by Elle James
A movement somewhere to her right made her freeze. Slowly, she turned her head. Yes, there it was again, a subtle shifting of the brush. A shadow where a shadow shouldn’t be. She wrapped her hand around the grip of the Sig Sauer and worked on controlling her breathing. A deep breath in...let it out slowly. She wouldn’t shoot unless she had to, but if whoever was out there came too close... She clutched the baby tightly and slid the gun from the holster.
“Abby! Abby, it’s me!”
She leaned forward and stared at the man loping toward her. Michael covered the distance quickly, with no sign of injury. She took a few steps toward him, only her grip on the pistol and the baby in her arms keeping her from greeting him with a hug. “How did you get away?” she asked when he stopped beside her.
He bent over, a rifle clutched in both hands, gasping for breath. A moment passed before he could speak, and in that moment she searched for any sign of injury, but he seemed whole and healthy.
He straightened. “When I shouted at you, it distracted the guy enough I was able to kick the gun out of his hands. We struggled for a bit, but I got away.”
She nodded to the weapon he was holding. “With the gun.”
He hefted the weapon. “He’s probably not very happy about that, but I didn’t give him any choice.”
She glanced over his shoulder at the empty desert. “Are they coming after us?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Not right now anyway. They seemed pretty anxious to clear out.” He nodded to the bundle in her arms. “How’s the baby?”
“Good. She’s very quiet. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.” She adjusted the blanket to shield Angelique from the sun. “I was trying to get back to the Cruiser,” she said.
“Good idea. But first, I want to get a closer look at their trucks before they leave.” He turned back toward the camp.
“Wait.” She grabbed his arm. “You can’t go back there.”
“I want to get pictures before they leave—of the trucks and the people.” He pulled his phone from his utility belt. “I can’t get a signal, but the camera still works.”
“It’s too dangerous,” she said.
“They won’t expect me to come back. You can wait here with the baby.”
“No, I’m coming with you.” The two of them together, both armed, seemed a better idea than splitting up and forming separate targets. He might think no one was after them, but how could he be sure?
He didn’t argue. “We’ll follow the creek back to the camp,” he said. “The trees will provide cover. We’ll keep low and out of sight and just watch and take photographs.”
“All right.” She didn’t like the plan, but she liked being left alone out there less.
They intersected with the creek farther up the wash and followed it down toward the camp. Soon, the slamming of vehicle doors and murmur of voices in Spanish filled the air. Michael stopped about a hundred yards from all the activity and crouched down. She huddled behind him, peering over his shoulder.
The men with guns stood guard as the other men and women filed into the trailers. Abby counted six people filing into one of the campers, which was smaller even than the one she’d rented for the summer. When all the people were inside, the guard reached up and locked the door, then pocketed the key.
“What are they doing?” she whispered, her lips against Michael’s ear.
“I think the trucks are going to tow the trailers out of here.”
Before he had even finished speaking, one of the trucks had backed up to the trailer and begun the process of hooking on to the camper. Michael pulled out his camera and snapped picture after picture. Abby searched the camp for any sign of Mariposa, but couldn’t find her. Was she already locked into one of the crowded trailers?
The man in the white shirt and hat who’d confronted them by the creek stood to one side. He’d found another rifle and held it across his chest, barking orders at the others. Within a quarter of an hour, the camp was clear. The man in the white shirt surveyed the area and seemed satisfied. He climbed into the vehicle at the front of the line and the trucks—four of them now, each with a trailer in tow—pulled away from the campsite. Two set out toward the main road, while the other two started cross-country.
When the vehicles were too far away for anyone to see them, Michael crawled out of their hiding place and stood to get a better look. “Where are they going?” Abby asked.
“There are a lot of old ranch roads and two-tracks cutting across this property. They’re probably taking a roundabout way to the highway. My guess is the other two will turn off at some point, too. They won’t want to risk being seen on the main park road by one of the park rangers or one of our team.”
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“I’d like to get some people out here to comb this place for evidence.”
“Are they going to find anything?” Except for an area bare of vegetation where the fire and picnic tables had been, there was little sign of the compound that had been here only an hour before. Even the rocks that had been used to make the fire ring had been cleaned and scattered, the footprints of those who had been here smoothed over with a branch of juniper.
“You never know.” He stared at his phone. “Still no signal.”
“Maybe mine will work,” she said. “Now that they’re gone, I can retrieve my pack.”
“Good idea. Where is it?”
“Back this way.” She led the way along the creek to the spot where she’d talked to Mariposa. She scanned the creek bank. “I don’t see it,” she said. “I could have sworn it was right in here.”
“It was blue, right?”
She nodded. “Bright blue. It shouldn’t be hard to spot.” She walked along the bank, looking into the water and underbrush, even though she knew she had dropped it in the open. He searched, also.
“One of them must have seen it and taken it,” he said. “What was in there besides your phone and the GPS?”
