At one point, keeping their distance to an extent that he wasn’t sure whether they were wild dogs or cats of some kind, there had been a pack that seemed to trail them for a while. Then they had simply disappeared. But Jak knew that creatures that took the time and trouble to track didn’t just disappear. They faded into the shadows and bided their time. All creatures, including man, were the same.
So where was the pack now? Holed up somewhere, waiting?
Jak figured that this was a distinct possibility. He couldn’t hear or see them, but he knew that they were there. And even if the rest of the recce party didn’t know it yet, at least he’d be prepared for them.
The recce party had been marching for a little over three hours without a break when Lonnie held up a hand and stopped them. The line had straggled out a little over the past few miles, with fifty yards between Lonnie and Dean.
“‘Kay, I figure we need a rest and water break,” Lonnie husked through a cracked and parched throat, which attested to the truth of his statement. “See that crop over there? I reckon that’ll give some shade. C’mon,” he finished, keeping his words to a painful minimum. He turned and began to walk to the northeast of their chosen path, deviating slightly to reach the small outcrop and scrub about half a mile away, which would give them a minimal shelter while they rested.
The rest of the group followed, except Jak. The albino waited until the last of the group—Danny, inevitably— had passed him and stood facing the rocks.
The albino slowed his breathing, filtering out the sounds of his own nervous system and concentrating everything he had on the rocks ahead. He could hear little other than the sounds of his own companions as they walked and respired, but there was something underlying that he could barely make out. A scrabbling noise, as of small mammals moving with care. He could see nothing, but then again, his eyesight was poor at the best of times, let alone in such bright light. No, the important thing was smell.
Jak had a superb olfactory sense, and as he sniffed the air, he became certain that there was something lurking in the shelter of the rocks. Something musky and animal, something more than one or two in number. A pack, in fact, to judge from the confusion of odors that underlay the scent of the recce party.
Could it be that the pack he had noticed the day before somehow had the intelligence to work out their route and then ambush them? It seemed far-fetched, but any animal with enough sense to survive in this hostile environment would have learned behavior patterns that would ensure food, shelter and water. If other parties, on foot or in wags, had gone this way, then the animals—whatever they were—would have learned this.
So they were waiting for the recce party in the shadows and shelter of the rock—and the unsuspecting party was heading straight for them.
Jak was a few paces behind by now, and his lagging back had been noticed. Both Danny and Dean had turned to question his sudden halt. Danny had no way of knowing, but Dean knew the albino hunter well enough to realize that something was seriously wrong. He saw the way Jak was standing and the poise of the albino as he took in what was happening by the rocks.
Even as Dean watched, Jak sprang into action. From a standing start, he began to sprint toward the front of the party. He knew he couldn’t yell, as the noise and the tone of his voice would alert the waiting creatures that something was wrong, and yet he couldn’t let Lonnie walk into a trap.
The sound of Jak’s feet pounding on the hard desert surface, raising clouds of dust in the late-morning air, alerted the recce party leader that something was amiss. He turned, as did the others, on hearing Jak approach.
“What—” he began.
It was then that Dean made a serious error of judgment. Not realizing in the heat of the moment why Jak had not alerted Lonnie by yelling at him, the young Cawdor raised the alarm.