6 Maple Leaf Hunter

by Maddie Cochere

  She pulled into the driveway. She was frightened. Ramsey was gone, and she never should have written the fake prescriptions for the girl.

  She pulled the garage door down and walked into the kitchen. Her shoulders drooped from worry and fatigue. She couldn’t wait any longer to wake the girl and feed her.

  For a split second, she didn’t move. Someone had been in the kitchen. Had Ramsey come back?

  “Ramsey?” she called out. There was no response.

  She quietly walked to the bedroom and opened the door to check on the girl. Her hand flew to her throat in distress. The girl was gone.

  She quickly checked the other rooms, but no one was in the house. She stood at the kitchen sink and stared out the window. Would she really have gone into the forest in her condition? She didn’t stand a chance out there. A bear would have her in no time.

  She looked down at the counter. Two of the prescriptions were gone. She looked around the room and spotted the slip of paper. She read the note but didn’t believe for one minute the girl’s husband had been here. Richard had said even his guests were out searching for her today.

  She had to find her first. There was no way she could let her talk.

  Martha Otis was not going back to jail. She grabbed the rifle from the rack and walked out the back door.

  Chapter Ten

  The walk to the barn appeared to be about a half mile as the crow flies.

  I couldn’t walk out in the open. I had to stay out of sight, and that meant walking in the woods, parallel to the road, until I was across from the barn. Then I would have to make a run for it - or at the very least, my best hopping hobble.

  The distance was going to be more like a mile, and only if I didn’t have any trouble walking in the forest. I used to be able to run a mile in six minutes. I had a feeling this trek was going to take an hour or more.

  Before ducking into the woods, I looked back at the house and down the driveway to the road. A car approached slowly from the south. I waited until it passed. I assumed it was someone who lived in the area, as I had seen the same car earlier when I looked out the window. It was unique in that it was an old baby blue station wagon. It looked to be from the fifties or sixties.

  I leaned on the crutch and took a few steps forward. Pain was minimal, and I was more proficient with the crutch than I expected. There was a lot of debris on the forest floor. Branches, downed limbs, and dead growth amongst the new made for slow going, but I was pleased with my progress.

  It wasn’t long before I wished I had brought some water with me. I was already somewhat dehydrated, and the lack of food added to my weakness. I placed the back of my hand against my cheek. It felt warm, but for now, it only appeared to be a low-grade fever.

  I pulled the prescriptions out of my pocket and took one of each. I didn’t know if the antibiotic would help with fever, but I was long overdue for one anyway. The last thing I wanted to do was pass out here in the woods. I pressed forward.

  I had a terrible time climbing a hill. The crutch wouldn’t cooperate, and the throbbing returned to my ankle from accidentally putting weight on it. Detective Bentley’s words to crawl if necessary came back to me. I got down on my hands and knees and climbed the hill, dragging the crutch beside me.

  My heart sank when I saw it was downhill on the other side. I wouldn’t be able to use the crutch, and I knew I would be going down on my rump.

  I rested for a few minutes against a tree. It was cool in the forest, and I started to feel a chill. I wasn’t sure if it was from the fever, or if the temperature was dropping with the day. I knew I needed to keep moving. If the barn had hay, I would be able to make myself comfortable and stay warm until help arrived. I had to keep my focus on getting to the barn.

  I lifted the crutch and set it up on end before reaching for the hand rest to pull myself up. Movement on the forest floor below caught my eye, and a large black bear ambled into the area. My heart began racing. I hadn’t given any thought to bears. Dan said they were plentiful in the forest, especially at the beginning of bear hunting season.

  I was more afraid of the bear than I had been of the Sasquatch. I didn’t dare move or draw attention to myself in any way. I would never be able to get away from a bear. I should have never come into the woods. I should have taken the most direct route and hoped no one would see me. Was I upwind? Downwind? Without moving my head, I tried to discern the direction of the wind. There wasn’t any.

  As best I could tell, I had been walking to the north. The bear easily climbed over downed trees and crossed the floor in an easterly direction. He stuck his nose in a dead log and appeared to be chewing something from inside. He took his time to inspect the log fully before moving on. Other than to lower my hand and the crutch, I held my position for quite a while after the bear was gone from view.

  When I finally moved, I moved as fast as I could. I mostly slid down the hill. I pushed forward until I thought I would pass out. I turned to my left. Surely, I had gone far enough to be directly across from the barn by now.

  The crutch cooperated, and I moved along quickly. My armpit was sore, but I refused to give in to the painful rub.

  A muddy creek soon presented a new challenge. The water wasn’t moving, but there was no easy way to cross other than to walk through it. I didn’t know how deep it was, and I could only hope there wouldn’t be any surprise holes to fall into. I gingerly stepped into the cold water.

  When I stepped out onto the other side, I couldn’t contain my scream or my heebie-jeebies. A leech had attached itself to my leg. I screamed in short, feeble bursts the entire time I spent attempting to remove it with a stick. For the first time since entering the forest, I cried.

