by Joanne Pence
Her jaw tightened. Her heart ached to hear Dennis spoken of so coldly.
“Someone place the bomb that killed him,” he continued, “under an empty table behind him. It was detonated by remote control, and was far more sophisticated than the nails-in-a-pipe bomb terrorists were using back then.”
Charlotte blanched. “He was the target?” she asked, her fearful conviction now confirmed.
Quade nodded. “A Chinese and a Danish scientist had both been invited to attend a PLP symposium in New York City some fifteen years ago. Both men were murdered. The CIA investigated the deaths. Dennis was a major player, working under a man named Laurence Esterbridge. We believe Dennis may have learned, or was very close to learning, who was behind their murders, and that’s why he was killed.”
“I thought you didn’t know my husband!” she said.
“I didn’t. But I knew ‘of’ him. After his death, due to my rather extensive knowledge of alchemy and other paranormal phenomena, the CIA brought me in as a consultant.” He paused a moment to give them time to absorb what he’d said. “We maintained a monitor on PLP’s CEO back then, Calvin Phaylor. He sent a well-armed, well-equipped team to this area, but we soon lost them. Soon after that, everything stopped. We don't know why. If the FBI knew, and we doubt it, they weren't forthcoming. All we could tell was that someone pulled the plug on the project.”
He paused and looked around to make sure he had all their attention before he added, “Several months ago, everything began again. Lionel Rempart's activities caught the CIA’s attention. Some documents, some very high-up phone calls, and I found myself involved once more. Here I am.” Quade glanced at the others, and then his cold, black eyes fixed on Lionel. “Here we all are.”
Lionel looked pale. “I…I did receive a grant from PLP, specifically from the current CEO, Miss Vandenburg. But big companies offer lots of support to educational and scientific groups. That’s where we get most of our funding. I did nothing wrong!”
“You were paid to bring us out here?” Vince said. “To put us in danger?”
Lionel open and shut his mouth a few times, but no words came out.
Michael stood. “We had better get moving. It’s too dangerous to stop here for long.”
They began to hike once more. The ground, which had been bare rock, now turned sandy and began to slope downward. They kept their steps small so they wouldn't slide.
After a while, the ground leveled out a bit, the group came together once more. As they did, Jake thought about Quade’s tale of intricate plots and counterplots, all of which sounded convoluted, bizarre, and too much like the X-Files on steroids. His anger boiled over at the strange CIA consultant, and he could keep quiet no longer.
“Missing military men, dead scientists, big bad pharmaceutical companies,” he said, drawing everyone’s attention. “I don’t believe any of it!”
“It makes perfectly good sense, Sheriff,” Quade said. “Someone at PLP has to be behind the mercenaries. PLP wants the book, and will do whatever it takes to get it. I suspect they thought Charlotte knew more than she does, and wanted to get rid of her. After all, her husband nearly cracked the case, and who knew how much he told her.”
“So, who is it?” Michael asked.
“I’m not sure about the original perpetrator,” Quade began, “but the only one with the resources and power to do all that’s been done now is the CEO, Jennifer Vandenburg.”
“No,” Melisse said. “It’s not Jennifer.”
The others stared at her.
“Since it’s confession time, she’s my boss, my real boss. I’m ex-military, and now work security for PLP. I’ve been one of Jennifer’s personal bodyguards. She has spent money and resources on this strange adventure and, yes, she wanted the book, but she didn’t send any killers out here. She sent Lionel, and then sent me to keep an eye on him. She knew I grew up in rural Montana, knew I could take care of myself out in this wilderness. She didn’t trust Lionel.”
“What? You? But you’re a graduate student!” Lionel said indignantly. “You know anthropology!”
“Not exactly. I know enough to agree with whatever you say about it. Some well-placed dollars got me a fake résumé and onto your team, that’s all,” Melisse said. “The men shooting at us were not sent by Jennifer Vandenburg.”