“Water, food, a first-aid kit. A space blanket, another pair of socks, a whistle, compass and fire starter.” She ticked off the items in a standard backcountry emergency list—all things they could have used right now.
“They didn’t leave anything behind,” he said, looking around.
“Except this.” She reached under a bush and started to pull out the metal bucket Mariposa had carried to the creek. “Though I don’t see what good it’s going to do us.”
“Don’t touch it.” His hand on her arm stopped her and he moved up beside her. “We might get good prints off it that could help us identify some of the people involved.”
“What should we do with it?” She stepped back.
“Leave it here. We’ll want to get a team in here to go over the place—they can pick it up then.” He tied his bandanna to a nearby tree branch to mark the spot.
“We just have to find our way back to headquarters,” she said. “And find our way here again after that.”
He straightened and looked around them, as if studying the terrain—the low hills and more distant mountains. “Which way is the canyon from here?” he asked. “Black Canyon.” If they could find the canyon, they’d find the road that led to the headquarters.
“I don’t know.” She turned slowly in a circle, looking around them. “That’s the thing about this place. The canyon isn’t something you see from ground level. You have to be right up on it before you know it’s there.”
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“We can try to find the truck.”
Her expression lightened. “I do know which direction the truck was in. All we have to do is walk right through there.” She pointed to a cut in the fringe of trees along the edge of the wash, then set off at a brisk pace, Michael close behind her.
After twenty minutes
of walking and backtracking, they didn’t find the Cruiser. But they did find the tracks where it had been parked, and the tracks of the other vehicles that had passed. “What happened?” she asked.
“They stole it,” he said. “Trucks don’t just vanish, so one of them must be driving it.”
“If they found the truck, they must know we’re still out here,” she said.
He nodded, his expression grim. “They’ll probably send someone back to find us. We need to get out of here before that happens.” He pulled out his phone and tried it, but it continued to show no signal. “We need higher ground.” He looked around and spotted a low hill. “Up there.”
She cradled Angelique in her arms as she climbed up the hill, praying that someone didn’t have her in the sights of a rifle’s scope as she climbed. She felt too exposed up here on the side of this hill. Anyone who looked in this direction would be able to spot them. She picked up her pace, anxious to find cover once more.
At the top of the rise, she ducked behind a low piñon and struggled to catch her breath. Michael stood a little ways from her, holding up his phone. “I think this is going to work,” he said. “I’m getting a signal.” He started walking backward, watching the screen, the phone in one hand, the radio in the other. “Almost there.”
And then he was gone, dropping over the edge, a cascade of falling rocks and a single startled cry the only indication he had ever been there.
Chapter Nine
Michael scrabbled for a hold on the crumbling shale that continued to give way beneath his feet and slip from his hands. He dropped the phone and the radio—the radio somersaulting into the air and out of sight, the phone bouncing like a thrown rock as it, too, disappeared into the canyon. He kicked out his feet and found only air, and an image of his body, broken and bleeding, at the bottom of the gully flashed through his mind.
Frantic, he hurled himself toward a ragged piñon that jutted from the canyon wall. His fingers grasped the prickly needles, and he swung his other hand up to grip a branch. The tree bent and creaked, but held.
He hung there for a long moment, struggling to breathe and to slow the pounding of his heart. He found a toehold for one foot in the rock below and supported his weight partially on one leg, with the other resting uncomfortably against the slick, steep canyon wall.
He’d fallen about ten feet, though it had seemed farther. His instinct was to shout for help, but he checked it. All of the men from the camp might not have left in the trucks. He didn’t know who was up there, looking for him.
And looking for Abby and the baby. He had to keep quiet for their sake.
Just then, Abby’s face appeared above him. She was kneeling at the edge of the drainage into which he’d fallen, looking down at him, her forehead creased in a worried frown. “What happened?” she asked, her voice carrying to him in the clear air, though she didn’t shout.
“I must have slipped. Stupid move.” He should have known to be more careful on this unpredictable terrain, but it was too late to berate himself now.
“Can you climb up?”
He considered the almost vertical wall above him, lined with brittle shale and slick mud. Here and there tufts of grasses or wildflowers clung to the side—feeble handholds for a man who weighed one-eighty. “I don’t suppose you have a rope,” he said.
“Sorry. I’m fresh out.”
“Yeah, I thought so.” Already his arms were beginning to feel as if they’d pull out of their sockets. He couldn’t hang here much longer. “What’s happening up there?” he asked.
“Angelique is fussy—I think she’s hungry. I’ve got her here beside me.”
Of course her first concern was for the child. “No sign of the bad guys?”
“No sign of them. What can I do to help?”
“Maybe say a prayer.” He focused on a clump of grass three feet overhead. “What do you know about native grasses?” he asked.
“Um, a lot, actually. What do you want to know?”
