Alice's Arc

Chapter 9 of 20

Alice reached the ridge at ten past midnight. The ranger had left a paper sack at the trailhead with the hiker's scent article inside, a wool cap taken from the lodge road. Alice opened the sack under the light of her stick. The cap was gone. The bottom of the sack was torn, and the tear was fresh. She turned the paper over in her hands. She checked the ground around the post. No cap in the grass. No cap on the road. Wind had pulled it out, or an animal had, or the ranger had grabbed the wrong bag. It did not matter which. Biscuit had nothing to smell. Without a scent, he could not track. Without tracking, the hiker stayed lost. Alice stood still and made herself think. She could not call the family at the lodge; they were an hour away and asleep. She could not wait for another article. She looked at Biscuit. His ears were up. He watched the trees. A bird dropped onto the trail post beside her, red head, blue wings, white breast. The same bird from her kitchen sill. It hopped once and looked at the torn sack. Then it flew ten feet up the road and landed again. Alice took a step. The bird flew ten more feet. She followed. Fifty yards up the lodge road, the bird settled on a low branch above a patch of matted grass. A wool cap lay in the grass, wet with dew. The wind had carried it, or the bird had. Alice did not stop to ask. She picked up the cap with the paper sack so her own hands would not spoil the scent. She held it low for Biscuit. He pushed his nose into the wool. His tail went stiff. He pulled toward the pines. Above them, high over the ridge, a small point of gold light crossed the sky and was gone. She had seen a man fly like that once in a news clip, wearing a ring. She did not think about it now. She had a scent. She had a dog. She had a direction. Biscuit worked the trail into the dense pines with his nose low. Alice kept the light on her stick steady and let him lead. Twenty minutes in, he stopped at the base of a deadfall and sat down hard. He did not growl. Alice crouched beside the logs and shone the light between them. A boot stuck out, and above the boot, a leg, and a voice said her name in a thin, tired way. The hiker was alive. Alice keyed the radio and gave the ranger the location. Then she sat down next to Biscuit in the pine needles and waited for him to get up on his own.