  I tried not to look at the bleeding cut on my leg where the leech had been. I wasn’t even sure if all of it was gone, but the sun was now shining in my eyes through the trees, and I was sure I was heading in the right direction.

  I exited the forest into a field. I could see the barn, but I was discouraged to realize I had overshot it. There was no way I was going back into the woods, so I simply concentrated on walking straight toward it.

  I guessed the distance between the woods and the road to be about the length of a football field. Knowing the worst of my journey was over, I was heartened, and I made good time to the road. I stepped onto the berm and saw the blue station wagon coming down the road from the north.

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I hide in the field? Should I flag the driver down and ask for help? Should I simply rush across the road and continue on my way?

  Before I could make a decision, a shot rang out. I turned to look back at the woods, and I was thankful to be at the road. After everything that had happened, it would be a cruel twist to have it all end by being accidentally shot by a hunter.

  The car was close enough now, and the driver could easily see me, so I stayed put. It seemed like a good idea to ask for help. I took a step toward the car.

  Another shot rang out, but this time, I felt the bullet whiz by my head. I dropped to the ground.

  The car pulled up alongside, and someone jumped out to help me up from behind. A third shot rang out and shattered the rear passenger window of the car.

  “Hurry,” the man growled as he grabbed me and pulled me up. He was practically carrying me as we rushed around the front of the car. He reached in front of me and opened the passenger door. With a push to my back, he said, “Get in, and keep your head down.”

  Another shot rang out. The man jumped into the driver’s seat and hit the gas. When we were down the road and out of danger, I sat up to look at the man and thank him.

  I was instantly sick to my stomach, and all hope was gone. My rescuer was Ralph.

  Before I could scream, yell, cry, lash out, or react in any way whatsoever, he held a hand up and said, “I’m unarmed, and I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. I don’t know who was shooting at you back there, but it wasn’t anyone who has anything to do with me. Everyone for miles arou
nd is looking for you, and I’ll take you wherever you want to go. I just want to get the gold and get out of here.” He looked over at me and said with defeat in his voice. “Can we do that? Can we work something out? I’ll take you wherever you want, and then you tell me where the gold is.”

  He was visibly tired and exhausted. His hair had blood caked in it from when the Sasquatch hit him. It was evident he hadn’t had the wound treated. I suspected he wasn’t a hardened criminal, and something that he thought would be an easy theft had careened out of control. In my own exhaustion, I felt a flicker of sympathy for the man.

  “Do we have a deal?” he asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “Do you know where the gold is?” he asked.

  I shook my head no. “But I think Alex does,” I said. “Take me back to the lodge, and I’ll ask him where it is.”

  “No funny stuff, right?” he asked. “You find out from the kid, and you tell me. We’re done then. We never see each other again.”

  I nodded.

  He wasn’t combative, and I was strangely calm.

  We rode in silence for a few minutes. I took advantage of his defeatist attitude to ask some questions. The first was the question I had posed to him days before, “Why were you running in the mall that day?”

  He took a deep breath and let out a big sigh. “Me and a couple of guys on my construction crew worked out a plan that we’d each steal five coins from the exhibit,” he said. “It was a small enough take, and we didn’t think it would be noticed for a while. We found a buyer ahead of time up here in Canada. All we had to do was steal the coins, and I’d run them up to the guy and bring us each back twenty thousand dollars.”

  The way he told it, I thought it did sound like a pretty simple operation.

  He continued, “There was an hour every afternoon when there was only one employee working the exhibit. Our plan started off without a hitch. I distracted the worker, while my two guys took their coins. They went about their business as if they’d done nothing out of the ordinary, and then they went to the food court.”

  “They were jerks,” I said. “If they had their coins, why did they put them in my purse?”

  “They were going back on the job after lunch,” he said. “We wanted everything to be as normal as possible. They sent texts to me to let me know what purse I was supposed to steal on my way out. That way, I’d have all fifteen coins with me, and I could leave for Canada right away.”

  My mouth hung open. “Of all the people in the food court that day, why in the world did they choose me?” I asked.

  He smiled just a little and said, “Because you were the only woman stupid enough to hang your purse on the back of your chair.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Something so simple had brought all of this misery on me. If I weren’t so drained of emotion and energy, I would have broken down and cried.

  “That’s why they insisted on squeezing behind me and dropping bags on the floor,” I said. “I knew nothing was stolen out of my purse, but I had no idea anything had been put in.” I looked over at him and frowned. “But that doesn’t explain why you tackled me.”

  “You know,” he said, “I felt kind of bad when I heard about that. After I knew what purse I was supposed to steal, it was my turn to take five coins. The worker made it easy for me by going into the back and leaving me alone out front. I should have taken the coins and left, but I went a little crazy looking at all that gold, and five little coins didn’t seem like enough, so I shoved four gold bars in a bag and tucked them under my arm. I took off running like there was no tomorrow.”

  “No kidding,” I said sarcastically.