“Do they have very deep roots?”
“It depends. Some of them have very deep roots. That helps them find scarce water, and also prevents erosion.”
And maybe they’d save his life. He took a deep breath, stretched up and took hold of the clump of grass. He lost his toehold and scrabbled for a new one, plastered against the side of the canyon, cool mud against his cheek, the scent of wet earth and sage filling his nostrils.
He clawed at the canyon wall and dug in with fingers, knees, toes—anything to keep from falling. Agonizing inch by agonizing inch, he crept toward the top, muscles screaming, mind fighting panic. Whenever he dared look up, he saw Abby’s face, pale against the dark juniper and deep blue sky. Her eyes never left him, the tip of her thumb clenched between her teeth.
Having her there helped some. She gave him a goal to reach, a bigger reason to hang on. She and that baby depended on him to get them out of here safely. Giving up wasn’t an option.
The climb to the top seemed to take an eternity, though in reality probably only fifteen minutes or so passed. When he dragged himself over the edge at last, he lay facedown on the ground, spent and aching.
Abby rested her hand on his back, a gentle weight grounding him to the earth and to her. “Are you all right?” she asked.
He pushed up onto his elbows. “Do we have any water?”
“No.”
Of course they didn’t. They also didn’t have a phone or radio or GPS. They had two guns, the energy bar he’d stashed in his jacket, the hard candies he always carried and whatever Abby was carrying in her pockets. They also had a baby, who was going to get hungry sooner rather than later, and no idea where they were.
He sat up and pulled out his bandanna to wipe as much mud as he could from his face and hands. The baby began to whimper and Abby gathered it into her arms and rocked it. He studied her, head bent low over the fussy child, her blond hair falling forward to obscure half her face. She reminded him of a Madonna—a particularly beautiful one.
The memory of the way she’d touched him just now lingered, but he pushed it aside. He had to focus on how they were going to find their way back to headquarters. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.
She jerked her head up. “Don’t you?”
He fought the instinct to play the macho man and lie to her, but lies like that only led to trouble. He shook his head. “We arrived in the dark, so I couldn’t orient by landmarks. I made the mistake of relying on GPS.” He looked around them, hoping to recognize some familiar rock outcropping or group of trees.
She moved up behind him to look over his shoulder. He became aware of her body pressed to his, her warmth seeping into him. “What do we do now?” Her breath tickled the hair at the back of his neck, sending heat sliding through him.
“I’m open to suggestions.”
Abby cradled the child to her shoulder and rocked her gently. “We’ve got to get food for the baby,” she said. “And water.”
“The creek has water. I can’t say how safe it is to drink, but it’s a start.” His own mouth felt as if he’d been chewing sawdust. He couldn’t let dehydration cloud his judgment.
“So we’ll walk back to the creek and get water,” she said. “Then what?”
“Then I think we’d better sit down to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For the Rangers to find us—or for whoever is in charge of the camp to return.”
“Do you really think they’ll come back?”
“They know we’re still out here. Without a vehicle, we can’t go too far. If they know we have the baby, they’ll realize that will slow us down, even if we had a destination in mind. So yeah, I think they’ll come back. We’re a problem they won’t let rest until they take care of it. The trick will be for us to take care of them first.” He reached bac
k and took her hand. “Come on.”
* * *
ABBY’S FEET DRAGGED as she followed Michael back toward the creek and the deserted encampment. She hadn’t slept well last night—the vision of the rattlesnake, alive and ready to strike, imprinted on the insides of her eyelids every time she closed them. Up at four this morning, then the tension and adrenaline rush of the events of the day, plus the ground they’d covered on their hikes around the area, had all taken their toll. She was exhausted, and the baby in her arms felt like a twenty-pound bowling ball.
But she could do nothing but keep moving. Going back to wait for the people who wanted them dead seemed foolhardy at best, suicidal even. But the move also made sense. Every survival manual she’d ever read stressed staying in one location if you were lost. Wandering aimlessly complicated the search for you and wasted precious energy. At least by the camp they’d have water, which they all needed, but Angelique, especially, had to have.
Michael looked back over his shoulder. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m hanging in there.”
“And the baby?”
“She seems to like the movement.” She smiled down at the infant, who had fallen asleep. “She must have spent a lot of time moving around with her mother.”
“It looked as if Mariposa was in charge of the cooking today. She probably spent a lot of time on her feet, gathering water, cleaning up and cooking the meals.”
“What did the other people, the ones we saw eating, do?”
“They probably worked tending a crop of marijuana, or making meth, though I didn’t see any signs of production around the trailer, and I didn’t smell anything off. So probably marijuana.”
“Are they here voluntarily?”
“Probably not. They may have crossed the border looking for work, but once they arrived here, they were prisoners.”
“So they’re slaves?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“It...it’s like something out of another century. Not something that should happen today in the United States.”
