"Douglas, Lynda - The Forest Connection" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglas Lynda)

The Forest Connection
By
Lynda Douglas

A loud "whack" jerked Sue from a sound sleep. She sat up abruptly, banging her head on the aluminum tent frame.

The darkness inside the tent was absolute. She reached over to Art's side of the small, two-man tent. His sleeping bag was unzipped, cold, and empty. She crawled through the tent opening into the cold night air. "Art? Did you hear that? Was it a rifle shot?" Silence answered her.

She retrieved her flashlight and played the beam over the area. "Art," she called again softly. She killed the light and stood motionless listening to the quiet sounds of the forest. Crickets chirped, and tree frogs croaked beyond the edges of the camp.

Art claimed his keen perception for anything out of harmony in the woods was his Yakima heritage speaking to him. Had he, too, heard something, sensed something that had awakened him?

Sue looked around for his backpack. It still hung from the tree limb, next to the food stores. If he left his backpack, he hadn't planned to go far, she reasoned. She busied herself packing up their gear. There was nothing to do but wait until morning.

Sunrise, and Art still had not returned. Sue searched the area around the camp. Her experience as a Forest Ranger combined with Art's skillful guidance paid off.

The early morning light revealed his trail leading northeast, deeper into the forest. No established hiking trail existed here, so she had to skirt boulders and deadfall as she picked her way, following his tracks as they gradually descended toward the Chewuch River.

About an hour later, she reached the place where Art's tracks intersected an old hiking trail. The going was easier now and after covering another 300 yards, a confusion of signs brought her to an abrupt halt. More than one person, several in fact, had been in the area only a few hours earlier.

Dark red, almost black droplets of something had splashed on leaves and grass. It looked like dried blood. Sue's apprehension turned to dread. Could it be animal blood? Something had been dragged several yards over the brush. Was someone hunting out of season? Had Art heard them and come to investigate? A few feet further, she found more of the dark smears on a rock outcropping.

The shot she had heard, and she was sure now it had been a shot, when was it, about three o'clock this morning? Art must have left camp long before that. Oh, God, she thought, something is terribly wrong.

Picking up the trail again, her sense of urgency pushed her faster. It wasn't difficult to see where they had been.

Sue spied a bit of blood-streaked yellow tape, snagged on a small bush. Art carried a roll of yellow tape for marking trees. An involuntary shiver went up her spine.

Something foreign to the forest environment insinuated itself, and instinctively she proceeded more cautiously. She stopped, closed her eyes, and tested the air with all her senses, waiting for it to come to her. Tobacco.

Sue dropped to her knees, sniffing the air. Someone was smoking, and the hushed refrains of laughter floated to her through the trees. Stooped low, she crept toward the sound.

She could hear clearly now, voices she didn't recognize. A trio of tents was arranged in the center of a clearing. Just beyond them, three men sat on a downed tree, drinking beer.

Sue spotted a Ford Bronco, camping gear, a cooler, and three rifles. There was no sign of Art.

The youngest of the men tossed his empty can on the ground, and then dipped his hand into the cooler for another. "What do you think we ought to do with him, Charlie?

"Hell, if he wasn't a ranger, I'd say we should just shoot him and hide the body. But seeing as how he..."

Sue's stomach drew into a knot. She had to do something, but she couldn't just stroll into camp and demand they release him. Stay calm, she cautioned herself. Listen and plan.

The oldest man slapped his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. "Damn the luck, anyhow. To my way of thinking, those Forest Service people have come too close too many times. I knew something like this was gonna happen. What I wanna do is cut our losses and get the hell out of here, but what we're gonna do is wait until that buyer, Jelco gets here."

He walked around to the other side of the tree trunk, his hands kneading the flesh above his hipbones. "We'll let Jelco decide what to do with the ranger."

He lit another cigarette and took a long drag from it, exhaling a column of blue-gray smoke. "I'm tired of pushing my luck. I just want to make sure nothing and nobody screws up this deal. And I want out of this business."

"I know Pa, but we ain't gonna get what we want for the crop. Jelco's gonna take the price of paying harvesters out of the money he's paying us. Maybe we should stay with it long enough to harvest it for him. We'll sure get more cash that way."