Wind River Lawman

by Lindsay McKenna

  How far away were they? How fast were they traveling? He lengthened his stride, the gradient becoming steeper. They were at eight thousand feet, the slope of the mountain cresting at eleven thousand feet. Trees would grow to the ten-thousand-foot line, the last thousand feet nothing but rock and some leftover snow, plus deadly, undetectable ice. Dawson wanted to avoid the ice. One slip from Sarah and she could go down. Not good. Keying his hearing, he could hear her mouth breathing. She wasn’t far behind him.

  They crested a small knoll and Dawson halted, pulling Sarah into him. He could see her concentration, the warrior look in her eyes as she settled beneath his arm around her shoulder.

  “I want you to go in front of me.” He pressed the radium dials on the GPS he held in his hand. “The trail direction has been set into it. Just keep following it. I’m going to have your six and keep King with me.” She was breathing harder now. For six weeks, she hadn’t been able to exercise, lift weights or do anything, so she was going to be out of condition. He tightened his arm around her for a moment. “How are you doing?”

  “Okay. I’m fine.”

  “Leg?”

  “No issues. I’m warmed up now. I’m going to try to jog. We have to put daylight between us and them.”

  Dawson couldn’t agree more. “I’ve walked this trail. There’s lots of thick pine-needle carpet in this area, and limbs and rocks hidden beneath it. Just do a very slow jog. Lift your boots higher than normal. Nothing fancy. Okay?”

  She gazed up at him. “Okay.”

  The words I love you nearly sprang out from between his thinned, tightened lips. They might be killed. Never had Dawson wanted to live more than now. Sarah was leaning into him, trusting him. He couldn’t lose her this way. He just couldn’t. He released her, and she reached out, grazing his chin with her gloved hand, then moved around him.

  For a moment, Dawson stood there, listening. King had turned around, nose pointed up in the air, sniffing in the direction from which Elson was coming. Below him, he could see the cabin surrounded by the trees. There was no movement around it.

  Yet.

  Chapter Eighteen

  July 30

  Sarah lunged up the slope, the pine needles slippery, threatening her balance. They were nearly a half a mile up the slope from the cabin. She had switched the leash from King’s collar to his vest. He was pulling her along with his eighty-pound body, helping her with every scrambling step he took. Fearful of falling behind, the terror of knowing Elson was hunting them, had shot adrenaline into her. She knew from combat that adrenaline would shield her from pain, but it wasn’t necessarily a good thing with her just-healed femur. Other fears jammed into her mind: slowing Dawson down, leaving them open to Elson’s swift-moving gang coming after them. She wasn’t keeping up, no matter how much her heart was in it. Her body had six weeks of complacency. Every other day she’d worked out at a gym, and she ran two to three miles at least three times a week to keep in shape. But six weeks off had made her body lax, coupled with that damned broken bone. Feeling the jab of pain every now and then from the bullet wound, Sarah expected to feel that and much more later as they ran for their lives.

  King raced forward, tugging her along, his hind legs like steel pistons, digging in. His large paws and claws dug deep into the pine needles, scattering them upward like small explosions with each lunge forward. Without King’s support and forward motion, Sarah knew she’d be even further behind Dawson than she already was.

  Knowing that the SWAT team from Teton County, and fifteen deputies from there as well, were speeding toward them right now gave her something to grab on to, and hope didn’t completely dissipate. Ten of her deputies were heading their way, too. All deputies from both counties would be combat armed, wearing protective vests and Kevlar helmets. Three weeks ago, Teton County had loaned her deputies night vision goggles; her county couldn’t afford such a thing. Clinging to hope, knowing it was a race to either die or live, Sarah dug the toes of her boots into the ground, gasping harshly for breath.

  Every now and then, Dawson would slow down and look over his shoulder. But he said nothing. Sarah knew she was slowing him down. Far too slow. She was making them an easy target to track. Elson would be able to follow them once he discovered which way they’d gone. It would give them time. How much, she didn’t know.

