Thanks to everyone who left a review, really do appreciate them! To those who didn't sign in, sorry I can't thank you personally, but I hope this suffices. I appreciate you too!
I'm still light years away from owning the plot lines, characters and such, although some bits I have added myself as it's relevant to our boys.
Enjoy!
This part of the mountain was much steeper, keeping conversation to a minimum. Roy was the point man, setting the pace and keeping it steady. Hayley was showing her colours, tough and independent she followed her guide unquestioningly and without asking for breaks.
The Tracy's were earning their stripes too, their bodies relishing the physical demands of the hike. Scott initially suspected Roy had set such a gruelling march in order to push their buttons, but each man was handling it well. Even John, with no time to daydream, had rose to the challenge. However, as the sun began to dip in the grey sky Scott revised his first thought.
Night was coming early to the mountain and Roy wanted to reach what he had determined should be their camp. Scott still couldn't bring himself to like the man, but he was beginning to find some respect for the guide. He glanced quickly behind him. Virgil had settled, unasked, into rear guard duty, he was pleased to find. With his back well and truly covered, Scott was able to concentrate on other matters.
Ahead, Hayley called for a halt, dragging a large map out of her rucksack. Roy doubled back to her and she laid the tattered chart on the ground for him to see. She had drawn a circle over a small area, Scott noticed and she pointed to it now.
"This is the location of Tommy's video mail," she said, looking at Roy. "We're not far from it, right?"
Roy nodded thoughtfully, reaching out to place one thick finger against another area. "This is our target site," he told her. "If we're visited by the grizzly, and we're not able to frighten it off, we've options."
He didn't explain what those options might consist of, but Scott could read the map as well as the tracker and he could see several safe places, approving of Roy's choice.
"We'll search for Tommy's camp first," Hayley insisted, but Roy shook his head.
"Not a chance, girl. We're in bear country and its getting dark."
Hayley stood her ground. "I hired you to take me to my brother's camp. Either we go tonight, or I go alone."
Roy ground his teeth in frustration and the three Tracy's kept quiet, watching the power struggle between the two.
"All right," Roy acceded finally. "But we're gonna have to hurry if you want to keep the light. You ready to run?"
Hayley took a deep breath, nodding. Virgil and John unknowingly readied themselves to move, and Scott knew he was doing the same. Roy had one final thing to say, however.
"If we can't find it by four thirty, we're heading to our base camp, no questions, no buts, no arguments."
He didn't give Hayley a chance to reply, standing and launching into a run in one fluid motion. Scott waved John and Virgil onwards as Hayley hastily threw her map into her bag. She glanced once at him, before following his brothers. Scott took a second to look at the woods, before setting after her.
It hurt to breathe. Really hurt. When he swallowed it felt as if shards of glass had lodged themselves into his throat and when he coughed the agony made his eyes water. But Gary's determination was still burning bright and Alan had latched onto it, an invisible thread that sent strength into Alan's tired muscles and urged him onwards.
It did feel good to be out in the fresh air, though. It was cool against his skin, waking him from the stupor he'd previously lagged in and Alan took strength from that also. But it still hurt to breathe. He coughed again, wet and deep.
"Dude, you sick or summat?"
Alan raised his head to blink at Gary. "I'm fine," he insisted, the other boy's grim resolve aiding him once more. He shifted the pack on his back, glad they had swung by Gary's place to pick up essentials.
Gary shrugged. "We'll have to go through the night," he estimated. "Hayley said Tommy camped about midway up."
Alan peered up at the imposing mountain. They'd barely begun, he realised, despite how long they'd been hiking. His heart sank. It was already beginning to get dark. He coughed once more, annoyed Virgil's diagnosis had been correct.
"You sure you're all right?" Gary asked again, sounding more concerned this time.
Alan took a moment to regain his breath. "Can't go back now," he reasoned in a poor imitation of his usual voice. "We gotta keep going."
Resolutely, Alan moved past the other boy and continued upwards. One foot after another, he told himself. Just like running track, just like John taught you. Take it one foot at a time.
