“I know you aren’t. Why don’t we play it by ear? If we find him right away, then fine. If we don’t, we call them in. Besides, how far can a three-year-old get?” Kent would be kicking himself in the ass later for asking that very question.
“Are we doing this together?”
“What do you mean by that? We have the dogs smell the clothes, then tell them to track, we follow the dogs. I’m sure Mikey didn’t go in different directions. It might seem like he went in circles at first, but once they pick up the trail, we go together.”
“Okay, will there be anyone else out here with us?”
“No, Julie doesn’t have a dog, Dad’s at a convention out of state and he took Tank with him. Scott’s dog is in the middle of having pups.” She grinned at Kent’s shocked look. “Yeah, hedidn’t have her fixed when the time came. He said he could control her and she wouldn’t get knocked up.”
Kent grinned, then turned serious. “Okay, let’s do this.” He opened the plastic bag for Tate to smell. Together, he and Rita shoved the bag beneath their dogs’ noses and Kent told Tate firmly, “Tate, find.” The same time Rita said, “Zeke, find.” They pulled the bags away from them, and Kent held his breath when Tate looked around in confusion. Two heartbeats later he let out a sigh of relief when Tate stuck his nose to the ground and began sniffing. With enough lead of the leash, he let Tate go. It took a few minutes, but both dogs picked up the trail of little Mikey at the same time.
CHAPTER 10
Four hoursafter leaving the Kelp campsite, Kent called a halt for a small break. After giving Tate a drink of water, and taking one for himself, he looked over at Rita in concern. He handed her one of the extra bottles he had packed. After sharing it with Zeke, she looked at him in frustration.
“How far can a little boy go?”
“No clue,” Kent said as he wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm and the crook of his elbow. Before he even brought his arm down from his face, Tate jerked on his leash and took off. If Kent hadn’t been spry he would have dropped the leash. Without saying a word, he took off at a dead run after his dog. He looked back once to see Rita and Zeke hot on his heels. Kent lost track of how long they ran when Tate suddenly stopped and waited for the others to catch up.
“What do you have, Tate?” Kent asked the dog, and watched as the pup hunkered down on his belly and slowly crawled to the edge of a cliff. Kent and Rita exchanged worried looks when Zeke did the same thing.
Kent took his pack off, and grabbed several items. One of them was a pair of binoculars. He eased down beside the two dogs and looked over the edge. After giving a long whistle as tohow far down it was, he used the glasses to see what he could find. He only hoped it wasn’t some animal that Tate had chased.
“Fuck,” he said as soon as he looked over the side of the cliff. He didn’t need the binoculars to find Mikey. He looked back at Rita and asked. “Can you rappel?”
“No. That’s why I wanted to work with you on Saturday.”
“Okay,” Kent said as he rolled over to the side and pulled out his phone. After doing something with a few buttons, he pulled a different phone from his pack and looked at Rita’s confused look. “Satellite phone.” He dialed and his expression showed relief only seconds later.
“Mason, it’s Kent. We found the boy, we’re going to need an airlift.” He read numbers off his cell phone, and listened on the other end. After he confirmed, he hung up.
“We can have a chopper here in thirty minutes.” He handed her the satellite phone. “There’s no signal for our cells, use this to call who you have to. Tell them I have a chopper on the way. Ask where they want us to take the boy. I’m going to rappel down with Tate.” Kent looked directly at Rita as he said the next part, “If he’s alive, then Tate can be with him while I get him ready to be lifted out of here.”
“Okay,” Rita said as she took the phone and called it in. By the time Kent was ready to go over the cliff, she had hung up with the person she’d called.
“I called Sheriff Jim. He said to call back when you get down to Mikey and assess the situation. He wants to know his status before he tells you where to go.”
“Roger,” Kent said, and because if felt right, he leaned in, wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and brought her in for a kiss. He kept it short. After he broke it off, he went to the edge and started down.
“Wait!” Rita called after him. At his raised brow, she asked, “How am I to know what you find? How will you get the information to me so I can call it in?”
Kent paused long enough to reach into the front pocket of his pack and pull out a walkie talkie. He handed it to her. “I have another one in my pack.”
“Okay.” She took it and after Kent disappeared, she lay down next to Zeke. The look on the dog’s face when he watched Kent and Tate go over, then at her, was priceless. “We’ll get to do that soon, Zeke,” Rita whispered as she held her breath the entire time Kent descended. It seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes. As she watched, she liked the fact that he secured Tate to the side of the mountain first before assessing the little boy.
“He’s alive!” Kent’s voice came across the walkie talkie.
“Thank god,” Rita said to Zeke, and decided to wait to answer until she had all the information. She grabbed a small pad of paper and pencil from her pack and started writing down what Kent said. By the time she was done, she shook her head. “I’m going to call Sheriff Jim back.”
“Okay, let me know where to take him. In the meantime, I’ll stabilize him for transport.”
“Will do.” Rita dialed the phone, and it was picked up on the second ring. “Sheriff Jim, it’s Rita.”
“What did you find?”
“He’s alive,” were the first words out of her mouth, and Rita heard a sigh of relief from the sheriff.
“Injuries?”
