Free SODIUM:1 Harbinger by Stephen Arseneault

line. Just as we stepped into the trees we saw two men emerging from them up towards Allie and Susi. The men had rifles aimed at the girls. Bull took off like an elk and moved quickly and silently around to get a good position behind the men. I knew he could run if he wanted to, but I was shocked by how quickly and quietly he had disappeared into the woods.
    Moments later he came out behind the two men with his .45 ready. He demanded that they drop their weapons and drop to their knees. They complied and Allie stepped over and picked up their guns. The men each had a rifle and an additional sidearm strapped to their hips.
    Allie took their handguns and then Bull began the questioning. The two men claimed to be hunters, which made them poachers since we were in a national park. I had stayed in the woods during the encounter and had come across their packs. With my good hand I dragged the two packs out into the open where the others were standing. One of the packs had a large bear fur rolled up and strapped to the top of it.
    Their names were Craig and Scott and they claimed to know nothing of our friend Kyle. They also claimed to have not been following us the few nights before. They only moved up and down this end of Rancheria Creek looking for bear and fox for the fur.
    Craig made note of the bear pelt that they had collected that very morning. He thought it had been strange that the bear looked to have been chopped up a bit and then had fallen over the ledge down to the creek bed below.
    He noted that if our friend Kyle had done that then he had hacked the bear up pretty good before sending it over the edge. They had not seen Kyle nor had they seen any evidence that he had fallen over with the bear.
    Bull was now confused and turned further interrogation over to Allie. She would be fair, but she would also not have any issue with using advanced methods to get information out of the two. She immediately began the threats and the two could tell how serious she was.
    We talked for a good 20 minutes with them telling their story of the past several days. Then one of them mentioned the mutilated animals. Bull immediately took over the questioning once again and listened as the two talked about the number of carcasses they had come across that looked like they had been dissected. They were of the opinion that whoever had been doing that had been wasting a lot of good meat and did not know a thing about acquiring and preserving pelts, most of them had been left unusable.
    The two had come across the bear carcass early that morning. They had taken what was left of the fur and the good meat and sent the rest down the creek. They again reiterated the fact that they had not seen our friend or anyone else.
    In an attempt to appease his captors Craig volunteered to help look for our friend. Bull did not trust the men, but felt it would be good to have the two of them help. They knew the area well.
    Allie hung one of the rifles on my pack and the other on her own. The two poachers donned their own packs and we made our way back towards where Kyle had last been seen. We arrived back at the creek and Allie took us to where I had fallen in. Within a few minutes we had retrieved Kyle’s 9mm from the rushing water.
    We then continued on to just below the ledge and began our investigation from the beginning. This time we had the two men who had been there first telling us exactly what they had found and exactly where they had found it.
    Since they had claimed to have not seen any sign of Kyle, it was decided to once again look further down the creek. It was possible the rushing water had washed his body downstream. We took our time scouring every last inch along the way for any sign that our friend had emerged from the water, but there was none.
    When we came upon my bat, still protruding from the branches stuck between two rocks, Bull had Scott wade in and retrieve it. Upon inspection it was easy to see that there were four deep scratches