Endangered (A Sam Westin Mystery Book 1)

by Pamela Beason

  “Charlie?” she gasped.

  His eyes darted in her direction, then quickly flitted away. As he dragged the boy backward, Zack screamed, his shrieks of terror pitched high above the low rumble of the water.

  “He’s not yours!” the man yelled.

  “Coyote Charlie?” Perez’s voice came from behind her.

  Charlie hesitated, his glistening eyes shifting quickly back and forth between Sam and the FBI agent. His expression was not tranquil now. He looked panicked, disoriented. He growled, an animal sound, and then hauled Zack up from the ground. Charlie clutched the struggling child to his chest, his pale eyes fixed on the FBI agent’s face.

  “Charlie!” Perez tried again. “Stop where you are!” Sam knew that the soft hiss she heard behind her was Perez’s elbow sliding down the side of the nylon pack. He’d be reaching for his pistol.

  “No, you’re not Charlie,” Sam said, remembering. “You’re Davinski.” Wolf Davinski, member of Earth Spirits; Karl Jacob Davinski, thirty-two, wanted in Oregon for destruction of construction equipment; BJB + KJD carved on the wall in the ruins. “Karl Davinski.”

  Davinski took a step closer. His eyes were wild, flitting first to her, then to Perez, back to her. He’d seemed so gentle that day on the trail. Was he schizophrenic?

  “How are you, Karl?” Perez said it as if he’d known the man all along. “Let Zachary go. Put him down. It’s not too late to make things right. Karl, put Zachary down.”

  “Karl, I want to thank you for the energy bar,” she said. “And the nuts.”

  “Cashews,” he spat. He pressed the squirming child against his chest, barely able to keep hold of him.

  “That’s right, cashews. And the grapes you gave me that day on the trail.” How could she keep his attention, distract him from Perez? She pulled her camera from her pack and framed Davinski in the viewfinder.

  Zack turned his head and bit the skin of the man’s bare chest. Davinski held the toddler out in front of him with both hands, shook the child up and down. “Stop that, David!”

  “He’s not David, Karl. He’s Zack.” She tried to keep her voice calm. “He wants to go home to his mommy, don’t you, Zack?”

  Zack’s arms and legs flew violently up and down. “David!” the man shrieked. “This is David!”

  “Mommyyyy!” the boy screeched.

  Sam snapped the photo. The flash startled Davinski; he staggered forward a step and nearly dropped Zack. The child’s feet swung only a short distance above Sam’s head. She slapped the camera down on the ledge, leapt forward, caught a handful of the red sweatpants above the boy’s ankle. Davinski pulled back, and the child’s pants slid down one side of his hips, revealing training pants beneath.

  Zack screamed again. “Mommmyyyy!”

  “He’s mine!” the man roared above the din. “You took Barbie, but you won’t get David! I saved him!”

  Sam hung on. Davinski clutched the waistband of the boy’s pants in his right hand; the fabric stretched tight between them.

  The man’s eyes widened, and Sam knew that Perez had drawn his gun.

  “Davinski, let go of Zachary. I’m from the FBI.”

  Karl Davinski remained frozen in place, his wild eyes fixed on Perez’s face.

  “Davinski, this is not David. This is Zachary Fischer. Put him down, or I will shoot. I will shoot you after a count of three. One.”

  “He’s mine!”

  “Two.”

  “I saved him from the blue demon. I saved him! I won’t let you have him!” He raised Zack up into the air, nearly jerking Sam off her feet.

  The little boy’s shrieks were deafening. She felt Perez step to the side to remove the child from the line of fire. In her peripheral vision, she saw the sleek semiautomatic pointed at Davinski’s head.

  She didn’t want Karl Davinski to die. There’d been too much blood spilled already.

  “Three.”

  Perez’s finger tightened on the trigger. Then lightning cracked in several blinding flashes. Davinski jerked Zack upward. The sweatpants slid from the chubby legs. He raised the boy above his head. Sam fell back, clutching a handful of limp fabric.

  “No!” Her voice was lost in the rumble of thunder. The click of Perez’s gun barely registered. Zack kicked wildly. The heel of his tiny foot caught Davinski squarely in the eye, and he dropped the child. Zack’s feet barely touched the ground before the little boy launched himself toward Sam.

