around us making their commute from L.A. to Joshua Hills by way of the long, scenic route. This scenic route could be faster or slower, depending on the freeway’s conditions. A mile later another bar appeared on my phone so I tried again. Sitting on the side of the road, I punched a few buttons and there he was.

“Hey,” I said, “It’s me. Did you get my other call?”

“Yeah, where are you? And where were you?”

“I was up in the mountains and I’m still up in the mountains but now I can talk. Did you really need me to meet you at your office? I don’t think I’ll make it back to town by six.” A particularly loud car whipped past. “I need to find a place where I can meet a tow truck or a taxi and I don’t think that’s going to happen for about ten miles.”

“Why don’t I just come get you? You sound like you can use a ride.”

“Yeah, a ride would be nice. I already got my exercise for the day. I’ll find a pullout and wait if you’re sure it’s not an inconvenience.”

“I’ll call Lou and reschedule and then I’ll head out. Can you give me directions?”

“Take the 14 to Angeles Forest Highway and follow Angeles Forest Highway until you see me. There’s a lot of traffic up here so I’ll try to walk on your side of the road and find a pullout. If you get to the turn off for Mount Pacifico you’ve gone too far. That’s the road I just left.”

“Okay, gotcha.”

We disconnected and I followed the road downhill, always downhill, until I came to a large pullout overlooking the forest. I wasn’t going to sit and wait, though. Pullouts were great places to read tracks. There were many different kinds of people who pulled over and it was like reading the newspaper to walk around and see who had been there. It was also good practice for honing my tracking skills.

I found a spot where a car had been parked, probably a van, because about six people got out. I found the footprints of a woman with small feet. She was heavy and the sides of her shoes overlapped the thin soles. From the driver’s side a man had stepped out, also heavy. He shuffled his feet as he walked to the overlook, and then stood smoking cigarettes as the kids ran around. There were four children ranging in age from six to teens. The teenagers didn’t move around much. It looked as if they only left the van to escape the heat. The younger ones ran out to the lookout and jumped around on the railing that protected them from the drop off beyond.

I went to another parking space and found the tracks of a young couple who had walked along the railing, stopping several times. The guy would stand really close to the girl and I pictured him with an arm wrapped around her, pointing to different things in the scene below. I looked out on the expanse and saw a hawk circling. Maybe he’d been pointing out that same hawk. Maybe he knew what kind it was. Maybe the girl was actually interested. I hoped she was.

I could go on doing this for hours. It just felt right to me, reading the ground. It was all I knew how to do well. I also found a parking place where a couple with a toddler had stopped. When they removed their son from his car seat and set him down he immediately ran towards the road and the dad chased after him. It was a big pullout but he didn’t get far. The dad carried his son but the boy didn’t want to be held. The dad’s footprints kept shifting this way and that trying to still the squirming child. He had finally given up and set the boy down again, holding his hand to keep him close.

I walked around reading all the news in the sand until I eventually noticed Rusty’s dark blue Explorer parked at one end of the pullout. He was smiling, amused that he’d snuck up on me and knowing the reason why I’d been so preoccupied. He enjoyed watching me work because only then was I so at ease. I think he could feel the rightness of it the way I did. Giving me a patch of sand was like giving a mathematician a problem or an athlete a physical challenge. I jumped in and it was like pulling teeth to get me to stop. I walked towards the Explorer and he pulled forward to save me a few steps.

“I was wondering if I was going to have to honk the horn before you’d see me,” he said.

“I’m sorry, I was reading and I lost track of time.”

“I know, I just think it’s funny.” His sandy brown hair always looked slightly windblown and his blue eyes usually smiled at me. I loved those eyes, so warm and expressive. I had certainly seen my share of emotions in those eyes. Guess that’s what comes from being a trouble magnet. He had helped me through many tough things in the short time we’d known each other. As usual, he was dressed in brown slacks with a sport coat. He’d taken off his tie and seemed at ease.

I placed Shadow in the backseat and then hopped into the front.

