by Sharon Dunn
After dinner, Ezra helped everyone pitch a small, single-man tent, except for Jan and Ken, who had a bigger tent to share. Clarissa said her good-nights and crawled into her sleeping bag. The cool night air came through the unzipped mesh windows.
Outside her tent, Ezra and Leonard talked in low tones until their voices faded, and she heard the unzipping of tent doors. The night quieted, but her mind raced with all that had happened and all that she had yet to do. Twice Clarissa grabbed her pack and unzipped the tent, thinking she would just escape in the night and take her chances. Both times she talked herself out of it. There was still so much more she needed to learn before she could face the wilderness on her own. She snuggled back down into the sleeping bag.
She listened for a long time, wondering if Leonard would get up in the night and drag her out of her tent.
She breathed in the fresh air as a light breeze rustled the nylon walls. Her eyelids grew heavy and she drifted off....
She awoke in total darkness to the sound of angry voices in the distance.
FIVE
Ezra awoke with a start, uncertain what had caused him to become alert. Was the noise something he had dreamed or something he’d heard? He reached into the tent pocket where he’d placed his flashlight. He unzipped the tent and leaned outside. The camp appeared quiet. The fire had died out. Trees creaked in the breeze. He shone a light on each of the tents.
Adrenaline surged through his veins when the beam revealed that Clarissa’s tent door was unzipped. He crawled out of his tent and grabbed his shoes, hurrying over to shine the light in her open tent.
She was gone.
Ezra walked the perimeter of the camp, shining the light into the trees. Most likely she’d gotten up to go to the bathroom. He waited fifteen minutes, pacing around the camp and growing more concerned.
He returned to the tent, noting that her flashlight and her pack were still there. At least she’d thought to put shoes on before she left the safety of the camp. He couldn’t wait any longer. She may have gotten hurt or not been able to find her way back. He strode through the forest, allowing the flashlight to illuminate the path in front of him.
It seemed foolhardy that she would be in such a big hurry that she wouldn’t think to take the flashlight. He’d had clients do stupider things than that, but Clarissa struck him as far more sensible than most. He stopped running, shining the light into the darkness between trees. When he listened, only the creaking of the tree branches reached his ears. He strode onward, picking up his pace, circling the camp in an ever increasing perimeter.
After twenty minutes, he found some tracks and broken branches that indicated which direction she had gone, but still no sign of Clarissa.
* * *
Clarissa worked her way toward the sound of men talking, being careful to make as little noise as possible. She could hear the conversation now more distinctly. Any hope that they were just fellow backpackers was dashed when Don’s gruff voice assaulted her eardrums.
Clarissa took in a breath to calm herself. She needed to make sure the men didn’t hurt the others in her group. She had to distract them somehow, and lead them away. With the fire out, the camp was not visible through the trees. The two thugs would have to stumble into the tents before they discovered them.
In the dark, her footsteps were slow and careful, and she stretched a hand out in front of her. She could hear Don complaining about hunger and his aching feet. So the thugs hadn’t come equipped for a hike that would take more than a few hours.
A light flashed among the trees, and she edged toward it. The second speaker became more distinct.
“He’s paying us plenty for this. Let’s get the job done.” The voice sounded younger than Don’s, but not one she recognized. Of course, Max would never go hiking in the woods. He’d pay someone to do it for him.
She dashed toward a tree with a large trunk and hid behind it. She angled around to get a look at the men. Don had a small flashlight, something that would be on the end of a key chain. He sat on a log, turned slightly sideways so she could see his profile. She didn’t recognize the other man, who pulled a revolver from his waistband and opened and closed the cylinder. His red hair was distinctive in the minimal light.
Don took his shoe off and massaged his foot. “How are we going to find her? We’re talking thousands of acres.”
“They stay on the trail. All we got to do is follow it until we catch up with them.” The second thug peered down the barrel of his gun. “Besides, how perfect can this be? We do this right, get her separated from the group, no one will find her body out here for years—or at all. There are bears in these woods. They might just take care of her body for us.”
Clarissa’s throat constricted as she pressed her hand against the rough surface of the tree trunk. Fear coiled inside her, but she refused to give in to it. So they would find a way to separate her from the group and then kill her. That meant the two thugs probably wouldn’t make themselves known to the rest of the group or hurt them. They didn’t want witnesses or extra bodies. Could she hope to stay with the others and be safe?
Don rose to his feet and paced. “Man, I’d kill for a steak and fries right now.”
“Let’s get moving. Their camp has to be around here somewhere. We can pull her out of the tent before the others know what hit them,” the younger man said. “Doing it in the dark is perfect. We need to get this done before first light.”
“Yeah, if we can find where they’re camped.”
She watched the younger man shove his gun into his belt, the sneer on his hardened face visible in the faint light.
Don stomped around, stepping closer to where she was hidden. She angled around the tree out of sight, pressing her back against the rough texture of the bark and holding her breath.
