Vestige Of Hope
Vestige in Time Series - Book 2
Sara Blackard
Copyright © 2019 Sara Blackard
For more information on this book and the author visit: https://www.sarablackard.com
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Editor Raneé S. Clark with Sweetly Us Press.
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Cover Designed by Hineni Asah
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Author photo by Michele Flagen https://micheleflagenphotography.pixieset.com
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All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
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Dedication
To my husband, who is more self-sacrificing than anyone I know.
Thank you for always supporting me through all of this life’s challenges.
Chapter 1
June 10, 2018
Hunter Bennett ran flat out as if the hounds of hell pursued him, and considering he was approaching the Devil’s Causeway in the Colorado Flattop Wilderness, the sentiment was fitting. He grunted, pushing himself harder up the snow-covered mountain to the ridge that resembled The Great Wall of China. If only it were just hellhounds chasing him, compelling him to move faster, push harder and not his own demons of failure stalking just over his shoulder. His foot slipped on the talus covering the mountainside, forcing him to put all his focus on the arduous climb, lest he tumble all the way to the bottom, breaking his neck.
Wouldn’t that just be fitting? “US Army Delta Force operator found dead after falling down a mountain in the middle of nowhere Colorado,” the newspaper would say. Though they would leave out the Delta Force bit since that part of his life was strictly off the books and didn’t exist. The Unit would never let him live it down. No, he needed focus, control. If he couldn’t climb a little mountain without screwing up, he didn’t deserve to go back to the army, let alone The Unit, after this mandatory R&R was finished.
Hunter crested the ridge and slowed as he came to the land bridge. Beautiful, verdant basins filled with aspens unfurling their spring green leaves edged up to the slick talus rocks on either side of the mountain. The snow dotting the mountaintops laughed down on the green in challenge. The Bear River flowed on the side he’d hiked up from. Lakes dotted the land where he planned to camp on the opposite side, glittering like sapphires and emeralds sewn into the lush fabric of God’s creation.
Hunter sat on the three-foot middle of the Devil’s Causeway, letting the crisp early morning air cool him, and grabbed his canteen and an energy bar. While being ten thousand feet above sea level didn’t bother him too much, he knew if he didn’t keep hydrated, he’d be hurting later. He pulled out his detailed topographical map he’d printed from the satellite before leaving and surveyed the lakes below, wondering which one would provide his dinner. He took a deep breath in, his heart already slowed to normal, and closed his eyes as the sun warmed the back of his neck.
Hunter needed this—the quiet of the wind blowing across the mountain ridge. The whisper of birds singing in the trees far below. Maybe he would hear God speak with him again in the wilderness's solitude. Maybe He’d forgive Hunter for his failure to protect those whom He’d entrusted Hunter to protect.
A hawk screamed in the sky above, yanking Hunter back to a moment three weeks before when the screams were from a filthy and bloodied little blonde-headed girl in the humid jungle of Colombia. Hope Isaac. He could still feel her skinny arms and legs wrapped tightly around him as he’d rushed her from the barn the kidnappers kept her and her parents in. The kidnappers had executed her diplomatic missionary parents mere seconds before his team could neutralize the situation. Hunter had hesitated too long, not listening to God’s silent urging within him to hustle, wanting everything to be perfect, controlled. Because of his hesitation, he’d not only failed God, but also that beautiful, sweet, orphaned Hope, whose screams of terror and anguish still echoed within his brain. Hope. Hope no longer existed. The hawk screamed overhead again. The demons had caught up.
Hunter stood abruptly, slung his pack over his back, and took off at a run across the ridge. He found a path of descent that looked particularly dangerous and worked his way down, forcing himself to focus on the snow, the slippery rocks, the trees, the placement of his feet, the maximum effort he could execute without killing himself, all while keeping quiet like he’d been trained to do. He rounded a large boulder about three-quarters of the way down the mountainside and ran straight into the biggest mountain lion he’d ever seen, not that he’d ever really seen any mountain lions this up close and personal. The startled cat swiped at him as Hunter spun away, catching him across the chest in searing pain as the contact pushed him off balance and down the mountain. He’d always hated cats.
He tumbled through the sharp talus straight toward the little ravine he was hoping to skirt at the bottom. With the angry lion chasing him from up top, he half laughed, half shouted in pain at the irony of it all. Not only would the newspaper report about him falling down a hill, but now he’d allowed himself to be kitty lunch. That’s just fantastic, he thought as he slid to the bottom of the mountain, flipping headlong into the ravine and into blackness.
June 10, 1877
Viola Thomas wiped the back of her arm across her forehead to remove the pesky strand of hair that was forever escaping her braid and falling in front of her face, at the same time keeping the deer's blood covering her hands out of her hair. As the strand fell immediately back in front of her eyes, she huffed in resignation.
“It’s useless,” Beatrice, her younger sister, said with a laugh. Beatrice would look as beautiful smeared in blood and wrapped in furs as she did in her one nice calico dress she refused to wear. Beatrice’s exquisite looks—her spring green eyes, hair the color of the chestnuts her father bought from the trading post each year, and delicate features that appeared so much like their mother, God rest her soul—caused Viola’s heart to cry just a bit sometimes when she peered at her, and always made Viola more envious than she knew was right.