With a serious look he asked, “Okay, where’s it at this time?”

“Mount Pacifico.”

“And what happened?”

“I got forced off the road by an overzealous road hog.”

“Do you want to pull it out?”

“Do we have time? You’d be proud of me. I didn’t lose it over the side and I didn’t bury it axle deep. It just seemed a little risky to keep trying, so I started walking instead.”

“I was a little worried when you called me the first time. You know, we need to come up with a rating system or something. I never know if ‘I’m not going to make it back to town by six’ means ‘I’m going to be late’ or ‘I’m fighting for my life out here and if I survive I’ll probably be there after six.’ So I want to drive up there and see just what you got yourself into and I want you to tell me how serious this was in your eyes.”

“Okay. So is a one a mild situation and a ten an extreme emergency?”

“If that’s what works for you.”

“Okay, then this was a two.”

We drove up the highway a mile or so and turned off onto the road to Mount Pacifico. He drove the five miles to where my Jeep was hanging off the mountain and pulled over.

“A two. You rate this a two?”

“Sure. No danger, food and water in good shape, five miles, easy walking. Sounds like a two to me. If you change one of those factors, the number changes a lot though. If I didn’t have water I would have called it a three, and if it was five degrees hotter it would have jumped to a four.”

“So what would a ten have been?”

“The Jeep would be down there,” I said pointing over the precipice, “And I’d have no water and the temperature would be five degrees hotter. I guess that would make it a ten, if I was down there with the Jeep. If I was up here and the Jeep was down there I’d make it a four again.”

“Cassidy, what am I going to do with you? You wouldn’t have called at all if we didn’t have an appointment set up, would you?”

“I would have flagged down a ranger or a police car and gotten a ride to town and called a tow truck.”

“And what would you do if somebody else stopped and offered you a ride?”

“I doubt I’d accept it. I’m not very trusting and the walk wasn’t too bad.”

“You’d walk ten miles in the hot sun before you’d accept a ride from a stranger?”

“As long as I had water.”

He shook his head, although he seemed relieved that I wouldn’t accept rides from strangers.

“As long as we’re here we might as well pull it back up onto the road.”

I took the towrope from the back of the Jeep, latched it to the bumper and handed him the other end. Rusty attached it to his Explorer, and then pulled the Jeep gently from the edge and back onto the road. The Jeep sat crooked across the narrow dirt road so I got in and straightened it to let other cars pass.

“I better drive it home. You know what’ll happen if a ranger finds it here. Kelly or Paul would have a fit.” Kelly and Paul were the two rangers I knew best: Paul worked at the station I checked into on my many treks into the wilderness, and Kelly was Rusty’s friend. I’d tracked him down when he went missing in the spring and we kind of kept in touch through Rusty.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said to Rusty, “I swear, tomorrow I’ll go buy a winch for the Jeep.”

“Then when would I see you?”

“Very funny, you can see me whenever you want.”

“Then how about going out to dinner with me?”

“Sure, what kind of dinner?”

“I don’t know. Surprise me.”

“Surprise you?”

“Yeah, surprise me.”

“I can’t surprise you. Nothing ever surprises you. The only thing that would surprise you would be if I wore a dress.”

“Okay, don’t surprise me. Wear that dress you wore for your birthday party.”

“You want to go out for that kind of dinner?”

“I don’t care about dinner. It’s just a side of you I don’t get to see very often.”

We got into our cars and he followed me back to town before splitting off to return home to change. I didn’t know what he was going to change into. He was already wearing a sports coat and slacks. I, on the other hand, was covered head to toe in mountain dirt and sweat. And he wanted me to go out to dinner in a dress? I wondered if he knew how much he was asking. Asking me to put on a dress was like asking a wrestler to wear a tutu in the ring. There was only a handful of people I’d dress up for and even fewer occasions. Dinner was not one of them, unless Rusty asked.

