Willing Hostage

by Marlys Millhiser

  “You don’t know much about big organizations, do you?” He emptied the last of the coffee on the fire. “They’re ponderous machines. But once they do get everything together and rolling, they can come down very heavy on anyone who gets in the way. And you and I, Leah, are in the way.”

  There is nothing to do at night on the top of the world, no light to read by, nowhere fun to go, no TV. They crawled into their sleeping bags and listened to each other lay awake … to the creaking and the rustling and the night wind … and then to rain.

  Still smelling of singed fur, Goodyear sat on Leah’s stomach and washed. Then he curled up on the parka rolled under her head, used her shoulder for a pillow, and purred ferociously into her ear.

  Glade stirred restlessly beside her.

  She had the feeling they were both thinking of the same thing … and she didn’t want to. She’d noticed mother nature clicking behind his passionless composure. Maybe it was just her own ego, playing tricks. But Leah wasn’t interested. It was too cold, crowded, and uncomfortable. It would just be something to do, a way to use each other. She had been used enough.

  Big, dark, mysterious—all the attributes to snare the lonely. Murderer, thief, criminal—what other things would he admit to? What more could he?

  Sudden ruthlessness, sudden gentleness, the warmth of his laughter, the cruel grip on her arm, the understanding pauses on the trail, the heat of a kiss.…

  “Glade? Would you really have killed me at that fishing cabin when you thought I was Sheila?”

  “Yes.” The flat finality of his clipped words.…

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I’m not much of a cook,” Glade apologized.

  “Oh, it’s delicious.” Leah moved to a drier part of the rock. The night’s rain had left little puddles. “What is it?”

  “It’s supposed to be a pancake,” he said with disgust.

  The pancake was raw dough surrounded by a charcoaled exterior. The metal plate had chilled it to crunchy. She took a gulp of Tang to unstick the dough. “The syrup is … sweet,” she said encouragingly. He’d mixed purple powder with water to make a raspberry syrup … sort of.

  “These have to cook one at a time. Ready for another?”

  “No, I think this will do it.” Leah forced down every last congealed lump and tried to smile. Her ulcer considered shoving it back. She fought it down and worked harder on her smile because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  The irony of that made the smile real, if bitter. He’d told her last night that he could have taken her life and by morning she worried about hurting his feelings. There was something wrong with women. Or was it just Leah Harper?

  “I grew up on a ranch west of here. We camped often but we didn’t have all these fancy directions on foil packets. Pork and beans in a can, steak skewered on a stick over the fire. We slept in the open or pulled ponchos over us if it rained. But we couldn’t have carried it on our backs. We had packhorses.”

  Leah stared at him. “You were a cowboy?”

  “Mostly just a boy.” If Leah hadn’t known better, she’d have said there was a hint of shyness in his grin, the way his eyes dropped to the little stove.

  “Here in Colorado? Can’t we go to your people at the ranch?”

  “When my father died, he willed me an education and my older brother got the ranch. Until last summer I hadn’t been back for twelve, fifteen years.”

  “Well, your brother then.…”

  “Cal sold out … to an oil company.”

  Glade ate five pancakes while Goodyear watched the tiny transparent animals in the shallow pond. Some looked like corkscrews, others like cockroaches, still others like beetles. They didn’t swim. They squiggled through the water.

  “The pond freezes to the bottom in winter. Those little creatures probably live their lifetimes in one summer.” He poured coffee and added pointedly, “Not everyone can look forward to a long life span.”

  She’d never dared so much coffee but it was warming and smelled like roasting nuts on the cold air. Only the afternoons were livable up here. “And you think your days are numbered?”

  “And yours if I don’t think of something.” He sat on the rock and “thought” the whole blessed day, staring at the curve of Big Marvine.

  Leah decided he was a boob man and tried not to go crazy with boredom. Mother nature clicked all around her but didn’t disturb Glade Wyndham. It must have been her imagination the day before.

