Sparrows & Sacrifice

by Nellie K Neves

  “This is your only communication,” Uncle Shane said. “When pressed, the metal pieces on your jewelry will activate a message to myself, Chief Saunders, and one of our on-call dispatchers at the precinct. All you have to do is press the metal twice and the distress message will go out from your phones.”

  Ever eager to poke holes in plans, I interrupted. “A lot of good that does us. It’s not like Eden’s Haven is going to let us keep our smart phones.”

  “I realize that and, while our plan isn’t ideal, I think it has merit.” He pulled the rectangular paperweight from my hand and flipped it over, displaying a row of what looked like miniature solar panels. “This is a solar battery. Since you have no way of knowing where Eden’s Haven’s compound is, I suggest that before you make camp for the night you find a clear space out of the way of traffic, but in clear view of sunlight, and set your phones out to charge. Provided they stay put, they should be fully charged at all times. If you’re taken in the night you should be close enough to your phones to trigger the alert at any time.”

  “Should be,” Ryder whispered under his breath.

  Shane ignored him and continued. “These have GPS trackers built in as well. We will be monitoring you twenty-four hours a day in order to find you at any time or if we receive intel before you do.”

  I flipped the pendant over in my hand, watching the little sparrow glimmer in the morning light. “This is all so high tech. I feel like a secret agent.”

  “Don’t get arrogant. Your cover is brother and sister. I figured,” Uncle Shane nodded toward Ryder, “with the circumstances the way that they are, that would be easier.” Under his breath he added, “It’ll explain the bickering as well.”

  We pretended not to hear him.

  “You’re both looking for a chance to escape your busy lives in the city, and you’re worried about the toll your carbon footprint is creating for future generations.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes. I recycled. Every light in my house was LED. I walked anywhere I could. I’d briefly considered solar panels for my small rental, but I wasn’t willing to cut down my trees in order to let the sunshine through. Even with all that, I doubted I could pull off a cover where I was a naturalistic, hippy dippy, flower child. Ryder looked equally nervous as he adjusted his leather cuff once more.

  With the communication plan in place, we had nothing left to talk about. The point of no return had come. I glanced at Ryder but he refused to look at me. Apprehension filled my gut as we departed on our mission to rescue Tasha Saunders.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I let Ryder have the front of Uncle Shane’s truck for our two hour trip to Marble Creek Campground. I sprawled over the backseat, hopeful I might squeeze in a small nap. At first, I was grateful that Uncle Shane and Ryder fell into easy conversation, but as it continued well over an hour without even the slightest lull, I began to become a bit suspicious. When had they become friends? What had I missed?

  I gave up on sleep when we transferred to the National Forest road and the bumping rocked my entire body for the fifth time. It took nearly twenty minutes to go what felt like six miles. Between my uncle’s careful driving so that his precious truck wasn’t injured, and the road that was in desperate need of repair, sleep wasn’t an option.

  When we finally pulled into the parking lot at Marble Creek Campground, my stomach clenched, and it had nothing to do with the road. I kicked myself for not involving my old friend and computer genius, Kip. He would’ve given me something to go on, anything to break up the distance between the unknowns that floated around in my mind. Was I so desperate to prove I was healthy that I was willing to throw myself into the deep end?

  No one talked as we parked and pulled the gear from the truck bed. Everything had been said and anything more felt like a goodbye I wasn’t willing to have. Uncle Shane went through the details again.

  “Pick a trail and follow it. Get lost.” He added, “Recent intel has told us that having a fire every night increases your chances of getting found.”

  Uncle Shane helped me into my pack. Worry built in my gut, and Ryder’s pale complexion did nothing to help me. Ignoring his obvious fear was the only way I could keep my own nerves in check.

  “One more thing,” Uncle Shane said. He disappeared into his truck and reemerged with an old friend I hadn’t seen in months. My 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun.

  “You were in the hospital when it was released from the St. Anthony case. I figured I’d hang onto it until you needed it again.”

