As she pushed open the door and stepped out into the rain that had slowed to something slightly more aggressive than a sprinkle, she grinned at herself, perfectly aware of how ridiculous her little speech of affirmation was.
But, what surprised her most? For once, she didn’t care about how awkward she sounded, or about her gangly frame.
Jill knew that she was needed. She wasn’t going to fail, wasn’t going to lose her bears no matter what it took.
The first step she took off the cabin porch and into the leaves felt like she’d just climbed a mountain. The second like she stepped over a hill. By the time the fourth step squished into the leaf mat, she was at peace, and full of purpose.
The mark on her chest, tingling like it did more and more these days, was her purpose.
Rogue and King? They were her fate.
-12-
“That... doesn’t seem right.”
-Jill
Worry was starting to sink in, the heavy kind that made Jill’s shoulders sag when she stopped long enough to think about Rogue and King and where they might have gone, where they might be.
Jill was up with the sun, getting ready for a day in the field actually doing what she was supposed to be doing all along. The two days since Stanton’s haunting radio call were spent ranging in ever wider circles from her base camp. All she had to show for it were a bunch of chigger bites, a couple of cuts, and burrs in her socks. No signs of life – especially not the kind she needed to find – had appeared. Not even a shred of bear fur, or a prey carcass had crossed her path.
This morning was cooler than the past few. A slight breeze blew through the dense green, drawing a chill up the back of Jill’s neck. It was a chill just like the first time she heard the wolves howl, a chill just like the first time she felt Rogue’s tongue, just like the first time she felt King’s forceful kiss.
“Not today,” she said, shaking her head and laughing at herself. “Nope, not gonna do it. Not gonna sit here and pine over my bears. If they’re not gonna come for me, I’m going to them.”
Lacing her boots, and then tying off her bandana, Jill checked all her supplies one last time before she started the trek. Today she’d decided to head east to a stream she knew was in the area, and then follow the water as far as she could. She’d even packed a small tent, and some overnight supplies, should it take longer than she thought, or if she ended up finding anything that warranted extra attention.
Overhead, a chopper zipped across the sky. Shielding her eyes, Jill looked up, trying to make out where it was from. It was flying low, but the bottom looked almost black against the morning sky. Choppers weren’t a surprise out here, since the various logging companies and other researchers – assuming there were any, which she doubted – needed supplies, and the only way to get to the thicker parts of the woods was air.
This one though, was strange.
It was flying low, but that wasn’t it. Really what caught Jill’s attention was that the side door was open, and someone was standing there, looking out. She crouched down and fished around in her bag for binoculars.
“Weird,” she said under her breath. Sun glinted off of binoculars that the man held. He was scanning the horizon, and even though she was close enough to make out a stark, black leather jacket, and hard lines of a jaw, he seemed not to notice her at all. The man had gray hair that was almost white and his cheeks were thin, but not gaunt. His clothing was completely unmarked, just like the helicopter.
Briefly she considered calling out to whoever this was, but something stopped her. Instead, she pulled back, into the shadow of an overhanging branch. Something didn’t sit right about this. Something wasn’t normal about this chopper and this man.
Once, then again, the big vehicle swung in slow circles around the area, the man never taking his eyes off the horizon. At points, it was so close to the ground that Jill probably could’ve dinged it with a rock, but not once did the guy ever look down. She wondered if maybe he knew she was there, and was simply uninterested.
The thought gave her another chill. This one more like the one she felt when she smelled that wolf’s breath, when she felt it’s eyes on her.
And then, the man retreated inside, pulled the door shut, and the helicopter hovered briefly before turning to depart. Jill searched for any sign of the vehicle’s origin, but there were no markings of any kind anywhere on the thing. She shook her head, confused and slightly irritated at the distraction.
A million possibilities went through her mind. Black ops, X-Files kind of stuff; poachers looking for game; loggers who weren’t supposed to be in the area scouting for a good clutch of trees. Any of them could be possible – hell, even the X-Files thing didn’t seem too farfetched. After all, this Jill had been in a bear sandwich a couple days before.
