Seeing these men here today confirmed Shauna’s fears that the cabin was not as secluded or safe as Eric Branson may have thought. She was still mad as hell at him for what he’d done, cutting out alone in the middle of the night when they’d all been planning to ride south on Megan’s trail together. Eric had left Shauna a letter, detailing his reasoning and trying to explain his decision, but nothing he could have said would have convinced her he was right or mitigated her rage. Shauna had crumpled it up and thrown it in the fireplace in disgust. Eric knew damned well she wouldn’t have agreed with splitting up again, especially now that they knew Megan had been with Vicky and Vicky had told them exactly where she was headed with her friend, Aaron. Eric had tried to bring up the idea of going by himself at first, but she’d made it clear to him that such a plan was off the table, and so the bastard went ahead and did it anyway, sneaking out into the night after all the effort the rest of them had put into preparations for the journey.
Eric may have had good reasons for leaving Jonathan and Vicky behind, but not Shauna. She wouldn’t slow him down, and after all she’d been through to get here, she felt she should be there when and if he finally caught up to their daughter. Eric had robbed her of that moment though, saying in the letter that his chances of getting through the dangers along the way would be improved if he only had himself to look out for. He had suggested to Vicky when they first got to the cabin that she might be better off to stay behind with Jonathan while he was still recovering from his broken leg, but Megan’s former roommate didn’t like that idea at all. Eric could have insisted, Shauna now realized, and she could have backed him up on it and maybe then he wouldn’t have left her too, but the way he did it, she had no chance to try and change his mind, and that was what irked Shauna the most. She’d dealt with that side of Eric so much during their marriage that it led to their divorce, and now he was pulling the same old stunts. Shauna had stormed out of the cabin that morning after reading the letter, and it had taken an hour of pacing in the early morning chill before she even began to cool off. She’d briefly considered taking off after him, but doing so would require traveling alone, because she wouldn’t have a chance of catching up with Jonathan and Vicky in tow. She finally thought better of that idea, and still fuming, made her way back down there to talk to the two of them and figure out how they were going to deal with the prospect of the long and boring wait they were facing. Eric had assured her in his letter that he would be back as soon as possible, but not without Megan. Shauna knew better than to count on such a thing considering all they’d seen though. Anything could happen out there, even to Eric, and maybe even long before he caught up to Megan. And if he did find her, the two of them would be facing the same dangerous journey returning all the way here from northern New Mexico.
No matter how she looked at it, Shauna didn’t like any of this, even though she knew deep down that Eric was doing this because he thought it was the best way, and not simply to spite her. His priority really was to catch up to Megan before something bad happened to her, but he had no right to leave Shauna out to do it all himself, putting her in such a terrible and unbearable state of limbo and not knowing once again. There was no telling how long it would take Eric to get to that reservation where Megan was supposed to be, and no guarantee that she was there in the first place. What if she wasn’t? What then? Eric had no way of getting a message back to the cabin to let them know. Just how long was she supposed to wait if Eric and Megan didn’t show up in a couple of weeks? Two more weeks? Another month? By then the winter snows in the high country would make leaving the cabin extremely difficult and dangerous, if not impossible. The prospect of being trapped there was too much to think about, and every time she did, Shauna wished Eric was standing in front of her so that she could slap the hell out of him.
But the reality was that Eric had been gone more than a week now and it was up to her to figure out how to deal with these armed strangers that would soon be upon the cabin. Shauna couldn’t stop them from advancing up that creek bed, not by force, anyway. Even though she’d just had a couple of them in her sights and they had no idea she was there, there were far too many to take out on her own, even if she had more suitable weapons than just a bolt-action hunting rifle and her sidearm. Aside from that, they hadn’t proven they were the enemy and for all she knew, they could be legitimate soldiers working to restore order. It was hard to tell the difference these days between the good and the bad and the last thing she wanted to do was fire on them without provocation. Even if she knew for sure they were on the right side though, she wasn’t going to walk up and introduce herself and invite them back to the cabin. If they were sweeping the area for possible insurgents, they might open fire first, and even if they didn’t, they might force them out of the area due to the problems that had been going on.
Shauna was thinking fast about her limited options as she watched the last of the group slowly work their way through the vegetation surrounding the creek. The best idea she could come up with was to create some kind of diversion to draw their attention away from the cabin before they found it. There was no way to know if it would work or not though, and once committed, she wouldn’t be able to second-guess herself if it didn’t. It would be up to her to evade and escape if the men took the bait and pursued. If she failed, Jonathan and Vicky were on their own, but they were anyway if she didn’t try.
Shauna mentally retraced the route she’d taken down the drainage, thinking about the best place to execute her quickly formulated plan. It wouldn’t do to try it now, as the slopes on either side of the creek here were far too steep to allow a quick escape. But there was a smaller intersecting tributary a quarter mile farther up, where she knew the terrain might lend itself to a fast getaway to the north. If she could simply divert their attention to that other natural route, it was possible they’d forget about continuing up the main creek altogether.
