RUNAWAY TWINS (Runaway Twins series #1)

by Pete Palamountain

  “I’m not your dear.”

  “Not yet, but soon.”

  Janie grimaced. “At least that vile man you shot didn’t pretend to be following God’s orders.”

  The Prophet glared at her, but remained silent. Finally, he said, “Where are your sister and that boy?”

  “They both died in the blizzard.”

  “And you survived?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t think so.”

  He added wood to the fire, and later when the guards returned, he instructed two of them to take Janie back to the lodge. He explained that he and the remaining guard would head higher into the mountains to rendezvous with the other two Missoula men. The four of them would then capture Rachel and return her to Bitterroot camp to join her sister.

  Janie noted that he made no mention of bringing back Justin alive.

  Rachel and Justin had returned to their bluff overlooking the tent and wigwam. They were pleased with the results of their night’s work—which had turned out to be a combination burglary and search and destroy mission. They were wearing metal-rimmed snowshoes, stolen from the fat man and the thin man. Rachel and Justin were astonished at the ease with which they’d glided across the top of the snow on their way back to their observation point. And they carried backpacks they were certain were laden with food and equipment. They hadn’t yet had an opportunity to look inside the packs, but they were certain they would be pleased with whatever they found.

  Their crowning achievement, however, was what they had done to the two mens’ boots and to their tent. And Justin and Rachel giggled with delight as they watched the fat man and the thin man dancing around in their stockinged feet, trying to retrieve their ruined boots from the fire and at the same time trying to kick snow on the remnants of their smoldering tent.

  “Great idea to burn their boots,” said Justin.

  “The boots were right outside the tent. What else could we do? Putting embers on the tent corners was your idea.”

  “They’ll have a tough time chasing us in their socks with no supplies and no tent,” he said. “A successful raid, I’d say….But now we’ve got a decision to make, and we’ve got to make it now.”

  “I know.”

  He put his hand on her arm. “Shall we keep going—over the mountain and into Idaho—find a settlement or a camp, or even a town? Get help, call the police and the FBI? Come back for Janie with help?”

  “Or should we go back now,” said Rachel. “Rescue her ourselves, if we can, and then run again?”

  “Those are our choices,” said Justin.

  Rachel didn’t hesitate. “I left her alone once, and I’m not doing it again. Let’s go back to the lodge. I’m sure that’s where they’ve taken her.”

  “Just what I had in mind,” said Justin.

  22

  The Run to Missoula

  Had the two Sheba Hill guards who had been assigned the task of returning Janie to the lodge been inclined to bother her, they still would not have done so. They had seen (and in fact had participated in) the punishment meted out to the two Missoula men who had made the mistake of dealing inappropriately with the Prophet’s bride-to-be. One of the men had been shot in the back, and the other, whose only offense was sleeping through the assault, had been buried alive. It was clear that an unpleasant future awaited anyone who messed with Janie or Rachel Lemon.

  The guards took turns carrying Janie whose ankle made it impossible for her to hike on her own, and traveling by moonlight the three made it to base camp a little before midnight. They spent the night and were off at first light, heading down the mountain toward the warmth and security of the lodge. They arrived late that evening, and Janie was promptly locked in her room.

  Later, the youngest of Elder Mobly’s wives, the teenager with little expression in her face, brought a large meal and sat watching while Janie devoured it. The girl’s name was Gert, and she was of German extraction. She had come to the temple from Lancaster, Pennsylvania when she was six years old and had grown up on Sheba Hill. She had married Elder Mobly when she was thirteen and had moved to Bitterroot Camp when it opened shortly thereafter.

  “You’re really hungry,” Gert said.

  “I’ve been living on squirrel, buffaloberries, and rabbit—and not much of those.”

  Gert hesitated. “You and your sister are so brave,” she said.

  “Thanks, but don’t forget Justin.”

  “Him, too. I wish I was brave.”