  She grabbed for him. His sneaker hit her cheek. The bare foot slipped through her fingers as he sailed over her shoulder into the water.

  No! She plunged in after him. In the middle of the pool the water was chest deep, but she couldn’t stay on her feet. The spiraling current was fierce. Her knee banged against an underwater obstacle. Where was Zack? The water was murky; she was trying to see through mud. The current dragged her toward the center; toward the drop through the submerged hole to the next level.

  She struggled to raise her head above the water. A pale shiny object bobbed up next to her shoulder. She grabbed for it, came up clutching an aluminum camping pot. Her elbow cracked against an unseen rock. Where was Zack? He was drowning!

  Something smooth glanced off her rib cage. Her fingers slid across a cool slick surface. Then she felt only water. A punch landed squarely in the center of her abdomen. She reached out with both hands. Her fingertips were brushed by feathery strands. She knotted her fingers into them and pulled. A yellow and pink head emerged from the water. The lips parted and a gasp came out, followed by a wail.

  Thank God. Zack, still breathing. She clutched him to her chest and leaned back, trying to keep both of their heads above the torrent. Her braid caught in an underwater snag, snapping her head back with a jolt of pain. The swirling water pulled her legs under the surface. The Slide, the opening to the lower chamber! With an excruciating jerk, her hair came free. She felt for Zack’s nose and mouth, covered them with her hand a fraction of a second before they were sucked under the surface.

  The rough sandstone scoured the skin from her backbone as she and Zack slid through the underwater hole. It was like being swallowed alive.

  She opened her eyes to gray water. Dark blobs of stone. As she surfaced, a flash of lightning blinded her. She removed her fingers from Zack’s mouth, pulled him higher on her chest. He coughed against her throat; she could feel the warmth of his breath. Good boy, Zachary.

  They were in the last chamber now. The water surged beneath her, carrying them effortlessly toward the final drop. She pedaled her legs furiously, trying to find a purchase against the stone floor. Anything. She flailed with her free arm. A rock bit into her fingers. She closed them over the pinnacle, but the water dragged her past the handhold. Another flash of lightning streaked across the sky above.

  Zack struggled on her chest. She’d been searching for him for days. Damn it, she wasn’t going to let him go without a fight! She spread her legs wide in the hopes of stopping their progress through the surging water. Something sharp pierced the skin of her calf. A scrape started at her thigh, dug a trench up her back and threatened to tear her ear off as she passed over it. Stick or rock, it didn’t matter. It hurt just the same.

  She tried to pull herself up into a sitting position, but Zack’s weight was centered on her upper chest. He sobbed into her neck, his wailing joined with the roar of the stream surrounding them. They dipped and bobbed through the water. She kicked her legs again, trying to find the rock floor that had to be only inches beneath her.

  With a bone-jarring thud, her right foot slammed up against rock, sending a shock wave of pain up her leg. A second later, her left foot thudded against a vertical wall of stone. Zack slid down her chest, coming to rest on her stomach. She clutched him tighter. They stopped. The water didn’t. It surged over her cheeks and splashed into her mouth. Zack struggled against her. She fought to maintain her hold on the boy, praying she wasn’t holding his head underwater.

  She contracted her stomach muscles, inched her chin ou
t of the water. Over the huge lump that was Zack, she saw gray sky between her knees. And the tops of trees.

  They called this chamber the Observatory, because of the view. Her legs straddled the narrow opening in the rock wall. She was at the top of Village Falls.

  24

  Wallace Russell was chatting with Ranger Leeson beside the bogged-down camper when he arrived. Rafael leapt out of the truck, barking “Stay in the car!” at his daughter before slamming the door behind him.

  Russell registered the murderous look on Rafael’s face. “Excuse me,” he said to Leeson, and took a step toward his camper. “I need—”

  Leeson caught him by the arm and held him in place as Rafael approached, one hand on his service pistol. “You’re under arrest, Wallace Russell—”

  Russell jerked away from Leeson, thrust both arms into the air. “I didn’t do anything to him! I never even had him, really.”

  With his free hand, Rafael pulled a plastic zip tie from his pocket. “Hands behind your back.”

