Among These Bones (Book 3): Maybe We'll Remember

by Luzzader, Amanda

  I sat up under the tarp. My eyes having been shut all night, they were well adjusted to the night. To my eyes, the little grassy hollow was as bright as midday, but instead of bright white sunlight, everything was awash in bluish and silvery starlight. I looked around. Arie was lying on his side, facing away from me, breathing in a deep and steady cadence. But Chase was not around. I crawled out from under the shelter and stood up.

  Probably off taking a pee or getting some water, I thought. I put my hands in the small of my back and arched myself backward. My back made sad little popping sounds. I rolled my neck from side to side and it popped, too.

  In the sky, the stars were brilliant and unthinkably numerous, like some whitish liquid flecked with specks of silver. I never tired of the sky in the mountains. But I was missing my little cot and everything lay in ruins. Above me loomed the ridge we’d have to climb in the morning. It seemed to head straight upward like a wall.

  A few minutes passed, and I stepped away from the shelter to see if I could spot Chase. Had he left the shelter and was sleeping out here under a bush or something? Maybe I’d been snoring. Had he crept off for a pee and been nabbed by Agency troops?

  “Chase?” I hissed. “You out here?”

  I walked a circle around the makeshift tent where Arie lay asleep, but there was no sign of Chase. I quietly said his name again but there was no answer. My pulse quickened.

  Then I heard something. I couldn’t say it if was the snap of a twig or the crunch of grass underfoot—it was quiet enough to register only as a noise. There was another noise, louder now, and I turned in that direction. Was it the sound of a pine branch brushing on someone moving through the woods? Was it the sound of a boot scuffing on stone? I still couldn’t tell, but now I saw something moving, too.

  It was just a dark form among the other dark forms, but this had to be Chase, I told myself. It had to be him.

  “Chase?” I said, almost too quietly for me to hear.

  “Al?”

  I let out a long breath and the dark form coming through the trees took shape.

  “Al, what are you doing out here?” Chase whispered as he took me in his arms.

  “What am I doing? What are you doing? Is there someone out there?”

  “No, no, no,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. “I was just making a little patrol. Doing a little security. Can’t be too safe. Come on. Come back and lay down. We got a big day ahead of us.”

  As we went back to the shelter I looked back over my shoulder, too.

  CHAPTER 20

  I woke up sore and creaky from sleeping on the ground. It took me a while to get up and start moving around, but I was looking around for danger right away. I sat on a rock with my back to the sun. Arie had gotten up early and brought us all water from the nearby creek, but Chase still wouldn’t let us have a fire.

  “Chase,” I complained, “I just need a little cup of tea. I’m not gonna be the same without it. It’ll take like five minutes.”

  Arie nodded his head. “C’mon,” he said, “don’t be such a hard-ass.”

  “I’m telling you guys, it’s just not a good idea,” Chase said quietly. “One little wisp of smoke like that can be spotted from miles away. And another thing—we should keep quiet if we can. Keep your voices down and talk as little as possible.”

  “Why are you being so paranoid?” I asked. “We’re probably ten miles from the camp and we haven’t seen or heard another living soul in almost a day.”

  “I’m not being paranoid,” he answered. “I’m being careful. And the way I’d put it is that we’re only ten miles from the camp and it’s only been a day since we saw a whole platoon of Agency thugs.”

  We ate a little breakfast, which was indistinguishable from what we had for dinner the night before. It wasn’t particularly satisfying, and without the tea I really was feeling sluggish.

  Arie sat with me in the sun, but we didn’t say much. Chase went off to re-fill the water bottles and didn’t return for something like thirty minutes.

  “Where’ve you been?” I said. “I was getting worried.”

  “Just checking our backtrack,” he said. “Just following SOP.”

  “For a half-hour?” I said. “Did you see anyone?”

  “No,” he said. “You guys ready to head out? It’s up and over the mountain today. Quicker the better.”