The remains of Tommy's camp was a testament to savagery. Hayley stared at it in horror, her breathing loud and on the verge of panic. Her wide eyes took in every detail her torch light touched, her body shock still.
Roy was already moving through the wreckage, lifting torn tent material and inspecting the damage. John and Scott exchanged a glance before the twenty-two year old joined the man, drawing his own conclusions from the evidence. Scott hoped they would, at least, have an answer by the end of the night. He sought out Virgil, indicating with a jerk of his head that the other man should scout the perimeter. Virgil melted into the near darkness and Scott hesitantly rested his hand on Hayley's shoulder.
The touch seemed to wake her. With a cry of alarm, she headed into the campsite, dropping to her knees to touch with shaking hands everything she could find that belonged to her brother. Scott followed slowly, picking up a hand held game console with a cracked screen, before tossing it aside. He said nothing as he followed Hayley through the scattered possessions, turning her gently aside from the streaks of blood that adorned nature and man's mark on it alike. Droplets lay in scattered arcs, huge gashes of red decorated large areas.
As dusk matured into early night, John slowly stood and moved to Scott.
"We need to get out of here," he told his brother. "Where's Virgil?"
"Right here," the other Tracy emerged from the trees. "John's right, we can't stay here."
Scott glanced sharply at his second brother, detecting the note of unease. He nodded and headed for the guide. Roy was sat on his haunches, frowning in thought and Scott felt he was even now attempting to explain the damage to himself as a bear attack.
"We need to get moving," Scott urged him. "We can't stay here."
"There's no bodies," Roy hissed, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like this before."
"Yeah," Scott agreed. "I'd be surprised if you had."
Roy turned quickly to him, but Scott pressed on.
"There's a lot of blood here and you know as well as I do, it attracts wildlife." Scott's eyes bored into the older man. "Let's get out of here before we get a visitor."
"What did you find?" Scott asked Virgil an hour or so later. Night had fallen now, a midnight black with no stars, their light covered by rolling clouds. The brother's had moved somewhat away from the other two, keeping their voices low as they talked.
"Nothing," Virgil answered. Although he remained calm and apparently unconcerned, the glow of the distant fire showed his eyes were dark with worry. "I didn't see any tracks, not one."
"You wouldn't," John told him, flipping through their father's journal. Scott was surprised; he hadn't noticed John had brought it with them.
"Why's that?" he asked.
"It's a Wendigo," John announced, finding his page and spinning the book so his older brothers could see it. Virgil quickly shone his torch onto the description of the creature, shaking his head before he'd finished reading.
"They're not known in this area," he pointed out. "They're more of a Native Indian creature."
"Maybe," John conceded, "but I think that's what we're dealing with. Look, this is an old mining town, men trekked the mountain and stayed the winter to dig."
"What of it?" Scott asked.
"Winter lasts a long time up here," John continued. "When I was researching for possible leads I read about a party of miners who'd gone mad and killed each other one particularly harsh year."
"Go on," Virgil invited.
"Members of particular tribes believe a Wendigo is something a human can turn into, or be possessed by. They're cannibalistic and they tend to occur in very lonely regions," John paused to assess his brother's reactions. "What if one miner did kill the others? To survive, for food, once they'd run out of all options? Only, it wasn't enough and he had to go into hibernation, just like a Wendigo does?"
Scott and Virgil shared uneasy glances. They'd heard of Wendigo's from their father and his hunting buddies and facing one wasn't an appealing notion. They tended to surface in a ritualistic pattern, hunt for a short period and live off their victims until they hibernated once more. They were near perfect hunters and notoriously hard to kill.
"Could it be anything else?" Scott asked uneasily.
"Yeah, could be," John admitted with a shrug. "But it does explain why Shaw's father was carried off once it had taken its fill of his mother. And the missing people, the 'bear attacks', they've occured at regular intervals. Also, it doesn't leave tracks. Virgil would have found bear tracks, you know that."
John pointed to a rough drawing of the creature his father had torn out of a book somewhere and pinned next to his description of his hunt.
"Look at that thing's claws," he urged. "I can't think of anything else that could leave that amount of damage behind it."
