Viking Vengeance

by Maggie Foster

  Ginny had waked when Jim put on the brakes. She looked at him, then climbed into the back, quietly woke Charlie, covered him with one of the blankets, then sat down on the seat and propped her feet on him.

  “Yes officer?” Jim leaned out the window.

  “The bridge is closed.”

  “Oh. Okay. Where do I go to get across?”

  “You can’t. They’re all closed.”

  “All of them?” Jim could hear the dismay in his voice. He tried to dial it down.

  “Structural damage. Some of the barges got loose and rammed the supports. We can’t open the bridges until the engineers say it’s safe.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Forty-eight hours, if the storm holds off.”

  Jim took a breath and thought for a moment. “Is there somewhere we can get a room for the night?”

  The officer looked dubious. “I doubt it. We have passengers stranded all up and down the state.”

  Jim gritted his teeth. “Then can you help me get turned around?”

  “Sure. Just follow me.”

  The officer stepped out into the roadway and stopped the foot traffic, then indicated to Jim to pull forward, then backup, then forward again, until he was facing west.

  “Thank you, Officer.”

  “My pleasure.”

  When they were rolling again, Ginny moved forward, took her seat and looked over at Jim.

  “Now what?”

  “Is there any way we can tell where the bridges aren’t out on this river?”

  Ginny called up a traffic information site. “Barricades in place from Port Edward to Poughkeepsie.”

  “What’s our best bet?”

  “Not north. The storm is still causing trouble up there.”

  “South, then. How far?”

  Ginny studied her phone. “Newburgh.”

  Jim growled. “I wish I’d known that when we were there earlier.”

  Ginny looked over. “I’m sorry, Jim. I was supposed to be navigating. I should have caught this.”

  Jim pressed his lips together. She was right. Her assigned job was to keep an eye on the road conditions and weather reports and to communicate problems to him.

  “This is going to add another four hours to the trip, assuming we can get across and find our way to I-90. I don’t suppose you can tell me how to do that?”

  Jim could hear the sarcasm in his voice. He was mad at Charlie for being the reason they were in this mess, mad at Ginny for having overlooked the closures, and mad at himself for not having done a better job of planning, even though he’d lost half a night’s sleep trying to prevent just this sort of delay.

  She was silent for a moment, consulting her device.

  “I-84 across the river, then north on either US 9 or the Taconic State Parkway. US 9 goes through all the urban areas along the east side of the Hudson. The Taconic is scenic, twice as wide and mostly divided. Your choice.” Her mouth snapped shut. Jim could hear it.

  He hadn’t meant to take it out on her. The bridge closures were not her fault and none of the three of them had enough experience driving in the northeast to anticipate this problem. About the only thing any of them had done wrong was not listen to the radio. He should have thought of that.

  “Ginny, I’m sorry. I was just looking forward to getting to bed tonight.”

  Charlie had crawled out from under the blankets and was listening to this exchange.

  “Why don’t you let me drive for a while? You can take a nap. It’s very comfortable back here.”

  Jim considered this for a moment, then pulled over to the side of the road and let Charlie take his place.

  “Wake me when we get to Newburgh.”

  “Okay.”

  Jim settled down on the bedding finding the space wide enough for his shoulders, but not long enough to accommodate his legs. He had to lie on his side with his knees bent. This further aggravated his temper. He struggled with his bad mood for a little longer, then closed his eyes and let himself relax.

  The trip had been a success so far, in spite of the challenges. They’d managed to slip out of Texas without being stopped; to be hijacked by, then capture and dispose of, an escaped convict; to survive a wreck in a nor’easter; and to turn a hostile ex-girlfriend into an ally, all in the space of four days. No wonder he was tired. The motion of the car was very soothing and the next thing he knew they had stopped.

  “Newburgh,” Charlie announced. He pulled into a gas station and threw open the door, letting the frigid air stream in. Jim grabbed his coat and credit card, gassed up the SUV, then moved it into a parking place. Rest stop and food taken care of, they piled back into the SUV and headed for the other side of the Hudson.

