I hardly heard his praise. I was too busy concentrating on the first thing he'd said. "But . . . why would you do that for Korbie?" I asked, baffled.
"Surprised to discover I'm not entirely evil?" he said, with a jaded curve to his mouth.
This was his greatest kindness so far, and I didn't know what to say. Tempting as my initial reaction was-to snub him with chilly detachment-I was incapable of expending the energy. I was tired of building walls. Blinking away tears, I simply exhaled a shaky breath and said, "Thank you, Jude. I can't thank you enough."
He accepted my gratitude with a quick nod. The gesture hid the faintest grimace, which, I was almost certain, seemed to signify his discomfort at being heralded a hero. To save him from his embarrassment, I decided to change the subject.
"Do you think my boots and socks are dry enough? I have to go to the bathroom." I wanted to look at Calvin's map again, especially if we were taking off soon, but I also really did have to go.
After I laced up my boots, I trudged off into the snow. I didn't walk far enough to lose sight of our temporary camp, just far enough to have some privacy. planting myself behind a tree, I pulled out Calvin's map. He had marked an old, abandoned fur trapper's hut less than a quarter of a mile away. The description read, "Semi-decent roof, good wind protection.
"Too bad I hadn't been able to discover the hut last night, in the thick of the storm.
Calvin had made a green dot beside the fur trapper's hut. There were two other identical green dots on the map; one marked the cabin where I'd first met Jude and Shaun. The third green dot also seemed to mark a shelter. Beside this dot, Calvin's notes merely read, "Broken windows.” The shelter was probably abandoned, but it fell between our current location and Idlewilde; hopefully, Jude and I could rest there.
On the chance that I might find something useful at the fur trapper's hut, like granola bar wrappers left behind by hikers that could be used as fuel, and because I was already close by, I decided to check it out. Jude wouldn't miss me if I was gone an extra few minutes.
Using the map, I navigated my way through the trees. The branches snagged my clothes, making me think of clawing, bony fingers. I pushed the image away with a shudder, suddenly wishing I'd brought Jude.
Finally, the trees cleared to reveal a drooping, windowless, bare-bones log structure that looked well over a hundred years old. The door was so narrow and short, I would have to hunch over to pass through it.
The tiny door was not a gross miscalculation on the part of the mountain men who'd built the hut. When the first fur trappers arrived in the area, Wyoming and Idaho were heavily populated with grizzly bears. We still had them, but not in the same numbers. The trappers had built their huts' entryways too small for a grizzly bear to get through, to preserve their beaver pelts and their own lives. I owed this bit of historical trivia to Calvin, who, along with Dex, had waited out a rainstorm in what had to be a similar trapper's hut last spring on a hiking trip.
As I grew closer, a bit of yellow tape caught on sagebrush drew my eye. Police tape. A chill of familiarity tingled my spine, as if this clue should mean something to me.
The hut's door creaked in the wind.
I started to back away, suddenly cold with a bad feeling. The hairs on my scalp stood on end. I kept my eyes fastened to the door, afraid something awful would come out if I turned my back.
And that's when my brain snapped to life.
I knew this hut. It had been featured on the news last October when a local girl, Kimani Yowell, had been found murdered inside it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kimani Yowell. Miss Shoshone-Bannock. The high school pageant winner who was killed last October. Her death hadn't made the news the way Lauren Huntsman's had, because she wasn't from a wealthy family. Kimani had fought with her boyfriend at a party in Fort Hall, Idaho, the night she died. She left alone, and he went after her. He drove her to the mountains, strangled her, and crammed her body inside the fur trapper's hut. If hikers hadn't stumbled across her remains, her boyfriend might have gotten away with it.
Kimani had gone to Pocatello High, my rival school, so her story had seemed especially traumatic at the time. Now it felt bone-chilling. She had died out here. In the same woods where I was fighting for my life.
The hut's door creaked again and something dark and alive lumbered out, its large, clawed paws crushing into the snow. Covered in thick, oily brown fur, the animal was larger than a dog. It stopped, jerking its snout up, startled by my presence. Its beady black eyes glittered hungrily behind a silvery facial mask. Grunting, snorting sounds ground low in its throat.
I had heard stories of wolverines. They were ferocious enough to take on prey three times their size.
The wolverine walked toward me, its gait startlingly bearlike. I turned and ran.
I heard the wolverine loping across the snow behind me. In a panic, I tried to glance backward, and slipped. Icy slush seeped through my jeans and I curled my fingers into the snow, clutching for something to pull myself up. I grasped the first object I felt and stared at it in a stupor. The long shaft of the bone was picked dry and riddled with tooth marks. With a shriek, I flung it away.
I got my feet under me and started sprinting toward the blur of trees ahead. Jude's name was the one clear thought drumming in my head.
"]ude!" I screamed, praying he would hear me.
Branches whipped at my face and the deep snow swallowed my legs. I risked a second look behind me. The wolverine was a few paces back, its eyes black with raw, animal determination.
Dodging blindly through the trees, I tried frantically to orient myself. Which way was Jude? I swept my eyes over the frozen ground. Why couldn't I find my footprints from before? Was I heading even farther from him?
I screamed his name again. My voice bounced off the trees, into the vast sky. Not one bird took flight. He couldn't hear me. No one could. I was alone.
My hands were smeared with blood from the sharp spruce needles, but I was oblivious to the pain; I was sure I felt the wolverine's razor teeth and thick, hooked claws snatch at the backs of my legs.
It grabbed me suddenly from behind. I lurched and kicked, almost as desperate to free myself as I was to stay on my feet. If I went down, it was over. I would never get back up.
"Easy, Britt, I'm not going to hurt you."
The knots in my chest unraveled at the sound of Jude's low, reassuring voice. The pressure inside me deflated, and I sagged against him. I made a whimpering sound of relief.
Jude loosened his hold on me gradually, making sure I had my footing. "I'm not going to hurt you,” he repeated. He turned me to face him. His eyes searched my face, quizzical and worried. "What happened?"