Page 12 of Wild Skies (Rugged Loners #3)

Two hours later, it turns out maps are harder to read in the forest gloom—and paths are harder to follow. What seemed clear as day out on the bare, sunny mountainside is not so obvious in this maze of tree roots and mossy boulders.

“Right.” Spreading the map out against a tree trunk, I squint at the path I marked out in smudgy pencil. Landmarks. I need landmarks. “Right, okay.”

After five minutes, I turn the map ninety degrees to the left.

After ten minutes, I lower the map and let my forehead thunk against the tree.

I’m going to die up here.

I’ll be another statistic; another headline for someone else’s story. A pile of bones and a pair of barely-worn hiking boots, the insides stained brown with dried blood, left up here on the mountain in a sad little mound and picked clean by cougars and squirrels.

Will anyone mourn? Sure, I have casual friends aplenty in the city, and my landlord will notice the missed rent payments, but will anyone really care that I’m gone? What’s it all been for?

A deep sigh drifts through the pine trees.

It takes me way too long to realize that sigh was not my own.

Whirling around, I lose my balance and stagger to the left. A man stands ten feet away, watching me. He’s dressed in a pair of ancient jeans and nothing else, barefoot and bare-chested, and his crossed arms bulge with muscle. A frayed, once-white bandage is knotted around his bicep.

He’s dirty and bearded.

His hair is long and matted.

Piercing gray eyes gleam as he frowns.

Wild man.

I beam at the stranger, my brush with death forgotten. “ There you are. I knew I’d find you.”

The wild man’s scowl deepens. He jerks his head back the way I came, and though he doesn’t speak, his meaning is clear enough. I should go home already, and stop blundering around on his mountain like a clueless tourist.

“Uh huh, totally, I will absolutely get out of your hair. But first, could you answer a few questions for me? Since I came all this way to interview you and all.”

Fumbling my notebook out of my backpack as I talk, I set everything else down and turn to a clean page, pencil poised, then smile brightly at the Wild Man of Starlight Ridge.

He stares back at me, nonplussed.

Wait, does he speak English?

Does he speak, period? What if he was raised by wolves?

No worries. I’m the reigning champion at Daniels family charades.

“So, are you aware of your reputation as the Wild Man of Starlight Ridge? Did you know that last year you made a list of top fifty folktales and urban legends?”

The man stares.

Oookay. No problem. Charade time.

“Did you—” I point at him, “know—” tap my head with my pencil, “you’re an official cryptid?” Notebook clutched in one hand, I mime an exaggerated creep through the forest.

The man shakes his head—but not like he’s answering my question. More like he’s trying to wake himself up from a weird dream.

And you know what? That’s a little unfair. I’m not the one who looks like Tarzan dressed in old jeans, but somehow this guy is edging away like I’m loopy, looking all the world like he’s about to melt back into the trees.

“Wait, wait, wait! Don’t go yet, Wild Man. Seriously, I have so many questions. And—I’m lost!” I add as he half-disappears behind a trunk. “If you leave now, I’ll definitely die of exposure or get eaten by a wild animal. Think of the mess.”

The man sighs heavily, then comes back out from behind the tree. His gray eyes are narrowed on me, annoyed.

So he does understand me. That makes things easier.

“Okay, next question. What’s it like living wild out here? What supplies do you have? Does it ever get lonely? Do you get scared?”

The man prowls closer, moving quietly through the trees. If I wasn’t watching him, buzzing with excitement that I’ve found him, I wouldn’t notice him at all. It’s like he’s one with the landscape, cloaked in natural camouflage, while I blunder around with my stiff boots and rustly backpack.

Hang on, how long has this guy been watching me? He could’ve been nearby for hours already and I wouldn’t have known. At that realization, a shiver runs down my spine, and the breeze feels extra cold on my cheeks.

The wild man reaches my side, bends down to pluck the map from my open bag, then spreads it on the tree beside me again. Taking my pencil, he draws a new path on the map, linking my previous route with some random spot in the forest.

Wow. I went really wrong.

Good thing Denim Tarzan is here, spinning me around by the shoulders. He points between the trees, then shoves the map and pencil into my hand.

“That way,” he says, his deep voice rusty from lack of use. “Go now, while you’ve still got good light. And keep whistling. Make plenty of noise. You should reach the town in four hours.”

“I knew you could talk,” I tell him, lifting my notebook again. “Please, if you could answer just a few questions—”

“No.”

I blink up at the man. He frowns down at me, and he’s so much closer now than before. Close enough to feel the body heat radiating off his bare, dirt-streaked chest, and to feel my neck twinge at how much taller he is.

“No?” I repeat, nonplussed.

“No.”

“But I came all this way…”

The wild man jerks his head back and forth, his long, matted hair moving over his shoulders.

It’s some shade of brown, but it’s hard to tell when he’s caked in a thin layer of dirt.

There’s a faint blood stain on his bandage, but it looks old.

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” he says. “I don’t owe you shit, alright? Now go.”

“But I—”

“ Go . And next time don’t come up the mountain unprepared. Don’t come where you don’t belong.”

Though it’s ridiculous, though I know this jerk is right, his words still sting. Inhaling sharply through my nose, I bend down to stuff everything except the map in my backpack.

Ouch. Who is this guy, and how can he hurt my feelings so easily? Why do I care what some mean, dirty cryptid thinks of me? Because… I do. I do care. My chest aches at the thought of this man thinking I’m stupid, and my lungs burn way worse than they did on the climb.

“You don’t know me,” I say quietly, shouldering my pack. “And you shouldn’t judge what you don’t understand.”

Denim Tarzan sneers. “I know enough.”

“Says the man who forgot how to comb his hair.”

Not my best comeback, but I’m tired and hurt and abruptly so, so done with this mountain and everything on it. It’ll have to do. Pine needles crackle underfoot as I turn on my heel.

“Don’t blunder into any bear dens,” the wild man calls after me, his deep voice drifting through the trees.

I flip him off over my shoulder and hike on, sniffing away frustrated tears.