by Ricky Sides
Soon Jim stood at the edge of the woods. There before him was a large open field of grass. The field was at least a hundred yards wide. The forest resumed on the other side of the field. He had seen movement at the edge of the woods on the other side of the grassy field. Jim carefully fixed that spot in his mind as he paused to catch his breath. He needed to give the group a couple of minutes to get deeper into the woods before he made his run across the open field. The multiple injuries he had received had taken a toll on his body. The soft armor had saved his life, but getting hit by the forty-five caliber bullets had been like getting hit with a baseball thrown at ninety miles per hour, and he’d taken three such hits. He also had the head wound hampering him.
Jim waited a full two minutes, studying the edge of the forest in an effort to determine if the group had left a sniper. He didn’t think they were aware of his pursuit at this point, but he knew better than to make that assumption. Getting himself killed wouldn’t save Evan, but the calm execution of a rational rescue plan would save the boy.
“I’ll get him back, Lacey. I swear to God I will,” Jim said with a sob as he darted into the open field on a dead run for the spot where he’d seen the movement earlier.
***
Evan’s foot slipped in the mud and he fell to the ground. He landed hard on his side and lay there stunned.
Glenn reached down and picked him up. “Boy, what’s wrong with you? That’s the third time you fell in the last five minutes,” he said in exasperation.
“I can’t keep my balance in the mud with my hands tied behind my back,” Evan explained. “Can you carry me?” he asked hopefully.
“Kid, you must weigh ninety pounds. Hell no, I won’t carry you,” Glenn said with a laugh. Turning to Brace, he said, “Cut the kid free so he can walk, unless you’d rather carry him. I’m tired of picking him up.”
Brace drew his knife with a look of eager anticipation. Glenn guessed immediately that the man planned a little payback for the kick he’d suffered earlier. “Just so you know Brace, if you have an accident and damage the brat and it lowers the price on him, then that loss will come out of your share.”
“My share? Hey now, that ain’t right!” Brace objected.
“Oh yes it is!” countered Tuck, who glared at the man. “You aim to deliberately cut the boy. Glenn’s right. If you do that you’ll lower his value and that ain’t coming out of my share.”
Grumbling under his breath, the frustrated Brace carefully cut the boy’s hands free. Unable to resist the temptation to retaliate in some way, he shoved him down in the mud. Tuck laughed and moved on down the wooded trail.
Evan climbed back to his feet and moved out behind Tuck. Glenn followed him and Brace took up the rear.
For ten minutes, they walked along the forest trail. Evan was constantly looking for an opportunity to escape, but so far, he’d seen nothing that looked promising. Then they came to a spot where the trail dipped down to a small creek. The creek wasn’t wide, and it seemed shallow. The men must have been familiar with it, because they didn’t hesitate for a moment. Tuck walked right into the icy water, which rose to his knees at the deepest section. Evan had just emerged from the creek when a strangled cry rang out behind him.
Evan turned to face the creek. He saw Glenn, who was about halfway across the creek, but he did not see Brace. Tuck rushed past him shouting at Glenn, “Where’s Brace?”
“He was right behind me a minute ago. He may have fallen in the mud around the bend in the trail,” Glenn responded.
Tuck was about to answer when he saw something fly out of the vegetation near the bend. The object hit the ground and rolled toward the creek. It came to a stop near the edge of the water. It was Brace’s western style canteen.
“What the hell? Brace, you idiot, get out here,” Glenn ordered, but there was no answer. Glenn spun about in the water and angrily splashed his way ashore. He emerged beside Tuck, who gave him a hand onto the slippery bank. “Where’s the kid?” Glenn asked when he was ashore.
“He was here a minute ago!” Tuck responded.
“He couldn’t have gotten far. More than likely, he’s running down the trail,” Glenn mused. Turning toward the creek once more, he saw a man running around the bend. The man raised a pistol and popped off a shot at Tuck. The bullet whizzed past his head. The two men turned and fled down the trail, disappearing around a turn just ten feet from the bank.