"Jesus." Scott shook his head. "I'd give a lot for you to be wrong, Johnny."
John's face was grim in the fire light. "Me too."
"What do we do against that thing?" Virgil asked, bending back to the page.
"It doesn't like fire, but it's clearly not afraid to enter a camp. For now there's precautions I can put in place," John told him. "It'll secure the camp, I doubt it's got its larder full yet and it could easily be roaming tonight."
"Precautions?" Scott queried.
"A boundary," John answered. "Some symbols around a circle, the Wendigo can't cross them. I'd better get started, they look complicated and the Wendigo could be out and about."
All three of the Tracy boys shivered after John's statement, but the blond bravely pressed on.
"Can you distract the other two? I don't want them crossing the lines or scuffing the symbols."
As John moved off to begin building the boundary, Virgil glanced at Roy and Hayley, sitting apart in silence. Risking his brother's wrath, Virgil leant over.
"I guess I've got to keep Roy entertained while John's doing his thing, huh?" he asked softly. "Tell me, Scott, how you gonna occupy Hayley?"
Scott treated him to withering glare, before moving to stand by Hayley's side.
"They were supposed to be staying at the lodge," Hayley said softly, staring into the fire. "But the weather had stayed so mild, they wanted to camp instead. I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn't come up with a good reason and Tommy just laughed my warnings off."
Tears trickled down her cheeks and she took a shaky breath.
"He always does that. Laughs at me while I sit there worrying about him. Does he think I enjoy being the responsible one? He's supposed to be the one that takes care of us, but he can't be serious, can he?"
Scott had no answer for her, although he could appreciate where the feelings were coming from. He was often left being the man juggling all the balls, terrified he'd miss a catch and leave one of the boys hurt.
"I'm sorry," Hayley sniffed, cuffing at her eyes.
"It's all right," Scott told her. He glanced quickly at his brothers and Roy, before taking her hand and pulling her towards the edge of the line John had marked in the ground, shielding her grief from stranger's eyes with his body.
"He's dead, isn't he?" Hayley whispered, not able to meet Scott's gaze. "He's not coming home."
"We don't know that for sure," Scott soothed.
Hayley swallowed, lifting her eyes to Scott's. "I wanted to find him," she told him. "I wanted to see him, speak to him, so badly. I wanted to be able to shout at him."
She looked on the verge of tears again and Scott swiftly pulled her into an embrace. "You will," he promised. "You can shout at him to your hearts content."
Hayley laughed through her tears, wiping her face and making no move to break his circling arms. They stared at each other for several seconds and Hayley allowed Scott to lean in closer. The back of his fingers grazed her cheek, brushing a lock of hair off her face and she tilted her head until their lips nearly touched.
"Who are you really?" she demanded and Scott closed his eyes as he realised he had been played. The tears and the fear had been real, but she wasn't above using them to break down his defences.
"Right," he muttered to himself, glancing away and lowering his arms.
Hayley hadn't finished. "Because I called the ranger to thank him and he'd never heard of you."
Scott smiled weakly. "Never?"
"What the hell are you guys playing at?" Hayley hissed, poking him in the chest. "My brother is missing and you're playing games?"
"No," Scott reassured her hastily. "No, Hayley, it's not like that."
Hayley stepped back, crossing her arms angrily. "Then what is it like?"
Scott weighed his options. "Our Dad is missing. His last known co-ordinates are this mountain. We just want to find him."
"Are you telling me the truth?" Hayley demanded, although a lot of her fire had gone. "Really?"
"Yeah," Scott nodded, breathing out heavily. "We thought whatever happened to Tommy might have happened to Dad. Since Tommy was the last person to go missing, it was too good a lead to waste."
Hayley was silent a moment, watching him. "Why the subterfuge?" she asked eventually. "Why couldn't you just be honest with me from the beginning?"
"Habit," Scott shrugged apologetically.
Hayley seemed to accept this and nodded. "You gonna tell me the truth from now on?"
"If that's what you want," Scott agreed and watched her body relax. Hayley repositioned herself so close he could feel her body heat radiating from her.