  Arie and I stood up, scratching and stretching and yawning. We collected our things and took down the shelter and got our packs on.

  “Look at this mountain for a minute with me,” said Chase.

  We looked.

  “Okay,” he began, pointing, “we will follow this incline up to the ridge, and we’ll cross over that low point. See it?”

  I nodded a little but I sort of shrugged, too.

  “Well, do you see it or don’t you? If we get separated, you’re gonna have to make it up there without me. There’s a low place along the ridge that I think we can get over with a minimum of climbing. Right there. Do ya see it or not? Arie, do you see it?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “okay, I see it. The little notch up there, by that big triangular rock?”

  “Yes, that’s it. I think there’s gonna be some switchback trails heading up, but there might not be a trail leading all the way up there. From here it looks like there’ll be a lot of scree and loose rocks, but I think we can make it. Once we get up there, we’ll know more, but the point is we wanna go over the lowest point if possible and then get down the other side fast. Okay?”

  Arie and I nodded.

  “Good,” said Chase. “Now, the other thing is that we’re gonna be more and more exposed as we head up these switchbacks. There’s not a lot of cover, not a lot of trees. So, we’re gonna go fast and we’re gonna go quietly. Minimal breaks, minimal rests.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s get moving then.”

  “No, Al,” stammered Chase, “listen, maybe I’m not being clear. We really need to get over this ridge quickly, and we need to do it without attracting attention.”

  “Attention from who?” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Arie, “attention from who? What’s going on?”

  Chase sighed and ran his hand roughly over his face. “All right, all right. I should tell you. Someone’s following us.”

  “What?” I cried. “Who? Where?” I didn’t know if I’d really been having the impression of being watched, stalked, but now it didn’t matter.

  Chase held up his hands to quiet me, then he held a finger to his lips. “I don’t know who exactly,” he said quietly.

  “It’s them,” I hissed. “They’ve found us. They’ve followed us from the camp when they attacked. We’re screwed.”

  Chase held his hands up more emphatically. “This is precisely why I didn’t tell you. We can’t panic. Besides, I don’t think it’s a full Agency detachment.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because if it was, they’d’ve overtaken us by now. Or they’d have just shot us. Whoever it is, they’re back there following us very carefully. I get the vibe that it’s just one person. Like maybe he’s trying to figure out what we’re up to, where we’re going. And that’s why we gotta get over this ridge without being spotted. If we can get up and over, we might leave our stalker in the dust.”

  “Why don’t we wait until dark, then?” asked Arie.

  “I’ve thought about that,” Chase replied. “But we’ve never been up and over that trail. I’ve seen it on a map, but without light, we could get lost or fall or go up a blind trail and then just have to come back down. Might be a big fiasco.”

  Arie looked up at the route. “If someone’s following us, they’re gonna see us before we’re even halfway to the top of the ridge.”

  “Right,” said Chase, lowering his voice to a whisper, “but I figured whoever’s following us will have to show himself, too, in order to stay behind us. On that last long pitch.”

  He pointed. We looked.

  “When we get to t
hat point, there’ll be no hiding for either us or him, or her, or whoever it is,” said Chase. “Maybe if we get him up there on that last pitch, we could ambush him, turn the tables, and then we could find out who it is and deal with them accordingly.”

  “That’s what you meant by us getting separated,” I whispered.

  Chase nodded.

  “I don’t like this,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Arie, “what if they don’t even follow us? They could easily just watch us from down here, then follow when we get over the top.”

  “Good thinking, kid,” said Chase. “If that happens, then we’ll ambush them on the other side.”

  “They could pick us off with a rifle,” Arie added.

  “Nah, the closest shot they’d be able to take is at least 500 yards. And if that’s what they were interested in, I’m sure they’ve been much closer than that before.”

  “I don’t like this Chase,” I said. “And why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I didn’t want to cause a panic. We needed rest and I know you wouldn’t rest with something like this on your mind. Hell, I even thought you’d up and run off and make things worse. You were running like a jackrabbit before—I was worried about even catching up to you.”

