The Voice Beyond the Treeline

The snow reached Glenmore three days before I did, and nobody had bothered to clear the entrance to the ranger base. I had to shoulder the door twice to force it open, scraping a semicircle through the drift. Inside, it smelt of scorched filter coffee and wet wool. The radiator ticked in the corner, giving out just enough heat to make the windows mist.

My first winter posting. I was 29 years old and five months beyond my countryside-ranger training and probation programme, and the local national-park ranger service had sent me to the Cairngorms in January because somebody had to take the post and I was the newest recruit. That was more or less it. My name was written on a strip of masking tape stuck to the desk.

MERCER. Somebody had printed it in neat block capitals with black permanent marker. Beside the desk stood a filing cabinet, a computer that looked about fifteen years old and a telephone with six different lines. A laminated map of the northern Cairngorms and Rothiemurchus area covered most of one wall, marked with pencil and highlighter.

I reckoned I would get to know it fairly well.

The radio was already active. Voices came through every few minutes, mostly Police Scotland control coordinating ranger staff and mountain-rescue volunteers farther south. I listened while I unpacked my holdall.

Overdue walker near Loch Avon. Possible ankle injury on Cairn Gorm. Somebody's dog had escaped at the start of a route and they wanted us to keep an eye out. Routine stuff, I thought.

Fiona MacLeod arrived at about 10:00.

She was my supervisor, the one who had rung me twice before I drove up to make sure I actually owned insulated boots. She had dark hair pulled back tightly and the sort of stride that made people move out of her way without being asked.

"You made it," she said.

"Yes."

"Road wasn't too bad?"

"Fine until Aviemore. Plenty of ice on the A9 northbound, then deep snow on the Glenmore road."

She nodded, already moving past me to check the logbook.

"You'll do a supply run to Aviemore this afternoon. We need road flares, emergency incendiary flares, radio batteries and more bottled gas for the portable heaters. I'll email you the list. All right?"

"All right."

"After that, I want the outstanding route notifications, protected-site consents and organised-group access forms processed and filed. They're in the cabinet, second drawer. Somebody was meant to finish them before the Christmas and New Year break, but didn't."

I said I would deal with them.

She glanced at me then, just for a moment.

"Most of what we do here is paperwork between patrols. Are you all right with that?"

"Yes."

"Because if you're expecting to run rescues every day, you'll be disappointed. Most calls are people who've twisted something, become lost because they didn't bring a map, or started a walk at 15:00 and were surprised when they ran out of daylight."

"I understand."

"Good."

She pulled her jacket closer around herself.

"I'm doing a circuit to check path conditions. Back by 16:00. Radio if anything urgent comes through."

Then she was gone, and it was just me, the ticking radiator and the voices on the radio.

I did the supply run first. I took the ranger-service Land Rover into Aviemore and collected everything on Fiona's list, plus an extra carton of heat packs because they had been reduced by several pounds.

The man at the outdoor shop asked whether I was new. I said, "Yes."

He said winter up there was not bad if you respected it. I told him I would.

I drove back, unloaded the supplies and started on the forms.

They were mostly overnight route notifications, protected-site consents and organised-group access forms. Ordinary wild campers did not generally need permits, but groups and people entering sensitive managed areas sometimes needed to notify us or obtain consent. I read through the paperwork one item at a time, checking dates and group sizes and making sure nobody had written something ridiculous such as "indefinite" for a return date. A couple had.

I marked those for Fiona to review.

It took about two hours. My back began to ache because the chair offered very little support, and I kept standing to stretch and look out of the window.

Nothing but trees and snow. Not a soul in sight.

The radio continued. Control checked in with Ranger Aisha Rahman and Ranger Owen Price. Somebody reported a broken gate at a car park.

A woman wanted to know whether the paths were safe for her children and was transferred three times before somebody answered her properly.

I wanted to be outside. That was the truth of it. I had not joined the ranger service to sit behind a desk processing forms.

But Fiona was right. Most of the job was this. Waiting. Maintaining. Keeping everything running so that, when something did happen, we were ready.

It still bothered me a little.

At about 15:00, somebody knocked. I stood and opened the door.

The man outside was tall, about 1.85 metres, with long black hair tied back and a face that looked as though it spent most of its time outdoors. His jacket was old but well made, technical fabric badly worn by years of use. A rucksack hung from one shoulder.

"Can I help you?" I said.

"Ewan Strachan. Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team liaison. Is Fiona here?"

"Out on patrol. Back by 16:00."

He nodded and stepped inside without waiting to be invited, which I supposed was fine because he plainly knew the place. He set his rucksack down carefully and removed his gloves.

That was when I saw the scars.

Old burns, by the look of them, crossing the backs of his hands and climbing the side of his neck. They were not fresh, but they were prominent.

"You're the new ranger," he said.

"Daniel Mercer."

"Right."

He went to the map on the wall and studied it for a minute. Then he took a pen from his pocket and made a small mark beside one route. He added another farther west. He offered no explanation.

"What are those?" I asked.

"Notes."

"About what?"

He glanced at me. His eyes were dark and difficult to read.

"Old forestry-fire scars and clear-felled regeneration blocks. Wildlife patterns shift around them."

"All right."

"When it gets this cold, animals become desperate. They come down from higher ground and move into places they normally avoid. Feral boar. Red deer behaving more boldly than they should."

I waited, but he added nothing. He simply kept looking at the map.

"Are you warning me about deer and boar?" I asked.

"Among other things."

"I've got a compressed-air distress horn. Fiona said neither should normally come near the base anyway."

"Normally."

He marked another place, this one closer to Glenmore.

"Cold like this wakes things sometimes. Hunger does that."

It sounded like folklore, the sort of thing locals told new rangers to see whether they could frighten them.

I had heard plenty of it during training. Ghost stories from remote country. Animals that supposedly followed walkers for kilometres. Strange noises nobody could explain. The accounts were always exaggerated.

"I'll keep watch," I said, trying to be polite.

Ewan capped his pen and turned away from the map.

"You do that."

He stayed for another twenty minutes, taking a compact battery-powered sound generator from his rucksack and checking its batteries.

"I use it during night searches," he said when I asked. "It blocks distracting noise."

It seemed excessive to me, but I said nothing.

Fiona returned at 16:15. She and Ewan spoke quietly in a corner while I went back to the forms. I heard her say that conditions were stable for the moment, and him say something about checking again in a week. Then he left.

