All afternoon Coza Lambert had led Victor Galloway up into the woods, unbelieving of her good fortune. At the trailer, when she felt that gun digging into the back of her head, she first thought ICE had followed those Mexicans to the house and had come to raid the property. But when she learned it was a lovesick SBI agent, her heart soared. This guy was her ticket out—out of the trailer, out of the woods, out of the web Teo had trapped her in. Even better was the fact this guy was good looking and hadn’t taken a swipe at her, once.
She’d led the way at a steady pace, aware of the cop’s heavy breathing behind her. She knew he was keeping an eye on her, his hand on a big Smith & Wesson, in case she decided to get cute. But she also knew that she could easily kill him if he got any ideas. She could lose him in the forest, send him tumbling down an icy ledge, or push him over a waterfall. Teo had shown her several ways to kill people in the woods, and not one was provable in court.
Halfway to Unaka, she realized she didn’t know what to call the guy. “Hey, what’s your name? I left your card in the trailer.”
“Victor Galloway.”
She smiled. “You’re keeping up pretty good. Where did you say you’d hiked? Brazil?”
“Argentina.”
“World traveler, eh?”
“I have family there.”
“Galloway doesn’t sound very Spanish to me.”
“My dad’s Irish. My mother’s Argentine.”
“My mother’s from Georgia,” she offered. “Or maybe Florida.”
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head. “She dumped me early on. I’m a foster kid.”
“What was that like?”
“Depends on who they put you with. Sometimes it was okay. Other times it was shitty.”
She took him higher, struggling through deep snow. He followed close on her heels, like a car tailgating on the highway. Juiced on love, she decided. SBI must have a real jones for this Mary. She tried to recall if she’d ever wanted anyone that badly. Maybe cute Darryl Young, back when she was in junior high. Ever since then she’d flipped from man to man, like the silver ball in a pinball game.
They stopped only once—to eat, to pee and for her to have a smoke. Then they went on, until the trail ended above a narrow swath of relatively even ground. She jumped down onto the flat area; SBI followed.
“The road to Unaka.” She held her arms out with a flourish.
“How much farther is it?” He asked, looking worried.
“Not far. A mile or two.”
They went on, ascending two coiling switchbacks. As they rounded a third one, Coza gave a yelp of surprise. There, in the middle of the road, sat a small Subaru, mashed flat by a monstrous pine tree. Instinctively, she backed away. She’d seen lots of people die from overdoses and bullet wounds. But the gore of car crashes made her stomach churn.
“Oh, Jesus,” she heard SBI whisper behind her. He threw down his pack and rushed forward, diving into the branches of the fallen tree. “Mary?” he cried, fighting his way to the car. “Mary, are you in there?”
No one answered. SBI wiggled his way to the door, grabbed it and pulled. Coza closed her eyes, not wanting to see some bloody dead woman fall out of the driver’s seat. But she only heard SBI scrambling around the branches. She looked to see him trying the other doors. None of them worked, so he finally had to enter the car through the open trunk. A moment later, he called out, his voice buoyant with relief.
“She’s not here!”
Equally relieved, Coza moved closer as SBI squeezed into the driver’s seat and examined the inside of the car.
“I don’t see any blood,” he called. “She must have gotten out before the tree fell. She must still be okay.”
Coza thought that this Mary Crow had probably just crawled off to die somewhere else, but she kept her mouth shut. SBI would really freak out over that.
“She has to be up here somewhere,” said Victor, emerging from the car. He hurried up the road, cupping his hands around his mouth and calling “Mary!”
Coza grabbed his pack and followed him. Teo had also taught her how to track people through the woods, and she’d gotten pretty good at it. While SBI yelled for his beloved, she saw faint indentations in the snow; footprints leading across the road and up to the top of the embankment above the recycle bins. In his crazed hurry to find his girlfriend, Galloway had tromped right through them.
“Hey, SBI,” she yelled. “Tracks over here.”
He was halfway to the next switchback, but he turned and ran back. “Where?” he asked, out of breath.
“There.” She pointed to the barely visible line of depressions in the snow. “Going up that little hill.”
He threw himself, slipping and sliding, up the embankment. She followed, figuring now they’d find his precious Mary frozen like a popsicle. But when they reached the top they didn’t find anybody—only more vague tracks leading to two pine trees and an odd circle of snow-free earth.
They walked over to the trees. Several flat river rocks lay between them, covered with ashes, barely dusted with snow.
“Somebody made a fire here,” Coza said, kneeling to touch the rocks. “Heated these stones to keep warm. Teo and I once saw Mohawks do that at a pow-wow.” She squinted up at him. “Your girl know how to do this?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. She’s part Cherokee.”
