Alphas in the Wild (31 page)

“Indeed. It felt amazing.”

“Good memory to hang onto when we’re heating water over the woodstove.” She quirked a brow. Lowering the empty fuel container, she picked up the second one, and he helped her tilt it so its contents ran through the funnel.

“Sounds like it’s almost full,” he noted.

She’d thought the same thing and capped off the cylinder, carting it back to the stack a few yards from the cabin. Sara whistled for Jake, who’d vanished once it was apparent the strange man wasn’t a threat to her.

He came at a run, an unrecognizable, mangled animal clamped between his strong jaws.

Jared grinned. “Nice dog. I thought they weren’t allowed in national parks.”

“They’re not. It took me years to talk my way into keeping my own SAR dog with me. Let’s get moving.” She stood aside so Jake and Jared could get in. The dog, sensing he’d been booted out of the ramrod seat, slithered to the back of the bird. He arranged himself over stacks of goods and Jared’s pack, crammed atop everything else.

Jared buckled up. She got in, shut the door, and did the same, firing the engine.

“What are the odds of us making it back to LeConte?” he asked without preamble. “What exactly is it we’re avoiding?”

“Do you know about the ships?”

“If you’re asking if I saw them, the answer is yes. It’s when I thought hiding out in the backcountry was a better bet than trying to hitch a ride to town.”

She glanced at him and nudged the craft skyward. “Were there any cars?”

“No. That was part of the problem.” He paused a beat. “You didn’t answer me.”

“It’s because I don’t know. I’ll be flying as low as I can without clipping trees or mountains. Worst case, one of the ships will spot us. If we see them first, I’ll do my damnedest to land.”

“What happens if there’s nowhere to set down?”

“I suspect they’ll vaporize us.” She hurried on. “Look. I need to concentrate for two reasons. It’s been years since I’ve flown one of these things, and I’m breaking FAA minimums, which means a vicious downdraft could pull us into a mountainside.”

He reached across the few inches between their seats and laid a hand on the side of her thigh. “Tell me how I can help.”

His kindness almost undid her. She’d been strung tight ever since that horrible night the pica went up in smoke. Today’s confrontation with Lonnie and Stuart hadn’t helped.

“I meant it,” he urged. “I’m here, and I’m not doing anything.”

“Just keep watch. You know what the ships look like. This is a short trip. Only another five minutes, and we’ll be there.”

She rested her hand on the cyclic. Light and steady did the trick. Gripping it made the craft do weird shit. Familiar landmarks shot past her field of vision, and she breathed a sigh once they passed the Muir Hut where she’d been trapped for so many days.

“Look.” He angled his head.

Her blood congealed to ice. Another chopper—another Park Service chopper—appeared on the horizon. Had it seen them? She was low, in the shadow of thickening timber. Other pilots wouldn’t look quite so low. And she was far enough away, they might not look at all.

“Should we land?” he asked. “There’s a spot over there that might work.”

Sara bit her lip until she tasted blood and kept her focus trained on the other bird. It kept right on flying, maybe a mile to the west of them. “I don’t think it saw us,” she said.

“Don’t these things have radar in them?” He glanced at the instrument cluster. “Guess not.” He answered his own question.

“The newer, fancier ones do, but not these models,” she replied and set them up to land at LeConte. Her breath came fast, and she felt like she wanted to puke. They’d had way too close a call for her taste. How many Lonnies and Stuarts were cruising around in Park Service property, pretending to still be human?

“I need to know what’s going on,” he said as she hovered right before setting them down.

“Yeah, I know you do. We need to get the bird unloaded, and then we have an unpleasant task. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to help with it.”

He followed her and Jake out of the chopper. “What kind of unpleasant task.”

“Butchering aliens.” Before he could ask her anything, she added, “We need meat, and I figure they’re as good as anything else.” It was a good lead in, so she started at the beginning and told him everything she knew as they unloaded the chopper.

J
ared didn’t say much. He’d asked a question or two for clarification, but he mostly listened as Sara’s story spilled out of her. Any tendency to not believe her vanished in the face of the aliens’ bodies.

