Hiking for Danger

by Capri Montgomery

  “How many?”

  “Enough to bag a lot of trophies,” he said. “But let’s make it fun. Whichever one of you kills the most takes the bounty—two thousand a head.”

  “Sweet,” Chris whistled.

  “Winner takes all.”

  “What about the runner up?” Jed quipped. “Everybody knows Chris is the better hunter. What do I get for this?”

  “The pleasure of becoming a real man,” Farley said. He sighed. “Fine, the loser gets a five thousand dollar participation prize.”

  Jed shook his head. “Deal. Five grand can buy me that new gun I want.”

  “Oh hell, son,” Farley shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell your old man you wanted a gun? I could have bought that baby for you already.”

  “You wanted us to be men of our own. I thought that included gun purchases too.”

  Farley shrugged. “For my hunters I’d buy you any equipment you needed. Save your winnings for something else. I’ll buy you the gun when we get back home.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Farley slapped his son on the shoulder and gave him accolades for his gun purchasing goal. His boys reminded him of himself when he was younger. The blond hair, the nicely lean muscled body and the love of the hunt. Chris had green eyes while Jed had taken after their mother with the light brown eyes, but both boys still had his jaw line, his younger body physique and his skill as a hunter. These were his most prized possessions—his sons were going to carry on his legacy—carry on their family legacy. Tomorrow it would all begin.

  Chapter Six

  Morning came and Cody was up and moving around, packing gear and getting ready for the long hike ahead of them. There was no way they could carry her down; she would have to walk it. She had been feeling so well since the previous night’s rest that she had nearly forgotten her ankle. Actually, she had forgotten her ankle until she tried to stand on it and fell right back down on her butt.

  “Oh shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot!” She winced in pain.

  “Why did you do that?”

  Oh sure, she had done it deliberately, she thought. “I forgot.” She snapped. “It wasn’t hurting so much,” good news she thought, but maybe not.

  “The pain killers and a good night of sleep helped. Your brain wasn’t receiving all the pain signals.”

  “Well it is now,” she said.

  He went for the first aid kit. “It’s okay. I’m guessing we’ll all do better if I’m awake enough for this portion of the hike,” she gave him a fake smile. They had run out of Advil and moved on to Tylenol, both of which made her a bit sleepy. “It’s a curse,” she had said. Her body had the same reaction to most medications; most seemed to make her drowsy even if it were a non-drowsy dose.

  He finished packing up the gear while she sat nearby rummaging through her pack.

  “What are you looking for?”

  She pulled three small bottles from her bag. “This,” she said. “Lavender, Eucalyptus and Sage.” It might not have made for the sweetest of smells, but the lavender worked as a nice insect repellent – as opposed to the chemical stuff. And she had brought along the other two as a just in case she needed an extra boost to get through her “four hour hike.” She was glad she brought it now. She unwrapped her ankle, mixed a portion in her hand and gently spread it on. “I don’t usually use these neat, but when in need,” she said.

  The swelling was about the same, but Cody had said no worse was a good sign. “You’re doing it wrong.” He knelt down beside her. “Under the arch for support,” he took the wrap and began wrapping her ankle.

  “I know,” she smiled at him and he smiled back.

  “When are we leaving,” Stacey paced impatiently.

  “When we’re all ready,” Parker said just a bit more annoyed than he had let on the day before.

  “I don’t see anybody paying this much attention to me,” she snapped.

  “That’s because you’re the one who caused the trouble,” Parker told her.

  “Do you know who I am?” She placed her hands on her hips and frowned.

  Cody turned his head to look at her. “You’re a spoiled malicious brat.”

  “Hey,” she snapped “That’s not fair.”

  “If you don’t like the painting then give me a better brush.” He was angry and Sahara could tell that. She was amazed he was being as reserved as he was because the look on his face told her that he was ready to unleash a healthy supply of truth that would shut Stacey up for good.

  “Ouch!” Sahara flinched. “Careful cowboy.”

  “Ranger,” he chuckled. “I’m sorry; it was too tight I guess.”

  “Just a little,” she mumbled. He was lost in his anger and she would guess that meant he forgot he was wrapping that bandage on her ankle and not around Stacey’s neck.

  Cody helped her sit on the rock and he sat beside her as they watched everybody else start to pack up.

  “I’m curious,” he said as they sat side by side on the rock. “Why Sahara?”

  She knew it was an unusual name, but that was her parents. “Well, my parents said they loved it there when they went on their wilderness trek and since I was technically conceived there it just made sense. So my brother and sister get normal names and I get named after a desert.” She laughed. “It’s okay; it’s not that bad I guess. It’s kind of exotic.”

  He smiled, “yeah, like you.” She smiled back. She had never thought of herself as exotic, she had more or less looked at herself as being plain. She was the odd ball in the family.

