Hidden: Part 1

by Linda Berry

  “No.”

  Travis scratched his chin. “I haven’t seen him since lunch. I’ve been in the garage all afternoon working on the baler. Haven’t seen Butch either.” His eyes widened momentarily. “Wait, he mentioned at lunch he wanted to go hunting.”

  “Hunting? Today?”

  “I didn’t take him seriously. What in hell can he shoot with a handgun?”

  Sully shrugged. “In his state of mind, who knows what he’d try to shoot. I heard the two-wheeler earlier this afternoon. Maybe he headed for the creek to try to shoot a duck or a goose. Guess I better go rustle him up.”

  An edge of concern crept into Travis’s voice. “Take your cell. Let me know when you find him.”

  “Roger that.”

  Sully knew Joe could be anywhere along the creek, which ran for twenty miles in each direction. He went to the barn and saddled Diego and then headed up past the hayfields following the tire tracks of the ATV. The tracks ran parallel to the creek to the north end of the property and continued for some distance before suddenly veering off toward the mountains on a rarely used, overgrown horse trail. Puzzled, Sully fished his cell phone from his pocket.

  Travis picked up on the first ring. “Got him?”

  “No. He’s headed northwest, away from the creek.”

  A long pause. “What fool thing did he get into his head to do?”

  “Dunno. But it’ll be dark here in an hour or so. It’ll be hard to see his tracks. I’m gonna keep looking. I hope to hell he’s headed back home.”

  “I’ll get saddled. Don’t slow your pace. I’ll catch up.”

  “Bring flashlights.

  Riding Diego at a slow trot, Sully covered a couple more miles before Travis caught up to him at a gallop, his black and white paint, Taba, damp with sweat. There was no disguising the tension on the old Paiute’s face as he pulled alongside Sully.

  “See anything?”

  “Nada,” Sully said, his sense of unease deepening. “He stopped once to let Butch have a whiz, but he didn’t stray too far from the ATV. Looks like he’s on a mission.”

  Travis pushed back his hat, eyes shining in the light of the lowering sun. “What kinda mission, out here?”

  Sully blew out a breath. “Beats the hell outta me. We’re gonna have to plant a tracking device on him if this is his new norm.”

  They both knew the trail ahead snaked through miles of thick, forested land that opened onto Misery Flats. The flats were dissected by a rugged meandering gorge with a sheer five-hundred-foot drop down columnar basalt cliffs. The Big Crow River was caged at the bottom, a tributary that ran more than a hundred miles. There was no way to cross the gorge except for an old abandoned railroad bridge thirty miles to the east.

  “This isn’t good elk or deer country,” Sully said, worried about his father’s state of mind. “If Dad’s out here hunting with a handgun, he’s delusional. If he’s not hunting, what prompted him to come out here?”

  Travis shook his head. “We’ll find out soon enough. Once he’s out of the woods, he’ll be hemmed in by the gorge, and won’t be able to go any further.”

  They rode through the darkening forest and entered Misery Flats as the colors of sunset melted across the mountains, drenching the desert in liquid amber. The spicy scent of sage and juniper seasoned the air.

  Joe’s tire tracks soon veered off the trail onto open land, skirting sagebrush, boulders, and an occasional juniper tree as the ATV forged its own path to the gorge. Sully scanned the open countryside with his binoculars but saw no movement, no telltale plume of dust stirred up by the two-wheeler.

  A single, sharp crack from a handgun split the silence, coming from a distance of about two miles. The shot had a fading reverberation, which told Sully the bullet had traveled a long distance without hitting anything substantial. Two more sharp cracks followed in quick succession.

  Pow-whop.

  Pow-whop.

  Blunt. Short distance. Followed by sounds like airborne grunts. These shots came from a high-powered rifle more to the east, and had unmistakably hit living flesh.

  “Holy shit,” Travis said.

  A warm trickle of sweat ran down Sully’s spine. Fear for his father’s safety tightened his chest. “Let’s go.” He spurred Diego forward, following Joe’s haphazard tracks until the ground hardened and became increasingly riddled with rock. They slowed the pace of the animals to a walk and repeatedly dismounted to search the earth, but the ATV’s imprints became untraceable. As night thickened around them, they continued to ride in the direction of the gunshots.

  It was full dark by the time they reached the rim of the gorge, which yawned across a chasm half the length of a football field. It was difficult to distinguish where the sheer edge dropped off to the river below. Sully and Travis kept the horses at a distance. They dismounted, flashlights slicing through the night. Hit by light beams, odd shapes that might have been an ATV became mounds of sagebrush or boulders. They walked in separate directions, trying to pick up any sign of Joe or Butch.

