Page 56 of Trusted Instinct
“Looks like you almost maneuvered yourself out of that mess.” He pulled out the emergency blanket, along with the disposable plastic poncho that he’d prepositioned in his pocket.
“I was doing a three-point turn, just not quite enough room or time. But I tried. Anyway, Parker, my grandson, hit his head pretty hard. I told him we needed to sit quietly in the car until the rescue workers came. Well, that only lasted for so long. He went out through the moonroof. He never could stand to be caught in places. Claustrophobia, you know. But when he got out, he wasn’t himself. He walked in the wrong direction, out toward those woods. Silly me, I took off after him. Slipped on the gravel, now I’m down for the count. A man from further up in the accident was heading up the road. I asked him to get help, and he made a video. He said he’d seen earlier in the day that there was a search and rescue team at the event.” She looked Creed up and down. “Beggars can’t be choosers, but when I heard ‘team’ I thought something other than a man and his puppy.”
“Star puppy,” Creed smiled as he wrapped the Mylar blanket around the woman. “I want to get on Parker’s trail as fast as I can. So let’s go through a few things, please.”
She held the sides together in a fist. “Ask away, and thank you. This here is a blessing.”
“Your grandson’s name is Parker. How old?” He pulled the poncho from its plastic packet.
“Oh, let’s see, I think that one was thirty-six on his last birthday. Maybe thirty-seven. I’m an old woman, and I have almost a dozen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. It’s hard to keep track.”
“I’m going to pull this over your head to cut the wind and keep you dry.” He opened the poncho. “Can you tell me what kind of shoes he was wearing?”
“Flat-bottomed, go-to-church shoes. We were there for the late service, then stopped for a bite to eat at the diner back in town.”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, that’s okay. What was he wearing? Is it appropriate for a day like today?”
“He had on his church suit. He left his overcoat in the car.”
“I’ll take that with me.” And as Creed found the man’s dress coat draped over the driver’s seat, he watched Rou give her coat a good shake. In this drizzle, Parker would be wet too. “Does Parker have a change of clothes and rain gear in your car?”
After Creed had gathered the information he needed, he offered Rou the coat to scent before putting it in his pack, then they went off into the woods.
Rou, nose to the ground, seemed to be tracking easily.
It was good luck that they were following before the weather had a significant impact on the scent cone.
The rain, as heavy as it had come down, though brief, dripped from the overhead evergreen needles and the bare deciduous limbs, still winter-naked. The forest floor was undisturbed for the most part. Parker wouldn’t slip on the carpet of needles that tend to roll and slide underfoot when wet, threatening a twist or sprain.
The head trauma was Creed’s biggest concern.
That, and if Creed found Parker non-ambulatory, there was no help to be had.
No sense in using brain cells to anticipate next steps; he had no idea what condition he’d find Parker.
While searching for Jeb in the woods earlier, Creed had found fault with the technology that allowed him to trace the zigzagging trail Rou had followed as she lost and then regained her scent. Now that he was jogging into more difficult terrain, he could see the benefit. During the search and rescue training sessions the team conducted in the Virginia mountains, Creed found that the leaf debris was thick and often hid naturally occurring pockets and holes in the ground.
How many times had he been on searches when his foot unexpectedly went down into a hole? It could easily take a searcher off the playing field, and worse, pull resources to him instead of focusing them on the lost person. A searcher’s weight, plus the weight of the resource pack he carried, typically filled with bivouacking supplies along with Rou’s needs and first aid equipment, meant that the body created a forward momentum that resisted stopping.
A body in motion—The sudden shift from go to stop meant wrenched knees, twisted ankles, and snapped tendons. A responder could train—and they did, they trained hard at Cerberus with athletic trainers who taught their bodies how to be both stable and dynamic—but a hole was a hole was a hole.
Nothing to be done about the hole other than hopefully shake it off and keep going.
This was more like war. Everyone was out on parallel missions, doing their best to handle the situation at hand.
Here, Creed was alone in his efforts to find and protect Parker.
Should he have a stick to prod? Yes.
Was he going to take the time to be prim about this shit?
Speed.
All else be damned.