  Her parents loved adventure, her sister loved it so much she became an Anthropologist and spent years at a time living among native cultures. Her brother was always off on some big nature photography quest in the jungles of South America. She was the only one perfectly happy curling up with a good book or an old black and white movie and just being at home. Now she knew why. Adventure and Sahara were not meant to be friends. Whenever she did something new or thought she would try something a bit on the wild side, she ended up hurting herself or embarrassing herself and usually the two went hand in hand. Case and point—sprained ankle on her first hike—or more like what she hoped was just a severe sprain. No, correction, thinking her first hike was a four hour hike when she had actually booked some wilderness man special and to follow that up would be major damage to her ankle. She wasn’t sure she would be able to live it down with Kallie and Jeff, but she would try. Maybe she could think of some exotic tale for how she managed to have her ankle injured, but then she remembered, she studied bugs, not the fine art of creating fiction and if she even tried to lie they would see right through that.

  Well, then she would just tell them the truth and play up the angle of holding on to the very sexy guide. And when they mocked her at the next family party—which she knew they would because they always did—then she would just smile and say, “but I got to latch on to a total sex god in the process.” That should work just fine to save her from looking completely humiliated over her failed stab at adventure.

  “So what do your friends call you?”

  “Well my middle name is Danica, so sometimes they call me SD. I hate that and usually refuse to answer.”

  “What about your family?”

  She wondered if he were looking for a shorter version of her name, not that it was that long in the first place, but she long ago learned that people seemed to like to shorten things. Kallie was Kay and Jeffery had become Jeff her mom was Cass instead of Cassandra to all her friends and her dad had become Griff instead of Griffin. Shortening Sahara just didn’t seem to work. People either called her Hara or SD and she hated both so she refused to answer. Most of her friends respected that and only called her either of the two when they wanted to tease.

  “My family calls me Sahara,” she said. “It’s usually followed by something exasperating though. Like, Sahara, the girl who couldn’t climb a mountain if God lowered it into a plane. Or Sahara, the girl the stork left at the wrong door.” She fin
ally looked up at him and noticed he looked more bothered by it than she was. Of course, she did have a lifetime to get used to her family. “Oh yes,” she said. “I’m the butt of all jokes at family shindigs. You see everybody in my family is adventurous being that they’re all basically explorers, risk takers, and all that good stuff. I’m not talking just my immediate family either.” No, even her aunts on both her mom and dad side of the family, her uncles, grandparents—both sides again, were all adventurous. Apparently even their great aunts, great uncles, great grandparents and beyond were all adventurers too. From the stories passed down in her family she knew that their family was laced with adventurers and she was definitely the square peg trying to fit into a board of nothing but circles.

  “Me,” she said. “I study bugs. Such a boring profession for a Daniels,” she mocked in her dad’s tone of voice. She had hoped they would be proud of her for her work. Okay, so she studied bugs and that probably wasn’t as interesting as living among native jungle dwellers, but it was a good profession. She made quite a bit of money and she had just been offered a research position at the University. She had hoped they could be proud.

  “I guess this trip was more for them than for me. Or maybe it was for me too,” she lowered her voice. “Maybe I wanted to prove I could do it. I wanted to have a story to share at the next family dinner that didn’t end with my sister calling me a disgrace to the family spirit.” Sure it had all been done in fun, but it hurt. She laughed it off because the moment she would complain they would call her sensitive in a manner that told her she was being too stiff and then she would feel guilty. It didn’t matter that sometimes she would go home crying when even her mother would say the stork got the addresses mixed up but they decided to keep her anyway. “Fine mess I made of things,” she said.

  “First of all the ankle thing isn’t your fault and second,” he thought for a moment. “Well, it’s more adventurous to fight gravity down a mountain when you’re at deaths door in pain,” he said and they both laughed.

  “Oh, I’m going to need you to help me spin this to my family,” she said. “You have a good imagination.”

  “I’m guessing you do too,” he traced her brow with his index finger. It lingered briefly and then it was gone. It was time to move on and she knew that just as he did. They had a long way to go before reaching the next stop.

  She stood, favoring her good ankle with her weight while she watched as Cody and Parker made the rounds making sure everybody was ready to go. She guessed it was time to hold on to somebody else at this point. Shell had supported her and dragged her quite the distance and she was sure he had to still be tired from all the work he put in yesterday. Although they had all managed to eat a little so maybe a good night of sleep and breakfast would be enough to give him some strength to help her today too.

  Before she could process her thoughts, Riley was slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her close. “I’ve got her,” he said. Cody gave him a glare that hadn’t passed unnoticed. She figured he was still fuming over the fact that the guy had gotten a little too frisky the other day. She hated it too, but any movement on her part hurt, and she couldn’t quite convince her brain to lift her arm to slap his hand away.

  “No funny stuff kid,” Cody said with a voice that surely told Riley he would kick his behind if he touched her wrong. Though with the way Sahara was feeling she would probably attempt to kick his behind herself. She would no doubt fail miserably.

  She was angry at the turn of events, dealing with Stacey’s childish antics, and then Riley feeling her up while she was in too much pain to do anything, had tested her patience. She was good at diplomacy, most of the time anyway. She didn’t think she would be able to keep that anger bottled all day if he tried anything else. On the bright side of things, she did very much enjoy kissing Cody.

