What he saw through the Cub’s open window stopped him dead in his tracks.
***
“Don’t move.” Leo’s voice was miraculously steady. So was her gun.
With her hands occupied, she blinked in an effort to get rid of the blood dripping in her eyes. It coated her lids, clogged her vision, made breathing difficult.
Everything wavered so much, she couldn’t focus on the bulky creature. Please, God, don’t be a bear. The ground shifted. Or a yeti. “S-said stop.”
“Didn’t move.” Okay, so not a bear, unless they talked around here. She wasn’t entirely prepared to rule out yetis. She could, however, say with absolute certainty that this massive man was not the one she was after. Sure, they were both white, but that was about where the similarities ended. Campbell Turner topped out at five nine. This guy was well over six feet tall.
Great—then who the hell was this? Had her landing somehow attracted the attention of one of those wilderness freaks? Seemed unlikely that one of her pursuers had already reached her, but then again, her head wasn’t on straight. For all she knew, she’d blacked out for an hour. No. No, it was still light out. She squinted at the man. Mountain man seemed about right. He didn’t look like he’d seen civilization in a while.
He raised massive, gloved hands to wide shoulders and wiggled his fingers, as if they itched to reach out, like one of those Wild West characters just dying to unholster their weapon. Though he didn’t, technically, have a holster, since he wore his rifle strapped across his chest. “You, uh, okay?” Like an afterthought, he added a “ma’am.”
“Step back,” she panted. Why was it so hard to speak? To breathe? There was too much pressure on her chest.
Her unfocused gaze skimmed over a thick beard and wild hair, managing to home in on bright eyes that narrowed, picked her apart from the top of her head to wherever her blood flowed, and finally disappeared when he stepped off the float. Whoever this person was, he did not fit Campbell Turner’s description.
Without his weight to anchor it, the plane lurched for a few nausea-inducing seconds before settling again.
Belly heaving, she tried to release the harness and wound up sinking into her seat again, blinded by the pain as much as the blood.
“I’m coming back up,” growled the man.
Her stomach swam. “I can manage.”
“Gotta get you out. Fast. Or you’ll wind up drowning.”
Drowning? What the hell was he talking about? And why would he care?
His weight made everything lurch again. Something fell from her hands with a metallic clunk, her eyes shut out the painful light. She concentrated on sounds and smells and textures. Her stomach settled, thank God. Now if her head would stop throbbing, maybe she could figure this mess out.
If this guy wasn’t Campbell Turner and he wasn’t part of the Chronos team, could he really be a random mountain man who just happened to be strolling by when she crash-landed in the location Amka had given her? Leo didn’t believe in coincidences. At all.
Somewhere not too far off, a helicopter’s blades beat the air, dull but present. Way too close.
“Climb to the front.” Quick as a flash, the man undid her harness and backed out of the cockpit. “Now, dammit! You’re sinking!”
Sinking?
“Put your hand here.”
She started to shake her head and stopped. “Trying not to vomit.”
“No time for that,” barked the angry bass and, hell, the man was right. “Come on.”
It took every bit of willpower she had to set her distrust aside and let him help her onto the float and then to solid ground.
Her feet slipped out from under her and she careened painfully to the ice. Not solid ground at all.
Something wet touched her face. Leo’s eyes opened. She grunted in surprise at the sight of a dog or a wolf, maybe, with those weird, colorless eyes.
“Back up, Bo,” the man said, then leaned down to offer his hands. After a second’s hesitation, she clasped them and let him haul her back up to standing.
“Let’s move.”
Concentrating hard, she slid beside him. After a few slippery steps, the vise tightened around her skull and her stomach convulsed. Dropping to hands and knees on the pocked ice, she gagged. The effort twisted her insides, but didn’t bring up a thing.
The stranger squatted beside her. “You okay?”
Hell if I know. She’d be damned if she’d let him see the self-doubt. With every bit of strength she could muster, she pushed back up to her feet, where she swayed for a few queasy seconds. “I’m fine.”
He rose and flicked a narrow-eyed look over her face. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?”
With an annoyed grimace, he turned toward the darkening forest. “We need to run. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” she lied.
The yeti didn’t look like he believed her either. He opened his mouth as if to protest, and then shut it. Good. She didn’t have the energy to argue at the moment. And she’d like to know just who this guy was before she decided what to do about him.
Was he a friend of Campbell Turner’s? Did he plan to lead her to the other man?
“You can’t keep up.” The yeti leaned down and put his face close to hers. “I’ll have to carry you. Or leave you behind.”
“I’m good,” she deadpanned. No way in hell was she letting this man carry her, no matter whose side he was on. “Lead the way.”
Though every instinct told her not to trust a stranger, Leo had neither the equipment nor the stamina she’d need to survive on her own. Paul Bunyan here, however, seemed to be doing just fine out in the wilderness.
So, she’d follow him, at least until she figured out what the hell was going on here.
And then she’d do whatever it took to get Campbell Turner and the virus out before the other team reached him.
What a day.
