by Henry, Sue
Stringer, quicker than Maxie imagined the big man could be, leaped out and caught the trailing leash to stop the dog from dashing onto the highway. Jerked to an abrupt halt, Tank struggled for a minute, straining to keep after the motor home, but finally gave up and looked up resentfully at his captor.
“Hey, buddy,” Stinger said, crouching down and pulling the animal toward him gently. “That’s not a good idea, however much you want to go. Wasn’t that Jessie?” he asked Maxie, in confusion. “I thought—”
“Yes,” she told him grimly, a tide of alarm washing through her. “It was Jessie—and something’s really wrong.”
As they went hurriedly back to the Jayco, Maxie told Stringer about the boy in the pool, Patrick’s sudden reappearance, and the man he said was his stepfather. She also filled him in on what Webster and Loomis had said at Summit Lake about the death of Patrick’s mother in Wyoming.
“So the stepfather told the police that the kid did the killing,” he said thoughtfully.
“That’s what Loomis says.”
“What does the kid say?”
“He hasn’t said anything—refused to talk about it when he was riding with me, and I didn’t have time to ask when he showed up here today.”
“Could he have run off because he did it?”
Maxie glanced at him, disturbed at the thought. She hadn’t considered this point of view seriously, but it was good to have someone who could take an outsider’s look at the situation.
“I think if you had met Patrick, you might not think so, but…” She heard herself use the qualifying word, and a vague cloud of doubt drifted into her mind.
“Maybe not. You’re right, I haven’t met him—or his stepfather,” Stringer agreed. “Besides, it could work just as well the other way around. If the stepfather was beating his wife, he could have killed her—on purpose or not. If he’s a cop, and he and the kid didn’t get along, who’re the police going to believe? If I was Patrick, I’d have hauled myself out of there just as fast as I could, too. But why come in this direction?”
“The friend in Fairbanks, he said.”
“Maybe it’s time to talk to that friend. Do you know his name?”
“Only Dave something. I don’t know how we’d find him.”
They reached the Jayco, she unlocked the door, and they climbed in, greeted enthusiastically by Stretch, who was pleased to see Tank. But the husky seemed anything but glad. He wanted to be going after his mistress, who for some odd reason had gone off with a stranger he didn’t like and had left him behind. He paced through the motor home, ignoring the dachshund, finally sitting down by the closed door, clearly hoping to be let out again.
Maxie watched him in growing concern.
“What am I going to do about Jessie? I don’t know why she’d take off like that unless he came back and forced her.”
“The stepfather, you mean.”
“Yes. She looked desperate, and she’d never go off without Tank. I’ve got a terrible feeling about it, and I’d go after her right now if I hadn’t promised to wait for Webster and that Wyoming detective, Loomis. Besides, I don’t know what I’d do if I found her.”
“Loomis is another cop from Wyoming? One of the stepfather’s cronies?”
It was another idea that had not seriously occurred to her. Was Loomis hunting Patrick because he wanted to help or hurt him? Could he actually be in league with the stepfather, Mac—something? She wished she could remember his name. “Dammit. Am I as senile as my daughter thinks I am?” she burst out in frustration and anger at herself.
“Hey.” Stringer laid a hand on her arm and gently swung her around to face him. “How would it be if I headed on up the road toward Watson Lake and looked for Jessie on the way? That rig of hers’ll be pretty easy to spot if I can catch up with her—she was moving pretty fast. If the stepfather’s with her, he’s probably got her and the boy—two hostages, so I won’t try anything, just see if I can find them and see where they’re headed. You stay here and wait for the cops. The closest RCMP unit is in Watson Lake. The inspector can let them know she’s coming their direction. Do you know her license number?”
Maxie shook her head. She had never noticed, though it had been there right next to her for several nights. But his idea was sound, and she told him so with relief. He would also be more help to Jessie than she could, if it came to that. “She may be going too fast for you to catch up.”
“If she’s not being forced to drive but had some other reason to leave, there’s no problem. She’ll slow down and I’ll catch her. If she is being forced, she’s no dummy. She knows we saw her go out the gate. If it were you, wouldn’t you expect somebody to follow you? And wouldn’t you go as slow as you could to give them a chance?”
She agreed that she would, and in seconds he was gone, without the lunch he’d been promised, but neither of them remembered or cared. Tank tried to get out of the Jayco with him but was restrained by Maxie.
“Better keep close track of him or he’ll take off on you. That’s one loyal dog,” Stringer observed, and jogged off in the direction of his Peterbilt.
Knowing Stringer would shortly be speeding up the highway with his eyes open for Jessie’s rig allowed Maxie to feel a little better about waiting for Webster and Loomis, but it seemed like a very long time before they finally showed up at her door.
Jessie was driving the road that followed the winding Liard River more west than north from the provincial park. She kept her eyes on the highway and a heavy foot on the accelerator, as instructed, and wondered what, if anything, she could do about the situation without getting someone hurt or killed—either Patrick or herself.
