Forever Hunted

by Kathleen Brooks

  “It’s okay, girl. We’re here now. How are you, sweet thing?” Carter said gently as he held out his hand for the horse to sniff. She snorted and pawed her hoof into the ground as Reagan came slowly forward.

  “We need to keep her as quiet as we can,” Reagan whispered as she held out her hand. The mare nuzzled it, then nuzzled Carter’s shoulder as recognition set in.

  “I need to see how badly she’s injured,” Carter whispered back as he began to run his hands over her. “She’s bleeding. I can’t find where in the dark.”

  He continued his exam and Reagan barely saw him shake his head in the dark. “Her leg is on fire. If I could see better, I am guessing she has quite the limp. There’s a major injury to her leg, but luckily it doesn’t appear to be broken.”

  Reagan began running her hand up Miss Mambo’s nose, behind her ear, and down her neck. Suddenly her hand was bathed in a wet warmth. Reagan sucked in a breath as Carter stood up. “What is it?”

  “There’s a huge gash on her shoulder. I can feel it and it’s bad.” Carter slid his hand down her arm until he felt the cut. Miss Mambo stirred uneasily as Carter applied pressure to the gash.

  “We need to stop the bleeding. It’s a slow seep, but after too long a period, she could lose too much blood,” Carter whispered as he continued to press on the cut.

  “Let me see what I can find,” Reagan murmured as she felt her way through the dark. There had been a tree covered in the invasive kudzu vines somewhere nearby. She just had to find it, in the dark, while not making a sound. Easy.

  Reagan tried to keep the weight off her injured ankle but was pleased to find it held up much better now that she’d been off it for a number of hours. It took her at least ten minutes, but she finally felt the tangle of the vines and dense foliage of the kudzu slowly suffocating the large oak tree.

  Reagan felt for a vine and then reached as high as she could and yanked. The ripping sound of the vine separating from the tree seemed to echo through the woods and Reagan was sure Mick could hear it. The vine loosened its hold but didn’t fall, so Reagan used all her weight as she pulled it to the ground. The long vine fell with a crash. She lay silent until the forest returned to its natural level of noise. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and began to loop the long vine around her shoulder before making her way back toward Carter. Along the way, she plucked a handful of dessert-plate-sized maple leaves for a bandage.

  “Here,” Reagan whispered, handing Carter the leaves. “Place those over her wound so there are no gaps. I’ll tie them on with the kudzu vines with enough pressure to help the bleeding stop.”

  “Great idea,” Carter said, taking the leaves and placing them on Miss Mambo’s wound. “The pressure helped. The bleeding has almost stopped, but this will help even more.”

  Carter held the leaves in place as Reagan placed the middle of the vine on the leaves and walked back and forth between both sides of the sweet mare to wrap the vine under her belly and then over her shoulder until there was no more vine left. She tucked in the end pieces and stepped back to see if it held.

  “You did it,” Carter said, wrapping his arm around her and kissing her temple. “Now you two ladies rest. I’m going to grab more vines to make a lead for her. In a couple hours the sun will rise and we’ll be on the move again.”

  Reagan found a stump and walked Miss Mambo over to it as Carter went off in the direction of the vines. She took a seat and Miss Mambo dropped her head and snorted into Reagan’s hair. She grinned in the dark as the large horse nuzzled her head. Just a few more hours and then they’d be on their way.

  Carter made his way back to them in the dark with a length of vine. He used it to attach to Miss Mambo’s halter and then pulled Reagan from the trunk and sat on the ground, having her sit between his legs. She leaned back against his chest as Miss Mambo munched on some grass. “Sleep for a little while. I have you. Miss Mambo is feeling well enough to eat. That’s a good sign. And before long, we’ll be on our way.” Carter tightened his arms around her as she rested her head against his shoulder. Even though she didn’t think it was possible, Reagan’s eyes began to shut and soon she was fast asleep.