“What’s useless?” Viola asked as she came out of her musing.
“We are both going to need a bath after dealing with this carcass.” Beatrice grimaced as she finished wrapping the organs they would take home in the muslin bags they’d sewn. Beatrice’s muddy brown calico blouse, which had once been a pretty rust-colored fabric with tiny white flowers, and her buckskin breeches were much cleaner than Viola’s own breeches and blouse, which appeared to have gathered every bit of blood possible.
Viola shook her head as she finished deboning the mule deer and laying the meat on the fur they’d skinned from the animal. Wrapped with the fur out, the skin would make the perfect pack for the short two-hour ride home.
“You won’t need a bath. You look just as you did when we left the cabin before sunrise,” Viola said with a moan. “I, on the other hand, appear to have wrestled with the animal before butchering him.”
“You’re beautiful like always,” Beatrice said with mischief. “Filthy, but beautiful. Not that it matters much with us out here in the middle of nowhere. Although, there is the slight possibility River Daniels will be in the area. Then you might worry about your appearance. There is no one of consequence ever in these wretched mountains for me to worry about. I must leave for that to happen.”
Viola blushed at her sister’s not-so-subtle reference to Viola’s potential husband. Potential because he was the only man within a hundred miles who wasn’t old, missing teeth, or mean-heart
ed. In fact, he was just about the most handsome man she’d ever seen with his dark, brooding eyes and his sharp cheekbones reflecting the strength that wrapped his entire body and spirit. Though his grandmother came from the Ute tribe, it didn’t bother Viola one bit, since most men in the area were a combination of many backgrounds. Viola and River’s discussions the past fall had hinted at a match, yet he’d given her no promises. It hadn’t stopped her from daydreaming through the long winter.
Why Beatrice was so intent on leaving the mountain was beyond Viola. She looked up at the towering mountainside, ending in a ridge along the sky some said resembled a wall in China, and marveled at the splendor of God’s creation. She loved her life in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, though, in honesty, it got a little lonely. Especially now with her older brother, Orlando, away looking for their father. Pa hadn’t returned from their gold mine after the winter trapping was over in March. And, yes, the choices of husband material were limited to some old mountain men, a few Ute warriors who passed through occasionally, and the riffraff miners like Linc Sweeney and his brothers, whose thick skulls couldn’t comprehend the little word “no.” But with Colorado gaining statehood last year, Viola thought God would bring the right men into their neck of the woods if they weren’t already there.
“That was an amazing shot you made today,” Viola said in an attempt to change the always touchy subject. Her sister had shot the arrow through the trees to the buck they’d spotted grazing the meadow grass, an incredibly difficult shot. “All your practicing sure is coming in handy. Now we will save the bullets and gunpowder for when we really need them.”
“I guess something good has come from my neglect of those womanly chores you keep pushing onto me,” Beatrice said with chagrin.
“Well,” Viola teased softly, “since you enjoy being outdoors so much, I will let you tan the hide.” Viola shivered dramatically as she thought of smearing the brains on the hide to get it soft and useable for leather, coats, or blankets.
Beatrice laughed loudly, the joyous sound lifting Viola’s lips into a large smile.
“Come on.” Viola laughed along. “Let’s hurry before the bears or lions take notice and join us.”
The two worked in tandem, wrapping the meat in the fur and strapping it onto Viola’s mountain-bred mare, Cocoa. The chocolate-colored beauty never balked as they placed the meat behind the saddle.
“You're such a good girl, aren’t you my sweet thing?” Viola crooned as she rubbed Cocoa’s nose and kissed her softly.
Viola led Cocoa to the creek for a drink where Viola washed her hands and scrubbed her face, hoping she’d wash any blood off she’d inevitably smeared there. As she turned to join her sister, a loud anguished shout came from the direction of the mountain.
Mounting Cocoa, Viola hollered at Beatrice, “Bea, did you hear that? It sounded like it came from the base of the talus slide.”
“Yeah, I heard it,” Beatrice answered from atop her painted stallion, Firestorm. Beatrice pulled her Colt Navy from her holster. An edginess that always surprised Viola shuttered Beatrice’s normally pleasant face.
“Honestly, Beatrice, the shout sounded like someone in trouble, not someone looking to make trouble,” Viola joked as she made her way through the woods toward the mountainside.
“You and I both know that there are all kinds of vermin scurrying about these mountains who would love nothing more than to make trouble for us, especially with Pa and Orlando gone, which is exactly why I’d rather go in prepared for the worst than wishing I had,” Beatrice whispered harshly and pointed to the left as they reached the base of the mountain. “I’ll go that way a few hundred yards. You go the opposite. If you find nothing in the next ten minutes, turn around and we’ll meet up and head out. I don’t want to stay around here with that fresh kill attracting who knows what.”
“Sounds like a good plan. The shout didn’t sound too far off, and we’ll still be close enough to signal,” Viola answered, trying to keep the nervousness from her voice that Beatrice’s little speech induced. “Three whistles if you find something.”
