He looked at the small silver cross dangling before him. His hand was shaking as he took the beads.
CHAPTER 89
Carrie held on tightly to Kyle’s midsection as the snowmobile rocked and bounced down the trail. A short while after leaving the ranger station, they had come to a Forest Service road that was closed for the season. The road had been blocked by a steel gate that was secured with a loop of heavy chain and a large padlock. George had unlocked the gate with one of the keys Hank had given them. They had been traveling along the road for almost an hour now.
Unfortunately, they had been delayed for almost half of that time when they had come across a section of road that had been buried in a small slide of snow and mud. Before they could pass, they had been forced to remove a few of the tree limbs and smaller trunks that had spilled across the roadway. Finally, after they cleared enough of the obstacles, they managed to get the snowmobiles across the debris field.
The hood of the snowsuit and the monotonous drone of the snowmobiles effectively drowned out all other sounds, which caused Carrie to feel a certain sense of isolation in spite of being accompanied by Kyle and the sheriff. The ranger station was well behind them now, and with it the last remnants of civilization.
Carrie felt relatively safe with Kyle and the sheriff, but she kept scanning the sky for any signs of activity, natural or otherwise. The range of peaks on the far side of the river appeared to be little more than hazy shadows. What light there was filtering through the clouds cast an eerie, silvery glow across the valley. Through a break in the trees, she caught a brief glimpse of the river below them to their right. They were still climbing.
It was getting colder as well. She thought it might be starting to snow, but it was hard to tell if that were the case or it was just chaff being thrown up by the sheriff’s snowmobile. Either way, she was glad they had purchased the snowsuits, gloves, and boots. Even with the fur-lined hood up and her goggles on, her eyes were watering, and her face felt as if it was beginning to chafe in the frigid wind.
They hit a small bump, and Carrie was bounced from the seat, the weight of her pack pulling her backward. Her gloved hands slipped across the slick nylon of Kyle’s suit, and for a frightening moment, she thought she was going to lose her balance. She grabbed at Kyle, clutching him tighter, her arms around his chest and her knees pressed against his thighs.
“You okay?” Kyle shouted over his shoulder.
“Yeah, fine,” she shouted back, a little embarrassed, but she didn’t loosen her grip on him. Kyle made no further comment, so she assumed it didn’t bother him. It certainly didn’t bother her. It felt good to be this close to him, even with the gloves and thick layers of clothing between them. In spite of the freezing conditions, Carrie felt a growing warmth inside her that had nothing to do with the insulated suit she wore.
A short while later, the sheriff slowed in front of them. He raised his arm, signaling to them before coming to a stop. Kyle guided their snowmobile around to the right and pulled up beside him. In front of them, a wooden barricade stretched across the trail, which ceased to exist beyond it. It was a dead end.
“What now?” Carrie asked.
“We walk,” said the sheriff. He stood and began unstrapping Kyle’s pack from the snowmobile.
“But where?” Carrie asked as she looked around.
“The Spotted Bear River Trailhead is just behind us,” the sheriff said with a nod toward the trees. “It will take us past Silvertip Cabin and on to Pentagon Cabin, but we must hurry,” he said, looking at the skies once again. “We must travel another ten miles before dark, and the most difficult part of our journey is still before us.”
Carrie started to ask the sheriff if he had meant for that last comment to sound as ominous as it had, but she decided against it. She was afraid she already knew the answer.
Regretfully, she let go of Kyle and got off. Her boots broke through the top layer of icy crust and sunk halfway up to her calves in the unpacked snow beneath. Leaning over, she stretched her back, which was already feeling the effects of the pack she wore.
“You all right?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah, just stretching out the kinks,” she replied.
The sheriff made his way over, his boots crunching in the snow. He handed Kyle’s pack to him. “You should put on the snowshoes now,” he said. “The snow is firmer here where it has been in the sun, but on the trail, it will be much softer and deeper.”
