The Replacement

by Anne Marie Duquette

  “I’ll pass,” she decided. She had hot chocolate in her own thermos. Less ground cover made relieving herself a problem, although admittedly that was the least of her problems at present. She straightened painfully, wincing at the stitch in her side as she slipped her unshod boot back into the snowshoe, then bent again to fasten the straps.

  “Want me to spell you with the sled?” she asked. Fair was fair. Even though they were hauling a decoy, they’d added wood beneath the blankets and clothing to simulate the correct amount of weight on the runners.

  “Maybe later. I’m fine,” Keith said. “You ready to go?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Here. Give me your hand.” Keith bent to the side and downward to help her up. At that movement a rifle shot rang out.

  Lindsey saw Keith grab at his shoulder with his glove as he spun and fell face-forward in the snow. Lindsey dove down next to him at the sound of a second rifle shot. She stayed low and on her belly as she unzipped the top half of his jacket. Keith was bleeding from not only the entrance wound, but an exit wound, as well.

  She grabbed a smaller blanket from the sled, folding it and hard-packing the wound, applying direct pressure from both sides.

  Keith, still conscious, groaned and swore a foul expletive that Lindsey shared, then tried to lift his head.

  “Lie still!” Lindsey hissed, pressing hard. “And stay down! That idiot could fire at us again!” Keeping her own head low, she cautiously searched the area for movement, praying desperately that Eric would reach them before Wilson did.

  Lindsey’s prayers were answered. Within minutes Eric was at her side, his rifle carried at the ready, his face grim.

  “You okay?” they asked each other at the same time.

  “Yes, but Keith’s not,” Lindsey answered unnecessarily, continuing to kneel and apply direct pressure.

  “Keith—” Eric started to speak, but Keith, still conscious, cut him off.

  “Tell me you killed that bastard! Because if you didn’t, I will!”

  “I never saw him. I heard the first shot and fired blind right after to warn him off.”

  “Thank God,” Lindsey breathed.

  “How bad is it?” Eric asked Keith.

  Keith’s answer didn’t bear repeating.

  “Straight through the shoulder,” Lindsey answered for him. “Ric, if he hadn’t bent over to help me up—” She broke off, her voice shaky. At his narrowed eyes, she made a conscious effort to pull herself together. “Sorry.”

  Eric searched the horizon before flicking on the rifle’s safety and slinging it over his shoulder. As Lindsey field-dressed Keith’s wound and refastened his jacket, Eric cleared off the sled and rigged it for a real passenger. All the while Eric scanned the open areas for trouble.

  With the sled parallel to Keith, Lindsey and Eric prepared to lift him aboard, but Keith crawled onto it himself.

  “Stay still!” Eric ordered. “The last thing you need is to go into shock.”

  “My legs work,” Keith said, although a fine sheen of sweat had appeared on his forehead. “I could walk if I had to. I probably should. Lindsey can’t tow me, and she can’t shoot.”

  “The hell I can’t.” Lindsey began to fasten Keith, blankets and all, aboard the sled. “My mother’s a retired cop. I don’t like guns, but I grew up with them. I have no problem shooting a man in self-defense. Especially Wilson.”

  Keith’s expression registered surprise. Lindsey noticed Eric’s shocked look, too. Four years ago, she wouldn’t have been able to make such a statement. She’d refused to become firearms-certified. But those four years had changed her, made her a mature realist instead of a starry-eyed fool in love. She finished securing Keith in the sled and stood up with the towing straps. She held them out to Eric with one gloved hand, holding out the other for his rifle. Without a word, she made the exchange. She carried the rifle in her arms instead of slung over her back.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  THE HIKE BACK TOOK MUCH longer than the half hour it had taken earlier. Lindsey, in the point position, retraced their previous trail, while Eric pulled Keith over the mostly level terrain. At some of the more rugged areas, it took the two of them to tow the sled. In one particularly uneven place, Keith actually unstrapped himself so the others could walk him over the obstacle. Lindsey and Eric could have taken another, longer and much more exposed way around, but Keith, who remained conscious, insisted they all stay within cover of the few trees at the subalpine heights. No one argued with his reasoning.

