The Bodies Left Behind

hair.
    The camper had two doors, front and back. Gandy walked to the back one, stepped inside and found a battered deer rifle. He loaded the clip.
    “What’re you doing, honey?”
    “I’ve got to go see.”
    “But the rangers—”
    “Not around here and not now. You lock up tight, pull the curtains and don’t open the door for anybody ’cept me or Rudy.”
    “Sure, honey. Be careful.”
    Susan climbed the steps inside and closed and locked the door. Shutters closed and the camper went dark. The faint sound of the generator was pretty much covered up by the wind. Good.
    Zipping up his jacket and pulling on a gray knitted hat that Susan had bought him for his birthday, Gandy started down the small path that led eventually to the Joliet Trail, the rifle held in the crook of his arm.
    He made his way south and east. They’d been here for four days and he’d spent much of that time hiking nearby. He knew the place well, had found impromptu paths and trails, made by deer—trampled leaves, broken branches and pellets—and people (ditto, minus the shit).
    He moved slowly, cautiously. Not afraid of getting lost, afraid of whom he might run into out here.
    Had that sound been a scream or not? he wondered.
    If so, human or animal?
    Gandy now walked two or three hundred yards in the direction he thought he’d heard the sounds, and then knelt down, surveying the moonlit forest. He heard snaps and a crack or two, not far away, maybe branches falling, maybe deer, maybe bear.
    “Or maybe my damn imagination.”
    But then he tensed.
    There, yes . . . No doubt about it. He was looking at a person—a woman, he was sure—moving from tree to tree, keeping low. She was carrying something in her hand. It seemed thin. A rifle? He gripped his own, a Savage .308, tightly.
    What was this all about? Shouting and howling in a deserted, and officially closed, state park so late at night? His heart was slamming. His instinct was to get back to the camper and get the hell out of here. But the rattling diesel engine could attract unwanted attention.
    As he hunkered low, spying on her, he wondered why she was acting like a soldier. Cautious, creeping from cover to cover. She was clearly no ranger. She didn’t have on a distinctive Smokey the Bear hat or a typical ranger uniform jacket. It seemed she was in a ski parka.
    His instincts told him she was a threat.
    The woman disappeared behind a large clump of blackberry and he didn’t see her emerge. Gandy rose and, holding the gun muzzle up, moved in her direction.
    Just get the hell out of here, part of his mind shouted.
    But then: No. You’ve got too much at stake. Keep going.
    He stopped at a steep decline that led down to the forest floor, steadying himself with his left hand on thin birch and oak saplings and then, when the ground flattened, he moved toward the bush where the woman had disappeared.
    He studied the area. No sign of her.
    Then there she was, thirty or so feet away. She was in shadow but he could just make her out, lying half hidden beside the bush, her head down, like a lioness waiting for an antelope.
    Very quietly he worked the bolt on the Savage, chambering a round, and started forward, picking his steps around branches and leaves, as if he were treading through a minefield.
    Playing at being a soldier himself. A role he wasn’t very comfortable with at all.

    KRISTEN BRYNN MCKENZIE crouched behind a gnarled but stately black oak, gripping the pool cue spear hard and taking deep breaths, her mouth open wide for silence. She’d climbed back up the hill toward the spot where the man had disappeared.
    Her palms sweated, though she was cold again, having slipped out of her parka and one set of sweatpants.The clothes, stuffed with leaves, now sat like a fallen scarecrow under a blackberry bush, bait to attract Hart’s partner.
    The trick seemed to be working. He was now approaching cautiously.
    Still no sign of Hart.
    Good, she’d thought.
    One on one, I can take you.
    She’d risked his shooting at her from a distance and stepped into the moonlight to give him a brief view of her, then disappeared fast behind the blackberry bush, where she’d stripped off the clothes, and left them on the ground like someone hurt or hiding.
    She’d slipped down the hill, circled back to this tree.
    Praying that Hart’s partner would take the bait.
    Which he had. Gun pointed up, the shadowy form started down the hill toward the effigy.
    Brynn now huddled behind the tree,