  He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I saw the guys right away, and I saw you, but then my vision blurred, and it was like I was looking down a narrow tunnel. My heart felt like it was going to blow out of my damn chest, and I couldn’t breathe. I put my arm out so I wouldn’t run into anything, but I didn’t feel like I had any control of my legs to stop running. I honestly didn’t know I ran into you at the time.”

  “Your two guys left with the gold bars,” I said.

  He nodded his head. “They heard you talking about going to Toronto, so when they gave the gold bars to my son, they told him where you were going, and that you still had the ten coins on you. My son and I figured out a way to use you to get the gold bars across the border. Since I was in the hospital and couldn’t take them myself, and my son has a criminal record and can’t get into Canada at all, he put the gold in the bottom of a gym bag. He planned to hide it in your vehicle somewhere. But when he talked to the kid in Niagara Falls and found out he liked rocks, he bought a bunch at a local rock shop and put them in the bag. It was easy then to just hand the bag over to him. Even if you were stopped at the border and your vehicle searched, we knew they’d never find the gold.”

  “How did you think you were going to get the bag back?” I asked.

  “Break in and steal it,” he said. “But then I wasn’t released from the hospital in time, and that sorry excuse for an employee of mine couldn’t find your RV once you got into Canada. And then you left. He thought you went home, so he did, too. I almost went crazy trying to find out where you were with the bag.”

  We were silent again for a few moments. All I could think about was my purse and how I ended up involved with these knuckleheads.

  “What were you doing driving up and down the road just now?” I asked. “How did you know where I was?”

  “I didn’t know,” he said. “I’ve been laying low and avoiding people, so I’ve been driving the back roads looking for you. This was a new area for me today, and I couldn’t believe it when I spotted you. Who was shooting at you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I knew it could have been Martha or the person in the Sasquatch suit, but it didn’t make sense they would want to kill me.

  Ralph pulled off the road and stopped the car.

  “The lodge is just over this hill,” he said. “You stay here. I’m going to go down and see if anyone’s there. There hasn’t been much activity around here today. The search parties have spread out from here, and everything is being organized from Silver Run now.”

  “Is that where my husband is? In Silver Run?” I asked. “Take me there instead.”

  “The gold first,” he said. “The gold first, and then I’ll make sure your husband knows where you are. I promise.”

  He opened the car door and swung out. I watched him go over the hill and drop out of sight.

  It crossed my mind I could get out of the car and hide from him, but I couldn’t stand the thought of walking in fields or woods again, and I believed in my heart he didn’t intend to harm me. It seemed as if the blow to his head had subdued him.

  I sat still and took stock of my situation. My ankle throbbed, but there were no shooting pains. The pain level in my side was definitely down. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the headrest. It was only a few moments before I dozed off.

  Ralph woke me by jerking the car door open and jumping into the front seat.

  “The kid’s there,” he exclaimed excitedly. “It’s just the kid and the old man.”

  Alex could be a hothead. I wasn’t certain this would go well if Ralph barged in and demanded the gold. He said he was unarmed, but Alex had refused to tell him where the gold was the first time when Ralph did have a gun.

  “You said you’re unarmed. What happened to your gun?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t a real gun,” he said. “It was a theater piece I bought in a pawn shop in Toronto. I wanted some leverage to try to get the gold. I didn’t intend to hurt anyone.”

  Something about the look in his eyes and the way he spoke prompted me to ask, “Do you have any children other than your son?”

  He nodded his head. “Two daughters. They went with their mother when we divorced six years ago. I haven’t had much opportunity to see them.”

  “What ar
e you going to do with the gold?” I asked.

  “Sell it,” he said. “There aren’t any other options.”

  “Ralph, you know there’s another option,” I said. “You could turn yourself in and return the gold. No one’s been hurt, and it would go easier for you if you turned yourself in. You have kids. Do the right thing.”

  I saw his features soften, but he didn’t respond to my words.

  He pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine. I waited for him to come around and give me a hand. The crutch was along the roadside back at the field, and I needed his help getting up the stairs to the lodge.

  “Will you please do this my way?” I asked. “Wait on the porch, and let me ask Alex where the gold is. I think he’ll tell me if he doesn’t know you’re around. You can listen, or I’ll come out and tell you, but if he sees you, he might keep denying he knows anything about it.”

  “No funny business, right?” he asked. “You’ll find out where the gold is?”

  I nodded my head.

  He helped me up the stairs, and I opened the door to the lodge. I stepped into the lobby and stood facing the fireplace. Beau was asleep in a chair. Alex was lying down on a sofa. I hopped over and shook Alex lightly.

  “Alex, wake up,” I whispered.

  His eyes fluttered before they opened wide with surprise. He nearly knocked me over when he jumped up and grabbed me in an embrace so tight, I winced. He relaxed his hold. Tears began to flow down his cheeks, and I saw his eyes were swollen. I knew this wasn’t the first time he had broken down and cried.