Free Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta Page A

would return.
    “Exactly,” Ethan said. “We always need to be aware of which way the wind is blowing. That’s a help with bears, but it’s critical to everything we do. We set up camp based on the way the wind is blowing, we anticipate weather changes based on what the wind does, we build our fires with the utmost respect for the wind. If you do not respect the wind in the backcountry, you will not last long.”
    It was interesting, hearing all of the things that Ethan Serbin held in his mind. Jace was paying attention all the time, because if the killers came for him, he wanted to be ready. They’d come expecting Jace Wilson, the scared kid, and they’d run into somebody new: Connor Reynolds, who could make it on his own in the woods, who could outlast them. Connor Reynolds, a survivor. That’s who he was now.
    Montana was better than the safe houses, better than being surrounded by people who knew you were in danger. That just fed the fear. They’d thrown every distraction they could at him, from movies to music to video games, and none of them worked, because none of them could pull his mind away from those memories, a dead man’s hair fanning out in the dim quarry waters, a knife tugging through the muscles of a throat, and, above all, a pair of oddly musical voices discussing where Jace might be and whether they had time to find him and kill him.
    This was better. He hadn’t believed that it would be, because he’d be out here without anyone he knew, but he’d been wrong. Montana was better because it forced distraction. Video games and movies hadn’t been able to claim his mind. Out here, the land demanded his mind leave the memories. He had to concentrate on the tasks of the moment. There were too many hard things to do for any other option.
    Connor Reynolds marched along the trail, and Jace Wilson rode secretly inside of him, and both of them were safe.
      
    There were times, in the first week, when it felt like any other summer to Ethan. Or better, even. A good group of kids, by and large. He watched them and enjoyed them and tried not to think too much about the one who was there to hide. He’d heard nothing from Jamie Bennett, and that was good. Things were going smooth on her end, and he expected them to remain smooth on his.
    They spent the first five nights at camps in five different meadows within a mile of their base. This was not the way it usually went. In a standard summer, the boys always slept in the bunkhouse, not on the trail, during the first week, allowing them some time to adjust and, hopefully, form bonds—sometimes they did, often they did not. Every day they went into the mountains, but every night they returned.
    Not this summer. This summer they returned briefly by day and were back into the dark mountains by night because Ethan refused to be lulled into complacence by any promise of security he had been given. He believed Jamie Bennett, and he believed the summer would pass without incident. But he’d been tasked with being prepared and he did not take that lightly.
    In an ordinary summer, he’d have more boys and a second counselor out here, and his route and campsites would be known to the county sheriff and shared with Allison on a GPS tracking device. This summer, he’d instructed the sheriff to speak to Allison if he needed to reach Ethan, and he’d turned off the computer tracking on his GPS. It still had a messaging function, allowing him to reach her through short text messages, but even his wife would be unaware of his precise location.
    During those first days, they discussed first aid, studied with topographic maps and compasses, did all of the classroom work that Ethan knew they’d forget the instant they were in trouble on the trail. You couldn’t replicate the wilderness, though Ethan did try. His favorite exercise was a game he called the Wilder—a mispronunciation of an archaic word that was supposed to be pronounced “will-der.” Over the years he’d