by Rachel Lee
She reached her supplies, which she hadn’t fully unpacked yet since she had decided to hunt up a new place to paint, and bent to start picking them up.
She froze again. She knew how she’d laid things out. It was darn near an unbreakable habit to put everything in exactly the same place so she wouldn’t have to hunt for things when she was working.
But something had moved. All of it had moved, she thought, but there was one thing she was absolutely certain had. She would have bet every last dime in her bank account that she hadn’t left her palette on top of her paint box. The first place she always put that was right in front of her portable easel.
She had caught her hair up in a bun for walking through the woods. A few hairs at the nape had escaped, and now the breeze blew them about. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have noticed, but right now they felt like the caress of icy fingers.
Somebody had touched her things. Probably gone through them. Her reaction to that was immediate and intense, and it wasn’t fear she felt. She reached into her paint box and pulled out a couple of palette knives. They didn’t look dangerous, but in the right hands, used the right way, they could be deadly.
She stuffed them in her pockets, then straightened, looking around the clearing. Then she saw bent grasses leading toward the woods she had just come from, but they weren’t her path. So someone had come here and followed her to the ravine? And it was clear they had tried not to leave an obvious trail, otherwise she would have seen it upon emerging from the woods.
In fact, it could easily have been an animal that crossed the clearing, except for her palette. No animal would have done that.
What were the chances, she wondered, that whoever had followed her into the woods was still there somewhere? And if he was, how smart would it be to let him know what she had realized?
Slim and not at all, she decided, squashing down the anger that made her want to take off after the guy. He’d be long gone. Hell, even if he wasn’t, he could see her coming. Finding someone in those woods wouldn’t be easy.
Nor would it be smart to let him know he’d been found out. Damn it. Frustrated that her only smart move seemed to be to sit here for a while, then pack up and leave, she had to battle an innate need to act. She always wanted to act, and talking herself out of it wasn’t easy.
But it was a lesson she had learned: sometimes no action was the best action.
That first day when Buddy had accused her of spying, the wise course had been to leave. She wasn’t looking for trouble, the guy appeared to be a nut and standing her ground could have become costly at the time. It was one of those times she was grateful for her instinctive slowness to react in non-life-threatening situations, because a reaction at that time would have only caused trouble and solved nothing.
But the situation had shifted, and wisdom no longer advised her to cede ground. Well, maybe wisdom would but sometimes wisdom was wrong. If someone was taking this much interest in her activities, then there was very definitely something going on down there that wasn’t entirely copacetic. Something they didn’t want anybody to know about, even an artist who was just passing through.
That sounded like something a whole lot more serious than simply storing up food against some hypothetical Armageddon.
The suspicion swept her past simply being concerned about Craig needing backup. She had taken an oath long ago when she had donned an army uniform, and to her way of thinking, leaving the army didn’t void that oath. If these guys were up to something bad, she still had a duty to protect her fellow citizens and the Constitution. That, too, had been woven into the fabric of her being.
A lot had become part of her during her years of service, like duty and honor and responsibility. Things like supporting her fellow soldiers no matter what, never shirking a job for any reason... Well, she didn’t need to run through the whole list as she sat there listening for any unnatural sound. The point was, enough had happened to make this her fight, too. Quite enough. And unless those nuts in their compound across the valley turned out to be total innocents, it would remain her fight.
Finally she felt she had sat there long enough to make it seem like she hadn’t noticed anything—assuming she was still being watched, but that feeling had gone away back at the gorge. Regardless, it wouldn’t look hurried or worried now for her to gather her gear and head for the car.
She hoped Craig didn’t stay in the field tonight. She needed to talk to him. She thought about calling him on the radio but decided against it. Radio silence right now might be wise. There was no guarantee the guys across the valley weren’t monitoring the forest service frequencies, and given how paranoid they were beginning to appear, she thought it entirely possible.
She made her way through the woods and back to her car. For a few minutes she considered driving down to the headquarters building, or even going into town, but she really didn’t need anything yet, and for some reason either option felt entirely too much like flight at the moment. She didn’t like running, no matter what specious reason she might be able to come up with.
So she headed back to the cabin, hoping that Craig wouldn’t suddenly decide to take it into his head to sleep under the stars. Considering he had said how much he enjoyed that, she was surprised he’d been joining her at the cabin every night. Summer, and the opportunity to sleep under the stars, wouldn’t last forever.
* * *
Craig didn’t like what he was finding as he poked around the streams in the vicinity of Buddy’s property. Nothing was blocked by so much as a beaver dam, but that wasn’t what got his attention.
No, it was the damn trip wires. They ringed Buddy’s property, but at no time did he have an excuse to get close enough to find out what they were connected to. He was going to have to come over here after dark.
It was late afternoon, and he meandered along the valley stream, still wondering why it was so low. He’d expected to find a fallen boulder here and there, blocking one of the bigger streams, or even several blocking smaller streams, although as a rule the water soon overtopped such hindrances and found its way down.
