Storm Rising

by Sara Driscoll

  She’d make do with the tools at hand. And if she was lucky, she wouldn’t even need them.

  Hawk pushed at her knee and she looked down at him. “I need to remember I have you with me, don’t I? You can be pretty damned ferocious when you need to be.” As if to contradict her, Hawk looked up at her, his pink tongue dangling out one side of his mouth as he grinned up at her. But that face couldn’t erase the memory of Hawk leaping through the air, fangs bared, an instant before he clamped viciously onto Daniel Mannew’s wrist, sending his gunshot wide, saving Meg’s life. She purposely pushed the memory of the two of them toppling off a cliff from her mind.

  She ran a hand down glossy fur, so warm and full of life.

  Unbidden, the memory of another dog sprang to life, fur soaked with rain as his body cooled with death, in her arms. She touched the pendant that hung around her neck, a glass creation of electric blue and black, twined with the delicate gray ashes of her first heart dog, the canine equivalent of a soul mate. “Miss you, Deuce,” she whispered. “Every damn day.”

  Memories of Deuce, her K-9 patrol dog when she was still with the Richmond PD, shot and killed in the line of duty, still popped into her head at odd moments. When you lost a heart dog, you didn’t just put that love away. It stayed with you, and pain from that loss, though blunted, could still cut deeply.

  Meg took a deep breath and pushed away the unexpected melancholy as she looked down at the dog she was lucky enough to find at a terrifyingly low point in her life. Finding one heart dog in life was rare. Finding a second was even more unlikely. But Meg had been blessed by two such animals.

  She ruffled his ears. “Okay, goofball. Back to work.” She pulled out the sample bag and offered the restraints again to refresh him. “Find her, Hawk. Find Emma.”

  They jogged down the trail at a steady pace for several more minutes. Then the path ended where a water-filled ditch drained into the canal. The Great Dismal Swamp was full of these centuries-old, hand-dug drainage ditches that lowered the overall water level and allowed loggers hundreds of years ago to work on dry land instead of constantly wading through swamp water.

  Across the canal was one of the last vestiges of the swamp’s commercial history. A faded and battered two-story clapboard house stood facing the canal, its windows boarded, the front porch on the verge of collapse, and the redbrick chimney crumbling. The white-on-brown state park sign proclaimed it to be the SUPERINTENDENT’S HOUSE—DISMAL SWAMP CANAL COMPANY, 1810. Given its age, disuse, and the fact that it had just come through a hurricane, Meg was impressed it was still standing at all. Granted, Cole certainly wasn’t the first hurricane that house had endured.

  Hawk didn’t even seem to consider any other option, but simply plunged into the ditch, wading through water that came up to his upper chest, his nose high, still following the scent trail. Meg suspected this would be only the first of many times she was about to get soaked, and gamely jogged into the muddy ditch in his wake. The shallow water wasn’t as numbingly cold as the Elizabeth River, and only came up to just below her knees, but the unseen rocks and branches sunk into its opaque depths made for a difficult crossing, and more than once she risked turning an ankle or losing her balance and falling face-first into the muck.

  “Hawk, stop.” Meg struggled out of the ditch after him, a dark muddy stain marking the water level on her yoga pants. “Come here.” She unhooked the leash and then unsnapped and removed his vest. “I have a bad feeling that this place will be full of brambles and thorns and the vest will not only make you hot, but will get caught on everything as you go by.” She coiled the leash and slipped it into her SAR pack, and then rolled up the vest and slid it into one of the external pockets of the bag.

  On this side of the ditch, a clear path cut west, following the drainage channel. A sign, with the Army Corps of Engineers logo and the words GREAT DISMAL SWAMP NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE marked it as the Big Entry Ditch trail, with a warning for hikers to use it at their own risk. But except for debris left from the storm, the trail looked well maintained.

  “Good boy, Hawk. Find Emma.”

  Hawk took a moment to sample the air, then he took the path running west, leaping gracefully over a small downed tree across the trail. Meg planted a foot on the trunk and pushed off it with a little jump, following her dog.