  By afternoon she was pacing through the buttercups despite her sore feet. Glade sat motionless with the tip of his thumb stuck between his teeth. Goodyear batted lazily at a grass frond, rolled over on his back with his tail and hind legs angled up the side of the rock and the lush buff of his oversized stomach exposed to the sun. He resumed his nap unaware of how uncomfortable and ridiculous he looked.

  Leah stretched out beside him and stroked the proffered underside, dozed to the tune of his fantastic purr—and awoke to find Glade Wyndham staring through her.…

  The rigid mask had slipped, leaving a look of helplessness on the tanned face … tumbled curls over a wrinkled brow … firm mouth gone slack with … remorse? Fear?

  For a moment, before he focused and realized she stared back, before face and body tightened to withdraw into the strong male, Leah had the insane desire to comfort him.

  They both blinked. “Well, have you thought of a way to save our necks?” she asked, reaching for Goodyear in her confusion. But the cat had left her side to sit aloof by the pond and watch them.

  “When I met you in that restaurant in Oak Creek, I was supposed to meet a reporter for the Denver Post. He didn’t show.” Glade stretched and stood to find a stone at the pond’s edge. “It was just me then. It didn’t matter so much.” He skipped the stone across the water and picked up another. “You’ve complicated everything.”

  “Why a reporter?”

  “The only thing I could think of to do with the papers—and I thought all winter—is to turn them over to the press. But I don’t know how to do that and save our hides, too. There are too many very talented people after us.”

  “Couldn’t your brother—”

  “I want to keep Cal out of this. They’ve probably got him well covered by now, anyway.” Another rock skipped across the pond’s surface and Goodyear crouched.

  “I still don’t see … Why do you want to get the papers to the press?”

  “Have you ever seen a pile of mine tailings?”

  “I don’t even know what they are.”

  “It’s what’s left after the earth has been disemboweled. I’ve seen it in thousands of places, piles of mine tailings over a hundred years old, some here in Colorado. And do you know what?” Dark eyes looked through her. “There isn’t even a weed growing on them. After all this time.” He returned to his thinking position on the rock and to his silent mood.

  Leah walked to the top of the hill and looked back at the pond where the man and the cat sat like statues.

  Glade had grown up on a ranch with his brother, Cal, had become a mining engineer and a CIA agent, had stolen the property and run out on both jobs. The property was so important that Welker was willing to pay a high price for it and involve Leah, that Charlie would see Glade had a fatal accident, and the goons would kill anyone who got in the way of their search for Glade, including Sheila and presumably Leah. And oil shale … and weeds didn’t grow on mine tailings.…

  Leah shrugged and wandered back down the hill.

  “Swords,” Glade announced over a freeze-dried pork chop at dinner. “Maybe he can get us out of this.” He looked hopeful for a moment and then shook his head. “No, that’s too long a shot even for this.”

  “Who’s Swords?”

  “That hit man I took care of?” He pointed his fork at her. Leah backed away. “He was about to take care of Swords. He seemed pretty grateful at the time.”

  “Is he powerful enough to get around the FBI and the CIA and—”

  “He
’s powerful enough that it’d be hard to even get in touch with him. Still, he’s better than nothing.…”

  Leah awoke in the green nylon tent and would have jerked upright if there had been room. “What’s that?”

  “Sheep,” Glade answered irritably.

  The sounds were distant, a few bells and many complaining ba-a-as. It sounded like a restaurant full of indigestion.

  “Shepherd’s just moving them in. No fire this morning. We’ll eat and break camp.”

  “Where will we go? Have you thought of anything?”

  “We’ll walk out of here. I want to get to a telephone.” His fist struck at the nylon roof. “The property has to get to the newspapers. I’ll try again. It’s all I can do.”

  “That’s fine for the property but what about us?”

  “I’ll keep working on that, Leah. Maybe Swords will.… I’ll have to work on it.”

