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more than five miles from here. Three adults had trouble scaring it off, and the DNR still hasn’t tracked down that bear.”
    “Wait.”
    She heard the sound again. The rustle of underbrush. Another twig snapping. She tensed. “Hello? Is anyone out there?”
    Danny paled, no doubt reliving the attack he’d experienced a few years back, but he stood his ground.
    “Here you go, Danny.” She unsnapped the can of bear repellent from her belt and tossed it to him, then cradled her rifle across her chest and turned on her flashlight. “Go up to the truck and watch for the deputy’s patrol car.”
    He glanced around, then stared in the direction from where they’d heard the noise. “You oughta come, too.”
    “I can’t leave until I finish checking this out, and I need to do it now.”
    “But—”
    “Go, Danny. I had to park quite a way down the road, so it could take that deputy a while to figure out where we are. The faster we get some help, the better.”
    She watched him disappear into the gloom, then listened for sound of his ascent up the cliff face. When he yelled out that he’d made it to the top, she breathed a sigh of relief.
    Turned.
    And heard the sound of something thrashing through the brush…coming closer.

FOUR
    T essa stilled and slowly moved her rifle from the crook of her arm into a ready position. Easing sideways, she toed at the dried grass underfoot to avoid stepping on anything that would make noise.
    A sudden, fitful breeze eddied through the trees, bringing with it the unmistakable coppery scent of blood. Her stomach lurched when the breeze picked up and the scent grew stronger, more cloying. Josh?
    She wavered.
    Not wanting to go farther.
    Knowing she had to, if there was still a chance that he could still be alive. Please Lord, if this is Josh, let him be all right. Help me bring him out of this safely.
    After a brief silence, she again heard the sound of something crashing through the brush, heading her way.
    Biting her lip, she moved more quickly, whispering a constant litany of prayer. If she could smell blood, any cougar, bear or coyote in the vicinity could, too—and it was a blatant an invitation to a free meal.
    Now, as she stepped around a rocky ledge, the odor hit her full-force, triggering a gagging reflex and making her stomach roil. And then, barely visible in the dim light, she saw it—a bloodied, mangled…corpse?
    She bit back a cry. Swung the flashlight into position and swept it across…
    A large buck.
    Likely, road kill that had gone over the edge of the highway, then dragged itself into the brush, given the odd angle of its hind legs. And if her guess was right, something big already had dibs on the carcass, and would fight to the death to defend its meal.
    She moved back, intending to give the deer wide berth and rapidly put it between her and the oncoming predator.
    Her boot hit something more yielding than the rocky, hard-packed ground. She angled the flashlight down…and this time, couldn’t hold back a scream.
    A pale, outstretched arm was lying in her path.

     
    “Josh—can you hear me? Josh!”
    A wave of pain rolled through him when someone grabbed at his shoulder and shook it. Insistent. Demanding. He fought his way up through a suffocating blanket of confusion and pain, then let himself slip back into the deep comfort of oblivion.
    “No,” that same voice whispered. “You’ve got to wake up. Now! ”
    The voice was oddly familiar, though her words seemed to ricochet inside his head without any real meaning. He groaned. Then forced his eyes open and found himself looking up into a face lit with eerie highlights and shadows by a flashlight laying on the ground.
    All around was darkness.
    “Look, I know you’re hurt. You’ve lost a lot of blood. But you’ve got to get up. Now. We’re in a very bad place here. I have no doubt that a bear picked up our scents a long time ago, and that it’s very close by. Understand?”
    Tessa? He nodded—just