  The grip molded into my hand with such precision that I didn’t want to put it down. “I don’t think they’ll let me keep it. Maybe you should hang onto it.”

  Shane’s words hesitated and bounced around in his mouth as he considered the order. “Our most recent intel indicates Eden’s Haven is pro-gun. Because of the remote location, there’s also some concern for wild animals attacking.”

  I nodded and started to pull off my pack to place it inside. Uncle Shane set a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Our intel also suggested that Ryder carry the gun.”

  The second the gun had emerged from the truck Ryder had backed away on instinct. “No. Let Lindy have it. I wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway.”

  “From what we’ve learned,” Shane’s hand rubbed over his face as he stalled, “this group is patriarchal in structure, meaning the men are the leaders and therefore they’re the ones with the guns.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “The women have no voice in the community, Lindy.”

  No voice. I’d been without a voice recently, and quite literally. It wasn’t a punishment I’d wish on any soul.

  “Where are you getting all this new information?” I asked.

  Uncle Shane shifted his weight and stared off into the tallest trees that surrounded the campground. “The two men we sent out a few weeks back were found last night. Rodgers was dead. Miller was near death, but was able to pass along some information before he went into surgery this morning.”

  Ryder began walking. I wasn’t even sure where he was going, back to town, or out to find Eden’s Haven on his own. It was too hard to tell with my own conflicted emotions of fight or flight in play. Uncle Shane’s palms cupped my shoulders with a strength I’d come to expect from him. He knew not to tell me to be careful, but I saw the fear in his eyes.

  “Lindy, I know I expect a lot out of you and if this is too much, if I’m pushing you too hard this time, tell me.”

  His eyes reminded me of my mother. I wondered if he’d said anything to her about what I was about to do. I hadn’t bothered. She’d only worry.

  “You and I never talk about your disease, but—”

  I held up a hand to stop him. “Let’s not start now. I’ll get it done. I always do.” I placed the gun in his hands. “For now, I’ll keep the gun. Put it in my pack. If that needs to change, we’ll adjust.”

  We didn’t bother with tearful goodbyes, neither Shane nor I were the type. I shot him one last glance over my shoulder as I walked to catch up to Ryder. Wrinkles had deepened, grays had multiplied. Uncle Shane had started to look old. Guilt drove me to wonder how much of it I’d caused.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We followed the trail that ran along the creek. After nearly an hour of walking without a word, Ryder had widened the space between us to at least twenty feet.

  “Where are you going anyway?” I raised my voice to span the distance.

  He spun and looked at me with an awful mixture of pain and confusion. Eyebrows mashed together, tension around the lower lids, and a horrible downward turn at the corners of his mouth.

  “I thought we’d head south and make a base camp. From studying the map last night, I’d wager Eden’s Haven is tucked somewhere in these foothills here.” He turned his face away from me as if he’d been staring at the sun for too long and shifted his gaze over the water. “I figured we’d make a plan from there.”

  He’d given it more thought than I had. My words stumbled twice before I co
uld maintain a stream of intelligent conversation. “Okay, that sounds fine.”

  He hadn’t waited for my answer and had already started to walk. I trudged behind him, my pack wearing on my shoulders as time moved on.

  Silence is often the loudest of all sounds. Tension built brick upon brick with every step we took. Success depended on our ability to work as a team, and apprehension churned in my gut.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  If I hadn’t been so anxious about our predicament, I might have noticed the picturesque scenery. But as it was, I barely paid any mind to the unspoiled views of crystal water and towering evergreens. I did take momentary note of the aspen and their bare limbs. I’d always loved the fall colors in Washington. California had never shown me the vibrancy that I’d enjoyed since my relocation. If only we’d left a few weeks earlier, we’d be walking in a sea of color, rather than the first signs of barren winter.

