Lawman on the Hunt

by Cindi Myers

  Blondie shook his head. “They came this way though. I’m sure of it.” He scuffed at the leaf mold at his feet. “It’s too dry for tracks. What about Will and Jacko? You heard from them?”

  “They’re doing a sweep away from the river. No sign of anything yet.”

  “They couldn’t have gone far,” Blondie said, scanning the area. “No one could in this thick underbrush.”

  “Come on. They’re headed for the bridge.” The older man slapped him on the back. “They’ll try to catch the train. We’ll have them then.”

  Together, the two men moved away. Leah leaned back against the rough log wall and closed her eyes. For long minutes, neither she nor Travis said anything.

  Travis was the first to rouse himself. He moved back to the gap in the logs. “We should keep an eye out for Will and Jacko,” he said. “Do you know them?”

  “No. But I didn’t know the names of a lot of men who worked for Duane. And most of them didn’t know my name, either. I was just—the woman.” Or “Duane’s woman” or one of the other names he called her when he was in a bad mood. She had learned to ignore the name-calling and even most of the physical abuse, turning her mind to other things while he ranted at her, or when he dragged her to his bedroom. Pretending not to be there was a coping mechanism.

  But his reminders of how much control he had over her had hurt. When he wanted to get to her, he told her he planned to burn down the family cabin she had signed over to him. Or he told her the car that was still in her name was being used to run drugs down near the Texas border, or that he had spent the money her father left her to buy weapons and bombs.

  “He’ll have an army waiting for us at the bridge,” she said. “We’ll never get past them.”

  “No,” he agreed. “They would spot us long before we got there.”

  “We could go back the way we came, try to make it to a road. They won’t expect that.” A fresh wave of despair washed over her at the idea of another two or three days in the wilderness, trying to survive on roots and berries.

  “My guess is he has people watching the roads, too.”

  She buried her face in her hands. To find their way to a road, only to be stopped again, was too horrible to contemplate.

  “You know Braeswood better than I do,” Travis said. “What do you think is going through his mind right now?”

  Braeswood’s mind was not a sewer she wanted to explore. “I don’t really care what he’s thinking,” she said. “Except that he’s probably enraged that we’ve evaded him so far.”

  “If we can figure out what his next move is likely to be, we can try to get a step ahead of him,” Travis said.

  She pondered the idea, reviewing everything she had learned about Duane Braeswood in the past six months. “He’s definitely a control freak,” she said. “He spends a lot of time planning his operations, as he calls them. He drills everyone and oversees every detail. He brags about never having been caught because he’s so meticulous.”

  “What does he do when something happens that he can’t control?” Travis asked.

  “You mean like the Feds raiding his home and me running away? He blows up. He does exactly what he’s done this time—he throws every resource at the problem.”

  “Would you say he acts irrationally?”

  She considered this. “Not irrationally, exactly. But his reaction is over the top. Out of proportion.”

  “But he tries to think of every possible angle to solve the problem?” Travis frowned.

  “Not exactly, no. He’s really smart, but he’s arrogant, too. He decides what the problem is, then what the solution is and goes all out to use that solution to fix the problem.”

  “So he might overlook something.”

  “He might. But he really is a genius, I think. I don’t remember him ever being wrong about a situation.”

  “No one can be right all the time,” Travis said.

  “No. But he has a lot of information and resources at his disposal.”

  “Even so, arrogance is a flaw we can exploit.” He settled back against the logs once more, hands resting on his knees. “I’m guessing he’s a man who enjoys luxury. That wasn’t some little cabin in the woods he was renting.”

  “Of course. He can afford it.”

  “He doesn’t like being uncomfortable. He doesn’t like roughing it here in the woods.”

  She snorted. “Trust me, he’s not roughing it. If he was in that group we saw headed up the trail, you can bet the others are carrying most of his load, and he’ll have the best of everything in his campsite.”

  “He’s called off the search every night.”

  “We can’t count on him doing that tonight. Not when he knows we’re so close.”

  “Still, even with night-vision goggles, it’s not easy stumbling around in these woods, especially with a bunch of gear. Better to station sentries along the approach to the bridge and wait for us to come to them.”

  “Which means we’re still trapped.”

  “Blondie and the older guy only mentioned two other men by name. That’s four, plus maybe Braeswood.”

  “Duane would have at least one man with him as a bodyguard. Probably Eddie Roland.”

  “So that’s seven. I counted eight on the trail when we first spotted them. Eight men can guard the bridge pretty effectively, but they can’t guard the whole river.”

  A shiver of apprehension raced up her spine. “What are you suggesting?”

  “The railroad follows the course of the river through the wilderness area,” he said. “We can cross anywhere and hit the tracks. Then we lie low until the train approaches and we flag it down.”

  She stared at him, digesting this information.

  “You don’t think it’s a good idea?” he said.