  The first arrow shot past them, so close that it had almost pierced Parker’s shoulder before slamming into a tree. The second hit his backpack on the ground and the third came from another angle and pierced the ground just beside Sahara’s leg. Riley had run for cover behind the rock so fast that he had managed to knock her to the ground in the process. The arrow had a note attached. “Stay low,” Cody yelled out before reaching beside Sahara and snatching up the note.

  “Get your injured some place safe, the hunt starts in one hour,” he read.

  “What the hell! Is this some kind of sick joke or some tour humor?” Jack ranted on as if his ravings would help the situation.

  “This isn’t part of the tour.” Cody examined the arrow. “What we have here is some pretty sick people looking for some really twisted game. We need to get down to the lake. We’re going to have to take the alternate route down and it won’t be easy from this position.”

  “You think they’re serious?” Nikki asked. “I mean, couldn’t it be a joke.”

  “We’re serious,” a voice called from the woods. “Today, I’m teaching my boys how to hunt the two legged animal,” he laughed.

  “Do what you need to do Cody, I’ll be fine.”

  “No way…”

  “You can’t protect everybody with me hanging on to you. I’ll be fine.”

  Like hell she would. She couldn’t put weight on that ankle and he knew it.

  “She’s going to slow us down.” Donald Baker said.

  “Oh dad shut up,” Shell said. It wasn’t long before the others were agreeing with his father.

  Parker had said they wouldn’t leave anybody behind. He had even appealed to their sense of humanity and then the outright knowledge that they themselves wouldn’t want to be left behind. What it came down to was they were wasting time—time they couldn’t afford to waste.

  “So leave me here. I’ll be fine. You can send somebody back for me once you’re all safe.”

  “No.” Cody said, but the others were already agreeing.

  “She makes sense,” one had said.

  “We can’t let her slow us down or we'll all die,” came another response.

  “She’ll be okay up here,” was the last reply.

  “Let me remind you,” Cody growled. “She wouldn’t be injured if it weren’t for you and your games, Stacey. We’re not leaving anybody behind.”

  “Cody,” she called to him. What he gave her was a fierce gaze that seemed to scare even her. “Cody, listen to me. He’s not interested in hurting me. If he wanted to hurt me he wouldn’t have told you to get your injured someplace safe. I’ll be okay.”

  “Of course you will, because you’re getting your butt down that mountain.” He said before slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her to her feet. “Now, anybody else want to leave somebody behind and you can stay up here too,” he said. “Kid,” he gestured for him to come.

  “You’re not using my son.”

  “Aw dad, shut up,” he said as he tucked Sahara’s arm around his waist. “I’ve got her.”

  In all his years of working the park ranger job and then adding in this hiking adventure tour job he had never encountered anything like this. The most dangerous situations he had encountered were the occasional idiots who thought it would be fun to sneak up on a bear; or riding the rapids with a person who couldn’t understand why staying secure in the raft was smarter than standing up and trying to “ride the wave,” as the bleached blond with spiky hair had called when he decided to jump up on the back of the raft and then fell off.

  The dangers were stupid situations with stupid people, but they were always containable. This, however, was something he wasn’t prepared for. These were humans hunting humans and his group didn’t even have a weapon. Since the cutbacks, they only had the one communication device that could reach the base from this altitude. That one device was in Parker’s bag and the arrow had taken that out. While they both still had their phones they were going to have to get down and out of the heavy tree coverage before they could call for help. They were outgunned, and they were on their own.

  “We have to move fast, people.”
Cody took the lead while Parker took up the rear to make sure they didn’t lose anybody. “We’ll have to take the shortcut down and it’s going to be hard all the way.” Hard was probably an understatement because he knew it was going to be more than hard. He knew the steep trail was hard for an experienced hiker let alone for the novice and an injured hiker. He just didn’t have a choice. The only way to take a moderately less difficult way down was to go up first and going up was just stupid because they wouldn’t be able to get a signal for a call out for help. They had to take one of the rough paths, but once they got low enough for him to get reception he could alert the base, get aerial help and somebody with weapons to come either take these guys out or arrest them. He didn’t care which just so long as these guys paid for the havoc they were causing and the lives they were putting in danger.

  They started down the path, cautiously keeping keen watch of the path behind them while trying to navigate the path in front of them. They all had to work together now because these guys could be anywhere. They could come from the side or from in front of them too. That was the thing about the wilderness, there were so many ways to get to one destination, which made it more difficult to know where these guys would come from. He still didn’t know how many men they were dealing with because the guy whose voice they heard said he was teaching his boys—boys could mean two or ten for all Cody knew.

  They were roughly twelve minutes into their walk when the group seemed to forget about what was chasing them. “This can’t be serious,” Stacey stopped walking. “I’m not going to break my neck going down that,” she pointed to the path ahead of them.

  “She’s right,” Misty said.

  “I agree, but I’m more than willing to keep walking for no other reason than to find out we are wrong,” Riley said. “Let’s keep moving people.”

  Cody was ready to issue the same demand, he was glad at least one of the hikers was on his side. He couldn’t be sure of anything with the rest of them, other than Sahara and Parker that is.