“Hey, what was that?” Don’s voice grew louder. His feet crunched across the fallen leaves on the forest floor.
She tensed. Had they heard her?
And then she heard it, too. Faintly in the distance. Ezra calling her name. The sound faded almost as quickly as it began.
“Did you hear that?” said the second man. “Let’s check it out. It’ll lead us to the camp.”
Clarissa squeezed her eyes shut, and her whole body stiffened as she listened to the men moving through the forest away from her, toward the sound of Ezra’s voice. She couldn’t risk him being hurt. She pushed off from the tree and circled around the men, who were easy enough to pinpoint from their voices and the noise they made as they crashed through the forest.
She took in a breath and darted through the trees, picking up a branch and banging it against a log. She ran ahead several more feet, making sure to hit the branch against tree trunks and brush.
The men’s voices had grown silent. She waited, listening, as her stomach jerked into her throat and her heart beat out an erratic rhythm. She heard their footsteps and hushed voices when they gave each other orders.
She stood her ground, watching. They had to see her, just for a split second, or they might not give chase. Every instinct told her she should run. She planted her feet and swallowed her fear. She couldn’t hear Ezra’s voice anymore, but that didn’t mean he’d given up looking for her.
Tree branches shook. She could track their clumsy footsteps as they stomped through the underbrush. Thirty feet away, she saw the bobbing of the flashlight.
Don’s voice pierced her like an arrow. “There she is. I see her.”
Clarissa took off running. Moonlight illuminated only bits and pieces of the landscape. She zigzagged through the woods, nearly stumbling over a fallen log. She could hear the men behind her as though they were breathing down her neck. Her leg muscles strained as she slipped through the evergreens.
For at least twenty minutes, she could hear the thugs dogging her, pushing her to keep moving despite the fatigue. S
lowly, though, their voices faded. She stumbled out into an opening. Down below, the ground grew steeper and rockier. She was sure they’d hiked through this area earlier in the day.
Clarissa found a large overhang of rock. Curling up underneath it, she wrapped her hands around her calves and leaned forward. The shadows covered her. If they managed to come this direction, they wouldn’t see her here.
She waited, shivering in the nighttime cold, wondering if she’d die out here alone. She didn’t know enough to keep herself alive. She needed Ezra’s knowledge. But staying with the group put them all at risk.
Oh, God, help me, I don’t know what to do.
In the predawn hours, she heard rocks rolling past her. When she peeked out, she saw the silhouettes of the two thugs as they moved back down the mountain. Hungry and ill-equipped, they’d given up for now. Neither of them seemed too crazy about being out in the wilderness. She had to hope that after their failure to find the group’s camp, they would wait it out, thinking she would come back into Discovery with the others and they could grab her then.
She waited awhile longer and then pushed herself up the rocky hill. From there, she was able to find the river that led back to the camp. It had to be three or four in the morning. All the tents except Ezra’s were still zipped tight.
Driven by a sense of responsibility, he’d been out looking for her. As she crawled into her tent and slid into the sleeping bag, she wondered what she could say to him. How much did he need to know? This really was her problem, and she could handle it.
She zipped up the sleeping bag, allowing the warm down to surround her until her shivering stopped. A few minutes later she heard footsteps and the sound of Ezra getting back in his tent. She had slept for only a short time when she heard the clanging of pots banging against each other, and Ezra’s voice calling out, “Rise and shine, everybody. It’s time for breakfast.”
Clarissa opened her eyes and stared at the roof of the tent, wishing she could continue to sleep. Ken’s and Jan’s groaning and lighthearted complaints reached her ears. She heard Leonard’s voice and Bruce’s, all of them joking with Ezra.
She sat up and wiggled out of the sleeping bag.
“Clarissa, come on, sleepyhead. We’ve got to get moving.” The voice was Jan’s.
Wishing she could snuggle back in bed and recover the hours of sleep she’d missed out on, she leaned forward and unzipped her tent door. She crawled out of the tent and reached for her shoes. When she turned around, four sunny faces greeted her. Ezra stood off from the group, a look of betrayal clouding his features.
* * *
As he showed the others how to make coffee over the fire, Ezra could not let go of his suspicions about Clarissa. Where had she been all night? He’d finally given up on finding her, driven by his sense of duty to watch over the others. He was relieved when he came back and saw that she had returned to her tent.
He had to hand it to her. She must have wandered pretty far from the camp for him not to be able to find her. And yet she’d managed to navigate her way back in the dark. She’d demonstrated some innate survival skills. But why had she wandered off in the first place? He clenched his jaw. She’d popped her head out of the tent as though nothing had happened.
He’d heard the voices of the men in the forest. She must have had some sort of planned rendezvous with them. He could only guess at what she was up to. The deep woods provided the perfect hiding place for any number of illegal activities. He wanted to think the best of her, he really did. But she owed him an explanation big-time. As soon as he could be alone with her, he had some questions that she needed to answer, for the safety of everyone else in the group.
