The wolves approached too fast for Chuck to draw a bead on them. Instead, he raised the .357 and pulled the trigger, firing past the animals into the woods.
At the percussive crack of the shot and the bright flare from the mouth of the pistol, the wolves slid to a halt. They crouched ten feet from Chuck, who held his ground. He glanced behind him to find Lex and Toby stopped and looking his way.
“Go!” he yelled.
Lex set off through the trees. Toby followed, Kaifong’s limp body over his shoulder, her arms slung down his back. Chuck hustled after them, glancing back every few steps. The wolves stayed crouched until he lost sight of them among the trees.
Lex tripped over a downed branch and plunged face-first to the ground. Toby stepped past him and kept moving with Kaifong. Chuck hauled Lex to his feet and they hurried together through the forest after Toby.
Chuck looked back while keeping a firm grip on Lex’s arm. No sign of the wolves. But where in God’s name was camp?
Lex inhaled mouthfuls of air as he stumbled through the trees at Chuck’s side. Lights lanced into the forest from the edge of the meadow ahead. They emerged from the woods into the open to find several scientists, including Clarence, waiting for them. Clarence and three others lifted Kaifong from Toby’s shoulder and carried her across the grass. Chuck shoved the .357 into his pack. He and Toby propped Lex between them and headed for the cabin.
Janelle stood aside to allow Kaifong inside, then guided Lex through the doorway. In the lantern light in front of the cabin and mess tent, Chuck held out a hand to Toby, who handed over his pack.
“The longer barrel will be better in the open,” Chuck told him.
And the rifle no longer would be in Toby’s possession.
Working fast, Chuck dug out and assembled the gun and loaded it to capacity, five rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. He hefted the compact rifle. It rested comfortably in his hands. Its open sights didn’t trouble him; he’d developed his initial marksman skills as a kid hunting squirrels and rabbits around Durango with an old, open-sight .22.
Toby entered the cabin clutching his bleeding shoulder. Chuck squeezed past Clarence and the researchers who’d carried Kaifong as they left the cabin, setting the rifle and his pack on the floor next to the door inside.
Kaifong lay on her back on the plank table, arms at her sides, eyes closed, a fleece jacket bunched beneath her head. Randall stood over her, his face drawn. Janelle held two fingers to Kaifong’s neck below her jawline.
Lex sat catching his breath on the bench beneath the cabin’s west window, his glasses fogged. Keith squatted in front of him, wrapping gauze around the ranger’s mangled wrist. Perched at the edge of a wooden chair pushed back from the table, Toby peeled his mauled jacket off his shoulder and down his arm. The girls sat next to Chance on the floor at the back of the cabin, their fingers trailing through the dog’s fur, their eyes saucered as they took in the scene before them. Against the far wall of the cabin, Sarah’s body lay enveloped in the sleeping bag.
Randall turned to Chuck. “They’re saying you shot a wolf to save Kai. Thank you, man.”
Chuck flushed as he pictured the wolf, majestic even in death. “I’m just glad we managed to get her back here.” He went to Kaifong’s side. “Well?” he asked Janelle.
“Pulse is strong and steady. She’s breathing evenly. No signs of trauma.”
Kaifong moaned. She pitched from side to side, her arms and legs jerking. Janelle leaned over Kaifong, holding her in place until her movements subsided and she again lay still and quiet atop the table.
Janelle lifted each of Kaifong’s closed eyelids. “Her pupils are normal, but she’s showing no signs of awareness. It’s like she’s been drugged or something.”
“You’ll stay with her?” Randall asked.
“Of course.”
“I’ll get back to work next door, then. Let me know if she comes around, would you?” He shot a quick look at Sarah’s body and left the cabin, pulling the door closed behind him.
“I told him about Sarah and the phone,” Keith said. “I had to.”
Chuck glanced at the girls.
“He pushed his way in,” Keith explained, “while you were on your way back with Kaifong.”
Rosie nodded emphatically. “They had a whisper talk.”
Carmelita petted Chance. “Rosie tried to sneak up on them,” she said, “so they moved away from her.”
“But first they made bad faces at me, didn’t they, Mamá?”
“Yes, they did,” Janelle confirmed.
Chuck studied the closed door, then scanned the room, his gaze moving from Lex, who wiped his glasses on his jacket with one hand while Keith tended to his injured wrist, to Kaifong, motionless on the table, to Toby, who gingerly probed his shoulder with his fingers.
A blast of wind rattled down the chimney. The coals in the fireplace glowed bright red, then broke into low flames, casting broken light around the cabin. In front of the fireplace, Carmelita scratched Chance’s neck while Rosie leaned forward and rested her head on the dog’s back.
“What’s this?” Carmelita asked, her fingers digging into Chance’s fur.
Rosie sat up. She pushed her sister’s hand away and pressed her own fingers to the side of Chance’s neck, just below the dog’s skull. “Yeah,” she said. “What’s this, huh?”
Keith left the roll of gauze dangling from Lex’s arm and went to Chance. He buried his fingers into the dog’s fur alongside Rosie’s. His face went white.
“There’s a cut.” He looked up. “And a lump. Something hard.”