He’d kept a stoic front, a skill honed through his years as a doctor, until she led him to where she’d stashed the two bodies. Jake beat them there and he’d made a significant incursion into one of the corpses.

“Humph. Guess it’s better than kibbles.” Jared tried to make a joke to lighten the grisly aspect of the dog feeding on the bodies. It wasn’t that dead things bothered him. He’d earned a living examining tissues and organs, but that was in a controlled environment. The hybrid aliens laying in the dirt took it to a whole other level.

“Shoo!” Sara batted her hands at the dog. For the barest moment, it looked as if he might disobey, but the moment passed, and he hopped out of the way, sprinting back through the forest.

Jared hunkered next to the nearest body and ran his fingertips over its scales. “What I wouldn’t give to have my microscopes and lab equipment.”

“What do you do? Or what did you do?” Sara stood behind him, arms crossed over her chest.

“I’m a doctor, but I don’t see patients. Not live ones, anyway. I run a biomedical research firm. I’d love to study the DNA that made these.”

“I don’t have your background, but I’ll bet the science behind this transformation doesn’t work like anything you’ve ever seen before. These men were my friends.” Her voice ran down and she started over. “In a matter of a couple weeks they turned from human to that.” Sara extended a hand, pointing at the corpses.

He considered it. Recombinant DNA could work fast, but to blend humans into a whole other form in mere days defied credibility. Jared pushed to his feet. “Are they how the chopper got here?”

Sara nodded. “I hadn’t gotten around to telling you that part, except you knew I arrived on foot, so I guess you put two and two together.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. It’s part of what made me a decent researcher. Do you think someone will come looking for these guys?”

“I have no idea.” She shrugged. “The little bit I saw of Lonnie and Stuart before I—” she faltered before going on “—killed them, they seemed to still think like humans.”

Jared eyed her. “You okay?”

“Truth?”

He wanted to hold out his arms and cradle her against him, but knew at an instinctual level it would be a mistake. “Of course, truth.” He infused as much compassion as he could into his words, in lieu of the hug he wanted to give her.

Her expression altered, became less guarded. “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again, but that doesn’t excuse me from doing the best I can to stay alive.”

The words, resolute, determined, jarred him. He swept his earlier decision to keep his distance aside and opened his arms. “That’s one of the bravest speeches I’ve ever heard. Now come here, just for a minute. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. We all need someone.” Jared hesitated. “It’s been one of my problems. An uber-independent streak that chases support right out the window.”

“Takes one to know one.” She fastened her amazing eyes on him, but didn’t come any closer.

“It does, doesn’t it? If a hug feels too risky, how about this?” He moved to her side and draped an arm around her shoulder, squeezing lightly.

She leaned into him for all of five seconds before disentangling his arm. “We have work to do.” Her tone shifted back to brusque. “Stuart kept a smokehouse down by the river. Guess I figured we’d preserve the meat that way.”

Sara’s voice held a broken note, as if she’d rather face a firing squad than deal with the bodies.

“Look.” He exhaled softly. “We brought back a lot of food from McClure, and boxes of ammunition. Another gun too, beyond the one in that belt holster around your waist. Surely we can hunt. Even if we went to all the trouble to butcher these bodies, could you bear to eat the result?”

She favored him with a wry smile. “I worried how I’d manage. Guess I figured worst case scenario, they’d feed Jake.”

“He seems pretty handy hunting up his own game.” Jared spread his hands in front of him. “If you think I’m being pushy or overbearing, say something, but I’m good with burning these two. We could douse them with a splash of fuel, so it would be over faster.”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts and was quiet so long, he worried he’d offended her. This was her turf. He was the guest, the interloper.

“Yeah,” she finally muttered. “Let’s do it. Probably should drag them closer to the river first. So we don’t set the forest on fire.”

“I’ll take care of that part. How about if you scare up some gasoline?”

She turned and sprinted back toward the cabin.

Jared slung one of the bodies over his shoulders, staggering under its weight as he made his way downhill to where he heard running water. Once there, he moved another hundred feet downstream to a flat, sandy area.

Sara trotted up carting a red fuel can. “I’ll sit with him,” she said. “Or I can go get the other one.”

