Becky watches her for a few seconds and then says, “Asshole! Bitch!”
Aileen turns around and smiles. “You know what they say about what it takes to know one.”
I grab Becky’s arm. “Leave it!” Her muscles are like a coiled snake. I don’t need another fight. “We can find it.” She relaxes and comes with me.
“I’d rather have the hot water to clean the wound,” Matt says as I pick up the lantern. Of course. I should have thought of that.
With the lantern lit, we go to the hot spring. The torches are still burning but I don’t know if I’ll need additional light to find the cold spring. I fill one bottle with hot water and tell Becky to take it to Matt. “Leave Aileen alone,” I add as she rushes away. I explore the remainder of the room that Matt and I hadn’t gotten to before. Sure enough, there’s another small room off of that. I step in to the sound of gurgling of water, and the sight of huge cat-eyes. The water guard. I hold up the lantern and he turns his face away, or she. By the gray on her muzzle, I wonder if this is Tricia. I cautiously inch my way to the spring, keeping as much distance as I can, which is only about twenty feet at the closest approach. I’m starting to get used to them, but there’s still that feeling of loose bowels. It’s sort of like walking through a pit of non-poisonous snakes.
With one cold bottle of water under my arm, and one in my hand, I follow the lantern light out and down to where Matt and Becky hover over Tanya. Aileen is nowhere in sight. Tanya is lying on her side and Matt is doing the same thing with water and hydrogen peroxide as he did with Simon. There is a pile of her hair lying on the ground. Just as I start to scold Matt for moving her I notice that she is awake. I set everything down and kneel next to her. Her face feels warm. “How are you doing?”
She closes her eyes and opens them again. “Not good,” she says slowly. She winces against the peroxide. When her face relaxes she says, “I’m not sure if I can walk.”
“We’re not going anywhere right now, so don’t worry about it yet. You’re guaranteed a full recovery. You’ve got the best vet in the city working on you.”
She smiles. “Is he an animal chiro? This animal could sure use one right now.”
I force a laugh. “If he’s not, I am.” Over the years of her rehabilitation back into the walking world, I became fairly proficient at chiropractic-based massage therapy. I’ve even attempted a little craniosacral, with very questionable success.
“Warm up your hands. I’m going to need your magic touch.” She closes her eyes and I hold her hand while Matt continues disinfecting and dressing the wound. As he finishes she says, “Sabre City.”
“What?”
“You said the best vet in the city. Had to think of what city you were talking about. Sabre City.”
“Oh!”
Reba
After Matt cleans up the scrape on my chin with his magic hydrogen peroxide and applies a butterfly bandage, I watch Dad work on Mom. I’ve seen it before but was never interested enough to pay much attention. He doesn’t seem to be doing all that much. “What is it?” I ask.
“Craniosacral?”
“Yeah. It seems like all you’re doing is giving her head massage.”
He pulls his hands away and sits back. “How does that feel?” he asks Mom.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t think I’m doing a thing. It’s too difficult to focus with the stress around us. The wound on your head doesn’t help much either. The bandage is one place where I want to put my fingers.”
“Let me just lie here for a while.”
“Craniosacral therapy,” he says to me, “uses a web of connecting tissue to find areas of stored tension and damage. These are called connective tissue restrictions. Some call them blocks.”
“I still don’t understand. How can you find something anywhere else in her body by just massaging her head?”
“First of all, it’s not massaging. It’s gentle palpitations of areas of the membranes and cerebrospinal fluid in the craniosacral system.”
“Oh!” He might as well have been talking about the operation of a nuclear bomb. “Can you explain what you just said?”
He looks at me with a grin. “I haven’t a clue. It’s pure magic as far as I’m concerned. I’ve learned things to do and some of the words to describe it but I haven’t the foggiest idea if I’m accomplishing anything.”
“He understands it better than he lets on,” Mom says. Her words are slowed and slightly slurred. “If he didn’t, I wouldn’t let him touch me.”
I truly do want to know. I look at dad. “What is the cerebo . . . something fluid?”
“Cerebrospinal. That and the membranes surround and protect your brain and spinal cord. It has a rhythm, normally eight to twelve pulses per minute.”
“I can picture that, but what are you doing when you touch Mom? I mean, I’ve heard her talk about something in her tailbone feeling better after a craniosacral session.”
Dad holds out his hand, palm down, fingers spread. “Think of a puppet.” He moves his fingers around. “You have that little puppet control thing with all the strings attached, each one running to a different control point on the puppet, ten feet away. Someone who is skilled with their hands and fingers can make that puppet do anything.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“Okay. Maybe not the best example. How about hydraulics. Do you understand hydraulics?”
“A little. It’s the application of fluid pressure to do work.”
“Right. Imagine that there is a healthy balance of cerebrospinal fluid pressure around the spinal cord. Now imagine that in several places that balance got off, for whatever reason.”
“Back pain?”
“Possibly, but not necessarily. What else runs down your spinal cord?”
“Ah . . . veins?”
“Not sure there myself. I’d have to look that up. Something else.”
“Nerves.”
“That’s right. The conduit through which everything in your body is controlled. The nervous system is two parts. Do you know what they are?”
“Autonomic and something else.”
“I’m impressed. You’ve only forgotten half of what you learned in high school.”
“Somatic,” Matt says.
We both look at him. “I should have known you might know what I’m talking about.”
“Alternative medicine. Mom doesn’t believe in it. She says it’s quackery.”
“What do you think?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know.”
“But you do agree that the nervous system exists.”
He makes a face at Dad.
