by Cindi Myers
“You’ll see.” She unwrapped the gum and offered him the stick. He took it and popped it into his mouth, then she carefully tore the wrapper in half lengthwise, then pinched off bits out of the middle until only a thin sliver of paper-backed foil connected the two wider halves. “Now I need the battery from the Maglite,” she said.
He unscrewed the bottom from the Maglite and shook out the battery. “I see where you’re going with this, I think,” he said. “You’re going to make a spark.”
“You got it.” Gingerly, she pressed one end of the gum wrapper, foil side down, against the negative end of the battery. “This is the tricky part,” she said. “I don’t want to get burned.” Holding her breath, she touched the other end of the foil to the positive end of the battery. Immediately the center of the foil began to brown and char, then burst into flame. She dropped the burning wrapper onto the tinder she had prepared, and it flared also. As the twigs caught, she began feeding larger pieces of wood onto it.
“Where did you learn that?” Travis asked.
“My best friend’s older brother showed us when we were kids. He accidentally set the woods behind his house on fire doing that one time, but mostly we just thought it was a neat way to start campfires. I haven’t thought of it in years.” She looked around. “I think we’re ready for the water now.”
“I’ll get it.” He returned a few minutes later, carrying the first can, along with a second. “I found this,” he said. “We can heat twice as much water.”
He nestled the water-filled cans among the flames. The metal blackened and the water began to steam. Several minutes later, it was boiling. “It needs to boil ten minutes,” she said. “We’ll have to guess how long that is.” She took one of the dried plums from her pockets. “I found these. If we cut off the bad spots, they should be okay to eat.”
“I have to have water before I can eat anything,” he said. “But we’ll try them later. I had no idea you were so resourceful in the wilderness.”
“I told you my family spent a lot of time camping when I was a kid. We lived not that far from here before we moved to Texas.”
“Where you acted like just another music-listening, mall-going city kid,” he said.
“I was a teenager. I wanted to fit in.” Most of all, she had wanted to impress him—and he had seemed so sophisticated and cool. Or at least, as sophisticated and cool as a sixteen-year-old could be. Back then, she wouldn’t have admitted to knowing how to start a campfire or forage for wild food for anything.
“Did Braeswood know you were from around here?”
She focused on the boiling water, though she could feel his gaze burning into her. No matter how she tried to explain her relationship with Duane to Travis, he would never believe her. He had made up his mind about her the day she betrayed him. She didn’t blame him for his anger, but she wasn’t going to waste her breath defending herself. “He knew,” she said. She had been shocked to discover how much Duane already knew about her when they met. But that was how he worked. He mined information the way some men mine gold or diamonds, and then he used that information to buy what he wanted.
Travis shifted and winced. Guilt rushed over her. “I forgot all about your wound,” she said. “How is it?”
“It’s no big deal.” He started to turn away, but she leaned over to touch his wrist.
“Let me look,” she said. “Now that we have water, I can at least clean it up.”
He hesitated, then lifted his shirt to show an angry red graze along the side of his ribs. Now it was her turn to wince. “That must hurt,” she said.
“I’ve felt better.”
She glanced back at the water. “Where’s that handkerchief you were using to gag me?” she asked.
He pulled it from the pocket of the cargo pants.
Carefully, she dipped one corner of the cloth into the boiling water, took it out and let it cool slightly, then began sponging at the wound. “It doesn’t look too deep,” she said. She tried not to apply too much pressure, but she felt him tense when she hit a sensitive spot. As she cleared away the blood and dirt, she became aware of the smooth, taut skin beneath her hand. He had the muscular abs and chest of a man who worked out—abs and chest she had fond memories of feeling against her own naked body.
“I think it’s clean enough now,” he said, pulling away and lowering the shirt with a suddenness that made her wonder if he had read her thoughts.
She handed him the handkerchief. “You can clean that in the creek,” she said. “The water has probably boiled enough. If we put it in the creek, it will cool down faster.” She pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands, intending to use them to protect her hands from the hot metal.
“I’ll get that,” he said, and lifted first one can, then the other, off the fire with the pliers from his multi-tool.
She followed him to the creek, where they waited while the water steamed in the cans. “As soon as we drink these, we should heat more,” she said. “And try to find some food.”
“I’m not comfortable spending the night by the creek,” he said. “If Braeswood and his men are hunting for us, they’ll know we have to have water. How well does he know the area?”
“He knows it pretty well.” She closed her eyes, picturing the maps of the Weminuche Wilderness he had taped to the walls of the room he used as his office. When she opened them, she found herself looking right into Travis’s blue eyes. That intense gaze—and the mistrust she saw there—made her feel weighted down and more exhausted than ever. “He had maps of the area,” she said. “He planned to escape through the wilderness if the Feds trapped him at the house.”
“Why did he come back when he did?” Travis asked. “We should have had plenty of time to search the place and get out before any of you returned from Durango.”
