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the book shut. He examined Martha’s boot tread so he could identify it and told her to follow two steps behind, placing her boots exactly in his own tracks.
    The horse had entered the copse of pines at the upper northeast corner, where the trees were sparsest. Harold pointed with a stick. The pockmarks were spaced at regular intervals, faint scoops in the vanilla swirl.
    â€œHe was walking, huh?” Martha said, and cursed herself for commenting on the obvious. Notwithstanding the personal baggage of their relationship, she always felt inadequate following Harold while he tracked. He didn’t suffer fools and was disinclined to honor any but intelligent questions with an answer.
    She followed him down into the thicket. Harold pointed again. “See where he crow-hopped?” The horse had kicked up dirt over the snow where it jumped. “And here, here’s where the rider bailed.” He was pointing to two narrow impressions—the snow-covered tracks of a man. “He landed on his feet.” Harold’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Good horseman.”
    Martha felt the quick tremor of a vein in her neck. She rubbed at it and put her hands on her hips. The corners of her mouth turned down. “If he was bucked off here, how does he end up on the sharp end of an antler yonder down the hill?”
    A momentary tightening of his cheeks was Harold’s only response. He tucked his braid under his jacket collar and pushed through the wall of branches. As Martha followed him, she watched where his stick tapped the snow, but if there were tracks she couldn’t see them. When they reached the edge of the clearing, Harold motioned to Martha to stay put while he conducted a perimeter search and disappeared into the trees. Martha squatted twenty feet from the elk carcass. It didn’t look as ominous in the dawn. The face of the wrangler was hidden by the bulk of the elk and most of the blood was at a remove under the snow.
I should be tired
, she told herself. Instead, she found herself snapping her fingers, sending Harold telepathic signals to hurry.
    Harold was back. He drew his belt knife before squatting next to her and whittled a stick into a toothpick. It shifted around as he worked it with his teeth.
    Martha fought her impulse to break the silence. And lost. “What’s the book tell us?”
    Harold spit out the stick. “The pack that took down the bull is four, maybe five strong. They’ve probably been feeding on it couple days, hanging about the vicinity. They left just after it started snowing.”
    â€œI didn’t see any wolf tracks.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t. They’re more shadows than anything physical.”
    â€œDid the wrangler spook them when he rode in? Maybe that’s why the horse bucked.”
    â€œNo, I’d say the wolves left about an hour before the wrangler got here. But it wasn’t just the wrangler. There were two others.”
    â€œTwo?” Martha felt the breath slowly leave her lungs. Her lower ribs pressed against the muscles of her abdomen.
    â€œThey came in an hour or so after the snow started and it was snowing for a couple hours after they left, so we’re talking dents. You look close, half the dents are about two inches longer than the others. And neither has a square heel. Wrangler’s boot has a square heel. That tells me two other people were here.”
    â€œWere they together?”
    â€œSame time frame, but I don’t think so. The wrangler, we know he came on horseback. He stumbled into the opening from above. Call him person one. Person two came on foot from the timber flank there”—he pointed with his stick to the south—“ninety-degree angle to the route the wrangler took. Left the same way. His track’s wider than the wrangler’s track. The smaller track, person three, came in from the north, opposite direction from person two. Also on foot. Also left on his