her things. Probably gone through them. Her reaction to that was immediate and intense, and it wasn’t fear she felt. She reached into her paint box and pulled out a couple of palette knives. They didn’t look dangerous, but in the right hands, used the right way, they could be deadly.
She stuffed them in her pockets, then straightened, looking around the clearing. Then she saw bent grasses leading toward the woods she had just come from, but they weren’t her path. So someone had come here and followed her to the ravine? And it was clear they had tried not to leave an obvious trail, otherwise she would have seen it upon emerging from the woods.
In fact, it could easily have been an animal that crossed the clearing, except for her palette. No animal would have done that.
What were the chances, she wondered, that whoever had followed her into the woods was still there somewhere? And if he was, how smart would it be to let him know what she had realized?
Slim and not at all, she decided, squashing down the anger that made her want to take off after the guy. He’d be long gone. Hell, even if he wasn’t, he could see her coming. Finding someone in those woods wouldn’t be easy.
Nor would it be smart to let him know he’d been found out. Damn it. Frustrated that her only smart move seemed to be to sit here for a while, then pack up and leave, she had to battle an innate need to act. She always wanted to act, and talking herself out of it wasn’t easy.
But it was a lesson she had learned: sometimes no action was the best action.
That first day when Buddy had accused her of spying, the wise course had been to leave. She wasn’t looking for trouble, the guy appeared to be a nut and standing her ground could have become costly at the time. It was one of those times she was grateful for her instinctive slowness to react in non-life-threatening situations, because a reaction at that time would have only caused trouble and solved nothing.
But the situation had shifted, and wisdom no longer advised her to cede ground. Well, maybe wisdom would but sometimes wisdom was wrong. If someone was taking this much interest in her activities, then there was very definitely something going on down there that wasn’t entirely copacetic. Something they didn’t want anybody to know about, even an artist who was just passing through.
That sounded like something a whole lot more serious than simply storing up food against some hypothetical Armageddon.
The suspicion swept her past simply being concerned about Craig needing backup. She had taken an oath long ago when she had donned an army uniform, and to her way of thinking, leaving the army didn’t void that oath. If these guys were up to something bad, she still had a duty to protect her fellow citizens and the Constitution. That, too, had been woven into the fabric of her being.
A lot had become part of her during her years of service, like duty and honor and responsibility. Things like supporting her fellow soldiers no matter what, never shirking a job for any reason... Well, she didn’t need to run through the whole list as she sat there listening for any unnatural sound. The point was, enough had happened to make this her fight, too. Quite enough. And unless those nuts in their compound across the valley turned out to be total innocents, it would remain her fight.
Finally she felt she had sat there long enough to make it seem like she hadn’t noticed anything—assuming she was still being watched, but that feeling had gone away back at the gorge. Regardless, it wouldn’t look hurried or worried now for her to gather her gear and head for the car.
She hoped Craig didn’t stay in the field tonight. She needed to talk to him. She thought about calling him on the radio but decided against it. Radio silence right now might be wise. There was no guarantee the guys across the valley weren’t monitoring the forest service frequencies, and given how paranoid they were beginning to appear, she thought it entirely possible.
She made her way through the woods and back to her car. For a few minutes she considered driving down to the headquarters building, or even going into town, but she really didn’t need anything yet, and for some reason either option felt entirely too much like