Summer Searcher

by M K Dymock

  “The air is warm enough. I’ll switch the sock out when we get back to camp.”

  He didn’t try to dissuade her; he wouldn’t waste their time. The high edge of the glacier butted up against solid granite rock. The stream cascaded between the boulders and under the snow. Somewhere up above them a child had placed the toy in the water. And there wasn’t much left above them.

  45

  Hylia’s foot had grown numb, but every other part of her hummed in anticipation. For the first time in years, she considered what she would do if she came face to face with her father. Sol had asked her what her plan was, but the truth was she didn’t have one. She hadn’t ever truly considered success.

  “Sol.”

  He paused his climb up the first boulder, one the size of a car.

  She squatted next to him. “I need to go alone.”

  “No.”

  “If he sees you–”

  “And what if he sees you? What if he thinks you’re a danger like your mother was?” He pulled himself up next to her. “I won’t take that chance.”

  She kept climbing.

  They followed the stream as well as they could. The rocks grew in size, making some spots impassable.

  “We should head back,” Hylia finally said after twenty feet took them twenty minutes. “We’ll lose the light before we make it to the horses. We’re better off coming in right before dawn, and I need dry shoes and feeling in my toes before we do any more hiking.”

  He didn’t argue, and in a few hours they were back at camp with her socks hanging over a tree limb. There would be no fire tonight—nothing to signal their location.

  They climbed into their sleeping bags. She waited for Sol’s breathing to deepen and the soft snore she’d grown accustomed to come out. It didn’t. “It’ll be okay,” she said into the darkness.

  “You shouldn’t be the one reassuring me.”

  “It has to be okay.” They lay in two separate sleeping bags, but she managed to roll over and curl into his side. Through the layers of fabric, he tensed before relaxing into her. Their warm breath filled the inches between their faces.

  “It will be,” he whispered. “We’ll find them.”

  His breath finally lengthened, and when she whispered his name he didn’t respond. She crawled out of the tent, leaving the zipper undone.

  With wet socks and shoes and a dimming headlamp, she slipped into the night and abandoned Sol.

  She would find them alone.

  A twinge of guilt kept pace with Hylia, but she ignored it as she did her tired feet, her exhausted legs, and her sad heart. They’d been her constant companions over the last twenty years, and she’d gotten by just fine. He was better off without her. Who knew what her dad would do if she showed up with a law man.

  With the summer equinox only a few weeks behind them and being this far north of the equator, the night didn’t hold on for long. With the full moon sinking in the western sky and the sun pushing a gray dawn into the west, she climbed back up the boulder field.

  The trek up the stream the day before had been a distraction. She didn’t need to follow it to find her family. The toy had only served to prove they were finally on the right path. Between her and Catherine, they’d deciphered enough of the writings to map out a mine—a hidden fortress that would be her father’s fallback against the evils of the world.

  Hylia only needed to find the landmarks—the glacier, a stream, and the last item she’d spotted as the sun sank the day before.

  She no longer needed Sol’s help.

  A line of dead trees, fallen prey to a lightning storm some forty years before, pointed the way. The twisting trees, long since devoid of even a small amount of scraggly pine needles, shouldn’t have grown this far north. Maybe when they’d started from seeds 4,000 years ago, they hadn’t known better. Bristle cones trees, much like her father, only survived above 10,000 feet and in harsh climates. They were often found around glaciers.

  Catherine in all her knowledge swore they didn’t grow that far north, instead staying mostly around Nevada and California. Hylia hadn’t argued but instead remembered her father’s stories of the trees. “If they take root in good conditions, they don’t live as long. They thrive in harsh conditions. You and your brother need to grow like that or you’ll never survive.”

  When she’d spotted them the day before, she recognized them immediately from his drawings. His notes contained their description along with the that of the mine they stood sentry at.

  Dawn brightened the rock ridges above her, and she fought the urge to call out. She stayed wedged between two boulders, separated from her family by a rocky bowl. The few hundred feet weighed more on her than any of the miles. She kept the binoculars pressed against her eyes while her heart pressed against her chest.

  Something moved under the trees. She stayed still, waiting. A bird jumped off one of the higher branches, and Hylia forgot to breathe. The bird didn’t account for slow movement behind the trees deep in the shade of the morning. Red plaid flashed through the branches. She almost dropped the binoculars.

  As she jumped to her feet, a distant rumble of thunder echoed across the peaks. She stared up into the immense blue sky in utter confusion. The roar didn’t dissipate but grew louder. It echoed around her, filling the air with an ungodly noise. She did drop the binoculars to grasp her ears.

  A bright red helicopter crested the ridge where her family had to be hiding. “No!” she screamed, but her pain was wrapped up in the engine. She took to her feet and tried to run across the boulder field. The helicopter sank down until it hovered ahead of her. A shadowed man in the helicopter pointed a rifle at her.

  She turned to flee back into the tree line, but Sol stood there, carrying his own gun. “Stop!” he yelled.

  The helicopter hid any chance she had of finally being home. “Run,” she screamed, knowing no one could hear her. “Run!”