  Finally, they came to a stop about ten feet from the crest of the rocky top of the slope. Dawson came back, placing his hand around her right arm. Gasping, she sobbed for breath. He led her over to a grove of evergreens where they could hide while they rested up. Her knees were shaking. Leaning down, hands upon them once they were hidden, she hung her head, trying to catch her breath. Lungs burning, her heart crashing against her ribs like a wild thing that wanted to rip out of it and fly free, she fought to regain her strength.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, placing his hand on her shoulder, leaning over, studying her with intensity and missing nothing.

  Sarah removed the goggles, allowing them to hang around her neck. “Not as good as I want to be,” she managed between gasps. His hand felt comforting and warm. Protective. “I’m sorry, Dawson. . . .”

  “It’s all right. I think you did a helluva job climbing that slope. How’s your leg feeling?”

  “My legs feel really weak. The bullet wound jabs me with pain, but it’s bearable. Adrenaline is in play.”

  Removing his canteen from the side of his waist, he unscrewed it. “Here, drink up. You can’t dehydrate now. I’m going to check your wound. I want to make sure it’s not bleeding.”

  Knowing he was right, she straightened, took the aluminum canteen and drank sips between gasps of air. Adrenaline did amazing things for a person’s body, increasing their strength, but there was a price to pay for it. Dawson was right to check her wound. The puncture hole was healing from the bottom up, and he had to clean it out every day. It was damned painful every morning, and Sarah hadn’t looked forward to it. Puncture wounds would quickly scab over the top, leaving a dark, airless space below it, and bacteria could blossom. Every morning, Dawson had to remove the scab across the top, clean down into the wound hole. If the scab at the top wasn’t removed daily so oxygen could get into the wound to allow it to heal, bacteria would set in and the area could become infected.

  She felt his hands moving knowingly, carefully, around her wound, gently probing here and there. He then slid his hands below the wound. Drinking more water, she let it nourish her, and she felt steadier. King sat at her side, panting heavily, always alert. She leaned over, cupped her hand so he could lick water from it. Afterward, she patted his broad skull, silently thanking him for his amazing strength.

  Dawson straightened and stood. He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Your wound’s bleeding, Sarah.”

  Terror pulsed through her. “How bad?” She hadn’t felt the blood running down her thigh at all, thanks to the numbing effects of adrenaline.

  “Your trouser is soaked with it down below your knee. You probably tore it open on that climb.”

  Hearing the heaviness, the concern in his soft voice, she handed him back the canteen. “But it’s not hemorrhaging?”

  “No, but it’s not a good sign.” He caressed her shoulder. “Stay where you are. I’m going to put an Ace bandage above it to slow the bleeding.”

  Wanting to groan with despair, she swallowed the sound. The tension was thick around them. She knew the score. If it continued to bleed, she could lose enough blood that, over time, it would weaken her to the point of her being unable to escape Elson. “I slipped a couple of times,” she admitted as he opened his pack on the ground in front of her. “I probably tore it open then, but I didn’t feel it.”

  “The beauty of adrenaline,” he remarked, kneeling. “Hold on to that tree trunk next to you. This isn’t going to be pleasant.”

  Her breathing had finally slowed. She gripped the trunk, the bark knobby against her palm. “Go ahead . . .”

  Dawson tightened the bandage.

/>   Sarah tried to remain silent. Gritting her teeth, fingers digging into the bark of the tree, she inhaled sharply.

  “There,” he muttered, standing. “How does it feel now?”

  “It feels tight, but I’m not feeling much pain either.”

  Looking around, he said, “Let me check in with Cade to find out where they are.”

  “Yes.” Sarah knew it was a matter of time. Who would get to them first? Elson or the deputies? Elson’s men were armed with AK-47s. They had two M4s. Two against eight. It wasn’t good odds. She listened to Dawson calling Cade, and although she couldn’t hear her assistant commander, she could hear Dawson’s end of the conversation. He ended the call and came back to where she was standing.

  “How close are they to us?”

  “Thirty minutes out.” He pulled the NVGs off, allowing them to hang around his neck. “I’m sure Elson is at or very near the cabin right now. There’s a half mile between us and them. Even though I’ve given Cade the GPS of our position, they’ll have to run into Elson, who might have left a few men behind at intervals to act as his rear guard. We don’t know if he’s that strategic or not.”

