Page 86

Roark scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder, his cassock tossed off and left on the trail behind us. Cotton shorts clung to his narrow hips, the brawn of his chest flexing beneath a sheen of moisture.

Had he lost weight? I guessed we all had.

He tramped past us, muttering, “Mouthy woman is mad out of it.”

Darwin wagged his tail weakly, curled on his side and confined by the wooden sides of the litter, as flies circled his head and crawled around his eyes.

Jesse balanced the stretcher, wobbling the opposite end in my hands. He angled his profile in my direction, droplets trickling over his stubble and clinging to the tip of his nose.

“I should’ve seen tracks by now. I would’ve thought…” He made a hocking noise in his throat and spit a loogie in the cracked dirt. “The Lakota haven’t hunted in this area since the last rain.”

I dragged my sandpaper tongue against the roof of my mouth, feeling the sudden urge to spit, too. Instead, I wriggled a water bottle from my pocket and finished it off.

We used our canned foods sparingly, and our water filter and nearby streams kept us hydrated, but… “How long since it’s rained here?”

He stared at the ground, the surrounding trees, and the canopy above. “Two weeks. Maybe three. Their camp has to be close.”

I dropped the empty bottle beside Darwin’s sleeping body and adjusted my hands on the branches that supported his stretcher. “How close?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

His jaw locked down tight, and a thundercloud rolled across his face. “I follow the tracks. And there aren’t any fucking tracks!”

Geesh, he was crabby. Maybe exhaustion had impaired his tracking skills. But in the back of my mind slithered a horrendous thought, one that would explain why Darwin left the mountains and why the Lakota hadn’t followed him.

At the top of the hill, Roark’s lumbering steps froze. Turning slowly, he lowered Shea to her feet, steadying her with a hand on her arm as his other hand lifted the sword. Then his eyes found Jesse.

Roark didn’t speak, and his stone-cold silence shivered across my overheated skin, raising hairs in its path. It was the kind of silence that rang alarms in my head. Every muscle in my body snapped into maximum readiness.

“What?” Jesse mouthed at Roark.

Roark covered his nose and shook his head. Shea did the same, her face twisted in disgust.

I sniffed the air, filling my lungs with loam and vegetation and the ripe odor of my own funk. Whatever they scented hadn’t reached my nose.

Jesse crouched, bringing Darwin’s stretcher to the ground, and I followed his lead. Wordlessly, he pulled his bow off his back, and I lifted the carbine from mine.

Darwin scrambled off the stretcher and stalked toward Roark, his muzzle to the ground. He’d recovered enough to walk short distances, but he was in no shape to protect himself.

“Hier,” I whispered.

Darwin paused, his scraggly face looking back at me, his body poised to turn around and obey.

“No.” Jesse said, quietly, shooing him with a hand. “Go on.”

Shit. I clenched my hands against a rising tide of fear. I didn’t like this, not one bit, but Jesse was right. Darwin knew these woods better than any of us, and the twitch of his ear and rise of his hackles were invaluable gauges of the dangers that lurked here.

Jesse gave me a stern look and stabbed a finger at the space behind him. He wanted me glued to his back? Fine. For now.

I trailed him up the hill, sticking close. My sweaty finger pressed tightly against the trigger guard of the carbine as I studied Darwin’s slinking jog.

About forty paces in, I smelled it.

Death and decay hung in the air. My gag reflex kicked in, and I instinctively breathed through my mouth, dragging the vile taste of rot across my tongue.

Jesse staggered, his hand reaching back to grab my arm, his eyes frantically searching the depths of the woods.

Panic spread through my limbs and crushed my lungs. Please don’t let that smell be the Lakota. Please, oh fucking God, please.

Darwin zipped past Roark and Shea, his steps picking up speed. His nose lifted from the ground, pointed left, and he took off through the brush.

We followed him, the godawful stink growing stronger, more potent, with every step.

Up ahead, Darwin stood in a small clearing, his head cocked to the side. His hackles weren’t up and his fangs weren’t out. No, he was waiting for us. And whining.

It was at that moment I knew. I knew what we’d find, and Jesse did, too. His hands trembled his outstretched bow, and a guttural noise sounded in his throat.

We ran toward the clearing where Darwin waited, passing shriveled, dead trees, our boots crunching yellow and brown leaves. It looked—felt—like the life had been sucked from the landscape.