“Did you see any of the kids?” Sam asked tensely. “Are they up on the western trail?”
The pilot, who was a neighboring rancher, shook his head, looking baffled. “I can’t figure it out, Sam. I flew over the whole trail two or three times, all the way out to the lake and the miner’s cabin. There’s not a trace of them anywhere.”
* * *
BY THE TIME darkness fell, the base ranch swarmed with people and the meadow near the corral was filled with vehicles. Most of the residents of Lightning Creek had driven down to help with the search. Many brought horses in trailers, and several more light planes had spent the evening scouring the network of trails at the base of the mountain range.
Sam worked with local police and forest service personnel who had organized an impromptu command post in the ranch’s living room. Maps were taped to the walls and above the rock fireplace, marked with felt pen to indicate trails that had been searched.
The big kitchen had been taken over by a bustling group of women who made sandwiches and brewed gallons of coffee. In spite of the darkness, dozens of people were still out on horseback, riding the trails and reporting back to the ranch at intervals for a rest, some food and coffee and a change into dry clothes.
As soon as a team returned to the corrals, now lit with floodlights and filled with milling groups of people, another group would set off.
One by one the weary groups of riders checked in at the search headquarters to report their lack of success, along with the fact that rain was falling harder with every passing hour, and the temperature was falling to dangerous levels.
Sam prowled restlessly around the room. It was four o’clock in the morning and his eyes felt gritty with fatigue, but he would have given anything to be out on a horse himself, riding the trails, doing something besides twiddling his thumbs. He studied the maps and charts with baffled frustration.
“We’ve already covered most of the area close to the ranch,” he muttered to the room in general. “And a bunch of planes have flown over the turnaround point where they should have been by now. Even if the horses ran off two nights ago, those kids should be back in sight by now. So where in hell did they get to?”
Rob Carter put a hand on his arm. “Take it easy, Sam,” he murmured. “We’ll know a whole lot more when the sun comes up and we can send the planes out again.”
Sam stared at the map without speaking.
“And there’s some more good news,” Rob said. “Jerry just told me Jamie Tailfeathers is driving up from Cheyenne. He’ll be here before daybreak.”
At this bit of information, Sam felt a brief surge of relief.
Jamie Tailfeathers was a Wyoming artist who was famed throughout the western states for his realistic depiction of cowboy life. But he was also one of the most expert trackers in the country, trained by his old Lakota grandfather to detect the smallest signs of human and animal passage.
As quickly as Sam’s spirits lifted, they began to plummet again.
“Even Jamie couldn’t find any tracks in this rain,” he muttered, waving a hand toward the rivulets that lashed the darkened windowpane. “It’s getting worse all the time. God, those poor kids. What if some of them are hurt out there? And Lindsay...”
His voice broke. Rob put an arm around him to steer him toward a couch. “Sit down for a while, Sam,” he said. “I don’t want to deal with you having a collapse on top of everything else.”
“I’m glad you came, Rob,” he muttered, allowing himself to be lowered gently onto one of the leather couches. “When did you get here?”
“Just a half hour ago.” Rob sat next to Sam and stretched his legs wearily. “I was out past midnight delivering a baby, and then it took Twyla a while to find someone to look after Brian so she could come down with me. We finally had to wake up Brody’s parents and leave him there.”
The words registered gradually on Sam’s tired brain. “Why didn’t you just leave Brian with his grandmother?” he asked.
Rob gave his friend a brief smile. “Well, that would have been a lot easier, but there was no way Gwen would stay behind. When she heard about those boys lost and on foot out there in the woods, she insisted on coming along with us.”
Most of Sam’s weariness vanished in a flood of nervous excitement. “You mean she’s here?” he asked. “Gwen is here right now?”
Rob nodded, looking puzzled. “She’s out in the kitchen, making sandwiches. Why?”
Sam leaned back on the couch, feeling a whole array of conflicting emotions. He had a hunger to be close to her, to look into her face and see her smile. Desperately, he wanted to feel Gwen’s gentle hand on his arm and hear her voice saying this wasn’t his fault and everything was going to turn out just fine.
But he was afraid to go and look for her. The disappearance of the campers and their horses coming back without riders had shaken him to the core. Sam knew he couldn’t bear any more pain tonight.
And that last blunt rejection from Gwen McCabe was definitely not the kind of hurt he wanted to endure another time.
Rob was on his feet, moving away to talk with one of the forest rangers. Though they kept their voices low, Sam could hear them discussing the danger of possible hypothermia among ill-equipped young campers stranded in the rain.
He thought of Lindsay, whom he loved more than all the world.
And little Danny with his cowboy hat dangling from a string and his face sparkling with excitement as he chattered about the upcoming trail ride.
Sam groaned aloud and passed a hand over his face, then felt a gentle touch on his arm.
He looked down to find Gwen McCabe sitting next to him in the seat Rob had just vacated. She was offering him a tray containing two hearty sandwiches and a mug of coffee.
“I think I got it right,” she told him, trying to smile.
