by N A Broadley
“Don’t panic. Just keep moving.”
The meal of meat had given both her and Sarah full stomachs. Something neither of them had –had in many weeks. Even Jessie got her fill of food for a change and responded to this by bouncing happily along the trail in front of them.
Sweat rolled in ticklish rivulets down her back soaking her light tee shirt causing it to stick uncomfortably to her skin. She swiped at a sheen of sweat on her forehead and cursed under her breath as she fought for each step.
Her breath came in little gasps, and her chest burned as the hill in front of her became steeper and steeper. From behind her, she could hear Sarah struggling as well. Grabbing onto a spindly tree, she bent to catch her breath and hissed.
“Shit! I need to take a minute.”
Sarah slumped onto the ground beside her, gasping lightly and mopping her sweaty brow with the back of her hand.
“Only a few more miles and we should be getting close to the Wilbur Clearing Shelter. We’ll find a spot to camp near that.”
She felt bad for pushing so hard.
Sarah nodded tiredly.
According to the AT Trail map Beth carried, once they reached the shelter, they would have done an average of eight and a half miles. It wasn’t bad for a day’s hike but not as many miles as she’d hoped to reach either. It pissed her off that they were moving so slowly.
Although their bodies were conditioning to the terrain and stress of hiking, she had to remember; she wasn’t a spring chicken anymore either. At forty-eight years old, she had some miles on this machine she called her body. And a lot of those miles were hard earned. And Sarah, poor Sarah had come to her already underweight, struggling with beat up and blistered feet and traumatized by what life had handed her.
Couple that with the poor diet of mainly carbohydrates, low caloric intake and lack of fresh vegetables and protein it was a wonder that either of them was able to keep up the pace she’d set, never mind hike the terrain they had. A pang of guilt nagged at her as she thought of how hard she was pushing Sarah.
They arrived at the shelter at dusk. Although it would have been nice to stay there for the night, surrounded by three walls and a roof, she pushed deeper off the trail and into the woods. The shelter lay on the main trail and in her opinion, it would leave them too exposed should anyone come along.
In another time she would have easily camped there and enjoyed the company of other hikers. She would have sat by the campfire, chatted with other hikers, perhaps shared a beer. But, not now. Not since the event. Since the event, she purposely avoided people and with good reason. Everything changed; life changed. The body she’d left lying on her kitchen floor all those weeks ago had been proof of that. She trusted her neighbor. And that trust damn near cost her life.
Chapter Ten
Brian pushed himself further and further up the trail; pausing from time to time to listen carefully to the woods around him. Yesterday while hunting, he’d heard human activity near where he’d propped himself against a tree to rest. After skinning and cleaning the doe he’d shot, he sat silently watching curiously a group of three men moving through the thick woods a mere several hundred yards from his location.
It appeared they were hunters. They all carried rifles and packs. He listened as they talked quietly and picked up a few fragmented sentences. From the looks of them, he determined they were just good old boys looking to feed themselves. Not anything to worry about, but it was still too close for comfort. Just in case, he’d slept lightly and on alert back at camp that night.
He wanted no surprises nor anyone stumbling into his camp by accident. He kept his gun within reach, by his side, his knife sharpened, and at the ready.
His mind wandered to the women. When he’d visited their campsite in the darkness of early dawn, they hadn’t heard him. The damn dog hadn’t even heard him. He scowled at the thought of it.
“That was dangerous.” He muttered.
He even made a little noise when leaving on purpose to alert them, yet none of them even stirred.
Shaking his head, he growled softly under his breath and rolled over. “They’re sitting ducks. Careless.”
He didn’t care. What were they to him other than strangers, a nuisance? He tried to tell himself he didn’t care but couldn’t escape the question.
