“How can you say that?” It took every ounce of strength to force the words around the knot in her throat.
“Because we’re going to make it through this.”
She searched his face, saw he believed what he’d said, and stood. Moving to the other side of the small oak table, she sat in the chair. Ben once again picked up the rag and resumed cleaning the rifle.
“Do you have a plan?”
“I don’t have a good one.”
“Oh.”
A whippoorwill’s song echoed from the woods. Dana wondered how life could continue in all its normalcy when her life was in all likelihood about to end. And had she ever actually lived it?
“I’ve always been afraid,” she said.
“Most people are.”
“You’re not.”
Ben had been reaching for the bottle of oil. At her words, he stopped and stared at her. “Is that what you think?”
He snorted, poured a little oil on the rag, and continued cleaning the barrel of the rifle. The flicker of light from the lantern reflected off the gleam of the metal. “Every man and woman I’ve ever known is afraid at least some of the time, yours truly included.”
“Of what?” Dana reached behind her for her hair and wound it nervously around and through her fingers.
Now Ben didn’t meet her gaze, but focused more intently on the work he could do in complete darkness. “Missed chances. Maybe I could have said or done something differently when we were at Cimarron Canyon. I’m afraid of letting you down and of people dying because of my mistakes.”
Dana looked across the tiny cabin and blinked away the tears that threatened to fall again. “But you’re not afraid of dying.”
“No.” Ben sighed. Finally satisfied with the rifle, he set it gently aside. “I’m not afraid of dying.”
Silence enveloped them, covered them like the corner they’d been backed into.
“Why?” Dana asked.
“Because He promised to be with us, Dana. My mother used to send me that verse from the Bible in every care package. God tells us, Do not fear, for I am with you. Every month I’d get the package. Every month the same verse. Finally, it sank in. And sometimes, yeah, I’d still be afraid. But I never really doubted whether He was with me. Even if I’d died over there, I know He would have been with me.”
“I don’t want to die tonight.” Confessing the words split her heart wide open.
“This life isn’t supposed to last forever. The next life is the one that lasts for eternity.” He sounded older, wiser than he should have been for a man his age. When he looked up at her though, the old smile had returned. “Not that I’m hurrying it, mind you. I’d hoped to catch a few more fish, maybe settle down…”
He didn’t finish the rest of the thought, didn’t have to. They’d discussed it often enough.
“It might almost be worth dying if we could take Drogan out on the way with us, but to think he could get away. It’s so unfair.” Dana hugged her arms around herself, sat stiffly in the hard wooden chair. “I should have stayed with Erin. I want to see her again, Ben.”
He lowered his head, and she thought he wouldn’t answer her. When he did, his voice was gentler than she’d ever heard. He leaned across the table and looked straight into her eyes, all the way into her soul. “Then pray, Dana. Pray with all your heart.”
“But it doesn’t do any good when I pray.” The tears fell like rain. She didn’t even try to wipe at them. “I tried, remember? He doesn’t hear me. You pray, Ben. I’ll do whatever He wants. But your God doesn’t hear me. You tell Him I need to see her again. Tell Him it isn’t fair.”
She was sobbing uncontrollably now. She didn’t realize he’d stood and crossed the tiny space between them. Suddenly his arms were around her, and he had pulled her to her feet. He whispered into her ear, rocking her like a child.
“He does hear you, sweetheart. I promise you He does. I wouldn’t lie to you. He wouldn’t lie to you. And He promised to hear your prayers.”
“But what about before?”
“What did you pray? Can you remember? Think back, sweetheart. I know you don’t want to, but try to remember that night. When your mother died, what did you pray?”
She nuzzled into Ben’s shirt and allowed her mind to remember, to go all the way back to the night she’d tried so hard to forget. “I woke up, and she was screaming. He was dru… dru… drinking.”
She shuddered as her mind supplied the images she’d pushed away for eighteen years. “I grabbed Erin and her bear. We ran, ran from the house into the woods.”
“And you prayed as you ran?”
She nodded against his chest, the night sounds around the cabin merging with the memories of that fateful night so long ago.
“What did you pray, Dana?”
“She was so heavy. I thought I’d drop her, and he’d catch us.”
“But you didn’t.”
Dana shook her head, pulling in a deep, shaky breath. “No. We made it to the big pine tree. I set Erin down and turned to go back and help Mama. But he was there. He’d followed us.”
“What happened then?”
Dana had no more tears, but the memories continued to play like a bad movie that wouldn’t stop no matter how much she wanted it to. “He said I couldn’t help her. Then he reached for us, but he fell and hit his head. When he didn’t move, I picked up Erin and ran back to the house again.”
“How did you manage to carry her back? You could hardly make it to the tree.”
Dana looked up at him, pausing the replay of memories in her mind. “I don’t know. That part is a blur. I remember picking her back up and running like the wind. I was terrified he would wake up and come after us, but he didn’t. That’s where the police found him later, still passed out cold.”
