Chris trudged through the snow, slowly making her way up the mountain. Following the poachers stale scent as she pulled her feet out of the thick white powder. 'Thank goodness it didn't snow last night' She thought as she hiked her small pack up higher on her shoulders. She only carried the bare essentials as she wasn't planning to be out longer that a day or two.
The report was 3 pups were missing in the woods and poachers were seen in the area. The local human forest service gave her as much information as they could about the alleged poachers, and they even offered a snowmobile, which she refused. She needed to be stealthy if the poachers had the pups. Most humans didn't know about her kind, the ones that did were friends of the pack, most of them were forest service, but there were a few mayors in major cities and also Frank her business manager. The humans who weren't suppose to find out were either threatened or put in a psych ward for wild stories about giant wolves. It wasn't a perfect system but it is what she had to do to keep her pack safe and her kind hidden.
A cold breeze blew through her path and she paused smelling something new, something fresh. They were coming towards her. The smell of cheap cologne, sweaty bodies, alcohol and some serious body odor came down the mountain. Chris looked down at her watch and then up at the sky. It was 11AM, and the sky was clear a few clouds in the west threatening snow later this evening. Her cell phone buzzed and she looked down to find that it was an alert that there were no bars and she was roaming. She grunted, annoyed, and turned it off. 'No point in running the battery down' she thought as she moved faster up the mountain, the scent growing stronger.
Her path came to a large clearing, they were less than a quarter of a mile away. She could hear them as they tramped through the snow like they were walking on pop-it fireworks. 'Hmmm... not being really stealthy today.' She thought to herself as she began to walk in circles around the clearing 'they must have thought they got away with it'. She backtracked a few times and kicked the snow around, trying to make it look like she had been there for hours. When she had everything set she found a tree right next to the head of the trail where their scent was coming from and plopped herself down. Pushing the snow around and taking turns holding her breath and putting pressure on her eyes to make it look like she had been crying. She took off her shades and put them in her bag. Then she leaned back on the tree, pretending she was asleep.
She heard them move around the corner of the trail and start walking down, towards her. Four humans, male judging on their scent and how much noise they were making stomping around. They were also dragging something, perhaps a sled, then she heard the lite padding and sniffing. 'Oh great' she thought, 'they have a dog. I must have missed it because of the overwhelming BO'. She almost groaned to herself, a dog would be able to smell what she is, and either he could be submissive or defensive. 'I guess we'll find out soon enough' She thought as she heard the dog pause picking up her scent and begin to pad toward her quickly.
"Hey! Barney get back here!" The owner yelled still unable to see her sitting against the tree. Chris almost scoffed 'who calls their dog Barney!?' She thought to herself and just then Barney began barking.
Chris made a great show of jumping awake with a yelp. "Ah! Oh my- Uh... Good doggie."
"Who is there?" Said a commanding male voice, walking around the tree to find her cornered by his dog. The man was very tall and built like a tree, with thick black hair, bushy eyebrows, and dark black eyes. He looked to be in his late thirties and would be considered handsome in a gruff mountain man kind of way, that wasn't especially appealing to Chris.
Chris looked up at him allowing herself to show relief on her face. "Thank God! I thought I was going to die up here!" She made a motion to get closer to him but the dog got in the way barking furiously. 'Defensive it is' she thought to herself.
"Barney! Down!" The man said snapping his fingers, the dog reluctantly behaved moving behind his master. Chris's wolf growled in her head as she looked at the arrogant dog, wanting to show it who is dominant. Chris pushed the thought down, reminding her wolf that this wasn't the time or place. They need to be undercover to find the missing pups. "What have we here?" The man said folding his arms as he looked down on her. The other three men showed up just then, one was pulling a sled with what looked like trapping gear on it.