  “We can’t just wade across the river,” she said. “The water is flowing really fast and it’s bound to be ice cold. It’s probably deep, too. I mean, there’s a reason there’s a bridge to the hiking trail. A really big bridge. And getting to the river anyplace but at the bridge is going to be tough. It’s in a gorge. The banks are really steep.”

  “That’s why Braeswood won’t expect us to attempt it. But there’s bound to be a place we can climb down. An animal trail we can follow. And this time of year the water is at its lowest point. We can get across. We’re both strong swimmers.”

  “I can swim laps in a pool,” she said. “That’s a lot different from swimming an ice-cold, raging river. Especially when we haven’t had a decent meal in three days.”

  “Then you can wait on the bank while I go across and get help,” he said. He leaned over and took her hand. “This is our best chance of getting to safety. We can’t afford to wait much longer.”

  He was right. She had already done so many things in the past six months that she never would have thought she was capable of. What was climbing down a cliff and swimming across a cold, raging river when compared to all that? And if they did die in the attempt, it was better than being gunned down by one of Duane’s thugs, or worse, going back to Duane. “I’m willing to try,” she said. “But you’re not going to leave me behind. We’ll do this together.”

  He pulled her close and kissed her. When he released her, he was almost smiling. “The moon is almost full,” he said. “That will help us.”

  “What does the moon have to do with any of this?”

  “We’ll have to make the crossing at night,” he said. “It will lessen our chances of being spotted, in case they’re patrolling the bank or scanning it with binoculars.”

  “So we’re going to climb down cliffs and swim the river at night?”

  He patted her shoulder. “You can do it.”

  Right. Maybe she had made a mistake being so stalwart through this whole ordeal. Now he thought she was a sup
erhero!

  Chapter Thirteen

  Travis didn’t need Leah’s incredulous look to tell him that what he proposed was crazy. But, as the saying went, desperate times called for desperate measures. “The best chance we have to get away from here safely is to do something Braeswood thinks is impossible,” he said. “Yes, the river is cold and the water is fast, but it’s not that wide—about the length of the pool back in our gym in DC. I’m not saying it will be easy, but I don’t think it’s impossible.”

  The long, mournful wail of a train whistle echoed through the canyon. “There goes our ride,” Leah said, a stricken look on her face.

  Travis powered up the phone and checked the time. “Eleven fifteen. Now we know what time we need to be at the track tomorrow.”

  “I thought you said we’re crossing at night.”

  “We are. We’ll cross the river at night to lessen the chance of our being seen. Once we reach the other side, we’ll have to lie low until right before the train comes. We can’t risk one of Braeswood’s men spotting us.”

  “What will happen after we leave here?” she asked. “To Braeswood, I mean?”

  “We’ll mobilize a team to move into this area. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to Braeswood and his men before they realize you and I are gone. With the evidence we’ve collected already and your testimony, we should be able to put them away for a very long time.”

  “Do you think the court will believe me?”

  “They will.” He squeezed her hand. “I believe you.”

  “You didn’t at first.”

  “I was angry.” He shifted to face her. “I let my pride get in the way of what I knew in my heart. When I read your note the day you left, I should have realized something was wrong. I should have followed up and done more to protect you.”

  She lightly touched the back of his hand. “I wanted you to stay away. If you had come after me, Duane would have killed you. I couldn’t save Sarah, but at least I could save you.”

  “I’d rather have taken my chances and still had you.”

  She sat back and closed her eyes. “I want to forget about everything that happened, but it’s not easy.”

  “When we get out of here, you should talk to a counselor or a therapist,” he said. “Someone who can help.”

  “Maybe we both should.”

  He hesitated, then nodded. He wasn’t the type to unload his problems on someone else, but his feelings about what had happened to Leah were in such turmoil, maybe talking to a professional would help him sort them out. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “Maybe we can help each other.”

  His first instinct was to leap in and fix everything for her, but he understood that in this case, charging in and taking over wasn’t going to help. He had to navigate a tightrope between her desire for independence and his need to protect her. “Try to get some rest,” he said. “We’ll stay here another hour or two, then start walking. We’ll try to pick out a place to cross the river while we still have light, then wait until full dark to set out.”

  She made a small noise of assent, then lay down on her side, her back to him. He leaned back against the logs, the loaded gun beside him, and tried to sleep. They would both need every bit of strength they could muster to get through the night.

  * * *

  THOUGH LEAH HAD slept for over an hour, she didn’t feel refreshed by the rest. Disjointed, confusing dreams had plagued her—dreams of running from unseen enemies, or of being trapped in houses with many rooms but no exits. Travis had been in the dreams as well, as a face at the window outside the house, or a voice calling her name. But they were never able to reach each other as she struggled through the dream world.

  When she opened her eyes he was watching her. “You were restless,” he said. “I thought you were having a nightmare. I wanted to wake you, but I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do.”

  She sat and tried to straighten her rumpled clothing. “I read somewhere that dreams are the subconscious trying to solve problems.”

