by M K Dymock
The engine faded in the distance as she gained speed. She checked behind her, but didn’t see her pursuant. But she did see her own footprints either. He could follow as easily as if she drew him a map.
A few low, volcanic rock hills surrounded her. Could she climb them without leaving a track? They were bare with few trees and didn’t offer much protection. If she ran up the front side without being seen, she could hide among the large rock formations.
Keen stepped out of the trees and scrambled up the rock, but her idea failed as the metal clips on her shoes left white gashes on the reddish-brown lava rock. Should she return to the dirt, where each step left a deep impression?
Make a decision now. She removed her shoes and stepped from loose dirt onto lava rock, wincing as the rocks cut into her feet. A voice sounded in the distance, or maybe a crow. She ran up the rock until she hit a dead end. Rocks at least ten feet tall surrounded her on all sides.
With her shoes stuffed into the back pocket of her jersey, she ascended. Keen couldn’t mountain bike, but she could climb.
10
Twenty-four hours passed and still no phone call came announcing Keen’s return. Everyone would be forced to ask harder questions. If she was hurt, how bad was it if she couldn’t walk out on her own? Why would she leave the trails? Were they even searching the right ones?
Blake had returned to the Dawsons’ neighborhood to ask around who had seen what. A few people remembered seeing Keen on her bike, her bright yellow jersey a flash as she went by. But nobody saw her come home.
He pulled into the Pines trailhead parking lot at the bottom of the canyon as the SAR command van, carrying a few of the searchers, pulled out. The canyon was on the verge of being reclaimed by darkness. Only two vehicles remained unaccompanied in the lot: Sol’s beat-up Jeep with equal spots of paint and rust, and Daniel’s van. Blake opened his door to step out, and the rush of chilled air reminded him summer had fallen behind.
The main trail coming down the mountain and into the parking lot cut through two ten-foot-high slabs of granite with pines growing on top. A sign marking the trail had been replaced with one warning people not to stand in front of the trailhead to take pictures. Many a photographic shot had been ruined by a collision with bikes coming around a blind curve before cutting through the slab. The sign failed, as now tourists found it funny to take a picture with the sign. One more accident and he would take a chainsaw to the thing, even though technically this was forest service land.
Sol and Daniel Dawson came through the crack on foot. Daniel, exhausted but defiant, came out a few steps ahead of Sol. Before Blake could speak, Daniel jumped into his van a few feet away and slammed the door shut.
Sol joined Blake. “I told him he needed to go home and get some sleep. It’s getting too dark on a lot of those trails.”
“I take it he didn’t agree.”
“Would you?” Sol asked.
“No.” In the dim light, they could see Daniel throwing on a jacket. “But that’s what friends are for. Speaking of friendship, you need sleep, too.”
Sol reached into his truck for a lined jacket and zipped it up against the encroaching chill of the evening. “I’ll sleep in the truck for a few hours, then cover some of the more well-marked trails with a spotlight.”
“Come on, Daisy will be worried.”
“Daisy?” Sol asked as if he’d forgotten the name. Sol shook his head. “No, she’s in California, visiting family.”
Something about his distant tone struck Blake. “Everything okay?” The marriage last year between Sol, who could go days without speaking, and Daisy, fifteen years younger, quite better-looking, and a summer raft guide, had confused most of the town.
“Yeah, her mom had the long weekend. By the way, what’s your plan for tomorrow?”
“That’s up to you. You want more people?” Blake leaned against the cold metal of the old Dodge.
“No,” Sol said without hesitation. “More people is more chaos. If it goes one more day, then extend the search area. Canines are coming in tomorrow from Summit and too many people will screw up the smells.”
“Need any help tonight?”
“No, I don’t want anyone falling off a cliff in the dark.” He stifled a yawn. “I almost forgot: Grace said, if I could, to send you out early enough for back-to-school night.”
Blake mentally chastised himself. His five-year-old daughter had asked no less than four times if he was coming to meet her teacher. Her young mind considered kindergarten on par with Harvard, and he hated to see her disappointed face, especially when he was the cause of it. He weighed his options and figured he could take an hour to make at least one girl happy.
Daniel climbed out of his van, wearing a thicker jacket. “Sol,” Blake said, “can you do something about him? We’ll have another body to search for, and he isn’t going to listen to me.”
“I’ll try.”
Blake drove back into town while the sun sunk behind him in the early evening, no closer to finding Keen than they’d been that morning. Daylight always stole away earlier than it ought to in the high mountains. He wanted to make one quick stop at the office to get an update before heading to the school.
He pulled into the sheriff’s office parking lot as his deputy Clint climbed out of the department’s Jeep, cell phone clenched to his ear. “I know I said I’d go, but I have to work.” Clint pulled the phone back and mouthed “just a second” to his boss.
Blake doubted that. He unlocked the office door before shutting it on what had become an almost daily argument. The locked door and the empty front desk reminded him he still needed to hire an assistant. Funding had finally come through to hire someone full-time. He sat back in his office behind pictures of Grace and his own kids.