I rushed home, brought Shadow into the house and took a quick shower and shaved my legs. I put on the evil panty hose and the dainty slip and pulled the dress over my head and felt the slightly slinky, clingy material settle into just the right places. I looked in the mirror at the stranger that looked back at me. I curled my hair and put on make-up and wore the matching pumps my mother had made me buy. I put on a little lip gloss and then paced nervously. I could fight. I could wrestle skittish horses. I could hike to the ends of the earth and back, but put me in a dress and I was a nervous wreck.

The doorbell rang and Shadow barked at it excitedly. I opened the door timidly and Rusty stepped in. He had changed to a different suit and he’d put a tie on. He was always so confident and sure of himself.

“Rusty, why do you do this to me?”

He smiled, amused by my uncertainty. “No matter how much mountain dirt you manage to get on you, you can’t hide that beautiful woman I see. I’m just hoping someday you’ll feel as beautiful as you look to me.”

Over dinner we started talking. “So, what was this important appointment I missed out on? You never did tell me. Since it was at the station, I assumed it was work related.”

“It was, in a way. I wanted you to meet Lou Strickland. He’s the commander of the local search and rescue team. You seem to need some work to do and occasionally he has need of a good tracker. I just didn’t know if you would work with a team, and you’d have to if you worked with him.”

“Would he even consider me? You know the first impression most people get of me. He’ll think I’m more of a liability than an asset.”

“If he gives you a trail and sees you work, he’ll know you’re a natural. I told him about the times when you tracked Silva and Kelly. I didn’t fill in all the details but he knows you followed a week old trail to find Kelly. I told him about other times I’ve observed you tracking and that it is a natural talent you have. Not many people have that talent and it’s even rarer when someone with the talent actually has a chance to develop it. He may ask you to go out with him and give him a demonstration, but it wouldn’t be anything you couldn’t handle.”

“Okay, I guess I can at least talk to him. Why do you want me to do this?”

“You wanted a way to contribute. If you got into this, you would be doing some good, doing what comes naturally to you, in an environment that you enjoy, and it would be safe. You’ll also learn a thing or two along the way.”

The food was excellent and the atmosphere was pleasant. Rusty had chosen a more formal restaurant and the waiters were all dressed in suits and opened wine bottles for diners. They tended to bow a lot and poured a little taste of wine into the goblet so you could smell the aroma and taste the wine before they filled the glass half full. The tables all had starched white tablecloths and silver trimmed dinnerware. I wasn’t used to formalities. I felt like I could shake out my own pepper and sprinkle on my own Parmesan cheese. I tended to frequent do-it-yourself type restaurants. Rusty seemed to be at ease no matter where we went.

He dropped me off at home late that night and we set a new appointment for two o’clock the next day. I’d stay in town so I’d be sure to be there, a little early as expected.

When I got to Rusty’s office the next day Lou Strickland was already there. I peeked in the window of his office and Rusty rose and opened the door with an appraising look. He hadn’t told me what to wear to a tracking interview and I hadn’t known either. I finally decided not to push the combat look. He’d see through it and he’d assume I was trying to prove a point if I dressed like that. I wore blue jeans, a cute little sleeveless blouse, and my moccasins. I carried a real purse, not the daypack I usually hauled around. I did my hair and makeup. If I had to prove my worth I was going to do it from a woman’s point of view. I wanted my skills to count, not my attitude.

Lou Strickland stood with a bemused expression on his face. He looked like a combination of my grandfather and a drill instructor in the Marines. He was in his sixties; silver hair cut short, almost a buzz but long enough to spike a little. He was tall, wore twill khaki slacks, a navy blue polo shirt, and casual shoes. The edges of a tattoo showed under his sleeve as he ran his hands through his hair, wondering what in the world this meeting was going to lead to. He shot Rusty a knowing look. That look told me more about Rusty than the past few months did. I was a little alarmed by it but I didn’t let it show. I squared my shoulders and entered the room.

“Cassidy, this is Lou Strickland. Lou I’d like you to meet Cassidy Callahan.”

