Rocky Mountain Lawman

by Rachel Lee

  That immediately set off Craig’s alarm bells, considering the bear and cub he’d found yesterday, so oddly separated as if mama bear had been chasing off an intruder.

  But could he in good conscience turn down an offer of help? And there was honestly no reason to think these guys would do anything else. No reason except for instinct, anyway.

  He started to look at the map, deciding which way to send them when Cap punched his finger on a sector that didn’t have a red mark on it. “We should go this way. We know that area pretty well.”

  Craig couldn’t come up with a single valid reason to tell him no, but the way Cap moved in to select part of the search grid put him on high alert. Even his fellow rangers took whatever assignment he handed out. This guy was beyond enough.

  “Great,” he said, managing a smile that didn’t quite make it. “Appreciate the help. Be sure to grab one of the emergency kits to take with you, and a radio. The search team frequency is already set. And get back here by dark. We don’t need to be searching for you, too.”

  He watched the three men pick up the packs containing everything from survival blankets to first-aid equipment and food, then head out to the south.

  He heard footsteps behind him and pivoted to see Lucy. “Sheriff’s bringing in some people, too. Buddy, huh?”

  “And his best friend Cap.”

  Lucy’s face settled into a frown. “Nothing yet?”

  “Not a damn thing. I can’t imagine where she would have gone. If she’s got the sense I thought she had, she should be back here by now.”

  “People get lost,” she said soothingly.

  “Not this woman. Army trained.”

  “Oh.” Lucy’s frown deepened. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to follow those three guys. Cap was a little too eager to pick a sector.”

  “He picked one?” Lucy evidently caught the possible ramifications of that. “Okay, you go. I’ll stay here to hold down the fort for you. Bring her back, Craig.”

  “I sure as hell will if I can find her.” Unfortunately, he had plenty of experience that told him how long that could take. “Listen, I’m going to switch to another frequency if those guys do anything suspicious. You monitor it?”

  “You bet. Use the auto distress call so I don’t miss it.”

  He nodded, zipped his jacket and picked up one of the emergency kits. Then, after a moment’s hesitation he added his shotgun, slinging it on his shoulder. He was already wearing his pistol, but they had AR-15s.

  “Good idea,” Lucy said. “You want me to get somebody to follow you?”

  He shook his head. “I can deal with them if I need to. I’d be more worried if we didn’t do a good enough search because another one of us went haring off after these guys.”

  “I know. But when the sheriff’s people get here, don’t be surprised if I send one of them along. Mark your trail.”

  “Always.”

  Then he was off, not wanting to lose track of Buddy and company in the darkening, dense forest.

  * * *

  Sky had begun to feel chilled, probably because she wasn’t moving much. She pulled a power bar out of her sweater pocket and took another bite before wrapping up the rest to save for later. She was getting thirsty, too, but dragging herself to the water seemed insane. Her plastic canteen had shattered in the fall.

  Every time she moved, grinding pain nearly paralyzed her. Even with the splint reaching down beneath her heel, she hadn’t been able to completely insulate her lower leg against all movement. Sometimes when she slid along, it was tolerable agony. Other times...well, she had nearly blacked out briefly a couple of times.

  At least her thirstiness wasn’t extreme, which meant she wasn’t bleeding internally. She’d been worried about that, but apparently, other than her leg, all she had was a bad goose egg on her head and a bunch of bruises. All things considered, she’d been lucky for a damn fool.

  If everything weren’t so wet, she would have tried to gather wood and tinder for a fire, hoping to be able to strike a spark with her palette knife and rock. But if there was anything dry on this mountain after yesterday, she couldn’t find it. So that meant finding a way to insulate herself against the cold.

  So far she’d had little luck. The stream was still engorged with runoff, but checking around persuaded her that it had probably scoured its banks pretty well yesterday. She’d been lucky to find sticks for a splint caught in cracks among a few rocks. Something as light as pine needles wouldn’t have made it, most likely, and if any leafy branches had fallen down here, they seemed to be long gone.

