City of the Lost (Rockton 1)

I don't see the path until we're on it. I've hiked before. But my idea of a path is a groomed trail wide enough to ride a bike on. This is barely a slice through the trees, branches catching me on both sides. Even the worn dirt underfoot vanishes as the trees close in and the ground becomes a carpet of dirt and needles.

"Patrol check?" Dalton calls back.

"He's asking about the daily militia patrols," Anders explains. "They report in to me. One thing they look for is signs that someone went into the woods."

"Patrol check?" Dalton repeats, with an added snap.

"I'm using a teaching moment. It's the only way Casey will learn anything. And the patrols haven't found evidence of a wanderer in three days." He glances at me. "That tells Eric whether the signs he's picking up could be from another day. It's not impossible that someone wandered off without us knowing it, but we've got a good catch ratio. High penalties for wandering--combined with regular escorted trips--means there's no excuse for breaching the perimeter."

"Why not erect a fence?"

"There was one, years ago. First a wooden fence. Then a barbed wire one. Followed by some high-tech generator-powered boundary-marking system. The last just plain failed--it took too much power and it broke down easily. What Rockton learned from erecting fences, though, is that they don't make people feel safe. They make them feel like captives. Folks breached that fence far more often than they breach our marked perimeter. They prefer us to treat them like responsible adults and say, 'Look, we don't want you wandering in the woods for your own good.' With ninety percent of them, that's enough. It's the other ten that give us grief."

"You done talking?" Dalton asks.

"I don't know, are you going to start talking?"

"Sure, I'll talk. We want Hastings to hear us, right? So he can find us and spend the rest of the night tied to a goddamn tree."

"Okay, you can stop talking now, boss. We need to be quiet and listen."

Another flashed finger. I whisper, "Is he serious?"

Anders nods. "Punishment for running? Spend a night out here tied to a tree. Course, we keep an eye on them, but they don't know that."

I should be horrified. But it is a fitting punishment, one that'll teach them why they don't want to be out here, as I'm sure every whistle of the wind becomes the howl of rabid canines.

I wouldn't mind spending the night out here. Preferably not tied to a tree. I'm remarkably at peace in these woods. Maybe that's because I'm a city girl--I don't fully comprehend the threats I'd face. I think I do, though. I've never romanticized wild places. There's danger at every footfall here, walking through dense, pitch-black forest, our lanterns kept purposely dim so our prey won't see them.

Our prey. Interesting way of putting it.

I'll just say that I don't feel what I expected to in these woods. I don't feel fear. I don't feel loss of control. I felt an odd exhilaration, as sharp and biting as the wind, but as refreshing, too, like whipping along on that ATV, knowing a single missed branch or rut could send me flying, but enjoying the challenge and, yes, the danger.

Even the smells surprise me. Conifers and soil and rainwater and greenery and the occasional whiff of musk, like we're downwind of invisible woodland creatures. I hear them, too, scampering and calling and rustling and bolting. Dalton knows exactly what each sound is and whether the creature making it is big enough to be Hastings, and he stops for those but ignores the others.

I'm fascinated watching him track. I remember Anders saying Dalton has lived here all his life, and I can see that now, his comfort in these woods, the way he moves as sure-footed as I would down a city street.

Eventually, though, Dalton loses the trail. He backs up and double-checks, and I ask if there's anything I can do to help. He doesn't answer and Anders shakes his head, nicely telling me not to interfere.

Five minutes pass of Dalton pacing and examining and even squinting into the treetops. Then, "Fuck."

After a few seconds of silence, Anders says, "Can we buy a few more syllables, boss?"

"Trail ends there," Dalton says, pointing.

I walk to the spot and peer around.

"I, uh, don't think he swung through the trees," Anders whispers when he sees me squinting into the dark treetops.

"No," I say. "But I noticed Sheriff Dalton--"

"Call him Eric," Anders says. "Please. Otherwise, you set a bad precedent."

"Okay, well ... Eric looked up, and I realize what he was checking. The tree cover is unusually dense here. That explains why the ground cover is unusually sparse. Which means there aren't any signs to show which way Hastings went."

"Just say that, then," Dalton says.

"Teaching moment," Anders says. "Which I appreciate. Okay, so the solution is to split up. I know you hate that, Eric, but we're all armed and this patch isn't more than a few hundred square feet. No one's going to wander off and get lost. Right, Casey?"