Ben took her by the hand and led her back to the chair. “Sit down for a minute. I’ll get you some water.” Pulling the bottle from their pack, he uncapped it and handed it to her.
She took a small sip, then another.
“You think God helped me, don’t you?”
“What do you think, sweetheart?”
“I don’t know.” She wiped at her face, pulled her hair back behind her shoulders. “I was so afraid for Erin. She was only three. I remember now. I kept praying I wouldn’t drop her, and I didn’t.”
Ben smiled, but it was tinged with such sadness that Dana reached out and touched his face.
“Why did my mother have to die?”
“I don’t know, Dana. There are evil people in this world. I’m sorry, so sorry, you experienced such violence as a child.” Ben moved his chair in front of hers and sat down. Their knees touched. He pulled her hand into his lap. “I don’t have all the answers. Only God does. I think though that as you were running away your mother’s last prayers were for your safety and for Erin’s safety.”
Dana was silent for a moment, considering Ben’s words. They were like a pearl found among a stack of family letters. “What makes you think she was praying for us?”
“Because of your name.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was telling my mother about you.” Ben grinned rather sheepishly. “I didn’t know how to tell you that I loved you, especially when you weren’t speaking to me. So I told her about you. She told me your name, Dana, means bright gift of God. I think your mother was a believer, honey. I think with her last breath she was praying for you and Erin.”
Seventy-nine
Ben placed his rifle beside the cabin door. He checked the pockets of his Kevlar vest for extra ammo, though he knew it was there. He’d put it there five minutes before. He was stalling. The digital display on his watch read four-thirty.
He needed to go if he had any chance of being in position before the sky lightened.
Dana hadn’t spoken in the last ten minutes. She sat there, staring into the night. The tears had dried on her cheeks where they’d fallen.
For a moment, he’d thought they migh
t have broken through her fears. She had looked at him with such hope, but then she’d pulled her hand away and drawn into herself again. She’d been silent since then. He’d gone over his plan, as simple as it was. She had nodded and stared at him with eyes open wide, seeming to comprehend both the odds and that it was their one chance.
All he could do now was pray and use the skills God had given him to protect her.
He walked slowly across the room. His boots felt as if they’d been filled with lead. He stopped in front of her. She didn’t even raise her eyes.
“Dana, I’m going now.”
She continued staring into the darkness.
“Sweetheart, look at me.” When she shook her head, he tugged her gently to her feet. “I want you to look at me.”
He’d always been prepared for battle, had fought so many he had truly lost count. Looking into her tear-filled eyes nearly undid him, caused him to question walking out into the darkness.
Then he remembered what was lurking there. Knew in his heart Drogan would be coming for them, for her.
“I have to go, sweetheart. Do you know what you need to do?”
She nodded.
“I want to hear you say it.”
When her gaze found his, he saw some of the old strength come back into them. “Leave the light on so he’ll think we’re both still here. Stay out of sight, in the corner. Keep the Glock close. You’ll circle around and come up on him from behind.”
“He’ll attack just before the sun comes up. I’m sure of it. You won’t have long to wait.” Ben moved his hands to her face, longed to kiss her. “I wish I could stay with you.”
She nodded, as if she understood.
He touched his forehead to hers, then pulled her into his arms. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered.
He didn’t look back. If he had, he might not have found the strength to pick up the rifle and walk out the cabin door and into the night.
Eighty
As soon as the cabin door closed, Dana collapsed into the hard, wooden chair. The trembling started in her arm and spread through her entire body. Strangely, she didn’t cry. Perhaps her tears were all spent.
She clasped her arms around her stomach and stared at the far wall of the cabin.
“This isn’t fair,” she whispered to herself. The words brought little comfort though, and the trembling didn’t stop. She wondered if stress could bring on a seizure.
Maybe she should try walking around, but she couldn’t find the strength to stand.
Memories of the photos in Drogan’s first cabin came back to her in vivid color. Why her? Why had he fixated on her? Because she looked like Angela Dixon? It was not fair. Her whole life she had spent running, and she was suddenly, overwhelmingly tired.
“Then pray, sweetheart.” Ben’s voice came to her so softly, so gently, she turned to see if he had reentered the cabin.
Of course, he hadn’t. She was still completely alone. What she saw instead must have been a result of the flickering light from the oil lamp, or so she told herself. Pushing herself up from the table, she walked across the room and stood in front of the crossbeams over the old, stone fireplace.
It looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. The ashes from past fires were cold, sooty. Her eyes traveled up the bricks and mortar to where the beams met over the center of the wall.
They formed a perfect cross.
Surely, it was a coincidence of construction, but did she believe in coincidences?
She reached up with her hand and traced the place where the two beams came together.
They were actually no different from the other beams on the wall. They weren’t raised or marked in anyway. But in the dim light, she could see the outline of the cross, as if it were carved there.
She walked around the room, thinking it would fade when viewed from a different angle. It never did.
“Pray, Dana.” Ben’s voice melted, became her mother’s, and then another—one even stronger, more loving, more kind than she could have ever imagined.