  Finally, two hours later, and more than three hours since they’d first left, the trio came within sight of the ranger cabin. Once they reached the front porch, they heard Ginger barking from inside. Keith started to undo his safety straps.

  “Would you quit playing macho man and let me help you?” Lindsey demanded. Keith might be hurt, but he certainly didn’t lack physical courage.

  “We’ll walk you in,” Eric ordered. Lindsey flicked on the rifle’s safety and put it around her back via the strap for the first time since she’d taken it from Eric. She grabbed Keith’s waist, while Eric grabbed his good arm to sling around his shoulders. And quickly, but carefully, they got the wounded man to his feet.

  Keith groaned with pain as the three tackled the steps to the porch door. Naomi and Ginger both burst through the inner door to let them through.

  “What happened?”

  “Wilson,” Eric said tersely. “Keith’s been shot in the shoulder. Where do you want him?”

  “My bedroom. My medical stuff’s in there. It’s okay, Pam,” Naomi said as they passed the child. “Stay on the couch.”

  Pam stayed, but, after seeing the bleeding man, began to cry.

  “Want me to stay with Pam?” Lindsey asked, helping Keith onto the bed.

  “Go,” Naomi said.

  “I’ll help get him undressed,” Eric said.

  “I can undress myself,” Keith protested as Lindsey left and closed the door behind her. She hurried to the fire to remove her gear before trying to comfort the child. In addition to having snow and ice on her clothing, her gloves were covered with blood, as were parts of her jacket. Ginger, who had retired to her usual spot on the hearth to watch the proceedings, sniffed at the discarded gloves and whined softly. Lindsey knew exactly how the shaken animal felt.

  “What happened?” Pam asked.

  “Keith got hurt. We had to come back.”

  Lindsey removed first the rifle and then her jacket; some of the blood spots were now frozen pink pellets. Lindsey brushed them into the fire before they thawed, making it hiss and spark. She rubbed her hands together to warm her fingers, then pulled off her woolen hat.

  “Is he going to die?” Pam asked.

  “No. He’s hurt, but it’s not serious,” Lindsey said confidently.

  Pam bit her lip. “Did Daddy shoot him?”

  For a panicked moment, Lindsey contemplated lying, but realized that Pam and Naomi would both have heard the gunshot across the open snow with the granite range to amplify it. Lindsey also realized that Pam knew more about her father’s violent tendencies than any of them.

  “Yes, Pam.” She hurried to the couch to wrap an arm around the child’s trembling shoulders. The tears that had started upon their arrival continued to flow down the girl’s cheeks.

  “I wish he wouldn’t hurt people,” she sobbed.

  “I wish he wouldn’t, either.” Lindsey touched the girl’s cheeks with the cuff of her sweater. “Shall we say a prayer for him?”

  “It won’t help,” Pam said in the heart-rending voice of the victimized. “Mom and I already tried that.”

  “We’ll catch him. And after we do, they have doctors back at his jail who can help,” Lindsey said bluntly. “He won’t be able to hurt anyone, and when he gets out, maybe he’ll be a better person.”

  Pam remained silent and unconvinced. Lindsey reached over to the coffee table and the sheets of paper. “I see you’ve been drawing.”


  Pam nodded.

  “These are pretty good. Did you do one of Ginger?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “Maybe you could do one for me later. I don’t have any pictures of her. Speaking of Ginger, has she been out lately?” Lindsey asked casually. She didn’t like the way the bloodied clothing had affected Pam.

  “Naomi didn’t want to unlock the doors.”

  “Guess I’d better take her, then. Will you be okay until I get back?”

  Pam shrugged.

  Lindsey grabbed for her jacket and hat. She picked up the gloves, not to put on again, but to discard on the porch, out of Pam’s sight. There were others of Eva’s she could wear. Lindsey hesitated, then, under the child’s watchful gaze, grabbed the rifle as well and called for the dog.

  “I won’t be long. Stay off those feet,” she said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ERIC WATCHED AS NAOMI examined her newest patient. Keith lay on the bed, an IV with saline and antibiotics hooked up to his arm, his shoulder deftly wrapped in a pressure bandage. She’d also given him something for the pain, which had finally quieted him enough to first relax, then sleep.