“A pleasure, I’m sure,” Lou said politely, “Michaels told me he had a tracker for me to meet. He didn’t tell me much more. I have to admit I’m a bit surprised.”

“That’s okay, most people are,” I answered.

Lou Strickland took the far chair in front of Rusty’s desk so I slipped into the closer one scooting it over so I could watch both men.

“How did someone your age gain enough experience tracking to get noticed by the local police?”

“I guess you could say it’s just been a lifelong habit. I can’t remember when I didn’t notice tracks. I grew up on a ranch, and it was easier to track people than look for them. I was doing easy tracking when I was six. Then, when I was old enough to go off into the hills I’d track animals, people, anything that left a trail. The tracking isn’t something I advertise. The police wouldn’t know about it at all except that I got carjacked last spring. The guy that carjacked me was a bank robber and Rusty was assigned to his case. When Silva got away from the police I knew how he had escaped from my yard so I tracked him down to a mobile home park and he was caught. Tracking comes very naturally to me. When Silva got away, it was the natural thing for me to do, find the tracks and track him down. I think it was easier for Rusty to accept the tracking because it was forced on him in an emergency. He didn’t have time to question it.”

“An emergency, the easy way?”

I looked at Rusty. “Most people don’t take tracking seriously. If I actually tell someone I’m a tracker they never believe me. But the situation I found myself in when I met Rusty called for some quick tracking skills and so I kind of forced the concept onto him. What do you think? Was it easier to accept me as a tracker when you saw it first hand and had no choice but to follow?”

“I never really thought about it like that,” he said, “I was thinking more along the lines of how I was going to keep you from getting your head blown off.”

This seemed to amuse Lou, too. At least he seemed like an easygoing kind of guy. I was sure when it came right down to it, though, his serious side would be extremely evident.

“Look, you can ask me all the questions you want, but what it really boils down to is, can I follow a trail? Give me a trail and I’ll read it for you and you can decide for yourself.”

“As a matter of fact I do have a trail for you. It’s two days old, through varying terrains. It’s just out of town.” He looked at Rusty. “You want to go? If you’d made the appointment yesterday the trail would have been fresher.”

“Sorry,” I apologized, “I had car trouble. I was stuck up on Mount Pacifico and had to hike out.”

He gave me a look that said, ‘Why was a little kid like you up on Mount Pacifico all by yourself?’ I was used to that look. I couldn’t help it if I looked like I was fifteen. In fact I looked a lot like Skipper, the well-known little friend/sister of Barbie. Throw in a little G.I. Joe and that was what I looked like. When I was up in the mountains I wore camouflage pants, khaki t-shirts, moccasins. Yep, Skipper meets G.I. Joe, that’s me.

And, as usual, I asked myself, ‘Why is it I couldn’t do anything without surprising guys? What’s a girl supposed to do if she gets stuck somewhere? I’d still be up there if I’d waited for some camper to pull the Jeep out.’

We piled into Lou’s red Suburban. Knowing guys like to be as close to the driving experience as possible, I automatically got in the backseat but Rusty got in the backseat too. We rode a short distance out of town and Lou turned down a dirt road. He pulled over about a half mile down. I opened my door and looked at the ground before getting out. I wasn’t going to fall for the obvious trick that I expected him to pull on me. A beginner would automatically assume the trail took off from the passenger side of the car but I wasn’t assuming anything. The passenger side was just the easiest way for a person to go.

I faced the back of the Suburban, took ten paces behind the vehicle, and then began a wide circle. Just as I had suspected, I picked up the trail on the far side of the road.

“How much do you want to know? Do you just want me to find the end of the trail? Or do you want to know details along the way?”

“Some observations would be nice, but unnecessary. Just do what you feel comfortable doing.”

Just in case, I marked the start of the trail and walked down the road to see if there was more. I’m glad I’d walked up the road because he’d started with a simple trail but further down had set up an elaborate scenario that mimicked a real emergency. Maybe they had held a drill out here and he was wondering how observant I was. A beginner would have just tracked the simple trail assuming that was test enough. Assumptions. You can’t go with assumptions, especially in search and rescue. One assumption and you could endanger someone.