  I unloaded my pack as soon as we made it to the clearing Ryder deemed hospitable. I’d only worn the pack for a little over two hours and yet my shoulders were on fire. While I rotated each joint in large circles, I cupped it with my opposite hand and rubbed the muscle. A soft hum slipped from my lips as I received fleeting relief from my unexpected soreness.

  Ryder cleared his throat, and I immediately regretted my momentary weakness. He slipped his pack from his shoulders and removed the map from a pocket before he spread it over the rough wood of the log where I sat.

  “We’re here,” he said setting his finger to the map. The paper crinkled and he did his best to smooth it again. Ryder circled the space around us as I drew closer to get a better look. “Everything above this is going to be completely inhospitable because of temperature and snowfall. If they’re as rudimentary as the chief believes they are, then they can’t survive in those conditions.” His finger tapped the open lands that surrounded us. “They’ll need to be close to water too, but far enough off the trail to avoid accidental discovery.”

  I wasn’t a tracker, survivalist, or even a hiker. His words gave me hope that he might be at least one of those things.

  “What do you suggest?”

  Slowly, he traced three of the surrounding creeks with his finger. “I think we should follow these as far as we can, one each day if possible, camping at the furthest point before we come back again. They’ve got to be somewhere in here.” In a sweeping motion, he pulled the map away to fold it. “I get the feeling it will be a ‘find us,’ not a ‘find them’ sort of situation.”

  A needle in a haystack didn’t even begin to cover what we were attempting to do. Acres upon acres of thick woods to search, and what if we missed their patrol that day? I began to imagine weeks of wandering in the woods, living on dehydrated packets of food and filtered creek water.

  Ryder’s scrutiny burned into me even before he asked, “What are you thinking?”

  I shook my head to dispel the thoughts like cobwebs that had formed overnight. “Nothing. I hit this point in every case. It came early this time.”

  The log shifted as he sat, and our weight evenly distributed. “What point is that?”

  Too many nights of lost sleep and the knowledge that things could go wrong in a heartbeat weakened my smile. “The point where I wonder if it’s worth it. I think about packing it in and calling it quits.”

  Ryder hadn’t stopped watching me, though I couldn’t bear to look at him. He drew in a deliberate breath as if he were thinking about his words. Finally, he asked, “When did you hit it on your last case?”

  My smile pulled and fell again as I thought about my time at the Rockin’ B Ranch. “About three minutes before I met your Uncle Tate. I was standing in front of the lodge, blonde hair, not in my own clothes, wondering what I was doing there. If I’d had anything to come home to, I wouldn’t have stayed.”

  I shouldn’t have said that. The weight of my implications pushed the wedge between us. I hadn’t meant to cut him, but I had. If there’d been no Vanessa. I never would have left. From his side the story was the same. If I hadn’t left for Montana without notice, there would’ve been no Vanessa. He was right. Round and round, over and over again, we hurt each other. The question fell out before I could stop it.

  “Why’d you agree to come, Ryder?”

  The log shifted again as he pushed himself to his feet and gripped his bag. “I like camping. It seemed like a good excuse to get out here.”

  His response pricked the angry parts of me. I hated that he was lying. Clamping my lips shut, I pushed up from the log and strapped my bag back on my shoulders once more. I knew how to keep it business as usual. I knew how to pretend that everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t. No one could deceive like I could.

  “Where to?”

  His answer was short and clipped as he said, “I thought we would follow the river until we hit our first creek and we’ll go from there.”

  Without waiting for me, Ryder started on the trail. Obviously, he didn’t want to be alone with me for any space of time. It was better to limit the time we had to hurt each other and lessen the wounds that way.

  Chapter 10

  For the most part, we avoided other people. There were questions we couldn’t answer and, while we had a permit for our time backpacking in the woods, I wasn’t sure what the bounds were. I could imagine a ranger expounding on the stupidity of what we were planning. The problem was, he’d be right.