Unable to sleep, he made a sweep of the area, patrolling within listening distance to where they were. His mind raced while he moved from tree to rock to tree, checking the woods for danger. Why was he purposely staying behind them anyway? He could’ve passed by them many times, left them in the dust. He was a stronger and faster hiker and yet here he was, behind them, trailing them like a guard dog trails its master. His behavior confused him. He’d always been a loner. Always had a don’t give a shit attitude.
Disgusted he kicked angrily at a stone in his path, sending a jolt of pain singing through his foot.
His old man had taught him to be hard and cold. To look out for number one. And he remembered the words so often said to him.
“Look out for number one. Don’t get involved.”
That sentiment had served him well for most of his life. So why now? Why these two women? Why did he feel that he was responsible for their safety? It shouldn’t be his problem. He scoffed and turned back to his own site, mumbling to himself. “If they run into trouble because of their carelessness, then so be it. Look out for number one… take care of numero uno. I don’t need or want any extra baggage.”
His father’s voice whispered in the back of his mind. “You’ve always been a chump boy. A sucker for a pretty face. Once a sucker, always a sucker,” Brian shook his head and grimaced angrily.
“Fuck you, asshole,” he muttered softly.
Thoughts of his father reminded him of Talia. It seemed that family was on his mind a lot lately. His old man was an asshole to him, but to Talia, he was doting and always gentle. She had been a daddy’s girl, for sure. He wondered if the old man blamed himself for what happened to her.
Brian had been on a two-year tour in Afghanistan and was recently returned to the states. He was stationed at Fort Bragg when the call came in. Talia had been at the shopping mall with a group of friends and wandered off from the group to go the restroom. It was then that she just up and disappeared.
At first, the police thought she’d just run away, but Brian knew better. There was no reason for her to run away. Only a couple of days later, a couple walking their dog found her purse and her cell phone on an old back road ten miles outside of town.
After an agonizing three-day search of the surrounding woods, they realized that she’d been kidnapped. Brian became the man he was today. A hunter, a killer.
It took him two years to find his sister. And in his search, he’d left a trail of bloodied corpses in his wake. The girl he’d brought home to his parents was not the same girl that had disappeared that day. Five months after she returned home, she committed suicide. Even thinking of it now brought him anguish — a wound re-opened and raw. One that seared his heart with a pain so deep that it would never go away. His baby sister, gentle and sweet, her smile enough to soothe the even the worst of his temper. God, how he missed her.
The women were a half a mile ahead of him when he climbed a steep hill and spied them winding their way through a ravine below. His heart thudded in fear as he saw, not five hundred yards ahead of the women, coming from the opposite direction, a group of others on horseback. He counted three, and the women would be walking right into them.
“Shit!” he muttered as he picked up his pace, half running, half stumbling in his haste. Looking up at the fading light, he knew nightfall would soon be on them.
It took him fifteen or so minutes to close the distance between himself and the women. But that fifteen minutes was almost too long. He worried he would be too late to help them.
∞
Beth cried out as the chubby fingers wadded into a fist slammed into her face. It sent jolts of broken pain soaring through her
nose as if a nest of hornets had been let loose inside her head. She fell to the ground, dirt and pine needles filling her mouth as she landed on her face. She heard laughter behind her then screamed in agony as a swift kick landed on her left side. Retching and gagging, she fought to crawl away, her hands scrabbling at the dirt as she pulled herself forward.
Grit clogged her throat, and panic took her breath away. She tensed as she felt a hand from behind grab a fistful of her hair and roughly yank her to her feet. Turning, she clawed at the man’s face, feeling her fingernails dig into his flesh, sticky with blood and skin. Another blow knocked the wind from her, and she struggled to breathe. A sob choked her, and she raised her head, looking for Sarah through swollen, tear-filled eyes. She spied her struggling with a man across the campsite.
Anger sizzled in her gut as she assessed the situation, she exploded up off of the ground only to be hammered once again by strong and punishing fists. A voice deep in her mind screamed that she had to keep fighting or these men would kill both her and Sarah. Sucking in a deep breath, she tasted her blood as it ran down the back of her throat, thick and choking. With a weak effort, she pushed herself up off the ground one more time and launched herself at her attacker, wrapping her bruised and bloodied hands into his hair as she screamed with fury. She became nothing but fists and fingernails, teeth, punches, and kicks as she fought for her life.