  “So, did your dream give you any solutions?”

  “Not yet. But I can be patient.” She glanced out the gap between the logs, at the long shadows of tree trunks stretched across the forest floor. “When can we leave here?” she asked.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Then let’s go now.” As much as she dreaded the ordeal that lay ahead, she was ready to get it over with.

  They left the log ruins and began hiking along the bluff. They headed upstream, staying out of sight of the riverbank itself, but always keeping the sound of the river to their right. They hiked for two hours—what she judged to be four or five miles—then cautiously made their way to the edge of the bluff and looked down on the water. They had been steadily climbing all afternoon, so she wasn’t surprised to see the water lay some forty feet below. The setting sun silvered the water where it tumbled over rocks in the narrow channel, but the bank they stood on was already in shadow.

  “How are we ever going to get down there?” she asked.

  “We’ll have to walk along the bank until we find a less steep place or an animal path or something.”

  He sounded so confident that there would be a less steep place or a path. “What if it just gets steeper?” she asked.

  His eyes met hers, calm but determined. “Then we’ll walk in the other direction.”

  Right. What else could they do? She followed him upstream for another half hour, scanning the steep embankment but seeing nothing that looked promising. Bunches of drying grass and a scattering of yellow and purple wildflowers clung to the reddish soil that had collected between the rocks. The embankment on the opposite side of the river, leading up to the railroad tracks, looked just as steep and forbidding.

  Travis stopped, and she almost stumbled into him. “I think we can get down here,” he said.

  She stood on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder and studied the faint line of what might have been a trail, snaking down the slope at a sharp angle. “You’re kidding.”

  “We can do it,” he said. “We’ll take it slow and use our walking sticks to help balance.”

  She shivered, as much from fear as from the chill that descended with the setting sun. “What do you think made that trail?” she asked.

  “Mountain goats, maybe. Deer? Some kind of animals headed to the river for water.”

  “Maybe you need four legs to get down something like that,” she said.

  “You climbed down a mountain yesterday. You can do this.”

  Right. The whole superpower thing again. They were going to have to have a talk about that sometime, but maybe not now.

  “We’ll wait for the moon to rise,” he said. “Then we’ll head down.” He moved back toward the cover of trees. “In the meantime, we’ll find a place to wait.”

  “You can wait. I’m going to find food.” She turned and started walking back the way they’d come.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Some of those bushes we passed earlier looked like raspberries.” The idea of anything to eat made her mouth water.

  He fell into step beside her. When they reached the cluster of bushes again, her heart sank. Combing through the branches, all they found were a few shriveled berries. They ate the dozen or so bruised fruits, then she plucked some rose hips from the wild rosebushes that grew nearby. “If we had a fire, we could heat water and make raspberry leaf tea,” she said, though she couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the idea.

  “We can’t risk it.” He plucked a leaf from a raspberry bush and chewed, then spit it out. “It tastes terrible.”

  Her laughter surprised her; she hadn’t thought she had any mirth left in her. “The look on your face is priceless,” she said.

  He made a show of looking around them. “What
else do you think I should try? Fir branches?” He grabbed hold of a nearby evergreen branch. “Is the tree bark any good? I’ve heard this place serves an excellent stone soup.”

  “You’ll have to settle for chewing gum.” She handed him a stick from the packet she had unearthed earlier in the day. She had been saving it for right before they set out on their river crossing, but now seemed a better time. “I’d forgotten I had this in my pocket.”

  The gum did little to satisfy their hunger, but the act of chewing and the little bit of sweetness the gum provided felt good. Travis took her hand. “Come on. Let’s find a place near that trail to wait for moonrise. And try to watch where you step. We don’t want to go tumbling off the cliff.”

  “That would be one way to get to the bottom quickly.”

  “Come on, you.” He tugged her alongside him and squeezed her shoulders.

  They moved a little farther into the woods and settled down against the large trunk of a towering fir, the air perfumed with the Christmas tree scent. “You might as well take another nap,” he said, patting his thigh.

  She hesitated, then stretched out beside him, her head in his lap. He idly stroked her hair and she remembered another summer afternoon when they had sat like this, on the National Mall, listening to a free concert of classical music. Had it really only been last summer? It seemed a lifetime ago. “This is kind of romantic,” she said. “If you overlook the fact that I’d kill for a steak and a shower.”

  He laughed. “I guess it is—if you overlook those things.” He caressed her shoulder. “It’s good to see you in a better mood.”

  “I guess I’ve still got some fight left in me.”

  “Good. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”

  She closed her eyes and snuggled against him. “Bring it on,” she said, already sinking toward sleep.

  * * *

  SHE WOKE WITH a start when Travis nudged her. “It’s time to go,” he said, his voice low.

  She sat and brushed pine needles from her clothes, then glanced toward the bluff, and the indentation that marked the beginning of the steep path they had to negotiate to the river. The moon shone like a white spotlight above the trees, bathing everything in a silvery glow.