But Jared was moving along the trail again. A slight breeze had come up, and he stopped. "You smell anything?" he asked, sniffing.

Luke shook his head. "Do I look like some kinda hound or something?"

That was it! The dogs he'd heard last night! He could smell them! "Come on," he said. "We're almost there."

Once again Luke hesitated, but in the end gave Jared no argument. Leading the way, Jared crept forward, waiting for the dogs to begin baying.

This afternoon, though, they were silent, and suddenly Jared knew why. If he could smell them, he was downwind. They couldn't smell him.

He came to a bend in the trail. Though there was still no tree or rock that he remembered, he knew that as soon as they rounded the bend, they would see the cabin huddled in the small clearing. And a moment later, there it was.

Now, in the bright sunlight, Jared could see the lake. It lay only a few yards beyond the cabin. The bank was low and muddy, and there were a couple of old wooden rowboats-so worn they didn't look as if they could even float-lying on the shore, tied uselessly to a tree with rotting cotton rope.

Curled up in the shade of the cabin were two dogs.

"That's it," Jared said softly. "You know who lives there?"

Luke said nothing, but Jared knew immediately that he'd seen this cabin before. "Come on," he said, his voice rising. "Tell me!"

"Jake Cumberland," Luke Roberts finally said. "This is his place."

"Who is he?" Jared pressed.

Luke's expression turned wary. "Just a trapper," he replied. "He's always lived out here."

Jared's eyes narrowed. "You're scared of him, aren't you?"

Luke paled, but shook his head.

"Bullshit," Jared said. "Tell me the truth."

"There's… stories," Luke admitted. "About his ma."

"What kind of stories?"

"She was supposed to be some kind of voodoo queen or something." Luke's eyes shifted away from Jared. "An' they say she worked for your uncle before she disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Jared repeated. "What do you mean, disappeared? You mean she just took off?"

Luke shrugged. "Nobody knows. Leastwise, nobody I ever talked to knows. But my ma says the last time anyone ever saw her was the night before your uncle hung himself." He reddened slightly. "My ma says she heard your uncle might have killed her. She says there was all kinds of talk about him and Jake's ma. Like maybe they were gettin' it on, and she was gonna tell. So he killed her." As Jared's fists clenched and his jaw tightened, Luke held up his hands. "Hey, don't get pissed at me. All I'm tellin' you is what I heard."

But Jared was no longer looking at Luke. His eyes were fixed on the cabin. It cowered in the humid afternoon heat like an exhausted, dying dog. Every one of its windows was cracked-several panes were missing entirely-and whatever paint the weathered boards might once have worn was long gone. There was a sagging front porch with no railing, and most of the roof was covered with corrugated metal, badly rusted by the Louisiana heat and rain.

Though he wasn't certain why, Jared knew the cabin was empty.

His eyes shifted from the cabin itself to the two hounds.

As if sensing his gaze, both dogs scrambled to their feet, tensing. As they caught sight of him, they went on point, tails held straight back, eyes fixed on him. As Jared took a step toward them, the wind shifted and the two dogs caught his scent.

He moved a step closer, and now the dogs lunged forward, the wail of their baying ripping the quiet of the afternoon.

"You nuts, Jared?" Luke Roberts demanded. "What if Jake's in there?"

"He's not," Jared said. "He's nowhere around here."

"How the hell do you know?" Luke asked, but Jared didn't bother to reply.

He moved closer to the two dogs, now struggling at the end of their chains, their teeth bared, their baying dropping to low snarls as they tried to get at him.

He stopped a foot beyond the reach of the nearest dog-the one whose chain was a foot or so shorter than the first, who leaped and thrashed as it struggled to get closer.

"You want me?" Jared asked, squatting low and extending his right hand out toward the snarling animal. "That what you want? You think you want a piece of me?"

The dog howled with rage and threw itself against its chain, lost its balance, and skidded in the mud the morning's rainstorm had left. Writhing for several seconds, it regained its footing and lunged at Jared once more.

Jared extended his fingers until they were within inches of the dog's snapping teeth. "That it?" he taunted. "That what you want?"

"Are you crazy?" Luke called. "If he gets loose-"

But Jared wasn't listening. "Try it," he whispered. "Go on, just try it. See what happens."

He darted his fingers out, and the dog's jaws snapped shut on them.

Luke howled as if he himself had been bitten. "Jesus!"

"Got a taste?" Jared whispered, his eyes fixed on the dog. Abruptly, the dog dropped back to cower on the ground. While the other animal continued its baying, still twisting to get at Jared, he reached down and put his fingers around the cowering dog's neck. "Not gonna do that again," he said softly. "Not ever gonna do that again!"

His fingers tightened around the animal's neck, and then he gave it a fast, hard jerk.

The animal screamed once, a high-pitched shriek of pain that was cut off as its neck snapped. It dropped back into the mud.

Luke stared mutely at the limp animal. "You killed him," he whispered.

Jared turned to look at him. "He bit me," he said, his voice reflecting no emotion. "What did you expect me to do, pat him on the head?"

The second dog, silent now, sniffed at its litter mate's lifeless corpse. Then it slunk back until it was huddled against the wall of the cabin.

Removing the chain from the dog's neck, Jared picked it up.

"What are you going to do with it?" Luke asked, his voice trembling.

Jared made no reply. Instead, he turned and carried the dead dog into Jake Cumberland's cabin.

The door closed behind him.

Jake Cumberland had been out on the lake most of the afternoon. The battered bucket that served him as a makeshift creel held half a dozen catfish-plenty for him and the two hounds. After he'd caught the last fish, about an hour ago, he thought about heading back home and taking the hounds out for a while. Check a few traps, maybe even do some hunting. But after being up most of last night, he felt tired; what his ma would have called bone-weary. It would've been okay if he'd slept through once he got home last night, but after the dogs had set to baying long before dawn, he'd been unable to get back to sleep. Just sort of lay there, trying to figure out what might have spooked them.

Probably just some critter, he'd told himself over and over again. A possum, maybe, or a 'coon. Except he'd known right away it wasn't a critter. The hounds had a different sound to them when they were on the scent of something they wanted to hunt. And this morning, when they jerked him awake with their first howl, he'd recognized it right away.

They were warning him.

That was why he'd lit the lantern and gone to the door.

He hadn't seen anybody.

Hadn't even heard anything.

But he'd still known someone was out there.

Out there, watching his cabin.

As he'd stood in the doorway, peering out into the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was hiding in the night, he heard an echo of his ma's voice whispering to him when he was just a boy: "You can feel him, child. When he's around, you can feel him. And you gotta be careful, real careful. 'Cause he's stronger'n you, child. Never forget that. He's stronger." So even after the dogs finally quieted, Jake had stayed awake, the lantern turned low, waiting for the dawn to come. When the eastern sky began to brighten, he didn't go to bed, but instead set about his usual chores. He tidied up the cabin and fed the dogs. Checked the traps he'd baited the day before, then spent the hour when the thunderstorm tore through skinning and cleaning the three rabbits that were all the traps had produced.