  “He looks like hell. Will he be okay?” Eric asked.

  “I think so. He’s lost blood, but not enough to be life-threatening.”

  “You can thank Lindsey for that. She had him field-dressed before I made it to the sled, and believe me I was moving fast. Plus, she carried the rifle back while I towed Keith.”

  “Thank God we have her. And thank God Wilson didn’t cause any more harm,” Naomi said, her passionate words a contrast to her professional demeanor. She studied Keith’s IV line with a practiced eye.

  “When you get time, check out Lindsey,” Eric said. “Her muscles were sore enough from skiing. From what I saw, she was hurting quite a bit while snowshoeing.”

  “She’ll be lucky if she can make it to the outhouse tomorrow,” Naomi said with sympathy, “let alone do any long-distance hiking.”

  “She won’t be leaving the cabin tomorrow. None of us will. I’m sorry, Naomi,” he told her. “I know how you feel about this, but it just isn’t safe.”

  “I already figured that out, twin. And I’m okay with it.” Naomi glanced at her watch. “The generator needs more fuel. Since Keith’s going to be off work detail for a while, you and Lindsey will have to cover for him.”

  “I’ll look after it,” Eric said, once more pulling on his discarded jacket, hat and gloves. “Take good care of him. If you need me, yell.”

  Naomi nodded. “Be careful.”

  Eric left Naomi’s room, closing the door behind him. In the common room, he saw Lindsey with Pam. The woman and child were drawing pictures, Ginger at their feet. Lindsey looked up at his entrance. She’d obviously been worried sick over her co-worker.

  “How’s Keith?”

  “Naomi says he’ll be okay.”

  He saw Lindsey stroke the girl’s hair with a gentle touch. “See? I told you.” To Eric, she said, “Pam’s hungry. I’m warming up some vegetable soup and I’ve sliced some bread. We all need to eat.”

  “After I gas up the generator.”

  “Take your rifle,” Lindsey immediately said.

  “Planned on it.”

  “And take the dog, okay? She’ll hear anything before you will. If you aren’t back in fifteen minutes, I’m taking Keith’s rifle and coming after you.”

  “Stay put. That’s an order.”

  “I mean it. Fifteen minutes,” Lindsey repeated, nodding at the cabin clock. “No more.”

  Eric called Ginger and left, systematically perusing the horizon as Ginger sniffed and sampled the air. Eric didn’t notice anything, nor did the dog. After one last look around, he hurried to the generator shack. The padlock and chain hadn’t been tampered with, and all seemed in order as he entered, Ginger at his heels. The diesel holding-tank gauge showed it was running in the “low to empty” redline area, and he hurried to the warming plates where the fuel was kept heated. Regular gasoline froze solid in the frigid winters, and even diesel could turn viscous and unusable. Once the generator stopped, not only would the engine freeze, but the warming plates for keeping the fuel liquid would shut down as well.

  To Eric’s disgust, his fingers shook as he removed the clamp-on warming element from the diesel tank. They’d also shaken when he’d removed his gloves to unlock the padlock, and it wasn’t from the cold, either. He was afraid of what further damage Wilson could do to them. His stomach had been knotted since the first crack of Wilson’s rife. His joy at seeing Lindsey unharmed had quickly turned to horror at the bloodred evidence of Keith’s injury. First he’d lost Eva to the snow, then he’d almost lost Keith to a bullet, and the rest of them were still at risk from a deranged gunman. At least he, Eric, had his health.

  The condition of the others—Naomi with a possible tumor, Keith with an injured shoulder and Pam with frostbitten feet—didn’t help their odds. Lindsey hadn’t had time to adjust to the altitude or cold yet; she was still on Diamox and using “poppers,” chemical heaters, in her boots and gloves. But she hadn’t complained once on the trek back. She’d even offered to change places and relieve him from towing the sled if he needed it, but she couldn’t hide the gasping breaths she needed to function.

  He poured in the last of the fuel, clamped the warming plate onto a fresh tank of diesel, locked the shack up again and pulled his gloves back on. I’ve done all I can here. His fingers had stopped shaking while he was doing the chores, but neither chores nor the trek back to the cabin could dispel his gut-sick feeling of worry.

