MONDAY, 7:43 P.M.
BRIDGER-TETON NATIONAL FOREST, WYOMING
The report of a rifle echoing off some distant mountain hadn’t given Heath McKade pause. Not in Wyoming, supposedly the most heavily armed state in the country, where people kept guns not so much for protection against two-legged creatures—but four. Protection and hunting.
No. It wasn’t the gunfire that gave him pause, but the scream that resounded mere moments before. That scream had been awfully close to where he’d brought a group of Emerald M guests on horseback from their backcountry camp in the wilderness area. Still, in these mountains, sounds could travel for miles.
He did a quick head count of his guests who hiked up from the Grayback River where they’d been enjoying the scenery before getting back on their horses. This group was late heading back to the camp because two teenage boys had taken off on their own, and Heath had searched for them and hauled them back. As the founder of Emerald M Guest Ranch as well as their trail guide, he was responsible for keeping them safe. Easy enough when they followed the rules.
Frustration simmered in his veins, but he tempered it with a layer of patience that was already running too thin.
Quickly, he mounted his horse, Boots. Settled in the saddle, Heath cranked his head to listen for any other sounds—screams or otherwise—that might give him a better idea which direction to search.
No one else reacted as if they’d heard something out of place, but they’d been down by the river, which had probably drowned out the scream. He reined Boots around to head up the trail.
“Where’re you going?” Leroy called after him, emerging from the group of campers gathering around some horses.
“I heard a scream. I need to check it out.”
“You think you’re going to find someone in three million acres?”
Heath slowed Boots and glanced back at Leroy. Heath counted on him to pick up the slack.
“Nope,” Heath said. “But if she’s close and I can find her, I will. You go on ahead. I’ll contact you if I need your help.” Heath held up the radio.
Leroy Miller had twenty years on Heath, a lot of ranching experience, and was only now wrapping his skills around guest ranching—herding tourists around the backcountry—since Heath had hired him five months ago.
“Sure thing.” The uncertain look in Leroy’s eyes told Heath the older man thought Heath was hearing things. Maybe he was. He hadn’t been the same since he’d been shot nine months ago by someone he trusted.
“Heath, let me do it while you take care of your campers.”
He urged Boots up the trail, leaving Leroy standing there. “No, I’ll handle it.”
He had no time to waste talking about it. Leroy was persistent. Not a bad trait, but Heath had no patience or time for this. He’d already taken too long if he was going to be any help.
Leroy would have his hands full with these riders. He had to get them on their horses and back to base camp before it got too dark. And Pete Langford couldn’t help because he’d already gone ahead to check on the camp.
But Heath couldn’t leave without investigating, and he would catch up to them.
In the distance, he faintly heard the man call, “Be careful. I don’t want to have to come looking for you!”
Heath directed Boots to quicken the pace. He figured he’d look along the hiking trail. People usually stuck to those. Someone might have taken a tumble and it would be getting dark once the sun started setting behind the mountains. Easier to find them now. He hoped that was all that had happened and whoever had screamed had picked herself up and kept walking.
Except the scream echoing in his mind curdled in his gut. With his Remington pump-action shotgun in the saddle scabbard, he palmed his handgun, his .44 Magnum, for a potential short-range battle. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He’d already had enough to last him a lifetime, but he would never go unprepared.
Mentally or physically.
“Come on, Boots.” He directed the horse up the trail for half a mile, then ran into a hiker’s trail that circled Red Rock Hill and led him to a fork in the road. He could continue on the horseback riding trail, but he and the campers had come from there. He chose the hiker’s trail instead.
The rangers didn’t appreciate horses on the hiking trails, but this might be an emergency and it was taking far too long to respond.
Heath the hero, coming to save the day. Right. He could have sent Leroy to search, but the man didn’t know the area nearly as well as Heath, who’d grown up exploring Bridger-Teton National Forest. Spent his childhood hiking in the Gros Ventre Wilderness.
He urged Boots up the steeper way and kept his eyes out for anyone who could have fallen off the trail. He wished he could have brought Rufus and Timber, who could have sniffed someone out, but this particular region wasn’t dog friendly.
“Whoa,” he said to Boots. The call for help was so faint he was surprised he’d heard it. “Who’s there?”
Quickly, he slid from the horse. Boots lifted his head high, his tail too, and snorted. Stomped the ground. Could he sense someone was hurt?
“Easy, boy.” Though the horse was highly trained, Heath loosely tied him to a whitebark pine.
Heath swept his gaze over the darkening forest near the edge of the trail where it sloped downward toward the Grayback River that was pebbled with boulders and roots bursting from the ground. He could see how someone could trip and then slide down along the pine needles.
He took slow and easy steps as he made his way down. “I’m here to help. Anybody there?”
The hair on his neck stood on end. A low growl rumbled too close for comfort and crawled over him. Every warning his father had ever given him flitted through his mind at the same instant.
“Keep the length of a football field away from bears. Hike in groups. Make lots of noise. Back away. Never run. Leave the area immediately and give the bear more space.”
Maybe the bear hadn’t seen him, and he could back away. Then again, maybe the beast was looking right at him.
He remained perfectly still except to angle his head to see.