  We only stopped briefly for lunch consisting of a granola bar and water. Dr. McCalister had warned me that I’d already lost a great deal of weight. Long days hiking and not enough time eating substantial meals would only increase that deficit, but I kept my mouth shut. Whining would only make me look weak.

  Ryder kept to the front, walking poles in hand as he led the way. I followed without question until around three in the afternoon when he broke off into the foliage, moving away from the river. It was bad enough that we were forging our own trail through nothing, but if he thought I was going to follow him into the woods to truly get lost, he was crazy.

  My feet planted firmly into the soil. It only took him ten more steps of his own before he noticed I hadn’t followed. Turning to look back at me through the overgrown shrubbery, his head cocked to the side in disappointment.

  “What?” he asked after a moment of heavy silence.

  I tried to keep my voice calm, but failed miserably. “Where are you going?”

  “They’re not going to look for us by the water, Lindy. This is where the terrain starts to climb. We need to walk deep into the woods if we have a chance of being found.”

  “And how do we find our way back again if they don’t? The term ‘get lost’ doesn’t have to be literal.”

  His growling exhale spoke of his annoyance, but the tension around his set jaw told me it was deeper than that.

  “We’ll leave markers so we can find our way back. It’s pretty elementary. Most hikers know how.”

  I debated arguing with him but his confidence swayed me. “Fine, but if you get us killed out here—”

  He interrupted me. “If I get us killed, Huckleberry, you have my permission to haunt me for the rest of eternity.” Turning back and walking once more, I thought I heard him add, “It wouldn’t be that different from the way it is now.”

  Two branches snapped back as he disappeared into the brush. Taking a deep breath, I followed after him. I kept to his heel once we were away from the creek, concerned that I might lose him and become some creature’s dinner. One by one, Ryder set markers along the trail, a broken branch here, three rocks stacked there, and pinecones set in an arrow for the direction we should follow. The deeper we went, the more nervous I became.

  We walked almost another half-hour until we reached a clearing. Ryder paused and nodded. “This should work.” With an emotion near glee, I slipped my pack from my aching shoulders.

  Ryder’s pack slumped to the ground. “I’m going to set up the phones and see if I can get a message out to Shane to let him know that we’re okay.”
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  I waited until he was out of sight before I took the time to massage my shoulders and whimper. It was only after the pain became bearable that I looked around to survey our camp for the night.

  The clearing stretched about thirty feet wide, a couple fallen logs made a decent border with thick stands of trees to surround us. Birds chirped evening songs, and the temperature bit at the parts of my skin that were still exposed. To my left, through the clearing Ryder had vanished into, there was a large outcropping of rock. Hiking boots scraped against the stone where Ryder climbed to set the phones.

  Not wanting to be completely useless, I wrestled the tent from my pack and began to set it up. I could count the number of times I’d set up a tent on my own. My father had always been the one to manage that sort of thing. Camping was something we’d done when I was young. By the time I hit my teenage years, sports and school kept me too busy to manage anything like that. But the lessons held because the tent took shape—albeit a tight and compact shape, but it was shelter.

  I began gathering small sticks and fallen wood for a fire, careful not to veer too far from the clearing. Whether I liked it or not, I was dependent on Ryder and I wasn’t willing to venture away from him. We returned at the same time. Sweat dappled his forehead. I wondered if he’d free climbed the rock face. No longer were my shoulders worth complaining about.

  It was hard not to touch him, to actively keep myself from him. As we set up camp, it actually took work to stop myself short and let him pass or to press back into a tree trunk to avoid brushing against him. There were parts of him that still belonged to me, small parts that told me it was okay to let our shoulders bump as we worked, or for our fingers to carefully slip together again. But those parts were tiny in comparison to what Vanessa had claimed.

  Because of that, I stayed against the tree when he passed and kept my hand on the cold, damp earth when he knocked the tent’s stake into the ground. After all, one of the first lessons my lawyer father had taught me was that possession is nine-tenths of the law and, as close as I could tell, Vanessa appeared to possess him even when she was nowhere in sight.