  Wallace Russell kept his hands in the air. “I was going to take that kid back to his mother, honest. I didn’t hurt him. Look!” He ripped off his toupee and bent over so the law enforcement rangers could see the purple bruise on the crown of his head. “I’m the one who got hurt!”

  Leeson grabbed Russell’s arms, forced them behind the man’s back. Damn, he wasn’t going to need the gun, after all. Somewhat reluctantly, Rafael snapped his holster closed and handcuffed Russell with the zip tie.

  “Look,” Russell cajoled, “I can save you guys some time here. He doesn’t need to tell about me and Zack, and I don’t sue him for battery, okay? So everyone gets to go home.”

  Dan Leeson shot a look at Rafael and jerked a thumb at Wallace Russell. “He had Zack Fischer?”

  “No!” Russell protested. “I never had him! I barely even touched him! He was running around in the dark all alone. I was helping him!”

  “I checked the camper. There’s nobody inside,” Leeson said. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Damned if I know,” Rafael answered. “I was just nabbing this scumbag for parole violations. He’s a child molester from Flagstaff.”

  Leeson held Russell’s toupee out to Rafael. Wallace Russell bent over obligingly so that the shorter Rafael could place it on his head.

  The toupee fell in the mud.

  Rafael stepped on it. “Damn,” he said dramatically. “Sorry about that.” Squished into the muddy car tracks, the hairpiece looked like road kill.

  “What’d you want to do that for?” Russell whined. From his hunched position, he had a perfect view inside Rafael’s truck. His face perked up. “Hey, that’s Rosa, right? You’re a lucky man, Ranger Castillo. She’s such a pretty little girl. Look at those lips.”

  Rafael slugged him.

  * * * * *

  During her short stint as a seasonal ranger, Sam had taken photos of the falls from the outside—ragged red rocks framing an elongated diamond window through which the water cascaded in a shimmering curtain from the cliffside. From inside the chamber, the diamond frame enclosed billowing clouds punctuated by the green spikes of junipers. A lone aspen flashed its few remaining leaves, brilliant gold against the ashen sky. If she could sit up, she’d see the river valley below through the mist, like a mirage.

  She was so tired, so cold. She struggled to hold her head up, to keep a grip on Zack, gasping for breath between surges of water.

  Her mind flooded with the memory of the last time she had kissed her mother good night. Even with the ventilator, the poor woman had been gasping for oxygen like a fish out of water. She—nine-year-old Summer—had gone to bed at the usual time, wondering what kind of a God would make someone suffer so.

  At dawn, it had been so quiet. No ventilator, no gasping. Her father sat in the same chair as he had the night before, hugging her mother’s pillow to his chest. And her mother lay peacefully, her face serene at last. “Let’s give thanks to God, Summer,” her father had said. “We were so lucky to have her with us for so long.”

  She thought about Kent and the cougar bleeding in the dust and then the self-righteous hunters that shot them. Adam. Barbara Jean. That poor dead child crushed by the rocks. And now, Zachary Fischer—he hadn’t moved for minutes now. Was he unconscious? The water bucked beneath her like a wild bronco.

  A rock ground into her left kidney. It hurt like hell. Anger rushed through her at the unfairness of it all. I proved myself, Adam, no thanks to you. And I’ve got news for you, Dad. I’m not thankful for suffering and death. And I’m not ready to die!

  She focused on her physical pain, zeroed in on the spasming muscles in her neck, the throbbing cougar scratches, the stinging scrapes along her backbone. She needed to collect all that sharpness and use it to cut through the fog that filled her brain.

  She was right-handed; her grip on that side was stronger. She wrapped her left arm around Zack, made sure the fingers of her left hand were rolled into his sweatshirt. Pushing her right arm sideways into the current, she stretched her fingers out into the surging water. A rock, a branch, anything she could hold on to!

  Zack kicked her hard in the abdomen. Good, he was still alive. She could no longer feel her fingers, but she clenched the muscles in her left arm to keep him firmly against her. She paddled her right hand in the rushing stream. Where the hell was Perez? He’d said he could swim like a dolphin: why hadn’t he come after her and Zack?

