Jonah called out in the wild woods; he expected no voice to call back and none did.
Finally, he collapsed in the snow.
He lay on his back, staring up at the branches swimming on the breeze above him. The blue sky beyond.
He closed his eyes.
And heard it.
The bark of a dog. Muffled by snow and trees. But not far off. Not if he could hear it.
He tried to get up. Couldn’t.
Tried again, shifting to his side.
He took hold of a tree branch and pulled. Got to his knees. Rested.
A voice now too.
The barking came again.
He used a stick as a cane and lurched toward the voices of the man and dog.
Near the beeches, he leaned against a boulder that had calved away from a cliff high above him.
The voice rose. The bark sounded. Clear. Sharp.
He picked his way, from tree to tree.
Stopped.
There.
Movement.
Just ahead.
Close.
He dipped his head to better see through the whips.
A man. Malcolm LeFranc. And a dog. LeFranc knelt, looking at something, his face a mask of horror.
At LeFranc’s knees lay a yellow coat.
She was still as a doll. Still as the dead.
A movement in the trees near LeFranc caught Jonah’s eye and he glanced to see the vultures and ravens looking on from their perch in the branches. Waiting their turn.
He backed away and fled down through the trees, mindless, racked with pain.