“Get down,” Dalton was saying, right on my heels. “Get down!”
I dropped to my hands and knees, pushing through the brambles.
“Hold up,” Dalton said, grabbing my ankle.
“Are you crazy?” I dug my elbows into the ground, pulling myself along.
“He’s not following us.”
“What?” I halted, listening.
“Damn. He’s smart,” Dalton said. “Just sit tight a minute.”
“Sit tight?” I gasped, catching my breath. “You can’t be serious.”
“Shhh. Listen.”
I held my breath. A wolf howled, a long mournful note. Then a yip-yip-yip, followed by another long, drawn out yowl. It was coming from the camp.
“Is that—?”
“The crazy bastard knows he’s got us.”
At once, I realized Dalton was right. Rocky had no reason to chase us down. He’d lose his advantage. In the camp, he had food, fire, shelter. He had all the weapons.
We had nothing.
And it was dusk already. Soon it’d be pitch dark. “Shit, Dalton. What were we thinking?” How could I be so stupid? “How did we let him sneak up on us like that? I thought he was half a mile away.”
“Me too.” He pushed back some branches, shifting to get a better view. “Me too.”
“But now he knows we’re agents!”
“We don’t know that.”
“He just caught us kissing! Seriously, Dalton? You think the brother-sister tryst is the most believable story here?”
Dalton’s eyes never left Rocky, who stoked the fire, calm as can be. “It doesn’t mean he thinks we’re agents. Never assume.”
“He pulled his weapon.” I shook my head. “We’re screwed.” Shit!
Dalton turned to face me. “Maybe it was—” His eyes fixed on my forehead. “You okay?” With his hand on my chin, he turned my head to examine my face.
I wiped at a trickle of blood on my forehead. “Just a scrape from a branch.”
“It sliced your skin pretty good,” he said, concerned.
“I’m fine.”
He frowned and turned back, his eyes trained on the camp, on making sure Rocky was still there. “Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction. Maybe he had already planned to confront us for some reason. We don’t know.”
“Well, what’s it matter? We screwed up. Big time. And now we’re out here and he’s back there. With all the guns.”
“It matters because it will help us anticipate his next move.”
“His next move? Seriously? You think he’s already got a strategic plan?”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his chin. “Depends.” He turned to me again. “What’d he say exactly?”
I pushed up next to him so I could get a better view of the camp. “When? When he pulled the gun?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. Something about me being a wild cat. Some crap about taking his turn.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what?” What did that have to do with it?
Dalton patted his pants, front and back, then sorted through his jacket pockets. “I’ve got a jackknife,” he said. “What about you?”
I smacked him on the arm. “Earth to Dalton. Exactly what?”
“That’s not what a poacher would say when he realizes you’re an agent.”
“Well, maybe…” The memory rattled around in my brain. The look on Rocky’s face wasn’t surprise. It was…amusement? “I guess you’re right. What do you think it means?”
“Don’t know for sure. I’m just trying to assess the situation. Did he say anything to you back at the lodge? Anything at all that might make sense of this?”
“Not really. No. He probably said a total of three words to me before we got into the plane with him. He was always with Townsend, standing behind him and—oh crap.”
“What?”
“Do you think he’s angry that I complained about having to hunt with him? So angry he’d shoot at me?”
Dalton cocked his head to the side, considering this. “You did a pretty good job of dismissing him.”
“But to shoot at me for it?”
“I don’t know. You challenged his manhood, his skills as a hunter. People have killed for much less.”
I shook my head. “But that doesn’t make sense either. He had the gun pointed at you.”
Dalton nodded, concern etched across his face. “Yeah. I know.” He puzzled a moment, then gestured toward my pockets. “What do you have on you?”
I unzipped my coat pockets, one at a time and produced a baggie of trail mix with about one handful left, a tube of lip balm, and some tissues. That was it. Our daypacks, with all our emergency survival gear, were back at the camp, inside our tent. I patted my coat for any forgotten pockets and my hand fell on the necklace around my neck and the tiny compass pendant that hung there. Oh Chris, I really screwed up this time.