  Shaking her head, Sarah muttered, “And half a mile is nothing. If they find our egress point and start tracking us, they can be here in twenty or thirty minutes.”

  “Yeah, not good.” He gave her a long, hard look. “We’re initiating plan B.”

  “What’s that?” She saw the grim look in his shadowed eyes. As he placed his hand on her shoulder, she felt that powerful sense of protection emanating from him to her. It fed her, made her feel less terrified.

  “A few days ago, I scouted along this ridge.” He gestured toward the rocky spine that curved upward from where they stood. “There’s a group of Douglas fir not far from here. They’ve grown together, their branches interlacing one another. If you could climb into that group of trees, you could easily make your way up at least fifty feet above the ground and remain completely hidden. There’s plenty of branches to hide you, and to support you. That way? King and I could lead them away from there, create another tracking trail for them to follow. About two hundred feet from that grove is another similar grouping. There’s also a small cave about ten feet away from it. I can put King into that cave and give him the command to stay, then, run back up to that grove, climb into it and wait for Elson and his gang to pass right under me without him realizing we’re there.”

  “And what will you do? Pick them off like a sniper?”

  He pulled off the baseball cap, running his fingers through his damp hair. “We have muzzle suppressors on our M4s. They won’t be able to find me. I can keep them pinned down until help arrives if they suspect something and stop to look around. If they move on? I won’t fire a shot.”

  “Maybe I can still be of help, though. If any of Elson’s men loiter between the two stands of trees, we have them bracketed; we can pin them down.” She saw Dawson give her a wolfish grin, his eyes glittering.

  “You’re right. It’s only two hundred feet from where you’ll be hidden. The possibility of them retreating from where I am could drive them your way. A pincer’s movement. Good thinking, if we have to use it as plan C. I’d prefer they don’t get wind of us at all and they move on by us, though.”

  She felt slightly better. “Okay, let’s get going. I’ve got a tree to climb.” Pulling up her NVGs, she followed Dawson. He deliberately picked the rocky summit of the ridge for a good reason: they couldn’t be tracked across rocks. Oh, she knew some Taliban trackers who could, but she was betting Elson and his group weren’t nearly that good. Her boots slipped every now and then, and she was forced to focus entirely on not falling and watching where she placed her feet. She could see the white vapor coming out of her mouth. They were at nine thousand feet by now, judging by her labored breathing. King remained at her side, most of his attention downslope and in the direction of their cabin far below. Sarah would bet anything that Elson had located their trail and was tracking them. It scared the hell out of her.

  Dawson halted and then led her down a steep slope. She saw a thick stand of fir. The closer she got, looking up in the tangle of branches, she could see it was like a thick latticework. Dawson drew to a halt at the middle tree in the group of ten trees.

  “This is the one,” and he patted a low-hanging branch about three feet off the ground. “The heavy snow up on this ridge bent a lot of these limbs toward one another when they were young trees. Sling the rifle across your back. I’ll help you up.”

  Sarah nodded. She loosened the sling, allowing Dawson to place it diagonally across her back so it wouldn’t slip off during her climb.

  “How’s the leg feeling?”

  “Same.” She moved forward, standing close to him and the trunk of the tree. Lifting her gloved hand, she placed it against his broad shoulder. “Be careful, Dawson.” The words came out low, filled with emotion. She saw him nod. He grazed her neck with his thumb.

  “When we get out of this? Things are going to change between us, Sarah. Good changes. We deserve quality time with each other.”

  Tears jammed suddenly into her eyes and she made an unhappy sound, blinking rapidly, forcing them back. “We might not get out of this. You know that as well as I do.” She tightened her hand on him. “I’m falling in love with you, Dawson. And there’s no guarantee we’ll live through this. . . .” She saw his mouth flex, his hand caressing her nape.

  “And I started loving you from the day I met you, sweetheart. Don’t give up on us just yet,” he rasped. “You’re mine and I’m yours. We just need a clear spot in our lives to explore what we have. Come on; I’ll help you start your climb,” and he cupped his hands so she could place her boot into them.