  Merrell had been right; no one could be trusted.

  46

  Sol sat in his old office waiting for the current sheriff. They’d initially put Hylia in the single interrogation room, but she sat in such complete silence, they’d locked her in the cell. He only knew that because Clint came out halfway through to plead with Sol to speak with her.

  He shot out a mirthless laugh. “You really think I have any influence over her?”

  Clint left him in his old office with a slammed door.

  The absolute look of hatred and betrayal she’d bestowed on him as the helicopter took off would never leave him. She blamed him for the helicopter, blamed him for losing her father, and blamed him for her niece. He’d lost them both a second time.

  “He’d have taken off the moment he heard the engine,” Hylia said, rage filling her eyes even as her body went limp in defeat, as they handcuffed her.

  “Who?” Clint demanded, and she stopped talking. Her trust had run out.

  Sol explained that they, maybe, had come close to David Hayes. Clint wanted to continue the chase, but there were only three of them and no hope of catching a man who knew the mountain better than Sol and the underground better than Catherine. They buzzed the mountain peaks with no sign until their fuel tank indicated they’d best return home.

  Sol and Clint sat across the fake wood table they’d acquired from the old elementary school when it shut down due to low enrollment. He kept his gaze on the table and the few swear words nobody had managed to sand out.

  Clint usually seemed to feel awkward bossing his former boss around. He deferred to Sol in a way he never did to any other person. But not today. “Tell me everything.”

  Sol decided now was the time to give in to his God-given nature and his constitutional rights and remain silent about their actions for now.

  “How did you find us?”

  “Us? You disappeared for a week without checking in or telling anyone where you were going. That’s a lot, even for you. Then two days ago, I hear at the gas station someone saw you with a woman—that woman. I th
ought she might’ve hurt you or something.”

  Sol almost scoffed at the thought Hylia could take him down, but then reconsidered the possibility and agreed with the likelihood. “She didn’t, but you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Did you forget there’s a tracker in your GPS sending a signal every day?”

  He cringed at his own stupidity. “All this time you’ve been following me like I’m a criminal? How long have you been watching us?”

  “Don’t exaggerate. Your state-issued GPS sends out a ping. Everyone’s in the department does, and if you ever listened to me you would know that.” Clint scooted his chair back, a squeak echoing back. Things were slipping.

  “You could’ve messaged me. Asked me straight up.”

  “And you would’ve told me?”

  Sol’s silence answered that one.

  “There is a warrant out for her arrest,” Clint continued. “I assumed my best deputy would not voluntarily be in the company of a fugitive. Sol, what is going on? Please, don’t tell me you’ve been taken in by the wrong woman again.”

  Sol slammed a fist on what had been his desk, and Clint flinched. He usually kept his temper so well, folks forgot he had one. Daisy had been a mistake, yes, but marrying into a mismatched relationship was nothing to lose a reputation over. And, make no mistake about it, Hylia was no Daisy. “You should’ve trusted me. I’ve earned that.”

  Clint leaned forward, his eyes on his former boss. “Chapa, where did you go?”

  The thing about being a former sheriff was that he knew what they could and couldn’t do. Clint hadn’t yet charged Hylia with a crime, which meant his evidence was a little shoddy. He wouldn’t want to release her without knowing her real identity, but he could only hold her so long. What she needed was a lawyer to cut through the red tape.

  Sol wanted to capture David more so than Clint, but he knew better than anyone the only slim chance they had lay in the daughter who would not talk to either of them. He leaned back in his chair, smiling. “We went camping.”

  “Camping, really?”

  “Yep, it’s this thing where you trek from place to place and sleep in a tent. You should try it; it’s soothing to the soul.”

  Clint leaned forward, closing the distance between them. “You and her? Did she say anything?”

  His next statement was less to salvage the situation and more to needle an old friend. He was so tired of the entire town weighing in on his personal life decisions. He made eye contact with Clint. “Yes, me and her. It’s nice to share a tent with a woman after so many nights alone.”

  Clint’s gaze narrowed on him, which he returned without flinching. “Sol, while you were wandering the wilderness, an elderly hiker went missing down by the Junction. Why don’t you go and help out the search?” His voice barely controlled the anger. “And leave your badge.”

  Sol didn’t look back as he peeled out of the parking lot, gravel flying, his truck pointed to the canyon and the Junction. He didn’t make it a mile before he pulled over and slammed his fist in the steering wheel and turned around.

  Sol had finally chosen someone other than the community, and she hated him, and he didn’t blame her.

  47

  Hylia sat on a makeshift cot in a windowless room, waiting and despising every second of it. That’s what drove her from the mountains—the waiting. Waiting for the snow to melt, waiting for the passes to clear, and, more than anything, waiting for her father to return and Merrell to leave.

  But more than the waiting, she despised Sol Chapa. All those days she’d trusted him, followed him, and, unforgivably, led him to her family.

  The presence of those men would drive her father so deep into the mountains she would never find him. And that meant she would never find the girl. He would drag that child through the endless wilderness, teaching her the same lies he’d taught her and Link. And like Link, she would never question the only person left in her life who loved her. She would never trust anyone but him.