A melodic whistle came our way from the camp. A lazy, ho-hum kind of tune, as though Rocky purposefully wanted us to know how cozy he was back in camp.
“He’s a nut job. That’s why this doesn’t make sense.” I shivered, suddenly realizing how cold I was. My pants from my knees down were soaking wet. I pulled my jacket tight around me and snugged the collar up over my face. The pungent scent of woodsmoke filled my nose and made me feel even colder.
Dalton moved closer to me and I thought he was going to put his arms around me, but then he didn’t. “We need to stay warm. As soon as it’s good and dark, we’ll move to a new location. Not far. Where I can keep an eye on him.”
“What do you mean, not far? I vote for getting the hell out of here.”
“And go where?” Dalton said. “There’s nothing for hundreds of miles in any direction. Glacier-covered mountains to the south and west, open ocean to the east, and marshy bog to the north. The odds are pretty good we’d die out there.”
“What about the plane? Don’t you know how to fly it? You were a SEAL. Doesn’t that stand for sea, air, land? Air as in fly?”
“They taught us how to jump out of an airplane, not how to fly it.” He ran his fingers through his hair, his tell. He was frustrated, trying to sort this out.
“Don’t ever play poker,” I said.
“What?” He pulled away to look at me. “Poker? What are you—”
“Nothing. Sorry.” I pulled the jacket tighter.
“Are you cold?” he asked. “You’re cold.” He put his arm around me, hesitated as if waiting for me to object, then snuggled me tight to him. “We need to keep warm,” he said.
“I know,” I replied, wondering why it felt so awkward all of a sudden. He had just kissed me. Or rather, I’d kissed him. I was sure he’d wanted to—oh hell, what a mess.
“I want to know what he’s up to,” Dalton said. “See if I can figure out what he’s planning. I bet, at least for now, he’ll stay where he is. He’ll protect the weapons and gear and let us get cold and tired. If he comes out, he risks one of us circling back and taking possession of the camp.”
“You know, maybe being agents is an advantage. Maybe we should threaten him with jail time, tell him how much more trouble he’ll be in when they send a team out looking for us. Encourage him to go in peacefully. Right now, we could promise a misdemeanor charge, which would probably get thrown out anyway.”
The whistling came again, this time with long, sorrowful notes.
Dalton shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think this guy…”
“You don’t think this guy what? It could work. Maybe he doesn’t know the law. Maybe he’ll believe us.”
“I bet he knows the law better than we do. No”—he shook his head again—“if we admit we’re agents, we put Joe at risk. All Rocky has to do is call Townsend.”
“How do we know he won’t do that anyway? Or that he hasn’t already?”
Dalton frowned. “Good point.” He turned to me. “Doesn’t matter though. First rule of undercover work—”
“We need to move.”
“Are you sure?” I didn’t want to let go of Dalton and the relative safety I’d felt for the last two minutes. “For all we know he has night-vision binoculars.”
“He might. But right now, he knows where we are for sure. If we move, at least we’ll have some advantage.”
He was right of course. He was a SEAL. Trained by the best military in the world. If he had a plan, it would be a good one. Maybe it was time to trust. Like Mr. Martin said, be a team player. “Okay,” I said. “You’re the SEAL.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m being a team player. You’re trained in strategic combat tactics, reconnaissance, et cetera, et cetera, right? I’m just saying, I’ll follow you.”
“Right,” he said, pausing a moment as if he thought there was a catch, but then seemed to accept my explanation and moved to a crouch. Hunched over, he slipped through the alders, quiet as a cat. I followed, trying not to make a sound. We pushed through the back side of the copse and ran up a rise, then circled back to a spot with downed trees and a pile of brush and hunkered down behind a log where we could see Rocky’s campfire.
