“I assume he doesn’t know this?” Deuce asked.
“I’m pretty sure Dick knows I enjoyed Cuba,” Ty said with a smirk he couldn’t hold back.
“I’m talking about Zane, numbnuts,” Deuce said. “And don’t try to confuse me, I’m immune,” he added. Ty sighed and looked back at his feet. “Does Zane know why he’s here?” Deuce prodded.
Ty shook his head and looked up at his brother pleadingly. “I told him I wanted him to come along to run interference with the family. That was the original idea, actually, but the more I thought about it on the way up, the more I thought maybe you could help. I don’t know what else to do. I’m not sure he’ll let me help him.”
Deuce was silent, studying Ty for a few minutes. Finally he nodded, taking pity. “I’ll talk to him,” he promised.
“Thank you,” Ty said in relief.
“Ty! Deuce!” Earl called out suddenly, his deep voice echoing in the thick woods. The tone of his voice caused Ty to turn and run instantly, leaving Deuce to keep up with him as best he could on his bad leg.
Ty skidded into the clearing where they’d been resting, and he glanced around until he saw his father crouched in the woods at the edge of the clearing, looking down at the ground. Zane was standing behind him, and they wore matching frowns.
“What?” Ty demanded irritably as his heart began to calm. Deuce clambered out of the woods behind him and ran into him, almost toppling them both to the ground.
“Quit messin’ around and come look at this,” Earl requested calmly. Ty shoved Deuce gently before stomping over to join his father.
“Don’t do that,” he requested as he knelt beside Earl.
“Do what?” Earl asked in confusion.
Ty just shook his head. “What is it?”
Earl pointed at a track in the dried mud in front of him. He was pulling the leaves of an overgrown plant away in order to see it, and Ty wondered briefly how he’d even found the tracks to start with. They were standing only a couple feet from a drop-off to a creek in a ravine.
“Is that from an ATV?” Deuce asked as he leaned over them, his hands on his knees.
“It’s definitely a tire mark of some sort,” Ty murmured as he looked up and over his shoulder, peering into the woods in the direction the track headed. Motorized vehicles of any sort were illegal up here. Even bicycles weren’t allowed. So it was a concern to find a track like this. His eyes scanned the trees and underbrush, looking for signs of recent passage. An ATV trail wasn’t hard to follow, but Ty could see no broken twigs or brushed leaves in the area, much less any more tracks.
“This is a pretty old track,” he finally decided as his brother and father waited for him to speak. They knew his abilities, and they were willing to defer to him even though both men had been raised in these mountains as well. His father had been used as a tracker in Vietnam because of his skills, and he had taught his boys everything he knew. Ty had merely had more opportunity to hone the talent.
“When was the last heavy rain up here?” he asked his dad.
“Been about two weeks, to my knowledge,” Earl answered thoughtfully. He gently replaced the fronds of the little fern he’d been holding back, and he and Ty both cocked their heads in the same manner as they looked down at the track beneath. “It was made before the rain,” Earl realized as Ty nodded in agreement. “Plant protected it from being washed away,” he told Zane as he stood and stretched his back.
“We’ll report it when we hit the ranger station, all the same,” Ty told them as he stood as well. “Person on an ATV up here is either up to no good or they’re gonna get hurt,” he said with a sigh.
“I don’t see how a four-wheeler would get up here at all,” Zane said. “So much of the woods, the paths are too narrow.”
“If you don’t care about trampling the underbrush or getting clotheslined by the occasional low-hanging branch, you can do it,” Deuce told him wryly as he stood with one hand on his hip. He looked over at Ty. “Are you worried?” he asked.
Ty frowned thoughtfully but finally shook his head. “Marijuana, probably. Could be moonshine, but I don’t know. We’ll stop in at the ranger station, give them a location.”
“They’ll just kick it off to you Feds,” Earl pointed out.
“Dad, if I call Dick with a case, even something like this, when I’m supposed to be on vacation, he will skin me alive,” Ty pointed out. “Besides, what do you want me to do? Track them through the back country and take them on with Deuce’s walking stick?”
“Don’t be a smartass,” Earl warned as he turned away and headed toward his pack. “Watch out for the snake,” he added as he went.
“Snake?” Ty asked in confusion, glancing at Deuce and then Zane, who was shaking his head as he walked away.
Chapter 7
“WE’RE a few hours behind schedule,” Deuce informed the group as Ty and Zane hunched over the fire and warmed their stiff fingers. Ty looked up at his brother and snarled quietly.
Zane knew it had gotten much colder than they had anticipated, and it was sapping their energy at a dangerous rate. It was only the second night, but they were all dragging a little. The last ridge they’d topped before stopping for the night had revealed snow on the highest peaks, and Ty had gone so far as to tell Zane he was beginning to fear it would get worse before they could find the appropriate shelter. That wasn’t reassuring.
At least it was cold enough that surely no snakes would be out at all.
“I’d like to scout ahead a little,” Earl told them. He was screwing the top onto a Thermos of hot coffee he’d boiled over the fire and looking off into the woods that awaited them. “Get clear of the roof and smell what the weather looks like,” he went on as he looked up at the thick canopy of trees.
Zane looked up as well, only catching glimpses of the gray evening sky between the layers of colored foliage barely illuminated by the fire. He’d almost gotten used to the feeling of being underneath a huge tent that happened to move and sway with the wind.
“If we can’t get to the next shelter in a day’s trek, we might think about turning back,” Earl was saying. “Keep to the lower elevation and familiar ground. Ty, load up.”
“Yes, sir,” Ty murmured as he stood again and began to extract things from his pack quickly.