by Merry Jones
‘Her husband’s gone to get help,’ Angela blurted. ‘I think I broke my ankle. Getting out of my tent.’ She went on, telling them about hearing the explosion, running in the dark.
Harper’s vision was stabilizing. One by one, she checked the men out. The oldest was maybe fifty. Kind of stout. She could take him, no problem. But Ax and the two others were built like lumberjacks. Fit, big, muscled. Ruddy. No way she could neutralize all of them.
Ax stood. ‘When did your husband leave?’
Harper didn’t answer, but Angela couldn’t stop talking. ‘About a half hour ago.’
‘Where’d he go? The ranger’s station?’
Angela nodded. ‘Please. Don’t hurt us. I just lost my husband.’ She went on, explaining about Phil.
The men paid no attention. One of them waved his rifle at Hank’s soil and water samples. ‘What are those?’
‘Nothing,’ Harper said.
‘Really. They look like scientific samples to me. What do you think, Moose?’
‘That’s what I think. What do you think, Ax?’
‘They are samples,’ Harper said. ‘My husband’s a geology professor. He takes samples wherever we go.’
‘Did you hear that, Hiram? Her husband’s a geology professor. He tests soil and water wherever they go.’
‘Course he does,’ the fourth guy said. ‘And I just rode in on the hay wagon.’
‘Oh God,’ Angela whimpered.
The men huddled for a moment. Then the older man approached Harper. ‘I’ll ask you again: Where are the others?’
‘She told you where my husband is. There are no others.’
‘Look, we aren’t messing around. We know you met here this morning with at least two men besides your husband—’
‘Oh!’ Angela cried out. ‘He means those guys with the campfire.’
Harper winced at Angela, signaling her to be quiet. Not to give out information without knowing how it would be used.
‘What campfire?’ Ax crouched close to Harper, crowding her. He smelled like dogs and burning leaves.
‘I don’t know …’ she began.
‘They said their campfire got out of control. That’s how they got burned,’ Angela volunteered.
Harper turned, shot her a fierce look. Angela didn’t seem to notice.
‘They were burned?’ One of the men turned to the older guy. ‘Hiram, you roger that?’
‘I do, Moose,’ Ax said. ‘Campfire’s bogus. Those are the bomb guys.’
Hiram nodded. ‘Unless they were just a couple of campers, unlucky enough to be too close to the site.’
‘Bullshit.’ The guy called Moose spat on the ground.
‘So where are they?’ Ax put his face up against Harper’s. His breath was like stale tobacco.
‘No idea,’ Harper said. ‘I don’t even know their names.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Angela said. ‘Remember? They got their names wrong the first time? But then they said their names were Bob and Dixon. They were going to get their stuff and leave.’
Ax smiled. Looked like a snake. He backed away from Harper, standing. ‘So what do you want to do?’ he asked the others.
‘We’re wasting time,’ Moose said. ‘We should move.’
‘I agree,’ Hiram said. ‘We should get back.’
Harper turned her head slowly, looking for the Winchester. Edged toward it.
‘Fine.’ Ax stood. ‘We can talk more later.’
Moose was the largest. He grunted as he picked Angela up and, ignoring her protests, flung her over his shoulder like a sack of barley. He was off balance. She slipped off; her head slammed onto a boulder with a thunk. Angela made no sound, though, not even a yelp.
‘Angela?’ Harper started to go to her, but Ax shook his head no.
‘Don’t even move,’ he said.
‘Bitch is fucking heavy,’ Moose complained, hefting her up again.
‘Angela, are you all right?’ Harper called again.
Angela said nothing. Her arms dangled and her body swayed limply as Moose carried her into the woods. Harper watched, inching closer to her rifle, moving her hand slowly, holding her body perfectly still until her fingers made contact with metal. She pulled at it, dragging it closer.
A shot rang out, and Ax stood above her. ‘What are you, crazy? You want to get killed? Look around you. There’s four of us, and my breakfast was bigger than you are.’ He kicked the Winchester away. ‘Get up. Let’s go.’
‘What do you want? Money? I don’t have any cash, but my—’
‘We don’t want your frickin’ money. Move.’