  Janie watched her carefully for signs she was being phony in an attempt to gain information; but the girl’s face was so innocent and so lacking in guile that Janie decided deception was out of the question. “I’ll bet you’d be brave if you were put in a similar situation.”

  “I’ve been in a similar situation.”

  “When?”

  “I didn’t want to marry Elder Mobly, but I didn’t have enough courage to run away.”

  With new snowshoes and plenty of food from the stolen backpacks, Rachel and Justin found that going down the mountain was considerably easier than going up. The bright moonlight allowed them to make exceptional progress, and by midnight they were near the area where the landslide had crushed Chuky and two of his friends.

  “You think our lean-to is still on the butte?” asked Rachel.

  “I doubt it, but we could have a look.”

  To their surprise, the framework of the lean-to was still standing. The blizzard had destroyed the pine-bough walls, but the poles between the rock and the ground were as sturdy as ever, as if the storm had anchored them. “Terrific,” said Justin. “There’s plenty of boughs around here. We can re-lace the walls in no time. I’ll build a fire and we’ll get some sleep.”

  The lower portion of each of their backpacks was a detachable artic sleeping bag, and as Justin tossed his next to the lean-to, he said, “With these zipped up to our necks, we ought to be warmer than we’ve been in days.”

  “I wonder how our bootless friends up the mountain are keeping warm,”

  “Who cares?”

  J.J. Flack and the third Sheba Hill guard also made good use of the moonlight, trekking up the mountain toward the southwest at nearly the same pace they could have managed by daylight. At about the same time Rachel and Justin were crawling into their sleeping bags on the butte, Flack and his climbing partner arrived at the burned-out camp of the remaining two Missoula men.

  The fat man and the thin man were warming themselves by a roaring fire, their tent in shreds, the poles of the wigwam feeding the fire. They had no snowshoes, no boots, and no backpacks. Their faces were forlorn, and they greeted the arrivals with expressions of shame and embarrassment. “The kid and the girl, they snuck up on us and stole us blind—ruined us. We can’t move—can’t go up and can’t go down.”

  “Well, we can go up,” said Flack. “And we will—in the morning.”

  “What about us?” asked the fat man, the swastika on his neck dancing in the firelight.

  Flack shrugged.

  At dawn the next day, Rachel and Justin continued their march down the mountain. By noon they had reached the site of their original cave, and they smiled at one another in remembrance of their first night on the mountain. They’d shared part of a tuna sandwich and some chips with Janie, and they’d all been warm and hopeful, protected by their natural shelter; but now they were heading in the opposite direction, and their prospects had plummeted. At two they broke through to the logging road at about the same level where the SUV belonging to the men who had tried to kill Justin had been parked. It was gone now and Rachel and Justin assumed it had been taken back to the lodge or perhaps had been used to ferry supplies to a point higher on the logging road. They removed their snowshoes, since the road was hard-packed snow, dirt and ice. They hid the snowshoes deep in the underbrush and made mental notes as to where they’d left them so they would be available for the return trip.

  “Janie’ll need some, too,” said Rachel.

  “One thing
at a time,” Justin said. “Maybe we’ll come across a pair at the lodge.”

  They first caught sight of Bitterroot Camp from a rise about three hundred yards away, and they quickly stepped off the road so they wouldn’t be visible as they approached. When they were out of the line of sight, Justin shook his head. “Well, we’ve come full circle.”

  “Back where we started,” said Rachel. “Seems like a lot of unnecessary hiking.”

  They both laughed.

  They continued to move closer, using the trees on the side of the road for cover. From a point about fifty yards from the back of the main building, they caught sight of the SUV with the smashed window, parked next to a large service truck with a sign that read Missoula Electric. Both vehicles stood in the side parking area, somewhat removed from the lodge.

  Justin stared down the hill and said, “I’m beginning to get an idea.”

  “What?”

  “That service truck.”

  “What about it?”

  “Do you suppose the guy driving it is a temple member?”