"Is he always like that?" I asked after the door closed.

"Like what?"

"Cryptic."

Fiona almost smiled.

"Ewan's careful. He notices things most people miss. You'll work with him eventually. He knows this ground better than anyone."

"He was marking forestry-fire scars on the map. Said animals get hungry in the cold."

"They do."

"It felt as though he was trying to frighten me."

She looked at me for a moment, then shrugged.

"Ewan doesn't joke much. If he tells you something, he means it."

I left it there.

The rest of the day was quiet. I finished the forms, updated the incident log and checked the equipment inventory. Fiona made another pot of coffee, and we reviewed the patrol rota for the next two weeks.

I would mostly oversee the car park, route board and walkers' voluntary route cards at the visitor centre, as well as helping with any calls close to Glenmore. Fiona would take the longer routes until I knew the area better.

Radio traffic increased again at about 18:00.

Another overdue walker, this time near the Chalamain Gap. A ranger farther east was heading out to check. A possible frostbite case at the ranger and visitor centre at Glenmore. Police Scotland control was coordinating Scottish Ambulance Service support.

I listened with one hand resting close to the Land Rover keys on my desk. Fiona noticed.

"You'll get your chance."

"I know."

"Most of it will be straightforward. Blisters, mild hypothermia, somebody who hasn't packed enough food."

"I know," I said again.

But I wanted it anyway. The call, the tasking, the radio crackling with coordinates and urgency. I wanted to be the one driving out with the lights on, a first-aid kit on the passenger seat, moving quickly because somebody needed help and I was close enough to provide it.

That was why I had joined.

The sun disappeared quickly. By 19:00 it was completely dark and the temperature outside had fallen to approximately -11 C. Fiona turned up the radiator and closed the blinds. Frost crept in from the edges of the windows, forming little patterns that looked almost deliberate.

The radio continued. Voices checking in, reporting positions and coordinating movements. I sat at my desk and watched the telephone lines, waiting for one of them to light.

Something was building.

I could not say what or why, but the base felt as though it were holding its breath. Perhaps it was only me, restless and new and wanting to prove that I belonged. Perhaps it was the cold pressing in from outside, or the way Ewan had marked those fire scars without explaining himself, or the static that entered the radio whenever somebody transmitted from the northern ground.

I did not know. But I kept the distress horn clipped to my belt, kept my eyes on the map and waited for whatever came next.

The call arrived on my eighth day.

By then I had become comfortable. Comfortable was probably the wrong word. Accustomed to it, perhaps.

I knew the routine of checking route starts, the smell of scorched filter coffee that never quite left the base and the way Fiona checked the weather three times before making any decision. I had stopped expecting drama. Most of our work was boring in the best possible way. Paperwork, supply runs, walkers with blisters who merely needed a lift back to their car.

Alistair Grant called at about 14:30. I recognised his voice from an introduction Fiona had made earlier that week. He was an older man, a seasonal ranger at the ranger and visitor centre in Glenmore. He oversaw the car park, the route board and walkers' voluntary route cards, keeping track of who returned and who did not.

"I've got two overdue," he said.

His voice was slow and deliberate.

"Callum Fraser and Bethany Kerr signed out for a winter circuit towards the Lairig Ghru this morning. Said they'd be back by 12:00. It's after 14:00 now, and the car park is nearly empty."

Fiona was already taking the map from the wall and spreading it across the desk.

"What time did they leave?"

"07:45, perhaps 08:00. Their route card says they're experienced and carrying snowshoes and proper layers. But that's a six-hour circuit in good conditions."

"And we've perhaps two hours of useful light left."

I watched Fiona's face. She did not look alarmed. She looked as though she were doing calculations in her head, balancing daylight, temperature and distance.

"All right," she said. "We'll run a hasty search. If they're only moving slowly, we'll meet them before dark."

Alistair confirmed and ended the call.

Fiona turned to me.

"You're going with Ewan. He's already kitted up. He was here earlier dropping off route reports."

That surprised me slightly. I had not seen Ewan enter, but he had a habit of moving quietly. Fiona already had her mobile phone out and was messaging him.

"Fetch the rescue sled from the shed," she said. "Extra radio batteries, blankets and the trauma kit marked with orange tape. I'll load the coordinates into the GPS."

I did not ask questions. I simply moved.

The shed stood behind the ranger base, secured with a combination padlock whose code Fiona had made me memorise on my second day. Inside, it smelt of canvas and cold metal. The rescue sled was a rigid plastic shell, bright red, with handles and securing straps. I dragged it out, along with a holdall of emergency supplies and a nylon sack stuffed with woollen blankets.

By the time I reached the Land Rover, Ewan was already there, wearing his rucksack and checking the straps on his snowshoes.

He nodded to me without speaking.

Fiona handed me the GPS unit and a radio.

"Main channel. Police Scotland control will coordinate. I'll meet you if we need more people. Alistair is clearing the forest-road access as far as he can, but you'll probably have to walk the final two or three kilometres."

"Understood," I said.

Ewan climbed into the passenger seat. I drove.

Fiona knocked twice on the bonnet and we pulled away.

The journey took forty minutes. We followed the B970 and the Glenmore forest road. The road surface was clear at first, but beyond the turn-off the tarmac became packed snow, tyre ruts frozen into uneven ridges.

My hands remained tight on the steering wheel. Ewan did not talk. He watched the trees, turning his head slightly every so often as though cataloguing something.

We passed two other vehicles, both empty, parked in lay-bys. Probably day walkers who had returned before the cold truly settled in.

The sun was already dropping, painting everything pale orange and blue. The road ended at a bank of snow higher than the Land Rover's bonnet. Somebody had cleared up to that point and stopped. Alistair, presumably. I could see the blade marks in the snow.

"Here," Ewan said.

I switched off the engine.

The temperature had fallen to about -9 C. I put on my parka, checked the clip holding my distress horn and lifted my rucksack from the rear load bay. Ewan was already outside, pulling the sled free. He clipped it to a harness he had assembled and tested the drag with one smooth pull.

"You lead," he said. "I'll take the sled."

I nodded and switched on my head torch, though we still had some daylight. Better to have it ready.

Ewan did the same, then checked his radio. I heard the squelch as he moved through the channels.

"Main channel," he said.

I checked mine.

"Same."

"Good."

We started along the forest road. It was no longer much of a road, only a broad corridor of snow between the trees, with tyre ruts visible beneath a fresh layer of powder.