The darkness enveloped us like a protective cloak. My hands shook. I blew on them, trying to get them warm, then shoved them in my pants pockets. My gloves lay on the grass, back in camp, next to the fire. The warm fire.
Dalton leaned against a stump and took my hand and pulled me down to sit between his legs, his arms around me. “We need to stay warm. It’s important,” he said. “Our worst enemy out here is hypothermia.”
“Not the guy shooting at us?”
Dalton smirked. “Yeah, other than that.” He snugged me tighter. “I’m serious. The rain and wind are not our friends. If we get soaking wet, we’ll lose body heat twenty times faster than just in cold air.”
He was right. In an instant, we’d been plunged into a serious survival situation. If Rocky didn’t get us, and we weren’t careful, the wilderness would. We had to think of every move in terms of life and death.
Snuggling with Dalton, though, felt a lot like heaven.
After I got situated where I could see the camp as well, I asked, “So what are you thinking?”
“He’s smart. If he didn’t leave camp before, he’s not going to in the dark, but we should take turns on watch, just in case.”
I nodded. “That’s fine, but come morning, what’s our plan?”
“I’m thinking.”
“We’re going to have to lure him out and subdue him on our own. I don’t see any other option.”
“But how? With what? He’s got all the weapons, remember. This terrain is mostly open hills. There aren’t many places to hide for an ambush and he’d never fall for it anyway.”
I gritted my teeth together. “Well, what do you suggest?”
“I’m still thinking.” A long moment passed, then he said, “We need to better understand the situation.”
“You just said yourself, he’s got the guns. We have none. He’s got the food. We have none. He’s got my warm, snuggly sleeping bag. And I’ve got—”
He pulled me closer. “I mean his mindset.”
“His mindset is he doesn’t want to go to prison. I say we try to make a deal.”
“Maybe.” Dalton wasn’t convinced. “We’ll see. In the morning. Maybe he’ll talk.”
“I’ll take the first watch,” I said and leaned into Dalton. Even with his arms wrapped around me, there was no way I was going to get any sleep. My mind was spinning in too many directions but mainly…what the hell just happened?
Denali’s peak rose out of the northern horizon and seemed to join the stars. The moon shimmered across the lake and, despite the cold rain that fell earlier, the air had a hint of warmth and was filled with the scents of autumn. This could have been a perfect night.
If it weren’t for that crazy man with the guns.
CHAPTER TEN
The sun rises slowly in the northern latitudes, but today it felt like an interminable wait before it was high enough in the sky to confirm Rocky was sitting on his camp chair, not just a silhouette figure we’d assumed was him. He lounged, drinking a cup of coffee as though it was just another day camping in the great Alaskan wilderness.
Nothing had changed all night. But at least, after we’d moved, we were farther away and on higher ground if he would have left the camp and come after us. Dalton was adamant that we move back into the stand of alder before sunrise. He said being there would make us look less skilled, like we’d stayed there all night with no vantage point, and added that it was a better place to hide my location if I was going to try to talk to Rocky.
I couldn’t argue with that logic. We didn’t have a lot of choices.
I rubbed my hands together, trying to get warm. I drew in a deep breath and my nose filled with the aroma of fresh coffee and frying bacon. My stomach rumbled. Geez, buddy. Nothing like enjoying your stay.
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Dalton said. “When you speak to him, no matter what, I want you to keep your head down. Stay hidden from sight. Do you understand? I’ll be the eyes.”
“Sure, I guess. But won’t he be able to pinpoint my location by my voice?”
“Maybe. He’ll know the general area you are anyway. But if you stay hidden, he’ll be watching for you. That’s what we want. Him looking for you, not for me.”
“What? Why? What are you going to be doing?”
“Assessing the situation.”
“Right.” I nodded. “Wait, what? Where will you be?”
“I won’t be far. Just far enough where he won’t spot me while he’s looking for you.”
“Okay,” I said. That made sense. I supposed.