  He lost the scent five hundred feet down the trail and Meg’s heart sank. She knew this was going to be hard, this task of looking for shed skin cells and the scent they carried a day after winds and passing wildlife could have scattered them far and wide. She gave Hawk a moment to cast about, his nose down to the dirt track. He wandered about for a minute, circling back the way they’d come, trying to pick up the scent again, when he suddenly lunged to his right, darting into the underbrush. Meg dove in after him, struggling through the thick bushes and vines. She bit back a curse as the hooked thorns of a climbing greenbrier vine caught in her hair and her top, and scratched at her cheeks. She threw her forearms up in front of her face and pushed on, breaking into a stand of trees that flanked a small drainage ditch. She glanced back toward the Big Entry Ditch trail and realized the path went over a small culvert built to drain this smaller ditch. She’d missed it altogether, but Emma hadn’t. She’d cut away from the main path in a bid to escape.

  Did she know John was still alive, or did she just fear it? Either way, getting lost appears to be her main goal. And this is the place to do it.

  Getting lost from Hawk would take more than teenage gumption.

  “Come on, Hawk, let’s keep going. Find Emma.”

  He had the scent again, she could tell from the sureness of his steps and the speed with which he trotted along the side of the ditch, always right on the edge and at risk of falling in. Somehow, he remained sure-footed on dry land. Which was better than Meg could say, as she slid off the rain-softened dirt into the ditch more than once, pausing as her boot stuck in the sucking mud. Once she even had to grab the trunk of a nearby tree to use as leverage to pull free.

  But the soft mud gave Meg a significant advantage—ahead of Hawk, she could occasionally see the imprint of a shoe marking the path they followed. Someone had been through this area after the hurricane. And Hawk knew it was Emma.

  Had it been a hike on a lovely spring day she would have been better able to appreciate the beauty around her. The swamp was farther inland and the punishing winds were losing some of their punch and were unable to penetrate the dense foliage. A life lived in Virginia told her the names of many of the trees: apart from the Atlantic white cedar there were stands of oak, beech, and ash trees as well as holly and sassafras. Small wildlife scurried out of sight in the underbrush, and birdsong filtered through the leaves, accompanied by the occasional streak of yellow or blue as birds took flight when they drew near. Frogs called to each other from the surrounding wetlands and insects buzzed nonstop. A dragonfly landed on a branch near her in an iridescent rainbow swirl, resting for only a moment before buzzing away again. Sunlight shone through the leaves, dappling the greenery below and a gentle breeze rustled the treetops above.

  Meg slapped at a mosquito feasting on the side of her neck, remembering that the swamp’s beauty came at a certain cost. That cost could also come in the form of four-legged predators. She made a fist with her left hand, just to feel the sheath around her forearm pull tight.

  The ditch ran straight for what Meg estimated must have been about a mile before it cut to the southwest. It was hard slogging for another two or three miles after that, Meg estimated, admitting to herself that she was simply guessing at the distance. She knew how fast she and Hawk could cover distances at a jog, but this slow push through the foliage made distance hard to guesstimate.

  They broke out into sunlight and a two-lane track wide enough for a vehicle, which hugged a more substantial drainage ditch full of sluggish water covered with light green algae.

  Open space. Will be harder to catch the scent than when it was trapped in the foliage.

  Meg looked
up at the sky overhead, the sun coming close to cresting in the sky. She pulled out her phone to check the time: 11:17. Also, she noted, she had no signal. Not really a surprise this deep into no-man’s-land.

  “Hawk, time to stop for a drink.”

  They took ten minutes, sitting in the grass in the shade of the forest to rehydrate and have some high energy snacks to fuel the next part of the search. Then Meg took out the bag, gave Hawk the scent, and they were on the run again.

  In less than half a mile they came to a short fence partially blocking the way, and another Army Corp of Engineers sign marking the end of the Portsmouth Ditch trail.

  “Well, buddy, the trail ends here. Where do we go?”

  Hawk looked up at her, tongue lolling, and immediately stepped around the wooden barrier meant to keep the public out but which meant nothing to him.

  “Okay, that answers my question. Portsmouth Ditch, lead the way.”

