Thursday, May 17, 2018

Clouding: Day 4

Word Count: 24,028

Summary of Events:
Asher was getting ready to set out for another day when his captive kicked him in the face, so he enforced some retribution before they set out. The deputy visited to see if Theresa's father had sent any word home before setting out to see why they hadn't heard from him recently. Asher enjoyed the quiet as his captive had actually fallen asleep, although he wondered if he'd been wise in his choice to kidnap. Theresa and her family were informed by the deputy that her father, as well as all eleven members of the family he'd gone to check on — down to the one year old little girl — had been murdered. Asher had found a cave to spend the night in, although it had bones in it, so he went in to check and see if it was a carnivore's den before he decided to sleep in it . . .

Excerpt of the Day:
They were dry and rough to the touch, suggesting that they were old bones which had been there for awhile, besides, there was no residual meat or other material on them, it was just the straight-up bones.
Thus, if these had been placed by carnivores, they were carnivores that no longer haunted this cave. Too, it wasn't like he could smell any excrement that could suggest a recent occupation of the cave by animals.
Needless to say, it would be a suitable place to spend the night.
He turned around to go back out and stopped. Closer to the front of the cave was a pile he hadn't noticed before. There was a black ring-sort of shape, white ashes, and the black rounded-square shapes that all wood burned into before it became ash, some even still in segments that hadn't been weakened enough at the narrow points to fall apart.
Someone had slept here before. In fact, he would think the stay had been decently recent, as any wind coming from a southerly direction would assuredly sweep into the cave and circle, which would stir up the ashes and even whip them away into the air, maybe even to mingle with the sand.
Making his way out of the cave, he found that Nizhoni and Ashley's horse — with Ashley still slumbering on it — had wandered away a fair bit.
He whistled. Nizhoni lifted her head and looked at him, revealing something on the ground close to her.
Heading toward her, he discovered that it was a pile of horse droppings, and they weren't fresh because they weren't shiny; in fact, they'd probably been there for awhile, considering that they were crawling with the small flies that typically only sought after such things once they'd sat for awhile.
Whoever had recently camped in the cave had been riding a horse, and it was a horse who, like his own, was dining almost exclusively on sagebrush, as evidenced by the colour and texture.
Too, the droppings and the presence of the flies suggested that the camper had been there within the last week, maybe even within the last two days.
Who was it? That he wasn't sure he'd be able to find out.
He hadn't seen any tracks while heading up here, and he hadn't been following any. Not to mention it was notoriously difficult to get a bead on what had travelled the rocks, forget what direction it'd gone.
The best he could do was see what he could find for tracks leaving the rocks without himself leaving the rocks and seeing whether any were horse tracks. If he found anything then he could follow the tracks and see where they led.
That, of course, would have to wait until morning; already the sun was below the horizon, it would be much better to search when he knew he'd have a lot more light before darkness came around again.

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