Night Flight

by Donna Ball

  Cathy's heart was pounding, and her hands shook in rhythm with each beat, as she tried to think what to do, tried to remain calm. "How— badly are you hurt?" she managed, almost steadily. "Is anything broken?"

  She could see the lacerations on his hands and arms, the scratches on his face. It was a moment before he replied. "My knee—is pretty banged up. I think I cracked a couple of ribs." He had to pause and get his breath. "Give me a minute. I'll be okay."

  He had lost the backpack at some point during the fall. Cathy went in search of it, fighting back desperation with every step. She found the pack halfway up the gorge, and when she returned with it the desperation had not lessened, but her mind was working clearly.

  She wet the corner of one of the blankets with water from the canteen and used it to bathe Dave's wounds. She said, "I don't know much about making a travois, but I think I could put together some kind of sling out of these blankets that would get you back up the cliff. It's only a couple of hundred feet."

  Dave shook his head. "I can walk it. Or crawl. I just have to get my breath back."

  He reached for the canteen, but his hands were shaking so badly Cathy had to help him hold it. When he returned the canteen to her she watched anxiously as he braced his hands and tried to push himself to a sitting position. She put an arm around his shoulders and managed to help him get propped up against the tree trunk, but his face was shiny with sweat and he was gasping for breath from the effort. With a cold, sinking certainty Cathy knew he'd never make it back up the cliff under his own power. Perhaps not even with her help.

  Cathy turned quickly and began shaking out the blankets, searching in the pack for a knife or another cutting edge. Dave said tightly, "Cathy, don't waste time. I can't—"

  "It won't be very comfortable," she said, "but it'll do the job. I'm stronger than I look. I can-"

  "Cathy, listen to me."

  "No." She managed to unravel one corner of the blanket and, strengthening her shoulders with anger, tore it the rest of the way. "I know what you're going to say. Some stupid macho thing about leaving you behind. Well I'm not going to do it, so you can just forget that. It was your crazy plan to trap Kreiger, remember, and you're not going to leave me alone to get myself killed." Her voice was thick and the tears were blinding. She made another vicious rip in the blanket. She swallowed back moisture and lifted her chin. "There's an audition for the Boston symphony next month, and I'm not going to miss it. Not everybody gets invited to audition for Boston, you know."

  It was a long time before Dave replied. When he did, his voice was tired and strained with pain, but through it all Cathy imagined she could hear the remnants of a resigned smile. He said, "I know."

  The best Cathy could do was fashion a harness, much like a mountain-climber's rig, that fastened under his shoulders and around his legs. She knotted the other two ends together into a kind of yoke that went around her waist. When he could, Dave helped her by pushing with his hands and his uninjured leg, but the journey was torturous for him. When he grayed out he was dead weight, and the climb was almost a straight forty-five degree angle. Cathy thought her back would break. She saw white spots before her eyes and at times she was on her hands and knees, pulling herself up by means of branches and rocks. Once she lost her balance and slid downward six feet before she could stop herself, Dave's weight dragging her back with every step she took forward. Dave did not regain consciousness after that.

  At last, with a burst of energy that was beyond anything Cathy knew she possessed, she pulled Dave the last few feet onto the path. Then she collapsed on the ground beside him, every muscle in her body convulsing with exhaustion. She did not know how long she lay there in that stupor-like state, hardly breathing, not caring whether she ever moved again, and unable to tell one moment from the next. It was Dave's moan that finally aroused her, and she made herself sit up, shrugging the straps of the pack from around her shoulders. She took out the canteen and offered him water. He could only take a swallow, and when Cathy brought the canteen to her own lips most of the liquid spilled down her shirt.

  The sun was high in the sky by the time Dave felt strong enough to be moved away from the cliff edge and into the sheltering shadow of the woods. By then Cathy was forced to admit what she must have surely known all along: he couldn't go any farther. Not today, not tomorrow. Even if they were somehow lucky enough to be bypassed by Kreiger, Dave was badly hurt and he needed help. She could not stay there forever.