“The neighbor, Mr. Samuelson, called Duane. He said some utility workers were up at the house, but they looked suspicious. Duane had made a point of making friends with the old man. He asked him to report if he saw any strangers around the house. He used the excuse that he had a lot of valuables that burglars would want. After he got off the phone with Samuelson, Duane called my driver, Preston Wylie, and told him to take me back to the house and he would be right behind me.” If she and Wylie had reached the house first, she had considered asking the strangers, whoever they were, to take her with them. But she dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came to her. She knew Wylie had orders to kill her if she tried to get away. Duane almost never left her unguarded, but the few times he had risked it, he had made it very clear that he would hunt her down and kill her if she ever left him. He had the men and resources at his disposal to find her, probably before she had gotten out of the state. She had resigned herself to being trapped with him forever.
Then Travis, of all people, had pulled her from that car and risked his life to help her get away. Maybe he only saw it as protecting a prisoner, but the result was the same. No matter if he hated her, she would always be grateful to him for taking her away from an impossible situation.
“What can you remember about that escape route Braeswood had planned?” Travis asked. “Are there back roads or trails he intended to follow? A hideout where he thought he could hole up for a while?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything. I only saw the map a few times, and I didn’t pay much attention to it then. He certainly didn’t share his plans with me.” If the time had come to flee the house, he would have assigned a guard to drag her along with them, one more piece of baggage he considered necessary, at least for the moment.
“I guess he didn’t like to mix his personal relationship with his professional ones,” Travis said.
“I think the water is cool enough to drink now.” She ignored the gibe and plucked one of the cans from the stream and drained it. Even warm, it tasted so good going down. As soon
as she had drained it, she refilled it and carried it back up to the fire. “I’m going to look for something to eat besides those plums,” she said.
“I’ll come with you.” He added his refilled can to the fire and followed her.
“I told you, you don’t have to worry about me running away,” she said.
“Right now I’m more worried about you getting lost.”
“I’ll be okay, as long as I follow the creek.”
He fell into step behind her. “What are we looking for?” he asked.
“Berries, cattails, more plum trees. There are edible mushrooms, but I don’t know enough about them to risk it.”
“If I had line and a hook, I could try fishing.”
“We could try to make a string from grass or vines,” she said. “And you could try my earring hooks.”
“Maybe I’ll give it a go later, after we’ve found a safe place to camp.”
She paused beside a small shrub and began pulling off the bright red fruit. “What are those?” he asked.
“Rose hips.” She bit into one and made a face. “They’re supposed to be full of vitamin C. They taste pretty sour, but they’re not the worst thing I ever ate.”
He took one, bit into it, then spit it out. “I don’t want to know the worst thing you ever ate.”
In the end, she collected two more plums, a handful of rose hips and some wild onions. “I sure hope you can catch a fish,” she said. “This isn’t going to get us very far.”
“I’m determined to find a way out of here long before we have to worry about starving,” he said. “Let’s go back and get the water, then find a place to stay tonight. Then we need to figure out a route away from here.”
They headed back downstream. She smelled the smoke from their little fire long before they reached it. Not good, if Duane was tracking them. She hurried to retrieve the cans of boiling water and set them aside to cool. “We’ll need to scatter these ashes and cover them with dirt, then leaves, to hide the fact that we were here,” she said.
“I’ll get a branch or something to dig with,” Travis said, and moved off into the woods.
For the first time since they had stopped by the creek, Leah began to feel uneasy. They had remained in one place too long. It wouldn’t be that difficult for Duane to follow the creek in the direction he knew they had fled. Another man might have left them to die in the wilderness, but Duane didn’t take those kinds of chances. He was successful because he believed in controlling all variables. She was a variable he was most determined to control.
Footsteps behind her alerted her to Travis’s return. “The water’s cool enough to drink now,” she said, gingerly picking up the still-warm can. “Let’s empty them and take them with us.”
Strong hands grabbed her roughly from behind. The can of water slipped from her grasp as she felt a sharp sting, and then the pressure of a razor-sharp blade held to her throat. Duane’s gravelly voice whispered in her ear, “Where’s your friend the FBI agent?”
Chapter Five
Travis fought his way through a tangle of vines and was reaching for a stout stick that might serve as a shovel when a strangled squeak made him freeze. It might have been the distress cry of a mouse or a bird, it was so faint, but instinct told him the noise came from Leah, and she was in trouble.
Carrying the stick like a club, he moved as swiftly and silently as he could back toward the campfire. His first view of the area was of Braeswood holding Leah, but this wasn’t a loving embrace. Rage momentarily blinded him at the sight of the knife at her throat.
“I...I don’t know,” she stammered, in answer to something Braeswood said. “He was angry with me. He left.”
“Liar!” Blood ran in a thin line down the pale column of her neck. Travis had to grab hold of a tree trunk to keep from lunging forward. Setting the stick carefully aside, he drew the Glock from the holster. All he needed was one clear shot.
“No sign of him, boss.” One of the other men—probably Buck—joined Braeswood and Leah beside the smoldering fire.
