Tainted Trail.

by Wen Spencer.

Many thanks to the people who helped me with this novel, from answering technical questions to helping me work out plot problems: D. Eric Anderson, Ann Cecil, Jeff Colburn, Amy L. Finkbeiner, Kevin Geiselman, Nancy L. Janda, Dr. Hope Erica Ring, June Drexler Robertson, Thomas Rohosky, Diane Turnshek, Larisa Van Winkle, and Aaron Wollerton.

CHAPTER ONE.

Continental Flight 5373: Pittsburgh to Portland, Oregon.

Tuesday, August 24, 2004.

He was cold because he was starving. The early winter had brought deep snow, and hunting had been scarce. The wolves of his pack eyed him often, as if judging his weakness. Perhaps his years of running among them would have kept him safe from being pulled down and eaten as the gray ones grew thin. Still, he stopped sleeping among them, climbing pine trees to sleep above the ground, far from their reach. Finally, the Wolf Boy trusted them no longer, and he ran by himself.

He knew the metal box was a trap. He had seen others like it, sprung, holding wolves fast.

There was, however, the dead rabbit inside, just beyond his reach. The sharp stick he stuck between the box's bars moved the rabbit's head about, but the body seemed stuck. If he wanted to eat, he would have to enter the box.

He had never been so hungry and cold, not in all his long vivid memories of countless seasons. A wolf howled far off, and then again, closer. If he stayed outside the box, the wolves would find him and perhaps kill him. If he left, one of them would get the rabbit.

Did he want to stay cold and hungry? Could he stand being trapped by those that walked on two legs like he did? The Wolf Boy had a deep, nameless, formless fear of them. What would they do to him? They put the wolves in their large, smelly vehicles and carried them away.

The wolf howled again, a minute's quick run away. He had to choose quickly. Food and entrapment, or starving freedom? It was a decision that could mean life or death. Which one was death, though, and which one was life?

For the first time in his life, the Wolf Boy chose the unknown. He would let himself be caught. He would eat and then, maybe, escape . . .

"Ukiah?"

Ukiah Oregon woke, shivering, face pressed against an oval Plexiglas window. The endless muted roar of the jet engines vibrated against his senses.

"You okay, kid?" Max Bennett, Ukiah's partner, had been making notes on his PDA in the aisle seat. He now eyed Ukiah worriedly, something he did more often since they stumbled into the secret war between the alien invaders known as the Ontongard and the rebel alien forces who called themselves the Pack. "It sounded like you were having a bad dream."

"More like a recall, back when Mom Jo caught me in the humane trap." Combing his long, dark hair out of his dark eyes with his fingers, Ukiah realized he was still shivering. Locating the source of the chill, he reached up to close the overhead air conditioning vent. The plane bucked and he missed the first grab for the vent. He got it on his second try. He closed his, and then the one above the empty seat between them, where Homicide Detective Raymond Kraynak should have been sitting. "Where's Kraynak?"

"He felt like throwing up again, so he went off to do it in private. He's going to be in sad shape when we hit Pendleton. Depending where Alicia got lost, we might be doing this case on horseback." Max made a note on his PDA, and then turned a gray-eyed query at him. "Can you ride?"

"I don't know. That's something I might have learned during the missing part of my life, before running with the wolves. Native Americans in the movies can always ride like the wind."Max grunted and made a note on his PDA. "A resounding maybe. Hopefully, Alicia didn't choose one of the wilderness areas of Umatilla National Park to vanish into. They're the only part of the park without access roads."

"Why is Alicia in Oregon?" Ukiah had missed most of the explanations in the mad scramble to catch the flight. When he started tracking for Max, years before they became full partners, Kraynak's niece Alicia worked part-time at the office. She quit last fall when she entered grad school. While Alicia usually stayed in close touch, he hadn't seen her since Max's annual Fourth of July picnic. She hadn't mentioned going to Oregon, but then Alicia had acted weird-even for her-the entire picnic. "Did she drop out of Pitt?"

Max gave him a startled look, which changed to one of understanding. "Oh, yeah, you hung up before Kraynak got into that and drove back to your mom's to pack." Max waved one hand to indicate he only vaguely understood Alicia's situation. "Alicia went out to Oregon on a geology field trip. Two friends of hers had plans to go out and collect data on their graduate thesis; the one with the reliable car canceled, putting the remaining woman in a bind. Alicia swung some deal with Pitt-Kraynak didn't know all the details-and went."

"In her Metro?" Ukiah was surprised that the ancient compact car had been deemed reliable enough to make the trip.