  Her knuckles rasped over a stone. She twisted her wrist and curled her fingers around the protrusion. Did she have it? Her fingers were thick, lifeless. She made an effort to pull herself toward the rock. Her body moved sideways a couple of inches, causing her shoulder to sink beneath the surface. Water surged over her neck and chest. Zack kicked and shrieked, a high treble note over the background bass of the flood. But the rock held. She’d found an anchor.

  Dare she move her left foot? She pulled herself to the right. The water shoved more forcefully against her. Broadside to the current, the surge would be more powerful. But she couldn’t stay where she was. She’d be completely numb in another minute. Her muscles would gradually give way and she and Zack would slip over the edge and fall to their deaths on the rocks below.

  Wouldn’t Adam love to get that on videotape. What a scoop.

  The creek roared in her ears. Water spattered into her eyes. Maddening.

  Perez wasn’t coming. Nobody was coming.

  She clenched the muscles in her right arm and pulled. The water surged against her back, propelling her toward the opening. She straightened her right knee to keep her body away from the wall; she didn’t want to smash Zack against the rock. The current threatened to rip her clothes from her body. She could feel water running between her toes and the insoles of her hiking boots.

  Pushing off from the wall, she thrust her left foot into the current. It was immediately sucked into the surge of water leaping over the falls. The current was dragging her through the opening.

  Her head struck a rock, but instead of stars, she suddenly saw clouds overhead. Her fingers scrabbled at the rocks beneath the water. Both her feet dangled over the precipice. She heard the thunder of water striking the pool far below.

  Zack was slipping from her grasp. His legs hung in the water between her thighs. She contracted her muscles and brought her legs up around him. She felt a tug between her breasts. Through the surging water she saw tiny fingers clutching her bra.

  “Hang on, Zack!”

  Her right hand had a tentative hold on a slippery rock at the edge of the waterfall. Another rock, blessedly dry, stood next to the one she held on to. She straightened the fingers of her left hand and withdrew it from Zack’s sweatshirt. The little body slipped an inch. She tightened her legs around him. Was his head underwater? Oh God, don’t let him drown. Don’t let me drop him.

  Now or never. She rolled onto her right side and reached for the rock. Yes, yes, she had it; through a blur of water she saw her fingers around the block of sandston
e, even if she could no longer feel them. She dragged her body toward her handholds, conscious that she was dragging the toddler over the rocks with her. Sorry, Zack, sorry.

  She wedged an elbow between the rocks, used it as a lever to pull her shoulders out of the water. If she hadn’t been so numb, it would have hurt like hell. Flopping over onto her back, she shoved both hands against the rocks to drag her hips out of the torrent. Two small arms and a head covered with wet yellow hair emerged as well.

  Grabbing the back of Zack’s sweatshirt, she hauled his small body up onto dry land beside her. She collapsed across the lichen-spotted rock, her cheek in the dirt, panting with exhaustion.

  Zack’s lips were blue. His eyes were closed; delicate purple veins visible in the pale lids. A long red scratch ran down from scalp to chin. Was he breathing? A trickle of water spilled over his lower lip.

  She didn’t have the strength to do CPR. Breathe, Zachary, breathe! Come on, boy. A bubble of mucus formed at his nostril. Good sign; he had air in his lungs. But his chest was not moving. She tried to push herself up with a numb arm. Then he choked, spraying water into her face. Never had she been more willing to have a child spit up on her. He gasped, sucking in a big gulp of air.

  Thank God. She clasped his little body close. At least they were out of the wind. They were even somewhat out of the rain. Were those tree limbs above? The rocks beneath her were definitely warmer than the water had been. Her feet were icy, though. She tried to wiggle her toes, heard squishing sounds. She bent her knees, pulled her boots out of the water onto dry land.

  That was it; her last ounce of adrenaline had burned out in the water, and she was left with only uncontrollable shivering. She rolled onto her back, keeping Zack against her, his head snuggled into her armpit. Her eyes closed, shutting out the rolling clouds overhead. “Hang in there, little guy. Just a ten-minute break, and then I’ll get you to Mommy.” Although it would be a hell of a lot easier if Mommy came to them.

  A little later—she couldn’t have said whether it had been half an hour or five minutes—she came to with the unpleasant sensation of heavy raindrops pelting her face. She squeezed an arm around Zack’s little body. He made a puppylike snuffling noise and curled into a smaller ball, shivering.