My boots crunched. The sled hissed behind us as Ewan pulled it. The air was so cold that breathing too deeply made my teeth ache. I maintained a steady pace, fast enough to cover ground but slow enough to avoid exhausting myself.

Ewan matched me without effort. He moved like a man who had done this a thousand times. He probably had.

About twenty minutes in, my radio crackled.

"Mercer, Strachan, this is MacLeod. I've got updated coordinates from Alistair. He found their route entry on the sign-out sheet. Sending now."

I stopped and took the GPS unit from my pocket. Ewan stopped as well, turning slightly to watch me.

The GPS did not update.

I waited. Nothing.

"Did you receive that?" I asked, glancing at Ewan.

He took his own handheld radio from its chest strap and checked it. His expression barely changed, but his eyes narrowed. He held the display towards me.

The frequency was silent. No transmission indicator. No static. Nothing.

"That's strange," I said.

Then my radio crackled again.

"Coordinates confirmed," Fiona's voice said. "You should see a fork in the forest road beside a fallen birch. Take the left branch."

I looked at Ewan. His radio remained silent. No light, no activity. Mine was receiving something, but his picked up nothing.

"Check your battery," I said.

He did not answer. He only tilted his head, listening.

Then my radio crackled for a third time.

"Mercer here," my own voice said. "We've just passed the fallen birch. Left branch confirmed. There's a marker post about fifty metres ahead with red tape."

I stopped breathing for a moment.

It was my voice. The exact tone. The exact cadence.

But I had not spoken. I had not pressed the transmit button.

I looked at my gloved hand and the push-to-talk switch clipped to my chest strap. I had not touched it. Ewan watched me steadily, waiting.

I removed my glove and checked the microphone. The connection was firm. I pressed push-to-talk.

"MacLeod, this is Mercer. Radio check."

Static. Then Fiona's voice.

"Copy, Mercer. You're clear."

"Did you hear another transmission just now? Somebody using my call sign?"

There was a pause. Longer than there should have been.

"Negative," Fiona said. "My last transmission was the updated location. You're the first response."

I looked at Ewan. He shook his head once, slowly.

I released the switch and stood there. The cold pressed against us. My breath clouded in front of my face. The sled rested silently on the snow behind Ewan.

"Keep moving," he said quietly.

I wanted to argue. I wanted to check the radio again, change channels and verify what had happened. But Ewan was already pulling the sled onwards, and the light was failing quickly.

I began walking, keeping the radio switched on. Listening.

My mind tried to make sense of it. A reflected signal, perhaps. Another ranger farther out using the same frequency. Some kind of equipment fault.

None of it fitted. The voice had not merely resembled mine. It had been exact.

I checked my microphone twice more as we walked. I inspected the clip and my gloves to make sure I had not brushed the button accidentally. Nothing explained it.

Ewan said nothing and asked no questions. He simply kept pace behind me, the sled scraping steadily over the snow.

We reached the beginning of the circuit about ten minutes later. A weathered wooden sign stood half-buried in snow, the route names carved into it. The Lairig Ghru circuit went left. Somebody had tied red marker tape to a nearby branch, where it fluttered in the wind.

I stopped and examined the snow. Boot prints, perhaps a day old. Snowshoe tracks leading into the trees.

Ewan drew level with me and crouched, studying the tracks without touching them.

"Two people," he said. "Heading in."

I nodded. My hand remained close to the radio. The strangeness of the earlier transmission had not faded. It sat in my chest, tight and cold, and I could not shake it.

The trees ahead appeared darker than they should have. The wind was strengthening. Somewhere far away, I thought I heard something. Perhaps a voice. Perhaps only branches scraping together.

Ewan stood and adjusted his rucksack.

"Stay close," he said.

I turned my head torch to full beam and started along the route.

I saw it about three metres beyond the marker. A snowshoe. Only one.

It lay on its side in the snow, its binding snapped cleanly through. It was not torn or frayed, but broken straight across, as though somebody had placed a foot wrongly and the whole assembly had given way.

Ewan stopped beside me without speaking.

I crouched and examined it without touching. The edges of the break were still sharp and showed no weathering. Fresh. Probably that day, or the previous day at the very oldest.

Beside it, cutting away from the path and into the trees, was a drag mark. Not a footprint. Not the sort of slide left by somebody sitting down.

A drag mark.

It was broad and uneven, carving through the snow in a line that ran directly into a dense stand of spruce about twenty metres from the path. Along its edge, at intervals of a metre or two, lay small dark droplets.

Blood.

I stood quickly. My chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

Ewan was already watching the trees. He tilted his head as he had on the forest road when my radio behaved strangely. Listening.

I pressed my radio switch.

"MacLeod, this is Mercer. We're at the start of the circuit. We've found a broken snowshoe and a drag trench leaving the path, with what appears to be blood. We're going in."

Static sounded for a second. Then Fiona's voice came through clearly.

"Copy. Keep me updated. I'm on my way to your position now."

I clipped the radio back onto my strap and looked at Ewan.

"All right to leave the sled here?"

He nodded once, unfastened the harness and let it fall into the snow. Then he took something from his rucksack.

It was the compact battery-powered sound generator he had checked at the base. He switched it on, tested it, then turned it off again and clipped it to his belt.

I did not ask. I went first.

The drag mark was obvious enough that following it required no thought. I kept to one side so I would not disturb whatever evidence remained.

The drops of blood continued. Small ones. Not a gush or a pool, only specks every metre or two, as though somebody were bleeding without suffering a major haemorrhage.

The trees were tightly packed. Low spruce branches scraped my shoulders as I pushed through. My head-torch beam caught bark and snow, casting shadows in every direction.

I kept one hand close to the distress horn. I did not know exactly why. It simply felt better.

Behind me, I could hear Ewan moving steadily and quietly. Every few seconds he stopped, and I heard his slow, controlled breathing. Then he moved again.

I wanted to go faster. The thought that somebody might still be alive out there, bleeding and alone, made delay unbearable. But the snow was deep, branches kept catching my parka and I had to concentrate on avoiding roots hidden beneath the surface.

The drag mark curved right, then straightened.

The blood appeared more frequently now. Still only droplets, but closer together.

I pushed through another screen of branches and nearly stepped on a broken limb. Then another.

