by Rachel Lee
This time he just nodded. A couple of minutes ticked by while she stared at something he couldn’t see. Just as he was about to decide there was nothing to be gained here, she focused on him again and spoke.
“I’m sorry for what I said all them years ago, Ian. You didn’t kill her. Maybe you knocked her up, I don’t know, but you didn’t kill her.”
And for the first time in all the years since, he said what no one had believed at the time. “I never touched her, Annie. Never.”
Annie shrugged. “Don’t matter anymore. But Jeb…”
When she hesitated, Ian had to restrain himself from saying more than “Yes?”
“Something’s wrong with that boy lately,” Annie said. “He’s not right. He’s acting funny. Orville won’t even go hunting with him no more. Worries me.” She leaned forward a little bit. “I don’t know where he went. But if he’s got that nurse lady, there’s no good in it. No good at all. I don’t know what’s been driving him lately, but he kicked his coon dog last night, and I ain’t never seen Jeb kick a thing in his life…”
Ian never heard the rest. He was in the car and moving.
A hundred yards down the road, though, he pulled over and set the brake. Here, where he had nothing else to concentrate on, he closed his eyes and reached out, trying to find some hint, some flicker, of Honor’s mind. Or even Jeb’s. Some hint of where they might have gone. Never in his life had he tried so hard to reach out with his mind. It felt like straining a long-unused muscle, and the effort left him with a blinding headache.
But he had a general idea as to which way they had gone.
Dusk was closing in, and along with it a sense of hopelessness to add to her other miseries. Honor sat tied to the base of a tree by ropes that crisscrossed her chest and stomach. Her ankles were tightly bound, and her wrists were raw from the rope that held them together in her lap. Her face was swollen from numerous mosquito and fly bites, so swollen that her eyes opened only to slits, and the itching was driving her crazy. The only bright spot was that Ian’s insistence that morning had left her wearing jeans and long sleeves, preventing further discomfort.
She was the prisoner of Mrs. Gilhooley, and the longer she sat here and listened to Jeb Sidell rustling in the undergrowth and talking to the ghost of his dead grandmother, the easier Honor found it to believe.
And, worse, as night closed in, she was beginning to feel the old woman’s presence herself. It was a chill in the air that trapped the brutal heat of the day in the thick vegetation, a chill that had nothing to do with temperature.
Suddenly Jeb appeared out of the shadows and hunkered down near her. “Water,” he said, holding out a rusty tin cup.
Honor drank eagerly, having too much common sense to turn down a necessity to make a point. When he offered her pieces of a candy bar, she wolfed those down, too.
“I didn’t want to do this, Miss Honor,” he said as he fed her.
“Then why did you?”
“Gram said she’ll hurt me if I don’t do what she says.”
Honor peered at him, wishing the dusk weren’t concealing his expression so effectively. “Hurt you how?” Lord, was it only a couple of days ago that she’d told Ian she couldn’t imagine how a ghost could hurt anyone? She was beginning to get a good idea.
“She makes things inside my head hurt.”
“Oh.” She accepted another bite of candy. Things inside his head. She could almost imagine it.
“She said she’d send another snake to bite Orville, too.”
“Do you think she can make snakes do what she wants?” Honor shuddered, thinking of the coral snakes and water moccasins that inhabited this place. After the rain, water moccasins could be almost anywhere, too, not just in the rivers and creeks.
“Sure,” said Jeb. “Easy.” He gave her more candy bar.
The darkness was thickening, and with it the chilling sense of the old woman’s presence. Honor looked around, wishing for light. Any light. Some source of illumination to tell her what other threats might be emerging from the dark. Mrs. Gilhooley was bad enough by herself, but the thought of snakes and bobcats and all the other things that inhabited the dark made her just as uneasy. Just as scared.
“Jeb.” She looked at the young man. “What you’re doing is wrong.”
“I know.” Even in the dark, his anguish was palpable. “I know.”
“Then don’t do it!”
“I have to! She’ll hurt me! She’ll hurt Orville!”
“Why would any grandmother want to hurt her grandchildren?”
“I don’t know.” It sounded as if he were crying. “I don’t know. She scares me, Miss Honor. And I can’t let her hurt Orville. But she’s not going to hurt you. She promised she won’t hurt you. I made her promise, because you saved Orville before.”
For hours Honor had been dragged through the thick, junglelike growth of the forest. She’d been terrified, she’d fallen so many times that her entire body was sore and bruised, and now she was sitting in the dark with the man who had kidnapped her and dragged her for miles, and she was supposed to believe she wasn’t going to get hurt because she had helped Orville. The same Orville who was being threatened by another snakebite.
Somehow she didn’t feel very reassured. And she still didn’t know what they were doing out here.
“Why did you drag me out here, then?” she asked Jeb. “If you’re not going to hurt me, why am I tied up like this?”
“She made me.” He whispered the words, as if he, too, felt the encroachment of the evil thing that was his grandmother. “She made me.”
“But why? Why does she want me here in the woods like this?”
He cocked his head to one side. Though he was just a shadow in the deepening gloom, the movement was still visible. “We’re gonna catch him,” Jeb whispered.