Fear rippled along Harper’s neck, down her back. If they didn’t want money, what did they want? If they were just locals, members of the Hunt Club, why would they kidnap them? She kept her head down, looked from side to side, considered bolting into the woods, running a zigzag to avoid their shots.
Two rifles were aimed at her – Ax’s and the fourth man’s. Harper simmered, assessing her chances. Between the two of them, one would probably shoot her before she could make it to the trees. Maybe she could kick one of their rifles away, simultaneously diving for the other. But then what? They’d recover and outnumber her, outweighing her by a good three hundred pounds. Even if she darted away, they’d likely get the best of her. And before they did, Hiram might shoot her. So she didn’t run, didn’t kick or dive at anyone. Nostrils flaring, she met the eyes of each gunman before she stood. Then, at gunpoint, she let them lead her away.
Bob let go of Pete’s arm and stared at their empty tarp. ‘Fucking shit,’ he said.
Pete rushed ahead, picking up their blanket, shaking it out. ‘Where’s our stuff?’ He turned in a circle, examining the ground.
‘Fucking shit,’ Bob said again.
Pete blinked rapidly, stared into the trees. ‘It’s all gone.’
‘Shit.’ Bob limped over to Pete. His burns hurt, but he was getting used to the pain. ‘Everything? They took everything?’
Pete shook the blanket again. ‘This is it.’
‘So wait. We have to think. What did they get? What was in the backpacks? Two detonators, blasting caps, wiring—’
‘The weed,’ Pete wailed. ‘Fuckers took our weed.’ He tossed the blanket on the ground.
‘Forget your frickin’ weed, asshole,’ Bob snapped. ‘Think. Is there any way they can figure out whose stuff it was?’
‘Why? Wait – you think it was the cops? You think they’ll look for like DNA and stuff? You think they’re coming after us?’
Bob turned away, stared at his burned hands, then at air. This was bad. If the cops or the ATF had their stuff, then they were screwed. They’d left their fingerprints all over everything – the caps, the walkie-talkies. Everything. Hell, they’d planned to blow all of it up, so fingerprints wouldn’t have mattered. And he’d had that DUI. It was supposed to have been expunged. So his fingerprints wouldn’t still be in the police files, would they? But oh God, what about the walkie-talkies? Could they figure out where they’d bought them? Had they left anything else? Damn – the ham sandwiches from the snack bar. That waitress would remember them, would identify Pete as the guy who ordered them to go.
They were so fucked. Especially when the cops saw their burns.
Unless it wasn’t the cops who’d taken their stuff. Maybe it was hunters. Or hikers. Or that creepy monster.
Somewhere close, a shot rang out. Bob wheeled around, looked at Pete, who was gaping at him, doing that blinking thing again.
‘It’s just hunters,’ Bob said.
‘Bullshit. That shot came from where we just were. Those women’s camp.’ Pete began walking in a circle, tramping on the tarp.
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I do, and so do you.’
‘No. It came from that direction, but you don’t know where. For all you know, that little blonde chick just shot a pheasant.’
‘Stuff it, Bob. This is bad.’ Pete kept blinking, pacing. ‘It might not be the co
ps who took our stuff. It could be the guy who shot those men. And he could be back there, shooting at those women.’
‘Will you stop the fuck doing that eye thing?’
‘Seriously?’ Pete stomped over to Bob. He lowered his voice, held his head close. ‘This place is fucking crazy. First, King Kong’s chasing us. Now somebody steals our stuff – maybe the ATF, maybe some psycho lunatic. Either way—’
‘We got to move.’ Bob finished the sentence and grabbed Pete’s arm. Together, Bob leaning on Pete for support, they backtracked through the woods, staying off the main trail.
As they approached the campsite where the women had been, Bob put a hand up, gesturing for Pete to stop. ‘Shh,’ he whispered, nodding to the left.
Pete hunkered down, followed Bob’s gaze. A large man strode up the trail, carrying the woman with the broken ankle over his shoulder. The blonde trailed behind him, followed by three men with rifles.
‘Shit,’ Bob whispered. ‘They’ve got our stuff.’
It was true. Their backpacks dangled from the shoulders of two of the men.
‘Who are they?’
‘Looks like locals.’
‘Locals? But why? What are they gonna do to them?’ Pete’s eyelids fluttered at record speed.
‘How should I know?’