  They’d agreed the Taconic would probably be faster. Jim finished his sandwich, watched as Charlie negotiated the turn onto the Parkway, then decided he might as well catch another hour’s worth of sleep. Scenic as the road might be in daylight, he wouldn’t be able to enjoy it in the frozen darkness.

  He settled down on the floor of the car and tried to fall asleep, but couldn’t get comfortable. He dozed, then woke suddenly when a foot descended on him.

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry,” Ginny said. “I was trying to reach the cooler.”

  Jim moved his leg aside, allowing her a foothold in the space between the seats. She sat down on the seat, looking down at him.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “Nothing.”

  “Fine.” He closed his eyes and tried to ignore her. She had stretched out on the seat. He opened one eye halfway and peered up at her. Her face hung above his, just inches away, draped in deep shadow, but the dashboard lights shone on her arm, reaching down to touch him. She brushed his hair, very, very gently, then sighed.

  He opened both eyes, reached up, and caught her around the waist, pulling her off the seat and down onto his chest.

  “I’m sorry, Ginny,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. Please forgive me.”

  “I’m not mad, just sorry I let you down.” She snuggled into his arms and he moved over, making room for her on the bedding, then curled up around her and covered them both with the blanket. There was no further conversation, just a warm feeling of ease. With her in his arms, he found he could sleep.

  He let the motion of the car lull him, trusting he would wake when the car made the transition to the Interstate. He was wrong. When he opened his eyes again to find Ginny asleep in his arms, the sun was up and Charlie was gone.

  * * *

  Chapter 25

  Saturday Morning

  Taconic Parkway

  Jim looked around at the forest, cursing under his breath. He felt attacked on all sides. Here he was, clawing his way through the snow, following the (admittedly easy to see) trail of a fool, risking his livelihood and maybe his life for someone who didn’t care enough to stay put and do as told.

  Ginny, too. Up to this point, Jim had had the much more comfortable position of being the man in charge, in charge of her medical care, in charge of their relationship, in charge of this expedition.

  But today she had calmly and correctly analyzed the emergency, made a plan, and started to implement it. So what did he do? Nothing he was proud of. Instead of rejoicing to see her confidence returning, he resented her interference.

  Jim was thoroughly male and had been raised in a household where the male and female role models made it clear there were differences between the two. His mother had deferred to his father on every occasion—that he knew of. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder if they’d had discussions outside his hearing.

  Come to think of it, there’d been a few times when he’d wondered at the strained silence. But he’d never suspected anything. They worked together as a team. He was never able to play one parent off against the other.

  Jim paused for a moment to catch his breath and make sure he was still following the broken twigs and scuffed snow that marked Charlie’s passing.


  His mother had stayed home and baked cookies. In a world where everyone had a paying job, she was an aberration. But she was not idle. There were times when Jim had been away on a sleepover and had come home to find she wasn’t back yet. He’d learned, after he left for college, what she’d been doing. Lecturing. On subjects like epigenetics and neuroplasticity and telomere reconstruction.

  The forest noises had been changing, but Jim had been too preoccupied to notice. He was suddenly aware of water, not very far off. Charlie’s trail headed in that direction. Jim picked up his pace. In another ten minutes he could see the stream.

  Jim had no trouble following the mud slide that indicated Charlie’s descent into the snow bank, nor locating the discarded backpack. He took a moment to look through the pack, found his pistol, checked it carefully, then unzipped his parka and tucked the gun into his belt. He pushed on, leaving Charlie’s pack where it could be picked up on the way back.

  Now he could hear sounds other than water—a voice, and animals snarling. He paused, feeling the goosebumps rise on his arms, then moved closer. He sank to the ground, easing the emergency medical kit off his back, and drawing the pistol.

  Jim was not a hunter. The only animal he’d ever killed was a squirrel he’d accidentally hit with the car. His mouth went dry at the sight that met his eyes.