  Conserving body heat had become her only priority. She had to get through this night. She was sure the rangers had begun to search for her, but she couldn’t afford to believe they’d find her tonight. Maybe tomorrow if she was lucky, but probably not tonight. Given the radio trouble, they might have no idea which direction she had headed, so the search area was huge.

  If they didn’t run across her trail markers, it could be a long time. God, why hadn’t she thought to leave a message with her painting stuff? At least an arrow of some kind?

  Because she’d been all hot to trot to the rescue. Because for some reason she had ignored some very basic principles, such as making sure someone would know where she had gone. Well, she had hoped Lucy had heard her, but it was apparent now that she hadn’t. Therefore, she’d been a fool.

  Trying to prove what? She was still struggling with that. Had she been trying to prove something, or had she just kicked into high gear because she thought someone needed help? Back and forth her thoughts ran like a caged rat. Bottom line, the reason didn’t matter anymore. Now she was in trouble, she hadn’t helped anyone and she’d made her situation worse by not using her mind before giving in to the immediate rush of adrenaline and need to help.

  Fools rush in... The old aphorism came back to her. Absolutely true, she thought now, but she was getting too tired to keep worrying about why she had done this. She needed to deal with the facts and save the personal debriefing for later.

  Right now she had to find a way to stay warm and nothing else mattered.

  Then it occurred to her she hadn’t heard that cry for help again, and even in the lousy light when she looked across the stream she could see the orange that had drawn her down here was nothing but a torn piece of cloth. One that hadn’t been here the other day. Probably washed up here by the storm.

  A prickling sensation started crawling up the back of her neck as it struck her that, yes, that cloth might have washed up here yesterday, but combined with the cries for help... What if this had been an ambush?

  That might have been a wild thought for most people, but not for someone who had served in the war. There ambushes had been a daily fact of life. Just because she was in the civilian world didn’t mean they couldn’t still happen. When she remembered what they had learned about Cap, maybe she had good reason to be paranoid, although she was damned if she could figure out why he’d come after her.

  Stop it, she told herself, even as she looked up and surveyed the rim of the gorge as far as she could see it. You need to stay warm, get warmer if possible. Even if this hadn’t been an accident, that was the only thing that mattered now.

  Once again she surveyed a depression in the wall of the gorge. It wasn’t huge, but right now it offered the only possibility of protecting at least part of her body from heat loss.

  Biting her sore and swollen lip, hoping she’d make it, hoping she’d find something better to use along the way, she began to drag herself toward it. The pain in her leg had become so familiar now it merely provided a background.

  * * *

  Craig soon realized he had one advantage: Buddy, Cap and the other guy didn’t see any need to be surreptitious. After all, they were searching, not being hunted. So they called out from time to time and didn’t bother to be at all quiet. Scuffing along the ground, they even left quite a trail in places.

  On the surface, it appeared quite na
tural, the way people would actually search. Distrust wouldn’t leave him alone, though. In fact, it was gnawing at him.

  Local people often turned out to help with searches, especially when time started lengthening. If they didn’t find Sky tonight, he’d expect to see a lot more than sheriff’s deputies out there come morning.

  So if it had just been Buddy and maybe even the other guy showing up, he wouldn’t have thought much about it. But Cap’s presence...well, Cap’s résumé didn’t exactly suggest he was the rescuing sort. Far from it.

  And the way he had moved in to select the area he wanted to search raised a whole bunch of red flags. At this point, Craig would have bet a great deal that Cap had a pretty good idea where Sky was.

  The thought didn’t comfort him a whole lot. In fact, it increased both his anger and his fear until his ears were damn near humming with it. If Cap knew where she was, then maybe he’d killed her.