“Are you all right?” Dalton asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Yes.” Trust your partner, that’s what I was doing. What was that old saying, too many chiefs? I was going to do my best.
“Give me two minutes,” he said, then belly crawled away from me through the brush.
I waited. Then waited some more, listening to Rocky whistle that same damn lazy tune while I plucked some twigs from my hair.
Maybe Dalton was right. Maybe Rocky hadn’t called Townsend. Maybe this wasn’t about us being agents. I shook my head. Of course it was.
Enough time had passed for Dalton to get into place. It was now or never. “Rocky!” I shouted.
Nothing. Certainly he could hear me. There was no doubt. I could hear his whistling from here. Which had stopped. What was he doing?
“Rocky!” I shouted again, into the cold air.
No acknowledgment. I wanted to crawl over to Dalton to see what was going on, but I’d promised to stay hidden.
A raven called in the distance, breaking the eerie silence.
“Listen, this is crazy. Let’s talk about the situation.”
Nothing. I stared at the tangle of alder branches surrounding me, keeping me hidden, yet keeping me from seeing what was happening. I felt like a sitting duck. What if Rocky was coming for me right now?
This wasn’t working. We were getting nowhere. No. Trust Dalton. He’s watching.
The whistling started again, a strange tune, like a New Orleans funeral dirge. I imagined him cleaning the weapons, part by part, and reassembling them, a creepy grin on his face.
Well, what the hell, here goes. “Look. I know you can hear me. I want you to know, we’re not upset. Things just got a little out of hand. There’s no reason we can’t forget the whole thing. What do you say?”
The whistling stopped. What was he doing now? Dalton had completely disappeared in the brush. Too far away. Dammit. What was going on? Something wasn’t right. I could feel it.
I rose, just to get a peek, make sure Rocky was still in the camp. I took one step to the right and bang—a shot fired, then a burning sensation seared though my upper thigh. I looked down. Blood was soaking my pant leg. I dropped to the gr
ound and the pain hit me full force, like a hot ice pick had been shoved into my leg. I tried to breathe. Then Dalton was there, hovering over me.
“I told you to stay hidden,” he said, his voice urgent.
“I… you…I just…” My breath returned in a rush. “God that hurts!”
He ripped my pant leg open and took my hand. “Squeeze my hand.”
Breathe. Breathe. The pain.
“Squeeze my hand.”
Oh my god, he shot me.
“Squeeze my hand!”
I clenched his hand with all my strength.
“Good.” He moved my hand to my thigh. “Now squeeze here and don’t let go.”
I did as he said and hot fire shot down my leg. My body clenched and I was in his arms and he was running, pushing through the branches.
“It’s all right, I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” he kept saying.
Blurry. Everything a blur. I clamped my eyes shut. My entire being flushed in agony, radiating from my thigh. Waves of dizzying nausea hit me, then the pull of sleep. Oh to escape to the bliss of peaceful, painless sleep. Darkness on all sides.
“Stay with me,” Dalton said, shaking me. “Stay with me.”
I was lying on the cold ground. Dalton knelt over me, his chest bare. Why was his chest bare?
He tugged at my thigh, a tightening, and the pain shot to my head, jolting me from my grogginess. I screamed out.
“That. Hurts,” I managed, my hands going to my thigh.
“Good,” he said, putting his coat back on over his bare torso. “That means you’re not in complete shock.”
Was that relief I saw on his face? I tried to sit up and the blood drained from my head.
“No, no, no,” he said. “Stay right where you are.”
“But, Rocky, he shot me. He’s—” I blinked my eyes, trying to focus. “We have to get out of here.”
“It’s all right. He hasn’t left the camp.”
“I didn’t think he’d actually—” I looked down at the bloody mess of my thigh. Dalton had tied a tourniquet above the wound. “I should’ve listened to you. He tried to kill me.”
Poppy McVie Mysteries: Books 1-3 (The Poppy McVie Box Set Series) Page 46