Shauna quietly picked her way down among the boulders as she watched the last two men in the party melt into the underbrush upstream and disappear. She had to move quickly enough to keep up with them, but with great caution too. It wouldn’t do for them to discover her here, where she’d have no chance of getting away. She paced herself to match their careful, combat-ready advance as she shadowed them, staying far enough back that she only caught occasional glimpses of the last two bringing up the rear of the team as they worked their way upstream. She didn’t like that they were spread out so far that she couldn’t see all of them, and she hoped her diversion wouldn’t result in only some splitting off to follow her, but it was all she could think of given that she was quickly running out of time the nearer they got to the cabin.
As she followed, Shauna ran several scenarios through her head, trying to predict how each would play out. Ideally, she could draw the entire group into pursuit, and if so, she was counting on being able to outdistance them due to her experience and fitness as a runner and her advantage of knowing something of the surrounding area. She was also carrying only a rifle, while they were loaded down with their weapons, spare mags and other supplies in those backpacks. She would be prepared to run as soon as she got their attention, while they were still trying to figure out what was happening, hopefully giving her a good head start. In the best case, the entire team would come after her and she would lose them along the way and then circle back and warn Jonathan and Vicky. The men might still find the cabin eventually, even if she eluded them, but her hope was that it would buy her and her friends enough time to get out of the area and disappear.
Twenty minutes after she began trailing them, Shauna came to the small confluence she remembered, the only easy exit from the main drainage the men were following. The time to act was upon her, and though she was nervous about it, Shauna couldn’t afford to hesitate. The options she’d considered for getting the strangers’ attention ranged from a simple scream to firing her rifle once or several times to both screaming and firing. The last thing she wanted, of course, was to draw return fi
re from multiple automatic weapons, so she decided that the option of just firing off gunshots alone wasn’t a good idea. She didn’t want the men thinking they were under attack. Instead, she wanted to draw their curiosity and encourage them to follow up. Shauna took several deep breaths, checked that her boot laces and the Glock on her side were secure, and then let out the loudest frightened scream she could muster. Ten seconds later, she followed the scream with a shot into the air from the 30.06, the heavy report echoing through the forest and certain to get the attention of everyone in the area. Shauna didn’t wait to see the effects of these sounds, however. She turned and jogged a short distance up her escape route, and then paused momentarily to fire off a second round. Then she turned and ran farther.
Whatever the party of men thought of all this, they didn’t answer with reactive gunfire, indicating they were indeed disciplined and trained. She doubted they were ignoring it completely however, and when she had created a reasonable distance from where she first began running and had gained higher ground, Shauna stopped one more time, crouching at the base of a large spruce tree to watch and listen. When nothing happened for several minutes, she began to wonder if her tactics had failed completely, but then she saw movement—at least four of the men—slipping rapidly, but cautiously among the trees in her direction, their weapons at ready. Shauna waited just long enough for them to get close enough to catch a glimpse of her when she took off again, sprinting for all she was worth. She knew they had spotted her when she heard a sharp order:
“HEY YOU! STOP RIGHT THERE!” Shauna ignored it and didn’t slack up.
“I SAID STOP!” The voice rang out again. She expected to hear bullets ripping through the brush around her at any second, but the shots didn’t come, and Shauna put her entire focus into running as fast and far as she could.
Two
JONATHAN COLEMAN STOPPED SUDDENLY at the sound of the first rifle shot, almost losing his balance, but Vicky was right beside him, providing support on the side of his bad leg, and steadying him as he turned in the direction from which it came, far below in the forested drainage, where they knew Shauna was hunting.
“Maybe she got one!” Vicky said. Before he could answer, a second shot came from the same direction. “Or maybe two?”
“Nah, she wouldn’t shoot two at one time. She either missed the first shot or wounded him and followed up. We should go see.”
“That sounded like it came from a long way off to me, Jonathan. You’re doing good to hobble around this far. You don’t need to push it. That trail is steep down there, and if you fall again and break your other leg or something, you’re going to be totally out of luck.”
“We’ve got Tucker. He can haul me back if I do.”
“Yeah, but I can’t get you up on his back with two broken legs.”
Jonathan knew she was right, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to go anyway. He was out here now because he was determined to keep his strength up, and the way he figured it, he needed to start putting a little weight on his leg and using it as much as he dared so it would heal. With Vicky’s help, it was feasible to do so. He’d spent all the time he could stand laid up in that cabin. They had made it across the meadow where Bob Barham now lay in the solitary grave they’d dug for him in his favorite spot and were now on the slope above with a nice view back down to the cabin. Jonathan had walked farther this morning than he had since his accident. His leg was getting better, and he expected to make a full recovery just as Bob had said he would when he set and wrapped it.
The weather was nice this morning even though it was still quite cold, and Jonathan was beginning to acclimate to this mountain climate after a lifetime spent in south Florida. He loved the sharp, clean feeling of the air up here, and the scent of the evergreens that made up the bulk of the high elevation forests. Most of all, he liked the silence, broken only by the sound of wind rushing through the tops of the tall spruce and fir trees that surrounded them. It was good to be outside of that cabin and walking among them again, and Jonathan knew that was why Shauna had gone hunting this morning too, even though they didn’t really need the meat.