But the fact that anything could be possible didn’t exactly answer any questions.
Shooting one last glance upward, Jill decided to simply not decide before she knew more. What good was speculating going to do? And anyway, what was she going to do? What could Jill, one woman in the woods with a slightly wonky hip, do against any of the things she’d dreamed up? The answer that came was the one she hated the most. Nothing.
She turned east, checked her compass and stuck her binoculars back in her day pack. The crunch of leaves under her boots calmed her nerves bit by bit, step by step.
The heavy, cold steel wedged between her stomach and her jeans eased her slightly more.
And the thought that somewhere, out there, in the wild world around her, she had two protectors. Even if she hadn’t a clue how to find them, where they were, or even if they would ever find her again, they were out there.
Somehow, that brought the most peace of all.
*
Midday sun turned to early evening haze, and Jill needed rest. She needed to take a breath, get a drink, to eat something. She’d been hiking straight through all day, stopping only to wash her face in the stream, and then later to pull off her shirt, dip it in the stream, whip it around over her head to get it nice and cool, and then put it back on. That helped a little, but the brutal humidity and oppressive, stultifying heat made it hard to keep on truckin’.
But, she wouldn’t let herself stop. She’d made it to the stream – which really was much larger than she expected, more of a river than anything – only a couple of hours after leaving camp.
About three miles as she followed the riverbank, she found the first encouraging signs she’d seen yet. A clump of fur, the kind that comes off when bears scratch themselves on trees, brushed against her as she passed. The tree it was stuck on had been marked by claws or teeth, another common bear behavior.
And even better than that, she hadn’t seen hide nor tail of any wolves.
Come to think of it, I haven’t heard any howling the last couple nights.
A thrum on the horizon caught her attention. The sound throbbed in her ears before anything visible appeared, but when it did, she was at once terrified, amazed, and utterly perplexed.
Covering herself partially in brush she peered up. The same helicopter from before, with the same man, standing in the same position, circled overhead. Once again, he just stared out over the horizon, never taking note of anything else.
“What the hell are you?” she asked under her breath. “Who are you?”
This time she was able to make out the pilot, who was also wearing completely unmarked, black clothing. Whoever the man in the side bay was, he had an air of dignity about him. She noticed for the first time a thin, well-trimmed mustache on his lip. She also noticed that every so often, the man pulled part of his lip between his teeth and gnawed.
Before he’d been a kind of inhuman sentinel staring out over the woods. But his having human traits was somehow a comfort, and a point of heightened anxiety. Also for the first time, Jill noticed that there was a marking on the tail of the craft, as useless at is was. A simple “2A” was stenciled onto the dark gray metal.
Her stomach roiled.
Jill had no idea why, or even what it was about this helicopter that made her so nervous. After all, it wasn’t like she’d illegally crawled under the gate at Area-51. She was on a government grant to study some bears.
That’s all. That’s all it was, all she was doing. As far as anyone else knew, none of the rest of it had ever happened. None of the rest was real.
Unless, of course, she wasn’t the only one who knew about her bears.
That thought chilled her to the bone. The chopper tilted again, cutting a deep turn. For the briefest of moments, the man in the side door with the trimmed mustache and impeccable dress, moved the binoculars from his eyes and looked directly at Jill. He squinted briefly, and then nodded before turning to the pilot, saying something that Jill couldn’t read lips well enough to make out, and then just like before, the helicopter was gone over the horizon.
*
She’d walked as long as she could. Night was coming on fast, and Jill knew better than to try and push her luck. Pitching a tent and getting a fire going was hard enough in the daylight, but at night?
She knew better. Maybe it was the training she had, maybe it was the six years in girl scouts and two long summers at camp? Then again her time in the Girl Scouts was more about cookie selling competitions and the summer camp experience was more about finding a place to sneak off with a boy – or in Jill’s case – figure out how to avoid them out of abject fear that one might actually like her.