  LINDSEY PUT AWAY the washed dishes. Everyone, but Keith, groggy and medicated, had finished big bowls of soup. Even the despondent Pam had eaten. The fire blazed hot, adding its light to that of the dim, generator-powered bulbs. Fretful now, Pam was back in her bed. Naomi had dosed her with more tablets and orange juice for her fever, and settled her down. She was reading to the child from another nature book while keeping a watchful eye on Keith. Only Lindsey, Eric and the dog occupied the common room. Eric had just finished updating his superior on the situation, checked on the weather report, then turned down the static on the radio. Lindsey, sitting at the hearth, listened in. Hearing the stark situation described by Eric’s grim voice created an almost perceptible gloom that even the fire or electricity couldn’t dispel.

  “Should we move another bed into Naomi’s room?” Lindsey asked Eric. “Might be easier now that she’s taking care of two patients. Or should we move Pam out? She could sleep with me.”

  “I thought about moving you and Pam into my room and sleeping out here on the couch. I could keep an eye on the door.”

  That made sense. To preserve heat, the bedrooms had no windows; just the common room did. The connecting door to the porch and the outside was the only way Wilson would be able to invade the cabin. The windows weren’t big enough to admit an adult.

  “I should let Naomi know,” Eric said, but he made no move to leave his chair. After a moment, he added, “Thanks for your help this morning.”

  “Some help. I didn’t spot Wilson.”

  “Neither did I. But we were lucky.”

  “Only because my muscles gave out and Keith was bending over to help me up,” Lindsey said with self-disgust.

  “If that’s true—and we don’t know it is—I don’t think Keith’s complaining. I know I’m not.”

  Eric’s kind words didn’t soothe her at all.

  “I didn’t even see it coming. So much for women’s intuition. I’m just thankful the damage wasn’t worse.” Lindsey twisted the tight diamond ring on her finger around and around. “Some replacement ranger I am.”

  Eric rose from the chair to join her, his back to the fire. “You’re the best kind of replacement ranger. You’re our wild card, and right now we need that. If none of us can guess your next move, Wilson sure as hell won’t be able to.”

  He reached for her shoulders and began to knead them, and the tight muscles arou
nd her neck. Lindsey froze, resisting his touch for only a second, then she relaxed.

  “Don’t move,” he said, quickly leaving and returning with a tube. He squirted a dab onto each of his fingertips, then slipped them inside her layers of thermal, flannel and sweater. The strong smell of liniment filled the air.

  “I hate this stuff,” Lindsey said in a more normal voice. “It’s just a skin irritant that increases blood circulation to the chemically poisoned area.”

  “I don’t think the drug companies label it ‘poison.’ Anyway, no one ever died from massaging with liniment.” A trace of humor colored his voice as he continued to rub.

  “It stinks, too,” Lindsey muttered.

  “Sorry, but our Jacuzzi and spa facilities aren’t open today.”

  She felt rather than saw his smile.

  “You rarely complain about the big things, Lindsey. Just the little ones. It’s one of the reasons I fell for you.”

  His hands stopped their movement on her shoulders. For a moment she thought he’d withdraw them altogether, but after a few seconds his gentle massage resumed. “Where else do you hurt?”

  “Mostly my legs. But I’m not complaining,” she said, glancing toward the women’s bedroom. “I took some over-the-counter tablets.”

  Eric removed his hands to pass her the liniment tube. “Use some of this on your legs when you go to bed,” he said. “I don’t want you hurting.”

  “Maybe I’ll try a little.” She took the tube and slipped it into her flannel shirt pocket under his watchful gaze.

  “Why don’t you sit on the furniture?” he suggested. “You’d be more comfortable.”

  “It’s too far away from the fire.”

  “You’re always in front of the fire.”

  “That’s because I hate the cold. Hate the snow. Hate the winter.”

  Eric couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Since when?”

  Lindsey didn’t answer his question directly. “I’m a native San Diegan. I grew up in the land of sunshine, citrus groves and Frisbees at the beach. I only came to Yosemite in the summer to rock climb, and to practice search-and-rescue in the High Sierra. It was just supposed to be a summer ranger job.”