  He was conscious, but in tremendous pain. His breath was shallow and careful, and even Cathy knew a night or two sleeping on the ground could mean pneumonia for someone in his condition. His knee had already swollen up tight against his jeans, and that leg was all but useless.

  Neither of them talked about what must be done as Cathy went calmly, deliberately about the business of making him comfortable. She cleaned his wounds again and wrapped him in the remnants of both blankets. She made him eat a few crackers and drink some water. She swept away with her hands the debris that might attract bugs or hide snakes.

  And then she burst out suddenly, "Why didn't you just kill him?"

  Dave lay with his head and shoulders propped up against a tree trunk to ease his breathing, and even through his pain he looked surprised when she turned on him.

  "You had the chance," she insisted, tightening her hands into fists. "Back at the truck stop, when he shot at us yesterday afternoon, and this morning when we saw his fire. . . . Why didn't you go after him? That's what policemen do, isn't it? Shoot criminals?"

  "Yeah," he said slowly, breathing carefully. "I guess they do. But I always figured —that wasn't my job. To kill people. Because the line that separates me from Kreiger is thin enough as it is."

  Her brief surge of bitterness and frustration was spent, and was now replaced by a wave of shame. Cathy knew what he meant. Hadn't she, only a handful of hours ago, pointed a gun at Dave and loved the feeling? But she hadn't pulled the trigger. Maybe, in the end, that was all that mattered.

  She hoped so.

  After a long moment of shallow, unsteady breathing, Dave added tiredly, "I don't know. I've been thinking for some time now that I'm in the wrong line of work."

  Hesitantly Cathy lifted her eyes to him again. "Why don't you quit?"

  Again, he seemed surprised by the question, and it was a moment before he answered. "I don't know." The reply seemed spoken as much to himself as to her. "I've always been a cop. Maybe—I guess maybe I was afraid to find out who I was without the badge."

  And then the introspective mood was gone, and he focused on her. His tone was as matter of fact as he could make it. "If you just stay on the path, and keep the sun behind you, you should reach Cave Springs in another two or three hours. You'll probably pick up a logging road of some sort that's easier to follow, but if you miss it don't worry. Just keep the sun behind you. When the forest starts to clear out there'll be signs."

  It was a moment before she could make her voice work. "If Kreiger stays on our trail he'll

  come right to you."

  Dave tried to shake his head, then winced with the pain. "He won't see me back here in the woods. I'll be okay. Leave me a canteen and a couple of those pull-top cans of stew. And my gun."

  "But you said — "

  "In case I get a craving for rabbit for supper," he explained, his eyes never leaving hers.

  She collected the things he had requested from the backpack and put them within easy reach. The last item was the hardest. She placed it in his hand.

  And then she just stood there. She couldn't leave him. She just couldn't.

  He winced as he made a movement beneath the blanket, and when he lifted his hand he held out his cell phone. “Keep checking for a signal,” he said.

  That almost brought a smile from her. After all they had endured, she had almost gone off without the one thing that would save them both. She took the phone and pocketed it.

  "Call Chief Hayforth, Portersville police. The number’s pro
grammed in," Dave said, still holding her eyes. "Tell him who you are and that you have a message for the FBI. He'll make sure they get it."

  Cathy swallowed hard, and turned to pick up the pack and the remaining canteen. Three hours. Keep the sun behind her.

  She could do it.

  Dave said soberly, "We've lost nearly two hours. He can't be far behind now."

  Cathy shrugged into the backpack. Her throat ached, and she couldn't look at him. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

  She started quickly toward the path.

  "Hey."

  She had to look back.

  He was smiling, weakly, but the sight of that smile gave her all the courage she needed. "If I don't see you," he said, "good luck on that audition."

  Cathy drew in a sharp breath, but released it very calmly. "You'll see me," she said.