  Except that somehow that didn’t add up. If Cap had killed her, he wouldn’t want to lead them to her body. So maybe she was still alive, hurt or trapped somehow. As possibilities ran around inside his head, his senses ratcheted to the highest alert level he had felt in a long time. Sort of like entering a cave in Afghanistan.

  He wanted to hear what they were saying, but periodically they’d turn and scan the whole area and he had to duck. Good practice, even when conducting a search. Nothing that could itself be called unusual.

  Except that Cap was out here, and he was wondering what the hell Cap hoped to gain. Did he want to look like a hero, hoping it would divert suspicion from what he and his guys were doing? Hell, that sounded more like Buddy than a guy who’d managed to get himself on a watch list.

  But why pick on Sky? She hadn’t done a damn thing except sit on the side of a mountain and paint. And take photos, which wouldn’t disappear just because she did.

  Why not go for him? He was the one who had gone over there to talk to Buddy and then prowled around the perimeter of Buddy’s land. He’d be the obvious one to eliminate.

  And maybe that was the problem. Maybe they figured that was too risky. Knocking out a federal ranger usually resulted in enough law enforcement presence to be like a suffocating blanket.

  Okay, that made it unlikely they’d come after him or one of the other rangers. But why in the name of all that was holy had they picked Sky?

  With angry, worried questions buzzing around in his head like furious wasps, he almost got too close. He dropped to the ground just in time as they paused to scan around the area again. He noted that they had stopped calling for Sky. That was about the most informative thing they’d done yet.

  Certain now that they knew where she was, and that they were probably somehow involved, the question became whether to keep following them or confront them. He decided to follow, because there was no guarantee they’d simply tell him where she was. No, they’d probably deny all knowledge.

  They started moving again, making no attempt to be quiet. They certainly seemed to feel they were alone out here, as he could hear laughter from time to time. That laughter scorched his soul, and a chilly, killing rage came over him, unlike anything he had felt since the war.

  The ice, though, clarified his head. It drove away the angry wasps of thought, and focused him intently on one goal: to follow them to Sky.

  * * *

  Despite the growing chill, perspiration dampened Sky’s skin by the time she made it to the hollow in the cliff face. Water loss was not a good thing. Still, if she could scrunch herself into that niche at least half of her would be protected, and the rock should capture her body heat, eventually reflecting some of it back. It certainly wasn’t likely to drain her as fast as the air as long as she didn’t press right up against the stone.

  She rested a few minutes, allowing her skin to dry, studying her scraped and bloody palms. That crawling had done her few favors. She suspected that her elbows weren’t doing much better.

  She’d saved some strips of her undershirt in case she needed them for the splint, but now she wound a couple of them around her hands before she attempted to contort herself into that niche. She took another bite of the power bar and looked longingly at the stream, so close and yet so far. No, she couldn’t afford to drag herself over there, nor would it probably be wise to drink icy water, which would only cool her down more. She had a day or two before thirst should become a serious problem. If she wasn’t found sometime in the morning, she’d have to crawl to the stream. Simple but important choices.

  She just wished she was sure she was thinking clearly. Given fatigue, a blow to the head, hunger and now thirst, she couldn’t be sure. She had to count on training she hadn’t needed in a long time to carry her through.

  As soon as she felt the handful of calories from the energy bar start to hit, she began the painful process of twisting herself into that niche. Agony. Every single movement had become sheer agony.

  * * *

  Something interesting had happened. The quickstep march of Buddy, Cap and the other guy had slowed down. They made no pretense of continuing to search. In fact, having left a very obvious trail to this point, they had become suddenly quite interested in leaving none at all.

  Proof they had come in here, but no proof of where they went next.

  They gathered in a knot and began talking. Craig couldn’t hear them, and the lack of noise they were making now made it hard for him to creep any closer. He reached for the volume on his radio, and turned it all the way down to make sure no errant sound alerted them. Although, to his dismay, the damn radio had been utterly silent. Soon, though, given the growing lateness of the hour, searchers were going to start sending messages back and forth that they were heading back to the command post.

