“Sorry,” I say. “Pop culture reference. So that’s what they look like in real life. Not nearly as scary as the comic book version.”

“They’re scary enough if you interrupt them at a kill. Pound for pound, they’re the nastiest bastards out here. They can take on a wolf and win, no contest, because a wolverine doesn’t know when to give up. They keep fighting until someone’s dead.”

“Dangerous to humans, then.”

“Not lethally.” He puts his gun away. “Unless you were wounded and it was really hungry. Course, most times they’re really hungry. Their Latin name is Gulo gulo. Gulo means glutton.”

“Ah.”

“You don’t want to mess with them. Chances are, though, that’s the only one you’ll see while you’re here.”

Dalton peers into the clearing, and his gaze returns to that thing in the tree. He strides toward it.

As I scan the clearing, I see the sunlight glimmer in a way it shouldn’t glimmer off anything in a forest. Dalton lifts his foot over a metal bear trap, and I lunge. An eye blink later, he’s on his back and I’m crouched over him.

He says nothing. Just lifts his head to look around, as if being randomly knocked to the ground is perfectly normal. Then he spots what he almost stepped in and whispers, “Fuck.” I ease off him and rise.

Dalton crouches beside the rusty bear trap. As he’s examining it, I ask, “Would that be settlers? Or do other trappers come through here?”

“The odd hunter, trapper, miner,” he says without looking up.

“Miner?”

“There’s still gold. Mostly in the rivers. Our locals pan for fun during fishing trips.”

He glances at me then, as if expecting a response, and I’m thinking it might be fun to pan for gold. But it seems a little silly, so instead I say, “Don’t you worry about these outside miners or trappers stumbling on Rockton?”

He grunts and turns back to the trap, and I think he’s not going to answer, but then he says, “There are almost five hundred thousand square kilometres of wilderness in the Yukon. Rockton is less than one square kilometre. Our patrols sometimes get wind of people passing through, but trappers and miners are like bears. If they hear us, they steer clear. Even if they did find the town, we’d pass it off as a commune. People up here mind their own business.” He gets to his feet. “This trap, though? It’s ours.”

“You put out unmarked—”

“Fuck, no. I mean it’s an old one of ours. Stolen. Folks out here take our stuff when they find it.”

“The hostiles?”

“Everyone out here.”

The way he says it makes me scan the forest again, as if it’s swarming with hermits and settlers and hostiles.

He sets off the trap with a stick. “Too bad it didn’t catch that wolverine. Meat tastes like shit, but the fur repels frost. Good for lining a parka.”

“You had your gun pointed at it.”

“If it attacked, sure. Otherwise, shooting it wouldn’t be fair. I don’t need the pelt. Just would have been nice.” He looks over at me. “I should say thanks, too. Excellent reflexes. I’ll admit, when you told me that, I thought you were full of crap.”

“Now you know why I don’t carry my gun.”

“I’ll still argue the point, but I’ll accept yours. For now. We’ll work on it, retrain your brain to react in a way that doesn’t involve firing a gun. And I need to work on paying more attention. I usually do, but …” His gaze returns to the tree.

“What the hell is that?” I ask.

“No idea.”

It looks like a length of thick rope. It’s been nailed to the trunk, maybe ten feet up. Claw gouges in the bark say that’s what the wolverine was trying to reach, but it was too high. Presumably, it’s what the ravens were after, too, but the position would have made it awkward to get at, though I see peck marks where they’ve tried.

I take another step. Then I stop as my stomach lurches.

“Intestines,” I say.

“What?”

“It’s—”

“Fuck. Yeah. I see now.”

He moves closer, his gaze on the ground, watching every step until he’s at the tree. I’m beside him, both of us looking up at about eighteen inches of intestine hanging from the trunk.

Part 3

Previously, in City of the Lost …

By disappearing to Rockton, Casey has successfully shed her dark past. But all is not well—a string of suspicious deaths has set the small community reeling, and local resident Jerry Hastings is still missing.

When Casey and Diana reunite for a drink, they are joined by the handsome deputy, Will Anders. Casey quickly realizes Diana has slept with Anders, a fact Anders wants to forget. Diana lashes out in bitter jealousy—she thinks Anders and Casey are now a couple.

But it’s not Anders but the difficult, brooding sheriff, Eric Dalton, who has been Casey’s rock since the beginning—building her fire, bringing her food—despite his cold, combative nature. Slowly, they gain each other’s trust.

Casey discovers that two women—Irene Prosser and Abbygail Kemp—have been the victims of an extensive cover-up: Irene didn’t commit suicide—she was murdered. And Abbygail, who had a school-girl crush on Eric, would never have wandered into the forest alone. Casey also learns of a mysterious forest-dweller named Jacob.