The snow had been churned across a broad, untidy area, as if something had thrashed there or been hauled through without care. The drag mark deepened into a shallow trench, wider than before. Branches around it had snapped at chest height, some hanging by splinters.

It did not look as if somebody had walked through and collapsed. It looked as if something heavy had been deliberately dragged.

The thought felt wrong, but I kept moving.

Ewan was directly behind me now, close enough for me to hear his breathing. He still said nothing.

The trench continued for another five metres, bending slightly to the left, and then ended.

I swept my head torch across the area and saw him.

A man was slumped against a fallen tree, his legs bent awkwardly to one side and his head tipped forward as though he had fallen asleep in the middle of a sentence. His jacket was torn at the shoulder. His gloves were missing, and his hands...

His hands were a ruin.

They had been scraped raw. His fingers were red and swollen, and the skin across his knuckles was torn and bleeding in several places. It looked as though he had been clawing at something. Fighting.

His boots were badly scuffed, the toes gouged and the laces half undone.

I moved quickly, dropped to one knee beside him and removed my glove so I could check the pulse at his neck. His skin was cold but not frozen. A pulse was present, slow but steady.

"Hello," I said, louder than I intended. "Can you hear me?"

His eyes opened. Pale blue and bloodshot. He blinked twice, slowly. Then his head rolled slightly to one side and he looked straight at me.

"Daniel," he said.

I froze.

"Daniel Mercer," he said again.

His voice was rough, as though his throat had been scraped raw, but the words were clear and deliberate.

I had not told him my name. I had said nothing except, "Hello."

"What's your name?" I asked, keeping my voice calm and procedural. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Callum," he said.

Then he coughed. It sounded wet.

"Callum Fraser. Bethany, she's calling. Can you hear her?"

I glanced back at Ewan.

He stood about two metres behind me, facing the trees rather than Callum. His hand rested on his belt beside the sound generator.

"Where's Bethany?" I asked, turning back. "Where did you last see her?"

"Ridge," Callum said.

He lifted one of his ruined hands and pointed vaguely to the left.

"She's calling. She keeps calling. I tried... I tried to reach her, but..."

His sentence bent, stopped and began again in a way that did not quite connect.

"Daniel Mercer," he said. "That's you. You came. I knew you'd come."

The way he said it made my skin crawl. He did not sound grateful or relieved. He was simply stating a fact, as though he had been expecting me specifically.

"How do you know my name?" I asked.

He smiled slightly. His lips were chapped and split, and the smile did not reach his eyes.

"Bethany told me," he said.

Then he laughed, short and sharp.

"She said Daniel Mercer's coming. She said it three times. Daniel Mercer. Daniel Mercer. Daniel Mercer."

I looked at his hands again, at the raw skin and torn knuckles. His boots were scuffed as if he had been dragged backwards through the snow while trying to drive his heels into the ground.

"Who dragged you here?" I asked.

Callum blinked and tilted his head.

"Nobody dragged me."

"Your boots are ruined. Your hands look as though you fought somebody."

"I was trying to reach her."

His voice tightened with frustration.

"She kept calling and I kept trying, but the snow... the snow kept pulling and I couldn't..."

He stopped and stared at me. Then he said my name again.

"Daniel."

Not a question. Only my name, spoken flatly.

Ewan moved.

I heard his boots compress the snow, and then he was beside me, crouched low and looking at Callum's face rather than his injuries.

"Where is Bethany now?" Ewan asked.

His voice was calm and quiet. Callum's eyes moved towards him and blinked slowly.

"Ridge. She's calling. Can you hear her?"

"No," Ewan said.

"She's calling," Callum repeated, more insistently. "She keeps saying help. She keeps saying Daniel."

I checked his pupils. Both reacted to light, with no obvious difference in dilation. But something about the way he spoke felt wrong. He was looping, unable to finish a thought before circling back to Bethany's voice or my full name.

"We're going to get you out," I said.

I pulled out my radio.

"MacLeod, this is Mercer. We've found Callum Fraser. He's alive and conscious, but disorientated. Possible hypothermia and injuries to both hands. We're taking him back to the sled now."

Fiona's voice crackled through.

"Copy. What about Bethany Kerr?"

I looked at Callum.

"Where's Bethany?"

"Calling," he said. "Ridge. Can you hear her?"

"We don't have sight of Bethany," I said into the radio. "Callum says she's on a ridge, but he's not making complete sense. We'll evacuate him first and reassess."

"Copy," Fiona said. "I'm ten minutes away."

I clipped the radio back and began checking Callum's legs for fractures. Everything appeared intact. His limbs were cold, but I saw no obvious frostbite. His jacket was torn, though the layers underneath remained dry.

Ewan stood. He was no longer looking at Callum. He was watching the trees again, his head tilted, one hand resting on the sound generator.

"We need to move," he said.

"I'm checking him first."

"Now, Daniel."

His voice remained calm, but there was weight behind it.

I looked up. His gaze swept slowly across the tree line from left to right, and his jaw was tight.

"What is it?" I asked.

"We need to move," he repeated.

Callum gave the same short, sharp laugh.

"Daniel Mercer," he said. "Bethany said you'd come. She said it exactly right."

I pulled Callum's arm over my shoulder and hauled him upright. He was heavier than he looked, about 23 kilograms of dead weight added to his own unsteady effort. He managed to put his feet beneath him well enough to shuffle.

Ewan moved to the other side and took Callum's free arm without speaking.

We started back through the trees. We moved faster than I would have chosen with someone in Callum's condition, but Ewan set the pace and I matched it.

Callum kept talking, mostly mumbling. He said my name twice more. Bethany's name. Something about the snow pulling him. Something about her voice.

I kept my attention on the drag trench we had followed in, retracing it step by step.

I did not look into the trees, though I wanted to, because Ewan kept glancing at them and his hand never left the sound generator.

I heard the snowmobile before I saw it. Its engine cut through the silence perhaps thirty seconds before Fiona appeared around the bend, her head torch bouncing with the terrain.

She was riding the tracked Ski-Doo utility snowmobile we kept for winter access. A hard trauma case was secured across the back beside the base's reserve radio unit, the one with the external aerial.

She stopped the engine and swung off in one movement.

"Status?"

"Conscious," I said. "Disorientated. His hands are badly torn. Possible hypothermia. He keeps talking about Bethany calling from a ridge."

Fiona moved past me and crouched beside Callum. She set down the trauma kit, opened it and took out a pen torch.

