by Jenna Kernan
Dalton studied the river. “There might be lookouts.”
“It’s the only way across without swimming.”
“Yes, that’s what worries me. Ready?”
She nodded and started across. Jet whined and danced back and forth, anxious about following.
Erin turned back and called to the dog. Jet took a tentative step. Then another. The dog leaped from one slat to the next, jumping the eighteen-inch gaps. Dalton continued along, ignoring their four-legged companion and passing Erin.
Erin followed but then turned back in time to see Jet miss landing with her back feet, scrabble with her front and vanish between the slats. The splash came a moment later.
She glanced at Dalton, who was already kneeling, hands on the rail, as he judged his target and the distance down.
Erin ditched her pack, acting faster than Dalton.
“What are you doing?” he asked, standing now, reaching. She returned his frown and then jumped into the river after Jet. She heard his shout on the way down.
“Erin!”
The current was swift, even here on the wide-open section of the Hudson. She pulled and kicked, lifting her head only to mark the location of her new best friend. Jet paddled toward her, of course, instead of using the current, but the river swept her away. Erin swam harder, grabbing the dog’s collar before turning toward the opposite bank.
Above, Dalton jogged along, carrying her pack, following her with an intent frown on his face.
She struggled against the current, using a scissor kick and one arm. Jet thrashed at the water, managing to keep her head up as they inched toward the southern bank. They made land at the same time as Dalton disappeared into the tree line above.
Racing, he reached her in record time.
“That was stupid,” said Dalton.
She wiggled her brows.
Jet shook off the water, tail wagging as the dog immediately began sniffing the ground about them. Then she waded back into the river.
“Jet, come!” she shouted.
“You are not diving in after her again,” said Dalton.
“No need.”
Jet dashed back to her, tongue lolling and eyes half-closed.
“Someone will sleep well tonight,” she said. When she turned her attention from Jet to Dalton, it was to see him scowling at her with both hands on his hips.
“You could have died,” he said.
“Yes? How does that make you feel?” she asked.
“Mad as hell.”
“Well, now you know how I feel every darn day.”
His scowl deepened, sending wide furrows across his forehead.
“So it’s all right to risk your neck for a dog but not for the safety of a nation?”
She lifted her chin, ready for the fight he obviously wanted. “I jumped to keep you from jumping.”
“I wasn’t...” He stopped just short of lying.
Erin shouldered her pack and turned to go and Jet followed. Dalton had caught up before they reached the highway.
“Do you think anyone saw us cross?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but if there was anyone spotting, they couldn’t have missed you and that darn dog.”
Chapter Eleven
Erin changed into dry clothing and they ate the last of her food stores. Then they endured another four-mile hike over relatively flat terrain on the railroad tracks that flanked the river. Their trip was stalled twice by hikers and once by horseback riders. Thankfully, most travel in this area was by river rather than by land. Still, Erin was wistful as she watched the young women riding slowly past on a buckskin and a small chestnut mare. Her tired legs made it especially hard not to bum a lift.
She got her bearings when they reached the garnet processing plant, where abrasives were produced from the crushed red garnets mined nearby. She’d been on the mine tour more than once and knew the working mine was south of North Creek.
When they reached Route 28, Erin’s ankles and knees pulsed with her heart, and her pack seemed exponentially heavier. Dalton drew to a halt and Jet groaned, then lay down, panting.
“You have anything we can pawn or trade for a hotel room?” Dalton asked, studying the mine plant from behind cover. “And maybe dinner?”
“No, but I do have three hundred dollars in my wallet. You lose your wallet?”
“I only have fifty bucks left,” he admitted.
“Always prepared, except for things you have to pay for,” she joked, and they shared a smile.
“How well do you know the area?”
“Drove through it, passed all the rafting outfits along the highway. Post office, roadhouse and bed-and-breakfast.”
“Fancy. What about a motel?”
“I’m sure we could ask.”
“I could. I’m traveling alone with my dog. You need to stay out of sight,” he said.
“I can do that. I’ll wait right here.” The prospect of stopping and resting appealed.
“Let’s get closer to town. That way?” he asked.
“Yes. A little farther past the garnet plant. We should see the highway and the river takes a turn. This is a really small community.”
“Good and bad. Let’s go.”
They continued on the tracks until it reached the road. Erin suggested a state park that included cabin rentals, and they walked the remaining mile and a half on tired legs, reaching the ranger station after closing.
“Better off,” Dalton said. “No paper trail. Should be easy to see if any of the cabins are empty.”
They walked the looped trail past occupied cabins, waving at other campers.
“I could set up my tent,” said Erin.
“I need a shower,” he said.
She agreed that he did. So did she, for that matter.
“Bathhouse?” he suggested.
“Let’s finish the loop.”
As it happened, the ranger was making rounds to invite guests to a talk on the reintroduction of wolves to the Adirondacks that started at nine. Erin asked the tanned ranger in his truck if any of the cabins were still unoccupied.
“You two hiking?”
“Yeah. Going into the Hudson Gorge Wilderness and up Vanderwhacker Mountain.”