The boy had been forced to close all the blinds so that no one could see into the coach section of the motor home and was now huddled again close to the window on the dinette bench across from his stepfather, who sat directly behind the driver’s seat. Jessie could almost feel the handgun, though he had kept it away from her neck. Since the speed at which he was requiring her to go made it essential to keep all her attention on the road ahead, she didn’t look around.
The motor home rocked with centrifugal force as she took curves too fast, and it all but bounded from the rise of several small bridges. Finally the highway widened and grew straighter, allowing her to relax her back, neck, and arms, which were aching from the tension of her grip on the wheel and the concentration needed to keep the Winnebago on the road and in its lane. The few approaching vehicles passed in a blur.
“Do you have a name?” she asked glancing in the rearview mirror, trying to start some sort of dialogue with the man behind her.
“Just keep driving,” he told her sharply.
They covered the sixty-five miles from Liard Hot Springs to the truck stop and highway maintenance camp of Fireside in just over an hour. Jessie allowed the Winnebago to slow slightly when she saw the gas pumps in front of the small restaurant and motel that were approaching on the left.
“Don’t stop,” he growled from behind her.
“Take a look at the fuel gauge,” she told him as calmly as possible. “If you want to go much farther, we’ve got to get gas.”
There was a moment of silence as he leaned forward to check for himself.
“Okay,” he told her finally. “Do it, but don’t go inside. Let them pump the gas and pay them out here, where I can see and hear you. Act normal, and remember that if you try anything, I’ll use this gun—on Patrick first, then on you and whoever else may be out there. Got it?”
She climbed down slowly to meet the attendant, an older man, who walked from the office to fill the tank for her.
“Where you headed?” he asked with a friendly grin.
“Ah—Alaska.” She did not return his smile.
“New Winnebago. Nice looking.”
“Thanks,” she told him, trying not to look frightened but finding words hard in her terrible consciousness of the hidden gunman who was monitoring the exchange.
“Turned out to
be a pretty nice day, didn’t it?” he said, waiting for the pump to stop.
“Yes.”
He gave her a questioning look. Clearly noting her reluctance and feeling personally snubbed, he stopped trying to engage her in conversation. Finishing the job, he took the credit card she handed him, and disappeared into the office with a shrug. She waited, longing to follow him—to get out of range—to tell him to call the police—but intensely aware of what might happen to Patrick, held hostage inside the coach, if she moved in that direction. The attendant was a nice man and she felt sorry for offending him.
He came back with the receipt and she signed it. Taking the copy he shoved at her, she climbed back into the driver’s seat and started the engine. He didn’t wait to watch her pull the motor home back onto the highway. Glancing into the mirror outside the left window, she could see him walking away, shaking his head in disgust at the behavior of uppity tourists.
“Get going.”
She took the Winnebago up to seventy on the speedometer and put it on cruise control, grateful for the wide smooth highway that allowed her to rest her foot and leg, then remembered that she couldn’t allow the speed to drop unless she controlled it, and shut it off. Below the left side of the road the Liard River, now deeper and wider, made a huge bend. Beyond it she could see Goat Mountain with its distinctive flat top. Away from tall trees, she could see far across the rolling hills to a series of low mountains in the west. Fluffy white clouds were sailing across the blue sky overhead and seemed to be piling up against those hills. She hoped it wouldn’t rain again.
They sped past several turnouts, including one that Jessie remembered was famous as a lookout where early outlaws waited to rob boats that floated down the river. Bridges took them across Contact Creek, where the southern sector of the Alaska Highway had been completed, and Irons Creek, where the construction workers stopped their trucks to put on winter chains, making it possible to climb the following hill.
The highway turned more to the west, and as the sun sank lower in the sky and into her eyes, Jessie wondered what to expect from this stepfather of Patrick’s. She considered running the motor home off the road, but the shoulders were soft and very steep, and the result could be disastrous. As long as they were moving she felt a little safer, but they would have to stop somewhere—sometime. Then what?
She hoped Maxie would do something—tell someone that she had left the campground under suspicious circumstances. But what if she thought Jessie had merely taken Patrick and gone, as they planned? She could only hope her unexpected and premature exit without Tank had let Maxie know something was wrong.
If Maxie had been able to reach Inspector Webster on the phone, perhaps he would do something—call the RCMP ahead of them, maybe. She didn’t know whether to feel good about that possibility or not, having a feeling that law enforcement officers would tend to respect each other’s word about who was guilty, even though they lived and worked in different countries. Would her abductor be able to talk his way out of trouble if they were stopped? She decided she would rather have the opportunity to find out than to go on driving with no help at all, and hoped to see a patrol car somewhere along the road. If she saw one, could she alert them somehow? Turn on her emergency blinkers? Possibly, but they made a clicking sound that would be audible to her captor.
She had been surprised to see Stringer walking with Maxie as she drove out of the Liard Hot Springs campground. Was there anything he could do? Was he now somewhere on the road behind her in that big eighteen-wheel rig of his? She hoped so. Though he probably would not be able to catch them, the idea that he might try was a little comforting. Or would Maxie have taken the Jayco to the road after her? Wherever she was, Jessie hoped Maxie had Tank with her. It had been hard to leave him tied to the table in that camping space, even knowing he could pull himself loose. She hadn’t wanted to leave him helplessly tethered but didn’t want him lost trying to find her either.