  “Dad!” Sully repeatedly called out, moving north.

  “Joe!” Travis chanted. After a while, the old Paiute’s voice faded as he moved further south.

  Sully’s beam caught something incongruent hidden behind a looming boulder. Black. Rough edges. A tire? He moved closer and his beam unveiled the ATV, pushed over on its side. Sully wasn’t quick enough to react to the sudden scuffing of steps behind him. He half turned and saw a blur of movement as something smashed down on his head. White pinpoints of light exploded in his brain and he felt himself falling, then blackness rushed in.

  Sully woke thinking he was dreaming. Something soft and wet was flicking the side of his face. Butch. There was a note of urgency to the poodle’s whimpering and growling. Sully became aware of the hard ground beneath him and the intense throbbing in his head. His mouth was parched dry. As he sat up his head cleared some but the pain didn’t subside. He felt his scalp above his left ear, and his fingers traced an open gash a couple inches long. Warm sticky blood ran down his face. Shit, how long had he been lying there? Where was Travis? His dad? He didn’t like that Butch was alone. His father would never let him wander off, especially out here, where predators roamed at night.

  “Easy boy,” he said, trying to quiet Butch as his fingers searched the ground for his flashlight. He found it, clicked it on, and cut slices of light through the darkness. Butch trotted away, then stopped and looked back, waiting. Clearly he wanted Sully to follow. Sully pulled up his pant leg, unsnapped his holster, and pulled out his .38. Then he got unsteadily to his feet and stood for several long moments, fighting nausea and a wave of dizziness. He moved forward tentatively, following Butch back to the rim of the gorge. A roar rose up the canyon wall from the river below, drowning out any noise of nighttime critters. Both horses stood waiting, tails flicking nervously, and plodded after him as he searched, casting his light in every direction. “Joe! Travis!” Nothing.

  He heard Butch growling. The dog stood on the edge of the precipice looking down, his coat blowing back in the wind. Sully’s gut felt queasy as he inched closer. A strong current of cold air rose from below and he felt a sudden wave of vertigo and imagined he was being sucked forward into the void. He stepped back quickly. His whole body started shaking. Remembering the rifle shots, he didn’t want to know what lay at the bottom of the canyon. Someone with bad intentions had attacked him, and had possibly harmed his father and Travis, and might still be waiting to finish the job. Sully licked his lips. It took many long excruciating seconds to calm himself, to break through the gripping wall of fear.

  He moved leaden feet to the precipice, lowered himself to the ground, and cast his beam downward. Cold wind whipped his face and blood ran into one eye. The beam wasn’t strong. It barely illuminated a man lying face down in the sand, his limbs splayed at odd angles. He was wearing what appeared to be a sheepskin jacket and jeans. Standard for ranchers, and the same clothing Travis and Joe were wearing. Icy fear
ran along Sully’s spine.

  He heard a movement behind him and spun around, flashlight in one hand, his thumb releasing the safety of his .38 with the other. The figure of a man rushed him.

  EXCERPT FROM HIDDEN PART 2

  A strong wind buffeted the windowpanes. The clamor of wind and rain thrashing the outside of the house made it impossible for Cody to sleep. Since midnight, the storm had steadily increased in tempo. Branches knocked against the eaves with increasing frequency and force. Tossing fitfully, she imagined the felled trees that would be strewn across the grounds tomorrow, the flooded ditches, the mud oozing over roads and pastures. Days of cleanup ahead. The clock on the nightstand read three fifteen. It was little comfort that even in this god-awful weather one of the hands would be out patrolling. Livestock could spook in these conditions, crash into fences, suffer serious injuries.

  Lightning illuminated the room, followed by a booming thunderclap. That does it. Sleep was out of the question. Cody tossed the covers aside and peered through the mottled glass at the storm-whipped landscape. Wind bent the tops of trees to the east and rain sliced through the blackness in horizontal sheets. Veins of lightning trembled in the distant sky, then vanished. Up the hill, the outdoor lights to the barn were out. She tried the bedside lamp and light spilled into the room. The power wasn’t out, just a line to the barn. Why didn’t the back-up generator switch on? Cursing under her breath, she decided to go check on the horses.

  Dressed in jeans and a wool turtleneck, she hurried downstairs to the office, grabbed a twelve-gauge shotgun from the gun cabinet, slid cartridges into the magazine tube, and chambered the first round. It was irrational to think she needed to be armed, but she wasn’t an entirely rational person. Using the low beam of a Maglite to find her way down the hall, she paused outside Justin’s door, which was partly open. “Justin?” No answer. Baffled, she pushed the door open with the barrel of the gun and scanned the room with the low beam. The bedcovers were strewn aside but the room was empty. No lights were on anywhere downstairs. Where the hell was he? Right now she didn’t have time to worry about Justin.