  “How would I know?”

  Janie and Gert sat on Janie’s bed talking. The physical differences between the two girls were remarkable: Gert—dark hair, plump, plain; Janie—blonde, slim, almost classically beautiful. But there were similarities as well: both were essentially schoolgirls with dramatic speech patterns, awkward social graces, and fierce, easily formed alliances and loyalties.

  “I’ve watched you and your sister since you came here,” said Gert. “I knew you were faking. I knew my husband wasn’t convincing you of anything, even though you tried to pretend that he was.”

  “You should’ve told us, Gert. You could’ve joined our team. Four musketeers are better than three.”

  “I was afraid.”

  “That’s okay, there’s plenty of reason to be afraid around here.”

  After dropping their backpacks in the woods, Justin and Rachel raced across the parking lot and crouched behind the electric service truck. Justin then peeked in the truck’s side window. “All kinds of stuff in there,” he said, “coils, tools, transformers, big boxes—plenty of stuff to hide behind….Wait a minute.” He eased over to the passenger-side door and pulled down on the handle. “Locked, but don’t give up yet.” He crawled on his hands and knees to the back of the truck and tried the rear door. It opened, and he closed it immediately, as quietly as possible.

  “So that’s your plan,” said Rachel, “hitch a ride to Missoula?”

  “If we can find Janie and get her out before this guy leaves….Where do you think she is—any ideas?”

  “I’d guess in our room. There’s an outside lock on the door.”

  “Let’s see,” he said, “the window to your room is on the back side of the lodge, isn’t it?”

  “Right.”

  They took a chance and left the protection of the service truck, running to the side of the building and pressing their backs against the wall. Justin then reached down and picked up a handful of loose gravel mulch from a planter under the eaves. “Come on,” he said, leading her around the corner to the rear. He looked up at the second floor. “Which window?”

  She looked perplexed. “I’m not sure.” She indicated three second-floor windows.

  “What’s your best guess?”

  “You want me to guess?”

  He nodded.

  She surveyed the three windows. “I think the middle one and the third one. We had two windows, you know.”

  Justin poured most of the gravel into his left hand, leaving a half dozen pieces in his right. Then he stepped out and prepared to pepper the two windows. “Time to take a risk.”

  Gert heard the pings first. “Hail?” she said.

  “Hail or a bird or squirrel,” said Janie. She walked toward the window, but before she got there, the pings stopped—and then started again on the adjacent window. “Odd,” she said, moving to the new location. She was stunned at the sight of Justin and Rachel standing near the rear steps. “Oh, Gert!” she cried, and then hesitated, wondering if she might be placing too much faith in her new friend. But one look at Gert’s open and trusting face convinced her that her doubt was misplaced. “Oh, Gert,” she repeated, “they’re here! They’re back!”

  Gert joined her and looked down on the two young people who had been waving energetically at the sight of Janie, but who now stopped abruptly at Gert’s appearance. Janie sensed the immediate problem and drew Gert closer to herself with a hug. Justin and Rachel picked up on the gesture at once, and they both nodded to indicate their understanding. Janie then motioned for Rachel and Justin to get out of the open, to move back against the rear wall where they couldn’t be seen by anyone else who happened to be looking outside.

  “Get dressed,” Gert said to Janie, “all your warm clothes. I guess you’ll be heading back up the mountain.”

  “But there’s a guard right next to the door to the back steps. How can I get by him?”

  “Leave him to me.”

  While Janie dressed, Gert reassembled the glasses, dishes, and utensils on the ceramic tray she had brought to the room. She then described what she had in mind, and Janie shook her head at the precise timing that would be required to pull it off.

  “Remember,” said Gert, “I go out with the tray, you stand inside the open doorway and wait. When he’s flustered and distracted, you slip out, shut the door very quietly so no one will know you’re gone, and go down the stairs.”

  Janie looked into the older girl’s eyes, drew her close, and said, “I won’t forget you, Gert.”