“Where’s Eddie?” Braeswood asked.
Buck made a face. “He’ll be along in a minute. He’s out of shape.”
Duane unsnapped a radio from his belt. “Bobcat Two, do you read me?”
“I’m here, boss.”
“Any sign of those Feds?”
“Negative.”
“You got our location on GPS?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Meet us at the pickup point in two hours with the rest of the team. We should be finished here by then.”
“I’ll be there.”
Braeswood repocketed the radio. “By the time the Feds get back to the house, there won’t be anything left for them to find. And we’ll have taken care of Leah’s friend.”
“Maybe he really did leave her,” Buck said.
“He was here.” Braeswood nodded to the two cans of water nestled in the coals. “He probably went to get more wood or something.”
“He’s wounded,” Leah said. “Why waste your time with him? He’s just another dumb Fed. If you leave now, you’ll be out of the country before anyone even knows.”
“Shut up.” Braeswood shook her. “Don’t think I won’t kill you right now if you don’t stop annoying me.”
“Maybe I’d rather die than spend any more time with you.”
The crack of his palm striking her face echoed through the trees. Her head snapped back and she cried out again. Travis braced against a tree trunk and sighted along the barrel of the Glock, but Braeswood was still too close to her. Travis needed a plan for dealing with the second thug, too. And the third one who might arrive soon.
Leah moaned and slumped in Braeswood’s arms, body limp, eyes closed. The sudden weight of her made him stagger back. He nudged her shoulder with the butt of his gun. “Wake up. I didn’t hit you that hard.”
A noise to their left, like a large animal stumbling through the underbrush, drew their attention. “That’s probably Eddie,” Buck said.
It probably was, Travis thought. But none of them could see him yet, so he saw his chance. “Luke!” He shouted the name of his fellow team member. “Over here!”
The others froze, long enough for Travis to get off a good shot at Buck, who staggered, then dropped to his knees and toppled over, blood spreading from the bullet hole in his chest. Travis turned his attention to Braeswood, who was struggling with Leah. She had come out of her stupor, which Travis suspected had been faked, and had taken advantage of the distraction to pull away from Braeswood. He still had hold of her arm, but he had dropped the knife, and she kicked and scratched at him, making it impossible for him to draw his gun.
“Braeswood, let her go.” Travis stepped from the edge of the woods, his Glock leveled at the terrorist. Braeswood released Leah and went for his own weapon. She fled into the trees to their right.
Travis’s first shot missed, as Braeswood dived behind a tree. He returned fire, bullets biting into the trees around Travis, forcing him to take cover also. A few seconds later, a second round of shots narrowly missed him. Eddie had arrived and was firing from behind a fallen pine.
Travis flattened himself in a dip in the ground and debated his next move. He had maybe half a dozen bullets left for the Glock, and a few for the revolver. Not enough to outlast these two. And Leah was out there somewhere, running. If he made a mistake and ended up getting killed, she would be alone, with Braeswood and his men after her.
Stealthily, he began crawling backward through the underbrush. When he judged he was out of sight of Braeswood and Eddie, he stood and ran, choosing a course he hoped would intersect the one Leah had taken.
He heard her long before he saw her, crashing through the woods like an animal fleeing in panic. He increased his own pace and waited until he spot
ted the bright red of her sweater before he called out. “Leah! It’s me, Travis. Wait up!”
She darted behind a tree, then peered out cautiously at him. Tears streaked her face, and her lip was swollen where Braeswood had hit her. When Travis reached her, he pulled her close, crushing her to him. Seeing Braeswood strike her had destroyed his determination to keep some physical distance between them. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded, her face pressed against his shoulder. The subtle floral scent of her perfume tickled his senses, stirring emotions he wasn’t ready to examine too closely. “I’m okay,” she said, out of breath. “Scared. A little shaken. But okay. What about you?”
The concern in her eyes when she lifted her head to look at him made him tighten his hold on her. “I’m okay.” Though the memory of her with that knife to her throat would haunt him for a long time to come.
She jerked in his arms as a crack, like a stick snapping underfoot, sounded in the distance. “They’re coming after us,” she said, panic widening her eyes. “I told you, he won’t give up.”
“We’ve got to keep moving.” He took her hand and led the way, moving as fast as they could in the dense forest, following animal trails and the paths of old fires, uncertain of the direction they were traveling. Was it true that people who were lost in the woods tended to walk in circles? Did that mean they could end up accidentally stumbling into Braeswood and the others?
Leah tripped on a tree root and went flying, landing on her hands and knees in the dirt. “I can’t keep doing this,” she said as Travis helped her up. “I’m too exhausted.”
Before long, he would be too worn out to go much farther, as well. His side where he had been shot and his head where he had fallen earlier both throbbed, and he had noticed Leah wincing every time she moved her shoulder. He had been betting they could outlast Braeswood and his men, but maybe that had been foolish thinking. The hatred or greed or whatever force that motivated the terrorist was a powerful driver. “We’ll have to find a place to hide,” he said.
