Kier shook his head. "It wouldn't be visible in a cave or hollow. And since it is sacred, no one goes there. Not even rock climbers."

"Who would you say Raccoon really cares about?" Mix asked.

Kier smiled. "That's a perceptive question for an ex-bureaucrat who sounds like he's returning to his old ways. My grandfather used to say the difference between a good and an evil man is what he loves. I'm not sure what Raccoon loves, other than Carmen. But, like I said, Raccoon is not a killer."

There were more questions, but Kier found that in answering he was repeating himself in a manner he disliked. Finally he said to Mix, "I thought you gave the FBI a flunking grade. Said they didn't protect the country the way they should. 9/11. The anthrax killer, and all that."

"I've got my beefs with them, but when it comes to a psychopath, I figure everyone has to pitch in."

Kier nodded, as if he understood.

Kissing Jessie and his children goodbye, dispatching hugs all around, and receiving the benedictory "be careful," Kier left for the woods. Three hours later he studied the tracks of Jake and Carmen, which told him a story. From their separation and angle he was certain these two were friends, not a couple. But it was the third set of prints, following theirs, that consumed his attention. They were made by a heavy man in good physical shape. Given the weight, the tireless stride, the smooth of the sole and the way it rounded at the toe, they could have only come from a handmade hide boot. Only a few Tiloks wore them and none were this size, except perhaps for Raccoon and himself.

The wind molesting the trees made him uneasy. He wondered if the murmur was more of Grandfather's sense of the presence of another life.

He allowed his mind to manipulate the puzzle engulfing him. More unease crept through him. Around him rose the towering rock faces of Iron Mountain with its caverns and Man Jumps, a hole in the cliffside. A slow, 360-degree turn brought his senses to high alert. Something man-made, a patch of cloth on the ground, just visible through the trees, caught his attention.

He inhaled deeply and noticed a strange, meaty smell, something like pot roast.

Hair rose on his arms.

He waited, not moving, listening, looking. Then he silently slipped forward and repeated the exercise. Thirty minutes later, after steadily creeping forward, he concluded that no one alive waited for him ahead. The sense taught by his grandfather confounded him. It would not leave him. But he overruled the sensation and entered the camp.

The first thing he saw was the charred remains of Jake.

A groan escaped his lips. He tried to divorce from his thoughts the agony that must have been Jake's last experiences on earth. He searched for signs of Carmen, imagining the terror she'd be feeling. Anger rose in him, forming a familiar determination.

He studied the fire pit where Jake lay. Given the depth of the ash, the remnants had burned maybe five hours. Probably the killer had watched the campers for a while to savor what was coming. So Kier knew what to do.

Find the watching spot.

He backed away from the fire and soaked in the scene. Quickly, he discovered where the killer had waited. Near the stream. And a fishing rod, probably Jake's, still leaned against a tree. He stared at the prints in the earth. Discernible, but blurred. If he hadn't seen the same blurs elsewhere in the camp, he would have attributed it to the movements of impatience. If he didn't know better, he would have said there were two large men making similar tracks.

Raccoon was here.

But Kier knew he wasn't the killer.

He surveyed the surrounding ground.

Something small and white caught his gaze. He bent down to examine it. A tiny flake. No. A chip of something. Not really. Much more.

A piece from a pistachio nut.

One thought rushed through his mind. Jack Mix.

He reeled off the possibilities. Mix could have easily made a print that size. He possessed the requisite weight, but to make either he would have been forced to stretch his stride to emulate Raccoon.

What did this mean?

He returned to the camp and searched for a sign of struggle or a spot where Carmen might have been tied down, but found nothing. He discovered a blood spatter at the base of the cliff. Fifty feet up the rock wall he spotted a blood smear. He knew what both meant. Jake had tumbled down the cliffs. Then he'd been cooked, like the boy in Lassen County.

But why?

To mask something.

Grandfather's sense of another life dogged him. But his scientific training reminded him that superstitions achieved nothing. So he circled the camp, searching for an exit track. On the far side lay a tan sheet of paper. He bent down and saw that the sheet was a map. Beneath it laid a Polaroid photo of a woman in her mid-thirties.

It was Jessie.

His wife.

And in her engaging smile he saw the inherent goodness that would incite any killer to want to destroy her. Fear threatened to overwhelm him. The message resonated clear. The killer had known he'd be here and had seized his vulnerability.

Ignore it.

He stuffed the picture in his pocket and studied the map. The area depicted was the Wintoon River, with an X marking the location of his cabin. He shuddered, but hesitated. Too obvious.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye.

Movement.

He gazed through the foliage. Someone was there.

He dived into the brush, but a thump knocked him sideways, slamming him into the ground. Crawling on one side, a great river of pain swept down his spine, shoulder and arm. His breath came in gasps. Pain screamed through his mind. A crossbow bolt protruded from his flesh just to the left of his chin. It had traveled upward from behind, piercing his left trapezius muscle between the shoulder and neck, exiting just above the clavicle.

He struggled to escape the thickets and developed a sort of sliding crawl that enabled him to keep his shoulder rigid. Any movement produced unbearable pain. Finally he slipped into the forest, away from the camp.

More arrows sliced through the foliage.

He freed his belt and wrapped it around his hand, forming a leather sheath.

Reaching above the razor-sharp blades of the arrow, he nestled the leather against the bottom edges, then yanked. The stiff feather fletching ripped through the meat of his trapezius and came away clean. For several minutes he did nothing but hang on to reality and fight nausea. Then his mind started working. He removed some sterile gauze from his backpack and applied it to both wounds.

The bleeding slowed.

Thank the Great Spirit.

He grabbed hold of his emotions, palmed a compact semiautomatic Ruger.22 pistol from his pack and eased twenty feet away. The killer was here. So he waited. But no one came.

Sweating and in pain, Kier finally slipped warily out of the bushes and found tracks exiting the camp. One set of large prints, blurred, and smaller ones-Carmen's, which showed significant weight on the front of the foot, an indication that the killer might be pulling her. No toe tics, tripping, staggering or the like. She kept up a good stride on a steep incline and the implications were clear. The killer was forcing her deeper into the mountains.

His injury slowed him, and the notion that he might catch up to them vanished. He found that by keeping his upper body rigid, the muscles in his back bunched and naturally splinted the wound. But the side effect was cramping, and soon muscle spasms forced him to adopt an awkward gait.

The trail widened.

He stared down at the prints, but the ground spun from the blood loss. He blinked and steeled his mind, then tried to focus again. Carmen and her captor now walked side by side.