  They had plastic bacon chips in their Styrofoam eggs and broke camp. Glade had everything on their backs in record time.

  They started toward Big Marvine. Three nights of sleeping on the ground had not rested her sore muscles and all the old aches were soon back. But his fear and worry that catastrophe was closing in on them kept her moving.

  They crossed rolling hills and as they crested one they saw the sheep they’d been hearing since dawn. It looked as if white fluff balls had been scattered across the green, as if someone had blown the fur tops from giant dandelions. The sheep grazed near two small bright lakes.

  Glade and Leah angled away to skirt the lakes on the far side and soon the lakes and sheep were lost from sight.

  “Where was the shepherd?”

  “He’s around.”

  “Do you think he saw us?”

  “They don’t miss much.” He stopped to point out a hoof track in a damp patch of dirt. “Elk.”

  “Why don’t we see any wild animals? Here we are in that great wilderness I’ve heard so much about.…”

  “They won’t show themselves to us. We’re the enemy.” His boots were suddenly smeared with Siamese. Goodyear purred, rolled, rubbed, nudged, and then tried to climb Glade’s pant leg.

  “What’s the matter, fella?” he asked gently, picking up the cat. “Can’t take a little hike? You’re in worse shape than your mistress.”

  “If I remember right, you once told me I had a great body.”

  “Yeah, like a stick with arms.”

  More elk tracks as they neared the base of Big Marvine. “Hunters come up here in the fall, slaughter only the biggest, healthiest, best of the herds. People. The enemy.”

  “You’re one to talk. You kill people.”

  “I’ve never killed for sport, Leah.”

  “Then for what, the government?”

  He shrugged and walked on.

  At the base of Big Marvine they snacked on dry granola and water. Leah lay back with her head on a soft part of her pack. The only good thing about hiking was that it felt wonderful when it stopped. Streaky clouds scudded before a wind that was not apparent below. They were early today.

  He let her rest for a surprisingly long time while he broke twigs between his fingers, threw pebbles to crack like bullets against a log, scratched an ecstatic cat, looked often at the huge mound that rose behind them.

  “Let’s have lunch on top of Big Marvine,” he said suddenly, hurling a pebble so far that it cleared the log and Leah couldn’t hear it land.

  “You go ahead. I’ll wait for you down here.”

  “Cheese, rye, sausage, Maalox … you’re about out of Maalox.” He put the lunch into a nylon stuff sack and tied it to his belt.

  “That’s because of your cooking. Leave the Maalox with me.”

  “No Big Marvine. No lunch.” He lifted her from the ground so fast, she felt dizzy.

  “I thought you were in a hurry to get to a telephone.”

  “It’ll take days to walk out of here. One afternoon won’t matter that much.”

  “The shepherd will see us.”

  “He’s seen us by now. They see everything. They don’t have much else to do. Besides we’re just a couple of backpackers.” He strapped the canteen and two rolled plastic bundles over his shoulder.

  “What are those?”

  “Ponchos. In case it rains. You don’t have to carry anything.”

  “Rain!” Leah sat down again.

  “Just a precaution. Come on.”

  “Only if you answer some questions first.” Anything to get out of climbing that damn mountain.

  He rolled his eyes toward the clouds, shifted his weight from one foot to another, sighed, and finally said, “Okay. What?”

  “Did you kill on orders from the CIA?”

  “Leah, I was not an assassin like the fictional James Bond. Once in a great while I would get into a situation that I couldn’t have gotten out of if I hadn’t killed someone. My job was much less exciting than James Bond’s, too. In fact, it was rarely exciting at all. Next question.”

  “This property that has to get to the press—this information—you’re not trying to start another Watergate or Pentagon Papers or … anything. Are you?”

  His brow lowered to shadow his eyes. “What?”

  “Look, I’m not brilliant, but I’m not completely uninformed.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice went flat and secretive. She sensed he was thinking hard.

