Cut and Run 2 - Sticks and Stones

other. They enjoyed the adversity, and Deuce was enjoying seeing all the puzzle pieces of their partnership and how they were starting to fit together.
    “Great. He’ll pick the worst one,” Zane grumbled as Ty moved past them.
    “Nah,” Deuce answered with certainty. “He stays away from the really bad ones when I’m with him,” he said with a tap of his walking stick on the ground to indicate his bad leg. Zane offered him an apologetic smile, but Deuce waved it off.
    “You ready?” Ty asked them from where he stood at the head of the trail.
    “What’s with the car?” Zane asked as he and Deuce moved to join him.
    Ty shrugged and looked at it again. “Expired inspection,” he explained. “Been up here a while.”
    Deuce glanced over at the vehicle, wondering why Ty had even noticed and why Zane had felt the need to ask him about it. It had to be an FBI thing.
    “You want to do something about it?” Zane asked Ty as they all looked at the dusty car. There were several stickers on the back for the Appalachian Trail, the Shenandoah Valley, the Great Smoky Mountains, The Black Cat in Boone, North Carolina, and several others in the same vein. The owner was obviously a hiker.
    “Ten to one the driver has a hemp wallet,” Deuce said to Ty wryly.
    Ty snorted and shook his head, smiling. He gave the car one last look and shrugged. Deuce figured the car probably belonged to a long-term hiker who hadn’t thought ahead to have the inspection done. Ty was apparently thinking along the same lines.
    “We’ll let it be,” Ty answered carelessly. “Y’all ready?” he asked them. Earl had already disappeared into the trees.
    Zane nodded, although he did give the car one more look before he started walking. Deuce started off down the trail just ahead of him, knowing Ty would take up the rear like he always did. It often didn’t matter what trail they intended to take. Earl went where he pleased. That was why they had stopped even trying to plot their course years ago.
    It was quiet on the mountain, cool and peaceful and wonderful. Deuce and Ty had grown up in these mountains, and no matter how many big cities he lived in or how much money he made, Deuce would always consider this home. He glanced back at Zane and then Ty as he followed a curve in the trail. Zane was looking all around him, and it was even clearer now that he was stiff in the shoulders. Wary. On guard somehow.
    Very interesting. It could be as he said, that he just wasn’t accustomed to the mountains, or it could be that this was how Zane Garrett always was. Deuce didn’t want to describe it as a hair trigger, but it was close.
    It usually made Ty cranky when Deuce started analyzing his friends, but he just couldn’t help himself. “Is it the trees that make you nervous or just not knowing where you’re going?” Deuce asked over his shoulder.
    Zane glanced up at him. “Both,” he said curtly, though he sighed and shrugged a little after that answer. “But I imagine I’ll get used to it really quickly.”
    Deuce turned and glanced back at him more fully. Behind Zane, Ty was fixing a lime green buff over his head as he walked, not really paying attention to them. He had about half a dozen of them, each a different color and pattern, and he wore them underneath his straw hat to keep his ears warm and wick the sweat away from his short hair. Deuce knew he’d worn them through a variety of different Recon missions, and he was never without one on the mountain.
    Deuce looked back at Zane and smiled. “Shout if you need to stop,” he advised.
    “Come on, ladies!” Earl called from far ahead of them. “Next twenty miles ain’t gonna hike theirselves!”
    Behind him, Deuce heard Ty begin to whistle the tune to “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Deuce knew, though, that in his mind Ty was singing “The Bear Went over the Mountain.” Deuce grinned. It was going to be an interesting hike.

    I T WAS well past midday of the second day of hiking when Earl stopped them for a decent break. Ty set his pack against a towering tree and took out the trail map. He held it up and tilted it into the broken sunshine that cut through the canopy of leaves. They were going over terrain he didn’t recognize, and though Earl seemed confident in where he was going, Ty’s father always seemed confident in where he was going, regardless of whether he knew where he actually was.
    Ty was fairly certain they were already lost.
    Deuce came over as Earl