The man was about fifty, like we had been told, his face lined from the sun and stress. He was bent over a pile of sticks, stripping the bark off them so they’d burn cleaner. He wore a greasy baseball cap with a blue maple leaf on the front, and there was a cigarette—a real cigarette, like the kind you’d buy at the corner store—sticking out of his mouth. I hadn’t seen one in years.

I looked for a gun nearby, and seeing none, I stepped loud on a downed branch. You didn’t want to surprise anyone out here more than you had to. But he didn’t even look up.

“Excuse me?” I started.

Nothing. He was humming while he worked. Actually humming, like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Excuse me,” I tried a little louder.

A woman crawled out of a lean-to a few feet behind him. Her eyes got big when she saw me, and she ducked back in.

“I don’t mean to alarm you. Me and my brother, we are just passing through this area, and—”

Finally, he noticed me, jumping up and swearing, clutching his chest. “Jesus Henry Christ. Where in the hell did you come from?”

I held up both hands. “We—me and my brother, that is”—I pointed a thumb over my shoulder to where Mitch stood—“we were just passing through and heard you guys, and we thought we’d pop over and say hi.”

“Holy mother of god.” His small eyes darted between the two of us for a moment. He dropped his hands to his sides. “Whew, thought you were one of those damn school guards for a minute. Scared the gas right outta me.” He cackled.

I watched him for a moment. Was the intelligence report wrong? Was he some kind of insane villager who had wandered out into the bush? It would be a relief, in a way. It would mean we could go back without taking anyone in. Then again, who knew what the consequences of that would be, even if it wasn’t our fault?

“Ah, sorry about that. Just haven’t seen another Native for about a year now.”

Okay, so he wasn’t insane. A bit stupid, maybe, but not crazy.

Just then, the woman emerged from the lean-to again. This time she had a knife in her hand. She didn’t shout a threat or take any steps toward us; she just stood there, making sure we saw that she was armed. I kept my hands up at shoulder height. When I spoke to him again, it was her I kept my eyes on.

“Sorry to surprise you like that. I know there’s no good way to come up on someone out here.”

“Maybe with a wagon full of deer, that might do it.” He was still smiling. He walked toward me with a hand held out. “I’m JP.”

I shook his hand. “Fre…Francis. And that’s my brother, Mitch.” We had been instructed to use our real names—one of Agent Mellin’s directives in case we were too dumb to remember the con.