“Yeah.” Ellie drained the bottle. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” she said. “So, how’s it going? You had the bait in your box?”
“Uh-huh. It’s going okay.”
“How do you know this is a good place?”
“Because Grandpa said so.”
“Because it’s a pool?”
“Uh-huh. He said you should always cast on the downstream part of cover and not right on top of them …” Ellie prattled on, but Alex listened with only half an ear, her mind already leapfrogging ahead, trying to figure out how to bring up the subject of, oh, next time you decide to go hiking, please tell me, and by the way, don’t touch the Glock.
“And then you eat them,” Ellie finished with a flourish.
Eat them. That got her attention. Saliva squirted into Alex’s mouth, and her stomach cramped. If Ellie really could catch a fish or two … She nearly moaned out loud. “Do you know how to cook them?”
“Sure. Don’t you? Your dad taught you everything.”
“Not this.”
“Oh. Well, you scale them. With a knife. And cut open their stomachs to get out all the guts.”
“Yuck.” She meant that.
“It’s not so bad,” Ellie said airily. “You save the guts to use for bait.”
“You’ve done that?” She was genuinely impressed.
“Yup.” Ellie’s expression bordered on the supremely smug. “Then you poke some branches into their mouths and out the other end and roast them over a fire, and then you eat them just like corn on … Alex? Are you okay?”
“I—” Alex began, but then the odor came again, a harsh blast that nudged the gooseflesh along her arms.
“Alex, what—” Ellie’s gaze drifted to a point over Alex’s shoulder, and her eyes went round. “Oh.”
Alex knew what the girl saw. Much later, she would think all that talk of food was to blame for what happened next. That if she hadn’t been distracted by daydreams of roasted fish on a spit, things might’ve turned out differently. Maybe.
Her heart pounding, Alex turned, already knowing what she would find.
A dog.
18
A few feet in from the right bank stood a collie that looked ragged, thin, muddy, and miserable. A length of frayed rope hung from a worn collar. When it saw Alex looking, its filthy tail whisked back and forth a few times, and then it whimpered.
“Ohh,” Ellie breathed. “It must’ve chewed through its rope. Or maybe somebody lost it. It’s probably really scared and hungry.”
Alex thought that was probably true. After all that talk about wild dogs the night before, she’d been startled at first, afraid the collie was feral. But this dog looked about as dangerous as Lassie. “Hey, girl.” She had no idea if it was a girl or not, but thought the dog wouldn’t be all that choosy. “How are you? Whatcha doing out here?”
The dog’s tail fanned the air, and it danced a step forward and then back.
“Oh, Alex, look, she’s hurt.” Alex felt the tree jiggle as Ellie scooted to get a better look. “There’s blood.”
There was. A dried, rust-colored splotch splashed the collie’s rump.
“Someone shot her.” Laying aside her rod, Ellie hitched herself around and started scooching toward Alex. “We have to help her. Here, girl, it’s okay, we won’t hurt you. It’s okay.”
“No. They’re looking for a way across.”
“Why?”
“So they can come at us from both sides.” The mutt and the hound were picking their way down the bank, slithering on wet leaves. She kept hoping they’d take a tumble, maybe break a leg, maybe get so wet and discouraged they’d just give up, but they didn’t look like the kind of dogs that gave up. Then she remembered the dried blood on the collie and she thought, Gun.
“Ellie.” She craned her head over the hump of her shoulder. The girl’s face was bleached of color, and she was crying, silently, huge tears rolling down her cheeks. “Ellie. The Glock. Get it.”
Ellie’s eyes went even wider, but she nodded—a quick jerk like a puppet. She started backing away in little hip-hops, up and down, like a kid hitching along a balance beam. Every bounce knocked a gasp from Alex’s chest, and she hissed, “Not so fast. We’ve got some time, be careful.”