  * * *

  Carter didn’t dare close his eyes as Reagan slept against him. He held her close to him as she turned and rested her cheek against his chest and slept. Estimating their pace and the amount of hours they were moving, Carter guessed they’d traveled about fifteen miles. If the town was twenty-five or thirty miles from the crash site, they’d hit that small town in the afternoon. That is, if they didn’t stop much. They’d traveled for a solid ten hours the day before and they had to have made it at least halfway.

  One thing worried Carter, though. With Miss Mambo they would not be able to sneak through the woods or stream anymore. They would become a larger and louder target, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the horse behind. Not in woods filled with predators, human and otherwise. Mick downed that plane in hopes of killing Miss Mambo and Suzanne in order to collect the insurance. For him it was all about money. If he came across Miss Mambo in the woods, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her.

  Though by now, Carter didn’t know how Mick would talk his way into the role of victim. If Mick were still following them, surely the police would be looking for the rest of the plane’s occupants. And what about Paul, Daniel, and Stewart? Were they alive or had Mick killed them before coming after him and Reagan?

  As the questions ran through his head, the sun began to creep above the horizon. The questions would have to wait. Now was the time to move. The more distance they could keep between Mick and themselves, the better.

  “Rea,” Carter whispered as to not alarm her. “It’s time to wake up.”

  Carter gently squeezed her arm and Reagan bolted upright, her eyes wild. “What is it?”

  “It’s okay. The sun is up, and I thought we better get going,” Carter said evenly as to not alarm her in any way.

  Reagan nodded as she rubbed her hand over her face and stood up gingerly. She tested her ankle by flexing her toes and then carefully put some weight on it. She grinned over him, and Carter felt relieved by her optimistic look. “It’s better!”

  “All better or better from yesterday?” Carter asked standing up.

  “Mostly better. I’ll see how it feels after walking for a bit, but I’d say it’s at seventy-five percent and that’s a lot better from how it was yesterday. I should be able to make faster time now. Come on, let’s go.”

  Hope finally sparked as he followed Reagan. She moved noticeably more easily through the woods toward the stream that was quickly turning into a small river the farther down the mountain they got.

  “Rea, I think the water is moving too quickly for Miss Mambo. There’s an animal path we passed a minute ago that appears to follow the water. I think we should take that.”

  Reagan looked down the stream and nodded. She turned and stepped toward him when the bark from the tree she’d been standing next to exploded at the same time a rifle shot was heard. Carter leaned forward, grabbed Reagan’s hand and shoved her forward. “Go!”

  Reagan didn’t have to be told twice. She took off running. Carter tightened his grip on a scared Miss Mambo and followed on Reagan’s heels. Miss Mambo snorted, protesting being pulled along, but came without a fight as they turned down the small animal path.

  “He took that shot from a good distance,” Reagan yelled as she ran with a slight limp.

  “How do you know?” he yelled over the sound of Miss Mambo’s snorts and hoofbeats.

  “If there’s anything my daddy taught me, it’s shooting a rifle. He was three hundred yards at least. I could tell by the sound and the strength of the impact of the bullet. We need to lose him. Follow me.”

  Carter followed without question. Reagan was well versed in keeping out of sight, and he’d trust her with his life to do that now.

  22

  Robyn had her nose in the air when suddenly her ears went back and she growled. “Did you
hear that, girl?” Ahmed asked.

  “Hear what?” Cy asked as they came to a stop.

  “Rifle shot,” Ahmed said simply.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Will said. They’d just started moving when Ahmed had stopped them.

  “It’s too hard to judge where it came from. It could be miles away. But we heard it, didn’t we, Spawn?”

  Robyn growled in response and looked off somewhere in the woods before putting her nose in the air and sniffing again. Her short tail went rigid as she found what she was looking for.

  “Search,” Ahmed ordered and the rust-colored dog took off down the bank of the stream.

  * * *

  “Give me a gun,” Gemma ordered. “I left mine in the helicopter.”

  “Ma’am, I can’t give you a police-issued weapon,” Deputy Tanner said again with his hands on his hips.