  “Fair point,” said Arie, giving me a sideways glance.

  I gave him a shove.

  “Look, let’s focus,” said Chase. “We’ve been going slow and careful, and whoever’s back there has been keeping a very respectful distance. I’ve already laid some false trails out of our camp. We’re all well rested, and I think if we haul ass straight up the mountainside, we’ve got a good chance of getting up and over that ridge without being detected. If we’re followed, we’ll know it, and we’ll deal with that.”

  Chase looked from my face to Arie’s and we nodded.

  “We together on this, then?” asked Chase.

  “Yeah,” said Arie and I together.

  “Then let’s boogie,” said Chase.

  CHAPTER 21

  The first mile or so of the hike to the ridge was not challenging, and it ran along within the deep cover of forest at the foot of the mountain. The incline was gentle at first and we made our way along the trail as though we might be out on an excursion for wild forage. In fact, just off the trail, in the shady patches of grass, I saw a few scatterings of morel mushrooms that had sprouted after the recent rain. I recognized their tall, withered-looking caps, and I reflexively paused on the trail for a split-second to gather them. Then I remembered what we were up to. They were a real treat up there in the mountains, sometimes hard to find, and none of us in the camps ever passed them by. I laughed inwardly a little when I thought of how Chase might react if he came up behind me to find me picking mushrooms, even though he’d been the one who’d taught me to identify morels.

  “You can eat these?” I’d asked.

  “Oh, these are gourmet forest forage, Al,” he’d told me.

  “They look like evil baby aliens.”

  “Try one,” he said.

  I refused at first, but I later learned that they were truly delicious—raw or cooked.

  When we emerged from the shady cover of the trees, the way became rockier. We jumped from boulder to boulder up a steep staircase of rock.

  “Careful, now,” said Chase. “We need to make good time through this section, but we can’t do that if someone falls and breaks an arm.”

  With his long legs, Arie made easy work of the hopping and climbing, stopping and turning back to give me a helping hand.

  As we progressed higher onto the face of the mountain, the trees and shrubs thinned out until there was no cover at all, and I realized what Chase meant about being exposed. Along this stretch of the trail we could look down into the valley, meaning anyone looking up could see us. We walked up the trail but kept our eyes on the terrain below and behind us. The sun rose higher in the clear sky, shining down hotly like a glaring, searching eye.

  We came to a section of the trail where there was a flat place in the rock like a shelf where we could sit and hide ourselves from the view below. Chase signaled us to stop, and Arie and I sat down and took off our packs. Chase joined us as we were uncapping our water bottles.

  “Good job, team,” said Chase, his voice low. “We’re making decent time. Anyone see anything down there? I haven't seen a sign of anyone.”

  “No, nothing,” said Arie. “I’ve been hauling ass out ahead and stopping to watch while you two catch up. I haven’t seen a bit of movement or anything.”

  “Good scout,” said Chase, drinking from his bottle. “How about you, lady?”

  “No, I haven’t seen anything. Sure feels like we could be spotted easily, though. It feels like we’re being hunted,” I said. “But I don’t know if it’s real or if I just know.”

  “Yeah,” said Chase, “I get it. That’s the whole reason I stayed behind us and happened to see whoever it is that’s following us. I just got this feeling. But I think we're doing good. Here’s your reward.” With this, he produced two handfuls of morels wrapped in a square of old cotton shirt. They were almost surely the ones I’d seen.

  “Ahh,” exclaimed Arie, helping himself to several of the mushrooms. “My favorite.”

  “I think I passed by these mushrooms by on the trail back there because I thought you’d yell at me for slowing down!” I told him.

  “Well, yeah, matter of fact I probably woulda, but I’m at least glad your mind was on survival. Here. Have the rest.”