“We should be able to set you up.”
“Cash okay?” asked Erin.
“That’ll work.”
They accepted a ride back down to the station. When the ranger asked for ID, Erin held her smile but her gaze flashed to Dalton.
“I have your wallet still, I think,” he said, and offered the Vermont license of the woman who had killed the pair of campers, stolen their dog and then tried to kill them.
Erin remembered the hair the woman had commandeered and shuddered. The ranger listed them in his book but never ventured near a computer. They were Mrs. Kelly Ryder and her husband, Bob.
The ranger handed over a key on a lanyard and Erin gave him seventy bucks. Transaction complete, Erin headed back out. Jet rose and stretched at their appearance. The ranger called from behind the counter.
“You’ll need to put your dog on a leash.”
Dalton waved his understanding as they left.
Cabin number eleven was a log structure with two bedrooms. Once inside, Erin removed her pack and groaned as she lowered her burden to the floor. Dalton flicked on the overhead light and glanced around at the living area, which included a full kitchen with a four-burner stove, refrigerator and small dinette. The living room had a saggy sleeper couch and a wooden rocker. A pair of crossed canoe paddles decorated the wall above the hearth made of river rock.
* * *
DALTON HEADED DOWN the hall past the living area and found a bathroom with toilet, sink and small shower. The first bedroom was equipped with bunks and the second with a full-size bed, dresser and side tables hold
ing lamps with decoy bases that resembled wood ducks. He really hoped he wouldn’t be sleeping alone in one of the bunks.
When he returned, Erin was staring at the stove with folded arms and a contemplative expression.
“Kinda makes me wish I had some food,” she said as she looked at the stove.
“We have to eat,” Dalton said. A glance out the window showed that the night was creeping in.
“How are you going to pull that off?” She sank to the hard, wooden chair at the dinette and stared wearily at the knotty pine cupboards. Jet sat at her side and the dog rested her head in her new mistress’s lap.
Erin stroked her dark head and said, “‘Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard...’”
Dalton glanced out at the night. “I’ll be right back.”
He wasn’t, but it didn’t take him long. The ranger giving the talk was one of two, as he discovered upon knocking at the door to the rangers’ quarters.
“I hate to bother you but those folks in cabin sixteen are shooting off bottle rockets. Guess the Fourth is coming early?”
The ranger cursed under her breath and headed out. Dalton waved her away and started off the porch, then retraced his steps after she drove off.
The door was unlocked and there were steaks in the freezer. He collected a paper bag full of groceries, left two twenty-dollar bills on the top of the drip coffee maker and headed out, returning to find Erin asleep on the sofa with her hiking boots unlaced but still on.
He didn’t wake her. He let the smell of the steaks do that.
A few minutes later she opened one eye and then another. Her feet hit the floor and she rose stiffly to set the table.
“What have you got?”
He rattled off the menu. Fries and steaks, navel oranges and a box of chocolate-chip cookies. She started on those, offering Jet a one-to-three ratio on distribution, as Dalton tended the steaks.
“Where did you...never mind,” she said. “I don’t want to know.”
He turned back to the steaks.
“Are these marshmallows?” She hefted the bag. “I love these!”
She had one toasting on a fork over the unoccupied burner of the gas stove as he used the salt and pepper before turning the meat. The only item of food in the cupboard other than salt and pepper was a ziplock baggie full of little packages of ketchup and mustard.
Dalton fed Jet from a box of breakfast cereal mixed with pan drippings and the gristle from the steaks. Then he put the dog outside without a leash.
They ate at the kitchen dinette.
Erin smiled across the table at him, and he realized he could not remember the last time he had cooked for her or even the last time they had shared supper together. His job kept him gone for long hours and took him away unexpectedly and often—far too often, he realized.
“This is nice,” she said.
“I’ve missed this,” he admitted.
Her smile turned sad. “Me, too.”
“Erin, I never meant for my work to take over. I don’t even know when that happened.” He was never home before nine anymore. By the time he got on the train and made it back to the suburbs, Erin was often asleep on the couch. Her days began early at the sports club where she taught rock climbing with frequent weekend jaunts up to New Paltz, NY, to head rock climbing outings.
“Your partner will be here tomorrow?” she asked, finishing her last fry.
“He should be here already with the cavalry.”
“Great. How far do we have to go to get to him?”
“North Creek.”
“A couple of miles.”
He nodded and then reached across the table to take her hand, but at the last second, he panicked and instead retrieved her plate. He stood to clear the table and she followed.
“Boy, am I stiff,” she muttered, rolling her shoulders. The action forced her very lovely bosom out and he took that moment to stare. She caught him of course and laughed. “I’m surprised you have enough energy for that.”
“Looking doesn’t cost energy.”
He recalled the last time he’d loved her, the evening before the shooting. He had hoped that she’d attend the ceremony, but he’d been too preoccupied with loving her before bed to remind her and she’d been up and out before he rose. He never did find out if she had planned to be at the presentation. He and his partner were both being honored at the annual medal day ceremony, so he had been in full dress uniform. That uniform now had a small hole in the front above his right hip. That was nothing compared to the holes in his body.
