"Um, they brought it in last night. Claude dressed it, but left the rest for me to practice skinning on. Do you want to watch?" he asked eagerly.

"Mmm. Sure."

Amy wasn't at all sure if she wanted to watch, but she didn't * 124 *

want to dilute his obvious enthusiasm for the chore left to him. He moved to the carcass, and with great concentration drew the blade around the tethered hooves before slitting the inside of each leg down toward the pelvis. Slowly, he began to peel back the hide from the fetlocks, scrubbing at stubborn patches with the blade.

Amy winced.

"You've got to make sure the hide doesn't touch the meat," he said. "No one wants a hairy steak, do they?"

His casual words broke Amy out of her horrified trance.

"Yeah, that would be yuck," she said, vowing herself back to vegetarianism. "Paulie, why's the head missing and the neck so mashed up? Is that where the truck hit it?"

"Maybe," he said, concentrating on the job in hand. But even with his back to her she could see his ears glow. He was finding her questions difficult, and she wasn't sure why. "The head's in Claude's freezer. He's taking it to a friend who's a taxidermist. He wants to get it mounted as a gift for Leone's birthday. Don't tell her. It's a surprise," he added hastily.

"Nope. The secret's safe with me. Hey, thanks for the demo, but I need to go find Marie. I'll catch you later."

"Okay, I'll save you a couple of loin steaks." Again he blushed furiously, and again Amy was uncertain what it was that made him so awkward around her.

"Amy," he called after her. "There's no one over at Aunt Marie's. They've all headed out."

It had occurred to Amy that the compound was very quiet for the time of day.

"Who's they? And where have they gone?"

"Most everyone. Claude told me to stay here and finish skinning the buck. I'm not sure where they went. They took off very sudden.

Elicia just left a minute or two ago. She looked upset. I called but she just kept walking. Didn't hear me." He shrugged in a typical teenage fashion.

"Do you know which way Elicia went?"

He waved his knife toward one of the exit routes. "Maybe the parking lot?"

* 125 *

Amy turned to follow his directions. "Thanks, Paulie."

He turned back to his deer. Amy ran curious eyes over the headless carcass one last time. If the head was intact enough for mounting, and the body was intact enough to butcher for meat, then the only real damage to the animal was to its throat. How the hell did a Toyota truck manage to hit an adult deer bang on the neck? And apparently hard enough to rip its throat clean out?

Nothing was adding up this morning. Amy's frown deepened.

She jogged down the to the parking lot hoping she could catch Elicia. Maybe she knew where all the Garoul adults had gone? This had to be the urgent business Leone had been called away on. Had the Garouls cornered the tree ripper?

A flash of red caught her eye; it was set back in the woods.

She squinted. Someone was out walking in the forest. Was it Elicia?

Elicia had a red coat.

"Elicia," she called.

The figure didn't stop and was soon swallowed up by the trees.

Was it Elicia? Amy was indecisive; should she follow or head down to the parking lot? Maybe Elicia wasn't going to the car. Maybe she was looking for Jori.

It had to be Elicia; Paulie said she'd come this way, and she had a bright red coat. Yes, it was probably Elicia. Another splash of red moved between the firs, and Amy made up her mind.

"Elicia. Wait up." Amy plunged into the forest after her.

v No matter how well I think I know this valley, I always find a track I've never seen before. She was angry with herself for acting impulsively and following the elusive red coat. Amy had no real idea if it was Elicia or not. It could be Santa for all she knew. Glimpses of red had popped up here and there, flashing at her through the trees.

Always a little too far ahead for her calls to be heard. Amy was well and truly pissed off.

She decided to keep pushing on in the hopes of finding a path home. In fact, any path would do at this point. In her haste that * 126 *

morning, she had forgotten to bring her backpack with her water flask, hand compass, trail mix, and all the other things that made getting lost in the woods semi-tolerable.

Finally her bad luck broke and she crested a small rise to find she had doubled back on the Silverthread river. It wasn't a section she recognized, but she knew all she had to do was follow it northeast and she'd pick up a trail soon enough. She skirted around fireweed and goat's beard, noting a licorice fern, which was on her to-do list and not the easiest plant to find either. Better remember the way back here. Damn, I wish I had my backpack. I could have sketched this one.

Amy was so busy berating herself she almost missed the squat cabin sitting amongst the trees on the opposite bank. She clambered down to the riverbank and stared across at it. It seemed uninhabited.

The windows were barred, like a prison, or a secured store. That was all she could make out from this distance. Curiosity got the better of her. She might as well explore while she was this close.

With boots and socks in hand, and pants rolled up well past her knees, she waded across a relatively shallow part of the river.

"Goddamnit." It's bleedin' freezing! Safely on the other side, she hastily laced up her boots before approaching the little shack.

The closer she got, the less abandoned it looked. Wood was neatly stockpiled by a side wall. It was a seasonal collection, not a damp, mossy heap leftover from previous years. This was good firewood. Yet the chimney wasn't smoking. The windows had iron bars on the outside, but the glass was smashed and shards lay all over the ground. Pretty gingham curtains fluttered in the breeze, incongruous with the damage surrounding them.