  His heart squeezed as he thought about Sky possibly having to make it through this night. But he didn’t focus on that for long. Right now he had a more immediate problem: What were those guys talking about?

  Moving with stealth, aided by the wetness of the forest floor, which kept leaves and pine needles from crunching, he crept closer.

  “...just wait another hour or so and head back,” Cap said.

  “You can’t...” Buddy’s voice grew muffled, making the rest inaudible.

  “Look,” said Cap, sharply, “the hero thing you wanted to do? It works as good for us if we find her dead in the morning as if we find her alive now.”

  “No,” Buddy said. “No! You know where she is, and we can’t leave her to die. Damn it, Cap, it’s not like she knows anything. She’ll be as grateful to us as anyone.”

  “Dead or alive makes no difference. Why do you think I brought us this way?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I came this way so we could make sure no one else finds her, Buddy. Time to grow up, man. You want a revolution? Then prove you’re tough enough.”

  Craig’s blood curdled in his veins. He waited for Buddy to object, but the man didn’t.

  “No one else is coming this way,” Cap said. “That’s obvious now, and we’ve been steering away from her anyway. We’re covered, no one will find her and in the morning we can be heroes.”

  “What if she’s not dead, Cap?” the other guy said. “She might make it through the night.”

  “If she does, we can take care of that.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Buddy said hotly. “Damn it, she’s not an enemy. She’s just a painter.”

  “How do you know that? She may have been put there to watch us.”

  Once again Buddy fell silent. Moving silently, Craig punched the distress signal on his radio, sending out the beacon Lucy would be watching for.

  Damn, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. All of this to make them look like heroes, and so much the better if Sky died?

  He began planning ways to take them out. He calculated angles of attack. Three of them wasn’t too many, but unfortunately they were better armed. He’d need surprise. Big-time surprise.

  He began to circle around them t
o the one direction from which they wouldn’t expect anyone to come: ahead of where they’d been walking.

  Keeping low, shotgun carefully cradled in his arms, he sought the moment and the opportunity.

  “You didn’t tell me you wanted her dead,” Buddy said unhappily.

  “But it was your great idea anyway,” Cap said sarcastically. “Man up, Buddy. The revolution has no room for wimps.”

  Craig heard the most chilling thing then. Buddy said, “You’re right.”

  So the argument was over. These guys intended to leave Sky out overnight, regardless of her condition, and if she wasn’t dead by morning, Cap was going to take care of it somehow. Hell, he’d probably make Buddy roll a boulder down on her.

  The absence of Sky had convinced him of one thing: she was hurt or she’d have long since returned. How badly, he didn’t even want to imagine.

  Anger thrummed steadily now, trumping even worry, but his head remained absolutely clear. He just needed his opportunity. One little sliver of time to act.

  * * *

  Sky had wedged herself into the niche, trying to minimize body contact with the rock inside, and while she could physically feel that it was capturing warmth on that side of her, the other side seemed to be losing it just as rapidly. The pain in her leg rose and ebbed like a tide, reaching crescendos that made her groan, then easing just enough to unlock her brain again.

  She had to stay awake. She remembered that. Hypothermia was far more likely to get her if she allowed herself to sleep. But exhaustion was dragging her down despite an agony that should have made sleep impossible.

  She ate the last bit of the energy bar and scanned the gorge around her, hoping to see a person, any person. But no one appeared. Her hands, which had been throbbing, now started to grow numb and she tucked them under her arms, willing sensation to return.

  Not much longer till dark, she realized. At least down here in this gorge. Would they call off the search with nightfall? Probably. She couldn’t imagine that it would be wise to wander around these woods with only flashlights.

  Then it occurred to her that the rushing water drowned most sounds. How could she call for help? Looking around, she sought some rocks. Maybe if she found a couple, she could bang them together. Maybe that sound would penetrate the water’s rush better than a voice.