  Chase said we should wait an hour and then continue if no one came up behind us. Arie and Chase stared down the trail while I laid my head on my backpack and dozed in the shade of the advancing day. When Chase was convinced no one was coming up behind, we went on.

  In the early afternoon, the sky clouded over again, and even the patchy shadows they cast made me feel a little better about walking up the barren switchback trails that led us higher and higher on the mountain. When we were a mile or so from the ridgeline, we stopped again and hid among the rocks to check behind us. This time Chase got out his battered old binoculars and glassed the valley below.

  “See anything?” I asked.

  “No, nothing,” he said. He sounded almost disappointed.

  “Is that bad?”

  “I’m not sure. I was hoping to see something.”

  Arie chimed in. “If whoever was following us came up to our camp, we should have maybe glimpsed them down there somewhere. Is that what you mean?”

  “Yeah,” Chase answered. “I was hoping to see him following one of the false trails I laid the other night. Or I was thinking maybe he’d come up here and lose our tracks in the rocks and have to cast about a bit looking for us.”

  “But we don’t want him to follow us,” I said.

  “Sure,” said Arie, “but it’d be nice to get a good look at him. Make sure it’s just one guy. Or gal. See how he’s armed. See what we’re up against.”

  Without taking his eyes from the binoculars, Chase jabbed his thumb at Arie as though to say, “What he said.”

  Chase continued to scan the forest floor with the field glasses. Then he handed them to Arie.

  “Give it a good look, kid. Your eyes’re younger than mine.”

  But Arie reported no sign of movement. I was happy for another rest, but I took a turn looking, too.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I see some deer, though. Wanna look?”

  Chase sighed and sucked his teeth and put the binoculars away. “Well, I think we have to assume that we’ve either lost him, or that he doesn’t want to follow us.” He chewed the inside of his cheek for a few seconds and then said, “Let’s keep going. Drink up the rest of your water. This last bit is liable to be kind of a grunt, and going down the other side won’t be much fun, either. But there’s a stream on the other side where we can fill up.”

  We put on our packs and took deep breaths and squared our shoulders. But Chase was right. The climb was strenuous and soon we were dripping sweat, despite some
cloud cover that had moved in and the breeze that blew across the mountainside.

  Arie came to a place where it looked as though we’d have to climb straight up a craggy face of rock. Chase and I caught up to him and we examined the way.

  “If we back up and go up there,” said Arie, panting and pointing back down the incline, “it might be easier than going up this.”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Go back to that big slide and then cut up that way. What do you think, Chay? Will that be easier than this way here?”

  He was nodding. “Yeah, I think that’s where the trail is supposed to be. If there were hikers and hunters up here every summer, there’d be cairns to mark the right way, but those are long gone now. Let’s go back. But let’s hurry.”

  Chase led the way now. We scrambled back down the mountainside a couple hundred yards and found the faint line of a trail in what little dirt lay between the boulders and rock faces. It was likewise steep, but now we could see the way to the ridge and over it.

  “Everyone feeling okay?” Chase asked. “This is it. We’re almost over.”

  We nodded and flashed thumbs-up, but the final piece of the ascent took us through loose scree, and the footing was precarious.

  Ruby came to my mind. She would never be able to make even the simpler parts of this trail, and I wondered with sudden despair if she’d gotten away. Where was she? Was she okay? Was she alive? All at once I wished I could see her, talk to her.

  Chase stayed ahead of us and climbed to the crest of the ridge. He drew his pistol and looked over to the other side, as though someone might be waiting there in ambush. Then he beckoned us and we exchanged quiet little high-fives as we climbed over the knife-edge ridge.

  On the other side, another valley lay below. It looked tranquil and lush and I could hear the distant roar of a steeply flowing river.

  “The cabin’s down in that ravine there, I think,” said Chase. “Or the next one over. Been a while since I’ve seen the map, but there’s the logging road. See it? All we gotta do is get to that road and it’ll lead us to the ranger station. The accommodations will be better, that’s for sure. From there we’ll decide what to do.”