“Well, it’s crazy to let it go to waste.”
“What do you mean?
“I mean we’ve got about hour left before dark. We’re gonna have to camp, either up here or in the back of that car.”
He shook his head. “We need to look for more tracks now.”
She sighed, knowing if they waited until dark they’d have to sleep in that flattened can of a car. “How about we cut another deal? I’ll look for more tracks while you build a fire on these rocks.”
“With what wood?”
“Try the dumpsters,” she said. “The Florida people throw all kinds of shit in those things. Teo and I once found a whole case of perfectly good wine.”
“And we’ll camp here? Underneath those trees?”
“We’ll have more room there than in that squashed car.”
“I guess so,” he said, shifting the backpack on his shoulders.
“Then go look for something to burn and I’ll go see where your girlfriend went.”
She followed the road north, calling Mary’s name every twenty yards. She felt stupid yelling for a woman, and was tempted to blow SBI off, telling him she’d seen nothing and his girlfriend was probably dead. But there was a sweetness about him that touched her. He loved this Mary, pure and simple. And he would do anything to save her. She’d never seen any man act like that before. After she walked up the next switchback, she turned around and headed back to the bins. Nobody had answered her calls and not a single print of bird or beast disturbed the smooth blanket of snow.
When she neared the bins she smelled wood smoke, so she figured SBI must have found something to burn. But instead of going up the embankment to report she’d seen no tracks, she turned left, into the woods. It was the only direction that now made sense—had this Mary walked south along the road or gone west past the campsite, she would have seen footprints. East was the only direction left.
She headed off the road, fighting her way through some gorse to a small, narrow path that led into a wide swath of dark pine trees. There, under the pines, where the snow was not so deep, she saw them. Crisper than the ones on the road, she saw two sets—one hatch-marked snowshoe prints, the other a lug-soled boot. Proud of her expertise as a tracker, she started to yell.
“SBI! I found something!”
Hearing a faint reply, she waited. In a few minutes she saw him, looking for her alongside the road.
“Down here!” she called. “Under these trees.”
He saw her, and plunged headlong into the woods, running like his hair was on fire. “Did you find her?” he called, breathless.
“No, but I found these.” Coza pointed at the marks in the snow. “I think the wide ones must be snowshoes, but the narrower ones are boots.” She looked at Victor. “Your girl have a pair of snowshoes?”
“Not that I know of,” he replied. “But we both bought new boots, back in October.”
“Then she’s well enough to walk and follow somebody who’s spent some time up north. Southerners don’t snowshoe.”
“How about Teo?”
“I’ve never seen him with snowshoes. But that’s not saying he can’t.”
Victor looked through the towering trees, still puzzled. “But where would these tracks be going, though? Is there a town near here?”
“Nope. Just summer cabins, closed up for the winter.”
He said, “Maybe they went to one of those.”
“Maybe so. We can head up that way tomorrow.”
He shook his head. “But we need to—
She cut him off. “Look–we’re about to lose what light we’ve got. If you want to try and follow these tracks tonight, you go ahead. But I’m going up to that campsite and pitch my tent by whatever fire you’ve got going.”
She turned and strode back to the bins. She didn’t care what he did about his stupid fiancé. She was cold, tired and she needed a cigarette. When she scrambled to the top of the embankment, she saw that he’d not only built a huge fire on the rocks but had already pitched her tent beside it. She unfolded her sleeping bag in one side of the tent and dug out a can of Vienna sausages from her backpack. She was eating the last one when SBI appeared on the other side of the campfire.
“I tried to follow those tracks,” he said. “But you were right about the light.”
She looked at him, shocked. Never had a man given her credit for being right about anything. Her earlier anger dissipating, she held the flap open for him. “This is a two person tent. We’ll stay a lot warmer if we both sleep in here.”
For a moment he hesitated, then again, he acquiesced to her greater experience in the Appalachian Mountains. He untied his sleeping bag from his pack and spread it out on the opposite side of the tent.
“You did a good job with the fire, SBI,” she said.
“I found an old Ikea bookcase behind one of the bins,” he said, digging some energy bars from his pack. “The dry parts should burn for a while.”
He ate one bar and looked at her. “You think we’ll be able to read those tracks tomorrow?”
“If they kept walking under those trees.”
“But what if it keeps snowing? Covers the tracks?”
“I don’t know.” She pulled up her pants leg and reached deep into a wool sock, pulling out a joint. “I know you said no drugs, but this helps me sleep. Want to share it? Or does weed go against the SBI code of honor?”
“You enjoy it,” he said. “I don’t think anything would help me sleep.”
“Too worried about your girl?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse as he curled up in his sleeping bag. “Something like that.”