I looked at the road and it appeared as though a car had collided with a motorcycle. The car came along the dirt road and the motorcycle had suddenly appeared from the desert, crossing the road and hitting the car. The deep gouge through the mound of sand on the side of the road told me the motorcycle had been traveling fast when it hit the car. The car ended up sitting diagonally across the road and two people had gotten out.

“Okay,” I said reading the ground. “We’ve got a crash here involving a small car and a motorcycle. The biker was riding through the desert and came up the bank and ran into the front fender of the car. The car came to a stop diagonally across the road and the motorcycle ended up on its side over there,” I said pointing. “Two people exited the car. A man exited the driver’s side. He was small for a man. Maybe five-five, a hundred and fifty pounds. He has a short stride. He came around and opened the passenger door and a woman got out. She looks like she is heavier. She just stands there like she doesn’t want to move. She could be just shaken up by the accident. She’s leaning back on her heals a lot like she’s off balance. Maybe she’s pregnant. The guy fusses over her and then trots off to check out the motorcyclist.” I followed the footprints to where the motorcycle had lain. There was real blood on the ground. Shock immediately replaced my study of the ground. I turned to Lou. “You didn’t set this up. This is real.”

“You’re right, the first trail was the one I set up. But this is telling me more than any trail would have.”

“Why are there no tracks from police? Firemen? It’s like these people just crashed and went on their way again. But the motorcyclist was injured. There should be more to this than what the tracks show. There’s one set of car tracks over the accident scene. It must have happened earlier today. There’s not a whole lot of traffic on this road.” I went back to the man’s footprints. “He walked up to the motorcyclist and knelt down. The guy on the motorcycle was lying next to his bike and had rolled around a bit. The motorcycle dude got up. The two men stood here talking, the motorcycle guy bleeding. No sign of a struggle. I’m guessing these two parties knew each other. The neighbors out here live far apart but they do know each other. Most of them have been in these same houses for thirty years. Looks like the occupants of the car got back in and took off, and the motorcycle guy headed down the road.” I followed the track of the motorcycle down the road. “He isn’t doing too good. He can’t even ride the bike straight and he’s still bleeding. He followed the road and then cut into the desert again. He almost lost it on this bump.”

I looked into the distance. There was a house about a half mile off the road. I followed the track, came over the top of a small hill and almost stumbled over the motorcyclist lying face down in the dirt, his leg pinned under the bike. That was the least of his worries, though. He was really banged up. I turned away, bumping into Rusty and Lou. Rusty took one look and whipped out his cell phone. Lou knelt and felt for a pulse. He assessed the situation and fired the information to Rusty. A half hour later a rescue squad appeared on the dirt road followed shortly by a black and white and an ambulance.

As he was being carried on the gurney to the ambulance the guy briefly opened his eyes. “You’ve got to be the luckiest man on earth today,” Lou told him. They loaded him up and drove away, siren wailing.

Lou walked over to me, hands in his pockets, a pensive look on his face. “Tell me what you thought when you saw the guy laying there. Why did you turn back?”

Rusty looked quickly in our direction. He’d heard the question. He knew why I’d turned back.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m a bit shell shocked. Has Rusty told you what has been happening with me the past several months? I’ve seen more than my share of violence. I’ve been carjacked and hunted by drug dealers and I watched as a man was gunned down by police right in front of me. When I saw that guy just lying there… I’m not a doctor. If you’re looking for someone who can step in and save a life, I’m not that person. If you’re looking for someone who can follow a trail and lead others in to do their job, I’ll be glad to help.”

“You saved that guy’s life. A few more hours out here and he’d have been gone.” He paused. “Come over here. Read this trail just to get your mind off the accident.”

I went back to the start of Lou’s trail. It was hard to concentrate but maybe that was part of the test too. How would I work after I got rattled?

Rusty stayed behind to help the officer figure out the accident scene.

