Hunted by Lindsay Buroker Read Free Book Online Page A

ridge now, aren’t they?”
    “Appears so.”
    She gave him a flat look. “I know what you’re
doing. You’re hoping I’ll be proved wrong, that tracking isn’t as
easy as I claimed.”
    “Shall we follow them?” Cedar asked. “Or do
you still fear booby traps?”
    “Follow,” Kali said, eyes narrowed. “But
let’s keep our eyes open.”
    “As you wish.”
    The tracks only ran parallel to the ridge for
a quarter of a mile. Then they surprised Kali by angling back
toward the main river and the route she and Cedar had been on when
they were attacked.
    Her heart lurched. “We’re heading back toward
the cabin.” And the SAB.
    What if the woman, deeming her own transport
too damaged to keep, stole Kali’s vehicle? While they were not so
far from Dawson that they could not walk, she hated the idea of
losing her latest invention. She had so many refinements she wanted
to make. For one, a brush cutter was a brilliant idea. And she
could add an—
    “Kali!” Cedar grabbed her arm.
    She tumbled back against him. “What is
it?”
    Nothing stirred in the brush, and birds
chattered in a nearby thicket. When she detected nothing
out-of-place in their surroundings, she searched his face. He was
peering at the tracks a few feet in front of them.
    “What’s that black rectangle?” he asked.
    It took Kali a few seconds to find the
object. There, mostly buried beneath needles and leaves, lay
something flat and dark, the size of poker card.
    “Back up,” she said.
    When they had gone ten meters, she grabbed a
rock and tossed it at the object. Her projectile clipped the
corner. A boom thundered through the forest, and rock and dirt flew
twenty feet into the air, pelting branches overhead and landing all
about. Kali lifted an arm as shards rained down upon her and
Cedar.
    “There’s my booby trap.” Kali had no reason
to be smug, not when she would have blundered onto it if Cedar had
not stopped her, but being proven right about her hunch mollified
her. The woman was someone to employ protective
measures.
    “And now the owner knows exactly where we
are,” Cedar said, an eyebrow arched.
    “Oh.” Yes, that sound had probably been
audible for miles. Kali closed her eyes. Idiot. “Guess we could
have gone around it without detonating it.”
    “Likely.”
    She would have given him a lengthy glower,
but she was worried about her bicycle. With an eye toward the
trail, she strode forward again. They passed—and avoided—three more
booby traps before reaching the cabin.
    “There’s the SAB!” Kali blurted, relieved
when it came into sight.
    She kept herself from running over to check
it since the tracks led straight toward it. She and Cedar stepped
carefully, searching for hazardous deposits on the ground. They
found nothing more treacherous than a pile of bear dung, but Kali
lingered a few feet from her vehicle without going close enough to
touch it.
    “Let’s be optimistic,” she finally said.
“Maybe she knew we were after her and went straight through.” She
pointed to the tracks, which continued past the bicycle and back
down the road she and Cedar had followed up the river. It made
sense that the woman would need to return to town to have her wound
treated.
    “She stopped here.” Cedar pointed to the
ground next to the bicycle. “The tracks are deeper where the
vehicle came to rest.”
    Kali groaned. She spent the next fifteen
minutes inspecting the SAB, checking all the spots she would booby
trap if her goal were to incapacitate someone’s steam vehicle.
    Cedar spent the time leaning against a tree,
cleaning beneath his fingernails with a knife. “Shall I set up
camp?” he asked at one point.
    “No, but I wouldn’t mind something to eat, if
you’re offering,” Kali said, her voice echoing oddly since she had
her head stuck in the furnace. The fire had burned out while she
and Cedar were roaming the hills. When he did not respond to her
comment, she withdrew her head and looked at him. “Oh,