  Rachel and Justin were standing as close to the wall as they could manage. Neither seemed confident in what they were doing, and Rachel expressed their doubts. “What now? Janie obviously has Mobly’s wife on her side, but what now?”

  “We wait.” And at Rachel’s impatient glance, he added, “…because there’s nothing else we can do. We’re helpless, and we can’t go to her, so she’ll have to find some way to come to us.”

  The ceramic tray shattered on the hardwood floor at the feet of the guard; and the utensils and smashed plates and glasses (with a little impetus from Gert) went flying beyond the guard’s chair toward the end of the corridor. He leapt to his feet and danced away from the debris. Gert stepped in front of him, apologizing loudly and repeatedly, occupying his attention so completely that he didn’t notice a small figure had eased behind his back and was already halfway down the back stairs.

  Gert continued to wail and to belittle herself, confessing that she was a clumsy oaf, a peasant girl who belonged on a Lancaster farm—milking the cows and slopping pigs. But after enough time had gone by and she was certain Janie had escaped out the back door, Gert stopped moaning and said to the guard, “Well, why are you standing around? Help me clean up this mess. I would never have dropped the tray in the first place if it weren’t for your big feet.”

  Under the eaves, Rachel, Janie, and Justin embraced, and Rachel said, “How—”

  “My friend Gert,” said Janie. “Boy, did we have her figured wrong.”

  At that point Justin outlined his plan, and at his signal they darted across the parking lot toward the electric service truck. Praying no one was watching from inside the lodge, they opened the rear door and climbed inside.

  “What if the driver doesn’t come back?” asked Janie.

  “He’s got to. He can’t spend the night here,” Justin replied.

  “What if he sees us?”

  “There’s a lot of room back here. We’ll just have to hunker down. Listen, this isn’t a perfect plan, but it’s better than nothing—better than giving up.”

  Less than twenty minutes later, the electrician returned; and after tossing his tools into the back, he climbed behind the wheel and began to head down the hill. Even though the drive to the main highway seemed to take forever, the stowaways remained silent and rigid; and it was only after the truck turned north toward Missoula that their discipline began to wane. Rachel yawned and
stretched her leg to improve her circulation, but in so doing, her foot struck a steel container, causing a faint but noticeable metallic sound.

  “Hey! What’s going on back there?” the driver called out, swiveling his head to see if he could determine what was occurring in his truck. When he didn’t see anything, he pulled over to the side of the road, got out and went around to the rear door. Yanking it open, he ordered, “Okay, who’s in there? Don’t make me drag you out!”

  Three small heads appeared at the same time, and the electrician bellowed, “Three of you! Are you kids crazy? I’m on my way to Missoula.”

  Justin climbed down first, followed by Rachel and then by Janie; and when all were standing beside the driver on the shoulder of the road, Rachel asked haltingly, “Are you a member of the Sheba Temple?”

  “That bunch of lunatics—you are crazy! I fix their wiring, but if you ask me, it’s their heads that really need to be rewired.”

  The three twelve year olds exchanged hopeful glances.

  “Do you kids belong back there at Bitterroot Camp?”

  “Sort of,” said Rachel.

  “Well, all of you get up front with me. It’s cold out here.”

  After listening for fifteen minutes, the driver had heard enough to know that he wasn’t about to return the young people to the camp; so he continued on to Missoula with the kids chattering in his ear, sometimes individually, sometimes all at once. When at last they arrived at the outskirts, he said, “You three are amazing. What a story. What an adventure. I can’t wait till the movie comes out.”

  “Don’t you believe us?” asked Janie.

  He blew out his breath. “It’s too wild a tale to be anything but true….Where to now?”

  “The FBI,” said Justin.

  “Too late—they’ll be closed, but I promise you the Missoula Police on Ryman Street will call the FBI for you.”

  23

  Trial in Helena

  Helena Independent Record: