The Blue Mountain Affair

A Mistake

A Mistake          

The going was tough for Peter and Joe, they were cutting their way through thick vegitation, and the it was quite steep. Peter was begging to feel as though Charles didn’t know what he was talking about when he sent them this way. It was a less direct route back to Lane’s fog shelter cave, but it would assure them that they wouldn’t run into anyone, and was supposed to detour anyone if they wanted to follow. It was probably Peter being paranoid, but if Gregory was in the area he didn’t want to take any chances, even though this trail was proving to be trying.

Because they had been at the Marsden’s the week while Peter recovered, and there were no new signs of a camp site anywhere else, they all figured Gregory had headed toward Black Town, that was the original plan after  all, and why would it change? Joe stopped just ahead of Peter, giving  him a chance to catch up. He was panting as he reached his brother, which probably meant he should have rested for a few more days. After pulling himself together a bit, Peter noticed Joe looked quite worried.

“What’s wrong?” He asked,

“Tracks Peter, I thought I noticed some broken branches over that way.” Joe pointed off to his left “and now I can see boot prints.” He looked down to where Joe was pointing and sure enough, in the soft soil of the forest floor there were several boot prints. “I think we should follow them and see where they lead.”

“I think you’re right, sorry I didn’t notice anything before.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with us, because I almost missed them myself, I think its time we start paying more attention.” Joe said as he did a scan around the area. This was Joe’s way of telling himself off, he still hadn’t gotten over the fact that Charle's was able to come up behind them when he could usually detect the smallest hint of anything unusual, he was an excellent hunter and a fair tracker.

“Alright, sorry.” What more could he say to his younger brother, in a lot of ways he looked up to and trusted Joe and his instincts and ability’s to survive, just as Joe looked to him to make decisions. They were a good team really, but Joe was in his element right now so that meant Peter knew he should just do as he was told.

They followed the trail of boot prints back to an open sort of area and in the middle of it was a fire pit. Joe knelt down and felt the coals.

“There’re a bit warm underneath still. I think we came upon their latrine back over there.”

“Do you think its just trappers?”

“Not sure, but there are four of them and I’m just wondering if there are going to come back here tonight, or if they have moved on.” Peter watched his brother get up and circle around the camp, then head out toward the tree line again.

They had been walking for most of the day now, and what Peter seriously needed was to sit down, he looked around the area and saw a place that had been cleared already under one of the trees and decided that was the spot for him. Leaning back against the trunk of the tree, he watched as Joe, again, walked the length of the camp site and then came back and stood near his feet.  

“I don’t know if I like this Peter, it looks like two sets of tracks came back in from that way.”

“The Marsden’s direction?” Joe nodded his head. “What does this mean Joe that whoever was here is headed for the Marsden’s?” Joe raked his hand through his hair and walked over to the old fire pit.

“Peter I don’t have a good feeling, and I haven’t since we left, do you think Gregory knew we were there and waited till we left?”

“Why do you think he would wait till we left?”