Betrayal in the Badlands

by Dana Mentink

  The Quinns climbed into the saddle again and they headed toward the narrowest spot on the trail, a place where the rock squeezed in on both sides, leaving room for one horse at a time. Logan’s pulse quickened as they approached.

  It would be the spot he would pick for an ambush. As casually as he could, he moved his backpack around to the front and took out his pistol, tucking it into his belt. He got the night-scope binoculars and did a thorough scan as they approached the pass. He saw no sign of anyone. The faint sound of laughter from up the trail indicated the group that had gone before them was miles farther along.

  He held up a hand. “I’ll go first and check to make sure the path is clear.”

  “Clear from what?” Mrs. Quinn asked.

  “Loose rock, that sort of thing,” Logan said smoothly.

  He eased his mount through the pass, listening for the sound of any movement from above. The only noise was the strike of hooves on the rock. One foot, two. They moved forward slowly.

  Three feet, four, five. Then they were through.

  The other side of the gap offered little in the way of shrubs to hide behind or good vantage points for taking a shot. With a sigh of relief, he motioned for the Quinns to come through. They did, joining him on the other side, rain collecting on their jackets and dripping off while they waited for Isabel.

  Logan stared into the gap, keeping his right hand free to reach for his gun if needed. “Okay, Isabel. Your turn.”

  Mr. Quinn eyed him closely. “Mr. Price, I get the feeling you’re expecting some kind of trouble on this trip.”

  “No, sir. I just like to be prepared in case trouble finds me.”

  Mr. Quinn’s laughter was lost in the sound of an explosion from high above them.

  Blue Boy bucked as the explosion set off a river of rock that rained down on them. Sharp bits gouged Isabel’s arms as she tried to shield her face with one hand and hold on to the reins with the other.

  The rocks fell faster and faster, loosening enormous chunks that plummeted into the pass. She tried to direct Blue Boy away from the rockfall, but there was not enough room for him to turn. He reared up with a terrified whinny and shied backward, kicking at the debris that thundered down around them.

  She clung to him and tried to shout over the noise, but the din was deafening. Blue Boy bucked again as a shard cut his nose.

  Isabel couldn’t hold on. She sailed through the air, crashing into the side of the canyon. Blue Boy continued to shimmy backward until he came to a spot big enough for him to turn around, and then he galloped down the path and into the darkness.

  Isabel tried to get to her feet, but the sliding rock would not allow it. Instead she covered her face and tried to roll into a ball while the land unloaded its burden around her. She was pummeled by a million pieces of flying rock. The cacophony increased to a terrible volume until she thought her eardrums would explode.

  The roar tapered off abruptly.

  The flow of debris slowed to a trickle.

  She remained frozen until she was reasonably sure the ground had stopped its angry tumble.

  She allowed herself to peek.

  The movement made her aware of a thousand scrapes and scratches burned into her skin. Her shoulder ached from the effort of keeping Blue Boy in check, and blood dripped from a cut on her forearm.

  Taking each limb in turn, she moved her arms and legs to check for broken bones. Everything seemed to be working, aside from the trembling that vibrated her body.

  She struggled to her feet, relieved to find out her legs somehow supported her. Dust billowed through the night, drifting down in lazy clouds onto the newly fallen debris. Blinking the grit out of her eyes she looked up the trail. The gap through which they had almost passed was completely filled with rock, piled up like marbles in a narrow jar.

  The cliffs on either side rose hundreds of feet into the air, hemming in the path on which she stood.

  She would not be passing ahead to rejoin the party.

  The only choice was to walk back to the starting area the way she’d come and hope to find Blue Boy on the way. She pulled out her satellite phone as she walked down the almost pitch-dark trail.

  Her fingers shook as she dialed. The truth, the part her brain desperately didn’t want to acknowledge, forced itself to the front.

  She knew the explosion was meant to kill her.

  Was Autie peering down from the cliffs through his binoculars? Looking for movement in the rubble to indicate she’d survived? Was it John who had caused the explosion? Perhaps he’d assumed he’d killed her and returned to his group.