"My name is Christine, I was up here with some college friends hiking and snowboarding and I went off to do some pictures and got really turned around. I started walking up the mountain to see if I could find out where I was or at least get cell signal but now I have no bars and no idea where I am. If you could just let me come with you to the nearest road, or forest ranger station where I could get a signal. I would really appreciate it." Chris said this all as quickly as possible trying to make herself look desperate. It was hard to see the other men because they were covered in coats and scarfs but they all did an obvious shift toward the lead mountain man, waiting for his verdict.
He stared at Chris with severe intensity. Chris had to remind herself to back down and not challenge his stare, she blinked and looked down allowing a confused look and blush to come across her face. He slowly walked toward her like a predator circling its prey, she made it look like she was trying to stay her ground, but did shuffle a few steps, allowing a gasp of fear to escape when he pulled her chin up to look at her face. He studied her like that for a few moments, the tension was so thick even Barney stopped his minimal growling. A smirk drew across his face and then he snatched Chris's bag from her hands, and moved away a few feet.
"Hey!" Chris said attempting to follow him but coming up short when Barney got between her and his master, growling. The mountain man roughly opened the bag and dumped the contents on the snow. Then he pulled open the pockets and pulled out everything else. Her minimal amount of survival gear was on display in the snow: 3 power bars, a water bottle, ibuprofen, lady stuff, chapstick, extra socks, extra hat, phone charger, a receipt for the local store in town, small camera case with a ridiculously expensive camera (she had had to borrow that from one of the local college kids), a book called 'The Beak of the Finch' (also borrowed), and her sunglasses. Everyone examined the contents on the ground, the mountain man bent down and picked up the book, motioning to one of his associates in a camo snowsuit.
The man stepped around Barney and roughly pulled her arms up, "hey what the?!" Chris yelped making a weak attempt to fight him away.
"Stop moving!" He growled as he scanned his hands down her sides and up her pant legs. She stopped moving but tensed up almost immediately when his hands grazed over her backside longer than necessary. She could feel his heartbeat increase and his breathing become heavier. 'You better watch it.' She thought to herself as he moved on to her pockets pulling out her phone, tissues, and sun screen, from her coat pocket. He let her go and walked back past Barney and handed over the phone to the mountain man, tossing the sunscreen and tissues in the pile. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling violated.
The mountain man closed the book and put it under his elbow as he took the phone and turned it on. Once it made the jingle he unlocked it and began looking through all the info on the phone. Her pictures, accounts, he probably would go through social media if there had been some sort of wifi or internet connection. But nothing showed up when he opened the apps. Chris was counting on that. Finding all these other things to pull her story together was really easy, but she didn't have time to fabricate a whole social media personality. He stopped going through everything and looked back up at Chris, studying her as he rolled her phone in his hand.
Finally he spoke, "What did you say your name was?"
"Christine.... Uh... Fuller." She said trying to make it sound like she was unsure about the situation she found herself. He stared at her silently, "why did you search my stuff?"
He blinked and smirked again, "because I hate it when people lie."
"I'm not lying."
"Apparently. Sorry if we seem very uncouth. We just haven't seen another human around here in awhile, so your appearance is very.... Suspicious."
"Why does that matter to a group of... hunters?" she said sounding unsure.
"Well," He looked around to his other men who had been standing still during the whole interaction, "we work really hard to ensure no one steps in on our good hunting ground." He tossed her book into the pile. 'Weak excuse' She thought to herself as the mountain man and the others exchanged looks.
The mountain man tossed her bag back to her, "Give us a moment to discuss how we are going to get you back to civilization." She gave him a relieved look and a small smile trying to seem innocent and happy for the help. They probably would just as soon bury her in snow to hide the fact that they are out here.
The men walked away out of earshot for a normal human, but she wasn't human. Barney followed them allowing her to walk forward and start putting her stuff back in her bag. "What do you think Dean?" Said the one who had searched her. The mountain man grunted and looked down at my cell phone that he was still holding.
"Her story is plausible."
