“I can climb,” I offer. “But visibility is limited. This whole area is too thick with pine, spruce, and other prickly trees. None of them make for great scaling, and higher elevation just gives you a view of more needles.”
“If I were him,” Miggy murmurs, “I’d have a ghillie suit. Experienced hunter? Probably made his own, covered in local brush and leaves. Something like that, he could belly crawl right into our encampment, pick us off one by one.”
“This isn’t helping,” Scott says.
“Unless we make our own.” Miggy purses his lips, clearly thinking. “Forget a pit. Too much time and labor. But a series of shallow depressions, say, in a starfish pattern around this area.” He gestures to the tree hollow. “We each hunker down individually, covered in debris.” He looks up at us. “When he appears, we spring. Each of us armed. Attack as one.”
“We’re the teeth of the trap,” Bob states.
“What if he waits all day?” Scott argues. “Makes his move at night?”
“He could have night goggles.” Neil speaks up. “Everyone likes a pair of kickass night goggles.”
“Yes,” Miggy exclaims in exasperation. “He probably has night goggles. And for that matter, hydration built into his suit, space diapers to absorb urine output, and high-protein gel pouches to keep him fueled and awake. He is fucking better prepared. Now, enough about him. What are we going to do?”
“Daisy’s red vest.” I hold it up. “He doesn’t know about it yet. He wouldn’t have left it there.”
Everyone stares at me.
“We take Miggy’s idea, but move it. This campsite as ground zero is too passive—you’re right, he could hunker down and watch for hours, content we’ll eventually return. We need something that draws him out, forces him to move where we want him to move. Something unexpected.” I glance at Bob. “Even if he got Nemeth and Luciana, there’s a chance Daisy got away. Meaning, she’s a loose end for him. Spotting this remnant . . .”
“He’ll want to go check it out,” Bob fills in.
“He won’t be expecting five bodies scattered around its location. He won’t even be looking for us. A scrap of red in the woods. No reason for him not to walk forward and grab it. I did.”
Miggy starts to nod slowly, then Scott. Finally, Neil and Bob.
“As plans go, it’s riddled with holes, uncontrollable variables, and way too many assumptions.” Miggy looks around. “On the other hand, anyone got a better idea?”
We all remain silent.
“All right. Clock’s ticking. Let’s make this happen.”
* * *
—
My heart is pounding by the time I lead them to where I first found Daisy’s vest. With each step, I wonder if the air behind me will crack with rifle fire and the ground explode at my feet. We’ve already wasted most of the morning between intelligence gathering, first aid, and strategic planning.
Our tracker is way ahead of us. He knows roughly where we are, how many we are, and how completely unprepared we are. At any moment . . .
Once again, Bob brings up the rear, this time to try to cover our tracks. Not his best skill, he confessed, but he’s still the most qualified.
We left some gear loaded into the travois, as if we were planning to return to the tree hollow. We wanted our hunter to feel calm, like he had plenty of time to catch his inexperienced prey. Play to his ego.
Psychological warfare is as important a strategy as any.
When we arrive at the fallen log where I first spotted the red vest, I gingerly return it to its snagged position on a broken branch. The log is half rotten, pieces of bark having fallen away to reveal the smooth, ivory-colored flesh beneath. I trace the exposed wood with my fingers. It feels like bare bones. What we all become in the end.
Miggy walks a circle around the area. There’s only a small patch of open ground before we encounter more trees, a clump of bushes, et cetera. It takes me only a second to realize we’re not digging five depressions in this ground anytime soon. There’s no way we’d be able to hack our way through all the tree roots, let alone the level of disturbance that would make.
“Plan B,” Miggy states, looking at Scott. “We use the terrain.”
Scott points up, wincing only slightly, as he gestures at a V formed by two branches at the trunk of a rough-looking fir. “One perch.”
“The bushes,” Neil offers. He’s leaning against the fallen log, clearly having to recover from the walk over. He’s still doing better than yesterday. “Dig out a little beneath them, that’ll be perfect.”