"Callum, I'm Fiona. I'm a ranger. Can you tell me where it hurts?"

Callum blinked at her slowly. His lips were cracked, and his face had the waxy appearance people develop when their core temperature falls.

"Bethany," he said. "She's calling."

"We'll find Bethany," Fiona said.

She checked his pupils with the pen torch, then examined his hands, turning them carefully. His knuckles were badly damaged, the skin torn through to raw tissue in places.

She removed a foil blanket from the kit and draped it around his shoulders.

"Daniel, put heat packs on him. Torso and extremities."

I searched my rucksack and found the extra heat packs I had bought during the supply run. I shook four to activate them, then tucked two inside Callum's jacket against his ribs and one into each armpit.

Fiona wrapped his hands in gauze while I worked. Ewan stood about three metres away, watching the trees. He had not spoken since Fiona arrived.

After a few seconds, he turned and began gathering fallen wood from the edge of the clearing. Mostly branches, some still clotted with snow.

"What's he doing?" Fiona asked.

"I'm not sure."

Ewan returned with an armful of wood and dropped it in a rough heap between us and the tree line. He crouched and began arranging it.

"Strachan," Fiona said. "We're moving in two minutes."

"Fire first," Ewan replied.

He did not look up.

"We don't have time for fire and noise."

Ewan took an emergency incendiary flare from his winter kit, then paused and used his lighter on a strip of dry bark instead.

"Then we move."

Fiona stood.

"He's hypothermic and losing blood from his hands. We put him on the sled, take him out and rendezvous with the ambulance crew at the Coylumbridge forest-road access point. That's the procedure."

"Procedure doesn't cover this."

"Cover what?"

Ewan did not answer. He held the lighter against the dry bark until it caught. The flame spread quickly, crackling through the smallest twigs.

I concentrated on Callum and checked his pulse again. Still slow. Still steady. His breathing was shallow but even. The heat packs were working. I could feel warmth gathering beneath the foil blanket.

Fiona took the reserve radio from her belt and pressed the transmit switch.

"MacLeod to Police Scotland control, come in."

Static sounded for a second. Then a voice answered, clear and flat.

"Control. Go ahead."

"This is MacLeod. We have one casualty located and secured. Requesting Scottish Ambulance Service support, with an ambulance rendezvous at the Coylumbridge forest-road access point."

"Coordinates?"

She read out the GPS reference.

"Estimated arrival twenty minutes."

The reply came immediately.

"Copy, MacLeod. Ambulance dispatched. Estimated arrival eighteen minutes at the forest-road access point. Confirmed. Morag Bell, Police Scotland control."

"MacLeod out."

Fiona clipped the radio back onto her belt and looked at me.

"Let's get him onto the sled."

I nodded and started to rise. Then I stopped.

The reply had been too quick and too clean.

Reception had been unreliable all the way in. My radio had received Fiona before, while Ewan's had remained silent. The other transmission, the one in my own voice that I had never made, had sounded distant and broken, like a signal reflecting between ridges or forcing its way through dense woodland.

But Morag Bell's voice had been perfect. No static. No delay. Only clean audio, as though she were standing three metres away instead of working in a Police Scotland control room.

I removed my own radio from my belt and checked the signal indicator. Two bars. Weak but usable.

"Fiona."

She looked at me.

"That came through very clearly."

"Good equipment," she said. "Let's move."

"Yes."

I clipped the radio back into place.

"All right."

But it did not feel right.

We put Callum onto the sled. Fiona and I lifted him while Ewan steadied the frame, then we secured him with nylon straps across his chest and thighs. Callum did not resist. He continued murmuring Bethany's name, mostly. Sometimes mine.

Ewan clipped himself into the sled harness and I took the lead again. Fiona followed behind, one hand resting on the trauma kit attached to her belt.

The fire Ewan had built continued to burn, small and controlled, throwing orange light across the snow.

We started down the route. The drag trench remained visible to our left. I kept my attention on the ground ahead and tried to match the pace I had set on the way in.

Steady. Controlled. Do not hurry and do not stop.

The woods were silent.

Not ordinary silence. Not the stillness of winter, when snow muffles everything and animals shelter. This was different.

There was no wind. No branches creaking. No distant suggestion of anything moving, settling or existing.

Only our boots compressing the snow, the sled scraping behind us and the sound of our breathing.

I checked my watch. Sixteen minutes since Fiona's call.

We were making good time. The ambulance would be waiting. Morag had confirmed it. Eighteen minutes to the access point, and we were moving quickly enough to arrive soon afterwards if we did not stop.

Then I heard it.

Crying.

A woman's voice, thin, high and broken, calling through short, gasping sobs.

It came from ahead, perhaps fifty metres farther along the route, beyond the next bend.

"Bethany?" Fiona said.

She stepped past me, her head-torch beam swinging towards the sound.

The crying came again. Louder this time. Clearer.

Too clear.

The trees should have muffled it. They should have scattered the sound and made its source difficult to place. Instead it came cleanly and directly, as though played through a loudspeaker.

Ewan stopped. The sled jolted to a halt behind him.

"Don't," he said.

Fiona kept walking.

"Bethany, we're here. Stay where you are. We're coming to you."

The crying changed pitch slightly. It remained high and broken, but now it sounded closer, immediately beyond the bend.

Ewan dropped the sled harness and moved quickly. He seized Fiona's arm and pulled her back hard enough to make her stumble.

"What are you doing?"

"Don't move towards it," Ewan said.

His voice was low and taut.

"Don't answer."

"That's Bethany Kerr."

"That isn't Bethany."

Fiona wrenched her arm free.

"She's fifty metres ahead and in distress. We have a duty to reach her."

"It's bait."

I stepped between them.

"We don't have time for this."

Ewan looked at me. His face was expressionless, but his hand rested on the sound generator clipped to his belt.

"Every second we stand here is another second Callum's core temperature falls," I said.

We extract him, then come back for Bethany with more people and better light. That was the decision.

"Listen to it," Ewan said.

The crying came again. Same pitch. Same rhythm. Same breaks between sobs.

Identical.

"She's hypothermic," Fiona said. "She's in shock. People repeat themselves when they're..."

"It's a loop," Ewan said.

Exactly. I grabbed Ewan's shoulder and pulled him back towards the sled.

"We're moving. Now."

He did not fight me. He simply let himself be pulled, his eyes still fixed on the trees ahead.

I picked up the harness Ewan had dropped and clipped it to my belt.

