Participles and Portents (65)

Circles and Arrows

Thom followed Coll's tracks with relative ease.  He did not even need the pack's unerring ability to track his scent.  The grey had left a solid trail of prints, steady in the separation of pattern and weight, as he maintained a rhythmic pace in his pursuit of Conn along the outmost edge of the wet bank and into the damp forest paths.  It became a bit more difficult along the forest floor, but even here the weight and heft of the grey had left its mark.  The hunter took his time, noticing where signs of the larger blond began to appear.  After a time it became clear that Conn had set chase to something, yet Thom could not find a trace of what that something might have been.  There were branches broken and foliiage bent at odd angles that Conn could not have caused, but no identifying tracks.  It was an odd puzzle.  The hounds had ponded on ahead of him some minutes ago as the scent of their quarry had become stronger, he assumed.  He hastened his pace hoping to find the two hounds they sought together, both in good health.  He was trying not to imagine anything wrong.  Unfortunately he could think of no reason for their failure to return other than something having gone far afoul.

He found the hounds circling each other.  They were sniffing at a patch of ground.  They parted as he approached.  His initial impression was that something large had fallen in that spot.  He bent to a knee to examine the place.  He saw a small rut with a jagged stone cutting into its edge.  The light was just strong enough through the canopy to filter down and reveal the darkened edge of the stone and a deeper color in a streak soaked into the earth.  He ran his finger gently along the stone; it came away with a slight trace of red. Blood.  Something had likely caught itself in this rut and fallen, its foreleg cut on the jagged edge.  He wondered briefly if it might have been the prey, but knew in his gut that it had to have been Conn.  He rose and looked about him.  The tracks were too distrubed by the pack to make out much more.  He motioned them to stillness and moved away from the direct area.  He gazed around in the filtered light, looking upward through the canopy.  He  thought they had perhaps an hour and half more of decent tracking time.  Why would the two hounds have moved?  He had to assume that Coll had found Conn.  He could fairly well understand the grey not leaving the blond if it had been wounded.  But why would the hounds leave the site?   He moved on a bit farther looking for signs that would tell of the direction they moved in.  He picked up a set of tracks, one even with the depth made earlier in the tracks he had assumed were Coll's, another with a stride that revealed a favored right foreleg.  So, Conn's leg was injured.  How bad he couldn't know, he could only assume it was not grievous as the hounds were on the move.  It was off that they were not moving back in the direction Coll had come.  That would have been the logical return route, butt they were moving on down the path.  He motioned the pack forward; with one hound injured they had a good chance of catching up with the pair.

They followed the limping tracks along a wide looping curve of a trail, his suspicions of where they would end up growing as they turned toward the creek.   He almost laughed when they emerged at the exact place where Conn had last been with the pack.  It was an oddly smart place to exit the woods if the two hounds were trying to avoid being found by their pack.  Why they would be avoiding the pack made no sense. Was it possible that that they actually were?

There were too many prints to distinquish among them and the scents far too overlayed for the hounds to make sense of them.  As a group the pack simply kept circling; they appeared confused.  Thom stood, uncertain.  Then he took in the long line of the creek.  Did Coll take Conn through the water?  Was he giving the hound too much credit for thinking through what could possibly be a deliberate escape from the pack?  In all of his experience no other animal had ever done more than simply run when the instinct for danger had overtaken them.  Why would the hounds have any reason to consider the pack a danger?  It did not make sense, yet it was the first thought that came to mind when he realized they had circled back to a place that clearly obscured their trail.  Or had they?  Perhaps Coll had simply come out of the forest too soon and he had not been there.  If that were true, then the two hounds would be working their way down the creek looking for the pack.  This certainly seemed more plausible than the idea that the two hounds were deliberately hiding from him.