  “I may have some locked in the ladies’ club across the street. Let me check,” Agnes called out cheerfully before hurrying out the door. Gemma rolled her eyes. It was six-thirty and Gemma wanted to get to the woods before daylight. She looked out the window of the police station into the twilight and saw Agnes using a key to unlock a door across the street. A second later she straightened with a rifle in her hands.

  Right now she didn’t care that a granny had a gun. In Keeneston, it was commonplace and apparently it was in Moonshine as well. The Rose sisters looked hung over but surprisingly spry for so early in the morning.

  “Here you go, dear,” Agnes called out as she entered the police station with the rifle.

  “Thank you,” Gemma said with a sign of relief. The weapon looked brand-new.

  “Here you go, ma’am,” Dale said, handing her a box of ammo. “Do you know how to use this?”

  Gemma leveled a glare at him, and Dale quickly stepped back. Members of the Mountaineers club were on hand along with some older men and women of town. The men were going to help in the search while the women were providing food, water, and communications.

  “We will break into three groups. Each group will be headed up by either FBI Agent Ryan Parker, Kentucky State Trooper DeAndre Drews, or me. This is the man, and he’s armed and dangerous,” Luke called out as he held up a picture of Mick. “Stay away from him and let law enforcement engage him if it comes to that. Our main objective is to find Reagan Davies and Carter Ashton.” Luke held up their pictures next and passed all three pictures around.

  “Agnes and Vilma have the map, and you’ll report back to them with your locations every ten minutes,” Luke stated as he pointed to the path Carter and Reagan had taken. “There’s a group following with a dog here. And we believe Mick was last tracked here. As you see, they’re all coming toward us. Let’s give them a warm welcome. Let’s go,” Luke called out.

  Gemma was out the door and hopping into the back of Dale’s pickup before Luke called out. “Gemma!’

  “We’ll meet you there,” Gemma called out as she leaned over and offered her hand to Kenna. “Let’s go, Dale!”

  The truck roared to life, filled with people from Dale’s club, and took off down the road. Soon. She’d have her baby in her arms soon.

  * * *

  Reagan’s chest burned. Her ankle felt as if it were on fire. But she didn’t stop running. She couldn’t stop running. Behind her, Carter followed and Miss Mambo trotted along. She didn’t know how long they’d been running, but she couldn’t take it anymore. Her ankle buckled, and she went down hard. Her knees hit first and then her palms scraped against the dirt path.

  “Rea!” Carter called out as he and Miss Mambo slid to a stop behind her. “Are you okay?”

  Reagan rolled onto her back and breathed in deeply. She couldn’t let her ankle stop her. She had to keep going. “I’m fine. Just tripped is all.”

  Carter stooped down to the ground and felt her ankle. “Does this hurt?” he asked as he pressed on it. It hurt like hell, but Reagan shook her head.

  “No, it’s fine. We need to go downstream some. Then we’ll cross back and forth weaving in and out of the deeper forest. But first, see that kudzu over there? We need to get as much of it as possible.”

  Reagan followed Carter over to the tree covered in the leafy vine and began pulling. As large strips of vines fell, Reagan gathered them up and brought them over to Miss Mambo. Slowly she worked the vines down the mare’s neck and around her belly. By the time she was through, the horse looked like a walking bush.

  Carter followed her to the stream next. Reagan bent down and scooped up mud from the shallow water’s edge and smeared it on her face, arms, and shirt. “You do it too. We need to blend in as much as possible. It’ll make us a harder target.”

  Carter nodded, grabbed the mud and covered himself as Reagan attempted to cross the stream. The water seemed calm. Reagan could hear the waterfall they had passed and hoped the worse of the quick-flowing water was past them. Making her way slowly across, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Come on, it’s clear.”

  Carter and Miss Mambo made their way across until it was time to run again. Reagan quickly took in the landscape, noting the best positions for hiding, the best locations for sniper fire, and the best paths to take down the mountain. There was no hiding it now. Mick would know they were headed to the valley. If he wasn’t right behind them, he would be trying to get ahead of them. It was up to Reagan to make sure she didn’t lead them into an ambush.