Stars danced before her eyes as she fell to the ground, blinded by the blow to her head. Crawling, dragging, sand and dirt grinding into her skin feeling like the cuts of a thousand tiny shards of glass as her breath rasped through bloodied teeth. She sank weakly into the darkness that danced at the edge of her vision.
∞
He heard the scream just as he rounded the bend in the trail. Dropping behind a cluster of tangled brush, he saw one of the women, the older one, fall to the ground and bounce back up like a jack in the box toy. In her hand, she held a big rock and swung it toward a man’s head. He heard the thud of it meeting flesh.
The man, large and round, struck out with a meaty fist and punched her again, spinning her on her feet like a puppet. He heard laughter as another man held the struggling younger woman in a bear hug while she kicked and clawed at him.
The third man stood off to the left of him leaning against a tree with a grin on his face, holding the reins of the horses. The older woman’s face bled profusely from the repeated punches she was taking, yet she fought back like a hellcat. Each time she fell, she’d pop back up swinging, and this brought a chorus of laughter from all of the men in the group. Brian urged her silently to stay down. He needed her to stay down!
Pulling up his rifle, sucking in a deep breath, he drew a bead on the man leaning against the tree. Sliding his finger to the trigger, aiming center mass, he tapped it lightly. The man slid to the ground startling the horses who broke free and bolted for the woods.
Before the other two men could respond, a growl and snarl erupted from behind the trees somewhere off to his right, and he watched as the dog exploded into the fray and launched itself in a black and white fury onto the man holding the younger woman.
The older woman, he saw, was now crawling on the ground, too beaten to get up as her attacker stood over her. He had a hand full of her long hair and was trying to drag her back to him.
Brian saw her leg strikeout behind her, connecting with the man’s shin. And the man, screamed out a howl of pain and anger as he pulled her to her feet by a fistful of her hair and crushed her up against him, holding her in front of him as a human shield. Brian swore under his breath. He couldn’t take the shot in fear of hitting her. Snarls and shouts, screams, and cries filled his ears.
Standing up, he sucked in a deep breath and pulled the knife from its leather sheath on his belt. He couldn’t take the chance of hitting the woman. Bloodlust, anger, cold and dead mindlessness filled him as he stormed toward the man. He became the animal. And the animal in him needed to taste blood.
“You just made your biggest mistake!” he growled through clenched teeth as he launched himself at the man, knocking the woman out of the way with one push.
The bullet hit him before he’d even heard the explosion from the gun. But not before he sank his knife up to its hilt into the other man’s chest. Pain radiated from his left thigh like a kick from a thousand-pound mule, and he sank to the ground as he heard an explosion of shots from his left.
Craning his neck, he saw the beaten and bloodied woman up on her knees, gun in her hand and a bloody grimace on her mouth as she pulled the trigger several more times. Darkness seeped into the edge of his vision. The next thing he felt was soft hands on his face and heard a faraway voice, shaky and soft, whisper in his ear.
“Don’t worry mister; I got ya.”
Chapter Eleven
Beth clamped her teeth onto her lower lip, willing herself to stop shaking as tears poured down her face. It all happened so fast. One minute she and Sarah were walking along, looking for a spot to set up camp and the next, they were attacked.
She didn’t hear them coming. And by the time she realized what was happening, it was too late to run. Now there were three bodies on the ground, two dead, one near dead. And then there was the man who appeared from out of the woods, shooting and swinging, fighting to save them.
Hearing a moan, she got up from where she knelt, her head spun dizzily with the sudden movement. Her breath rasped through her nose, which she was sure, was broken. Her eyes felt nearly swollen shut, and her face felt as though she’d just encountered a battering ram as pain rocked her teeth. Sucking up a mouthful of blood, she spit it onto the ground, and clamped her jaw tight, fighting the pain as she moved slowly, hissing with every breath.
