Black Hills

have argued with the tone, she might have argued with the orders. But he was right about the camera. She pulled her phone out while Coop took the lead. “I’ve got a rifle if I need it,” she told him.
    She reached a sleepy-voiced Tansy. “Hey, Lil. Where—”
    “Check the camera. Number eleven. The one I fixed yesterday. Check it now.”
    “Sure. I’ve been watching since you called. I went out to check on the animals, brought Eric back with me so. . . . Hell, it’s down again. Are—”
    “Listen to me. Cooper and I are about twenty minutes from the site. Somebody’s up there, been up there. There was a shot.”
    “Oh, my God. You don’t think—”
    “I need you to put the police and game warden on alert. We’ll know in about twenty minutes. Get Matt on call. If she’s wounded I’ll get her in. We may need an airlift for that.”
    “I’ll take care of it. Stay in contact, Lil, and be careful.” The line clicked dead before Lil could respond.
    “We can move faster than this,” Lil insisted.
    “Yeah, and we can move right into the crosshairs. It’s not how I want to spend my morning. We don’t know who’s up there, or what he has in mind. What we know is he has a weapon, and he’s had time to run, or find cover and lie in wait.”
    Or he could have doubled back, Coop thought, and even now could be setting himself up for some human target practice. He couldn’t be sure, so he couldn’t follow the urge to immobilize Lil and tie her to a damn tree while he went on without her.
    “We’d better go on foot from here.” He turned his head, met her eyes. “It’ll be quieter, and we make smaller targets. Take your knife, the drug gun, the phone. Anything happens, you run. You know the territory better than anyone else. Get lost, call for help, and stay lost until it comes. Clear?”
    “This isn’t New York. You’re not a cop anymore.”
    His gaze was frigid. “And this isn’t a bag-and-tag anymore either. How much time do you want to waste arguing with somebody who’s bigger than you are?”
    She dismounted because he was right, and loaded a small pack with what she felt she needed. She kept the tranquilizer gun in her hand.
    “Behind me,” he ordered. “Single file.”
    He moved quickly, covering ground. She kept pace as he knew she would. Then he stopped, pulled out his field glasses, and using the brush for cover, scanned the grassland up ahead.
    “Can you see the cage?”
    “Hold on.”
    He could see trampled snow, the line of trees, the jut of boulders. Countless opportunities for cover.
    He scanned over. The angle was poor, but he could see part of the cage, part of the cat. And the blood on the snow.
    “I can’t get a good look from here. But she’s down.”
    Lil closed her eyes for a moment. Even so, he watched grief rush over her face. “We’ll cut over, come up behind the cage. It’s better cover.”
    “Okay.”
    It took longer, and the way was a battle with incline, knee-deep snow, rough and slippery ground.
    She shoved through brush, accepted Coop’s hand for a boost when she needed it.
    And on the bright, crisp air, she scented blood. She scented death.
    “I’m going out to her.” Lil’s voice held calm and nothing else. “He’d have heard us coming if he stuck around. He’d have had time to circle around, take cover, and pick us off if that’s what he wanted. He shot a trapped animal. He’s a coward. He’s gone.”
    “Can you help her?”
    “I doubt it, but I’m going out to her. He could’ve shot you last night, the minute you stepped out of the tent.”
    “I go first. Nonnegotiable.”
    “I don’t care. Go on, then. I need to get to her.”
    Stupid, he told himself. A risk that solved nothing. But he thought of helping Lil set up the cage, how he’d watched with her as the trap sprang.
    He couldn’t leave the cat there.
    “Maybe you should fire a couple of rounds, so he knows we’re armed, too.”
    “He might take that as a challenge.” He glanced back at her. “You’re thinking it’s easier to kill a trapped animal, or an animal anyway, than it is a human being. It’s a mistake to think that. It depends on who’s doing the shooting. Stay back, and stay down until I tell you.”
    He stepped into the open.
    For a moment his skin was alive, his muscles tight and tensed. He’d been shot once, and it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat.
    Overhead a hawk circled and cried. He watched the trees. A movement brought his weapon