He moved low and fast, looping wide to the west to avoid running into the second man. He would skirt around the ridge and come from the back side to collect his boy. From there, they would head north, and if the second man followed, Reed would be ready.

CHAPTER 69

Although Max’s hiking pants and boots were wet, he now wore Lyle’s dry vest and coat. He listened hard for any sound that might portend the arrival of Reed Harris, but heard nothing beyond his own breath. The woods on the hillside seemed too dense for anyone to slip through without making a sound, yet Reed had seemed to move like a ghost, like a man who had been hunting since he was big enough to carry a gun. Max suddenly wished that he had paid more attention to his father on their own hunting trips. Maybe he would have learned how to glide through the woods as quietly as Reed did.

Max propped himself against the downed tree and looked through the shadows for movement. He had a reasonable view of the slope below him and to his flanks, but the more Max examined his little barricade, the less his position made sense. A thin tail of sunlight leaked blue across the hills to the west, the dying light casting shadows in angry slashes. The woods had fallen dark enough that the only fight left for Max and Reed would be at close range, and what were the odds that Reed would get that close?

Part of Max wanted to circle back to Lyle. If Max’s ploy had worked, Reed should have pulled back from the river and started hunting for him. But the thought of Pip stopped him. Surely Reed wasn’t dragging Pip through the woods during a gunfight. So where was the child?

Max had stopped short of the crest, conceding the high ground for no good reason. If he were Reed he would circle the ridge and come up the back side—come at Max from the top of the ridge. Whoever held the high ground would hold the advantage, so Max abandoned his nest.

He climbed slowly, staying low to keep below the branches when he could, the sound of sprigs scraping against his coat rising like a cacophony to his own ears. He took the most direct path to the top of the hill, the crest flattening out for a quarter mile from side to side, but only a stone’s throw from front to back. Max moved to the back side of the ridge and again listened. Reed couldn’t have had enough time to travel that far, but underestimating him at this point would be deadly. Max held his breath.

Then he heard something that sounded like the chirp of an animal, somewhere down the back side of the ridge. He waited and heard it again. This time it sounded less like an animal and more like… a child crying.

He raised the shotgun to his shoulder and stepped lightly down the slope, doing his best to break no twig and rustle no leaf. Twenty paces down, he heard it again, clear this time.