Jim smiled as he entered the water and made his way across the creek. His diversion with the canteen had worked. When he emerged from the water, he called out quietly, “Evan, are you here?” But there was no answer. “Evan, it’s me, Jim,” he said, and once more waited for an answer.
Frowning, Jim moved on down the trail. He was disappointed. He had hoped that Evan would have stayed near the trail, hidden from sight, but close enough that he could hear him if he called out. At least Evan had escaped from the men and he still had his hat, so Patricia would be able to locate him with the tracking software on the Peacekeeper.
Jim moved slowly down the trail. The men were now aware of his pursuit. He would have to be careful or he could easily walk right into an ambush. Five minutes later, he found Evan’s hat on the ground beside the trail. Patricia broke radio silence to inform him that she had lost Evan’s location signature and that his own location signature was now right on top of the last known location. Jim acknowledged the report and informed her that he had just found Evan’s hat, and was preparing for a possible ambush.
Jim squatted down beside the hat, listening carefully for the first sound of an impending ambush. He knew that this would be a good way to arrange an ambush. However, all Jim heard was the normal sounds of the deep forest. Examining the ground carefully in an effort to determine what had happened, he soon spotted an exposed root, a few feet back up the trail. The ground had been disturbed beside that root, which protruded from the ground about one and one half inches. There were depressions on the ground that Evan’s elbows and knees could have made.
Jim sighed in resignation as he realized what had probably happened. Evan had been running down the trail and tripped on the exposed root. During the subsequent fall, he had lost his hat, and either he hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t had time to recover it, before resuming his flight. Now, he wished he had tried to communicate with Evan with the radios in their hats. However, he hadn’t taken the chance, fearing that Evan would have been discovered using the radio, and that could have led the men to figure out that the hat was also a tracking system. He’d had another reason for not contacting the boy by radio. Evan was sure to ask about his mother and Jim didn’t want to break the news over the radio.
The scant sign left by the men he was trailing did not indicate that they had paused at this location. Weighing the options, Jim decided to risk calling out loudly to Evan. It was risky. That would pinpoint his location to the men he was following, but it was a risk he would have to take, because without the hat, there was no way for the Peacekeeper to track the boy. Being lost in these woods was a serious issue. He had researched the forest in the Peacekeeper database prior to the vacation he’d planned for his family, and he knew there were over one hundred fifty miles of trails crisscrossing the Bankhead National forest.
Jim shouted in a loud and clear voice, calling to Evan, but there was no answer.
On the trail ahead of Jim, the two raiders heard him calling out to the boy.
“Evannn! Evan, don’t answer me, but if you can hear me, go to ground off the trail at once. I’m about to push the raiders past you or kill them! Stay close to the trail, Evan!” they heard Jim shout.
“Do we waylay him or run?” asked Tuck, who was tired of running.
“You wait here just off the trail and kill him when he comes along. I’ll run ahead and get the boy,” Glenn responded.
“I’m not staying here to take him on alone. That man’s just too damned lucky,” Tuck said.
“And you’re too quick to kill when it’s not necessary. You know
how much we can get for the boy at the barn. Forget the ambush. Let’s go find the kid. We’re near the place where we have to get off this trail to get on the one that leads to the barn. If we don’t catch the kid before the turn, we’ll just forget about him and head for the barn. There’ll be a lot of men there who can deal with this peacekeeper,” Glenn explained.
Chapter 6
Pete, Lieutenant Wilcox, and three members of his five-man team emerged into the clearing near the cabin. The remaining two men had stayed with the ship to act as guards.
Pete saw the body near the fire pit and motioned to the lieutenant. Lieutenant Wilcox went to examine the body. “It’s one of the raiders, sir. Shot twice, and stabbed in the stomach.”
“Good for you, Jim,” Pete muttered to himself. Pete acknowledged the Lieutenant’s report and headed toward the cabin. Two of the Lieutenant’s men moved quickly to accompany him. One rushed to the door and opened it, then darted inside. A moment later he shouted, “Clear!”