  Cody’s bare feet padded over the floorboards to the mudroom where she wrestled into a slicker and mud boots. When she opened the door, wind struck her with a force that stole her breath. The wind nearly blew her backwards when she stepped off the porch and icy rain pelted her face. Water streamed off the brim of her hat and down her slicker. The moaning and drumming of the storm was deafening. Tense before, now she was rigid.

  With the shotgun in the crook of her arm and the high beam slicing through the darkness, she bent into the gale and made her way awkwardly up the hill taking slow, careful steps, sometimes sliding backwards as the mud shifted under her weight. It took some muscle to slide open the barn door against the wind. The lights were out inside and against the ruckus of the storm she heard the horses nickering and carrying on. Something wasn’t right. Casting a beam towards the stalls, she stumbled into something heavy on the ground. Before her beam found it, she knew it was a body. Billy! Fresh blood gushed from a gash above his ear, eddied around the front of his earlobe, and ran down his jaw.

  Adrenalin charged her system as she knelt beside him and felt for a pulse. Alive but out cold. Her heart punched against her ribs with a furious intensity as she fished her cell phone from her pocket and pressed Roth’s number. Behind her, something moved. Reflexively, she struck out hard with the butt of the gun, heard a shriek as she landed a blow to someone’s leg. A second figure flew at her from the side, knocking her to the ground. Her head hit concrete hard. Stunned, she lay motionless. There was a brilliant ache in her optic nerve, and a steady throbbing at the base of her skull. Then the sound of thundering hooves was coming right at her. Horses were out of their stalls, stampeding! Groaning through the pain, she forced her eyes to open and barely rolled out of the way next to Billy before the deadly hooves thundered out of the barn.

  She felt withering jolts of pain as she struggled to her feet and stumbled outside. Her high beam illuminated two mounted figures herding the horses up the trail leading off the back of the property. After releasing the safety on the shotgun, she sent seven explosive blasts above their heads. She reloaded, fired again. The buckshot couldn’t get anywhere near them but it frightened the hell out of the horses. Half of them scattered. The two riders kept going, a half dozen Sterling horses running between them.

  Cody whistled and a slick, anxious-looking runaway horse galloped back to the barn. Thank God. It was Buster. Looking back down the hill, she saw lights on in the bunkhouse, and swiftly moving beams came bouncing over the ground toward her through heavy sheets of rain. Wearing wide-brimmed hats and long slickers, long johns tucked into boots, Roth carried a rifle, Nelson gripped a revolver.

  “Horse thieves,” she yelled. “Billy’s hurt in the barn. I’m going after them.” Not waiting for a response, she grabbed a handful of Buster’s mane, intending to mount and ride bareback after the thieves.

  Roth grabbed her arm, pulled her back. “You’re not going alone. Get saddled.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Taking this novel from the seed of an idea to publication has been a joy, and it’s a pleasure to recognize some of the folks who assisted in the journey. I owe a big thank you to my publisher, Jessica Kristie, of Winter Goose Publishing, and my diligent editors, James Koukis, Mike Lankford, Mark Fasnacht, and Katherine Mattingly for their unwavering friendship, support, and continued belief in my work.

  Many people have given their time generously to help research and edit Hidden. I thank Lauren Moske, Rich and Beth Stephenson, JT Gregory, Tim Rubin, LaLoni Gorman, Sarah Persha, and Lindy Jacobs.

  A special thanks to Joan Steelhammer of Equine Outreach, a horse rescue where my volunteer work blossomed into a life-long love of horses. I owe a debt of gratitude to Gracie, my stunning gray-dappled mare, who gave me the joy of unfettered companionship for many years. I will miss her beautiful spirit every day of my life.

  I am deeply grateful for my initial readers, who read my book for pure enjoyment and gave me encouraging feedback: Katherine Mattingly, Beth Stephenson, Bob Kruger, my lovely sister Francine Marsh, and my dearest friend and husband, Mark Fasnacht.

  I’m thankful to my toy poodles, Rogie and Jackson, who helped fashion the character of Butch.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  As one of five children in a military family that traveled the U.S. and Europe, Linda Berry spent her childhood exploring new cultures and the fascinating worlds that exist between the covers of books. She has had a long, successful career as an award-winning creative director and copywriter in the film industry, but writing has always been a passion that will now see the release of the epic two-part saga, Hidden, as well as the Lauren Starkley Detective Series. Linda currently lives in Bend, Oregon, where she enjoys the stunning outdoors and is actively involved with the Central Oregon Writers Guild as VP and Program Director.