  Pressing herself tightly into the shadows, she dialed Logan’s number.

  He answered on the first ring. “How bad?”

  “Only banged up.”

  “I can’t get through.” His voice was charged with intensity. She pictured him, scanning the situation, working out a plan to reach her, and the image brought tears to her eyes.

  She started to answer.

  A hand snaked around her from behind and pressed the blade of a knife to her throat.

  Autie put his face to her ear. “Say goodbye, Isabel.”

  It must be a horrible dream, a nightmare, but the strong arm holding her shoulders in a viselike grip was real.

  Her body went cold. The knife pressure increased until it cut through her thin turtleneck.

  When she couldn’t utter a sound, he took the phone from her motionless fingers and slid it into his back pocket.

  “Well now, Ms. Ling,” he said as he turned her around. “It is a pleasure to meet again.”

  He wore the same soft slouch hat, beaded with moisture, and a buckskin jacket. His chin was stubbled now, making the goatee less distinct. The eyes were no less sharp than she had seen them in the clearing when he had prepared to kill Tank.

  “I’ll yell. They’ll hear me.”

  He smiled, sliding the knife into a sheath fastened to his belt. “I do not think that will happen.”

  He would kill her and leave her body for Logan to find. Her legs almost gave out. Instead he reached around and grabbed her by the hair.

  She lashed out and kicked behind her, contacting his knee. Falling, scrambling, she surged forward, but he brought her down quickly.

  Breath coming in gasps, she lay on her belly on the wet red earth.

  He put a knee firmly on her back. “While this is a diverting entertainment, we really must be moving along.” He pulled her to her feet, eyeing her with amusement. “My, my. You are covered in red from head to boots. As if you were washed over in blood.”

  He laughed again.

  She heard voices in the distance, shouts and hoofbeats. Her heart leapt. “They’re coming for me.”

  He moved her down the path at a leisurely pace, turning toward a crevice she had not noticed in the darkness.

  “Who, Ms. Ling? Let us be specific then. Who is coming to rescue you? John Trigg? I do not believe he cares enough to cross the street for you.”

  The crevice widened into an expansive bowl, shielded from above by a lip of rock. He pushed her toward a pile of brush. Her heart sank when she saw an old car concealed under the mat of branches.

  Autie continued. “Do you suppose the sheriff will come after you? Perhaps, but he is no challenge, a weak man like that, ruled by his libido.”

  “Logan,” she whispered, wishing she hadn’t the moment his name crossed her lips.

  “Ah, you’re expecting Captain Price. That is quite charming. You believe your soldier will risk life and limb to save you.”

  She didn’t respond.

  He jerked her arm, his hand taut with excitement. His words chilled her more than her desperate situation.

  “I do hope so,” Autie said.

  EIGHTEEN

  It was all Logan could do to keep from shouting when Isabel’s phone disconnected.

  “Say goodbye, Isabel.”

  The words rang in his mind. He already knew who was behind the explosion anyway. Autie ha
d arranged a small charge to detonate at the perfect location to seal off the gorge. That left any rescuers no quick way to get through. Logan paced as he mulled the two choices. He could continue forward for three miles until the trail looped back around, or climb a near vertical cliff, across loosened rock, to make it back across the gorge. Fury swam inside him and he held it in check with brutal effort.

  Isabel was alive. He’d hold on to that as he built a rescue plan.

  The Quinns were attempting to comfort the startled horses that they’d managed to keep from bolting at the sound of the rockfall.

  Mr. Quinn snapped his cell phone shut. “I’ve reached the group ahead. They’re going to turn around and meet us. They’ll call for police and rescue.” Logan nodded.

  “Do you think…” Mrs. Quinn started. “Do you think she…?”

  “She’s okay,” Logan grunted. “And I’m going to get her.”

  They both gaped at him. “How?” Mr. Quinn said.

  Logan tightened the straps on his backpack and headed for the most stable-looking section of cliff. “Keep Striker with you.”