Max shook his head. "Alicia swapped cars with Kraynak and took his van. They've been out there almost the whole month, roughing it during the week and then spending the weekends at Pendleton. Last night the other girl called Kraynak and said that Alicia disappeared while hiking."

And Kraynak called them. The late-night phone call gave them less than nine hours to drop everything personal and professional, pack, and catch a flight across the country. With his moms and sister on vacation, Ukiah had been enjoying a rare opportunity to be sole parent to his infant son, Kittanning. True, he hadn't gotten much work done while he juggled his schedule around Kitt's feeding and sleeping periods, but for the first time, Ukiah felt more like a father to his son than a big brother.

Luckily, his fiance, FBI Special Agent Indigo Zheng, agreed to take hasty delivery of Kittanning.

Ukiah had driven the hour north to his moms for the oddest packing experience he had ever gone through.

One Berretta 9mm pistol with three clips, one case of formula, and three baby bottles. Bulletproof Kevlar vest. Two dozen medium-sized diapers, diaper wipes, and diaper-rash cream. Two-way voice-activated radio headset. One baby monitor. Five black T-shirts with PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, BENNETT DETECTIVE AGENCY stenciled across the back in large white letters, size medium. Five pairs Barney onesies pajamas, size three months.

He barely got Kittanning settled in at Indigo's, and himself back to the office, before they needed to leave for the airport. In the confusion, Ukiah didn't get a chance to eat, and Kraynak forgot to pick up Dramamine.

"I'm starving. Are they going to serve a meal?"

Max looked up the aisle. "The flight attendants have the cart out, and they're serving something. It won't be very much, kid. A sandwich, a cookie or two, and a soda."

The flight attendants seemed not to notice that the plane jerked and bucked on invisible airwaves.

They served the food with practiced smiles.

Ukiah glanced at the empty center seat. "You think Kraynak will eat his?"

"Probably not. He'll be lucky to get out of the restroom this flight. He'd hoped to grab something for motion sickness in Houston, thinking we'd have time in the layover."

For some reason unfathomable to Ukiah, one couldn't fly directly from Pittsburgh to Portland.

Stranger yet, they had flown south to go north. A storm front over Houston delayed their landing and their layover consisted of a dash through the sprawling, crowded airport.

Max looked at him warily now. "How do you feel?""I'm cold and hungry," Ukiah admitted, then realized Max was asking if he was going to be airsick.

"I think after the first handful of jiggles, my body decided to ignore my inner ear as an alarmist. Remember that time on Lake Erie when Kraynak took us fishing with his brother-in-law?"

"God, don't say anything else, or I'll start puking." Max undid his seat belt, stood cautiously, opened the overhead compartment, and tossed a folded blanket to Ukiah. He pulled out his briefcase, closed the overhead, and sat back down. "I've got a Snickers bar or two in here." He thumbed open the locks. He fished out the candy and handed it to Ukiah. "Remind me to stock up at the Portland airport."

"Thanks." Ukiah glanced into the briefcase. Taking up the most space in the briefcase was a fat folder marked OREGON, UKIAH-BENNETT DETECTIVE AGENCY FILE #117. "Is that my case file?"

They had first met when Ukiah's adopted mothers hired Max to find out Ukiah's real identity. Max had failed. In hindsight, there was no way Max could have succeeded. Ukiah's background had been too strange for anyone to guess, and sometimes, even believe. The case had, however, introduced Max to Ukiah's tracking abilities and inspired a partnership that specialized in finding missing persons.

Max nodded, flipping open the file. "I grabbed it as we were running out the door. I kept all the geographic maps of the Umatilla National Park, road maps, campground guides, and so forth. I figured that it would prove to be useful."

"Can I see?" Ukiah took out one of the maps and opened it. It showed the mountains of the national park in a series of squiggly lines. Spreading it out on his lap, he studied it for several minutes as he ate the candy, shaking his head.

Max noticed the motion. "What's wrong?"

"I lived here for so long, Max. Maybe over two hundred years. I knew every inch of it. This map, though, is so abstract, I can't relate to a single feature. I wonder how much it's changed in the last eight years. Am I going to be able to find my way around?"

"All you need to worry about, kid, is Alicia's trail. Wherever she went, you follow. I'll handle the maps."

Ukiah glanced to the back of the plane. The right restroom door stayed firmly shut as a short line rotated through the left. "You think Kraynak is right, and she's in serious trouble?"

Max shrugged. "He thinks so, he's footing the bill, and we owe him a favor. I'm hoping we'll get out there and find out that she just let the batteries of her phone die or some such nonsense."

