nothing; if they hunted like wolves, it was nose to the ground.
Trouble was, every tree she passed had so far been un-climbable. Trees large enough to bear an adult's weight stretched relatively smooth and straight up toward the sun, not branching until there was a chance of some return for the effort.
"So, unless he brought in a ladder... " Vicki sighed and scrubbed a drop of sweat off her chin with the shoulder of her T-shirt. She could see what might be higher ground a little to the right of where she thought she should be heading and decided to make for it. Stepping over a fallen branch, she tripped as the smaller branches, hidden under a rotting layer of last year's leaves, gave way under her foot.
"Parking lots." Shoving her glasses back up her nose, she stood and scowled around her at Mother Nature in the height of her summer beauty. "I'm all in favor of parking lots. A couple of layers of asphalt would do wonders for this place." Off to one side a cicada started to buzz. "Shut up," she told it, trudging on.
The higher ground turned out to be the end of a low ridge of rock on which a massive pine had managed to gain, and maintain, a roothold. Brushing aside years of accumulated needles, Vicki sat down just outside the perimeter of its skirts and contemplated her scratched and bitten legs.
This was all Henry's fault. She could have been at home, comfortably settled in front of her eighteen inch, three speed, oscillating fan, watching Saturday morning cartoons, and...
"... and the wer would continue to die." She sighed and began building the fallen pine needles into little piles. This was what she'd chosen to do with her life - to try to make a difference in the sewer the world was becoming - no point in complaining just because it wasn't always an easy job. And she had to admit, it was a job that had gotten a hell of a lot more interesting since Henry had come into her life. The jury was still out on whether or not that was a good thing given that the last time they'd worked together she'd come closer to getting killed than she ever had in nine years on the Metro Police.
"And this time, I'm being eaten alive." She rubbed at a bite on the back of her leg with the rough front of her sneaker. "Maybe I'm going at this the wrong way. Maybe I should have started with the people. What the hell am I going to recognize out here?" Then her hand froze over a patch of needles and slowly moved back until the needles were in full sunlight again.
The scorch mark was so faint she had to hold her head at just the right angle to see it. About two inches long and half an inch wide, it was a marginally darker line across the pale brown carpet of dead pine - the mark a spent cartridge might make against a tinder dry resting place.
Oh, all right, honesty forced her to admit, it could've been caused by any number of other things - like acid rain or bunny piss. But it sure looked like a cartridge scorch to her. Of course, it could've come from a legitimate hunter out here to blow away whatever it is legitimate hunters blow away.
There were plenty of bits of bare rock nearby where the gunman could have stood to retrieve his brass and plenty of places Vicki had cleared herself but she searched for tracks anyway. Not expecting to find any didn't lessen the frustration when she didn't.
Better to find where the shot came from. The ridge stood barely two and a half feet higher than the forest floor and the lines of sight hadn't improved. Vicki looked up. The pine was higher than most of the trees around it but its branches drooped, heavy with needles, right to the ground. Then on the north side, she found a way in to a dimly lit cavern, roofed in living needles, carpeted in dead ones. It was quiet in there, and almost cool, and the branches rose up the trunk as regular as a ladder; which was a good thing because Vicki could barely see.
This was it. This had to be it.
Had she seen the pine from the field? She couldn't remember, trees all looked alike to her.
She peered at a few tiny spurs snapped off close to