Clint walked in, argument apparently on hold for the time being. “The way she acts, you’d think I worked as a bouncer in a strip club.” He sank into the chair across from Blake.
Blake didn’t offer he had once moonlighted as a bouncer in a strip club when he was a new patrolman on the Chicago beat. Not something public officials are supposed to broadcast, but it had been a good way to make rent. He did have to turn a blind eye to what, during daylight hours, he’d usually bust someone for. A lot of the guys, and some of the girls, were people he’d gone to high school with. That six-month job convinced him more than anything he would have a better life. Then he met Grace, who attended nearby Northwestern.
She’d gone out clubbing with roommates in a neighborhood nobody had any business in after dark—his neighborhood. A taxi had dumped them out when the girls discovered no one thought to bring a wallet and had the bad luck to announce it out loud. They’d gone into the nearest bodega, where the store clerk stared at three white women wearing too little clothing.
Blake had been walking by and stopped at the sight. As a cop, you learn to recognize patterns, and when something breaks the pattern, pay attention. Grace and her friends broke the pattern. He was still in uniform on his way to his other job and offered his assistance. The other girls were terrified of the situation, while the tall redhead asked the speechless clerk where fun could be had.
Blake had stepped in, not sure where the inevitable trouble would start—toward her or from her. He managed to talk her into a cab he paid for with the promise of a date. Figured if she wanted to slum it, he would oblige. They were engaged six months later.
“I take it no progress today?” Blake asked his distracted deputy.
“Not much. Her few friends left already to go back to school.” Clint pulled out his pad of paper to consult it. “As for the ex-boyfriend,” Clint continued, “his parents said he hasn’t seen her in a few weeks.”
“The parents?”
“He went back to school, too. Didn’t answer his phone or texts when I tried him.”
“Get me his number. Maybe he’ll answer a sheriff.”
“You think he knows something?” Clint sat on the edge of the desk.
“I think,
as far as we know, no one spoke to Keen after noon yesterday, and I find it hard to believe that for several hours, she didn’t text, call, email, or tweet someone. She’s a twenty-year-old kid.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know she’d call the guy who just broke her heart.” Clint pulled his ball cap off and slapped it against his thigh. “Though from what I gathered, she’s still a little hung up on him.”
His tone brokered way more familiarity than it should. “You know her that well?” Blake asked.
Clint shrugged. “No. I mean, yeah. I’ve seen her a few times at the store, but that’s about it. I’ve just spent the day talking with her neighbors.”
Blake had to wonder if Keen was another Clint groupie. There were a few of them around and it was the source of a few of the arguments he’d been privy to. Young, good-looking men who stayed in this town longer than a few months were few. Blake, however, never seemed to attract that same attention, even when Grace first brought him home, her ring still in his pocket. Whether that was due to his own lack of striking looks or because nobody would cross Grace, he didn’t know. Though he suspected the latter.
“Unless there’s anyone else on that list of friends, you can head home for the night. Sounds like the wife wants you.”
“Yeah,” Clint said unconvincingly. “She wants me to go to back-to-school so she doesn’t have to. I’ll probably go, though. For some odd reason my kid’s excited for me to meet his teacher.”
Blake laughed. “Don’t worry, by second grade they grow out of that. Now my son couldn’t care less, but the girl still does.”
Elizabeth biked up the Gorge twice before driving around the neighboring streets, trying to put herself in her daughter’s mind. Would she stop? Where? Why? Nothing made sense. Grace and the other women had bowed out at one, heading home to children.
The house echoed as she slammed the door behind her. She pulled out Keen’s laptop and refreshed the Find My Phone site again and again, hoping for a signal. Blake had said he pinged the phone but had the same result as her. She cradled the laptop as she lay on Keen’s bed, placing her head in the indentation left from the last occupant.
All the family’s phones were on the same account and Elizabeth logged in to see the phone history. She scrolled down the page to Monday’s calls. Her finger hovered over the call made to her own phone at 6:05 p.m. What had Keen called about? But more than that, why hadn’t Elizabeth answered?
They’d argued that morning, but over nothing.
The list after that was incoming calls from Elizabeth and Daniel, desperate for an answer. One number, however, stood out between the familiar calls. At 6:30 Keen called an unfamiliar number.
11
Tuesday Evening
Time to think, to consider options. Drawing Keenley out had worked—to a point. Her trail was now much closer and farther away from help. While it wasn’t entirely necessary to recapture her, it would be the most ideal. One couldn’t count on nature to kill her off, as she knew more about survival than average.
She was smart; today’s attempt had proved that.
Keenley’s tracks had faded into the rock. The one being chased had one advantage as she chose the path, while the pursuer struggled to find it. Today had been successful in one regard. The space in which she wandered had been narrowed down. If she couldn’t be drawn out, perhaps her destination could be anticipated.
Keenley couldn’t afford to follow the road, nor could she wander in the wilderness indefinitely. She was too far from home to count on luck to save her. Surrounding her were hundreds of miles of wilderness but a finite set of choices, if she wanted to survive. Where would she go next? She would need water.