“I don’t know how,” she whispered. And now the tears flowed freely. “I want to, Lord. But I don’t know how. I loved her so much, and I should have stayed with her. I should have stayed.”
She didn’t realize the moment she dropped to her knees. She barely heard the words falling from her lips. “Help me, Lord. I can’t do this alone anymore. Show me, and I will do it. Please just show me.”
And then, she knew. There were no voices. The beams on the wall still looked like a cross, but they didn’t glow with holy fire. And no angels sang that she could hear. But there was no doubt in Dana’s heart, because she knew.
She didn’t have to get through this night alone. And she hadn’t survived that night so long ago alone either. God had been with her all along, just as he had been with Erin and with her mother. As the weight of guilt was lifted from her heart, she felt as though a stone the size of Gibraltar lifted from her back.
Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she rose to her feet, walked to the table, and placed her provisions in the remaining pack. Securing the Glock in her holster, she glanced one last time at the cross over the fireplace, then she stepped out into the predawn light.
Eighty-one
Ben had taken up a position three hundred meters to the north side of the cabin. He was watching the clearing and front porch through his scope. Since the cabin was built into a hill facing east, Drogan had to attack from the north, east, or south. If he came from the north, Ben would hear him before he saw him. If he came from the east or the south, he’d see him before he entered the clearing. Such was the plan anyway.
The question was why. Why would he attack when he was outnumbered?
Because Ben and Dana were tired. Drogan had been hunting Dana for too long, and he knew that she was unnerved.
They were low on provisions. Drogan was planning to catch them at their weakest moment, which should be right now.
Right when Dana crept out the door.
Ben nearly fell out of the tree he’d positioned himself in. He’d specifically told her to stay inside, and he was confident she’d understood. So what was she doing?
Looking through his scope, he knew immediately something had happened. Though she still looked tired, Dana was moving with confidence. She had on her Kevlar vest and wore the pack of extra supplies. She also had the Glock gripped firmly in both hands.
Something had told her to move.
Ben scanned the clearing again and saw nothing. Dana crept to the east, toward the lightening sky and into the trees.
“Good girl,” he whispered. By moving toward the glare of the sun, perhaps Drogan wouldn’t see her. Or so Ben prayed.
He couldn’t move now without risking his location, so he kept an eye on her position and continued to watch for Drogan. The situation might have changed, but their objective was the same. And with any luck, Drogan would think they were both still waiting inside the cabin.
Eighty-two
Dana didn’t stop to question why she was moving steadily into the bright side of the woods. The confusion and doubt she’d lived with for the past eighteen years had been replaced by a deep calm.
She’d need to ask Ben about that as soon as they took care of Drogan. And they would take care of him.
She took up her position four feet within the canopy of the woods beneath a tall pine tree, but still within the glare of the sun. The irony wasn’t lost on her as she leaned back against it and waited. Waiting wasn’t something she had to do for long though. A twig snapped a hundred meters to her right. She turned her head without moving her body and found herself staring straight at Chance Drogan.
He was in a crouch, moving slowly toward the cabin. In his right hand was a detonator, and he smiled, actually smiled as he pushed the button.
The cabin exploded at the exact moment Dana raised her Glock. She never took her eyes off her target.
She did hesitate though. For one second she thought about taking the head shot
. She wanted to. Instant death and the end to so much suffering—for him and for others.
Except that decision wasn’t hers to make. She lowered her sight and aimed for the center of gravity as she’d been trained. He turned at the last second, and the bullet hit his left shoulder, propelling him backward.
She lowered her weapon as he fell. Walked to him and kicked the gun out of his reach.
Drogan’s pale, blue eyes were open, staring up at her. Lying there on the ground, he looked exactly like what he was—a bitter, old man. He tried to speak, but no words came out. Dana kept her gun trained on him and waited for Ben.
Eighty-three
Ben scrambled out of the tree as soon as pieces of the cabin stopped flying through the air. Gunshots had sounded from Dana’s position. He skirted the clearing, ran toward her, and prayed he would get there in time.
He stopped a hundred meters off. Raising his rifle, he looked through the scope, prepared to take the shot if he could locate Drogan. All he saw though was Dana.
Dana alive.
Dana standing with her gun drawn, pointed toward the ground.
Dana looking saddened, but resolute.
He lowered his rifle and ran the rest of the distance.
As he entered the east woods, he called out to her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, but he’s not.”
Ben placed the rifle on the ground next to Dana, then unzipped the pack, pulling out an emergency medical kit. “Just the single round?”
“Yes. His gun’s over there.” She nodded with her head in the direction the cabin had been. “I don’t know if he had a backup weapon.”
“I’m sure he does. Keep your weapon on him a little longer.”
Ben snapped on a pair of surgical gloves from the med kit, then knelt beside Drogan and checked him for weapons. He discarded two pistols and a knife. Rolling the man over, he found another revolver in a paddle holster. The entire time, Drogan said nothing, though once he did glance from Dana to Ben, then stared up at the trees.
Hidden (Jacobs Family Series Book 1) Page 26