Something deep inside her froze to ice. “Catch who?” she asked, her own voice dropping to a whisper. But she knew. Oh, God, she knew.
“Catch the demon spawn,” Jeb whispered. “Catch the witch man.” Then he rose and disappeared into the night.
There were more than a half-million acres of land on the air base, nearly a thousand square miles, most of it virgin forest and subtropical jungle. A man could get lost in there and never be found, and he could die from dozens of causes, everything from poisonous snakes to bobcats, from drowning to falling.
Ian knew the reservation as well as he knew the back of his hand. He’d guided troops through it for years, in daylight and pitch-darkness. He sometimes thought he could tell where he was by the smell of the vegetation and the lingering odors of explosives and jet fuel that never quite blew away.
He drove until his sixth sense warned him to stop, and there, with eyes trained by years of practice, he saw the hastily concealed signs of the recent passage of a vehicle. He didn’t have to walk far into the woods to find Jeb Sidell’s old truck. From there they would have walked, and anywhere a man could walk, Ian could track.
He took time, though, to check out the truck’s cab. He saw two of Honor’s pillowcases, crumpled on the floor boards. There was no doubt they were hers, because they smelled of her laundry soap, and faintly of her. They were dirty from muddy footprints, and spoke to him of a struggle. If Jeb had hurt her, he was going to be one sorry kid, Ian thought grimly as he slammed the cab door. One damn sorry kid.
Closing his eyes, he reached out again. Strained to feel Honor somewhere out there in the hot, muggy evening. It had taken him too long to get here, he thought. Soon it would be dark, and tracking would be harder.
And then he felt her, a whisper of her fear, of her fatigue. Just a touch, a light, almost fragile touch. Two minutes later he was on his way into the woods with night-vision goggles and his knife. He didn’t need a gun. He had never needed a gun.
She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, and after being dragged through the jungle and running on adrenaline for hours, Honor was exhausted. She dozed against the tree, despite the bugs, the p
ossibility of snakes and her fears for Ian. Periodically she awoke and listened to the whispers of the breeze, but not even Jeb disturbed the nighttime silence.
Jeb was out there somewhere, waiting, his trap laid and ready to spring. Honor doubted that it could be much of a trap, given the young man’s reluctance, and his slow-wittedness, but that didn’t keep her from trying to “beam” a warning to Ian, wherever he was. Somehow she had never considered the possibility that he wouldn’t find them. She never once worried that he might not have figured out where she had gone, never once imagined that he might not look for her.
She guessed she trusted him after all.
And that was a terrible thing to realize now, when she couldn’t do anything about it and they might well both be dead before she got a chance to tell him. And if ever anybody in the world had needed to be trusted by someone, it was Ian. He needed it the way a sturdy tree needs rain, and it was the one thing no one had ever given him. Except his army superiors, of course, but that was a different thing altogether.
Well, she trusted him, and if they lived long enough, she was damn well going to tell him.
She drifted off again, but sleep came in fits and starts, a little here, a little there, punctuated by crushing anxiety and fear.
Sometime during the endless hours of dark, Jeb finally returned. He woke her by shaking her shoulder.
“He’s coming.”
“Who?” She refused to let this boy know that she knew who he had meant when he referred to the “demon spawn.”
“McLaren.”
“Him? What do you want to hurt him for? He’s never done anything wrong.”
“He’s a witch. He has to die.”
“He is not a witch!” Honor was tired, hungry and fed up, and her temper was fraying. “When have you ever seen him call up a demon? Come off it, Jeb. You know damn well he’s never done anything wrong!”
“Mama says the old preacher used to shun him.”
“So? Have you seen Ian do anything wrong? With your own eyes?”
“Gram says he’s evil. Evil!”
“Your gram’s the evil one!”
“No! Don’t you say that! She’s not! She’s not!”
Honor heard him hurry away, trampling vegetation as he went, trying to escape her words. If she hadn’t been so scared for herself and Ian, she might even have felt pity for the young man.
And then she heard the most spine-chilling sound in the world—an abruptly cut-off shriek of terror.
“Jeb? Jeb? Jeb, answer me!”
But he never did. Apart from the whisper of the wind in the treetops, the night remained deadly silent.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The night had been terrifying before, but now, knowing something had happened to Jeb, Honor found the dark intolerable. Tipping her head back, heedless of the way the ropes cut her as she twisted, she tried to see the stars, but the thick pine needles hid even that much from her.
Anything, anything at all, could come crawling out of that darkness now, and she couldn’t even run or try to protect herself. Thoughts of foot-long bugs and giant spiders seemed a lot worse than Mrs. Gilhooley.
Who was still hovering around like a bad odor, Honor thought, shivering. Oh, God, how long till morning? How long until night would give way to dawn, until the chill would succumb to the warmth?
And Ian, even with Jeb out of commission, was walking into some kind of trap, and there was no way to warn him. Short of sending him frantic messages, which wasn’t an easy thing to do when she couldn’t be sure he was getting them.
Her skin prickled suddenly, as if it had been brushed by something. But nothing was there. She thought immediately of insects. Snakes. Ghosts.