After the prolonged droning of the snowmobiles, the valley seemed preternaturally quiet as they readjusted their gear and strapped on the snowshoes. The sheriff picked up one of the shotguns and pumped it, racking a shell into the breech before handing it to Kyle. The sound echoed eerily down the valley.
They made their way back up the road a short distance to the edge of the trees. A post with a small wooden plaque was mounted in front of a small gap. The letters TH inside a square with rounded corners was carved into the sign, marking the Spotted Bear River Trailhead. A narrow trail cut through the trees and angled down the mountain toward the river a short distance before it veered off to the left.
With the sheriff leading and Kyle bringing up the rear, they started down the decline and into the shadows.
CHAPTER 90
Nathan made his way up the walk in front of the Spotted Bear Ranger Station. The prolonged exposure to the cold had caused his knee to stiffen, which forced him to walk with more of a limp than normal, but it was a minor nuisance. It would all be over soon.
Following the girl and the others all the way up from Kalispell, he had been careful to keep his distance to avoid being spotted. When he had reached the ranger station and spotted the Hummer, Nathan had turned around and then pulled into the Diamond J Ranch, a privately owned campground with a collection of small cabins tucked away about a half mile back up the road. There, he had watched as the girl, the sheriff, and the FBI man had all left on snowmobiles.
They were playing right into his hand. It would be much easier to eliminate them out here. He could have done it in town, as he had with the mole, but this was better. Here, he would be afforded the luxury of uninterrupted privacy. And if things worked out right, he would still be able take his time with the girl.
Ignoring the wooden sign out front, Nathan stepped onto the porch and walked inside. The creaking door announced his presence to anyone within. The front room was empty except for a strange menagerie of stuffed wildlife mounted around the walls.
“Hello?” a man’s voice called out from the back, followed by the sound of boot heels thumping on the wooden floor.
Nathan waited until the ranger stepped into view and then raised his gun and shot him twice in the face.
The man dropped like a stone. Nathan stepped around the counter, ready to finish him off, but the man was already dead. He pressed himself against the wall and then peered around the corner down the hall to see if anyone else was in the building. Even with the silencer, the thump of the body hitting the floor might have roused their suspicion.
The hallway was empty. A faint, spluttering hiss came from one of the back rooms.
Nathan slipped down the corridor and checked each room to make sure no one was hiding under a desk or in a closet. In back was the break room. The spluttering sound he had heard came from an old Mr. Coffee that was just beginning to brew, the dark liquid trickling into the glass pot beneath it.
Confident he was alone, Nathan went back to the first office he had checked. Against the wall to his left was an old roll-top desk. The roll-top had been pulled back, revealing the shortwave radio and microphone. He walked over to the desk and pulled the radio off into the floor. Sparks jumped from the electrical socket as the plug was jerked from the wall. With a nearby coat rack, he smashed the equipment until there was no chance it would ever be used again.
Nathan went back to the break room. He had been up for several days now, only catching brief catnaps here and there, and he was beginning to feel the effects. He opened the ca
binet doors until he found a shelf with several coffee cups. After he took one down, he picked up the tan canister of Imperial sugar from the counter and poured it into the cup, letting it sift out until the bottom was covered with a large, white mound. He filled the cup with coffee and mixed it with a plastic stirrer he found in one of the drawers. He then took out a small pillbox from his pocket. Inside were pills of various sizes, shapes, and color. He took out one of the small red capsules and washed it down with three big gulps of coffee. The pill was another of GenTech’s many innovations for the military. It allowed soldiers to go for days without sleep with only minimal diminishment of their mental faculties.
While he was drinking the coffee, Nathan noticed a box of Little Debbie honey buns sitting on the counter. His stomach rumbled in response. He tore open the box and was happy to find there were still two honey buns left. He ripped into the cellophane and inhaled the first one in four bites.