Pete entered the cabin and immediately saw Lacey’s body on the couch. He saw that she was still fully clothed and knew that if she had lost the baby, it would be contained within the clothing. That meant that Maggie would know if they needed one grave or two when she prepared the body. Pete dreaded that for his wife and hoped that she would reconsider and let others handle that detail, but Maggie had been adamant that she do this one last thing for her friend. “It’s the last thing I’ll ever be able to do for her,” Maggie had stated tearfully.
Maggie’s concerns addressed, Pete sighed and walked to the couch. He knelt beside the body. Taking Lacey’s hand in his, Pete bowed his head in grief.
Lieutenant Wilcox entered the cabin. He stopped behind and to the right of Pete. Tears came unbidden to his eyes when he saw the body and noted the stab wound in her stomach. Lacey had been well loved by all the crew of the Peacekeeper. As he looked at her body on the couch, he remembered the times she had nursed him back to health after he was wounded in combat. Lacey had been one of the nicest people he had ever met. The lieutenant angrily brushed away his tears. He placed his hand on Pete’s shoulder in a gesture of moral support. “We’ll get the bastards who did this, Pete,” he said with quiet assurance.
Pete stood up and turned to face the assembled men. “Yes, we will, if Jim doesn’t get them first. Get a blanket, men. Make a stretcher. We need to get Lacey to the ship and get airborne to help in the search.”
“We aren’t heading out cross country?” asked the lieutenant. Then answering his own question, he said, “They’d be so far ahead by now that we’d never catch up to them.”
“That’s my thinking,” Pete agreed. “But if we can spot them from the air, we can land in the vicinity and move in on their position.”
Pete sighed and turned to Lacey one last time. He removed his hat and said a brief prayer for her. When his prayer was finished, he walked outside the cabin while the strike team recovered her body. In some ways, Pete wasn’t as strong as Maggie was. He knew he could never prepare her body for burial. He couldn’t even stomach watching the men as they loaded her onto the makeshift stretcher.
Pete examined the yard as he waited for the men to emerge from the house with Lacey’s body. He soon found the spot where Lacey had died. The blood and bodily fluids that stained the grass, gave silent testimony to the horrors of her death. Jim had carried her body inside the cabin. Pete was deeply saddened by the mental anguish doing that would have caused his friend. Wiping his eyes, he turned to face the northwest. “Good hunting, Jim. I wish I was with you,” he said.
The arrival of the squadron of fighters from Base 1 interrupted his thoughts. The squadron stopped briefly above the clearing, but remained airborne while checking with Pete to see if their orders had changed. Pete told them to carry out their mission as Pol had instructed. It was a good plan. He made a mental note to congratulate Pol on his first field command.
The Base 1 squadron had just vacated the airspace over the clearing, when Tim came in for a dangerously fast landing in Namid’s fighter. The men emerged from the cabin with Lacey’s body on the makeshift stretcher. Tim met them on the ground, just in front of the porch. He removed his hat and gestured for the men to stop. Reaching out a trembling hand, he folded back the sheet the men had used to cover the body, exposing Lacey’s pale face. When he saw her face, he recoiled in horror. His face went a pasty shade and he said, “It’s true then. God, I’d hoped there was some mistake.”
Returning to the body on the stretcher, he said, “I’ll get the men who did this to you, if Jim doesn’t, Lacey. And I’ll watch after Jim and Evan for you, little sister. That’s a promise,” he said as he laid the sheet back over her face. He smoothed the wrinkles from the fabric and sobbed as he turned and strode back toward the fighter.
Pete fell into step beside Tim as he walked toward the fighter. He said, “I’m sorry Tim. I know you two shared a special relationship. You’ve been calling her little sister for years.”