Her face looked tired and strained, actually frightened, but he could also see the deep concern in her eyes.
“It’s pretty strong, but I thought you could use it,” she said.
Despite Sam’s wary caution, her very presence was a comfort to him. “This is all my fault,” he told her without thinking. “I should have paid more attention to what they were doing.”
“Now, that’s just plain nonsense, Sam Duncan,” she told him firmly, setting the tray on a nearby coffee table. She put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him fiercely. “None of this is your fault. And it’s all going to work out just fine, you’ll see. Rex and Lindsay are there, and they’ll take good care of the boys. Nothing will happen to any of them.”
Her words and her touch were like a balm to his frantic, weary spirit. Sam lowered his face against her soft mass of white curls, battling a sudden embarrassing urge to burst into tears.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY was the most horrible that Lindsay had ever spent. She was tired to the bone, deeply exhausted from long hours of struggling through the rain and cold, taking turns carrying Danny’s sling as they climbed over downed trees and through cruel masses of brambles that tore at her clothes and her body.
They had no idea if anybody was searching for them, though Allan sometimes claimed to hear airplanes passing above the clouds, far to the south and west of them. But Danny’s condition was worsening along with the weather, and they couldn’t risk waiting to be found. They had to keep struggling back toward the ranch, hoping to run across a party of hunters or other campers, somebody who could help.
Lindsay and Rex had no time for the talk she’d promised. In fact, they hardly exchanged a word all day. Both of them were busy encouraging the boys and looking after Danny, whose fever rose at intervals, then ebbed with small doses of their precious aspirin supply.
Lindsay had a deep gash on the calf of her leg where a jutting branch had torn though her jeans the day before. The cut was becoming red and sore, obviously
infected. It throbbed with pain, making walking difficult. But she kept the injury to herself, reluctant to add to Rex’s burdens, knowing she would never use any of the medication that Danny needed to keep his pain and fever at bay.
More than anything she wanted to give way to despair, just sink down in the woods, bury her face against her knees and sob aloud in fear and misery. But that was a luxury she couldn’t allow herself. All of them were at the edge of physical collapse. The boys looked to her and Rex to maintain an air of confidence.
In the midst of trauma, the separate personalities of the boys became more evident, and Lindsay was proud of all of them.
Tim Bernstein was the most delicate, and was suffering more than the others. He struggled along, his thin body racked by fits of coughing and labored breathing that his inhaler did little to help. But whenever Lindsay expressed concern, he smiled at her and waved his hand with feigned nonchalance.
“It’s nothing,” he gasped. “I’ll be fine.”
Jason was clearly worried about his brother and took over much of Tim’s pack to ease his burden. The two friends, Allan Larkin and Lonnie Schneider, marched along together, too weary for once to argue and bicker, but they kept a steady pace and didn’t complain. Lindsay was moved almost to tears by the way Lonnie shared his hoard of granola bars without being prompted.
Clint was tireless. He insisted on helping to carry Danny most of the day and shouldered extra packs for those who were bearing the other end of the little boy’s makeshift stretcher.
From time to time he glanced at Lindsay, his face strained and unhappy, and she resolved to have a long talk with the youth once they managed to reach safety. Maybe Clint was ready at last to open up. It would be wonderful to have something good come out of all this mess, she thought wearily.
Making camp at nightfall was a chore almost too hard to endure. Lindsay boiled the pots of water and handed out bowls of soup, which the boys gulped down in silence before they retired to the one large shelter Rex and Clint had built. The rain was falling more heavily and they were all cold and shivering. The other boys surrounded Danny’s sleeping body in the litter, huddled together like puppies to keep out the cold.
“Come for a walk with me,” Rex said to Lindsay as he helped her pack away the cooking equipment. “The kids will look after Danny for a little while.”
She looked up at his strained face, then got to her feet, too tired to argue.
They walked to the edge of the camp and into a thicket, along a narrow path made by passing deer.
“At least I hope it’s only deer that use this path,” Lindsay said aloud. “If we ran across a bear right now, I’d probably just lie down and let it eat me.”
Rex grinned with a brief flash of his old humor, but didn’t respond. Instead he sank down onto a fallen log in the shelter of branches that arched overhead, then drew her down next to him, putting his arms around her and pulling her close to him.
Lindsay huddled against him gratefully while he unzipped his jacket and wrapped it around her body. She burrowed into his chest, loving the feel and scent of him, the warmth and hardness, wondering how she could ever have thought she didn’t love this man more than anything in the world.
“Now tell me what’s wrong, Lin,” he whispered. “What’s been worrying you all this time?”
Lindsay took a deep, ragged breath. After four years of keeping her secret bottled up, never talking about it to anyone, she could hardly force herself to begin. But once she started to tell him, in a low, halting voice, the story came out almost of its own accord.
Rex held her, listening in silence.
“It happened four years ago,” she said. “I was in Denver for a conference, staying at a hotel downtown. Somebody knocked on the door and I opened it without thinking. I guess I just assumed it was the chambermaid. A man pushed his way into the room and grabbed me. He had a knife and said he’d kill me if I made a sound.”
