Black Hills

“I won’t. I won’t leave you to him. Baby-”

“It’s all right.” Lil drew Je

“Thirty seconds.” Ethan stepped back three paces.

“Lil, no. I can’t leave you.”

“Help’s coming,” she whispered in Je

“She can drink her own spit.”

“Water for my mother and you can take five minutes off my lead time.”

He kicked a bottle over. “I don’t need your five minutes to beat you.”

Lil uncapped it, held it to her mother’s lips. “Slow now, a little at a time. Can you find home?”

“I-Lil.”

“Can you?”

“Yes. Yes, I think.”

“Won’t help you. By the time she gets there-if she does-and they start looking for you, you’ll be dead. And I’ll be smoke.”

“Take the water and go now.”

“Lil.”

“If you don’t he’ll kill us both. The only chance I have to live is for you to go. You have to believe in me. You have to give me that chance. I’m going to help her out of the cave, Ethan. You can hold the bow on me. I won’t run.”

She helped her mother to her feet, cursing when Je

“Lil. Oh, God, Lil.” As the sun lowered toward the hills, Je

“I’m going to lead him to the grassland above the river.” Lil pressed her face to her mother’s hair as if in grief, and murmured against her ear. “Where I saw the cougar. Remember that. Send help there.”

“Shut up! You shut up and she goes now, or she dies now, and you after her.”

“Go on, Mom.” Lil pried Je

“Baby. I love you, Lil.”

“I love you.” She watched her mother limp and stumble, saw the agony of emotion in her battered face when she looked back. For that alone, Lil thought, he’d pay. Whatever it took.

“Start ru

“No. The hunt doesn’t start until I know she’s away. Until I know you won’t go after her first. What’s your hurry, Ethan?” Deliberately she sat on a rock. “You’ve waited a long time for this. You can wait a little longer.”

30

The compound was chaos. A dozen people raced from various directions when Coop jumped out of his truck, and all of them talked at once.

“Stop! You.” He jabbed a finger at Matt. “Sum it up, and fast.”

“We can’t find Lil. Lena found her phone in the yard behind the cabin. And when I went back, I found this.” He held out the plastic bag with Je

“I already called them.”

“I think it’s Je

“Yeah, it’s Je

“I can.” Lena stepped forward. “I can handle a shotgun. Trap shooting champion, three years ru

“In Lil’s cabin. Shotgun in the front closet, ammo on the top shelf. Go.”

“I’ve never shot a gun in my life, but-”

“Stay here.” Coop cut Matt off. “Wait for the police, then lock the place down. Tansy, go to the Chance farm. If Joe hasn’t heard, he needs to. Listen to me. Tell him it’s most likely Je

Mary came out of the cabin as two interns sprinted for radios. “The police are on their way. Fifteen minutes.”

“Send them in after us. We’re not waiting for them. You upstairs, bedroom, top left dresser drawer. Three ammo clips. Get them. Wait.” Struck, he held up a hand, looked over to the enclosures. “I need something of Lil’s, something she was wearing.”

“Sweater in the office,” Mary said. “Hold on.”

“That cat loves her. Will he track her?”

“Yes! God, yes.” Tansy pressed a hand to her mouth. “He followed her back every time she tried to release him.”

“We’re going to let him out.”

“He hasn’t been out of the habitat since he was six months old.” Matt shook his head. “Even if he leaves the compound, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

“He loves her.” Coop took the sweater Mary brought him.

“We’ll have to separate the others.” Tansy hurried to the enclosure with him.

“Do what you have to do. Make it fast.”

He held the sweater to the bars. Baby prowled over, then grumbled in his throat. Rubbed his face against the sweater. Purred.

“Yeah, that’s right. You know her. You’re going to find her.”

Interns chicken-baited the range area while Eric pulled up the door. Baby lifted his head, looked around while his companions rushed through the feed. Then turned back, pushed his face against the sweater.

“This is crazy,” Matt said, but he stood by with the drug gun. “Get back, well back. Tansy.”

She unlocked the cage. “Find Lil, Baby. You find Lil.” Using it as a barrier, she opened it.

He slunk out slowly toward the unknown, drawn by Lil’s scent. Coop held up a hand toward Matt as the cougar approached him. “He knows me. He knows I’m Lil’s.”

Once more, the cougar rubbed against the sweater. Then he began to track. “She’s everywhere, that’s the problem. She’s everywhere.”

Baby leaped onto Lil’s cabin’s porch, called, called. Then leaped off again to circle around.

“I packed you a kit.” Mary pushed it into his hands. “Bare essentials. Put that sweater in this plastic bag. It’ll confuse him otherwise. Get her back, Cooper.”

“I will.” He watched the cat stalk over the yard, then gather himself to run for the trees. “Let’s move.”

LIL GAUGED HER time, mentally pla

Her nerves smoothed out with every minute that passed. Every minute took her mother farther away and brought Coop closer. The longer she could keep him here, the better her chances.

“Did your father teach you to kill?” She spoke conversationally, her gaze aimed west, toward the setting sun.

“To hunt.”

“Call it what you like, Ethan. You gutted Melinda Barrett and left her for the animals.”

“A cougar came. A sign. Mine.”

“Cougars don’t hunt for sport.”

He shrugged. “I’m a man.”

“Where did you leave Carolyn?”

He smiled. “A feast for the grizzlies. She gave me a good game first. I think you’ll do better. You may last most of the night.”

“Then where will you go?”

“I’ll follow the wind. Then I’ll come back. I’ll kill your parents and burn their farm to the ground. I’ll do the same with that zoo of yours. I’ll hunt these hills and live free, the way my people should have lived free.”

“I wonder how much of your view on the Sioux comes from actual truth or your father’s bastardization of the truth.”

Color flooded his face, warning her not to test him too far. “My father wasn’t a bastard.”

“That’s not what I meant. Do you think the Lakota would approve of what you do? The way you hunt down and slaughter i