The Loner. Lindsay McKenna

       CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

       CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

      CHAPTER ONE

      DAKOTA CARSON SENSED danger. A fragile pink dawn lay like a silent ribbon along the eastern horizon. As he exhaled, white clouds congealed for a moment in front of him, telling him it was below freezing on this June first morning. Standing on a small rise at the edge of an oval meadow, he studied a football-field-long swath of willows that ran through the center.

      His left arm ached in the cold, reminding him why he’d been discharged from the U.S. Navy and his SEAL team. He’d suffered permanent nerve damage during a firefight. Never mind the post-traumatic stress disorder he coped with 24/7. Now his hyperalertness was telling him something wasn’t right. But what was wrong? Eyes narrowing, he scanned the quiet, early morning area. To his right rose the majestic Teton Mountains, their white peaks taking on a pinkish alpine glow.

      It was quiet. Too quiet. He’d been a SEAL for ten years and at twenty-eight, he was no stranger to threatening situations. He knew one when he felt it. To his left, he saw a gray movement. It was Storm, a female wolf he’d rescued a year earlier. Thus far, she treated him like her alpha mate, but he was sure she wouldn’t hang around as she matured. There was every possibility she’d leave him and join the Snake River wolf pack that ruled this valley in Wyoming. Storm was loping at the edge of the forest, ears twitching back and forth, nose in the air, picking up scents.

      Yesterday Dakota had laid five rabbit traps out in these willows. It was one of many places he trapped in order to live outside society and the town of Jackson Hole. Since being released from the hospital and months of painful physical therapy to get his shoulder working, Dakota wanted to hide. He didn’t look too closely at why, only that he had to heal up. Ten years spent in the SEALs had been the happiest time of his life, but deployment into Iraq and Afghanistan had taken their toll on his body and emotions.

      Sniffing the air, he tried to locate the source of the threat. Grizzlies had their own odor. So did elk. No stranger to studying the land and vegetation, Dakota could spot things few others could. His sniper SEAL training had taught him stealth and tracking.

      Storm had disappeared into the tree line again. The months of May and June were prime elk birthing season. It was also the same time when hungry grizzlies came out of hibernation, starving for anything to eat. Elk babies were the number-one food source on their menu. Storm always hunted her own meals. She was looking for smaller prey. One wolf could not take down a baby elk. A pack was needed, instead.

      Dakota studied the willows, his hearing keyed, but he heard nothing. Had an elk mother calved a baby in there? What was he sensing? Just because he could sometimes feel a threat didn’t mean he knew what the threat was. If a new elk calf was in there, a grizzly could be skulking around, out of his sight, trying to locate it. The bear could have picked up on the scent of the afterbirth before the mother could eat it and destroy the odor. The thick, naked willows reminded Dakota of a porcupine with its back up, the crochetedlike needles raised skyward. The problem was they grew so high and thick, he couldn’t see through the grove. There was no movement. No sound.

      The air was still. Nothing seemed to move, which was odd because dawn was the busiest time of the day for nocturnal and diurnal animals. The pink along the horizon deepened and the sky above lightened. Dakota could no longer see the myriad stars above his head; they were diluted, having disappeared in the dawn light. It would be a long time before the sun would rise, however. He heard a raven cawing somewhere off in the distance. Other than that, it was as if the earth herself were holding her breath.

      For what? He rubbed the back of his neck with his gloved hand, but his old shoulder injury protested with the movement. After allowing his hand to drop to his side, Dakota shouldered a .300 Win Mag Winchester magnum rifle with a sling across his right shoulder. He’d been a sniper in the SEALs and had used this rifle to hunt down the bad guys. Out here in the wilds of Wyoming, where grizzly were the predator, Dakota never tracked or hunted anywhere without a big rifle. Grizzlies, especially this time of year, were hungry, irritable and mean. All they wanted was food and they’d kill anything and anyone to protect their carcass or find.

      Dakota wasn’t foolhardy. Patience was his best protection. A bear would move eventually, and the willows would tremble and wave back and forth. But if it was an elk calf?

      Dakota waited on the rise. He was downwind, something he made sure of because he knew the grizzlies were hunting in earnest. Dakota didn’t want his scent to inspire one of those bears to hunt him, thinking he was a posthibernation meal on two legs. His mouth pulled at one corner over that thought. He’d seen enough mayhem and killing.

      After his discharge from the navy, his medical issues as fixed as they were going to be, he’d located a cabin high in the Tetons on the Wyoming side of the mountains. He’d cleaned it up and started living in the ramshackle, abandoned structure. Never mind that it didn’t have electricity or running water. He’d spent the past year in hiding and needed the solitude. There was so much grief and loss in him, he didn’t know what to do with it or how to discharge it. Sleep was a luxury. He rarely got two or three broken hours of sleep at night. His heart sank as he considered all that he’d lost since he was seventeen years old and then more losses in the navy. Wounded in a field of fire deep in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan, he found his life repeating the nightmare cycle of his teen years.

      It’s too much pain... Too damned much. Purposefully, Dakota lasered his attention on the willow stand. This was the present. When his mind wandered into the past, it was nothing but a mire of serrating grief, rage and helplessness. He didn’t like feeling those turgid emotions. His stomach growled. It had been one day since he’d last eaten. The winter had leaned him down considerably, but he wasn’t starving. Dakota set out enough traps to keep meat on his table, but a sudden, unexpected snowstorm yesterday had stopped him from walking his traplines and gathering up the rabbits he’d caught. A cutting, one-cornered smile creased his face. In Afghanistan, his SEAL team endured days without food, water or resupply. So twenty-four hours without food wasn’t a tragedy.

      He had the traps set up in those willows. Rabbits were plentiful in the wide valley through which the Snake River wound lazily. Had a starving grizzly already found his traps and gobbled up the rabbits? Was that the reason for the sense of danger he felt?

      He had to take a chance. Shifting the Win Mag to his left shoulder, he looked down at the P226 SIG Sauer pistol strapped low on his right thigh. The two black Velcro straps around his thick leg held the pistol at just the right angle in case he needed to quickly reach for it. All SEALs were given this particular pistol after they graduated from BUD/S. The .40-caliber pistol was specially made in Germany for them. And it had stopping power. One slug would take a human’s life.

      The wind had piled up the blizzard snow. Patches of long yellow grass peeked out here and there. As he walked, the grass in the meadow crunched beneath his boots. Each yellowed blade of grass was coated with thick frost. With each step, Dakota tried to stay as silent as possible. The sound could possibly alert the elk mother hidden in the willows. He moved down the gentle slope toward the center of the meadow. Dakota knew from experience an elk mother would defend her calf with her life. And an elk weighed a good thousand pounds, its hooves sharp and dangerous.

      Dakota brushed the butt of his SIG Sauer with the palm of his gloved hand. It was an unconscious habit honed in the badlands of the Middle East. He’d unsnapped the retention strap across