  Mr. Quinn shook his head. “Logan, you’re going to kill yourself climbing that pile of rubble. Let the rescue people handle it.”

  He cut across Quinn’s words. “Listen carefully. The avalanche was caused by a man named Autie Birch, who has Isabel with him. If I wait, she’s dead. Tell the cops when they come.”

  Mr. Quinn’s mouth dropped open, but he nodded.

  Mrs. Quinn took hold of the reins. “God help you, son,” she said.

  I know He will, Logan thought as he began to climb.

  The rock at the bottom was fairly stable, and Logan found picking his way upward to be relatively easy. About fifty feet up, where the walls were scoured bare, there were few hand-holds, and more than once his feet lost contact with the slippery surface.

  When a section of gravel slid out from under him, Logan was able to grab hold of an exposed root and hang there long enough to swing his feet up to a protrusion of rock. He lay panting, sandwiched between rock and root, when his phone rang.

  It could be Isabel.

  Carefully he freed one hand. “Price.”

  “It’s Bill. Where are you?”

  “At the moment, I’m hanging from the side of a cliff. Autie has Isabel.”

  There was a pause. “I just landed in Cheyenne. I’m on my way. Hang on.”

  “Not funny,” Logan said, grunting with the effort of stowing the phone and not losing his grip. A chunk of rock broke off in his hands, sending him sliding a few feet until he managed to find another jagged handhold that saved him from plunging down the cliff. The phone slid out of his fingers and fell, losing pieces as it cracked against rocks on the way down.

  No time for regret. The phone was just a tool and he had plenty of those in his arsenal, he told himself.

  Hand over hand, he hauled himself up the cliff side, one precarious perch at a time. Just before he topped the crest, he paused to listen.

  Autie had planned the abduction carefully, as he’d meticulously mapped out nearly all his attacks on Isabel.

  He knew Logan would come after him.

  He also knew Logan wasn’t the type to wait for a rescue crew or take another, slower trail.

  If Autie expected Logan to climb the cliff, he might also be waiting at the top with a rifle to kill him as easily as a gopher popping out of a hole.

  Logan listened. He heard nothing but the wind and the distant whine of a coyote. An inch at a time, he eased his head over the top and scanned the dark horizon. Nothing but flat prairie covered by a scalp of grass, still damp from the downpour. He scrambled over the edge and headed for a skeletal pile of rock to his right. From that vantage point, he went still and listened.

  The prairie stretched out in a shallow bowl for a mile in each direction before it melted into a rock cliff on either side and what he suspected to be a canyon on the western edge. The Badlands was an intricate interlocking puzzle of tunnels, crevices, cliffs and pockets of trees. Bison, mountain lions and marmots made this wilderness their home.

  All of it was wild.

  And deadly.

  Though he tried to lock down the thoughts, they intruded anyway. He’d let her get taken. The cops would come, and so would Bill, but they would not be in time. Of all the missions he’d been on, all the times he’d faced desperate odds, this was the one that mattered most.

  It wasn’t just guilt he felt, or responsibility. A deeper feeling burned through him, heating every nerve and sinew. He shut the emotions down and refocused.

  He could not, would not, allow anyone to hurt Isabel Ling, even if it meant laying down his life.

  “God help me,” he whispered as he took out the night-vision binoculars from his pack. He caught the darting movement of a mule deer cropping the dampened grass. Though the rain had tapered off, the moon was still shrouded by clouds.

  His legs itched to run as he pictured Isabel held somewhere in the sprawling prison of the Badlands. Which way? Toward the cliffs? Heading in the direction of the stand of spruce that stood sentinel in the darkness? He felt the beginnings of desperation until he caught it.

  The faintest sound that awakened both hope and fear.

  The sound of an engine coughing to life.

  He shoved the binoculars in his pack and ran for the edge of the crevice, hoping he would not shatter his weakened ankle again, falling into one of the labyrinthine prairie dog tunnels. Pulse pounding, he skirted around rock clusters and pockets of standing water as he raced onward.