“Then who…” Jake fell quiet as a strange creature stepped in front of him. It looked like a cougar, but was the size of a tiger. “Christ!” he murmured under his breath, reaching for his S&W magnum, glad to have it on him again.
To their left, a gold-colored grizzly with a human-shaped head appeared, and to the right, a monster that seemed to be a cross between a tarantula and a five-foot long lizard. Its tongue flicked out at them. The beast began to move toward them, closing them in.
Melisse pulled the Beretta from her waistband, thankful Jake had found it for her. “Do we dare shoot? The sound will give away our position.”
The beasts charged as a single entity.
“We don’t have a choice,” Michael yelled as he fired.
The animals veered away from the gunshots. Three other creatures appeared, equally strange combinations of wolves and bears and snakes and lizards. As Michael, Jake and Melisse held them off, Charlotte and Quade led the students and Lionel downhill, running fast. Large, smooth rocks filled the ground. Vince’s foot slipped and wedged between two of them. He fell onto his backside. Rachel, who had been ahead of him, stopped to go back and help him pull his foot free.
A creature that looked half-bird and half-cougar swooped down. Rachel screamed, tried to run and fell. Quade threw himself atop her to protect her. The flying beast swerved from them. Melisse shot it, but that didn’t stop the creature as it soared high.
The other beasts continued their attack.
Jake went to help Vince, but a bear-like creature pounced on him. He fell backwards, his hands on its throat, holding its fangs away from him.
An arrow hit its chest, then another. More arrows flew.
The village men had arrived—all six of them. They stood at the top of the hill, shooting their arrows down to where the beasts attacked. The creatures shrieked with anger as arrows drove them back into the forest.
Michael and Jake glanced at each other, stunned that Ben Olgerbee and Gus Webber were not only alive, but able to join in the fight. They were last seen shot, looking as if they were dead or dying, and lying atop the mound.
“How can they be here?” Jake said.
Michael shook his head, as confused as the sheriff.
“Troublesome fools!” Kohler shouted, as he marched his men a little way down the hillside toward the students. “I told you to trust and listen to us!”
In the distance, they heard a low rumble. They glanced toward the sound, but saw nothing.
Vince, his foot still caught, held up a hand for help. Kohler nodded at Arnie Tieg who removed a long, heavy knife from his belt. Vince must have seen something in Tieg’s eyes because he cried “No!” as Tieg swung the blade hard at Vince’s neck, nearly beheading him.
Brandi screamed and wouldn’t stop until Rachel grabbed her and pulled her farther downhill, away from the village men.
Jake and Michael, stunned, raised their weapons and aimed at Kohler. Behind Kohler, the other villagers stood with their long bows and arrows poised and ready.
“That is what happens to those who disobey!” Kohler roared. “Now, give us back the philosopher’s stones, and come with us, or more of you will meet this fate.”
The students and their would-be rescuers stared at each other, too scared and heartsick over Vince to move, but also unwilling to go along with the murderous villagers. The villagers appeared fearless, Kohler unwavering.
Time stood still, and the roar grew louder.
A roiling sheet of water appeared uphill from them, and bore down, crashing and raging.
“Flashflood!” Michael shouted, his voice tight.
To the north and south of them the mountains
ides sloped steeply upward. The village men turned and ran back to the hilltop as Michael and the students exchanged panicked looks near the bottom of a deep, flat, dry gully.
Signs of earlier floods surrounded them, floods that had torn through at speeds that ripped away trees, shrubs, and loose rock. The prior night’s rainfall followed by warm weather must have melted snow at higher elevations and triggered the massive run-off.
A wall of water hit and knocked them off their feet, tossing them around like toys. There was no escape. Michael tried to reach Rachel and Brandi but his outstretched hand clutched at nothing as the rushing wave gripped and sucked him into the downhill torrent.
Snared by the unrelenting strength of the icy wave, he tumbled and spiraled wildly. He struggled to find the surface of the water, then strained to keep his head above the current, to gulp air before his lungs burst.