"Fiona, stay close. Ewan, watch the rear."

I started walking.

The crying followed us. It followed us around the next bend, then stopped. It simply cut off in the middle of a sob. No fading. No trailing breath.

One second it was there. The next it was not.

I kept pulling the sled. My boots crunched through the snow. The harness dug into my belt, and my head torch swung across the trees and the packed path ahead.

The silence felt worse than the crying. It made the air seem heavier. Made every step feel as though I were pushing through something thicker than cold.

My beam caught something dark ahead.

Hanging.

The wrong shape for a branch.

I stopped. The sled jerked behind me. Fiona nearly walked into my back.

"Mercer," she said. "What is it?"

I pointed.

Three metres ahead, perhaps four, a red-deer hind carcass hung from a low branch. It was not tied there and had not become snagged. It was simply hanging. The branch bowed beneath its weight without breaking.

The hind's belly had been split from sternum to pelvis in one clean line. Steam rose from the cavity in slow, pale curls, catching the light from my head torch and glowing in it. The ribs had been pulled apart. Most of the organs were gone. What remained looked dark and wet, still warm enough to mist the air.

The snow beneath it was barely disturbed. A few drops of blood, perhaps. Not enough for the site of a kill. Not enough for a carcass that had been opened and gutted.

Fiona stepped beside me. Her light joined mine on the hind. She said nothing for three seconds.

"That's fresh," she said.

I nodded. Fresh was an understatement. That deer had been alive five minutes earlier. Perhaps less.

Steam still rose steadily and thickly, the sort produced when a warm body meets air cold enough to tear the heat straight out of it.

"Where's the rest of it?" I asked.

Fiona swept her light across the ground. There were no drag marks. No tracks leading to or from the carcass. Just untouched snow, the dead hind and that single branch bending beneath a weight it should not have been able to hold.

Ewan moved up beside us. His light joined ours. He looked at the deer for two seconds, then stared past it into the trees.

"Keep moving," he said.

"That was only just killed," Fiona said.

"I know."

"So where is whatever killed it?"

Ewan did not answer. He returned to the sled, checked the straps across Callum's chest and adjusted the foil blanket.

I looked at the hind again. The edges of the incision were too clean. There was no tearing and no ragged flesh. It looked surgical. Intentional.

My stomach turned cold.

Behind us, Callum began to laugh.

It was not loud or wild. It was a low, steady chuckle, coming out in a rhythm as though he had heard the punchline to a joke meant only for him. The sort of laugh you might hear in a pub or across a dinner table. Casual. Easy.

Except Callum was strapped to a rescue sled with hypothermia and torn hands, and we were standing before the steaming carcass of a red-deer hind in the middle of the Cairngorms.

The laugh did not fit. Not his injuries. Not the situation. Not the way he had been muttering and repeating himself five minutes earlier.

I turned. My head torch caught Callum's face. His eyes were half-open and unfocused, staring upwards at nothing. His mouth moved.

The laughter continued, steady and even, with no pauses for breath.

Fiona moved past me towards the sled.

"Callum," she said. "Can you hear me?"

The laughter continued. Same rhythm. Same tone.

I tightened my grip on the rope clipped to my harness. The nylon bit into my glove. My teeth felt too tight in my jaw.

"We need to move," Fiona said.

She did not look at Callum. She looked at me. Her voice was clipped and flat, the voice she used when issuing an order she did not want questioned.

"Now, Mercer. Pull."

I pulled. The sled scraped forwards. Callum's laughter did not change. It did not become louder or softer, faster or slower. It continued in the same low, even rhythm as we passed the hanging hind and headed down the path.

Ewan walked beside the sled now, rather than behind it. His hand rested on the compact battery-powered sound generator clipped to his belt, the one he used during night searches. His eyes swept the trees in steady passes, left to right, then up and down.

Nine metres beyond the deer, Ewan stopped.

"Hold."

I stopped, and the sled jerked to a halt. Callum's laughter went on.

Ewan unclipped his rucksack and placed it carefully on the ground. He opened the top flap and removed two more sound generators. They were small black rectangles, each about the size of a pack of playing cards, with a single switch on one side.

He turned on the first. A low, constant hiss of static filled the air, the kind of noise that hovered at the edge of irritation. He set it on a flat rock beside the path, then moved three metres to the right and placed the second on a fallen log.

"What are you doing?" Fiona asked.

Ewan did not answer. He unclipped the third generator from his belt, walked five metres up the path beyond me and set it on a stump. Then he flicked the switch.

The hiss tripled and layered over itself. It reached us from three directions, a constant wash of noise that made my teeth itch and my jaw clench. It was not exactly loud. It was simply there, persistent, the sort of sound that entered your ears and refused to leave.

Callum's laughter stopped in the middle of a breath, as though someone had pressed a mute button.

I turned towards him. His mouth remained open and his chest continued to rise and fall, but no sound emerged. His unfocused eyes still stared at nothing, but the laughter was gone.

Fiona looked at Ewan.

"What did you just do?"

He returned to his rucksack and put it on.

"Noise helps," he said. "Blocks it out."

"Blocks what out?"

He did not answer. He picked up the rope I had dropped and handed it back to me.

"Keep moving. Don't stop until we reach the forest-road access point."

I took the rope. My hand was trembling slightly. I blamed the cold.

We started walking again. The static followed us from behind, slowly fading as we put distance between ourselves and the generators. My teeth continued to itch. My jaw still felt too tight, but Callum remained quiet.

Six metres later, I saw the tracks.

They lay to our left, roughly two metres from the edge of the path, running parallel to our route. Long impressions marked the snow, deep enough for my head torch to catch the shadow inside each one.

They were not boot prints or snowshoe tracks. They were too narrow, too long and too widely spaced. Four pointed impressions marked the front of every track, sharp-edged like claws. At first glance, they might have been made by hooves, but the spacing was wrong. The depth was wrong.

And hooves did not leave claw marks.

"Fiona," I said.

She had already seen them. Her light was fixed on the tracks, following them into the darkness ahead until they vanished beyond the reach of our head torches.

"Red deer," she said.

I looked at her. She did not look back.

"An injured or diseased red deer," she continued. Her voice was steady and practical, the same tone she used when explaining patrol rotas or supply runs. "Injury, infection, neurological illness. Any of those could change its gait. It might drag its feet and leave unusual prints."

Her light remained on the tracks. She did not blink.