"What are we charging him?" Their normal tracking fee was a thousand dollars a day, a bit steep for a police detective to pay.

Max looked sheepish. "Hell, I didn't talk to him about it. It's Alicia! If need be, we'll do a this as a freebie."

Ukiah nodded without a quibble. Technically, he was a full partner of their detective agency, but only because Max had given him half the company after Ukiah saved his life. Outwardly seventeen years Ukiah's senior, Max still made most of the business decisions, especially the financial ones. Ukiah supposed it was just as well-being raised by wolves gave him a very loose grasp on the concept of money.

Kraynak came back from the restroom, seeming even larger than normal in the close quarters of the jet. He reeked faintly of vomit and old cigarette smoke resurrected by water. "Can I sit on the end?"

Max handed Ukiah his briefcase with a "Hold this" and started to shift over his other belongings to the middle seat. Ukiah thumbed through the folder. Max kept meticulous records and the folder was no exception. A photo of Ukiah at thirteen was clipped to the inside cover. Maps in the front. Area info next.

There was a copy of a newspaper article tucked in before a bundle of receipts. Ukiah pulled it out as Max sat beside him and Kraynak carefully settled his tall, solid body into the end seat.

INFORMATION SOUGHT ON WOLF BOY was the headline of the small article circled in red.Anyone with information on the feral child sighted recently at the Umatilla National Park, please contact Jesse Kicking Deer. Kicking Deer believes the mysterious boy reportedly "running naked with the wolves" to be a distant family member. Kicking Deer describes the supposed feral child as a handsome boy from the Cayuse tribe. Anyone sighting the Umatilla Wolf Boy can reach Jesse Kicking Deer at Rt. 1 Box 534, Pendleton, Oregon 97801.

"Max? What's this? This sounds like me."

Max looked over and frowned for a moment in recall. "That sounded real close, but I had to discount it."

"Why?"

Max tapped the "1933" written in red ink at the top, next to the East Oregonian legend. "Because the kid disappeared in 1933 and that would make him over eighty."

"Or over two hundred," Ukiah whispered.

Max glanced at him puzzled. Understanding came with a slight widening of his eyes. "Oh, shit." He looked down at the paper again. "Ukiah, this could have been you. I thought you were a normal kid at the time."

When his Mom Jo found him running with the wolves, there had been no way of knowing his birth date or exact age. He showed signs that he had started into puberty, so his Mom Jo had assigned him the age of thirteen. In actuality, they learned later, he was several hundred years old; after growing to maturity, he aged only when he was wounded. The rough-and-tumble life of a private investigator was the only reason he couldn't still pass as a thirteen-year-old. A series of almost fatal accidents and shootings made him look almost eighteen, but certainly not the twenty-one stated on his driver's license.

Ukiah flipped through the case report looking for an indication that Max had followed up on the newspaper clipping. "You talked to this man?"

Max considered the overhead compartments as he thought. "This was five years ago, Ukiah, and I don't have your memory. I talked to him, but not face to face. It was over the phone. I remember it was a short conversation. I told him I found the article in the library's archive and that I was trying to establish someone's true identity, but I know I didn't go into details with him. I think one of my first questions was 'When did the boy disappear?' After he said 1933 I thanked him for his time and cut the conversation short."

Ukiah found the name, address, and phone number of Jesse Kicking Deer in the case report. Max had noted, Description and location match, but age is completely wrong. "I would love to go see this guy. I wonder if he's still at this address."

Max picked up the phone built into the seat in front of them. "Let's see."

The phone number listed in the file was no longer in service. Undaunted, Max called information and gave the name and address.

"I'm showing a Claire Kicking Deer at that address," the operator said over the drone of the engines, "but that number is unlisted."

Max thanked the operator and hung up. "With a name like that, it's a fair bet they're related." Max consulted his PDA. "We're landing in Pendleton at five-thirty, if we don't miss the commuter in Portland.

We'll need to rent the cars, load them, and then it's an hour drive down to the campground." He tapped through a series of pages. "We're not going to be able to do any actual tracking tonight; I don't want to be stumbling around in the dark."

"I can track at night," Ukiah said.Max gave him a cold look. "I know, kid, but I can't see in the dark. I'm not letting you track without backup." Max considered the rest of the day. "Three is overkill for what we're doing tonight. Let's split up.

We'll rent a second car. Kraynak and I will load the gear, find out what we can on the search-and-rescue efforts, and then check into the hotel. You can see if you can find Jesse Kicking Deer."