The current hurtled him down the mountain as if he rode a twisting, turning water slide. It knocked him painfully into objects that had held their ground. Up ahead, he heard the distinctive splash of a waterfall. He fought to reach the bank, to do something to help the others, but the relentless flood held him tight, pulled him under, then tossed him over the edge of the fall.
He sank deep, and the rapid flow carried him forward, arms and legs thrashing as if they belonged to someone else, before the water reached a wide, flat field. There, it spread out. The roar dimmed, finally quieting into nothing more deadly than a shallow pond. It took a moment before Michael realized he had stopped moving.
Gasping for breath, his heart racing, he crawled to his feet. Bruised and exhausted, he looked around.
He reached Charlotte and helped her to the bank.
“I'm okay,” she murmured as he went back out to help Jake with Brandi and Rachel. Last of all, Michael dragged Lionel from the water. His brother was blue-gray with cold and shivered uncontrollably.
“We need to warm him up!” Michael said. “And the rest of us as well.”
They quickly found a sheltered area and built a fire. They pulled off their jackets and heavy outer clothes, and draped them over branches set up near the fire as make-shift drying racks.
“Oh, hell,” Charlotte said, shivering. “My gun’s gone.”
“I dropped the rifle somewhere up there.” Quade pointed up beyond the waterfall.
Jake and Melisse still had their handguns. Michael sighed with relief that the water hadn’t swept away his rifle or the backpack with The Book of Abraham the Jew carefully wrapped in it. The flood had taken everything else.
“Our things could be anywhere,” Michael said. “Still up on the mountain, under the waterfall. To find them, we’d have to go back toward the villagers.”
“It’s hopeless,” Jake said. He, too, was half frozen, weary and discouraged. “With only a Beretta, an S&W revolver, and one Remington with no additional ammo, how the hell are we supposed to hold off the villagers, those crazy creatures, and a bunch of well-armed killers?”
o0o
As evening fell, their outer garments dried enough to put them on again, Rachel, a Mormon and the only church-goer in the group, said a prayer for Vince. Although the others were not believers in the way Rachel was, each felt comforted by her words.
They stayed in the sheltered area to rest, recover their strength, and deal with the shock and despair of losing their young companion before they moved on. They needed all the strength they could muster to face their enemies.
Later, Charlotte offered to take the first watch. Sleep wouldn't come easily to her. It never did, and would be especially difficult after Quade’s words about Dennis. Her life with Dennis, and his death, would replay over and over again in her mind.
As others fell asleep around the fire, she moved a short distance away from its light to stare with vigilance into the darkness. Despite her heavy heart, she remained alert to any strange noise or movement.
Her mind replayed the horrors of the day, and she shuddered at the memories, at how close to death she and her friends had been.
Facing death, she realized how much she wanted to live. Truly to live. Not here in this never-never land. Not the stern half-life that had made up her days since Dennis died, avoiding all emotion. She wanted to feel whole again.
Even her work gave testament to complacency. She had left her doctorate program and returned to the U.S., expecting her time as a Customs agent to be temporary, something to do until she got her life together again and saved enough money to finish her Ph.D. But somehow, one year drifted into the next. For a while, she continued to study on her own, but soon stopped even that. She drifted. Sitting in this strange, surreal world, she realized that simply wasn’t enough.
She heard a rustle and tightly gripped the rifle Michael had lent her, ready to use it.
“It's only me. Thought I'd help keep watch for a while,” Jake whispered as he sat down close beside her. “I couldn't sleep. I kept remembering how I just stood there and let them kill that boy.” He frowned, his eyes troubled, questioning.
“We all did,” Charlotte said. “No one expected such cruelty. It tells us we were right to run, and we’ve got to keep going. Somehow, we must get the others home.”
“You're right. I'll do my best,” he promised, not speaking the rest of his thought, ‘or die trying.’ He surprised himself by admitting aloud, “This place has me spooked.”
