Day 6

"Find anything?"

Cut shrugged nonchalantly at my inquiry.

Stupid question anyway. If he had found something, he surely would have told me. This whole situation was really beginning to annoy me.

We had returned to the target area at daybreak to look around once more. Maybe there was something we missed. Anything! Twelve guys couldn't simply disappear into thin air, or could they? They had been here, so much was for sure. All the junk we found—even the dumbest city-bum wouldn't be ignorant enough to simply lose something like that SIG or an M14. But what really bothered me was the way Buck reacted when I let him get a scent of the rucksack I had come across. He no sooner stuck his nose to it when he backed up, growling, and the hair along his back standing straight up.

"What's the matter with him?" Cut had frowned. "The only time I seen 'im act like that was when you tried to feed him them biscuits your ol' lady made."

We laughed about it, but actually it wasn't funny at all.

"Shit," Cut mumbled between his teeth, "I wish Jimmy was here. He'd sure find 'em."

"Who?"

"My cousin, Jimmy...Whitehorse," he added since I still had a blank look on my face.

"Oh, the Chief?" I grinned as understanding set in.

"Yeah! He's the best tracker I've ever seen."

I gave him a quizzical smirk. "You gotta be kiddin' me. He's deaf as a doorknob."

"Yeah, but he could track a flea across a buffalo's ass," Cut snapped back irritated.

I flinched. "Sorry! Didn't mean to offend you."

He merely shrugged me off and went back to looking around. This wasn't going well at all. We were both getting on the edge, and to argue over trivial stuff sure didn't help.

"Look," I sighed, "I'm sorry. But we don't have time to wait for someone else to..."

"Why not?" he interrupted. "We ain't gettin' nowhere with this. You know, I don't like to admit when I'm beat, but this shit really got me."

"So what do you suggest?"

"We go back down and I'll fax Jimmy. It'd only take a day or two for him to get here. What we got to lose? Ain't nothin' here today that ain't gonna be here tomorrow."

"All right!" This time I was the one who shrugged. "Guess we could bring up some more beer too, on the way. Looks like we'll be here a while."

"Now you're talkin'!" At least he grinned again.