“Why the hell didn’t you stay with the radio?”
Fossen seemed surprised, and stumbled backwards. “Once you lost your weapon, I figured you needed backup more than you needed me telling you where to go.”
Rook grunted. “You arrived at the right time, I’ll give you that.”
Fossen nodded. “As did you. I suspect you saved my life. Just as I arrived, I saw you fire at the wolf. Why?”
Rook tasted sweat as he smiled. “The behavior wasn’t making any damn sense unless the creature was doing the opposite of what we thought. I played a hunch and I was right.”
“Right about what?”
“Remember how you thought the wolves were chasing it? How its presence incited them to attack? What I saw suggested something different.
“The yeti was protecting the wolves from me.”
9
Once again, Rook went to sleep far closer to morning than evening. He hadn’t said much to Fossen during the drive back up to Peder’s barn, and he’d sensed that both of them were analyzing the events of the prior hour. The other man’s attempt to shoot the creature had saved Rook some pain, at a minimum, and besides appreciation, Rook now felt certain of Fossen’s commitment to destroying it. Whatever other agendas the man had, Rook felt more confident in teaming up with Fossen for this purpose.
After waking up just before noon, Rook considered what he knew, while sitting at Peder’s table drinking tea. Peder said, “Tell me again why you think the creature is protecting the wolves.”
“It could easily have killed me, but instead it tossed me aside and ran toward them. Then when I aimed the rifle, it came at me right away. It’s the only explanation.”
“Maybe it just doesn’t like guns.”
Rook looked up at Peder and saw the traces of a smile. He chuckled. “Maybe. Anyway, I know we injured it, but I can’t figure out where it disappeared to so quickly.”
Peder didn’t answer for a time, instead staring off to Rook’s left. Then he sighed, all signs of the smile evaporated. “Did you ask Eirek?”
“Yeah. Eirek said he had no idea. That slope continues on down to the ocean, right, on the other side of the point?”
“As far as I know, it does. I do not spend any time over there.”
“Well, I’ll be spending some time there this afternoon. Only thing I can think of to try is checking out the area in daylight, see if I missed anything last night. Even if I can just track the thing a bit further than the bottom of the embankment, it could be a clue to where it went. I’m starting to think the only way we kill this thing is to surprise it in its lair.”
“You might be right.”
Rook stood up. “So can I borrow your car again? You need it for anything?”
“No, Stanislav, I do not need it. Take it, and be careful.”
The old man looked weary to the bone, so different from that first night when he’d performed the nasal swab on Rook with the shotgun. Not for the first time, Rook suspected that the events of the past days had exposed tension the town’s residents had managed to keep under wraps for a long time.
Gotta love small towns. They seem so simple on the surface, but poke around a little and skeletons tumble out everywhere. I wonder what the hell is going on.
Rook patted Peder’s shoulder with his hand, feeling real affection for the Norwegian. Whatever secrets remained unrevealed, his instincts told him that Peder was the kind of man he could expect to do the right thing when the going got tough. “Looks like my showing up has made your life more difficult, huh?”
Peder’s eyebrows rose, and the sad smile showed more resignation than anything else. “Well, at least one good thing has come of it.”
“What’s that?”
“The creature has been so busy with you that my animals have been safe three nights in a row.”
Rook stopped the car in town. The road ended there, so he would make his way on foot back to the spot where the yeti had disappeared. First, he wanted to touch base with Fossen about what they would try that night.
When he parked the car, he looked around at the houses. Their proximity to each other gave the area a similar feel to many small village centers he’d encountered around the world, but the lack of indication of any kind of sales or trade stood out.
He’d only walked a few feet from his car when Anni, the woman who ran the “store” where he’d gotten food that first day, appeared in the sidewalk with two small children clinging to her skirt. Her eyes still carried the same worry they had earlier, but she smiled at Rook and held out her hand.
“Hello, Stanislav. I want to thank you for your help in fighting that monster.”
After the cold reception initially, this new appreciation surprised Rook, but he knew that sometimes people take a while to warm up. Especially when an unknown beast is ripping bodies apart.