He was stuck with her. They were too far into the hike to turn back. He couldn’t leave the other clients to fend for themselves or cut their adventure short. And that meant that he needed to know what was going on—needed to know what steps he might have to take to protect everyone.
He watched as she rose to her feet and poured coffee into her metal cup. The dark circles under her eyes revealed the kind of night she’d had. She hadn’t met his gaze since she’d stepped out of the tent.
“Everything all right?” Leonard slapped him on the back. “You look kind of upset.”
Ezra pulled himself free of his speculation about Clarissa’s motives for coming on the expedition. “Yeah, everything’s fine.” He took his eyes off her and addressed the whole group.
“Eat up. We’ve got a long day ahead of us. We’ll break camp in twenty minutes.”
They hiked through the day, stopping only briefly for lunch. The group stayed together for the most part, giving Ezra little opportunity to confront Clarissa.
Bruce walked beside him at one point, asking questions about hunting. Clarissa came up on the other side, holding a compass in her hand. “Can you explain how this works? Like, say, I wanted to navigate to where that little town you mentioned was.”
“The compass is so old-school,” said Bruce, breathless from keeping pace with Ezra and talking at the same time. “Why aren’t we using GPS?”
He addressed his answer to Bruce. “The idea is to get away from technology, keep it as primitive as possible without making it so unpleasant no one wants to come along with me.” Ezra was grateful for the man’s interruption. Clarissa’s questions were starting to bother him. Why did she need to know how to navigate to New Irish?
Her questions earlier in the day had made more sense. She had wanted know the best places to find food, and how to catch small game. But all her inquiries came with such urgency. Most people relaxed when they got out here. She seemed more revved up than ever. He wanted to know what she was planning.
They hiked through the afternoon and made camp about a hundred yards from a river. The plan would be to teach them how to fish in the morning. “All right, people, let’s see if we can forage to add to our meal.”
“When are we going to learn how to get something with protein in it? I only have a couple more MREs left in my pack,” Bruce said.
“Tomorrow morning we’ll fish.” Ezra turned toward the river. “Next day, I’ll teach you how to catch rabbits and squirrels.”
He watched the group divide up, the men going in one direction and the women in another. He doubted he was going to have any chance to talk to Clarissa alone before the day was over.
SIX
Clarissa breathed in the heady scent of coffee brewing as she crawled out of her tent. The others were already sitting around the fire, all of them smiling in welcome. Ezra stood a few feet away, holding his steaming metal coffee cup. She averted her gaze, not wanting to make eye contact with him. She’d managed to avoid being alone with him all day yesterday, so she wouldn’t have to explain where she’d been in the night.
She’d toyed with the idea of telling him who those men were. But why involve him? This trouble was of her own making. She’d figure it out on her own. Ezra had a survival class to teach. She didn’t want to disrupt that— especially when there was so much she could learn from it. The information could save her life when she was finally ready to strike out by herself. Thanks to his lessons, she now knew how to find and purify water. She could survive on roots and berries she found, for a couple days at least. If she could just get a bearing on how to get to the town Ezra had mentioned, she could strike out on her own.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” said Jan. She pulled the coffeepot from the fire and poured Clarissa a cup.
As she fished out a sugar packet from a plastic container, Clarissa regretted that she had to leave the group soon. She was starting to like these people. She hadn’t spent much time with Leonard, still wary of his reasons for joining the expedition at the last minute, but the others were kind and fun.
Ezra returned to the group. “All right, people, finish up your coffee. This morning we’re going to head down to the river to catch o
ur breakfast.”
Kenneth threw the remainder of his coffee toward the fire. “How long are we going to fish before we give up? My stomach’s rumbling already.”
Ezra offered them a wry grin. “Nothing like an empty stomach to motivate a man.”
Clarissa smiled. Ezra really was a very good teacher. He had a way of gently pushing people to accomplish more than they thought they could.
Ezra took another sip of coffee. “If we are not successful, don’t worry. You still have MREs left in your pack. But the sooner you start to obtain your own food, the better.”
“I’m glad we have that safety net,” said Jan. She looped her arm through Clarissa’s. Jan was so nice to her. They had a good time working together.
“I’m looking forward to this,” said Bruce, rubbing his hands together. “I’m sure we’ll do great.”
The others finished their coffee and one by one headed down the mountain. Jan and Clarissa were the last to leave, taking time to put away the coffee and sugar. Jan set off toward the river ahead of her. Clarissa rose to her feet just as she heard a distinct mechanical noise. The helicopter was far off in the distance, a tiny black oval against the blue sky.
“Are you coming?” Jan shouted.
Clarissa caught up with her, then shaded her eyes from the morning sun as she gestured to the helicopter. “What do you suppose that is about?”
Her friend shrugged. “Ezra said there were other hikers around here. Maybe some of them get dropped off by helicopters, to start their hikes at a particular spot. Or maybe it’s a search and rescue team doing an exercise.”
From this distance, the aircraft didn’t look like it was marked as a rescue helicopter. It appeared solid black.