They crouched low, watching the group pass. Then they looked at each other.
‘Those women were decent to us,’ Pete said. ‘The little one tried to bandage us up. She offered us oatmeal.’
Bob nodded, wincing at the pain in his leg. ‘Those guys stole our stuff.’
For a moment they were quiet, thinking.
‘We got to make a choice here, Pete. We came here at our own risk to do something for the sake of the future and the environment. We decided to risk our lives to do what was right. Now, we have another decision to make.’
Pete closed his eyes to stop his blinking.
‘Those bastards took our stuff. I say we go get it back.’ Bob stood, squaring his jaw. ‘You in?’
Pete sighed, accepting the inevitable. ‘We don’t have a plan.’
‘Sometimes you got to wing it.’
Pete nodded. Bob was right. How could they turn their backs on a kidnapping? The little blonde woman had believed what they’d said about the ape monster. Had offered them breakfast. Pete held his arm out to help Bob, and the two of them turned around. Heading away from the Impala and their own safe escape, they followed Harper, Angela and the group of armed Hunt Club members into the depths of the woods.
Harper dawdled, limping, feigning leg pain. When Ax prodded her with his rifle, she explained that she had a war injury. Told him that she couldn’t go any faster. She hung back while Moose, the big guy carrying Angela, moved ahead and out of sight. She lagged, pacing herself slowly, staying close to the campsite. Hiram and the fourth man passed her, leaving her behind with Ax. Harper limped, walking slowly, planning. Once the others were far enough ahead, she’d fake a stumble. She’d go down onto her knees, and when Ax came close to see if she was hurt, she’d come up fast, knocking his rifle away, butting his jaw with her skull, punching his gut, grabbing his gun. He’d be too stunned and winded to call his buddies, and before he could recover, she’d have the rifle aimed at his chest.
Of course, she couldn’t be positive about her moves. She’d have to act and react, think in the moment. All she needed was enough distance between them and the two guys ahead of them. She slowed her pace, exaggerating her limp.
‘Maybe I should carry you.’ Ax nudged her. ‘Hang you over my shoulder the way Moose’s carrying your friend. You don’t weigh but a hundred pounds.’
‘Don’t touch me.’ As she spoke, she gave herself the go-ahead and stumbled, just as she’d planned. She landed on her knees, ready to pounce. But instead of coming to help her, Ax took a step back, watching her from a safe distance.
‘You sure you don’t want me to carry you? Because that sure was clumsy.’
She stood, brushed herself off. Kept walking. Hiram wandered back to join Ax. Harper tried to make another plan, but damn. Even if she could manage to take down one of them, she wouldn’t be able to take them both. She needed a new approach. If she couldn’t escape, then she’d need to make sure she was found. Which meant she needed to leave a trail.
Harper reached into her vest pockets, felt around. Found a wad of tissues, a Smokey the Bear pin. A bottle of ibuprofen. A lemon. A half-drunk water bottle. A half-eaten granola bar. A mini-flashlight. Band-Aids. Packets of wipes. A bottle opener, matches. A tube of bug repellent. She thought of the gear she’d carried in Iraq, how heavy it had been, weighing her down with ammo, weapons, helmet, water – no. Stop. She couldn’t think about Iraq now. She needed to focus. She kept her hands in her pockets and worked her fingers, tearing the tissues into bits. Casually, she took a hand out, pretending to rub her back. And, while Ax was distracted, talking to Hiram, she dropped a small white swatch. She kept walking, bracing herself for a reaction. But there was none. Ax and Hiram were engrossed in their conversation.
Harper dropped another piece. And, a few steps later, another. Damn. They weren’t heavy enough to drop straight down. They floated, drifting through the air to the side of the path. One landed out of sight, behind a cluster of undergrowth. Okay. No problem. She clumped a few pieces together, making them into a ball. And, when she was sure Ax and Hiram weren’t paying attention, she dropped it.
She left the first several tissue balls only a few steps apart to make it clear that they weren’t just litter, that they’d been left on purpose. Hank would find them, would show them to the ranger. And the police captain. And maybe the FBI or the ATF or whoever. But it would be Hank who would find them, who would know she’d left a trail. Who would follow it and find her. And take her home.
Oh God. Home. Chloe. Her bones ached, missing her.