  “Rea . . . Reagan!” Carter hissed after another long spell of jogging. “What if Mick is waiting for us?”

  She’d been thinking the same thing, but she didn’t think Carter would figure out what she was doing as she constantly looked for ambushes. “I’ve thought about that.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that too. He knows we’re following the stream, so why don’t we use that against him. He may know where we are going, but he doesn’t know how we are going to get there.”

  “Unless he’s tracking us from behind,” Reagan pointed out. Which brought her back to the problem at hand. They didn’t know where Mick was.

  “Let’s go into the woods, get a weapon or two, and head downhill through the deeper woods. We’d blend in more, and hopefully if he’s moved ahead of us, we won’t meet him downstream.”

  “Unless he’s tracking us from behind. Which he has been doing the whole time. But the weapons are a good idea,” Reagan told him as they continued down the deer path at a slower pace.

  “We can’t take the time to stop. We need to keep moving. I’ll go into the woods and see what I can find. You and Miss Mambo keep walking. I’ll arc around and meet you down the path in fifteen minutes. Okay?” Carter began looking around.

  Reagan hated to admit it, but she didn’t like the idea of being separated from Carter. She liked being unarmed even less. “Sounds good. Whistle like a bird before you come out so I know it’s you.”

  Carter handed her the vine attached to Miss Mambo and leaned forward to press a quick kiss to Reagan’s lips. “I love you. I will be back. And I will marry you before the day is out.”

  Reagan’s lips tilted up into a smile as Carter took off into the woods. “Come on, girl,” she said to Miss Mambo. “We have a wedding to plan.”

  Reagan continued to walk as she kept her ears open for unnatural sounds. She knew Carter wasn’t far, but she couldn’t hear him moving around anymore. In fact, it felt as if she were all alone. That was until she heard the crack of a branch behind her.

  Reagan spun around, Miss Mambo whinnied, and Reagan came face to face with a baby deer and its mother on the way to the stream. Reagan’s breathing was heavy. Her body was shaking with adrenaline as the two deer moved on. Just as fast as they’d appeared, they disappeared into the dense forest. Miss Mambo nudged her arm and Reagan scratched the mare’s nose. “Sorry about that. I thought it was someone else.”

  “You mean me?”

  Reagan’s heart stopped at the sound of Mick’s voice. She slowly turned around and found him standing not more than five feet away. If she hadn’
t stopped to see the deer, she would have run right into him on the path.

  “Do you know how many times I had to cross that damn stream to find you?” he asked as he held a rifle casually in his hands. “I’ve been all through this damn forest looking for you. And here you are. Where’s Carter? And don’t you dare scream to warn him.” Mick’s eyes were cold as he raised the gun and pointed it right at her head. A kill shot. There would be no living, but Carter could live.

  Reagan opened her mouth to scream and Mick moved fast. He spun the rifle around, slamming the butt of the gun into Reagan’s face. Pain exploded, sending her to her knees as she gripped her throbbing face. Pressing her fingers to the blooming pain, she struggled to breathe. Reagan and her sister had sparred growing up. Reagan had worked out with Ahmed’s daughter, Abby, in the boxing ring, but none of their hits compared to the pain she felt now.

  “Where’s your fiancé? Tell me or I’ll break Miss Mambo’s leg.” Miss Mambo was dancing around nervously as Mick loomed closer.

  “He’s right here,” Carter ground out between clenched teeth.

  * * *

  Carter had found what he was looking for. A two-inch javelin like branch with a pointed tip would be perfect for Reagan to use while walking and to protect herself. As he headed back toward the trail, he found a thick, knotted tree branch that would require two hands to swing like a bat. It was perfect for him.

  Carter hefted the club branch on one hand and carried the javelin in the other as he made his way toward the path. He whistled out the blue jay’s song and waited. Reagan usually whistled back so he’d know she was expecting him. He paused and waited but heard nothing until he heard the sickening sound of someone getting hit.

  He instantly knew Mick had found them. There would be no one else to encounter on the path. Carter crept slowly toward the path, making sure he was well behind Mick before he came out and snuck up behind him.