"Good," she breathed. "Because I'd like to like you."
So saying she brushed her lips against his and was gone, moving to sit by the fire next to Roy and Virgil.
John found it impossible to sleep. The trouble with being the one with the answers was that the knowledge kept pounding away inside his skull. The more he learnt about Wendigo's the less he liked them and the greater the fear of actually finding the thing became.
Added to his problems were Hayley's exhausted thoughts, going over old conversations with her brother and wondering tearfully if she would ever get to speak to him again so loudly within her own mind, John found it hard not to hear her. It was only the odd stray thought, but away from the normal buzz of noise he was used to, they were coming through loud and clear.
Also, Virgil was snoring. Rolling over in his sleeping bag and coming to a decision, John kicked his older brother in the shin. Virgil woke with an angry groan and John, feigning innocence, asked if he was all right.
Virgil closed his eyes, lying back down. "I swear to God, Johnny, if you woke me up, I'm going to hurt you. Where's Scott?"
"Doing his rounds," John answered. There was silence between the brothers until John shifted again.
Virgil sighed softly. "What's up?"
John bit his lip, staring up at nothing.
"Johnny?"
"I was just thinking."
"You're known for it. What about?"
"Dad." John propped himself up on his elbow, just able to make out his brother's face in the darkness. "I'm scared we're not going to find him."
Virgil laughed softly. "Really? I'm scared we are gonna find him. I don't fancy his chances if the Wendigo's had him since we were in Jericho."
John shivered. This wasn't going according to plan. He'd woken his brother to gain some small measure of comfort, but Virgil wasn't playing ball. That wasn't right. Scott was for protection, but Virgil specialised in comfort.
"You haven't sensed him here, have you?" Virgil asked quietly.
"No," John replied. "No, I haven't."
"That's good," Virgil told him, sounding relieved. "I don't think I'd have handled finding him … like that."
John decided against telling his brother that maybe he couldn't sense him because their father was dead.
"Still, I've no idea where we go from here," Virgil continued. "Maybe we could hire someone to track him down?"
"He'd hate that," John laughed. It felt good, a break in the tension and he realised just what Virgil was doing. "He'd be pissed we hadn't done it ourselves."
Virgil nodded, his own voice soft with laughter. "Can you imagine the speech we'd get?"
"It's not so much that I'm angry, boys," John began in an imitation of that deep, measured voice. "But I am disappointed."
"Stop," Virgil groaned. "The disappointment speech always leaves Scott in a foul mood."
"Does it ever," John agreed. They fell silent once more, and again John felt compelled to break it. "You know, when I was a kid all I wanted to do was help Dad on a hunt. Used to stay up pouring over books, desperate to get that bit of info he needed."
"I remember," Virgil smiled fondly.
"And Scott was his star pupil," John continued. "Was more into the physical side of it than me and just itching to salt and burn everything. Gordon was too young to hunt, although he was just as keen. But you, Virge?"
Virgil's voice held none of its previous warmth, and he spoke low and careful. "What about me?"
"You were good. I remember that, you were. But you were never into it. And you're still good, Virgil, really good. I saw you with that shot gun on Raquel and you're stepping right back into old habits. But you don't like it, do you?"
Virgil's sigh was weary. "I don't want this for us, Johnny. I especially don't like what it's doing to Alan. And although I enjoy spending time with you all, and it feels good to be a family again, I just can't understand why Dad's doing this."
"He must be onto something," Scott told him, crawling into the tent and making the other two jump. "You said yourself this is bigger than us, Virge."
"Yeah," Virgil replied quietly.
"Maybe he wants us to pick up where he left off?" John suggested, watching Scott nod.
"If this thing he's after is so huge, it'd make sense for him to want us to train up a bit before bringing us in," he agreed. He glanced at the very quiet Virgil. "You're staying with us, aren't you?"
Scott's voice was unusually unsure and Virgil shut his eyes to hear it. "I'm not a hunter, I never planned to be," he replied, "but I'm not going to walk away from my family. I'm in until we find Dad."
With that, Scott had to be content.