Ukiah slipped both the photograph and the news clipping into his wallet for his meeting with Jesse Kicking Deer. "Is that okay with you, Kraynak?"

Kraynak didn't answer.

Glancing past Max, Ukiah discovered that the homicide detective was gone again. "We've got to make sure he takes something before we get on that commuter plane to Pendleton."

Portland International Airport, Portland, Oregon Tuesday, August 24, 2004 Ukiah hated strange airports.

Any crowded place was an assault on his senses. Here, every person breathed out a cloud of information that trailed behind them as they rushed to their destinations, every surface was layered thick with the histories of those who had handled it, and the very air vibrated with countless conversations. Over the years, he had learned to cope with crowds, keeping his hands in his pockets, filtering the effusion of air data to the point where he could ignore it. It only worked, though, in places where he had been before, and among people common to that area. He could only keep out what was familiar, as if there was something deep-coded inside of him, cautiously checking everything new for danger.

In a place such as this, where his surroundings competed with the crowds for attention, he was lost in the flood. Everything was new, even the faintly salt-tainted air, pressing in to be noticed, overwhelming him until he lost track of himself. Max kept a hand on his elbow, guiding him through the jostling confusion.

Once past the gates and into the public concourse, Max veered into a sitting area across from a Hudson News stand. Fifty or sixty seats made a pocket of quiet beside a children's play area in the shape of a jumbo jet. Max moored Ukiah in the far back corner, away from the foot traffic. There, Max put his hands to Ukiah's face and made him focus his gaze on his own.

"Kraynak and I are going to grab our luggage, guns, and equipment and check them with the commuter airline." Max took out both their phones and turned them on. "Baggage claim is downstairs, and it's going to be a madhouse. I'm leaving you here. Stay put. I'll be back." He paused, waiting for the phones to indicate they had a signal. "If you need me, call instead of trying to find me." Max pocketed his own phone and tucked Ukiah's into his partner's shirt pocket. "Okay?"

Max waited until Ukiah nodded, then left. The flood rushed in again. Ukiah floundered, sorting through the stimuli. Slowly, enough became known qualities he could then ignore that he felt solid and grounded. As if welcoming him back to himself, his phone chirped. He dug it out of his pocket. A female security officer at Pittsburgh's airport had handled his phone when he passed through the metal detectors, leaving behind a ghost presence of White Linen perfume, Coast soap, and her own unique genetic profile.

"Oregon."

"It's me, love." Indigo's voice competed with a gate-change announcement booming over the airport's speakers. Ukiah plugged the other ear with his finger, but still felt the words ripple across his skin.

"How was the flight?"

"It was a bit rough," Ukiah answered after the announcement ended. "We kept hitting storms.

How's Kitt?"

Max had vetoed Ukiah's first choice of babysitters: the Dog Warriors. The twenty Pack memberswould have devoted themselves to Kittanning and guarded him armed to the teeth. Max, however, had never forgiven the Dog Warriors for kidnapping Ukiah at gunpoint and wasn't about to trust the alien outlaws with his godson. While Indigo cheerfully took Kittanning, she would still need to find daylight babysitters among her family or take vacation time from her work.

"He's being an angel so far," Indigo told him. "We've had dinner and he went right to sleep. I'm reviewing forensic evidence files." A quiet rustle over the phone indicated she had gotten up and moved across the room. "Rennie Shaw and Bear Shadow have this watch."

He heard the slight tension in her voice. "I'm sorry."

He had contacted the Dog Warriors to feed Mom Jo's half-breed wolves while he was in Oregon.

He should have realized that Dog Warriors would track down Kittanning to watch over, regardless of Max's wishes.

"It's not like I haven't been through this before," Indigo said. The Dog Warriors had guarded Indigo while Ukiah had been dead. "They're being very discreet. I needed my night scope to spot them. I suppose I better get used to it if we're getting married. It's kind of a package deal-marry the Pack's child, get the Pack keeping watch."

Ukiah winced at the "if." Usually she said "when." He hoped it was a merely a slip of tongue. If he could hear the tension in her voice, then her legendary calm must be taking a beating. "Is something wrong?"

"Other than lack of sleep and being stalked by your extended family? No." She took a deep breath, released it slowly, and when she spoke again, the tension was gone. "Everything is fine. I called to ask you, though: Didn't Mom Lara say something about Kittanning having a doctor's appointment on Wednesday?"

Ukiah closed his eyes to summon up his moms' kitchen calendar. Printed in tomorrow's allotted square was Mom Lara's hieroglyphics of K. Dr. 8:00 AM 2 m. check & shots. He told Indigo the time.