“Like always.” Beatrice nodded as she turned Firestorm and took off along the tree line.
Viola breathed in deeply and let out a shaky breath. Her sweaty palms slipped along the reins, and her heart thumped somewhere within her throat instead of her chest where it belonged. Mad at herself for letting Beatrice’s paranoia affect her, she yanked out her own Colt, checked the bullets, then held it across her lap where she could get it into action quickly.
Her eyes constantly scanning the grasses and under the bushes, she prayed aloud, hoping God would calm her nerves. “Lord, thank You for being here with me now. That though I walk through this dark valley, You are by my side.” A peace that always calmed and comforted her settled upon her spirit as she continued, “Lord, I know that I heard what sounded like someone in trouble. Please open my eyes to the one in need. Guide our direction to their side.”
A whisper upon her soul had Viola confident that God was telling her she wasn’t in any immediate danger. She holstered her gun and eased Cocoa up to a little ditch that was forming from the watershed. As she came around a large sagebrush, she pulled up short at the sight of a man crumpled in a heap within the ditch.
Viola dismounted and tethered Cocoa to the sagebrush before she slowly approached the man, not only watching for any sudden movement that might prove Beatrice right but also taking in his unusual apparel. He had on a dark undershirt with the sleeves cut very short, long pants with several pockets, boots that had strings laced up the front, and a large pack on his back made of an odd-patterned cloth that appeared delicate. He dressed like no man she had ever seen, even when her family had travelled to visit her grandfather in cities across the nation.
Viola put her fingers in her mouth and whistled sharply three times. The man jerked, then moaned. She pushed her fear aside and rushed forward, kneeling beside him.
“Mister, I’m here to help. Let’s roll you over and see just how bad off you are.” Viola spoke calmly while gently rolling the man over onto his side. She inhaled sharply. She’d been wrong. Despite having a multitude of scrapes upon his unconscious face, he was, without a doubt, the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes on, far more so than River Daniels. Though, if truthful, her exposure to the opposite sex remained limited in her twenty-six years. His face was tanned dark from the sun with strong lines and what appeared to be a beard just growing in. His dark, short brown hair, the color of rich soil, proved he must be a city dandy since men of the mountain wore their hair longer, and when it received a cut, it was uneven, like a bear hacked it off with his claws. The man’s dark blue shirt left no room for imagination as it sculpted tightly to every muscle.
Blood ran crimson from claw marks across his chest, snapping Viola out of her inappropriate perusal. She scanned the area for any predators while pulling her Colt out of her holster. It would be ironic if the animal that got this man pounced on her all because a handsome face distracted her. Thank heavens Beatrice hadn’t caught her gawking like a fool.
Hearing a horse approach, Viola tried to push the man over onto his back to assess his injuries more closely. The man cried out in pain as his pack forced his back to arch. Viola moved him back and fumbled with the fancy straps and buckles holding the odd pack onto the man. The buckles weren’t metal, but some strange, smooth material she’d never seen before. She unlatched the buckles across his chest and waist as Beatrice slid Firestorm to a stop, slapped the reins around the same big sage Cocoa stood tethered to, and quickly approached.
“Help me figure out how to get these straps off,” Viola said, pointing at the frustrating things. She leaned over the man’s face and calmly spoke. “Mister, we need to get your pack off, and I apologize if this upsets you, but if we can’t figure it out, we must cut those fancy straps of yours off.”
“Here!” Beatrice shouted in triumph as she manipulated the strap by the man’s hip. “Look, Viola, the strap is wr
apped around this hard piece here, holding it in place. All you have to do is maneuver the strap through and around it.”
As Beatrice worked on the exposed strap, Viola scanned the area again. Dark, menacing storm clouds brewed to the west. She noticed the temperature had also dropped considerably since they’d finished cutting up the deer. If they didn’t hurry, they’d all get soaked, or worse, stuck in a spring blizzard that the area was notorious for.
“We need to hurry,” Viola said. “If we roll him toward me, do you think you can get the other strap off?”
“Should be able to,” Beatrice replied. “If not, I’ll cut it. No use wasting time fiddling with a silly strap when a storm’s moving in.”
Viola rolled the still unconscious man to her, cradling him as best as she could. He smelled incredible, a spicy musk that urged her to inhale it deep within her. Before Viola made an idiot of herself by burying her face into his neck and breathing in, Beatrice grunted and sat up with the pack.
“I got it. You can roll him over now.” Beatrice smirked, causing Viola’s face to flame in embarrassment.
“Good work,” Viola said, ignoring her sister’s knowing look as she laid the man as gently as she could onto his back. “You check his legs. I’ll check if he has any broken ribs and see if I can figure out what got a swipe at him from the claw marks.”
The two worked quickly, pushing and prodding as gently as possible. The man’s arms seemed to be fine, except some abrasions and a rather nasty cut along his forearm. The claw marks appeared to be from a mountain lion, which meant they’d need to make sure it got cleaned out well when they got home. Animal claws were filthy, lions worse than most, and might cause infection if not cleaned thoroughly. When Viola got to his ribs, the man moaned in agony at the pressure she applied.
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