Erin called his uniform a target. That day, she’d been right. Targeted for no reason other than the uniforms they wore, and the shooter in custody after clearing his psych exam. Not crazy, just murderous over old grudges stretching back through his childhood.
“Why don’t you go shower?” he said. “I’ll clean up.”
She regarded him with mock surprise. “That’s the sexiest thing you’ve said to me all day.”
“The shower?” He couldn’t help feeling hopeful.
“The cleanup.” She dropped a quick kiss on his mouth and then spun away before he could reel her in. But she’d left him with something else.
Hope.
Hope for the night. Hope for their marriage.
He found himself humming as he went about clearing the table. The scratch at the door told him the canine had returned. He held the door open, but Jet danced off the porch and then paused on the spongy loam of pine needles, beyond the steps. She turned back, waiting.
The young female made a complete circle of the cabin, encouraging Dalton to do the same. He stepped out of the doorway, his instincts making him uncomfortable being backlit in the gap. He headed after Jet and discovered that the rear of the cabin stood on stout logs and, behind them, the hillside sloped steeply toward the ranger station. Usually he would have done a quick recon at a new place, but his fatigue and hunger had taken precedence.
The stars seemed bigger here and he took a moment to gaze up and enjoy their brilliance. It had been a long stretch between now and the last time he’d noticed them, but they’d been there waiting. On the side of the cabin, making his return route, he paused at the light streaming from the cozy structure and at the sound of the shower running. Water was gliding over his wife’s beautiful naked body. And he was out here with the dog.
“Idiot,” he muttered, and continued back to the porch.
He still didn’t understand how getting ambushed while in uniform, and nearly dying, had split them up. He’d explained it was just one of those things, and that just made her madder.
He hadn’t really thought of her having to attend Chris’s funeral alone. Of having to speak to the widow, see his partner’s children’s faces as they lowered their father’s coffin into the ground.
It scared her. He got that.
“Come on, Jet,” he said, opening the door.
The dog streaked past him, so fast she was a moving shadow. Back inside, Jet was already on the couch.
“Better you than me, girl,” he said, and left her there, hoping he could hold the towel for Erin.
She met him at the door, her hair a wet tangle and her skin flushed pink. Steam billowed out behind her and she wore a clean white tank top and pink underwear. Both skimpy garments clung to her damp skin in a way that made his mouth go dry.
“It’s all yours,” she said, and slipped past him.
He caught her arm and she turned; her smile flickered and dropped away.
“Did you pick a room?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“Where do you want me?”
She lifted her chin, holding the power he’d given her.
“In my bed,” she said.
He exhaled in relief. But she lifted a finger.
“We are still not okay, Dalton. You know that.�
�
All he knew was that Erin would have him in her bed, and that seemed enough for now.
She regarded him with a serious expression that he could not read. He nodded and she left him the bathroom. He stripped and was in the narrow plastic compartment a moment later, leaving his clothing strewn across the floor. The water felt so good running over his sore muscles that he groaned. Then he washed away the sweat and grime. It seemed an eternity ago that he had showered in their small ranch-style home on a hill in Yonkers. Erin had left him a small liquid soap that was biodegradable for use on her hike. It barely foamed but did the job, leaving his skin with a tingle and the unfortunate scent of peppermint.
He scrubbed his scalp and the beard that had turned from a light stubble to the beginnings of something serious, and banged his elbows on the sides of the shower casing. The capsule had not been designed for a man who was over six feet and 245 pounds.
When he exited the shower, he found she’d left him only the tiny towel she used when hiking. It was the size of a gym towel, but he used it to dry off. Then he used her deodorant, toothbrush and toothpaste—one of the advantages of marriage, he thought, working out the tangles in his hair with a pink plastic comb the size of his index finger.
Dalton touched the three punctures in his abdomen left by the arthroscopy. Blood loss had been the biggest threat. The scars from the bullet were pink and puckered, but his stomach was flat and showed no bruising from the recent ordeal.
He glanced at his cargo pants, underwear and the shirt she had commandeered. All of it was filthy and he was not wearing any of it to bed. He did rinse out his T-shirt and boxers, hanging them on the empty towel rack to dry.
Erin knew he preferred to sleep in the nude. He retrieved only the firearms and the black zippered case containing the thumb drive and vial case. He used the minuscule towel to hide them in one broad hand as he glanced at himself in the mirror over the sink.
“Wish me luck,” he said to himself.
He’d never needed it before with Erin. She’d always welcomed him, but that was before the shooting and all the fury it had kindled in her.
Dalton stepped into the room to find the light already switched off and Erin sitting up against the pillows. The room was cast in shadows. He navigated to her by the faint bluish light from the night sky. He sat on the opposite side of the bed from where she lay stretched out and seemingly naked beneath white sheets. He set the weapons and case on the bedside table. A glance told him that the weapon he’d given her sat on the table beside her.
