![]() She understood exactly what they wanted from her. “Just to carry on a conversation,” the older man added. “Well,” he began, “we don’t meet many beautiful women up in the mountains, and we just want to talk to you for a while …” He shrugged. “What do you want?” she demanded, anger overcoming her initial fear. Kari struggled against his grip, twisting her weight right and left. We don’t want to let you go.” The old man’s voice was amazingly calm, as if he were discussing the weather. “Thanks,” Kari blurted out, then spun to dash back along her original route.”īefore she could complete her turn, the older man seized both her wrists in a grip so tight she felt her bones might crack. “This is the Jack Creek Trail all right.” “Hi,” she began, keeping her tone normal. Maybe, she thought, if I just ask directions, I can keep the conversation short, then turn around and leave. Kari stumbled to a stop, but still overcame the natural panic reaction rising inside her. Without a word, the older man stepped onto the trail, blocking her way. She decided to run right past them, up the ridge and back to the Jack Creek logging road where there might be hikers. She did not intend to give them the chance. These two men were definitely grungy, some kind of rough misfits, but they had not actually attacked her. He bore a certain resemblance to the older man, but his beard was blond and thinner. The Day-Glo Sasson jogging shorts billowed over her hips, but the old blue T-shirt was plastered sweaty tight across her chest. She slowed more when she saw the younger man was staring at her body, his lips grim. That was the word for his eyes.) Even on first sight, she realized that he was not normal. (“Feral” was the word they used when a domestic animal went wild. But the intense blue eyes frightened her. The older man’s face was almost hidden beneath a matted gray beard and the brim of a greasy cowboy hat. As she stumbled ahead, she realized that they both wore holstered pistols and thick-bladed hunting knives. July was a long time before any legal hunting season, and these two guys with their grungy beards and sooty clothes sure did not look like wardens from the Fish and Game. Two rifles leaned against the tree near the packs. Now she saw their green backpacks, propped against a tree at trailside. And they stood very still, watching her with flat dark eyes, expressionless, just staring at her body. These men were dirty they did not look like fishermen from Big Sky. Her first reaction was surprise, then apprehension. The younger man was half hidden in the trees to the right, five feet off the path. The older man stood to the left, one foot on the trail. Just before the end of the lake, the trail climbed another rise into dense timber, and Kari stared intently at the ground to avoid injury in the roots and stones. That should be Jack Creek Trail, and if she followed it, her route would cross the logging road again, and she could head back to the trailhead where she’d parked her car. But ahead, to the left, the trail opened again, a clear route, cutting up the slope among the dense deadfalls to rejoin the ridge. Here the pines were even thicker than up on the ridge. She splashed through a stream and puffed up a sharp rise. ![]() The trail was hardly wider than a deer path, and steep, following the sharp contour of the pothole lake shore. Kari was halfway around the small lake now.
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