  Charlie stood, one leg clearly out of commission, his eyes on the woods and his belt in his hands. As Jim watched, Charlie swung the belt, then loosed a missile. It hit something that yelped, then growled.

  Jim could see four on their feet and one on the ground. Gray wolves, gaunt, their ribs showing even through the thick winter fur. Two had blood on their jaws. Jim watched as one of the animals reached down and pulled another hunk of flesh from the dead wolf.

  Two feeding, two waiting to feed. How many more were lurking in the bushes?

  Jim knew he had eleven rounds in the pistol. What he didn’t know was whether he could bring down a wolf with a single slug, whether the others would flee or attack when he started firing, and where, exactly, a wolf’s heart lay. He tucked the .45 back in his belt and pulled the rifle out of its case.

  He put his eye to the scope, and had a sudden flashback to a day three months ago, the day he’d started his living history training. He’d been taken out to the range and presented with two weapons. One was a rifle. The other was a musket. He’d never handled either before.

  He had shouldered the rifle and looked through the scope and seen a coyote in the hills beyond the range. His instructor had carefully lowered the barrel and pointed him at the target.

  “Focus on center mass,” he’d said. “Never look at your target’s eyes.”

  He hadn’t been too bad, for a first try with a long gun, managing to hit the target twice. The musket had been another matter entirely, both difficult to load and difficult to aim. “With both weapons,” his instructor had told him, “in spite of the difference in sophistication, do it right the first time. You won’t get another chance.”

  Jim was lying on his stomach at the edge of the ravine. He settled the rifle along the ridge, took careful aim at the larger of the two wolves standing over the carcass, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. The animal yelped, jerking sideways, then snapped at its companion. It staggered a few paces off, then fell.

  The wolf Charlie had hit with the rock and the one Jim had seen in the bushes both looked at the newly injured animal. The nearer one rose from its crouch and stalked slowly in that direction, circling the area. The smaller wolf of the feeding pair turned on the newcomer, growling and snapping. The one closing in skirted the female and began making its careful way toward the dying animal.

  Two down.

  The fifth wolf held preternaturally still, his head coming slowly back around. He lifted his nose and sniffed the air and Jim suddenly wondered if he was up or down wind of the animal. When its eyes turned and looked directly at him, he had his answer.

  Charlie had also turned and was looking at him. He raised a hand, and crooked a finger.

  Jim licked his lips. He’d heard about Charlie’s background. He knew he could handle a rifle, and a dozen other weapons, and he’d seen what he could do with a belt and a rock. He could be counted on to kill wolves, but could he be counted on not to kill him?

  Jim went back to the scope. He lined up on the animal eyeing him and fired again. This time he missed. He swore to himself. That first shot had been nothing but luck. Well, not entirely. He had been practicing. It was just that he didn’t have years of hunting experience and that wolf seemed to know it. It rose, ignoring the two men, and approached the downed alpha male.

  The wolves circled, growling, then each seized a limb and began to tear their fallen leader apart. Jim watched them rip open the thorax and drag the vital organs out onto the snow, the fresh blood making startling splashes of crimson on the pristine white.

  Jim lowered his weapon, picked up his medical bag, and began to make his way over to where Charlie stood.

  “God, I’m glad to see you,” Charlie said. “I think I broke my leg.”

  Jim looked at the other man, his eyes narrowing. “Why did you run?”

  Charlie looked sheepish. “I was feelin’ sorry for myself. I thought maybe it would be better for you, for the two of you, if I just disappeared.”

  “And now?”

  Charlie sucked in a breath. “I don’t deserve it, but I’d be very grateful if you’d take me back. I won’t give you any more trouble.”

  Jim nodded slowly, then handed him the rifle. “Keep them off my back while I look at your leg.”

  “What have you got in this?”

  “.308.”

  Charlie nodded. “That’ll do. Four rounds or five?”

