Charles glanced back at him. "Ready?"
Cameron bowed his head slightly and lifted it. Charles's eyes widened. Then Charles turned and yelled to his team, "Hike!" and his dogs took off.
Cameron shouted, "Hike!" and his team yanked the sled in the direction Charles was moving. A rush of adrenaline instantly flooded his veins. Losing his balance, Cameron quickly compensated for the sudden movement by crouching a little and gripping the bar tighter.
The sleds sped across the snow with a soft, creaking sound, away from the resort, down an unplowed road, the snow-laden spruces and pines stretching out to them on either side of the road. The dogs barked, bellowed, and yelped starting out the trip. But as they journeyed onward, they grew quiet, all business, the crisp sound of the sled runners whooshing, no noisy sputtering engine roar like when they rode the snowmobiles. The dogs' booty-covered paws thudded gently on the snow while their frosty breaths wafted in the air.
Every bump shot through the blades and up Cameron's legs to his hands, every dip, making his heart drop and rise again. Exhilarating. Then Charles picked up the pace and they practically flew over the snow. Cameron was glad his mask and ski glasses protected his face from the bitter cold wind.
One of the dogs turned and nipped another, and Cameron immediately yelled, "No, Trigger!"—glad Charles had introduced him to each of the dogs by name earlier. The dog instantly minded. "Good dog!"
As soon as he said the words, the whole team perked up. He smiled. The team was a dream to work with.
Then Charles made a sharp turn ahead of him onto a narrow path through the forest. Cameron tried to copy the maneuver, but he nearly tumbled off his sled. So much for thinking he could keep Faith safe. Quickly shifting his posture to lower his center of gravity, he regained his balance and again wished he was running alongside the team on his own power.
The soothing whispered sounds of the skis crunched on the snow, but everything otherwise was softly silent, filling him with awe as he thought about his friends and the next step he would take if Trevor didn't have any clues for him. He was sure Lila was right, that the police wouldn't do anything unless something clued them in that his friends were in real trouble.
But an hour and a half into their journey, Charles suddenly called out "Whoa!" and stopped.
Up ahead, a tree had fallen and blocked the path. Charles checked it out, while Faith climbed out of her snug sled bed and joined him. Cameron crunched on the snow to reach them as Charles had gone into the woods a ways. He looked up at Cameron and pointed to where the tree had been cut, the tree over forty inches in diameter and branches spread out several feet in every direction. "Recently," he said, touching the trunk. "Still warm from the chainsaw blade." He looked up at Cameron. "Can you smell who did it?"
Chapter 10
CAMERON TOOK A DEEP BREATH, SAMPLING THE BREEZE, BUT he didn't smell any sign of who might have cut down the tree in their path. "Did you get a whiff of cologne or aftershave or something?" he asked Charles as Faith took a deep breath, her chin tilted up.
Charles shook his head at Cameron as if he was hopeless.
Not sure why Charles should think he would smell something when the old man couldn't, Cameron glanced around at the woods, looking for tracks in the snow. Boot prints could be seen all over the place. "We have axes, right? We could cut the tree up to clear the road."
"Would take too long. Too much work. We'll go another route. Through there." Charles motioned to a narrower path.
Cameron didn't like it. They had switched from a major unplowed road, to a smaller one, and now just a trail, from the looks of it. "Are we being railroaded?" Cameron asked, wondering if they were being forced to take this route for some sinister reason.
Rubbing his chin, Charles stared at the downed tree. "No reason I can think of that someone would do such a thing. We don't have to go, if you don't like it. We can always return to the resort."
"No, I want to see Trevor," Faith said, frowning. "As long as this trail will get us there, I'm all for it. Don't you think it'll be all right, Cameron?"
He studied the trail. "If Charles thinks it's all right, it's fine by me."
Charles headed for the sled and everyone took their places and then they were off again. Only this time the woods reached out so close to the trail, they sometimes touched Cameron, calling to him, every shadow as the day drew on, every whisper of movement, a bird startled by their presence, fluttering off, the breeze making the branches tremble, a rabbit bolting from underneath a spruce close to the trail. Instead of riding down the man-made path on the sled, he wanted to explore the woods on foot, smell the scents of animals and plants, identify everything with his senses that seemed to be so much more highly attuned.
Conquering that urge, he continued to follow Charles and avoided thinking of anything but what he had to do when they reached Trevor. After half an hour on the trail, they came to another downed tree, cut in the same manner, only it had been sawed down earlier. Charles peered into the forest and didn't say anything for several minutes.
Another trail came off this one, but where would it lead? A dead end? The wrong direction?
From Charles's reaction, it appeared it wasn't a good thing.
"Can we cut this one up?" Cameron asked.
"Too big. Take too long. We go back and try another way."
"Who would do something like this?" Cameron asked, walking with Faith and Charles back to the sleds.
"Someone who doesn't like snowmobilers, possibly. Cross-country skiers maybe." Charles pointed to ski tracks. "They can easily traverse the tree. Hard to say."
Faith looked disappointed, although she tried to hide the expression. They'd already been delayed over an hour. Now this would add another hour to the trip.
But the most worrisome concern was whether or not they were being delayed on purpose and if so, why. Or if the situation was more of a case of being forced to go in some other direction, which again led to the question of why. Although the downed trees might not have had anything to do with them at all.
When they reached the small road again, Charles motioned to the tree lying prone in the road. "We'll cut it up."
About time. Cameron grabbed the ax off his sled and stalked over to the tree. For a quarter of an hour, Charles and Cameron chopped off branches, and Faith hauled them into the woods. Another hour and Charles and Cameron had chopped enough of the trunk away to maneuver the dogs and sleds through the partially cleared path.
When they were on their way again, Cameron mulled over everything that had happened since he'd met Faith. He couldn't stop thinking about the way she'd beaten the wolf off him, or how she'd taken care of him afterward with such a tender, caring touch. And then this morning, the way she'd wanted him like he'd wanted her, settling his strange desire to leave the cabin and run through the woods with a few well-placed kisses and… well, hell, he had to admit she wasn't anything like the other women in his life. He even admired her for hauling off the branches while he and Charles chopped away at the tree. Marjory would have looked at her long fingernails and said, "No way." Katie would have pouted.
From roughing it, to trying out the spa in the bitter cold, to investigating a crime scene, to nearly creating her own as she readied a log to bash in her ex-boyfriend's cabin window, to standing up to Lila when she thought she was making the moves on him, Faith was the kind of woman he could really go for. Even though they barely knew each other, he felt a connection existed between them that made him feel as though he'd known her for so much longer. And yeah, he wanted to be there for her, to help her father out in his time of crisis while he searched for clues concerning his friends' whereabouts.