Thom ran along the embankment looking for the now familiar limping tracks tracks that would indicate the hounds were headed back.  All he could see was the jumble of the pack's coming and going prior.  He moved up to the area Coll had traversed when seeking Conn.  There was a clutter of tracks here too, but none in the opposing direction that he could discern.  He stopped and turned.  The pack was still milling about at the creek.  He needed to decide what to do, where to search next.  It was clear to him that he still needed to search - going home to Maire without Conn just did not seem like an option.  What were his options?  He could spend the time backtracking to see if Coll had returned with Conn to the site where he had been and had told him to come to.  It was most logical that they would go there.  His alternative was to search in the other direction.  He watched the pack.  Not a single hound seemed focused on the return direction; they were either at the edge or in the creek. 

Logic be damned, he thought, he was going to search the other way.  He was going to follow his gut.  He didn't know why but he was certain the hounds were running.  He knew Conn was hurt.  He could not leave him out here injured.  Maire would give him a full lashing if he came home without the blond.  If he left him here hurt without making every effort to find and help him she would have his head on a pike.  Surely he was up to the task of tracking two hounds, one of them limping? He sighed wearily.  There would be no more tracking this evening, the light was fading fast.  Thom settled the pack for the night.  Tomorrow they would start the hunt for Coll and Conn and with any luck tomorrow they would finish it as well.

Coll let Conn rest.  He investigated the area, getting a feel for where they might head next.  He hunted on his own as well, bringing down a fat rabbit and a squirrel.  He ate the squirrel and carried the rabbit back to Conn.  The blond had not risen since settling in the thicket.  The squirrel he had left theire earlier was untouched.  Coll laid down the rabbit and picked up the squirrel.  He moved off into the woods a few paces and buried it deep.  Then he went back to Conn.  He nosed him awake and then pressed the rabbit on him.  The blond ate in huge gulps, clearly starved. Coll left him, and when he returned it was with another rabbit, not nearly as large, but still more to fill the blond's belly.  Conn wolfed this offering down as well.

When he had finished crunching the last bone, Conn cocked his head to look Coll in the eye.  The hounds shared a moment of intense contact.  Then the blond crawled out of the thicket and rose shakily, his right foreleg in the air.  Coll moved to Conn's side and gently pawed at the leg, pressing it downward until the larger hound finally lowered the limb to the ground.  Conn appeared to almost hop as the leg took on close to full weight, then he redistributed the weight, shifting heavily to the left.  He stood for several heartbeats looking very much like a statue of a wolfhound until Coll stepped out and  they began to move together through the woods.  Coll kept the pace steady.  They moved together with a shared instinct keeping them in motion for roughly two hours.  Finally, they found an area of dense underbrush.  Conn clambered into the deepest recess he could wedge into, finding some comfort in the thick bed of pine needles.  Once settled he began to lick his injured paw, as if this would somehow ease the ache and heal the twisted muscles and torn skin. 

Coll watched him, hoping that a night's rest would make the blond faster.  He did not know why, but it seemed urgent that they find a way to disappear.  He thought briefly of Thom and the pack. He pictured Cait as he had last seen her.  He wondered how she fared.  Was the woman taking care of her?  How were the pups?  Would he be back in time to see them born?  And then it hit him.  He wasn't going to be back.  He was running away from Cait and the pups by running away with Conn.  He looked at the blond, licking the wounded leg.  He thought of Cait.  There was nothing he could do.  His place was here, he had to help Conn. He watched as the blond finally put its head on its paws to rest.  As soon as the blond was safe, he would go back to Cait and the pups.  He might not be there to see them come into the world, but he could still be there.  Satisfied, Coll settled himself into a comfortable position and let himself drift to sleep. 

Flickered images of Thom's killing stick, the feel of Cait beneath him, and Thom holding the broken hound bounced through his dreams.  A loud crack ripped through his consciousness and brought Coll to his feet.  His heart was racing wildly.  He stood there rigidly alert, listening for any movement, scenting for any variance from the scent of the bed they had found and their collective scent.  He found nothing but scents and sounds of the forest and of Conn.  He gradually settled back down to the ground.  He was wary and full of a sense of danger.  He felt awkward in that he could not pinpoint the source of the danger.  The feeling unnerved him.  He found himself letting out a low gutteral growl from deep in the back of his throat.  He wasn't sure if it was a warning or a complaint.  Either way it promised to be an exceptionally long night.