Page 90

CHAPTER 89

CHESTER RINGS DUNHAM on Sunday morning. They’re not friends, not by a long shot, but Chester’s come to realize that they’re on the same side. They both want the best for Wendy and those kids.

Not that they’ve been able to get it. Dunham finally located a couple of Marsdens down in Florida, but he hadn’t been able to convince Wendy to talk to them. Meanwhile Chester had spent the last three months visiting his favorite wolf kids in juvie.

When Dunham picks up, Chester says, “Kai and Holo ran.”

“What?”

“I can’t locate Wendy, either. The number I had for her has been disconnected.”

Dunham’s working out of Pocatello now, a couple of hours south. He makes a low noise in his throat. Almost sounds like a wolf growl. Then he says, “Runaways aren’t an FBI matter.”

“I know that,” Chester says. “That’s why I called you on your day off.”

“Shit,” Dunham sighs.

He shows up in Kokanee Creek three hours later, wearing a pair of hiking boots and carrying a nylon daypack. The men take Chester’s truck up the logging road as far as they can into the hills, and then they start walking. Chester marked the trees on the hike out the last time, so big chalk X’s lead them toward the cabin. Chester carries a pack with water and Lacey’s homemade trail mix. They ford a couple of creeks. Scramble up embankments. Duck under fallen trees.

“You didn’t tell me it’d take this long,” Dunham grumbles.

“You should’ve brought your bird,” Chester says. “I never got to ride in it.”

Dunham grunts. “They don’t give me the keys.”

Chester freezes. Says, “Shhh.”

Ahead of them, barely visible through the trees, is a big buck. He stands there, head lifted, listening.

Chester’s heart pounds. The stag stares at them for a long time, regal as a king. “Not gonna hurt you,” Chester whispers.

In the quiet he can hear Dunham’s hard breathing. His own, too. They’ve been hiking for nearly six miles now and they’re sweating and exhausted. Generations ago, their ancestors might’ve belonged in woods like these, but the two of them don’t. They belong behind desks. Beneath artificial lights. Their food wrapped in plastic and heated in a microwave.

It’s a shame, Chester thinks, what we’ve done to ourselves. What we’ve done to just about everything we touch.

The deer swivels its head. A second later, it turns and bounds away.

“Wow,” Dunham says softly. “That was something.”

Then they keep walking. After another few miles, the trees thin out a little. The creek cuts back west. And Chester can see the cabin in the distance. His heart starts pounding.

The door’s open.

He drops his pack and runs.