  Shortly after entering the canopy again, the path veered away from the ditch. Twenty feet later, Meg stepped into swamp water. Hawk stopped, the water halfway up his front legs, his nose in the air, scenting.

  Meg scanned the area. All around was water, and those trees that could survive the watery root bed went on for as far as she could see, mostly bald cypress trees, some with Spanish moss dangling nearly to the water. Old cypress stumps studded water thick with algae, and a fallen tree lay in front of them, half submerged, the top half coated with bright green moss.

  She couldn’t see anything that betrayed which direction Emma might have gone, but judging from the distance into the swamp, her gut told her the girl had stumbled off the path the previous night as darkness fell. She lost the less traveled part of Portsmouth Ditch as her guide and had wandered away from it, deeper into the murkier areas of the swamp. And once in the swamp proper, and not the flanking forest land, she was in real trouble.

  “Hawk, we have to find her. Find Emma.”

  She could only hope the girl was still above water. If Hawk lost the scent while in this part of the swamp, Meg would certainly fear the worst.

  Together they slogged through the dense, silty water, thick with organic matter smelling of decay. It was especially hard going for Hawk, whose shorter stature put him at a decided disadvantage. Meg often had to help him scramble to stay above water because the swamp was too densely packed with rotting tree limbs, trunks, and disintegrating plant life to allow him to swim most of the time. Biting flies swooped in, looking for their piece of flesh—and often taking it—and the call of a raptor, too close for comfort, made Meg stick even closer to Hawk.

  Finally, after a half hour, solid ground rose under her boots, and then they were scrambling up onto an island in the swamp. They both collapsed onto dry land, breathing hard. Shrugging her SAR pack from her shoulders, Meg let herself lie back, staring up through the flat, pinelike boughs of an ancient, massive bald cypress that towered half in and half out of the swamp waters. Sunlight filtered through the shifting branches overhead as her heart still pounded with the effort to get this far through the swamp. It was hard work for them, a team that trained nearly daily and was at peak physical condition. She couldn’t imagine how hard it would have been for Emma, who also wouldn’t have been dressed for this kind of physical workout. When the girl had gotten into that van, she would never have had any idea that her life was about to turn upside down and her freedom and very existence were about to be on the line.

  Meg rolled her head to the right to find herself only inches from Hawk’s brown eyes. “You okay, bud?”

  The muffled sound of his tail thumping the dirt was her response. He was wet and muddy and had likely lost a few chunks of flesh to black-, horse-, and deer flies, but he was on the trail, in his element, and couldn’t be happier.

  With a groan she pushed herself up and rooted through her bag. She pulled out a collapsible bowl and several bottles of water. She poured the first into Hawk’s bowl; only once he was lapping thirstily did she unscrew the cap of her own bottle to quench her thirst. Next, she gave him a proper meal and then opened her supplies. They ate in silence for a while, just listening to the sounds of the swamp around them.

  “Can you imagine this place at night, in the dark?” Hawk gazed at her with his ears perked, listening intently. “It must be so dark in here. Enough canopy to block the moon, too far from any big city for ambient light. And the swamp full of predators looking for their next meal. She must have been terrified.” Meg looked around with a sliver of the foreboding Emma must have felt. Assuming she was still alive at that point. “We have to find her, Hawk.”

  At the sound of his name, Hawk’s ears perked. She gave him a thumping pat on the back and he returned the favor with a long, slobbery kiss. Meg laughed and wiped her cheek. “Gotta teach you to kiss with less tongue.” He just grinned at her with more tail thumping. Meg pushed to her feet and shouldered her pack. “Okay, you look ready to get started again. I wonder how far this island goes?” Hands on her hips, she turned in a slow circle, assessing the land and the swamp surrounding it. “This must be the kind of island the runaway slaves hid on during the Civil War. Chances of anyone risking their lives to find them here would be small. And . . . where are you going?”

  Hawk had wandered about forty feet ahead, but instead of coming back, he sat down and turned his head to look at her.

  He’s alerting?