He began to think somebody had dammed some rivers that he couldn’t get to, and there was only one place around here that could happen: on Buddy’s property.
Water was scarce enough around here. Water rights could be fiercely fought over, sometimes reaching a level a person might almost call a war. But Buddy didn’t have anybody downstream of him to get riled, which left the forest service.
Damned if he could prove the diminished flow in the valley arose from a dam or anything except maybe, just possibly, part of the mountains hadn’t had their usual snowfall. He took a few flow measurements to compare to the past few years, but they wouldn’t prove anything either.
If Buddy had dammed a stream, he had violated his agreement with the service. He was damaging the ecology. Proving it, and figuring out how much right he had to intervene anyway, wasn’t going to be easy.
Troubling him equally was that Buddy had never done such a thing in the past. Assuming he felt he needed to hang on to more water for the late summer and early fall when it would get really dry, what had changed from past years? The addition of Cap and his friends? Some so-called strategic thinking? Was he anticipating imminent apocalypse? If so, why?
Feeling frustrated and more than a little annoyed, Craig turned Dusty and headed back up the valley, intending to go to the cabin to meet Sky. Amazing how fast she had captivated him. He couldn’t imagine not spending the evenings with her, and wondered if he was going to be able to go back to his solitary existence without pining for her company.
She was great company. Quiet, funny when she wanted to be and just plain comfortable to be with. The only time he got edgy around her was when he noticed she was an attractive woman. He’d been working on not noticing—unsuccessfully. It was sort of like telling himself not to think about the elephant in the room.
A quiet chuckle escaped him. He turned Dusty up the hillside, an unmistakable anticipati
on growing in him as he drew nearer to the cabin.
A movement to the side caught his eye, and he turned to look. He immediately recognized one of his fellow rangers, Don Capehart, riding toward him on Dusty’s twin. He waved and waited for Don to reach him.
Don drew up alongside him, a blond man of about thirty whose skin didn’t take kindly to the high-altitude summer sun. He was looking a little red and probably wouldn’t tan, but he didn’t seem to care. “Big doings?” Don said as they shook hands. “Lucy kind of filled me in.”
“There’s not a whole lot to fill in yet. Let’s keep riding. There’s a definite sense lately that everything we do around here is being watched.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“I don’t think it is. Buddy Jackson has trip wires around his entire property, and I can’t get close enough to tell what they’re hooked up to. If it’s not just some kind of alert, getting close could be dangerous anyway.”
“So you’re thinking about looking after dark?”
Craig looked at him again. “You know me too well.”
“Well, it’s your job. Kind of my job, too.”
“You’re not law enforcement.”
“So? You’re not a firefighter either. That didn’t keep you out of Spruce Valley last summer. Where are you headed?”
“To the cabin. My artist friend is probably already there. You should probably hear us both out.”
Don nodded. “Fair enough. Some of the others are hanging out around here now. I wish we had more manpower.”
“Take it up with Congress.”
Don laughed. “Yeah, that works so well. I think we’re at the bottom of the list anyway with the department.”
“Can’t blame ’em. We’re not the busiest of forests, and we’re relatively new.”
“Keeping an eye on the loggers is practically a full-time job. I caught them trying to cut some untagged trees yesterday. It’s always fun to have a shouting match with a bunch of guys armed with chain saws.”
Now Craig laughed. “How’d it go?”
“Well, the threat of losing their contract had to come up. But they got to spew and cuss, and just generally vent. They calmed down, but I’m going to need to check on them again soon.”
“Gotta love it. We spend months figuring out which trees need to go, and how many to preserve for the health of the ecology, and they still want to clear-cut.”
“Hey, those are publically owned trees. Surely you’ve heard that.”
“More times than I can count. They seem to forget they’re not the entire public.”
Don laughed, too. “I’m sure they’re cutting more than they should. They always do.”
“That’s what happens when you go with the lowest bidder.”
“You mean like us?”
They were still laughing and joking when they reached the cabin, acting like they hadn’t a care in the world. When Craig saw that Sky’s car was already there, parked beside his forest service truck, he felt his spirits rise.
Damn, he shouldn’t let a woman who was passing through make him feel this way. He didn’t want to feel loss when she left, didn’t want his love of the forest’s solitude to be dimmed by the transition of a single person through his life. But already it was feeling too late.
He sighed as he and Don took their mounts to the corral and cared for them. All too soon he heard a voice that he had become attached to.
“Hi,” Sky called.
Saddle in his hands, he turned. Don, who had been checking his horse’s hooves, straightened and looked around.
“You’ve been keeping a secret,” Don said under his breath. “She’s gorgeous.”
“I’m surprised Lucy didn’t tell you.”
Don cracked a laugh as the two of them walked over to the fence rail. Craig balanced his saddle on it and brushed his hands on his pants.
“Sky, this is Don Capehart. Don, Sky Jamison, the artist you’ve been hearing about.”