  She adjusted the straps of the pack and walked away, lengthening her stride as she reached the path.

  Dave waited until he could no longer hear her footsteps, and still he lay there, measuring the sound of his heartbeat, staring at the green-laced canopy of the sky. Not debating, merely thinking. Wondering, perhaps, if there were any last words for the man he once had been or thought he was.

  He lifted the gun and checked the clip, examining the chamber for dirt that might have accumulated during the fall. Then he tucked the pistol in his belt and began the arduous crawl toward the edge of the path, where he would lie in wait for Kreiger.

  **********************

  Chapter Seventeen

  Three hours. Sun at her back. She couldn't do this. Whatever had made Cathy think she could? Several times she had tried to read the map, but she was afraid to stop walking long enough to study it, and after Dave's accident had proven just how untrustworthy this terrain was she was afraid to take her eyes off the path. She had no sense of direction, Jack had always told her so. She could get lost on the way to the grocery store. How was she supposed to find a logging road in this forest, much less a town?

  She kept thinking about that audition. Jack had encouraged her to send a tape and resume, saying it would be good for her profile when she was ready to start teaching on the university level. She had done it because she was used to taking Jack's advice, and because it was the Boston Symphony, after all. She had never expected to be invited to audition.

  Yet when the invitation came there was a part of her that was secretly smug, privately unsurprised, even as the more overt part of her was shocked and amazed and, yes, frightened. An audition was hardly the same as a job, and certainly there was no guarantee that she would win a seat in one of the most prestigious orchestras in the country. Merely to be invited to try was an honor beyond measure, but how could she set herself up for failure like that? How could she compete with the top musicians in the country? What made her think she had a chance, and how could she face the disappointment of losing? It was better not to know, sometimes, what one's limits were. As long as she never tested herself she could go on believing that she might have been good enough for Boston. It was really better not to know.

  Jack had agreed with her. She would have less than a month to prepare a piece. It was a long, expensive trip, and the competition was fierce. Why set herself up for disappointment? She had a job, a home, a life she was happy with. She didn't need the heartache.

  Jack had convinced her to pass it by. She had not realized until just now how much she resented him for that.

  Cathy glanced at her watch, then at the phone she had taken to carrying in her hand. Still no signal. There was a numb spot about the size of a football between her shoulder blades, and it seemed to be spreading. That worried her. Her feet burned and ached from a dozen, a hundred swelling blisters, and her legs throbbed. Keep the sun behind you. Two hours, maybe three.

  She had decided she was not going to call the FBI, or the Portersville Chief of Police. She was going to call the Forest Service, and they would send a rescue team. Then it would be over. She was tired, and she wasn't going to play stupid games anymore. She was going to do what she had to do to save one good man who had risked his life more than once for her, who did not deserve to be left behind wounded and alone in the middle of a hostile forest with a killer on his trail. . . . She was going to come back for him, and bring help, and if that was the last promise she kept it would be enough. Then it would be over.

  She plodded away from the sun, wondering what Jack would think of her now. She doubted he would even recognize her.

  Somehow, that made her proud.

  *********************

  Dave had never before been a man much given to introspection or analytical thought. Things happened, and he took them the best way he could, because wondering why would eventually drive a man crazy. But now, as he lay belly down on the leaf-carpeted forest floor, half-concealed by the rough-barked trunk of a spruce, waiting for the man he was going to kill—while he fought the waves of pain that rose and receded like water sloshing in a bathtub, while he struggled to hold on to consciousness until he broke into a cold sweat with the effort—he wondered what it was,really, that made the difference between himself and a man like Kreiger.

  Some might say it was the decisions men made. Kreiger had chosen the easy way, but so had Dave, after his fashion, hanging on to a way of life, a job, an identity that no longer suited him— that perhaps never had —because he was too afraid to find out what else was out there. Dave was using his badge as a shield just as Kreiger was, and he wasn't being much more honest about it. That wasn't the difference.