"It may be plausible, but really?.... Some chick shows up when we get a good haul?" Said another poacher, this one wearing a blue coat.
"What do you want to do with her Stan? Even if we head out now, by the time we make it to civilization we will be hit with snow, and we can't leave our camp alone." Said the camo guy.
"What if one of us takes her back?" Said the fourth poacher, he was wearing a yellow hat and a dark grey coat.
"And then they would have to stay over night. Most likely with rangers and you know how much they love us." Said the blue coat guy who apparently was Stan.
"Then what do you want to do with her? Since you are apparently full of opinions." Said the camo guy.
"Come on Perry, isn't it obvious? Let's just leave her. If she finds her way out then whatever, if she dies of exposure, whatever."
"Yeah that is a great idea," Perry spat back, "and if someone finds her and she tells them that some hunters left her to die. She has seen our faces, it probably wouldn't take too long before a manhunt of rangers come to comb through the mountains."
"Not only that," said the yellow hat guy, "If she turns up missing they are going to send search parties anyway. It is safer if we take her with us."
"That is just stupid." Stan said, "What are we going to do with our-"
"What do you think Dean?" Perry said cutting him off.
Dean (the mountain man) glanced at Chris with a quizzical expression. "I think.... She has to come with us. We can't leave her here and we can't take her back today. She thinks we are hunters. Just keep her away from the haul."
"But-"
"Stuff it Stan!" Perry cut in, shouldering his pack.
"Stan and Sam go around and pick up the other traps and then meet us back at camp. We are going to break down tomorrow and bring her into town. Get some brownie points from the rangers and then head up to Canada to make the drop." Stan glanced over his shoulder giving Chris a dirty look. "Perry and I will take her back to camp right now and check on the haul. Understood?" All the poachers muttered their answers and broke up. Sam (the yellow hat guy) and Stan went and grabbed the sleigh starting across the clearing. "Take the dog with you!" yelled Dean as he walked back to me. Stan whistled and Barney went bounding across the clearing after him.
"So, we are of course going to help you out." He handed her phone back and pulled off his scarf, "However, we are too far away from the ranger station, and since you don't know where your group is, it will take too long to track them before the snow hits. So we are taking you to camp with us. We have some extra equipment for you to stay in, and we will bring you into town tomorrow."
Chris rolled her gloved hands trying to look nervous, "Are you sure we can't make it tonight?"
He glared, "have you ever been lost in a snow storm?"
"Uh, no. But-"
"Then don't act like you know better. If you don't want our help then you can stay here."
"Oh, no no no! That is not what I meant. I am really grateful. I am just- uh.... Worried. They might be looking for me."
"We have a radio at camp. We can attempt to make contact with the ranger station and let them know, so they don't send out a search party."
"Uh, okay." Dean started walking away following Perry who had already started back up the trail they had come down. Chris started after them shouldering her pack, secretly glad the dog didn't come, it was getting on her nerves. She walked next to Dean quietly just concentrating on putting her feet in the already tracked snow.
"Here." Dean said holding out his scarf to her.
"Oh I am fine." She tried to brush it off, but Dean grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him.
"You will get wind burn if you don't put this on." He then proceeded to wrap the scarf around her neck and up to her face covering everything but her eyes. "There that should help."
"Ummm... thank you." She muffled from behind the scarf. Dean was suddenly really close to her.... Too close.
"You guys coming?" Yelled Perry who was around the bend of trees up ahead.
"Yeah!" Said Dean not breaking eye contact but pulling away from her. He finally turned and started back up the trail.
Chris paused before following him. Either he was worried about her well being or trying to seduce her, but it didn't feel like that, it seemed more sinister. Chris mulled this over as they continued up the mountain, the sky getting darker. Clouds coming in swiftly and slowly, then fluffy snowflakes began to fall.
*Thanks for reading! Please vote and comment! I love constructive criticism, however if it becomes mean I will take you down.*
-LostArrow-