Page 105 of Doing Life

“You think the dogs can track him in this, man?”

“I think Maynard can, yeah.” It was that pup’s life purpose. It was what scent hounds were meant for, and Maynard loved Lance dearly.

Hell, he loved all the guys. And he’d had Maynard out in all kinds of conditions. Scent trails were like paved roads to this dog.

“Okay, well, it’s better than nothing. There are too many horses and too much mud to track hoof marks.”

“Maynard. Maynard find.” He held out Brick’s arm for the hound to scent as soon as Stan was ready to go. Someone had wrapped it in a big plastic bag for him, which was great, since it kept it dry and kept the smell fresh.

Maynard’s ears perked up, the big boofy head tilting.

Then a bay sounded and Stan revved the engines.

Time to go find Lance and the rest of the guys.

Chapter Thirty

“Lance, it’s getting dark, man. They’re never going to see the bandana you hung up.”

Fuck him. Why hadn’t someone found them yet? He had to stay calm, because the thread of panic in Chris’s voice was becoming a big fat chunky piece of yarn. “All right, well, they’re coming. You know that they are.”

They hadn’t gone that far out from the ranch house, but he had no way to know what that meant in practical terms.

He was worried about Boone. He was alive, no question, still breathing, warm, but out. Like completely unconscious, and given the situation they were in, that might be for the best.

Better out and quiet than serious brain injury and screaming or puking.

Not only that, it was cold.

Not like fixin’-to-snow cold, but between the sleet and the hail and the rain, and now the coming dark it was pretty fucking uncomfortable. They were soaked to the bone and shivering, and they had to keep Boone warm, so they ended up pressing together to share heat.

He was beginning to worry that Chris was going into shock—even if Chris didn’t feel that broken ankle, his body knew it was broken, and God knew what kind of toxins were being released, and Lance couldn’t see to tell. “Wanna split the granola bar?”

Distraction was his friend.

“I don’t know; I think it’ll just make us thirsty.” Chris blew out a hard breath, and Lance heard his belly rumble.

“Did you put that empty bottle out where the rain could fill it up?”

“I did. I got about half a bottle…”

“It’s not Perrier, but it’s going to be way cleaner than anything that we get out of any kind of stream.” He patted Chris’s hand. “We didn’t go far. Not much more than an hour, they’re going to find us.”

Chris started calling out again, hollering over and over.

“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!”

He tuned the sound out, trying to think about their next move, so to speak.

They had the blankets, and they could cuddle with Boone if they had to. They had matches in that weird little first aid kit. And he was beginning to think about crawling around and seeing if there was some dead fall underneath the trees that wasn’t soaked. They needed something where they could make a little fire, which would warm them up, but more importantly it would give a beacon some way for anybody to see them.

“Hey, Chris!” He interrupted the yelling. “How dark is it?”

“It’s getting dark, but it’s not pitch black yet or anything.”

He could work with that. “So you can help me. I want to try to find some dry wood.”

“Do you think it’s going to be a thing? Oh man, this isn’t a forest. It’s just like this little group of trees, and it’s pretty,damned wet, um…” He heard Chris’s body shift on the leaves. So that was what squelching sounded like. “I guess, I mean, maybe if you dug underneath some of these leaves that are piled around the bases of the trees…”

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