Chapter 3

Uncomfortable in hiking boots, Ed followed behind Albert as he slipped through the woods. While Ed was proud of being an outdoorsman, the Ranger was amazing in how quietly he could move through very rough terrain. Ed was no match for him. Poor Howard, following behind the two men, was positively miserable. After years of not wearing regular clothes, the khaki cotton jeans rubbed him in all of the wrong places, the shirt felt confining, and his hiking boots were rubbing blisters on his feet.

Coming to a sudden stop at the tree line, Albert pointed at a small herd of deer at the tree line on the other side of the meadow. Howard shouted, “Wow. Look at all those deer.”

The moment that Howard spoke, all of the deer took off into the woods. An irritated voice from less than fifty feet away shouted back, “Who’s the idiot that scared off the deer?”

Grinning at Howard who flushed from the anonymous comment, Ed answered, “That would be my intern, Leroy.”

A feminine voice called out, “Is that you, Ed?”

“Yes, it is, Ling.”

The three men stepped into the meadow as Ling and Leroy stepped out a short distance away. Ed studied Ling and liked how she was dressed like a Forest Ranger without all of the insignia. He had never pictured her as an outdoor type and this was actually a nice look for her. Leroy called out as he approached, “Is that a Ranger with you?”

“Yes, it is.”

“No wonder you found us out here in the middle of nowhere,” replied Leroy. The Rangers were famous within certain circles for their tracking ability.

Howard decided that the group was going to stand around and talk, so he sat down on the ground to relax. He didn’t understand what they were doing there in the middle of nowhere. After a few minutes, he started itching. Looking down, he realized that he was sitting on an ant pile. Jumping up, he shouted and slapped at himself trying to brush off all of the ants that had swarmed over him.

While Ed and Albert were amused, Leroy was not. He shouted, “Be quiet! There won’t be a deer within twenty miles of here by the time you’re done.”

Ed interrupted the tirade that Leroy was about to launch. “Leroy. We are here to hunt monsters and not deer. A Ranger’s body was found not too far from here.”

All thoughts of deer fled as Leroy turned to face Ed. Shocked, he echoed, “A Ranger’s body?”

“Yes. Albert came out here to investigate and I came with him,” answered Ed. He pointed to Howard and said, “This is Howard. He’s my intern from the College. He has little to no experience in the woods, so forgive him while he learns.”

Mollified somewhat, Leroy asked, “So is he learning anything?”

“Yes, he is,” replied Ed. Considering that they had only been out here for three days, the kid had learned a lot about moving through the woods.

Albert said, “Let’s get over to your camp and pack up so that we can move out. We’ve still got about four hours of daylight.”

Grinning at Albert, Ling replied, “No need. We’re already packed up and ready to go. We’ve been following that herd for the past four days.”

Relieved, Albert pointed to the north and said, “We need to go that way to the site where the Ranger’s body was found. I’m sure that all clues have been disturbed, but there might be something.”

Ed asked, “Would it be faster to go back to where we left the car?”

“No. The car is a two-day hike from here and the site is a day’s hike. We’ll be able to get a ride to pick up the car.”

Howard, having spent three days tramping through the woods, asked, “So how come it took us three days to get here?”

“We didn’t know where here was. I had to track them down.”

“Oh,” replied Howard. The idea that Albert had no idea where he was going seemed odd to him. After thinking about it, he asked, “So how did we end up here?”

Even though Leroy hadn’t been with them, he knew exactly how they had been found. He looked at Howard and said, “He tracked us. He went into the woods looking for signs that we had been there. Once he found them, he followed our tracks. It’s a pretty impressive feat.”

“How difficult is that?”

“Leroy and Ling were somewhere over there. Why don’t you find out exactly where they were by looking for signs of where they had been?” suggested Ed with a smile.

This digression irritated Albert who was ready to go. Perturbed, he said, “Let’s go. I don’t have all day to waste here.”

Holding up a hand, Ed replied in a firm voice, “A student has asked to learn. We teach him.”

The rebuke brought Albert up short. He remembered the number of times that he had wasted time helping his students learn more about woodcraft. Lowering his head, he said, “I’m sorry. There are only three dozen of us and the loss of one hurts me more than I thought possible.”

Nodding, Ed replied, “Believe me. I know how that is. When a Druid was killed by organized crime, we put a lot of effort into taking those responsible down.”

Howard had wandered towards where he thought Ling and Leroy had been. He walked around trying to see something that might help him determine where they had been, but it all looked like grass, brush, and trees to him. He was about to take a step, when Albert shouted, “Stop.”

One of the things that Howard had learned over the past three days was that when someone shouted stop, you froze in place. He did as he had learned. Albert walked up to him and said, “Set your foot down.”

Howard did it looking around for whatever might have caused Albert to shout at him. There wasn’t a snake. Albert knelt down close to where the young man was about to step. Pointing to the ground, he asked, “What do you see here?”

“Nothing.”

“Look again. Look at the grass and compare it to the grass around this area.”

Howard squatted and looked where Albert was pointing. The grass looked like grass to him. He followed Albert’s finger as he pointed out various blades of grass. Albert said, “Do you see how these blades of grass are all bent in this direction while these others are standing straight up?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Look at the pattern that the bent blades make. What does it look like to you?”

Howard examined the area that Albert was pointing at while trying to figure what it looked like. After a minute, he said, “I guess it looks like the front half of a shoe.”

“Good. Now look back here. Do you see how the ground is indented a little and a few of the grass blades are broken?”

“Yes, I do,” answered Howard. It was clear when pointed out to him and he realized that was the result of the heel being set down. Excited he said, “That’s the heel of the shoe. Whoever it was, was walking towards me.”