  It wasn't the ability to kill. Dave had learned that when he gunned down an innocent man in defense of his partner. Maybe the difference was, in part, what a man chose to kill for.

  Dave was lying in ambush for a stranger, and when he raised his gun it would be a weapon of attack, not defense. That would be a first for him. But he wasn't going to kill Kreiger because he was evil and Dave was good, or because Kreiger was wrong and Dave and the laws of the society he represented were right. He wasn't even going to kill in revenge for those Kreiger had killed, and caused to be killed, before. He was going to kill because he had no choice. Because the only chance Cathy Hamilton had for survival now was if he stopped playing by the rules.

  It wasn't that he didn't trust her to make it to Cave Springs by herself. She had accomplished far more arduous tasks in the past two days. Nor did he doubt her ability to carry out their plan. It was just that the plan was doomed from the start, a hopeless, futile, desperately naive course of action that was based upon his belief that law and order reigned supreme. He was trained to think in terms of getting the man, the goods, and the evidence, a three-way win, clean collar, and that was all that was important. Sometimes he forgot the cost, just like Frazier had, and Hayforth. But this time, the price was too high.

  This time there would be no evidence, no goods, no clean conviction. This time, maybe a man called Delcastle would get away to deal again another day. This time, maybe it wasn't Dave's problem. But a woman named Cathy Hamilton had to live. That was his problem.

  Yet even as he heard the footsteps approaching down the path, even as he steadied the pistol in both hands and tried to blink away the sweat, he couldn't help wondering if this was what made the difference. And he knew that in only a very few minutes he would find out.

  He had positioned himself about six feet away from the footpath. The small rise on which he steadied his gun provided little cover, and if Kreiger happened to glance to the right Dave would be seen. Dave would get only one shot, and he had to make it before Kreiger grew parallel with him, before he spotted him, while he was still far enough away from Dave to aim for a killing

  wound but close enough to make it count. Kreiger was carrying a high-powered shotgun and at least one handgun; a leg wound would not stop him.

  Dave was nauseous with the effort of fighting the pain, of controlling the breaths that stabbed at his lungs. Carefully, as silently as possible, he twisted his body around to face the approaching fo
otsteps, biting his lower lip as spots danced before his eyes. The pain was a live thing, gnawing at him. His vision blurred, and this time blinking did not clear it.

  He braced his hands, one atop the other as he had taught Cathy to do. He narrowed his eyes, trying to fix on the sights. The figure within them kept wavering. He dared not breathe. Okay, Cathy Hamilton, he thought, this is the best I can do for you. He squeezed off a shot.

  And missed.

  Kreiger swung around almost before the echo of the pistol fire had died, spotted Dave, and shot. The bullet that pounded into the upper part of his body caused more surprise than pain, and as he felt himself tumbling back down into the gorge the last thing he thought, wistfully, was, I would have liked to hear her play.

  ******************

  Cathy was too far away to hear the gunshots, but even if she hadn't been she might not have recognized the sound. She was like a machine,arms and legs propelling her forward with no intelligent direction from her brain. She kept the sun behind her. She kept moving. She hardly realized when the path beneath her feet broadened into a dirt track, when the woods on either side began to thin and the weed-scattered track became wide enough and flat enough to almost be called a road. Her brain was swathed in fatigue, and all she could do was keep moving.

  Something about a change in her surroundings brought her gradually back into focus. The landscape seemed stiller and flatter, the sun beat down on her shoulders without the protective screen of the trees overhead. And wasn't that, barely visible through a screen of high, wild bushes and saplings, the roof of a building? She moved faster.

  The town had been literally set down in the middle of nowhere. The dirt road gave way to a piney, overgrown field that sloped down to a flat clearing; in the background was a magnificent sweep of mountains, and in the foreground a collection of clapboard buildings and unpaved roads that had long since seen their best days. There were no cars on the streets. No people in the yards. No signs of life in the windows.