“I know I mentioned this before,” Kali said,“But you could cut some of this undergrowth with yoursword.”
“One does not use a high quality, importedJapanese katana to whack weeds,” Cedar said.
“It came all the way from the Orient? Youmust have paid a fortune for it. Perhaps, to justify thatsubstantial investment, you should use it for more than slicingpeople’s heads off.”
He slanted her a dark look over his shoulder.“I got it from Jiro, one of my early mentors. We were hunting afellow who’d massacred a family in Florida when Jiro got shot inthe leg. He said I wasn’t experienced enough to go after the man onmy own; I was sixteen and figured I knew plenty. I left him to adoc and tracked the cutthroat all through the swamps. Nearly lost aleg to an alligator, but I got my man. Jiro said he’d been wrong,and I was ready to hunt on my own. He retired and gave me thekatana to put to good use.”
Kali knew Cedar had traveled, but she had notrealized how much. Even though a sane person would probably not beexcited by stories of swamps and alligators, her heart ached withlonging to see such places.
“Alligator tussle, huh?” she said. “Must haveleft a giant scar.”
“Yup.”
“Can I see it some time?”
“Reckon so.” Cedar glanced back, hisexpression lighter this time. A glint in his eyes suggested herinterest pleased him. Men always liked to show off war wounds.
Kali dodged another branch whipping back inthe wake of his passage and resolved to stay farther behind. Smokethickened the air, though, promising they were close. She had tosquash an urge to lean to the side or bounce up and down so shecould see around Cedar. At one point, she tried to slip past him,but he blocked her with a gentle nudge. Being protective, washe?
Flames came into view, licking bark andnibbling spruce needles high up in trees. Broken branches hung fromseveral trunks, but metal glinting on the forest floor drew Kali’sgaze downward.
She could not muster caution, and she dartedpast Cedar, this time evading his protective grasp.
Less wreckage than she expected scattered theforest floor. The vehicle’s wings drew her eye first. The fall hadmangled them, warping the framework and tearing holes in themembrane. Kali rubbed the unique mesh between her fingers. Thoughcool and sleek like metal, it had a lightweight, sinuous natureunlike any alloy she knew about. She wished she could talk to themaker, discover what exactly this was and how to make it. Already,she could think of dozens of uses for it.
She slipped her knife out and cut a sample totake home.
A shadow fell over her shoulder, and Kalijumped. But it was only Cedar, rifle at the ready, guarding herback.
Still crouching, she surveyed the rest of thewreckage. “Where’s the furnace, the boiler, and the entire bottomof the flyer?”
“Where’s the woman?” Cedar asked.
“Yes, that’s a useful question too. Maybe thebottom half broke off from the top and landed somewhere else?”
He left her side and scouted the crash site.Only a few seconds passed before he stopped, pointed at the ground,and said, “No.”
Kali joined him. A pair of long, thindepressions gouged the spruce needles, mud, and snow. They headedinland in a straight line.
“These are the same width and depth of thelines behind the hill outside Dawson,” Cedar said, “except thosewere short and didn’t continue into the forest.”
The smell of freshly cut wood mingled withthe smoke, and Kali spotted broken branches on either side of thetracks. Some had been snapped, but other larger ones were sawnoff.
“Brilliant,” Kali breathed. “The lower halfmust be a ground vehicle that can work without the top half.” Shehad a hard time tearing her gaze from the tracks. Even the hewnbranches impressed her-the vehicle must have some sort offast-working saw created for brush clearing. She hadn’t thought toadd that to her bicycle. “Cedar, I think I’m in love.”
“With the vehicle or the woman who wants tokill you?”
“The vehicle, one hundred percent. Thewoman… It depends on if she’s the person who made the vehicle ornot.”
“I doubt she’ll prove lovable if she worksfor one of the gangster’s trying to collect the secrets in yourhead.”
Kali sniffed. “Nobody like that would workfor a gangster.”
“You seem certain about a great number ofthings for someone so young and untraveled.”
“What great number of things?” sheasked, annoyed to be reminded she had been so few places. Thatwould change one day soon.
“The motives of villains. The fact thattracking is so easy a hound can do it.”
Ah, so that comment still rankled him. It hadbeen unfair of her, but she had trouble admitting when she waswrong. “That’s only two things.”
“If we mean to track her down before dark, wecan’t loiter.” Cedar strode up the center of the broad trail.
“What are you doing?” Kali blurted.
“Walking?”
“Up the middle of the trail? If I waswounded, and I thought someone was following me, I’d booby trap themost obvious route. We might get hurt if we presume it’s safe toamble up the hill after her.”
“You have an alternative proposition?” Histone held a struggling-for-patience edge.
He probably didn’t appreciate her telling himhow to track. But this person was dangerous, maybe far moredangerous than the usual thugs he hunted down. He might needher help.
“Maybe we can guess where she’s going andavoid the tracks.”
Cedar waited, arms folded over his chest.
“She may have transportation,” Kali said,“but clearing the undergrowth will slow her, and we did shoot her,so she’ll need to stop to tend that wound soon.”
“Likely.”
“Do you have a map?” she asked.
Wordlessly, Cedar removed his packsack andwithdrew a compass and map.
Kali unfolded the latter. Her people hadcamped up and down these rivers when she was growing up, and sheknew the area well, but she wanted to see the overheard viewpointsince their attacker would have been watching the world fromabove.
“Maybe this ridge.” Kali tapped a stony grayterrain feature on the hand-colored map. “There are caves up there.Should be about three miles from here. I know a trail that heads upthere. It’s out of our way, but it should be faster than cuttingthrough the brush, especially since someone won’t deign to use hisfancy pig sticker-”
“Katana,” Cedar said.
“Right, since someone won’t use his katanafor brush clearing, it’ll be better to go the long way. It’ll putus up on top of the ridge where we can look down from above andmaybe sneak up behind her.”
She caught Cedar gazing into the woods again,not toward the ridge or the direction of the tracks, but toward theriver and the claims.
Kali returned the map. “This won’t take long.We’ll capture her and still make it up to Sebastian’s claim beforeit gets dark.”
“Hm,” was all Cedar said.
Late afternoon sun played tag with theclouds, though it did little to melt the snow on top of the ridge.Kali and Cedar knelt in a shadowy hallow, hidden from anyonelooking up from below. She scanned the hillside with a collapsiblespyglass, hoping to catch the smoke puffs of a steam engine. Ifthey were out there, the forest cloaked them.
“Do you see the tracks?” she murmured. “Ifshe drove in a straight line, she would have come out aboutthere.”
Her alternate route up had taken an hour. Hadthe woman already come through and gone? Or was she hiding in acave?
A creek meandered down into the valley, andKali checked up and down the shoreline. It seemed a likely placefor an injured person to stop for water and to attend a wound. Thetrees hid much, though, and even from the high ground, she couldnot see everything.
Cedar tapped her shoulder and pointed. Sheshifted the spyglass, thinking he had spotted their opponent. Hewas pointing out a doe and her fawn, down from the hills todrink.
“Cute,” Kali said, though she was moreinterested in finding the woman. They would have to go down thereand… She could feel Cedar’s gaze upon her. She lowered thespyglass. “What?”