Good,” Chuck said. “They’ve crossed the river.”
Lex gawked at him. “What do you mean, ‘good’?”
“That’s what we need.”
“I don’t see—”
“We’re holding out until the response team gets here.” When the girls leaned forward, listening, Chuck chose his words with care. “In the meantime, we want everyone together so no one can do anything bad to each other. The wolves are our excuse.”
Lex looked out the cabin’s rain-spattered window. Chuck followed Lex’s gaze. The patch of western sky framed in the window was growing darker with each passing minute.
More howls sounded, their proximity indicating the wolves were in the woods below the cabin.
“Lex,” Chuck urged.
Lex turned to Clarence and Toby. “Would you two head up to tent row? I want everyone down here at the cabin and mess tent. We’ll do a head count, make sure we’re all together before nightfall.”
Chuck followed Clarence and Toby outside. “Don’t make any waves,” he said. “Keep everyone calm. Sarah’s killer could be any one of us. We’ve all got knives.” He tapped his own all-purpose blade, sheathed and belted at his waist beside his canister of bear spray. “Whoever it is will be laying low. We want to keep it that way until we can get everyone out of here.”
Toby headed up the hill to tent row with Clarence. Chuck still wasn’t certain of the wolf researcher’s innocence, but he was sure of Clarence’s ability to look after himself in the public setting of the camp.
Lex joined Chuck outside.
“I think,” Chuck told him, “you should keep everyone together at the cabin and mess tent until help gets here.”
“Agreed.” Lex’s face was a hard mask. “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
Chuck looked across the meadow. The grass sloped gently away to the north and west. The pines at the foot of the clearing stood tall. “I never should have brought Janelle and the girls out here.”
“Don’t say that,” Lex said. “You’re conflating, as Jessie would have said. This is murder. We’re dealing with it. We will deal with it. But it has nothing to do with your bringing your family out here—on my okay.” His voice was strong, assured. “If I’ve learned anything from losing Jessie, it’s that life happens so fast you can’t even believe it, like a meteor. It flares, it’s terrific, it’s gone.” He looked Chuck in the eye. “You were right to want to bring them here, and you were right to bring them.”
He gripped Chuck’s elbow. “I’ve been watching you. You’re a good dad. You’re going to make a great father. Your wife and girls are indoors. They’re safe.” He let go of Chuck’s arm. “We just have to keep everyone else safe until the emergency team gets here.”
Chuck nodded. “We can post people on all four sides, set up all the extra lights we have around the cabin and mess tent.”
“There’s no way the wolves will attack.”
“It’s not about that. It’s about keeping everyone occupied and safe, in one place.”
“We just have to make it till morning.”
The two men watched Toby and Clarence work their way along tent row. The researchers left their tents and gathered on their platforms, zipping rain jackets and shouldering packs.
A single wolf howl rose from the forest below the cabin. Chuck turned with Lex, scanning the wall of trees at the bottom of the meadow. The wolves were back there in the forest somewhere, out of sight. But why were they here at all?
The howl hung in the air like the high note of a stringed instrument before dissolving into a series of high-pitched yips. Chuck tensed when a deep growl reverberated across the clearing like a bass drum.
“That’s a grizzly,” he said. “It’s with the wolves.”
Lex faced the forest, his back stiff. “What the hell is going on out there?”
Chuck studied the sky, dense with clouds. He checked his watch. An hour until full dark.
More than enough time to see about answering Lex’s question.