Part 6
Caleb threw himself over the log as the grille crossed the place where he had been standing. His boot struck ice, and he landed sideways against a stump. Pain drove the air out of him before he could get his knees beneath him.
Across the spur, Ranger scrambled into the trees. The pickup overshot the opening, braking hard on the packed snow. Its headlights swept the log stacks as the driver tried to bring it around.
Caleb pushed up on one arm. He could see the back trail, but the truck stood between him and the dog.
“Ranger.”
The Shepherd came out low and fast, crossing through the beams toward Caleb. The driver turned after him. For a few strides Ranger drew the truck across the icy edge of the clearing, then cut toward the trees.
The rear wheels slid sideways. Metal struck a pine with a flat, crushing sound, and one taillight went dark.
Caleb got to his feet while the passenger door opened. Ranger veered away from the man climbing out, pulling his attention toward the far end of the stacks. Caleb used the moment to reach the creek trail.
The first shot came while he was stumbling down the bank. Another followed before he could find cover. He didn’t look back; he could hear Ranger moving just ahead of him and the men shouting near the pickup.
They ran only where the ground allowed it. In the narrow drainage Caleb had to duck beneath alder limbs and brace his hand against frozen earth to keep from falling. Each hard breath hurt the side of his chest.
Ranger stopped sharply beside a fallen tree. Caleb followed his change of direction and glimpsed a trap where the direct path narrowed, its dark edge visible beneath the snow. He took the longer way around.
A third shot broke a branch above the bank. Caleb dropped low, waited a breath, then kept moving. The bend and the trees finally put enough ground between them that he could no longer hear the men.
The creek trail opened near an old beaver pond. Caleb stayed off the ice and crouched behind a fallen cedar on the bank, pressing one arm against his ribs. He called Ranger softly and waited for him to come back.
The dog stood trembling in front of him. There was blood on a rear paw, a small bright mark spreading into the snow. Caleb checked the leg, then the others, keeping his movements slow enough not to frighten him further.
Ranger pushed his forehead against Caleb’s chest.
Caleb bowed over him until the shaking eased. He could feel his own pulse in his injured side and the warmth of the dog’s breath passing through his shirt. When he reached for the line, his hand shook so badly that it took two tries to close the clip.
They walked the rest of the way home, stopping twice. Ranger’s old limp had grown more pronounced, and Caleb supported him where the trail dipped. Neither had enough breath left for Caleb to pretend this had been a reasonable outing.
Owen was on the porch before dawn, with two deputies and every outside light burning. He came down the steps when Caleb emerged from the trees. For a moment he looked ready to take hold of him, then saw how he was carrying his left arm.
“Inside,” the sheriff said.
He had heard the message, called back repeatedly, and searched the lower access road before returning to the cabin to check whether Caleb had made it home. Now he sent the deputies to secure the approaches and summon help. Caleb sat down while Owen called in the shots and the truck description.
Mara came for Ranger. A medic examined Caleb and told him the chest injury needed a proper check. He agreed, then asked Owen for five minutes with the camera before they left.
At the kitchen table, Caleb copied the photographs to his laptop and an external drive while Owen watched. He kept the original card untouched, then handed it over with the route notes and the times he could remember. The parked service truck appeared in several images; the later photographs showed the traps and the timber.
Owen sealed the card in an evidence envelope. “You could have given me the route and stayed here.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because I spent an hour deciding which way you’d gone off it.”
Caleb looked at Ranger, lying on the quilt while Mara cleaned the cut. “He got me out.”
“You took him in.”
Caleb had no answer that improved anything. He sat with his hand flat on the table until Owen finished labeling the envelope.
The clinic visit left him with bruised ribs, instructions he couldn’t ignore without making ordinary movement miserable, and several hours to think. Mara kept Ranger resting and made it clear that his improved strength had not made him fit for a night like that. Caleb carried him inside when they got home.
By then Owen had brought in state forestry investigators and contacted federal wildlife agents about the connected trapping activity. The local assault and the threats remained his responsibility. The other officers would establish the land boundaries, examine the timber, and work through the wider records.
That evening Caleb sat in a small room at the sheriff’s office with Ranger asleep beneath his chair. He had agreed to be driven there. Owen said nothing about the concession, but brought him a mug of coffee with the handle turned toward his good side.
Ruth Avery arrived carrying a laptop and a folder already thick with notes. She was in her late forties, with gray at her temples and glasses she kept pushing back into place. She asked Caleb where he had stood for each photograph, then marked those positions on a map.
She did not ask Ranger to perform. When the dog woke and looked toward her, she moved her bag out of his way and went back to the table.
Owen laid out the notebook copies, the receipts, and stills from the recovered camera. Ruth looked through them in silence, returning several times to the same sequence of dates. Caleb shifted in the chair, trying to find a position that didn’t pull at his ribs.
At last she opened her own folder beside the notebook copy. There were similar columns on the page underneath her hand.
“These load codes have shown up in a case two counties east,” she said. “Now we need the people who can tell us who was using them here.”
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