The Girl They Couldn’t Catch
Elsie knew those woods better than grown men who saw only trees.
She cut down a slope, crossed a dry creek bed, and pushed through a stand of young pines too narrow for broad shoulders. Behind her, the men stumbled, cursed, and fell behind.
One managed to cut her off on a deer path.
“Where do you think you’re going, little girl?” he asked.
Elsie stood still for one second, reading the space around him.
“Home,” she said.
Then she darted sideways into the trees before he could reach her.
She took a hidden gully, ducked beneath low branches, and disappeared into brush that closed behind her like a curtain.
By the time she circled back to the hollow, Wade was sitting upright, pale but alert.
The dog wagged his tail when he saw her.
Wade exhaled hard.
“You’re okay.”
“For now,” Elsie said. “But we need to move again.”