Ewan made a sound that might have been a laugh, had Ewan been the sort of man who laughed.

"That's not a deer," he said.

Fiona's jaw tightened.

"Then what is it?"

"Don't know."

"Then how do you know it isn't a deer?"

Ewan stopped walking. I stopped too, bringing the sled to a halt. Callum lay silent, his half-open eyes staring at nothing.

Ewan looked at Fiona. His face remained blank and calm, the same expression he had worn when he pulled her away from the crying, when he stared at the hanging carcass and when he set out the sound generators without explanation.

"Because deer don't listen to radios," he said.

Fiona stared at him.

"What?"

"Something out here listens," Ewan said.

He was no longer looking at her. He watched the trees.

"It listens to radios. Learns voices. Plays them back."

My stomach dropped.

The transmission. My own voice saying words I had never spoken. Giving details I had not reported. Coming through my radio clearly and precisely while Ewan's remained silent.

"That was bait," I said.

Ewan nodded once.

"The location Fiona sent," I said. "The update about the fallen birch at the left fork. That wasn't her?"

"The first transmission probably was," Ewan said. "But the second one, with your voice..."

He looked at me.

"That wasn't you."

I thought about the timing, how quickly it had arrived and how exact it had been. How it had used my name, my cadence and my precise tone.

"It was trying to separate us," I said.

Ewan nodded again.

Fiona's hand moved to her radio. She took it from her belt and stared at the display. Two bars. Channel three. Her thumb hovered over the transmit button, then withdrew.

"The ambulance," she said. "Morag confirmed eighteen minutes."

She checked her watch.

"That was clear as well. Too clear."

"Yes," Ewan said.

"So we don't know whether the Scottish Ambulance Service was actually contacted. We don't know whether a crew is coming to the Coylumbridge forest-road access point."

"No."

The cold seemed to press closer. The beam from my head torch felt smaller. The darkness beyond it seemed heavier and thicker, as though it were paying attention. As though it were listening.

I looked at the tracks again. Four pointed impressions, too deep and too deliberate, running parallel to us and keeping pace.

"It knows we're here," I said.

Ewan adjusted his rucksack.

"It's known since we left the Land Rover."

"Then why hasn't it..."

I stopped. I did not want to finish the question.

Ewan finished it for me.

"Because it's playing."

He began walking. I followed, and Fiona followed me.

The sled scraped over the snow. Callum remained silent, his eyes open and fixed on nothing. The tracks stayed beside us, roughly two metres to our left. Parallel. Steady.

Somewhere beyond the edge of my head torch's beam, I felt something cold and patient watching us move.

Callum stopped breathing after about five minutes.

I noticed first. His chest simply ceased to move. The foil blanket lay still.

Fiona dropped to her knees beside the sled and pressed two fingers to his throat. She held them there for ten seconds, then moved them to his wrist and waited another ten.

"Nothing," she said.

Ewan did not stop watching the trees.

Fiona looked at the straps across Callum's chest and thighs. Her hand moved to the buckle on the chest strap and hovered there. I knew what she was thinking.

About 23 kilograms of dead weight would slow us down. The sled was harder to pull. We still had more than a kilometre to cover, perhaps considerably more, and something was pacing us through the darkness.

I said nothing. Neither did Ewan. It was Fiona's decision.

She drew her hand back and stood.

"We keep moving."

I reached for the rope.

That was when Callum's mouth opened.

Not like a breath or a gasp. It merely opened, slowly and smoothly, his jaw lowering until I could see the darkness inside.

Then a child's voice came out.

"Mum?"

It was high and soft, the voice of a boy perhaps nine years old, and perfectly clear.

"Mum, please come home. I'm waiting."

Fiona went rigid. Her head torch stopped moving.

"Jamie," she whispered.

The voice came again with exactly the same tone and phrasing.

"Mum, please come home."

She stepped forwards, not towards the sled but towards the trees. Her hand dropped from her belt and her shoulders tilted, as though she were leaning into something.

I did not think. I simply moved.

I struck her from the side with my full weight, and we fell together into the snow between two of Ewan's sound generators. The hiss was loud enough to make my teeth ache. Fiona thrashed once and tried to sit up, then stopped. Her eyes came back into focus.

She looked at me, then at the sled, then back at me.

"That wasn't..." she began.

"No," I said.

Ewan was already moving. He dragged a heap of dead wood from the edge of the clearing and dumped it in the middle of the path. Then he pulled two emergency incendiary flares from Fiona's trauma kit. We had inventoried them before setting out, part of the isolated winter-operations equipment carried with the road flares, spare radio batteries and bottled gas for the portable heaters.

He ignited one and held it to the wood. The bark caught quickly. Orange flames spread, bright enough to throw jumping, twisting shadows across the snow.

I stood and pulled Fiona up with me. Her legs shook, but she remained upright.

"We need a choke point," Ewan said.

He was not looking at us. He stared beyond the fire into the trees.

"Somewhere we can control the approach. We burn, then fall back."

Fiona shook her head.

"We walk out now. The fire gives us light and holds it back, but we don't stop."

Ewan turned.

"You want to run through the dark with that thing tracking us?"

"I want to reach the access point before we run out of flares."

I looked at the fire. It was already dying around the edges where the wood was wet. Then I looked at the sled. Callum's mouth had closed again. His eyes remained half-open, staring at nothing.

"We move," I said.

Ewan stared at me for three seconds, then nodded once.

Fiona took out her radio and pressed the transmit button.

"MacLeod to Mercer. Do you copy?"

Static answered. Two bars showed on the display.

Then Fiona's own voice came back, exact and clean, without distortion.

"Mercer, this is MacLeod. Abandon the fire and move now. Location confirmed. The ambulance crew is waiting at Coylumbridge."

Fiona lowered the radio and looked at Ewan.

He stepped forwards, took it from her hand and turned it over. He tore the battery free with a crack of breaking plastic and threw it into the trees.

"Oi," Fiona began.

"That wasn't Police Scotland control," Ewan said.

The fire collapsed inwards. The central log split, and the flames sank into coals that hissed against the wet snow. Thick grey smoke curled upwards.

"Go," Ewan said.

I grabbed the sled rope and started running. Not at a full sprint. I could not manage that with the sled dragging behind me, but I moved quickly, far faster than I should have done along a mountain path at night with about 23 kilograms of dead weight and uneven snow beneath my boots.