  And the girl would probably die an early death like her own father.

  Hylia dropped her head in her hands and sobbed silently both for the lost little girl and the little girl she once had been.

  She’d been so afraid of being alone—of dying on some far-off trail where no one would find her because no one would bother to look. The last week with Sol had offered a security she hadn’t known she longed for. After all, he was the man who could find anyone, and he never stopped looking.

  It had been too easy to allow herself to feel secure—easier than she would’ve expected. For the first time in ten years she’d shared space with someone and hadn’t been on guard. She picked up the small tin garbage can next to the cot and hurled it at the wall. He’d let her loose only to use her like a scent for a hunting dog to follow.

  “Enough,” she said. “Think.” They’d left her with nothing but the clothes she wore, giving her no sense of time.

  While her body remained in prison, her mind flew over the peaks of her childhood. Where would Merrell go? Twenty years and no one had ever gotten this close. Every hideout and every habit would all be tossed. There would be no finding another clue in the book.

  She had chosen the wrong adventure. Would he jump off another cliff? Only this time without a rope?

  The banging of the garbage can against the wall must’ve attracted the attention of the sheriff. Her cell didn’t have bars, just a single solid door with a peek hole.

  “Stand against the far wall with your arms above your head.”

  She did as the voice commanded, and the door opened.

  It wasn’t the sheriff standing in the doorway. She lowered her hands and waited.

  “Do you remember me?” This man did not belong in the remote mountain town. His clothes were a step above casual in a place where everything was a step, or two, down. “Hylia.”

  He smiled in familiarity and she instinctively took a step back until she butted against the wall. Being recognized wasn’t something she sought after. “No.” Even as she said that word memories pushed against the fog of those early years.

  “I was friends with your mother—and you in a way. I bought you bike a helmet a very long time ago.”

  She did remember; she got made fun of for wearing that helmet. But that memory wasn’t what floated to the top. The weekend her father took her and Link had ended with her mother pulling up to the hotel in a car with this guy.

  After Charlotte convinced David to get in the car and come home, she walked with this man to his car and hugged him goodbye. Hylia’s twelve-year-old self did not like that. Her thirty-year-old self liked remembering it even less.

  He stood in the doorway, staring down at his shoes rather than at her glare. “I wanted to tell you that Sol didn’t know we were tracking him.”

  “That’s a load of crap.” Sometime in the last few weeks Hylia had stopped censoring herself. She should lie to this guy, pretend to like him, but what was the point? “Why are you here?”

  “I investigated your mother’s death. When I heard you were back, I wanted to come talk to you. I want to help you.”

  One thing still hadn’t changed; she couldn’t trust the police. “I’m not talking to you. I want to call my lawyer.”

  48

  Night brought no rest as Sol couldn’t stop thinking about Hylia locked in a tiny room, surrounded by strangers, and unable to sleep.

  Before going to bed, he’d confirmed with his rancher friend their horses had been brought down after a few hours of resisting capture, ecstatic at being left in the meadow for a day. That brought on even more guilt over the captured woman.

  They hadn’t set her bail yet but would that day. He was under no expectation paying it would bring her forgiveness. Still, it was the right thing to do.

  Sol waited at the intersection of the highway as car after car passed him before he could pull out. It was Sunday morning, and all the campers and weekend warriors were abandoning the mountains to return to their regular lives
.

  A gap opened up in the traffic. He hit the gas and then slammed on the brakes. The gap closed. David Hayes had never left the mountains in almost twenty years, but what if he had no choice?

  Another break in the traffic opened, and Sol took his opportunity and sped to town. Once he had service, he wasted no time in calling Detective Shea. Going through Clint at this point would be a wall he didn’t yet know how to scale.

  He jumped in after Shea’s hello. “Do you what Clint’s plan is?” He hoped the retired detective who had no official business in the investigation would take pity on him.

  “Right now there is no investigation. Charlotte’s death was ruled a suicide, thanks to me, and we have no proof a child even exists. If David is in those mountains, we have no reason to chase him.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m on the phone with the current captain in Washington to get the case opened. Clint had to call the FBI, since they have jurisdiction over the children’s deaths. There’s still the missing son, Link. They ruled his death a murder. If David is alive, that’ll give them reason to come.”

  “It’ll be too late by then,” Sol said more to himself. “We have to act now.”

  “What do we do?”

  “I need to talk to Hylia.”

  The man’s scoff came through the phone. “Good luck with that. I tried to talk to her, but her anger burns long—like her mother’s.”

  “How well did you know David?” Sol asked.

  “Not well. We met a few times. The man was brilliant though. With all the news coverage, it came out after his death how much planning had gone into his escape. He’d bought camping supplies, food, even kept an old car in the woods near his house for an easy escape. He was long gone before we even hit the scene.”

  Sol slowed his truck down as he approached Main Street. “Why go to all the trouble of making it look like a suicide if he was planning on running? Running only served to make him look guilty.”