It occurred to her then, as she cowered in the shadow of a huge bulldozer and watched for some sign that she had been spotted, that she just might have run into the original looter. If there was an “original looter.” The signs sure pointed to one. And if so—he would also be the most likely candidate for saboteur, trying to wreck the equipment before it dug up his cache.

Just what I needed for my birthday. The guy who wired a dozer with dynamite and killed four people. Not likely he’s going to play nice and surrender if I catch him. Not likely he’s going to congratulate me on my expertise if he catches me!

Assuming this person was human at all. That was not a good assumption, really. The Little People could take on all the attributes of a flesh-and-blood human when they chose, and there were other spirits that could do the same.

This might not be a looter, a saboteur. This might be something much worse.

She was afraid to move, lest she be spotted, and afraid not to move. She certainly couldn’t stay here forever! She strained her eyes against the darkness, but she couldn’t make out much more than a darker shadow against a pile of sand or gravel. If she hadn’t seen him move there, she wouldn’t have known he was in that blotch of darkness. She’d never have guessed that the shadow was alive if she hadn’t seen it in action.

Then it moved again; so quickly that her heart jumped up into her throat. It was spooky; maybe a couple of pieces of gravel fell, but otherwise the lurker was silent. It was heading over in the direction of the roped-off corner.

So, does that mean it’s the looter, another would-be scavenger, one of the Little People, or somebody else altogether?

She followed, heart pounding, palms sweating, and wishing she had a night-scope.

Then it occurred to her that she did have a kind of night-scope, after all. The only problem was that it was hard to move if she went into the kind of mental state where she could See things, see the purely physical, and See Medicine things. If this other lurker was something other than human, he would really betray himself at that point. But she would be severely handicapped—

That’s why you’re a Medicine Woman, stupid. “Hard” doesn’t mean “impossible.” Just try not to move too fast when you’re double-sighted, or you’ll trip over something.

She froze for a moment, putting herself in the right frame of reference.

She knew she’d matched it, when instead of only the shadow of a human lurking over by the dirt dug up by the now-wrecked dozer, she saw not only the stranger, but a stag, standing beside him.