Manhunter

But Gabe was still trapped behind his own damn bars.

In the general store Silver bought rounds for her rifles, a new skinning knife, and she picked up the mail Edith Josie, the owner, was holding for Old Crow. She’d take it out to his camp in a day or so.

Old Crow was a Black Arrow elder and Silver’s tracking mentor. She had no idea how old he was—older than time, older than the river, Edith had told her. And Edith was no spring chicken herself.

Whatever his age, to Silver, Old Crow was eternal. A part of her felt he’d always be there for her and that she’d never stop learning from him. It was an education that had begun after her mother had died when Silver was nine. She stopped going to the small Black Arrow school, and her father had been too grief-stricken to make her do otherwise.

Her dad had eventually gotten done with mourning and shacked up with a cheechako nurse who took it upon herself to try and homeschool Silver. But during the summers of endless sun Silver would go prospecting in the wilds with her father.

And from time to time she and Finn, as everyone called her father, would run into Old Crow working his traplines, and they’d spend the night in his camp listening to his stories, their campfire shooting orange sparks into the pale sky.

Old Crow could paint pictures in the air with his gnarled brown hands. With a deft sweep of his arm he could show weather patterns, or the animation of a small forest animal. He could tell chapters of a lynx’s life from a single footprint in mud, even tell you how to find that lynx—just from the clues in that one track. To a young Silver he was fascinating, a wilderness detective, and she’d started following him around like a lost little bear cub soaking up any stray bit of information she could.

Old Crow had finally, officially, taken Silver under his wing, teaching her how to read the wilderness like an ordinary child might learn to read a book, but he never gave her the information straight. He’d point the way with a riddle, conning her into using her innate curiosity to unravel mysteries with her own effort and skill.

Her own discoveries had thrilled her, and in this way Silver had learned to speak another language, one written right into the fabric of nature. Over time she’d become one of the best trackers in the country, all because of Old Crow. And she’d learned everything else she’d needed to know about life from nature’s classroom.

But a good tracker never stops learning, and Silver still thoroughly enjoyed her visits to Old Crow’s camp where he lived up on a remote plateau in his teepee, in the old way.

She smiled inwardly as she thanked Edith, tucking his wad of mail into the leather pouch hanging from her shoulder. Old Crow might prefer living in the traditional way, but he still liked to get his mail from Whitehorse, via plane.

“Massi Cho,” she said in the Gwitchin language of the Black Arrow Nation. “Gwiinzii Edik’anaantii. Take good care of yourself, Edith.”

Edith smiled, her eyes disappearing into brown folds of skin behind her thick glasses as she waved Silver on.

Descending the stairs of the Northern Store, Silver whistled for her dogs as she swung her rifle to a more comfortable position at the centre of her back. But just as she was about to stride up Black Arrow Falls’ main road, she caught sight of the new cop standing on the detachment porch, the Canadian flag with its symbolic red maple leaf snapping up over his head against a clear violet sky.

Her heart fluttered awkwardly—and annoyingly—in her chest.

She should have kept right on walking, and she’d have been okay. But she felt him watching, and she made the mistake of looking up at him. Instantly she was snared by the intensity of his gaze.

Silver suddenly forgot how to breathe, a tumult growing inside her coupled with an overwhelming urge to flee. “Hey,” she said, stopping instead.

“Any word on that grizz?” His muscled arms braced wide and solid on his detachment banister as his eyes bored down into hers. The posture was proprietary, almost aggressive. Something seemed to have changed in him since she’d met him at the airstrip.

She squinted up at him, disadvantaged by the backlight of the evening sky.

“What about the grizz?” she asked.

“I hear he got a taste of human blood. Donovan tells me you’re hunting him.”

“The bear’s a she, not a he,” she said, her voice husky to her own ears. Damn, how could one man have an effect like this on her body, and so quickly? It was beyond her control. And Silver liked—needed—to be in control. “Besides, it’s not police business.”

“Sure it is.”

She bristled. “The other officers were content to let the conservation office handle this. And the CO contracted me to take care if it. So it’s my business.”

“I’m not the other cops, Silver.”

“Sergeant—” she stepped closer, which further disadvantaged her because now she had to angle her head to look up at him. “The sow was defending her dead cub’s body. She was stressed and threatened. Her attack was not predatory. It was in self-defense, so I let her be.” Even though she spoke softly, she made sure her words were delivered with authority. Whoever this Caruso was, she was not going to let him go after her bear. That really was her territory, and she couldn’t back down.

“She won’t become a problem?”

Me or the bear?

The way he said it, the way he was looking at her, she couldn’t be sure.

Silver repositioned her rifle and squared her shoulders. “The attack could affect her interaction with humans down the road, so, yes, she could become a problem, but we should give her the winter. Time has a strange way of healing things out here, Sergeant.”

His arms tensed, eyes narrowing sharply onto her.

She turned to go, finding her legs like water as she tried to walk up the road, feeling his eyes burning hot into her back.

“Any place a man can get beer round here?” he called out after her.

Silver stilled.

She turned slowly to face him, irony tempting the corners of her mouth into a wry smile. “This is a dry town, officer. I believe it’s your job to make sure it stays that way.”

“I hear the Old Moose Lodge is out of town limits, and it has a television. I need to watch the news tonight.”

She studied him, trying to weigh the paradox that was this man. “It’s a public place, Sergeant.” She hesitated. “But I’d leave that uniform at home if you plan on drinking in my bar. Wouldn’t want Chief Peters and the band council thinking you were officially trying to undermine his efforts to keep our people dry.”

Sergeant Gabe Caruso stared at her with a directness that sent another hot tingle into her belly. She turned quickly, calling her dogs to heel.

She concentrated on walking smoothly and calmly down the street. She felt anything but.

The cop was coming to her lodge. Tonight.

He was making her feel things she didn’t know she was capable of feeling anymore. That scared her. Because like Broken Claw, Silver was a bereft and wounded mother.

But unlike the grizzly, Silver had actually killed a man.

And if the cop found out, he had the power to put her away for it. For good.

Chapter 4

Gabe tucked his 9 mm into the back of his jeans under his leather bomber jacket and snagged his radio and flashlight off the table. Donovan was on call tonight, and Gabe hadn’t yet officially reported for duty, but he took the gear anyway.

He surveyed his tiny cabin for a moment before leaving—his new home for the next two years. It was small, built from thick-hewn logs, the decor utilitarian. A rough table and bench divided the living room from the tiny kitchen area where a woven rag mat rested in front of an old blackened Aga stove. His kitchen window afforded a view of Deer Lake, which was still as glass this evening, reflecting strands of violently pink cirrus in an otherwise pale Nordic sky.

In the living room a small couch faced a stone fireplace, and to its side hunkered one other chair, a great big wingback with stuffing straining to pop out the back. A small bedroom and bathroom led off the main area. His pine bed was covered with a patchwork quilt made by the wife of the corporal who’d been transferred south, a homey touch that seemed to underscore his loneliness.

He couldn’t expect more. He’d sold every last thing he and Gia had owned together. The memories stirred by their shared possessions had become unbearable.

He hadn’t accumulated anything new, either.

Gabe stepped out onto the porch, locked the door to his tiny log cabin, and stood for a moment, trying to ground himself, his breath misting in the rapidly cooling air.