Fiona stayed close on my left and Ewan on my right. The fire vanished behind us.

Darkness returned.

The tracks were still there, two metres to our left, keeping pace. I did not look at them. I kept my eyes on the path, my hand on the rope and my breathing steady.

My chest burned. My legs burned. The sled scraped and jolted behind me, and I felt every root and stone through the harness clipped to my belt.

We ran for perhaps ten minutes. Perhaps fifteen. It was difficult to tell.

The path curved left, then right, then straightened. The trees thinned slightly, and I thought I could see open ground ahead.

Then Ewan seized my shoulder and pulled me to the right, off the main path and onto a narrower fork I had not noticed.

"Forestry tower," he said.

Fiona did not argue. We followed him up the incline, our boots slipping on the slope as the sled dragged sideways and caught against every low branch. The path grew steeper. My lungs screamed.

I did not stop.

The tower appeared about two minutes later, a disused 18-metre steel forestry observation tower with a timber platform at the top and a narrow zigzag stairway climbing its frame. Dead wood surrounded the base. A rusted sign read, "DANGER - STRUCTURE UNSAFE".

"Up," Ewan said.

Fiona climbed first. Her boots rang against the metal steps, loud and sharp.

I unclipped myself from the sled harness, tied the rope around my belt and began hauling it up hand over hand as I climbed. Callum's body swung and struck the steel frame.

I did not look down.

Ewan remained on the landing below us. He took the final three sound generators from his rucksack and placed them around the platform in a triangle, switching on each one. Their layered hiss grew and filled the tower.

I reached the top and pulled the sled after me, dragging it over the edge of the platform. Fiona was already on the far side, watching the trees.

Then the metal banged.

It was not the wind and not the structure settling. It was a sharp, deliberate blow from below.

Another bang followed, closer this time.

I leant over the railing and looked down.

Something was climbing the tower. It was not using the stairs. It climbed the frame itself, pulling its body upwards hand over hand along the support beams.

I saw one arm first.

Pale. Too long. Its fingers closed around the steel without hesitation or fumbling.

Then another arm appeared, moving quickly and smoothly.

I pulled the compressed-air distress horn from my belt and blasted it.

The sound was enormous, flat and metallic and wrong in the open air. The thing recoiled. One arm slipped, and for half a second my head torch caught its face.

Wrong.

Simply wrong.

There was too much movement beneath the skin.

It fell three metres, caught itself and continued climbing.

Its movement knocked the lowest sound generator loose. The black rectangle tumbled from the landing, and one layer of the hiss vanished. Then the second fell. Then the third.

Silence.

Then all the voices returned.

The crying. The laughter. Callum's muttering. My own voice giving location details. Fiona's voice ordering us to move.

And behind me, close enough to be at my shoulder, came Jamie's voice.

"Mum, please come home."

Fiona turned.

I caught her jacket and hauled her backwards so hard that she stumbled into me. She tried to pull free, but I held on.

The thing came over the railing.

It moved too quickly. One second it was below us. The next it was crouched on the platform, its arms bent at impossible angles and its mouth hanging open.

Jamie's voice still came from it, repeating "Mum" in that high, gentle tone.

I threw the flare.

I did not ignite it first. I simply tore it from Fiona's belt and hurled it as hard as I could.

It struck the thing in the chest and ignited on impact.

Red flame and smoke burst across its torso. Jamie's voice stopped.

The creature screamed instead.

It screamed in every voice at once, layered over one another, overlapping and breaking apart.

It toppled backwards over the railing. As it fell, one hand caught the sled rope.

The line snapped taut. Callum's body slid across the platform towards the edge.

I lunged for it, but I was too slow.

The sled tipped over the railing and fell.

The thing was still screaming. I leant over and watched it strike the ground 18 metres below. Flames spread rapidly across its back and arms. It thrashed and rolled.

The sled landed on top of it. The impact drove it flat.

The screaming grew louder, then quieter, then stopped.

The flames continued to burn.

We stood there for perhaps thirty seconds. Perhaps a minute. We did nothing but breathe and watch the fire below.

Ewan's forearm was burnt. I noticed when he leant against the railing. The skin was red and blistered where the burning flare had glanced from the creature and caught him as it passed. The new injury lay close to his old burn scars.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Well enough," he said.

We descended slowly. Fiona went first, testing each step before trusting her weight to it. I followed. Ewan came last, favouring his burnt arm but saying nothing about it.

At the bottom, we circled the wreckage.

The thing still burnt, though the flames were smaller now as its body collapsed into itself. The smell was foul. Not quite meat. Not quite chemical. Something else.

Callum's body was half-buried beneath the sled frame. His face was gone. I did not look closely.

Fiona took out her radio. The battery was still missing, but she turned the set over in her hands as though checking it for damage. Then she clipped it back onto her belt and left it switched off.

We walked out.

It took forty minutes to reach the Coylumbridge forest-road access point. There were no voices and no tracks. Only snow, trees and the crunch of our boots.

Alistair was waiting with the gritting and plough vehicle idling, its headlights on. He saw us approach and climbed out. His expression tightened as he counted the people coming towards him, then looked beyond us for the two missing walkers we had gone in to find.

"Two went in," he said.

"One came out," Fiona replied. "Sort of."

Alistair nodded. He did not ask.

Morag Bell at Police Scotland control had sent help after all, perhaps on the strength of Fiona's first genuine call. A Scottish Ambulance Service crew arrived at the rendezvous with Police Scotland officers, additional Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team volunteers and park-ranger support twenty minutes later.

We gave our statements. Fiona did most of the talking.

Suspected animal attack. Emergency withdrawal. Callum died during the evacuation. A flare used defensively had started a fire. Recovery of the body was unsafe in darkness beneath an unstable forestry tower.

I filed my report the same way.

Suspected animal attack. Defensive use of an emergency incendiary flare. Casualty deceased before we reached the forest-road access point. Unsafe conditions prevented recovery.

I left out the voices. Left out the thing climbing the tower. Left out the creature that was not an injured deer, feral boar or anything else with a name I knew.

Nobody asked.

Perhaps they did not want to know.

After that night, I stopped trusting certainty over the radio in reception dead zones. If a transmission arrives too clearly or too promptly, I do not follow it. I verify it through an independent channel, or wait for confirmation I can see with my own eyes.

And I keep the compressed-air distress horn on my belt.

The cost of being wrong already left on a rescue sled. I will not pay it again.