Another concern besides Keenley was her bike. Right now, the assumption was she got lost or in an accident. Finding her bike without finding her would raise a lot of questions. The first option—tossing it off the Old Bridge into the Gorge River—wouldn’t work. The river ran shallow and fast there; eventually the bike would wash up on a rock or bank. The bridge did serve as a proper place to drop her phone off.
Could the bike be left in the desert? It would rust away under the sand, but the winds always blew there. It wouldn’t be good to abandon the bike in the same area as Keenley. A bike would last longer than a body, and if found would bring attention the area. Her body should never be found.
Farther down the river, however, was a spot where the water ran slow and deep. It had receded from its banks several feet after the dry summer. Once the fall storms came, and with it the floods, the bike would be covered. And if someone did happen to find it, it wouldn’t be anywhere near Keenley’s body.
Better find a way to anchor it down, though. Wouldn’t want it to be found too soon.
Keen estimated she’d walked at least a half mile over rock before stopping to replace her shoes. Each slow step was a lesson in pain. She ignored the stinging and the few spots of blood in her socks as she tightened tight the Velcro straps of her bike shoes.
The rock had given way to dirt and sagebrush, making going without shoes obsolete when it came to hiding her tracks. Ahead of her the hills rose up, thick with juniper. There in the lengthening shade, she’d promised herself she could rest.
Though the warm day hadn’t been oppressive with its heat, she still sunk into the evening shade of a juniper with a sigh. She leaned against the rough bark that peeled off in chunks. From her seat, she could see her trail and anyone coming for about 100 yards.
Think, she commanded. Her dad always said those who die are those who react, not respond, to their situation.
How far away did she wander from where she started? How far from the road? She’d left some ground between her and her pursuer, but distance wouldn’t matter if it didn’t lead her somewhere with water.
Three, that was the magic number they taught in her outdoor survival training. A class she took to prove to her parents she could be a river guide, which they still hadn’t allowed. She could go three days without water, three weeks without food. But right now, without either and with someone chasing her, three hours would be a miracle.
The pain in her head increased with the heat. She couldn’t parcel out whether the dizziness radiated from her head or her stomach. All she knew was pain wended its way through her skull and out her fingertips. Her scalp itched under her hair where the blood dried. Scratching it busted open the scab.
She played with the dried blood with her fingertips until it crumbled into the dirt she sat on. “Okay, Keen,” she said to the sky. “Enough. What do you have going for you?”
Keen had never been alone for any length of time. She was either with family, Jacob, or one of a few friends. Shy amongst strangers, she held on to people for a long time. Her voice in the void staved off the loneliness.
“It’s warm,” she answered back.
“Yeah, but that’ll change; it always does. And if you have to spend another night out here, you’re in trouble.”
Beyond water, her biggest concern was temperature. Too hot and you overheat, sweating out moisture you can’t afford to lose. Too cold and hypothermia sets in.
“I’m not spending another night in the open.”
“Really, what are you going to do about it? Day’s almost gone.”
Keen swallowed the thought that after one day in the wilderness she ventured to crazy town.
“Everyone says if you get lost, stay in one place. Wandering will kill you.”
“But that advice only works if a bigger threat isn’t chasing you.”
“So I wander. I just need a direction to go.”
She knew that somewhere to the east lay home. But how many miles stood between her and there, and could there be a better way?
“I need to find the road again.”
“Where he is?”
“I’m not stupid; I’m not following it, but it could point me in the right direction.”
The canyon through the Gorge eventually connected to Highway 72, which ran north and south through a l
ow valley that marked the divide between the high mountains and the desert hill region where she now stood. Chances were the road came in from the highway, but how far away was it?
“East, I’ll push east to the highway but veer north in hopes I spot the road.”
“Then get off your ass and go; nighttime’s coming.”
“Vulgarity!” she said in the high-pitched voice of her great-grandmother, who believed until her dying day that schools should’ve never allowed girls to wear pants.
Keen laughed, picturing the proper woman in tweed who frightened her as a child. “Ass!” she said louder.
With a destination in mind, she strode on, but her thoughts trailed with her. What if the truck she’d seen hadn’t been him? What if she ran from her best chance of hope? She’d spotted more than a few cow pies. A friend of hers said he helped round up cattle in these hills, so a rancher feeding cattle wouldn’t be impossible. She pushed that thought out; wasn’t worth the regret, as she couldn’t take back her decision.
She wondered about her parents. They insisted that Keen, an adult, call to confirm she safely arrived at any destination over twenty minutes away. They were freaking out now, she knew that. The bike ride had been one of a few rebellions, increasing in the last year.
They would be looking for her, but nobody would look here.
Would Jacob join the search for her? Maybe show up at her parents’ house pleading to help? October would’ve been one year together. They had so much in common, a story not unlike her parents.
Outdoors was his religion and she was already a follower, if not as devout. Every weekend he spent chasing that next high, and she followed him on each one, both terrified and thrilled. She couldn’t think of anything more romantic than snowshoeing hand-in-hand under a full moon. Right up until a month ago, when, with a reason about him loving her but not ready for a long-term commitment, he’d broken up with her. He said he’d regretted meeting her so soon; he just wasn’t there yet.