“She was a special lady, Pete. She understood me better than most people ever will.” Stopping, Tim turned to Pete and asked, “Do you know why I called her little sister?” When Pete shook his head in the negative, Tim said, “She told me a few years ago that she was on to me. When I asked her what she meant, she said that I wanted people to think that I was a man without a care in the world, who never takes anything too seriously. But she had been observing me. She said that deep down, I cared a lot about people and often worked in the background to get things done to help folks, but that I never stepped forward to take or claim credit. She respected that, because it reminded her of her older brother who died in a car crash when she was in her teens. I told Lacey that she was a lot like her brother herself. She’d just smiled that friendly smile of hers. You know what I mean. That smile of hers that always put a person at ease. On impulse, I ruffled her hair with my hand and told her if it helped, she could consider me a brother, and that is when I called her little sister for the first time. You know what she did then, Pete?” Tim asked. When once more Pete shook his head, Tim said, “She smiled, gave me a hug, and she said she’d like that. And from that day on, we always had that sort of relationship. To me she wasn’t just a sister-in-law. She was like a kid sister to me, one that actually admired me. Pete, not many people admire me,” Tim said, and his voice choked at the loss of such a special person in his life.
“You might be surprised at how many people admire you, Tim,” Pete said.
“You know, Pete, Lacey said that to me several times,” Tim said. “God, I know this sounds bad, but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m sorry that Lacey was killed like this. I’m sorry for Jim and Evan for their loss. But I’m sorry for my own loss too. I lost a hell of a friend today. One who accepted me as I am, unconditionally, and without being judgmental.”
“I don’t think that sounds bad, Tim. I think it’s just an honest observation. One most men wouldn’t have the guts to admit,” Pete responded. Then he put his hand on Tim’s arm and said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
For a moment, a silence settled between the men. The strike force, carrying Lacey’s body, moved past the fighter on their way back to the big ship, which couldn’t possibly have landed in the small clearing beside the cabin.
Pete said, “Good hunting, but don’t do anything stupid.”
Tim waved by way of reply as he climbed into the cockpit of the fighter.
***
Evan had waited for the appropriate moment to make an escape attempt. When he saw the attention of his captors riveted on the opposite side of the creek, he’d taken the opportunity to turn and walk away quietly. When he was out of sight around the bend, he began to run slowly. When he felt sure that he was far enough away that the sound of him running harder wouldn’t draw the attention of the marauders to his escape, he really turned on the speed.
He’d decided to stick with the trail for the time being. He was hoping to come to another of those open fields, such as the one they’d crossed
earlier. He knew that if he could find some cover in that field, then the marauders might not spot him, but he would remain visible from the air. He was sure that the Peacekeeper would be looking for him, and he could always contact the ship with the radio and tell them to look for an open field.
He was glancing back over his shoulder to check for signs of pursuit when he tripped over an exposed root. He went down hard on his knees and elbows, but he got back up at once. He was a hundred yards down the trail when he discovered that he’d lost his hat. He stopped at once and looked back down the trail. He wanted to return for the hat, but he was afraid that if he did, the men would spot him.
Evan had been taught that in survival situations, indecisiveness could get you killed. He had also been taught that if you escaped a captor, it was best to do everything you could to minimize the risk of becoming captured a second time. Therefore, Evan opted to leave the hat behind and hope for the best.
He turned and ran down the trail once more. A short time later, he heard Jim yelling, but couldn’t really make out what he said. He stopped running for a while and walked while he caught his breath. He began to look for a place to get off the trail. It was getting late and he was tired. It seemed to Evan that he’d been walking all day long, and the lunch he’d eaten at the waterfall had long ago been processed by his body.
Evan hadn’t even cooled down from his run when he spotted what he thought would give him an excellent chance of evading the men who were pursuing him.
One of the things that Evan liked most about living on the farm back at Base 1 was the old oak tree with the tire swing mounted on a sturdy limb. Evan often climbed that tree in his spare time. As he was walking along the trail, he spotted a tree that would be perfect for him to climb. The path to the tree was covered with grass, so there would be no tracks leading to it. Glancing behind him to see if there was any sign of pursuit, Evan discovered that the men had not yet come within sight. He hurried to the tree and grasped the bottom limb. Soon he had climbed up the old tree until he reached a perch on the side of the tree that put the trunk between him and his pursuers. He wrapped his legs around the tree limb where he was sitting. Crossing his ankles to secure him further, he sat still. He didn’t move as he sat listening for the first sounds of his pursuers.