He then went back up front and checked the ranger’s pockets. He found a set of keys, which he took with him as he went back through the break room and out the back door. Beside the Hummer was a pea-green US Forest Service Suburban.
And there, in a gun rack in the rear side window was just what he had been looking for—a shotgun.
Moments later, Nathan stepped back inside with the loaded shotgun. After he laid the gun down on the table, he poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and picked up the remaining honey bun. He then sat down at the table and enjoyed the rest of his breakfast while images of the girl, bound and gagged, danced within his head.
CHAPTER 91
With each huffing breath, the air in front of Kyle fogged briefly before it was quickly whisked away. The wind had picked up, whispering its warning of the coming storm through the treetops that swayed back and forth as if bowing before an angry God.
The sheriff paused, looked at the trunk of a tree, and then moved on without comment. They had been traveling for hours now, stopping only once to take a quick break at Silvertip Cabin, where they had gone inside for a brief rest and a quick meal. As he passed the tree, Kyle noticed what looked like an upside-down exclamation mark carved into the thick bark. He had noticed similar markings on other trees along the way and had assumed it was a method of marking the trail. While the trail might have been visible in the summer, it was virtually impossible to make out with the snow cover. Kyle realized that without the sheriff, he and Carrie would have become hopelessly lost within minutes of entering this vast wilderness.
Carrie turned and looked back at him. And though it was hard to tell behind the goggles and fur-lined hood, Kyle thought she smiled at him, and he found himself grinning stupidly in return. He was glad she was in front of him. Even with the snowsuit and the large pack, he couldn’t help but notice her shapely figure as she walked, but more importantly, it made it easier for him to keep an eye on her. He was determined to stay close enough to make sure nothing happened to her.
A short while later, they emerged from the hall of trees and came to a strip of undisturbed snow in their path. The sheriff held up his hand for them to stop. After he handed the shotgun to Carrie, he snapped a limb off a nearby spruce and then moved forward, kneeling down here and there, carefully testing the depth of the snow. The stick sank up to his hand in several places before he finally struck something solid. Using the limb as a broom, he cleared away enough snow to reveal a portion of two logs buried beneath.
“This is Dean’s Creek,” the sheriff said. “Cross as I do, with your feet sideways to the logs so you don’t slip off.”
In the distance to their left, Kyle could see the racing torrent of frigid water roaring down the mountain before disappearing beneath the snow. It would be disastrous if they stepped in the wrong place and fell through.
After they each crossed the creek, the trail began to rise again. Kyle’s thighs and calves burned with every step as they made their way up the slope. It was hard to tell how far they had gone, but he was afraid it wasn’t nearly as far as it felt. Regardless of the distance, the trek was already taking its toll on him. He watched Carrie in front of him and wondered how she was holding up.
At the top of the climb, the trail leveled off onto a rocky, windswept bluff clear of the trees. Barely visible through the misty clouds, they were just able to make out the upward-canted cliffs of the Limestone Wall across the valley to the south. The snow-covered bed of the Spotted Bear River was now far below them. “We’re about halfway to Pentagon Cabin,” the sheriff said over the rising wind. He pointed to their left, where a wooden sign nailed to a tree marked an intersecting path. “That trail follows Elk Ridge up to the peak of Shadow Mountain.”
“Shadow Mountain? That’s where the plane crashed,” Carrie said.
“Yes,” said the sheriff.
Kyle looked up, his eyes following the craggy ridgeline as it zigzagged up the side of the mountain before it disappeared into the growing bank of dark clouds that obscured the peak. Despite the snowsuit he was wearing, Kyle shivered as the frigid wind gusted across his neck and down his spine.
“The storm is growing,” the sheriff said, looking back to the west. “We must hurry.”
Ahead, the trail ducked back down into the cathedral of trees, momentarily sheltering them from the worst of the wind. They trudged on, twisting and snaking through the thick undergrowth before coming to a narrow, snow-clogged defile.