“How about if you finish putting things away.” He kept his voice gentle. “I can take care of this.”

“You don’t have to do that. I can fight my own—”

He pried the gas can out of her hands and set it down, then he faced her squarely. “I know you’re strong. Tough as nails, as dried shoe leather, but you have help now. Their bodies may not be human anymore, but do you really want to watch their faces burn? Can you separate who they used to be from what they turned into?”

“Not entirely.” She swallowed visibly.

If he knew women, she was doing her level best not to cry.

“How about this?” A tear spilled down one cheek, but she ignored it. “I’ll go get Stuart, er, the other body. You can get a pyre together while I’m gone...”

“Sure, Sara. That’s fine, but once Stuart is here, you can leave. I’ll find you once it’s over.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know that. We partners. Even though we didn’t say it in so many words, we made that decision back at McClure. It means we help one another. This is one small way I can help you.”

Sara didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. He recognized relief in the set of her shoulders and the softening of her expression before she turned away from him. He watched her move up the sand bar until she disappeared into the trees. Her arms and legs swung with an easy grace. She was probably a lot like him. More at home here in the wilds than anywhere else. Why else would she be a backcountry ranger. She’d told him about her twenty years with the Park Service. Surely after all that time, she could’ve snapped up a desk job—if she wanted one.

* * * *

I
t was well past dark by the time Jared made his way back to the cabin, working by feel since he hadn’t thought to bring his headlamp. The light from the pyres masked just how dark it had grown, but the deed was done. Unlike human remains, something in the scaled skin made the bodies burn quickly. He’d wanted to do a cursory autopsy to determine just how much of the parts beneath the scales weren’t human anymore, but he hadn’t.

For one thing, all he had was a pocket knife. For another, it felt disrespectful to chop into men who’d been Sara’s friends. One had manned LeConte. The other had been her boss. Surely the loss added to her grief and horror about aliens commandeering Earth. She’d mentioned humans reneging on some kind of intergalactic trade agreement, and he was looking forward to hearing whatever she had by way of information to shed light on the incidents that had blown into full-fledged war.

He saw LeConte’s lights long before he came to the cabin, and the sight warmed him. In a very real way, it felt like coming home. Not home to his old life, but home to a new one. One he was just beginning to explore. Sara was someone he wanted to get to know better. Not because she was tall and striking, but because she was bright and resourceful and loved the backcountry.

He’d had his share of women, but a few nights in a tent sent them running for the hills. None of them could tolerate leaving civilization behind for very long. Even the ones who’d enjoyed his body and his mind drew the line at multiple days in the same clothes with only cold creek water to wash in. Balanced against no Internet, no one appreciated the wonder and the glory of sun-dappled meadows and alpenglow that lasted for hours, turning the world a stunning golden pink.

He had a feeling Sara nurtured a self-sufficiency to rival his own, and the thought excited him. He wanted to get to know her a whole lot better. To see those wonderful eyes warm when she looked his way. He snorted laughter. Nothing like getting a wee bit ahead of himself. He’d just met her. For all he knew, she had a husband somewhere, or a partner. Maybe that added to the sadness mirrored in her eyes.

A shadow detached itself from the darker places and ran to his side
whuffing
softly.

Jake.

“Hey, boy.”

The dog, apparently past his earlier ambivalence, nuzzled Jared’s hand and together they covered the final distance to the cabin.

* * * *

S
ara stood over the woodstove mixing ingredients into a pot. Since she had time, she opted for rice and beans over freeze dried food. It had been exceptionally kind of Jared to offer to do her job for her. Something he’d said stuck in her mind. They were partners, which meant she didn’t have to do everything. Just because she didn’t have to, though, didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. Old habits truly died hard.

With it all, the simple fact of not being alone anymore soothed her, which was odd since she’d never minded her isolation in the backcountry. Not having any front country left altered that. No Park Headquarters. No Lonnie.

Sadness welled. He’d been the one who’d hired her, and he’d been like a father all the years she’d worked for him. She’d never had another boss, and she’d miss him terribly. Knowing he was as close as her radio had bailed her out of many a situation. Not that she’d called—at least not often—but knowing she could made a lot of difference.