Being confined to the little cabin was difficult for all of them, but Shauna was especially agitated because of the way Eric left. They had all been preparing for the journey south ever since Eric showed up with Vicky and her information on where Megan was headed. After they buried poor Bob Barham, Jonathan, like Shauna and Vicky had no reason to suspect that Eric would pull the stunt he did. Sure, he’d suggested to Vicky that she might like to stay here at the cabin with Jonathan, saying it was a good option since the journey would be hard, but Vicky would have none of that, insisting she wanted to go and help find her friend. Eric hadn’t said any more about it, and they all assumed he was okay with it. At least that way he would have no reason to have to come back here, but even though he helped them all make preparations for leaving, he apparently made a last-minute decision to go alone, slipping out into the night without waking them as they slept.
When Jonathan had opened his eyes to the daylight streaming into the windows that morning, he saw that Eric wasn’t in his sleeping bag on the cabin floor, but thought little of it, assuming he was just outside early, getting the horses ready to go. Jonathan had managed to get dressed and get out there while favoring his good leg, eager to see if Eric needed any help, but Eric wasn’t in sight, and when he checked the barn where the horses were supposed to be waiting, he didn’t find him in there, either. What he did find was that two of the animals were gone—Maggie and Sally—the exact two that Eric had already selected for his mount and his pack horse. Jonathan then scanned the dim interior of the barn and saw that Eric’s tack and the rest of his gear was missing too. He wondered if maybe Eric had taken the horses and gear on up the trail a bit, while waiting for the rest of them to get ready, but that didn’t make sense. It was cold as hell out there at that early hour, far too uncomfortable to be hanging around outside for no good reason. Besides, he’d made no attempt to wake the rest of them if he’d indeed changed his mind and wanted to get an earlier start.
Jonathan had limped his way past the cabin on the crutches Bob had made for him until he reached the creek bed that led up towards the divide. He saw nothing moving among the stands of dense conifers and Eric didn’t answer when he called his name out loud several times. Jonathan knew that looking for tracks that close to the cabin was useless, as the snow that remained on the ground there was crisscrossed with foot and hoof prints from their comings and goings doing the daily chores. Picking up Eric’s trail, if he’d left one at all, would require going farther up the drainage, but Jonathan was in no shape to do that at the time and so he went back inside to wake Shauna and Vicky.
Shauna had looked at him for a moment with an expression of disbelief on her face before pulling on her boots and storming out the door with her rifle. Jonathan and Vicky were left staring wide-eyed at each other as they listened to her scream Eric’s name into the emptiness of the surrounding wilderness. All the frustration and rage she’d ever felt towards the man she’d once loved and later divorced poured out of her into that vastness. But despite her fury, Jonathan had been around her long enough to know that Shauna didn’t really hate Eric Branson. After all, he was the man who’d fathered her child, no matter what came between them later, and both of them loved Megan dearly and had put it all on the line to find her. Jonathan had seen glimpses of the fire that still smoldered beneath the surface between the two of them when they were together, and he’d actually expected any day now to see it burst into full-on flames if they remained in such close proximity much longer. No doubt the only thing suppressing it while they were in the cabin was the fact that they weren’t alone there. Thinking of it that morning, Jonathan wondered if that were part of the reason Eric had left when he did. Maybe he was averting or postponing the inevitable by simply avoiding it for now?
“Why did Eric even hang around here as long as he did, if this is what he had in mind all alon
g?” Vicky asked. “He could have just left as soon as he brought us here. Why did he get all of us ready for the trip and mislead us into thinking we were all going with him?”
“I don’t know if he had it in mind to do that or not, but even if he did, he wouldn’t have left right when he got here because first of all he was going to make sure Bob Barham got the proper burial he deserved. Then, he was going to make sure this place was really safe and that we had all the supplies and gear we needed here. But I’ll bet he really was planning on taking all of us until he got to thinking about it some more; that and seeing how I wasn’t able to move worth a crap with this stupid leg! Although knowing what I know of Eric, he may have just changed his mind when he woke up sometime during the night.”
“No, it’s probably more my fault than yours, Jonathan. Eric didn’t want to be bothered with the responsibility of someone else to look after. He wanted me to stay here and he asked me to. I should have agreed to do it. At least then he wouldn’t have left Shauna behind.”
“You wouldn’t slow him down. You’ve got way more experience riding than any of us, even Shauna. Besides that, you know these mountains from coming out here every summer to stay at your grandpa’s ranch. I’m the real burden, because out here, in times like these, a guy with a broken leg is useless. I’m lucky I survived it at all, and I damned sure wouldn’t have if not for good old Bob Barham. I don’t blame you for not wanting to stay alone out here with a cripple.”
“Don’t be silly, Jonathan. Your leg is healing, and Eric saw that you could ride, even if you couldn’t walk or run. He probably thought he’d have to constantly look out for me and protect me because I’m a female the same age as his daughter. I could see why he wouldn’t want to deal with that with all his worry about her.”
Feral Nation Series Box Set 2 [Books 4-6] Page 35