“You and me both,” she said, giving a tentative but understanding smile.
“But I’m the cop. I’m supposed to be able to handle these things.”
“You’re a man, too,” she said. “A very caring man, I think.”
The gentleness of her words touched him. But then he pulled back, his mouth a thin line, downturned at the corners. “I never should have gotten you into this, Charlotte.” He cast his gaze forward toward the darkness of the brush, toward potential danger. “I never should have allowed you to come on this search. I'd ask if you could ever forgive me, but ‘ever’ sounds pretty trite right about now. I’m sorry.”
His concern surprised her, and even worse, it sounded so heartfelt sudden tears threatened. She hated such weakness and forced her face, her whole body, back to its usual reticence. “I would have found a way out here, whether you agreed or not, Sheriff. Even if I had to follow you. You heard Quade. My husband died because of this. I had to find out why, and exactly who was behind it.”
“It must be hard, bringing it all back. I’m sorry you had to learn this way about your husband’s death.”
“I've done my grieving.” She kept her voice hard, firm. “Thirteen years’ worth. In an odd sense, I’m relieved to finally learn the truth. I often blamed myself for what happened.”
He looked at her quizzically.
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “That afternoon,” she said softly, “Dennis asked me if I wanted to go out with him. I was working on some research of my own and turned him down. I thought that if I'd gone, he wouldn't have been at that café. He would have been safe. He would have lived.” She fell silent.
“They might have waited for another time, another place,” he said. “Or killed you, too.”
“I know that now.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Still…”
“Don't do that to yourself, Charlotte,” he cautioned. “It's easy to blame yourself even when you really couldn't have prevented it. Or to feel guilt that you weren't also a victim. It paralyzes you. Believe me, I'm a master at that. It's no way to live.”
Her pale face masklike, her gaze riveted in the direction of the mountains.
He knew how deeply she hurt. If he was a softer man, a more caring sort, he would have put his arms around her and offered comfort. But he wasn’t. He didn’t know how. Instead, he faced the mountains as she did. He couldn't see them in the blackness of night, but they were etched in his mind. “The land out there,” he said, “It’s majestic.” He wasn't good with words, but that one seemed right to him. “The vistas go on forever. High mountain ranges, one after the other, interwov
en by blue rivers and clear streams. I found peace and beauty in the land around the Salmon River. It was exactly what I needed at a time when I couldn’t see beyond the chaos and ugliness all around me.”
She nodded. He stopped then, embarrassed. Who was he to offer advice? Not when, at one point in his life when his marriage had gone down the tubes and his job turned beyond ugly, he almost gave up. He remembered studying his own gun, feeling the cruel temptation of the finality it offered, and wondering why he bothered to struggle, day in and day out. He scared himself with such thoughts and left Los Angeles where he’d been so mixed up that trivial things—like cars and promotions and possessions—had seemed important, and important things—like marriage and lasting love—trivial.
Back home in Salmon City, he somehow managed to gain perspective once again. Maybe because it was simply more natural, more real, than the concrete and crime that had made up his days, he felt alive again, even more so near Charlotte. She was troubled, unnervingly wary, meticulous to a fault, overly critical, and with more brains, beauty, and refinement than any one person should possess. And she knew her way around weapons. He'd never met anyone like her before, and felt like a teenager with his first crush. No fool like an old fool, he thought.
He wanted to take her mind off the past. She was only in her 30’s with a bright future, if and when they got out of this place. “It's good to see you and Michael together,” he said abruptly, trying to sound as if he were doing nothing but making small talk.
She faced him. “What do you mean?”
“Two scholars and all.” He cleared his throat. “You two seem right together. Might even last after we get away from here.”
“Michael...and me?” She regarded him with confusion. “Are you also a part-time match-maker, Sheriff?”
“I’ve seen the two of you together, how well you get along. I even, uh, spotted him leaving your tent early one morning,” he confessed. “I'm not surprised. He's well-educated. Smart. Good looking.”