“God, Lin! I didn’t know anything about this! You’ve never...”
She rolled her head on his chest, and he stopped talking.
“This man was so awful, Rex. He was tense and jittery and filled with rage, practically foaming at the mouth. I don’t know why he picked me to attack, but I’ve learned since that he stalks hotels and preys on young women who are obviously traveling alone.”
“He’s the same guy who...”
“Yes, he is.” Lindsay clutched him while the familiar horror rose in her throat, almost choking her. “Rex, just let me tell the story.”
“Sorry, darling. I won’t interrupt again.”
Lindsay went on to tell about the atrocities that had been done to her. In a controlled, expressionless tone, she told of bondage and torment, of ridicule and savagery and hours of paralyzing fear when she was certain she wouldn’t survive the night.
“He didn’t actually rape me,” she said. “He did everything else, every cruel and humiliating thing you could imagine, but not that. I’ve found out afterward that he saves rape for the end, the final act in his little drama. With me I guess he just ran out of time, because he untied me and left about three hours later. I was a total wreck, completely destroyed. Naked and shivering, howling like a baby.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Rex whispered.
“When he was gone I lay there for a long time, then got up and started having showers. I had six showers that night, Rex. For about a year I showered two or three times a day, until I finally realized I had to get myself under control.”
“I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “I just can’t believe what I’m hearing.”
Lindsay ignored him. “The worst thing wasn’t the pain, or even the humiliation of what he did to me,” she said. “It was the total helplessness. Nobody has ever made me feel like that, Rex. I was so ashamed of the way I just gave in to terror and didn’t do anything to fight back. I’m still ashamed.”
“But surely you called the police, Lin? You must have reported this right away.”
“I couldn’t. Rex, I’m such a coward. He said he’d kill me if I ever told anybody. Somehow he knew my name and where I live, and he said he’d come after me, no matter how long it took. He said...” Her voice broke. “He said if I ever had a baby, he’d come and kill it. He showed me the knife, and told me in detail how he’d cut my baby to pieces if I ever told anybody about him.”
Rex swore fiercely under his breath. “So you didn’t ever go to the police?” he asked.
“I never told anybody. Until this minute, I’ve never talked about what happened. I had half a dozen showers, got dressed and packed up my clothes, then drove home and tried to go on with my life.”
“But that guy...”
“He’s still doing it,” Lindsay said tonelessly. “A few times I’ve seen a story in the paper about some woman being attacked. It happened around the time of the bachelor auction, and again a couple of weeks ago just before we started planning this trail ride. But he wears a stocking mask now and nobody ever sees what he looks like. The police can’t catch him.”
“But you saw his face, Lin? Do you think you could identify him?”
She shuddered. “I’ll never forget him. That face is engraved on my memory forever. I could pick him out of a lineup of five hundred men.”
“Lindsay...”
“He still calls me sometimes,” she said tonelessly. “Mostly he just breathes into the phone and hangs up, but a couple of times he’s told me to keep quiet if I know what’s good for me.”
“The filthy bastard,” Rex said grimly. “Look, you know we need to go to the police about this.”
“But I can’t,” she told him in despair. “I just can’t do it, Rex. I’m still so terrified of him. The thought of going to court and testifying against him, and having him in the same room and watching me...”
“I’ll help you,” h
e promised, his voice husky. “I’ll be there every minute, darling. You need to do this or you’ll never be free of him.”
“I’m such a miserable coward,” she told him, feeling hollow and desolate. “Because of me, other women have been hurt. It’s gone on for years, Rex, just because I can’t bring myself to deal with this.”
“Of course you’re afraid,” he said. “Who wouldn’t be? But we can do this together, Lin. You won’t be alone anymore. I’ll help you.”
“No!” she said. “I can’t do it, and I can’t involve you in this, either. I’m a pitiful coward, and I don’t deserve to have a man like you in my life. So just leave me alone, Rex. We won’t ever be together, and we’ll never talk about this again.”
She struggled to get away from him, too distressed to think about her weariness or the cold, or even the throbbing pain in her leg. While he watched silently, she limped hastily away from him, back toward the camp, where the boys huddled together in the gathering darkness under their makeshift shelter of pine boughs.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DANNY WAS GETTING steadily worse. The little boy spent a restless night in the middle of the shelter where he tossed and turned, his teeth chattering occasionally with chills, though Rex and Clint each gave up one of their blankets to help keep him warm.
Lindsay stayed up with him until after midnight, her face tired and drawn in the fitful glow of the campfire, wiping the child’s forehead with damp cloths and trying to make him comfortable.
Rex looked on, his heart breaking with the knowledge of her pain. But she avoided his eyes and resisted automatically when he finally tried to force her toward her sleeping bag.
“Oh, come on, you’re dead on your feet, Lin,” he muttered. “You can hardly stand up. What good will it do us if we wind up having to carry you, too?”
At the curtness of his words she gave him a brief glance of despair, turned her back and crawled into the sleeping bag without another word.
Best Man in Wyoming Page 19