No. She couldn’t think of Chloe, couldn’t be distracted by emotions. She had to leave another clue. She dropped another tiny ball. Eyed the rifle aimed at her. Wished she could throttle Ax and Hiram, the whole bunch of them.
‘But it’s not up to him,’ Ax was saying. ‘It’s up to the group. Majority rules.’
‘The chief has to have his say, too,’ Hiram added.
‘Fuck the chief. He’s a passive wimp.’
‘He’s got a tough job, trying to keep the peace.’
‘The peace? We’re not about keeping peace. We’re about striking fear. And expelling interlopers. And retaking our God-given land.’
He went on. Harper limped along, digging her heels into the ground where she could, leaving as many signs as she could. When she ran out of tissues, she dropped the Smokey the Bear pin, then the matchbook. Then her whistle. Pieces of the granola wrapper. Band-Aids. When all of that was gone, she left ibuprofen pills, hoping that the birds wouldn’t mistake them for seeds and scoop them up. And that squirrels wouldn’t take the tissues to pad their nests. By the time they got to the barbed wire fence, she worried that, by the time Hank got back and realized she was gone, most of her trail would be gone, stolen by wildlife.
Moose waited at the chain-link fence, Angela hanging over his shoulder. Hiram unlocked a gate near the KEEP OUT sign, stopped at a ramshackle shed to drop off the backpacks, then proceeded to a nearby mound of dirt and rocks. A heap of firewood concealed a steel door built into one side of the mound. Hiram unlocked this, too, and they entered, descending a flight of stairs into an underground compound. The stairway opened to a rec room or lounge, lit with bare bulbs, furnished with worn sofas and chairs. About half a dozen people were gathered around a bar against one wall. One of them was talking on a telephone – a landline.
Harper looked around, tried to memorize details: A big bronze gong at the far end of the room. A big-screen television. Guns and rifles – dozens of them – mounted on a wall. Heads – several foxes, a bear, a buck hung over the bar.
Ax nudged her. ‘Stop gawking. Move.’
A guy yelled from the bar. ‘Who’ve y
ou got now?’
‘We’ll be right there.’ Hiram waved at him, telling him to wait.
‘Heard from the chief yet?’ some other guy asked.
‘Just hang on, would you?’ Ax barked. ‘Let us dump them first.’
Dump them? Harper scowled. What kind of people were these, unalarmed, not even blinking when their friends came in with two kidnapped women? Who would sit at the bar, casually chatting with pals, watching captives being held at gunpoint? Her jaw tightened, but she had no choice. She followed Moose, watching Angela’s limp arms, wondering how bad her head injury was. Finally, at the far end of the room, Moose stopped. Hiram knelt in front of him, lifted a chunk of linoleum from the floor, and opened a trap door hidden underneath. Ax grabbed a ladder from some hooks on the wall, and he and Hiram lowered it into the opening. Moose stepped forward, started to climb down with Angela.
‘Hey, Moose,’ somebody called. ‘What are you carrying? You bag a sow?’
A sow?
People laughed. Started making pig calls. ‘Suuweee!’
Really? Harper couldn’t help it. She spun around, ready to dash across the room and knock out some teeth.
‘Damn it.’ Ax shoved her. ‘Move!’
She heard him, but didn’t move. Didn’t go knock out teeth, either. Harper stood immobile, gaping. Trying to understand what she was seeing, why the people at the bar were laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Moose climbed back up a step and looked around.
Ax chuckled. ‘Nothing. Just Josh.’
Harper blinked to make the image go away. She dug her nails into her palms, causing pain to ground her in the moment and end what had to be a hallucination. But nothing helped. The Bog Man wouldn’t disappear. He was there. In the room. Huge and hairy, and as real as the rifle poking her ribs.
Probably he’d come in behind them. But how? And why wasn’t anyone frightened? At the bar, the guy was still on the phone. The others continued their conversations while the creature, too tall for the low ceiling, walked bent over to a sofa, took a seat.
Up ahead, on Moose’s shoulder, Angela was regaining consciousness. She began arching her back, twisting her body, making breathless, hoarse panting sounds. She squirmed, pushing at Moose’s butt, trying to get free. Finally, Hiram scolded him, ‘Stop dawdling, would you? Hurry up and get down the ladder.’