Chapter 5
Behind them, the helicopter went low for a few minutes and then took off again in the direction of Schink’s Station.
Elias pictured reinforcements swooping in, armies descending.
And here he was leading a stranger straight to his place. She’s coming to get you, Daisy had said. He still didn’t know if that was a good thing.
He knew absolutely zilch about this woman, aside from what he’d gleaned from a few quick glances. She was a good deal shorter than him—maybe five six—with dark brown skin and closely-shorn hair. Even bleary-eyed and injured, there was an efficiency to her movements, a calculation in the way she took everything in, that made him think she was not to be underestimated, whoever the hell she was.
And then there was the question of what she was doing crash-landing Old Amka’s plane less than a mile from his cabin.
He looked over to see her stumble again. When would she give in and let him carry her? The blood from her lacerated scalp had left a glaring trail of breadcrumbs behind them.
Whoever’d just rappelled from that helicopter would be able to catch up with them in no time at this rate. The dying light didn’t bother him so much, but she didn’t know the area the way he did. If only the ice had already broken up, he could have used the water to hide signs of their passage.
Yeah, and frozen to death in the process.
He stopped and listened.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Not yet.
If they were being followed, at least he had the home advantage. My woods, assholes. If they chased them, they’d do it in unknown territory, whereas he’d spent the last decade right here.
Night fell faster than usual, the clouds skittering in to block out the stars and moon, making the darkness dense as a lead-lined blanket. Good. His neck prickling at the woman’s presence behind him, he humped his way up the steep slope toward the cabin, content to let Bo’s quiet, sure
-footed silhouette lead the way. Home-turf advantage.
The temperature plummeted, which was fine for his warm, steadily moving limbs, but when the woman’s chattering teeth reached him, he knew he had to hurry. Between the shock and the blood loss, she’d be close to hypothermic by the time the sun fully disappeared.
Less than a quarter mile from his cabin, Bo went stock-still, one foot lifted, nose in the air. Without missing a beat, he froze, shut his eyes, and listened. The woman surprised him by following suit.
One…two…three… He counted out the seconds, scanning the forest’s usual sounds for something off. A scuffling in the underbrush, leaves scraping above. Below, the river cracked and shifted. The woman’s breathing evened out and went quiet. He’d bet anything she was straining her ears, too. Whoever she was, she’d had training. Not many people could leave a crash like the one she’d just survived and hike straight into a frozen wilderness. She looked like she’d stepped straight out of a horror movie, as constant as the Terminator, staggering up the mountain behind him. Grim, determined, driven by something he didn’t yet understand.
Time ticked away while they listened. They’d been waiting for close to thirty seconds when he heard it: a scraping that ended abruptly. It wasn’t close. If he weren’t so attuned to everything right now, so on edge with expectation, he’d think it was a normal noise—ice shifting and falling, maybe a waterlogged branch hitting the ground. Could be. Could be something else, too. Like the downed plane seesawing under the weight of a person straining to look inside.
He torqued his head back and squinted at the woman. It almost felt like they exchanged a look, though he couldn’t be sure in this light.
After a few more seconds, Bo let out a hushed woof, dropped her paw, and dipped her head to sniff the mud at her feet before moving on. Cautiously, he followed, turning his head from one side to the other as he went.
A few hundred yards from the cabin, he armed the first perimeter trap and half buried it under the snow, pointing it out to the woman before leading her west, arming more, leaving only subtle tracks as he went. She was doing better with that, he noted—no more blood drops in the snow, and her prints mostly stuck to his. Good. They’d left just enough to ensure they were followed, without making it so obvious the others would feel they were being led.
He made the final approach with his usual caution, leaving as little trace as possible. He’d never figured out how to make sure Bo didn’t leave footprints on the ground, but he’d taught her to cut away in order to enter the protective rock circle from above, through a hole that most people couldn’t see, much less access.
Once within the sheltered area, he eyed the unlit structure warily, sniffed the air, and listened. No unusual scents. No sound but the wind singing through the black spruces’ top branches. Storm moving in. He caught its high, electric smell, the underlying sweetness that could only mean snow. As if that weren’t enough proof, he could feel its approach thrumming deep in his bones, lighting him up with expectation.
Once he was sure the coast was clear, he made his way to his cabin, assessing the situation as he went.
Weather was on its way, which would limit movement. While he knew the lay of the land, knew how to escape and where to hunker down safely for tonight at least, the others did not. And there were others around. That scrape had just confirmed what his instincts told him.
So, right now, he’d just assume there was an army after him and take things from there. Assuming the worst was how he’d survived this long after all.
Which meant he had to assume that this woman was the enemy.
***
Leo plodded up the slope, her feet slipping on ice and sinking into snow. She reached out a hand and wiggled her fingers, surprised at how hard they were to see in the eerie, bluish light.
A few feet ahead, the steady crunch of the man’s footsteps came to a stop. She did the same, waiting for him to move again, to lead the way or take off running or, with the way things were going, just turn around and shoot her point-blank.