  The bottom dropped out of Meg’s stomach as she ran over. Instead of a body out of sight, all Hawk had found was a little hollow of grasses and dead leaves. On closer inspection, Meg realized the grass in the hollow was flattened. She dropped to her knees, examining the soil around the hollow.

  Tread marks. The same ones that had marked the hidden ditch.

  Meg threw an arm around Hawk and gave him a squeeze. “You brilliant boy! She was here. In fact, I bet this is where she spent last night. Smart boy, Hawk!” She gave him a smacking kiss on the top of the head. “Okay, you know what you’re looking for. She’s not here now, so she’s moved on. Hawk, this is Emma. Find her. Find Emma.”

  They waded through the swamp for about another twenty minutes before stepping out onto dry land again. It wasn’t an island, but rather the solid ground surrounding another drainage ditch that ran nearly north-south. For a moment, Hawk cast about for the scent, and Meg was just about to pull the restraints out again to offer to him when his head and tail shot up simultaneously and he trotted south, following the ditch. Meg stuffed the bag back into her SAR pack and jogged after him.

  Occasionally, Meg found a broken branch or a shoe print in the soft soil, reassuring her they were on the right path. She noted that the steps looked like they shuffled and dragged.

  “We need to find Emma, Hawk. She’s got to be tired. And that’s going to make her a target.”

  Hawk’s ears twitched at her voice, but he kept up the same steady trot.

  We need to find her soon, or we’ll be tired and could also be a target.

  Soon, up ahead, came the glimmer of sunlight flashing off water. And not a trickle in a ditch. A lot of water. They slipped from the trees and stopped, facing the Great Dismal Swamp’s Lake Drummond.

  Meg gaped at the unearthly beauty of the lake. Light clouds scudded across the sky, perfectly reflected in the smooth, unruffled surface of the lake. Giant bald cypress trees skirted the edge of the lake and grew out into its depths, some so mammoth, Meg bet they must have been close to seven- or eight-hundred years old.

  Centuries before the first pilgrim set foot on Plymouth Rock. Hard to wrap your mind around a living tree that old.

  A huge cypress’s massive boughs spread wide over the water, reflected back to look even taller than its one hundred feet. Nearby, a great blue heron stood motionless, his head tipped down toward the glasslike surface of the lake. Catching sight of Hawk, he spread his wings and launched gracefully into the air, sailing over a black willow, looking for more peaceful waters to fish. A rustling to their left drew Meg’s gaze, and she had just enough time t
o see a painted turtle splash from a flat rock into the shallow edge of the lake.

  Meg pulled her attention from the lake itself to scan the shoreline, but it seemed deserted. She pulled her binoculars from her pack and took a second look. The edge of the lake was a continual line of trees and underbrush. Farther down the lake, a wooden promontory, likely the outlook at the end of one of the park’s designated hiking trails, projected out into the water. Even it was deserted.

  People are cleaning up after the storm, not out for an afternoon’s hike.

  That suited Meg, as it made their job easier with fewer conflicting odors.

  “Okay, Hawk, you got us this far, now where did she go? Find Emma, Hawk.” She offered the scent again to refresh him and he set off to their right, down the edge of the lake. They didn’t stay by the lake for long, heading into the brush, even if only to stay thirty or forty feet in. “I bet she found the lake too exposed. Stay with her, buddy.”

  A scream ripped through the still air. A girl’s scream.

  Emma.

  “Hawk, go, find Emma! Go!”

  Hawk bolted in the direction of the scream, Meg sprinting behind him.

  Another scream, one filled with pure terror and desperation.

  Then, deadly silence.

  CHAPTER 11

  Hug-A-Tree and Survive: An educational program developed by a Border Patrol agent after the death of a lost child from hypothermia. The program is aimed at children ages seven through eleven and emphasizes, “If you are lost, stay put—hug a tree—until help arrives.” Rights to the program were donated to the National Association for Search and Rescue in 2005.

  Sunday, July 23, 12:58 PM

  Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge

  Chesapeake, Virginia

  Side by side, Meg and Hawk crashed through the dense trees, jerking to a halt as the ground disappeared beneath their feet to slope down into swamp water again.

  Meg frantically searched the swamp looking for any signs of life.