Ten paces into the tracking I turned to Lou. “You didn’t make this trail either. This trail was made by a shorter man.” I followed the tracks into the desert. “He is just walking here, strolling through the desert.” The tracks turned. “He’s looking back at his car, probably planning the trail, wondering how far he wants to go, how he will get back to the car from wherever he ends up.... His footprints lean in that direction. Of course I don’t know what he was thinking but he stands here long enough, his footprints move around a little like he was thinking that. I guess it’s what I’d be thinking if you asked me to lay a trail for somebody. He continued on, concentrating on his trail now. He is trying to find ways to trip me up. He’s walking more softly.” I slowed. “He’s gone into what I call stealth mode. He’s trying to walk as softly as he can and not leave sharp edges to his tracks. He’s using hard pack a lot but since the hard pack here doesn’t happen very often I know he’s going to follow it. And I could tell quickly if he left it. Here’s a scuff. There’s a bent branch.” I continued following the tracks. The man had walked in stealth mode for another quarter of a mile. He was obviously trying to hide his tracks but that tipped me off to look for ways to hide them and made things easier in a way. He came to a bush big enough to make a shadow and then sat in its shade. I pointed out the flattened dirt area to Lou. It was a fairly easy trail of footprints to follow. I had to stop a time or two to figure out the guy’s thinking and I had to get down to ground level once to examine the tracks from an angle. The tracks led in a rough circle and came back to the road a quarter mile down from where they started.

As we were walking back up the road to the Suburban Lou said, “Tell me about the guy you just followed. What kind of a person do you think he is?”

“Well, like I said, he’s shorter than you, lighter. He wears those funny looking sandals made out of nylon webbing and Velcro and he shouldn’t have worn them in the desert because the sand gets in them and makes walking uncomfortable. He’s got a fairly serious personality. He doesn’t joke much. He didn’t try any funny tricks on me. Everything is very straightforward with him. I get the impression that he isn’t a real neat dresser, he’s right handed.”

“How could you tell he’s right handed?”

“When he was sitting under the bush he’d picked off little pieces of the branches as he cooled down. Almost all the branches on the guy’s right hand side had pieces broken off. Then he’d tossed the pieces to his left.”

“Interesting,” he said, “Have you been to tracking school?”

“No, tracking is just something I have always enjoyed doing. I’ve tracked animals, people. I like to go stalking in the woods. I track an animal and then stalk it until I’m as close as I can get to it. Tracking people is a lot easier than tracking animals. I doubt Rusty will go to the beach with me anymore because I read the footprints in the sand until it drives him nuts.”

“Oh, I bet you can get him back there, no problem,” he said with a wink. “Look, I’m going to have to talk to Rusty before I make a decision. You indicated that he seems to know a lot of history that I should probably be aware of. I can see you have an incredible amount of talent in tracking but there are demographics involved in this. If you don’t hear from me in a while don’t be concerned. I’ll let you know in a week or so what you can expect.”

“Why talk to Rusty about it? I’m willing to tell you what happened.”

“If you wish to be there, by all means, you are welcome. We don’t want to talk about you behind your back. I think Rusty can see things from my point of view, so I’d like to hear it from his point of view. That’s all.”

“One of the things you will learn is that I refused to work with a team when I tracked down Kelly Green. Since then I’ve come to see it in a better light. So don’t go thinking I won’t follow orders or work with other people.”

I’d decided that Rusty would be more comfortable if I had other people around me and maybe getting out with a team occasionally would take care of my wanderlust. I’d get to help people and contribute.

Back at the station I left the guys to talk about me behind my back, knowing Rusty would fill me in later. I was convinced Strickland was ready to use me if he thought I’d fit in with the team. I wondered, though, if finding out about all the crazy things I’d been through would cause him to back down and question my readiness for this work both emotionally and psychologically. I had to admit I was still bothered by nightmares but I’d come to accept them and I didn’t stay freaked out when they happened. I left the matter in the hands of the one person I trusted and put the matter aside.