The sheriff stopped. Kneeling down, he examined the deep snow in front of them. “Others have been here,” he said, pointing to several irregular depressions the wind had not managed to completely erase. They all knew who the “others” were.
“Can you tell how many?” Kyle asked.
“It is hard to be certain,” the sheriff said as he examined the marks. “But it looks as if two came this way and then returned.”
The sheriff turned back to them. “We must be careful. If I signal, get off the trail. Duck behind whatever cover is available and wait for me. I will come back for you. If I don’t return in ten minutes, turn around and head back to the ranger station as fast as you can.”
“But—” Carrie started to protest.
The sheriff looked at Carrie. “Do not come after me,” he reiterated and then looked at Kyle. Kyle nodded in confirmation.
They continued on through the swale, forcing their way through the deep snow for another half mile or so. Even with the snowshoes, they still sank up to their knees in the soft powder, and more than once, they had to help each other to keep from getting bogged down. It was the perfect place for an ambush, which forced Kyle and the sheriff to take turns moving forward while the other kept watch.
By the time they cleared the bog, Kyle and Carrie were spent. The sheriff seemed no worse for wear, but thankfully, he suggested they take a break. While the sheriff kept watch, Kyle and Carrie ate one of the bland protein bars, which had already become hard and brittle from the cold. No one spoke, afraid that any sounds might give away their presence.
A narrow break in the trees to their left provided a view of Dean Falls in the distance. The icy cataract plunged hundreds of feet down the steep cleft, the craggy stone bearded with crystalline frost from the frozen spume. Even now, with much of the falls still locked away in snow and ice, it was a breathtaking sight. Its beauty, however, was lost on the three, whose sole focus was the shadowy confines of the surrounding forest.
CHAPTER 92
Every muscle and joint in Kyle’s body ached as they continued to slog their way along the trail. Even though he worked out regularly and thought he was in pretty good shape, nothing could have prepared him for this. The backs of his knees burned, and his right hip had developed a catch that would pop occasionally, sending currents of pain shooting down his leg. His lower back and shoulders were cramping up beneath the weight of the pack. His forearm burned from carrying the shotgun. Everything hurt.
In front of him, Carrie seemed to be doing all right, but Kyle knew she had to be struggling as much as he was. Even so, he felt certain she wou
ld never admit it. She continued to trudge forward without complaint.
The sheriff stopped. He stood motionless, staring at the trail ahead of them. He cocked his head as if listening for something and then signaled for them to get down.
They clambered off the trail and ducked behind an old, splintered stump. Kyle crouched next to Carrie. He scanned the forest, but the fading light made it impossible to make out anything against the backdrop of swaying brush and trees. When he looked back at the trail, the sheriff was gone.
Kyle assumed the sheriff had either hidden alongside the trail or had gone farther up to investigate, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He pulled off the glove on his right hand with his teeth and then released the safety on the shotgun. The shotgun’s metal stock was so cold it practically burned. Trying to remain as quiet as possible, Kyle slowly pulled back his hood and strained to listen for any telltale sounds. He could hear Carrie’s rapid breathing beside him and the haunting moan of the wind overhead, but nothing more.
Neither of them dared to move or even whisper as they huddled next to the tree. One by one, the seconds crept by, each one feeling like a minute, every minute an hour. Kyle could feel himself sweating within the snowsuit, and had it not been for the cold, his forehead would have beaded with perspiration.
Next to him, Carrie shifted slightly, the weight of her body leaning against his. It felt good. Kyle remained still, taking pleasure in her closeness while he could. As he watched, a few stray strands of her hair danced in the rising wind.
He waited for as long as he felt prudent before he finally checked his watch. Eight and a half minutes had gone by and still no sign. The sheriff must have encountered someone. Or something, he thought, his worries rapidly ascending toward fear. Surely, he wouldn’t have been gone this long otherwise. He looked at Carrie, who stared at him with wide-eyed concern.
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