Read Hunted for Free Online Page B

uses for it.
    She slipped her knife out and cut a sample to
take home.
    A shadow fell over her shoulder, and Kali
jumped. But it was only Cedar, rifle at the ready, guarding her
back.
    Still crouching, she surveyed the rest of the
wreckage. “Where’s the furnace, the boiler, and the entire bottom
of the flyer?”
    “Where’s the woman?” Cedar asked.
    “Yes, that’s a useful question too. Maybe the
bottom half broke off from the top and landed somewhere else?”
    He left her side and scouted the crash site.
Only a few seconds passed before he stopped, pointed at the ground,
and said, “No.”
    Kali joined him. A pair of long, thin
depressions gouged the spruce needles, mud, and snow. They headed
inland in a straight line.
    “These are the same width and depth of the
lines behind the hill outside Dawson,” Cedar said, “except those
were short and didn’t continue into the forest.”
    The smell of freshly cut wood mingled with
the smoke, and Kali spotted broken branches on either side of the
tracks. Some had been snapped, but other larger ones were sawn
off.
    “Brilliant,” Kali breathed. “The lower half
must be a ground vehicle that can work without the top half.” She
had a hard time tearing her gaze from the tracks. Even the hewn
branches impressed her—the vehicle must have some sort of
fast-working saw created for brush clearing. She hadn’t thought to
add that to her bicycle. “Cedar, I think I’m in love.”
    “With the vehicle or the woman who wants to
kill you?”
    “The vehicle, one hundred percent. The
woman... It depends on if she’s the person who made the vehicle or
not.”
    “I doubt she’ll prove lovable if she works
for one of the gangster’s trying to collect the secrets in your
head.”
    Kali sniffed. “Nobody like that would work
for a gangster.”
    “You seem certain about a great number of
things for someone so young and untraveled.”
    “What great number of things?” she
asked, annoyed to be reminded she had been so few places. That
would change one day soon.
    “The motives of villains. The fact that
tracking is so easy a hound can do it.”
    Ah, so that comment still rankled him. It had
been unfair of her, but she had trouble admitting when she was
wrong. “That’s only two things.”
    “If we mean to track her down before dark, we
can’t loiter.” Cedar strode up the center of the broad trail.
    “What are you doing?” Kali blurted.
    “Walking?”
    “Up the middle of the trail? If I was
wounded, and I thought someone was following me, I’d booby trap the
most obvious route. We might get hurt if we presume it’s safe to
amble up the hill after her.”
    “You have an alternative proposition?” His
tone held a struggling-for-patience edge.
    He probably didn’t appreciate her telling him
how to track. But this person was dangerous, maybe far more
dangerous than the usual thugs he hunted down. He might need her help.
    “Maybe we can guess where she’s going and
avoid the tracks.”
    Cedar waited, arms folded over his chest.
    “She may have transportation,” Kali said,
“but clearing the undergrowth will slow her, and we did shoot her,
so she’ll need to stop to tend that wound soon.”
    “Likely.”
    “Do you have a map?” she asked.
    Wordlessly, Cedar removed his packsack and
withdrew a compass and map.
    Kali unfolded the latter. Her people had
camped up and down these rivers when she was growing up, and she
knew the area well, but she wanted to see the overheard viewpoint
since their attacker would have been watching the world from
above.
    “Maybe this ridge.” Kali tapped a stony gray
terrain feature on the hand-colored map. “There are caves up there.
Should be about three miles from here. I know a trail that heads up
there. It’s out of our way, but it should be faster than cutting
through the brush, especially since someone won’t deign to use his
fancy pig sticker—”
    “Katana,” Cedar said.
    “Right, since someone won’t use his