  Swallowing hard, pushing her love for him aside, she gave a jerky nod. It was the first time he’d used an endearment, and it coated her wildly beating heart with hope, the adrenaline starting to crash through her again. Grabbing one of the lower-hanging branches, she saw a pathway up the tree, much like climbing a spiral staircase. Dawson lifted her. With a grunt, she guided her left foot onto the limb, placing it next to the trunk, utilizing the strongest part of the branch. Dawson got behind her, hand on the small of her back, steadying her as she caught and regained her balance. With each lift of her wounded right leg, pain shot up into it. Taking one branch after another, gritting her teeth, Sarah didn’t groan. Instead, she kept on climbing. Soon enough, Dawson was far below her. The branches overlapping from the other trees began to swat and blind her temporarily as she moved up through them.

  “You’re doing fine,” he told her from below, speaking softly into his mic. “You’re roughly twenty feet from that spot I saw. Can you see it above and to the right of you?”

  Sarah craned her neck upward, staring hard through the grainy green of her NVGs, spotting the area Dawson had wanted her to go. It was an amazing tangle of branches, some interwoven, the large, fanlike greenery covering it almost like half an eggshell below it.

  “Yeah, see it.” Huffing, her grip sure on each branch she grabbed, straining upward, she pushed off strongly with her good leg. Finally, she made it up into the spot.

  “I’m here,” she gasped, and pulled her M4 off, settling the sling over a short, broken-off branch. Next, she slid out of her knapsack, hanging it on another nearby limb. She leaned back on the steadying trunk of the fir, settling her butt into a slight, cuplike depression of sturdy limbs beneath her.

  “What do you think of your new perch?”

  “Great. Comfortable. I can see the other grove two hundred feet down the slope from me.”

  “That’s where I’ll eventually go. Right now, I’m going to backtrack and make a new trail for Elson to follow. Once I’m up in my tree, I’ll contact you.”

  “Copy that. Be careful.” She saw a couple of good openings in the fir branches to take a good, clean shot in several directions. With a muzzle suppressor on her rifle, the fir a second wall that would hide a flash from eyes below, it was almos
t a perfect hide for a sniper. Further, she could settle her boots on other limbs in several directions and not fall down. She was at least fifty feet off the ground. Above her, through the latticework of fir, she could see the top of this old tree soaring into the starlit sky sparkling above her. The wind was buffeting the area because she was just below the ridge. Sometimes, the wind howled. The trees would rock slightly, the outer branches a lot more active from the cold gusts whipping across the ridge, than the inner, more protected ones.

  Sarah moved quickly to lay out extra clips from her vest so she could easily reach them. She began to relax in the cradlelike arms of the fir, her gaze continuously sweeping the area. Her M4 had an infrared scope, and she flipped it from the side of her weapon up onto the rail for use. Taking off her NVGs, she turned it on and peered through the scope that was designed to pick up body heat. A man would appear as a bright red body in her scope. She wouldn’t see details, just a blur of red for his shape. She’d utilized this scope many times in Afghanistan, so it was known and familiar to her.

  Her wounded thigh ached, and she gently laid her rifle against the inside of her left leg and pulled off her glove, feeling the fabric of her trousers below where Dawson had placed the tight bandage. It was wet with her blood, but it wasn’t warm, which would indicate she was still bleeding. The tightness made her leg throb, but it was nothing compared to the alternative of slowly bleeding out over time.

  She wanted to hear from Dawson. Two hundred feet wasn’t that far away from her hiding spot. She knew he had to first create a different trail away from her. Then he had to take King to that small cave. Lastly, he had to run to his grove of trees and begin his climb after creating a backtrack. Looking at the radium dials on her wristwatch, she saw that only ten minutes had passed. Keying her hearing, she heard nothing but the wind sifting through the evergreens across the slope. It was a soothing sound to her, but she didn’t want to get too relaxed. Elson was coming. It was just a question of when and from what direction he would appear. She slowly moved her rifle, scope to her eye, slowly panning from right to left, trying to pick up a heat signature that would let her know it was Elson’s gang coming for them.