And then she heard the low rumble. At first she wondered if it was a distant storm. But gradually she realized it was approaching, growing louder. Aircraft engines. Lots and lots of aircraft engines.
A bombing mission, she thought, and wondered how close it would be. It couldn’t be here, of course, or there wouldn’t be any trees. All the trees would long since have been knocked down or blown to smithereens.
As soon as she had the thought, the night burst with the brilliant white light of explosion. Almost before she understood what was happening, there was another…and another…and another. Coming closer. Oh, God, coming this way!
Why were they bombing the trees?
Dirt showered her, and her shoulder stung as something hit her. The shock waves kept rolling over her, leaving her breathless, and she couldn’t even cover her ears with her hands. She felt as if she were caught inside the thunder.
She was going to die. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind that she was going to die.
Another series of explosions began to approach from the same direction as the first. Carpet bombing. Saturation bombing. Oh, God, whatever you called it, they weren’t going to leave a tree standing or an inch of ground untouched. An explosion. Another one. More dirt showered her.
Suddenly something fell on her, covering her. She opened her mouth to scream, to release the intolerable terror in the only way she could, when she realized it was a body. A body had fallen on her. Jeb?
“Honor! Honor, it’s me!”
Ian! Oh, God, it was Ian! His mouth against her ear. His hands gripping her shoulders.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he shouted, even as he slashed at her bonds with his knife. They gave way quickly. He didn’t bother with her hands. Another run of bombs was making its way toward them. He hauled her to her feet, but her legs gave way, numb from endless hours of immobility. In an instant he tossed her onto his back and held her by her wrists as he ran through the night.
She couldn’t imagine how he could see anything at all. Nature had never made a night as dark as this, as dark as a cave’s interior, the darkness punctuated only by the hellish explosions of the bombs. The light kept blinding her, and she couldn’t see a thing. How could he?
They were both going to die, she thought as dirt struck them again, this time with enough force to sting. Ian shouted something to her, but another explosion drowned out his words.
Turning her head, she buried her face against his neck and tried to close her mind to the danger and the fear. How could he run like this with her on his back? Tirelessly, it seemed. Effortlessly.
Another bomb exploded, so close this time that her cheek stung from the heat from the blast. Then another. God, they were coming closer! She pressed her face to Ian’s neck and prayed harder than she’d ever prayed in her life.
And on into the night he ran.
“Here.” Slowly Ian squatted and eased her from his back to the ground.
“The bombs…”
“It’s okay now,” he said. “It’s okay. They’re heading the other way now.” He reached for her wrists and began to saw away the rope.
She couldn’t see a thing until another bomb exploded and the light fell across them. He was wearing some kind of goggles, she realized. That must be how he managed to see when she felt utterly blinded.
Another explosion, and she realized he was right. The sounds were retreating now. Dirt was no longer showering them.
“Somebody’s going to get hell come morning,” Ian remarked, as calmly as if they were sitting on the porch sipping tea.
“Why?”
“They missed the bombing range by a quarter mile, that’s why.”
“They weren’t supposed to blow up the trees?”
He finished cutting the rope that held her wrists, then raised his head and looked straight at her. She couldn’t read his expression, because his eyes were hidden behind those strange goggles. “No,” he said slowly. “They weren’t supposed to blow up the trees. Or you.”
Suddenly he grabbed her, and she found herself crushed to his hard, broad chest, held as if she might slip away if he didn’t hold her tightly enough. And suddenly, very suddenly, she felt safer than she’d ever felt in her life. And closer to tears than at any time in her memory.
�
��Is it…is it okay if I get hysterical?” she asked shakily.
“Sure, baby. Sure. But…maybe you can hold off just a little longer? Until we get to the car?”
He helped her to stand again, and this time her legs were able to support her. He led the way through the thick growth at a brisk pace that kept her breathing heavily. From time to time he paused and let her catch her breath, and then they were off again. In silence. With a sense that something was following. Pursuing them.
Not until they were in Ian’s Jeep did the feeling of pursuit quit. When she drew a long, sobbing breath of relief, he reached out and squeezed her thigh gently. “Just a little longer, honey. Hang on just a little longer, babe.”
So she did. But it wasn’t easy. As the realization of safety, however temporary, sank in, the control that had kept her going all day began to evaporate.
They were driving down the dark road at breakneck speed, and she had no idea where they were going. Some corner of her mind kept trying to tell her that she at least ought to ask, but it somehow didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was that he had found her and saved her at the risk of his own neck. After this night, there was nothing she wouldn’t trust him with.
She was astonished when she realized they were on the air base proper, and even more astonished when he pulled up to what appeared to be a motel beneath towering oaks.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Base TLQ. Temporary Lodging Quarters. Be right back.”
Before she could enquire further, he was out of the Jeep and headed for a brightly lit doorway. Temporary Lodging Quarters, she thought inanely. Count on Uncle Sam to come up with a name like that. What were they doing here?
Ian was back in just a couple of minutes. Without a word, he drove down to the end of the long, low building and then parked. “You’re staying here tonight,” he said.
She was? Moments later they were inside and the night was locked out. Ian stood with his back to the door like a guard and looked at her. “Now you can get hysterical.”