It took a few seconds for her eyes to pick out a strange irregularity in the scenery up ahead. Trees, boulders, a rock face, natural shapes formed by wind and water and then—there: a dark rectangle. Another. She tried to focus, but her vision felt wrong.
Swiping a hand over her eyes to clear them, she stared until the shapes became a structure, built up against the stones or, actually, into them.
She cast the man a quick a look and blinked, her lashes sticking together. “What is that?”
“Cabin.”
“I’m not going in there.”
“It’s the only way.”
She scanned the area. From what she could tell it was a dead end. “We’ll be trapped.”
He shook his head. “Got a way out.”
A way out of a cabin built into a mountain? What earthly reason could he have for leading her here, with people after them? Understanding dawned. “Is he in there?”
She couldn’t see his face in the dark, but she pictured those big brows lowering. “Who?”
“The man I came to find.”
“Nobody in there.” With an annoyed noise, he took off for the cabin, leaving her standing in the middle of the clearing. “Your choice,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m going in.”
She looked around. There was nothing but woods in every direction, with a dip that appeared to be a creek to one side. The cabin was built into what looked like solid rock. No way out.
Something snapped in the woods behind them and Leo jumped.
Decision made, she followed him up and into the dark cabin. As soon as the door closed behind her, the man lit an oil lamp, then opened cupboards, emptying things into a pack. “Take off your wet clothes,” he said without even glancing her way.
“No.”
“Here.” He threw a cloth. A towel? She caught it, blinking in the near dark. “It’s clean. Put pressure on your head.”
She shut her eyes, pressed the towel to her injury, and bit back a groan. A fresh bout of pain sent the room spinning. Slowly, carefully, she shuffled to the bed and sat.
“Let me see that.” The man’s voice was deep and rough, the words slow and strangely precise, as if he had only just recently learned English, though his accent was perfect. She scooted away when he sat beside her and let out a frustrated puh sound, pulling the towel away to get a look. “Need to clean this up.” He cast a look at the door. “No time right now. Got to move.”
Move? Grimacing, she took in the small, smoke-scented space. “Move where?” She coughed, which made her head pound so hard, everything but the pain receded for a few seconds. When she came out of it, all she could hear was her own raspy breathing.
He got up and came back. When he pressed something cold and wet to the side of her face, she couldn’t drum up the energy to push him away.
“Your eye’s stuck.” He bent close. “Lashes glued. Wipe the blood away.”
He shoved the washrag into her hand and went back to packing. Slowly at first, she scrubbed at her eye, then worked harder to remove the last bit of blood. Finally, she got her eye all the way open, relieved that she could see. “What’s the plan?”
“How about first you tell me how you got that plane?”
“What?”
“Where’d you get the Cub?”
Who was this guy to be questioning her about this? She didn’t trust him, his questions, or his dead-end cabin. “Someone loaned it to me.”
Grunting, he returned to the front door and rammed a board into brackets on both sides, effectively barring it. And locking them inside.
Was this some suicide thing? Had he brought her here to die? Or to wait for the others and hand her over? No, that made no sense. If he was with them, he wouldn’t have drawn her away first. Unless he planned to barter his life for hers.
And where the hell was
Campbell Turner?
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to figure it out. “Freaking Amka,” she muttered.
“I’d be scared.”
“What?”
Even through his dark beard, she could see how tightly the guy pressed his lips together. “You crashed Amka’s plane. She’s gonna kill you.”
“If you don’t kill me first.”
“If I was gonna kill you, I’d have done it on the river.” That was probably true. But who the hell was he?
“How do you know Amka?” she asked.
“Everybody knows Amka. You say she loaned you the plane?” He scoffed. “Nobody flies that plane.”
The old woman’s anxious, crinkled face flashed in her mind. “I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” Trying for some kind of rapport, she forced a half-assed smirk to her face. If she could just get him talking, maybe she could figure this situation out. “Amka’s scary.”
He watched her closely. His eyes narrowed into dark, suspicious slits. “Who the hell are you?”
“Didn’t we already have this talk? How about you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” Or some of it. No way was she divulging anything important until she knew who the hell he was.
Ignoring her, he moved to the front wall, swung a big, roughly made shutter over one window, and locked it into place, then did the other. Leo looked around. The cabin was rustic but clean, made of rough-hewn logs and furnished mostly with what appeared to be homemade pieces. The quintessential woodsman’s retreat. Automatically, her eyes scanned for weapons. A rifle hung above the door. An axe leaned against the wall by a fireplace. And while someone more relaxed might have taken it off upon entering, the yeti still wore his rifle strapped across his body. Which again begged the question—was this guy a random mountain man or was he somehow linked to Campbell Turner?
As she watched, he dropped his pack and grabbed another bag.
She blinked. “That’s my flight bag!”
He opened the pockets, upended it on a thick wooden table, and pawed through the contents—Mylar blanket, matches, first aid kit, personal locator beacon. He picked that up and removed the batteries, which ratcheted her fear up a few notches.
Uncharted Page 4