Damn this monster with the gun. Where was he taking them? He must have something specific in mind. Or was he just going as fast as possible to somewhere else? According to Patrick he had killed the boy at the bridge and tried to kill the one in the pool. Would he kill two more when she had driven him to wherever he decided was far enough? There wasn’t anywhere to go except farther northwest on this route. You couldn’t get off this highway—you had to drive its length, from Fort Nelson to Whitehorse, before any roads took you away from it in directions that wouldn’t end abruptly or simply bring you back to it somewhere else.
No, she suddenly remembered. That wasn’t entirely true anymore. The Cassiar Highway connected with the Alaska Highway just fifteen miles west of Watson Lake, the next community of size. The north/south-running Cassiar had been completed through British Columbia in the early 1970s but had been such a rough trip that most travelers refused to use it, leaving it to freight and logging trucks. Though still mostly gravel, with fewer services and towns than the Alaska Highway, it ran farther to the west and was now much improved. It had a reputation for spectacular scenery, ran closer to the coast, and connected via an access road with Stewart, British Columbia, and Hyder, Alaska, communities previously reachable only by air or water. Would this man force them to take the Cassiar—hoping to escape pursuit? It was possible. In only thirty miles or so they would arrive in Watson Lake, so she would soon know. She wished she knew more about the man himself, for she had no way to judge his personality or assess his attitude. The few curt, demanding words he had spoken on this wild ride had done nothing to increase her confidence.
He had removed his sunglasses, and in the rearview mirror she had periodically been able to catch glimpses of his eyes, remote and always alert, but not clearly, for the closed blinds darkened the coach behind her considerably. He sat sideways on the dinette bench, leaning on the back of it, watching the road they traveled through the windshield.
How was the boy doing? She tried to look, but he was out of sight to the left behind her. Maybe she could get away with speaking to him.
“Patrick? Are you okay?”
“Shut it,” came the immediate response from the stepfather. “He’s asleep.”
Jessie was grateful for that, knowing how frightened Patrick had been when he climbed into the motor home. She put her attention into driving—and watching closely for any opportunity to change the balance of power under the circumstances. The farther they traveled, the angrier she grew. It was an intolerable situation that she would do something about if she were given any chance that wouldn’t put herself or Patrick in more peril than they were in already.
20
ARRIVING IN WATSON LAKE, A COMMUNITY OF ALMOST 1,800 people with its businesses laid out along both sides of the highway like beads on a string, Jessie slowed to comply with the speed limit and, as instructed, cruised through the town at what seemed a crawl compared with the rate at which she had been driving. Halfway along this main street, she saw the building that housed the RCMP, a squad car parked in front, and tried to think of something she could do to attract attention. Could she swing hard enough onto the access road that ran beside the highway to knock her captor off his feet? Oncoming traffic made that impossible. Should she attempt to sideswipe a car? She thought the possibility of injuring someone too great to risk.
“Don’t even think about it,” the familiar voice behind her warned, and she realized she had eased back on the accelerator as she scrambled for an idea.
She could hear Patrick moving behind her and caught a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror, sitting up at the table, roused by the change in sound and speed.
They were now almost through the small town, and coming up on the right Jessie recognized a service station from a prior trip. Beyond it, across a small gravel road, lay one of the most famous attractions of the Alaska Highway, the Watson Lake Signpost Forest.
The Signpost Forest had been started in 1942 when a U.S. Army soldier who was working on highway construction nailed a sign to a post with his name an
d hometown written on it: Carl K. Lindley, Danville, Illinois. Through the years that followed, passing travelers put up thousands of their own signs to join his original effort, until a whole forest of tall poles arose, decorated with an astonishing assortment of notices—everything from handpainted scraps of lumber to intricately carved works of art, from battered street signs to colorful city advertisements—anything that could bear names, origins, and dates of travel. In the middle of this forest of wayfarers were some interesting old graders and other pieces of machinery that had been used in building the highway.
Twice before, Jessie had taken time to wander through the signs and been fascinated with all the countries represented and the names of people who had left their mark in this unique way. On one of the earliest poles, she remembered seeing a sign dated 1953 with the names of a whole family carefully printed on it: George Washburn, Cynthia Washburn, David and Carol Washburn, Wilmington, Delaware. Under their names, George had written, “I helped build this road.” It seemed to have been repainted at one time or another. Below this was a second sign: David and Ruth Washburn, George Washburn, Baltimore, Maryland, 1965; and under that, another: George Washburn, Cheryl Washburn, Tracy and Michael Washburn, Anchorage, Alaska, 1979, 1982, 1986, 1991.
Jessie recalled standing for several minutes, picturing George bringing his wife and children to see what he had helped to build and nailing up a record of that trip. She had imagined the son, David, and his family, adding their own record and repainting his father’s original, and the grandson, named for his grandfather, doing the same as he moved to Alaska, then recording the dates of subsequent trips back and forth on the highway. She had wondered if Michael would someday add another.