  He reached his destination. Down in the yawning darkness, he saw the glow of taillights winding into the night before vanishing around a turn.

  They would be able to drive only a couple of miles before the rock walls pinched together too close to allow a car. Then Autie would make a decision. He’d kill her there, or head into one of the myriad trails that snaked into the desolation.

  Logan didn’t stop to hash out the details. He had to get there before Autie ran out of trail and Isabel ran out of time.

  Autie sat in the passenger seat, rifle across his lap. She snuck a peek at his delicate profile. He looked so calm, so sane. Her legs were shaking so badly she could barely press the gas pedal as they moved along. Something told her the only way to survive was to buy some time until someone, Logan or a participant from the Moonlight Ride, had time to reach them. She slowed as much as she dared.

  “It’s beautiful here, at night,” she said, voice shaking. “I guess you know a lot about this place.”

  Autie gazed out the window without appearing to hear her at first. “Lots of history here,” he finally said.

  “Have you lived in South Dakota all your life?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “It must have been a good place to grow up, with your mother and father.”

  His head snapped around to face her, eyes narrowed and anger written in fine lines around his mouth. “You talk too much.”

  The car bumped along. Rock walls rose up on either side, gouged by centuries of strong wind, sharpened into angular projections that cast eerie shadows in the moonlight. The rock was striped with layers of light and dark, flecks of crystals catching the car’s headlights.

  She knew enough about the terrain to be properly terrified. Logan’s words came back to her. Two hundred thousand acres of wilderness.

  How would he ever find her?

  And if he did, Autie would be waiting to kill him, too.

  Despair flooded through her in waves of black until a hard knot formed in her stomach.

  Her life had been a series of impossible situations. She heard her mother’s voice. “In God I shall put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

  She gritted her teeth. Autie could hurt and kill her, but she would not make it easy. God would give her the strength to fight, for herself, for Logan, for her sister’s dreams. She would go down fighting with her last ounce of strength.

  The fear rece
ded just enough to allow Isabel to remember an important detail. The satellite phone was sitting next to her on the seat, where Autie had put it when he got in the car. All she had to do was grab the phone and get away long enough to call Logan and warn him, to hide in this dark abyss for a couple of hours until help arrived.

  The clouds formed a thick veil overhead that blotted out the moonlight. Feathery drops of rain brushed across the windshield as the storm kicked up again. The wipers combined the rain and dust into a messy smear on the glass.

  She reasoned he would not kill her in the car. He’d force her out, end her life and probably push the car into some solitary canyon. Feigning a look out the driver’s side mirror, she ascertained the door was unlocked. When he ordered her to pull under a massive overhang of rock, she knew it was time.

  “Get out.” Autie reached for the passenger handle, and at the precise moment his back was turned she grabbed the phone and exploded out the door. When her feet hit the soil, she ran with every bit of speed she could muster toward the bluff rising to her left, rain driving into her face and stinging her cheeks.

  Her heart thundered in her chest as she ran into the narrow canyon ahead. Autie would be fast, but she had a head start and the rain might disorient him for a moment. Praying as she went, she raced along the uneven ground, tripping on rocks and sliding on patches of gravel until she found herself at a dead end. Ahead the rock folded together. Behind her was Autie with his rifle.

  She grabbed hold of the nearest red rock and climbed, willing herself to become part of the stone that threatened to entomb her.

  The rocks tore at her hands, ripping the skin on her grasping fingertips and grabbing at her hair. She didn’t stop to listen for the sound of pursuit. A rumble of thunder started softly and increased into a roar that deafened her. She flattened herself against the rock when the lightning came, splitting the sky with an electric sizzle. When it was over, she scanned the area. From her perch halfway up the cliff side, she could see both the gorge below and a glimpse of the prairie that lay at the top of the cliffs. If she hadn’t been terrified, it would have seemed majestic, exquisite almost. Watery moonlight painted the whole vista in silver and pearl.