  Jim blinked. He had no idea how many rounds of ammunition the magazine held. Reggie had supplied the weapon and magazine, already loaded. “In case of bears,” he had said.

  “I don’t know.”

  Charlie released the magazine, took a look, reinserted it, and chambered a round. “Three.”

  Jim helped Charlie sit, then pulled out his shears and cut the fabric away from the leg, noting the misaligned bone and surface abrasions. Not a compound fracture, but it would need more than a simple pull to reduce it. He needed to get Charlie to the Homestead for treatment.

  “Anything else?”

  “Some scrapes and bruises. So far.”

  “So far?”

  Charlie pointed at the brush to his left. “There’s one over on this side, beneath that spruce, and at least one more, over there.” He pointed in the opposite direction. “They’ll attack from both sides, at the same time.”

  Jim felt his skin crawl, but turned back to his work. The sooner he was done, the sooner they could leave.

  “I need to immobilize this leg.” He pulled the bandages and splints out of his bag, then glanced up at Charlie’s face. He was clearly in pain and applying the splint was going to hurt.

  Jim slipped his fingers over Charlie’s pulse, finding it rapid, but strong enough, and his respiratory rate was okay. He pulled out the morphine, made a slit in Charlie’s pants, grabbed a handful of muscle, and injected the medication.

  Jim sat back for a minute, giving the medicine a chance to start working and looking around at the situation. The three visible wolves were concentrating on the two dead ones, but he had an uncomfortable sensation of eyes on the back of his neck.

  Charlie suddenly snapped up the rifle and fired at something over Jim’s shoulder. Jim started and twisted hard, finding a smaller animal standing at the top of the rise, hair bristling, teeth bared, an ugly growling noise coming from its throat.

  “Sorry,” Charlie said. “Hold still.” He took aim and dispatched the animal. Jim watched it fall, then turned back in time to see the three he had been watching all standing still and silent, their eyes on the pair of men in the hollow.

  Jim said nothing, but went to work stabilizing the limb. He didn’t like the idea of having to get all the way bac
k to the car with a drugged cripple, and hungry wolves on his heels. He could see how much it hurt Charlie as he applied the stabilizer and wrapped it carefully with elastic bandages. How much worse was it going to be to try to walk on that leg?

  The morphine wouldn’t help, not for that. It would lower Charlie’s blood pressure and respiratory rate, countering the adrenaline that must be sustaining him at the moment.

  He had finished applying the bandages and was trying to make sure Charlie still had a pulse in that foot when Charlie raised the rifle again. In the same instant that Jim heard it go off, he turned and found himself under attack.

  He tried to pull his pistol, but couldn’t get to it before the wolf was on him. He felt the animal’s teeth close on his arm, the pain unnoticed in the struggle to survive. He could smell fresh blood superimposed on the worst case of dog breath he’d ever encountered. Snarls and growling filled his ears and the gray fur blocked his view in every direction.

  There was a pistol report, then another, then a third, followed by the animal falling heavily on him, no longer fighting. Jim shoved it off and put his hand on his arm, applying pressure to the wound.

  He looked around, expecting to find that Charlie had somehow gotten hold of his pistol. Instead he found Ginny standing above them, her eyes on the wolves.

  She fired again, hitting an animal in the process of springing for Charlie’s throat. This one looked younger, a juvenile, which might explain why it hadn’t attacked in the same instant that the larger animal had attacked Jim.

  It yelped, then turned and staggered off in the direction of the adults. Ginny took aim and finished it off with another round.

  She raised her pistol and fired again, at the half-fed trio, hitting each with a single round, wounding them, causing them to run into the woods. Jim watched as the trees shook with movement, then heard howling as the wolves regrouped.

  Ginny lowered her weapon, cleared and holstered it, then pulled something out from her backpack. Without a word, she unfolded a blue tarp and slid it under Charlie, pulling him onto it, folding it over him, making an envelope of it, and securing him in it with duct tape. Jim was surprised to see how efficient her movements were.