Pausing, she sucked in a deep breath and watched through swollen eyes as Sarah crawled on her hands and knees toward her. Reaching out, she folded the girl into her arms.
“It’s okay; we’re okay,” she crooned softly as the girl shook with dry, soundless sobs. She felt Sarah’s gentle hands stroking her face, each light touch sending new jolts of pain through her.
Gazing across the top of her head, she looked at the barely conscious man that Jessie stood guard over. She’d taken two shots at him, one missed completely, but the other had gutted him. He wasn’t going to die easy — gutshot and writhing in pain.
She untangled Sarah from her arms and with a wince, walked over to where the man lay in a pool of blood. Kneeling, she looked straight into his eyes.
“You’re gonna pay for this bitch!” he spat between gurgling gasps. She said nothing as she stared blankly at him.
“Bobby is gonna make you wish you were dead by the time he’s through with you,” the man hissed.
Shaking her head, she pulled the knife from her side and with one swift motion, slit his throat. She watched in fascination as his eyes widened in horror as the breath struggled out of his body. She’d be damned if she’d waste another bullet on this sorry soul.
Standing stiffly, she turned and walked back over to where Sarah stood looking down on the stranger that had saved them. Kneeling, her body screaming in agony as waves of pain crashed through her, she checked out his wound. A clean shot through his upper thigh, outer edge. She motioned for Sarah to help her.
Together they turned the man over onto his side where she saw the gaping exit hole. The bullet had gone neatly through. Sighing, she nodded and whispered shakily to Sarah.
“Okay, I can deal with this.”
It was pitch black by the time she cleaned, stitched, and bandaged the man’s wound. Sarah had set up the tent, scoured the woods for the man’s pack and rifle and gathered twigs and sticks for a fire and scavenged from the bodies anything that would benefit them. Beth, exhausted and spent, sat on the ground by the fire and rested. Water heated in a pot over the flames and Beth watched in miserable pain as Sarah took a tee shirt from one of the men, ripped it into strips and dipped the rags into the water. She then gently ministered to Beth’s wounds. Her touch was so soft and tender
that Beth couldn’t help but let the tears flow down her face. Sarah made a soft mewling shhhhing sound as she hugged her tightly. They sat this way for several moments. Beth drawing comfort and strength from Sarah.
The night closed in around them, and the fire soothed the shadows that danced among the trees. Dozing lightly, Beth was surprised when the Sarah sat down by the campfire with a western guitar she’d taken from one of the men and began strumming it lightly. After a few minutes of strumming, she sank into a Leonard Cohen song that brought tears to Beth’s eyes. Hallelujah.
As she listened, memories flooded her heart and her mind. Memories that almost broke her. She looked at Sarah in amazement. A girl who looked to be barely sixteen and had no voice was strumming the guitar like she’d been doing it all her young life. Her fingers teasing beauty from the strings stretched tight across the wood. Beauty in the ugliness of the day, beauty to wash the soul of freeing it from the pain that brought so much despair.
It took both of them to drag the unconscious man into the tent. He would wake soon enough. There was nothing more she could do other than wait. Fixing a small meal, they ate in worried silence. Jessie lay quietly at their feet, waiting for the few nibbles she knew would be coming. Her mind churned with questions.
Who was this, Bobby? The one, the dead man, said would come looking for her? A brother? A friend? Whoever he was, she knew that he would probably come looking for the man she’d killed, and she hoped by the time this Bobby found this mess; they would miles away. But the problem was, she couldn’t leave the injured man in her tent, behind.
Silently she prayed he would wake up soon. He had risked his life, helping them, and she would stand by him until he was ready to travel. Time was of the essence. She didn’t want to be anywhere near here if the man called Bobby did come looking. Looking across the fire at Sarah, she nodded tiredly.