Sky put out her hand across the rail. “Nice to meet you. Will you stay for dinner?”
Don’s smile was a bit too wide and warm for Craig’s comfort. Yet he had no right to be bothered by it. That might have galled him most of all.
“I’d be delighted,” Don answered. “In fact, I’ll even help if you can wait to start until after I finish taking care of Tragic over there.”
Sky’s brow lifted. “Tragic? What a name!”
“He’s Dusty’s twin and I guess he got the name because he was so small as a foal that nobody expected him to survive. At least that’s the story they gave me.”
“You couldn’t guess that now,” Sky said.
“Not every runt is lost.”
Feeling slightly disgruntled, knowing he had no right and that it was therefore stupid, Craig headed back to continue caring for Dusty. “How was your day?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Very interesting. I almost radioed you, then thought better of it.”
He paused midstride and turned to face her. “What happened?”
“Nothing serious, but enough. Let’s talk about it when you fellows are done out here.”
He expected her to head back inside, but instead she put a hiking-boot-encased foot on the lower rail, leaned her elbows on the upper rail and watched them finish. Don didn’t unsaddle Tragic, however, so at least he didn’t intend to spend the night here. Small blessings, Craig thought sourly.
Then he wondered why he should care. If Don took her attention, his problems were over, right?
At last the horses were fed and watered. Stopping at the outside pump, the two men rinsed quickly in icy water, then accompanied Sky inside.
She had lit enough oil lamps to make the interior feel cozy as twilight deepened, and the fire was going strong. She had made coffee, too, and poured some for them. Then they gathered at the small table, the only place to sit other than the single armchair.
“So what happened?” Craig asked.
“It wasn’t exactly a happening,” she said. “I found this great ravine I want to paint, but while I was sitting there I got the distinct feeling I was being watched. So I headed back to the place where I’ve been painting, and found that someone had been through my stuff. I could even see where they had followed me from there to the ravine.”
Don spoke. “Sure it wasn’t an animal?”
“An animal would have knocked my things around, not simply moved my palette to a different place. Everything was disturbed, but only a little. If I weren’t such a creature of habit in how I lay out my painting gear, I’d never have noticed.”
Craig nodded. “I take it you drew a conclusion?”
She nodded. “If they’re paranoid enough to follow a mere artist, those guys are up to something not good.”
Craig looked at Don, whose eyes had narrowed. “I agree,” he said.
Craig nodded. “I agree.” He turned his attention back to Sky. “You shouldn’t be out there alone.”
“I doubt they’ve got more than one guy looking, and trust me, they don’t know what they’re bargaining for if they bother me. I went through advanced infantry training and I had the opportunity to use a lot of it in Iraq.”
He watched her eyes grow distant, and felt his chest tighten. He hoped she wasn’t about to pull back into that place inside her, but then her gaze cleared. “They don’t want to know what I can do with a simple palette knife.”
He felt Don shift a little beside him, probably with discomfort. Don had never been in the military. But Craig looked at Sky with perfect understanding. These were the things that set combat vets apart: they knew what they were capable of. It wasn’t always easy to live with, but they knew.
“Anyway,” she said, brushing it aside, “I’m not worried about one of them.”
“Probably no reason to be,” Craig said. “They think you’re out there just painting.”
“They should believe it now that they looked through my gear.”
He left it at that, although he wasn’t
as sanguine about it as he appeared. The whole idea that they were following her this way was problematic. Too much interest in someone they thought was just painting. Maybe having her stay at the cabin wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe hanging out with her so much wasn’t a good idea. What if he’d put her at risk?
He didn’t say any more about it, but instead got busy with dinner. Sky wanted to help, but he and Don made a big show of waiting on her, which at least made her laugh at their foolishness. It was good to hear her laugh.
All the while he wrestled with telling her to clear out. Go to town, paint somewhere else. He doubted she’d listen, but he had to be able to live with his conscience.
That moment when she had made the remark about the palette knife troubled him, though. Not because it wasn’t true, but because this situation had cast her back to a time she probably didn’t want to relive anymore than he did.
There were times in life when you did what you had to, but you didn’t have to feel good about it. You made some kind of peace, if you could, and moved on. And now she was moving back because of that jackass and his prepper fantasies about standing alone against a world gone mad. A man who’d been relatively quiet and harmless about it until this new crowd showed up.
Who was Cap and how many men had he brought with him? It sure didn’t look as if another family had joined Buddy, but rather a small—very small—army. In which case there might well be trouble of some kind.
Problem was, as the man had said, when the only tool you had was a hammer, everything looked like a nail. Some militia types could easily have that problem. All that firepower and paranoia induced a built-in response. Even to solitary artists on the wrong hillside. Had it gone that far?
He ruminated about ways he could approach Buddy again without setting off alarms, but didn’t immediately come up with one. Gage had been out there just a few days ago. Another visit so soon would ring alarm bells.