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FORTY-FOUR

For a moment Steph just stared back at the smaller man. Despite his smile, he was clearly serious. She clicked her tongue as she turned towards the cave. She tried to remember how she had been taught to do it. It was an old Indigenous American man who had taken her on the night walk when she’d learnt how to do it. She doubted he’d ever have imagined her having to use it in such a strange scenario.

Gathering her breath deep within her lungs she began to howl. Thankfully the man didn’t laugh. Instead he raised his head a little to look eagerly at the mouth of the cave. Nothing. Steph howled again. Still nothing. They waited a further few seconds.

Steph could see that the man was about to ask questions, so Steph howled again. In the pause that followed, there was only silence, not even the sound of bird song. Perhaps they’d been scared off by the howling.

“It doesn’t seem our quarry is here,” the man said, an edge to his voice.

“Which could be an issue,” Steph whispered.

“Obviously.”

“Because if he is not here, where is he?”

“I dunno; could be anywhere. Could be miles away, couldn’t he?”

“Possibly, possibly not…”

Steph hoped that the seed she planted might at least make the man slightly more concerned with his immediate surroundings rather than what to do with her and her failure to deliver the bear. It must have been on his mind. He kept flicking looks from the cave to her to where his friend was hidden. More importantly, where were Davey and the others to make her need to distract him with fear as irrelevant?

Growling slightly, the smaller man stood upright, stretched and called, “You might as well come out now! He isn’t here!”

Following the man’s lead Steph stood up. She looked in the direction of where the other man was meant to be hidden.

“I said you should come out!”

Still he remained hidden.

“For fuck’s sake!” muttered the smaller man before hoisting the rifle onto his back and beginning to walk across the small plateau to where his friend was hidden. Steph followed.

“Why are you still crouching down there, you dozy turnip?”

The man then stopped, colour draining from his face as he looked at a spot behind a tree. Steph could not see what he was looking at. The branches of the great yew hung low. Cautiously, she took one quick glance at the cave mouth to her left before sidling up to the smaller man.

“Shit!”

Steph couldn’t help the outburst. She knew there would be some sort of ambush, but she had no idea how it was going to play out. It had been silent. A quiet, efficient sweep.

The large balding man lay face down in the dirt with blood pouring from the wound at the back of his head. His tranquillizer rifle lay next to his open hand. There was no sign of what had hit him.

As the smaller man appeared frozen by shock and indecision, Steph took the opportunity to kneel down and place two fingers under the man’s neck. She moved them around trying to find what she doubted was there. She was right, it wasn’t there. She turned to the man looming over her and shook her head.

The man just stared down, his mouth slightly ajar. He was not looking at her as such. It was more that he was looking through her, lost in his own thoughts. Steph stood up. As she did so there was an audible snap somewhere further up the slope within the trees. Steph jerked her head upwards. So did the man, the noiseseeming to shatter his trance and crystallise his thoughts.

In one swift move, Steph felt the man grab the scruff of her neck before cold metal settled itself just under her chin. It all happened in the space of a couple of seconds. Seconds, Steph thought, would be her last on the planet.

“Right, enough of this act,” the man snarled.

“What act?” Steph replied, her voice rising and her heart beginning to prep itself for action.

“I said enough! You know who I am, and I know who you are, so let’s stop the pretence! Now where are the others?”

“I don’t know!” Steph squeaked. Did he really know who she was? Did he really think she knew who he was? Or did he just mean that she knew what he was doing? Either way, she supposed she’d given the game away by saying ‘I don’t know’.

“I suggest that you don’t lie to me!”

Steph felt the bite of a blade nibble at her neck, something warm trickling down it.