Even more intrigued, Amy crunched up a well-worn path and around to the front porch. There she hesitated. The door was hanging by its hinges, its wooden panels snapped clean in two. Broken porch furniture was scattered out over the dirt path. All was silent, eerily so considering this was a scene of recent and incredible violence.

"Hello?" Amy's voice wobbled. It was too late to beat a retreat; if someone was inside they knew she was here by now. "Anyone...

home?"

* 127 *

Silence. Amy was more than a little relieved. She cocked her head and listened. Nothing. There was definitely no one in the cabin.

Slowly she mounted the porch and carefully stepped over the remains of the door. It was a one-room shack, in a shambles. Every stick of furniture-which consisted of a bed, table, and chair- was in pieces. Newspapers, bed linens, torn-up books, and spilled foodstuffs littered the floor. Even the wood burner lay on its side, its cast iron door torn off, the chimney pipe bent.

Amy entered, and broken glass and crockery cracked under her boots. On the window sill, tucked beside the gingham curtains, lay a roll of cherry-flavored candy. A bizarre nod to normality in amongst such chaos.

"You shouldn't be here."

Amy yelped in fright as the voice rang out directly behind her.

She spun around to find herself nose to chest with Claude. "Jesus, Claude. I could've dropped down dead."

"Sorry, hon. Didn't mean to scare you. What are you doing out here?" His kindly eyes smiled down at her as he stepped out onto the porch. She followed him out the door and down onto the packed earth path.

"Walking. Looking for plants. What is this shack? Why are there bars on the window? Why's it all broken up?"

"It's an old storage hut."

"With bars? It looks more like a jail."

"They used to keep dynamite there in the forties." He drew her further along the path, leading her away from the cabin and onto a nearby track.

"What did they want dynamite for?"

Claude chuckled at the relentless questions. "It was to blow open a new logging road up near Leapers Bluff, but the war came along and work stopped. Least that was what I remember being told as a kid."

"So why are there furniture and books and stuff in there? Is someone living there?"

"Told you. Storage. Marie keeps stuff there for furnishing the other cabins."

* 128 *

Amy frowned. She wasn't buying it. "Claude, someone was staying there. It had been lived in. And now it's all smashed up,"

she said.

He shrugged indifferently. They were a hundred yards or more from the cabin and he was leading her along a trail parallel to the river. "Dunno. I suppose it could be used to rest up if someone was out this far on a night hunt. I'll let Marie know it's been vandalized.

She'll know what to do."

"But who would come all the way out here to smash up a storage room?"

"Vandals. Losers from town."

"All the way out here?"

"Young idiots. No doubt poaching. They enjoy destroying Garoul stuff. Probably kicked the door in and wrecked the cabin for the sheer hell of it-"

"But, Claude, the door was broken from the inside." She looked anxiously at him. He frowned darkly at her logic. "Somebody kicked their way out."

"Look, Amy. I don't know. I'll tell Marie about it later. Right now all I want to do is get you back to the compound."

"Where is everybody? What's happening? Have you seen Leone?"

"We're out hunting."

"I haven't heard any gunshots for it being such a big hunt. Is it bear or cougar you're after? Or wolves? Is it whatever's shredding the-"

"We're hunting, that's all there is to it. That's where everyone is, and that's why you're getting out of here quick. Okay?"

"Why can't I stay with you? After all-"

"No arguments, Amy. I'm taking you to your cabin."

"But why-"

"Nope."

"But when-"

"Nope."

"I didn't-"

"Nope."

"Rhymes with rope?"

* 129 *

"Nop-Ha ha. Very funny."

"Do a deal with you, Claude. Take me to the parking lot and lend me your truck. I need to pop into town for a quick message. I was trying to catch up with Elicia to grab a lift with her, but she went into the forest instead."

"What? Elicia's in the forest?" Claude's head whipped around.

"Well, I think so. I saw a red coat. And it looked like her from the back."

"Are you sure it was Elicia?"

"I don't know. She never answered when I called. Hey, I recognize this path." They had taken a few back routes that had eventually opened up to one of the main trails into the compound. "I can make it from here on my own."

"Are you sure?" Claude dithered. Amy knew he was torn between taking her all the way to his truck or returning to the hunt now that she was so close to safety. She pushed him a little bit more. "Of course I'm sure. Give me your keys. It's only five minutes down the path. I'll be fine."

He handed her his truck keys. "Okay. Leave them under the visor when you're done. And be good." With a wave he headed back the way they had come.

Amy trudged on to the parking lot, mulling over the wrecked cabin. Okay, so Claude had no answers. But he had no questions either, and to me that's strange. And for a man out hunting, why didn't he have a gun?

Claude drove a beat-up Toyota truck. Amy hesitated by the hood. The fender was dirty and thick with mud, and looked like it had been that way for weeks. No way had it hit a deer last night.

This truck had not impacted with anything recently, other than muck. Leone had lied about the accident, the deer...and her bloody clothing.

* 130 *

chapteR FouRteen.