Fan Casting

Every year, eight lifelong friends return to the same remote hunting country to open deer season. They grew up together, played college football on the same team, and later served in the same Army unit. Now in their fifties, the annual trip remains unchanged: rifles, pickup trucks, football, cold beer and several days in woods they know better than anyone. On the second morning, one of them hears a faint cry for help. Below an old logging trail they find the county sheriff badly wounded and suffering from exposure. He has been there since the previous afternoon. His adult daughter, who had been riding with him, is missing. The sheriff explains that he came across two armed men fleeing after a violent robbery. When he recognized their vehicle and tried to arrest them, they shot him. His daughter witnessed the attack and tried to reach the patrol car for help, so the fugitives took her with them, intending to use her to buy enough time to escape through the backcountry. Police, state troopers and game wardens begin organizing a search, but the eight friends know the fugitives already have a long head start. They also know the mountains, abandoned logging roads, river crossings and hunting trails better than anyone. They decide to go after her. Moving together as they once did in the Army, But they are no longer young soldiers. They are eight aging hunters following a trail more than twelve hours old. For miles they find only signs: a broken branch, footprints in mud, blood on a rock, a place where three people crossed a creek. Slowly, the distance begins to close. Then the fugitives realize they are being followed. What began as a search becomes a tense manhunt through country both sides are trying to use to their advantage. The eight friends know the land. The two men ahead know capture means the end of their freedom. And somewhere between them is the sheriff’s daughter they have promised to bring home.