“Right,” replied Albert pleased that the guy was taking the clues and putting them together to tell a story. He said, “Knowing that, where would you look for the previous footprint?”

Howard looked around the ground and then said, “It should be a step back from that footstep.”

“Find it.”

The grass was slightly bent about eighteen inches back from the step that he had been examining. Pointing at the spot, he said, “There.”

“Who do you think was walking?”

Taking a guess, he said, “Leroy.”

Recognizing the questioning tone in his voice, Albert asked, “Why?”

After thinking about it for a minute, the answer came to him. Smiling, he answered, “The length of the step.”

“Exactly. Now there are several secrets in tracking that will help you find signs that someone has been through an area. One is that people and animals tend to walk in a straight line unless there is an obstacle in their way. The other is that you never step on sign that you have already located. You walk off to the side and behind, close enough to spot the next sign.”

Taking a few paces over to the side, Howard moved forward slowly looking for the next footstep. After a few steps, he saw where the entire area was matted down. Stopping, he pointed and said, “That is where they were lying when we came along.”

Albert had watched Howard follow the tracks of Leroy back to the spot where they had been watching the deer. Nodding his head to confirm that Howard was correct, he said, “That’s right. Now look at the area and tell me where Ling was.”

For a full minute Howard looked at the area and decided that it was right in front of him. He pointed at the spot and said, “Right there.”

“Okay. So where did she walk when she left?”

The question was easiest to answer by visualizing them laying there and then standing up to walk over to them. After a second, he said, “About where I’m standing?”

“Exactly. Of course, you wiped out all trace of her sign by trampling all over them.”

Embarrassed, Howard looked down at the ground and said, “I didn’t know.”

Grinning, Albert said, “That’s what makes tracking hard.”

“I had the advantage that I knew where they had been. You didn’t know, so how did you find their sign to begin with?”

Albert gestured for the others to follow them. As he led the way towards his destination, he answered, “There are all kinds of methods to use. I had a good idea of where they would be. I’m sure that you didn’t notice that we made a very circuitous path the first day and a half as I was searching for some sign of them. I came across a set of tracks yesterday afternoon.”

“Oh, I didn’t notice,” replied Howard as he thought about how much his feet hurt.

As the pair walked towards the site where the Ranger’s body had been found, Albert would stop and point out things for Howard to notice. Ed, Leroy, and Ling followed behind the pair. For Leroy, much of what Albert was saying was old news although he did learn a trick or two from the Ranger. For Ed, tracking in the woods was an entirely new topic and he listened with his full attention.

After an hour, Ling broke the silence when she said, “Ed, I bet you could show him a thing or two about tracking in the desert.”

“I don’t know about that. He’s pretty observant,” answered Ed.

Laughing, Leroy said, “Out here, he knows what to look for and how to interpret it. In the desert, you know what to look for and how to interpret it.”

“Maybe,” replied Ed in a voice that expressed lots of doubt.

“You find a cactus with a nip taken out of it. There is still moisture around the nip. When was the nip made?”

“Less than ten minutes before you found it,” replied Ed automatically. Cactus was tight with water and healed itself very quickly.

Leroy smiled at Ed and didn’t say a word. Noticing the look that Leroy was giving him, Ed nodded and conceded the point, “You’re right.”

Albert had heard the exchange and asked, “Who would have thought that a little nip out of a cactus meant something. What would have caused it?”

“A bird, but you would have to see the exact type of cactus and the kind of nip to know what kind of bird it was,” replied Ed.

Looking over at the student beside him, Albert said, “You may feel that you are the least knowledgeable amongst us, but we are all students. Every minute out here, we learn new things about the way that nature behaves. When I’m given the opportunity to see some new sight, I take the time to watch it. It doesn’t matter if it’s an insect that I’ve never seen before eating a leaf or the mating ritual of a pair of birds.”

Thoughtful, Howard dropped back to think about what he had learned. The courses on biology at the school had not prepared him for the lessons that he was learning out here. Although he had not felt that he had learned much the first three days, he had adapted to the new environment in a fashion that would allow him to learn more over the next few days. It was true that his feet still hurt from the boots, but Albert and Ed had made sure that he changed his socks frequently, put powder inside the boot to reduce the rubbing, and took care of his sores.

Ed, uncomfortable with the continuous weight of the pack on his back, shifted his backpack and looked over at Leroy. With a grin, he asked, “Why would you possibly want to carry this stuff when a horse would do that for you?”

Laughing at his husband’s obvious discomfort, Leroy asked, “Did you pack your cast iron cook set?”

“By the Gods and Goddesses, no! I’m not that stupid,” replied Ed to the laughter of Ling and Leroy. He added, “Of course, I haven’t had a decent meal out here. That aluminum cookware just doesn’t have the same effect on the food.”

Albert allowed them to catch up as he added, “Ed has burned everything that he’s tried to cook.”

Shaking his head in disgust, Ed said, “At least the steaks came out good.”

Exchanging a glance, Ling and Leroy both know how important food was to Ed. Ling said, “We’ll let Leroy cook tonight.”

“Speaking of tonight, we had better camp early and near a stream. We’ve got to wash our clothes and some fresh fish would be a real treat,” said Leroy.

Looking a little irritated, Albert was about to reply that he hated to waste daylight. However, a moment of reflection reminded him that Leroy and Ling had been out in the field for at least a month. He had seen how they had harvested food along their path, making occasional detours to get food. Taking a more gentle tone, he asked, “How are your supplies holding up?”

“They are okay. We’ve been grazing as we traveled,” replied Leroy.

“I’m sure that you are tired of eating roots and leaves.”

“You can say that again,” replied Ling. She wasn’t going to be able to face a tuber for months after getting out of here. There had been the occasional rabbit and squirrel, but even that was getting old.