Free Shadowmark (The Shadowmark Trilogy Book 1) by TM Catron Page A

Lincoln’s dismay, Schmidt had relocated to outside his own open tent, directly across from Lincoln’s. He was engaged in spirited conversation with two soldiers. At Schmidt’s nod, Lincoln cursed under his breath. He would have to get past the kid to leave camp. They doused the fire as Lincoln crawled into his tiny tent, pretending to be retiring early. The soldiers’ conversation drifted through the tent wall.
    “ . . . taller than a moose,” one of them was saying.
    “I don’t think there are any moose in West Virginia,” Schmidt responded. “It was just a bear and a trick of the light through the trees. Tons of black bears around here.”
    “I know what a bear looks like, Schmidt. It was too tall for a black bear and it stood on two legs. And it was the wrong color. More like gold.”
    “A gold bear?” the third soldier asked.
    “It wasn’t a bear!”
    “Okay. Hey, Schmidt, maybe he saw Bigfoot.” The third soldier snickered at his own joke.
    “Bigfoot lives in the Rockies. It wasn’t him.”
    Schmidt and the second soldier guffawed.
    When Schmidt stopped laughing, he said, “It was a bear standing on its hind legs. You probably startled it.”
    That was enough for Lincoln. Tuning out the conversation, he pulled a blanket around his shoulders, watching the sky through the back mesh of the tent. Alvarez passed on her way to her own tent.
    Mina hadn’t answered his email before Lincoln’s phone fried. Probably because her plane hadn’t landed yet. Hopefully she had accessed her email by now and made her own arrangements to get out of Atlanta. He would check on her as soon as he found a working phone. Lincoln’s gut tightened as he thought of Mina’s phone, too. Hopefully wherever she was, she hadn’t lost power like they had.
    The moon rose over the mountains, and Lincoln observed the silhouettes of the other tents in the trees around him. They wouldn’t have any trouble finding the mine tonight. He zipped up his jacket and checked his pockets, feeling an odd shape in one of them—Carter’s sketchbook. He’d accidentally held onto it. Surprised Carter hadn’t asked for it back already, Lincoln reminded himself to return it when they left for the mine. He couldn’t think of much else he needed, so he stepped out of his tent, where he ran straight into Schmidt.
    “Sorry, sir, just keeping watch. Everything okay?” said Schmidt.
    Lincoln suspected Nash had ripped Schmidt to pieces for losing Lincoln the first time, and the corporal wasn’t about to let it happen again. Lincoln felt sorry for the kid, but only slightly.
    “Schmidt, I have to pee.”
    “Are you armed?”
    “Yes. I’ll be fine.”
    Lincoln took off toward the outhouse, and once he was out of Schmidt’s line of sight, ducked into the trees, making sure he went in deep enough to avoid prying eyes. He waited while the others slowly joined him. Carter was the first to arrive, then Alvarez, then Nelson. Nelson carried his backpack, weighed down like it probably contained his damaged computer.
    “Do you really need that?” asked Lincoln, nodding to his bag as they walked. “There’s nothing down in the mine to fix it.”
    Nelson shook his head and shifted the backpack on his shoulders. “Doesn’t seem right leaving it in camp.”
    “You think someone’ll take it?” Lincoln winked at Alvarez, but she didn’t smile as she normally would. Maybe she didn’t see him.
    “Maybe,” said Nelson.
    “It doesn’t work,” said Alvarez. “What would they do with it?”
    “It has a solid state hard drive, and there’s nothing wrong with it ,” said Nelson, his tone darkening. “You know as well as me that someone could remove it and put it in a working machine.”
    Carter stumbled a little and sighed as he regained his footing. “Let’s watch where we’re going, huh? Instead of joking around.”
    Lincoln smiled at Alvarez and clapped Nelson on the shoulder. Nelson lurched forward a little. They walked under a denser patch