  “If the CIA and the FBI and an oil company are after these papers. And you have to get this information to the press. The government doesn’t want you to … How big is this thing?”

  “It’s big, Leah.” He shifted his weight again and looked away. “I don’t know how far up it goes, but.…”

  She hoped he wouldn’t go on, because she didn’t want another Watergate and she didn’t want to climb Big Marvine.

  “I worked for this oil company,” he said finally. “I was placed there by the agency.”

  “An American oil company?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your brother sold your ranch to an oil company. Oil shale?”

  He nodded, his expression haunted. “I worked on a study with many other people. We looked into the possibilities of mining shale, strip, open pit.…”

  “But the CIA wanted more information than what you had access to in your work?”

  “There was a deal going. Between the government and the company.”

  “But you worked for the government.”

  “There are many forms of ‘the government,’ Leah, separate, distinct, and suspicious of each other. It was a CYA sort of thing … it had to be. But I’d been out here, saw what was happening … what could happen. It was the first time I’d been home in years. If shale—”

  “CYA’ More bureaucratic alphabet soup?”

  “It means, cover your ass. It’s the dominant survival technique in organizations of any size, in and out of government. Leah, do you really want to know more?”

  “No.” She felt sick.

  She climbed Big Marvine with him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  They wore the hoods of their wind-shirts so that the shepherd couldn’t determine the color of their hair, although Leah was sure he was too far away to see them. She could just make out his tiny horse graying beside a white tent.

  The trail zigzagged constantly to get up the steep and completely open side of Big Marvine. Leah stopped looking down at about the fourth switchback. She decided Glade wanted to climb it only to keep her too winded to ask questions.

  Goodyear had followed them a short way, but when Glade made it clear he wouldn’t carry him, the cat returned to the bottom. Leah would have loved to go with him but her companion looked so stony she was afraid to say so.

  She’d made little sense of what she’d learned. If she thought it all through carefully, she might be able to piece this story together. But Leah had taken in enough to know that—if he wasn’t lying—that story might be more than she had any desire to tangle with. He was plan
ning to expose another scandal and everyone was out to stop him. The murderer-spy had become a man with a mission and even more confusing.

  By the tenth switchback, she began to hate him for making her climb, for taking her away from the civilized world, for being in such good shape that the climb didn’t bother him, for involving her in this ridiculous situation of government and information and oil companies, and finally for existing.

  She lost count of the switchbacks, stopped often to rest, was afraid to look down, afraid to look up.

  Glade waited tight-lipped and impatient when she stopped to rest, spoke only to warn her of treacherous places in the path and then with curt civility. Another mood change. Because he’d told her too much?

  At the end of the trail he stood with his hands on his hips, his breathing deep but even and Leah lying at his feet.

  She didn’t smoke, drink, overeat. She’d been in the habit of rigorous calisthenics since her modeling days, but she was not ready for the Rocky Mountains.

  And they were still not on top of Big Marvine. The path disappeared but the terrain sloped upward past a line of scrubby pine bushes, all grotesquely bent over in the same direction by the wind, and farther on, a jumble of broken rocks on the skyline.

  “This is as far … as I can go. I don’t want … lunch. I’ll wait here.”

  “You’ve come this far, damn it.” He spoke through clenched teeth that contrasted with several days’ growth of black beard. He looked like a wolf. His canine teeth seemed to have grown on the way up Big Marvine. “You’re going to the top.”

  “Why? So you can push me off?”

  “Don’t tempt me.” The rough hand on her arm again as he pulled her up. “Trust a woman to spoil the one good day I’ve had in months.”

  They passed the line of scrub pine and headed for the rocky summit.

  “If you start crying, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what? Kill me?” Leah said sweetly. “Because I got you into a situation you couldn’t get out of otherwise?”

  He didn’t answer, but pulled her along faster.

  They ate lunch at the very top of Big Marvine, just as he’d said they would. The wind that had been blowing the clouds across the sky was with them now.