Track of the Beast: A Brock Stone Adventure

“Sorry!” Stone called to his friend. “Nothing I can do about the condition of the road.”

“You could at least slow down for the worst of the bumps and ruts,” Alex grumbled. He too had been in a foul mood since leaving the girls’ school.

“You recall it was Constance and I who were nearly murdered, today? All you got was soiled shorts.”

“I did not soil my shorts,” Alex grumbled.

“You shouldn’t fret,” Constance said, patting Alex on the knee. “Anyone would be frightened if something popped up out of a tomb like that.”

“Not frightened so much as startled.” Alex didn’t meet her eye.

Out of the corner of his eye, Stone saw something move in the trees off to the right, heading toward them. He hit the brakes and the truck skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust.

Something huge and covered in brown hair trotted out onto the narrow dirt road. His heart skipped a beat. As the dust cleared, he finally got a good look at what barred their path.

“It’s gorgeous,” Constance gasped.

It was a huge bull elk, standing at least eight feet at the shoulder. Each antler must have been three feet long. It barely registered their presence as it crossed the road and moved off into the trees on the other side.

“Sure wish I had my rifle right now,” Moses said.

“You would not destroy a beautiful creature like that!” Constance exclaimed.

“You can bet your bottom dollar I would. That’s a whole lot of meat.”

The elk trotted away. In a matter of seconds, it had vanished from sight.

“Makes you think, doesn’t it?” Alex said.

“About what?” Constance said.

“How quickly something can vanish from sight out here. Or could remain hidden if it wanted to.”

“Quit trying to put a scare into me,” Moses said.

The roar of the engine drowned out Alex’s retort as Stone got the truck back in motion. As he drove, his eyes searched the forest. Alex wasn’t wrong. The elk had melted into the forest in an instant. This was not the domain of man, but of the creatures of the wild.

They wound along the narrow road and eventually emerged high on a steep mountainside. Here, logging had cleared away much of the forest. There would be nothing to arrest their fall should they leave the road.

Stone felt tension rising among his companions as they drove along mere inches from certain death. The dirt road was little more than a downward sloping dirt path. Without the protection of the trees, the elements had gradually washed it away. He glanced over and saw Constance holding Alex’s hand, her knuckles white from the tight grip she had on him.

“It will be fine,” Stone said, just as the rear wheels briefly lost traction and the truck fishtailed.

Constance let out a shriek.

“We’re all right,” Stone said.

“Up there!” Constance pointed up the slope. “Look out!”

Stone’s heart skipped a beat as he looked up to see a wall of boulders and logs bounding down on them like a cavalry charge. An avalanche! Knowing it was only a matter of seconds before the truck was knocked off the road and sent tumbling down the mountainside, Stone floored it.

The wheels spun on the hard-packed dirt before catching. The truck lurched forward and gradually gained speed. They hit a bump in the rough dirt road, the vehicle went airborne, sending an icy flutter through Stone’s gut. It hit the ground with an impact Stone felt from the base of his spine all the way to the tip of his skull. The truck bounced and the front passenger side wheel slid off the edge of the road.

Alex called out a warning and Constance let out a curse suitable for any soldier or sailor Stone had ever met. He maintained his calm and resisted the urge to overcorrect. The truck seemed to tip to the side. The drop seemed even more precipitous.

“Stone?” Alex said nervously.

Stone didn’t reply. Focusing on the task at hand, he managed to get all four wheels back on the narrow road. But they weren’t out of danger yet.

The avalanche was almost upon them!

Stone gritted his teeth and kept the pedal to the metal. The engine roared and the truck flew forward. The tumbling boulders and debris had kicked up a cloud of dust in their wake. It looked like a wall of death closing in on them.

Twenty feet.

Ten feet.

“We’re not going to make it!” Constance cried.

A boulder the size of Stone’s head flew through the air, hurtling right at them. Stone braced himself. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Alex shouted, Constance swore, rubble closed in on them. Safety loomed just up ahead where the road wound back into the shelter of the forest. They zoomed past the flying boulder with only feet to spare.

“Thank heaven!” Constance breathed.

And then something struck the rear of the truck and drove the rear wheels off the road. The truck tilted wildly, the wheels spun, trying to find traction. They slid and fishtailed as Stone fought to keep the vehicle from tumbling down the hill. They finally came to a stop just short of the forest. Behind them, the avalanche rolled along twenty feet from their rear bumper.