“And you agree that there is a fluid around the spinal cord which houses the conduit of the nervous system.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you agree that when you press the brake pedal on a three ton diesel truck, it comes to a stop.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s hydraulics. A small pressure to do big work. Why can we not find a place on the human body where a very light touch affects the pressure of the cerebrospinal fluid in distant parts of the body?”
Matt says nothing, but I can feel his thoughts. He definitely wants to believe, but he has to work out the logistics of it first. He has to understand how it works.
“A rather crude analogy, but I think it helps form a picture,” Dad says.
“It makes sense to me,” I say, though I’m not sure why.
“I wish you guys would go somewhere else and talk,” Mom says. “I want dark and silence.”
We all shut up.
Chapter 54
Reba
I sit near Mom while she sleeps. I’m worried about her. I’m responsible, though we would all probably be dead if I hadn’t tackled her. Sam is right. This is all happening because of me. Everything points right back to my deciding I wanted to go to Montana. But how was I supposed to know? I figured the worst that would happen is that they’d try to ground me forever when I got back, or
until I turn eighteen. They wouldn’t have done that anyway. I’d have gotten yelled at for a couple of days and then it would have all blown over.
How was I to know that Dad would come running after me? How was I to know that Sam was Dad’s illicit flame? How was I to know that Mom would come running after Dad and that all this crazy men-with-guns stuff would happen? Do they think I’m a mind reader or something?
Funny!
All right! So I did a small stupid thing, but we sure don’t deserve all this crap for it.
Dad is up and moving around. Only one torch is burning. Mom is sleeping close to the fire, curled on her side in a sleeping bag. It was encouraging to see her be able to move.
Matt is wrapped up in a blanket on the other side of the fire. Sleeping on the hard rock ground has to be uncomfortable. I don’t look forward to it.
Sam hasn’t returned.
Dad touches my shoulder. I look up and he indicates that I should go with him. I stand and follow. He chooses a spot to sit where our conversation won’t disturb Mom and Matt.
“How’s your boo-boo?”
I haven’t heard them use that term with either of us in years. I use it on little kids who I baby-sit, and the five and six year olds on the summer swim team. A few months ago I would have gotten angry with him for using the term on me, reminding him that I wasn’t a little kid anymore. Now I smile and touch the bandage on my chin. “It’s fine. No big deal.”
“I had no warning that this one was coming.”
“I knew it and you didn’t? What does that mean?”
“Probably nothing. There doesn’t seem to be any rules to this at all. It’s random. What did you see? What would have happened if you hadn’t gotten there in time?”
“She would have beaten Sam to death. Then the cats would have killed Mom and then You.” I don’t continue with me and Matt. That wasn’t part of my vision, but our quick deaths would have been inevitable, if not immediate, I’m sure. We sit silent for a long time. Finally I say, “What are we going to do.”
“I don’t know. It’ll be at least a couple of days before she can walk any distance. It may be mute in any case. Aileen . . . Sam won’t let us leave. She said that since Vandermill knows that we’re involved, he’d search us down and hurt us until we tell him where she is. She then said that we will have to stay here until he is no longer a threat.”
“Oh!”
“That’s what caused your mom’s blowup to begin with. She went berserk.”
I think about that for a few minutes. “She can’t guard us all the time.”
“She has her cats.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Besides, she’s right. If we go home, he’ll find us and I don’t think he’d be gentle.”
“We could turn her over to him.”
“If our morals were such that we could do that, sure, but we’d first have to escape here. Besides, we would then be witnesses. What would keep him from getting rid of us? He appears to have willing assassins everywhere. Look how long it took two of them to show up.”
“Doesn’t look like they were planning any prisoners, either.”
“None at all.”
I pull my legs up, rest my arms and head on my knees, and stare at the flickering light standing watch over Mom and Matt. The silence stretches on until all of a sudden I’m shaking myself out of my trance. Shit to hell! I’ve figured it all out, and it’s scaring the crap out of me.
“Dad!”
“What?” He was either asleep or in a trance as well.
“We’re not safe here.”
“Huh?”
“He knows we’re here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Here! In the mountains. All our cars are at Sam’s house. He knows we’re on foot, or on four-wheeler, and he can hire people to track that. He’ll hire dogs. He’s got helicopters, right?”
“Yes, but . . ."
“He knows that Sam is alive and he wants her bad enough that he has trained killers hanging around in case she shows. He’s a billionaire, you said. He could flood all of Montana with his people, and money, but he doesn’t even have to do that. He has probably already thrown a net of his people around this area. It’s so obvious.”
“You’re right. He’ll keep closing the net until . . .”
“Yeah. Until.”
Zach
I knew that but really didn’t think about it, or maybe I didn’t want to think about it. What does acknowledging it change? It made no difference, especially with Tanya’s new injury. We can’t run anymore.
I retrieve the lantern and light it. “What’re you doing?” Becky asks.
“Stay here with them. I’m going to see if I can find Aileen. We need to figure something out. I have to convince her to be sensible.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“No idea. You still have your laptop in your backpack, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t happen to steal my address book at the same time you stole my journal?”
There’s a few seconds of silence before she answers. “No. Why?”
“I had FBI phone numbers in there. Somehow or other, I need to get to a phone. It’d sure help if I had phone numbers.”
“Sorry.”
I move quickly up the path to the waterfall. There are no cats in sight. I don’t worry about the cats anymore anyway. Either they’re going to protect us or they’re going to serve us up for dinner, and no matter what we do, we probably aren’t going to change it, except to stay on the good side of Aileen. Will have to keep weapons of any kind out of Tanya’s hands.
It’s chilly, and the humid, misty air from the waterfall doesn’t help one bit. I don’t know why I’m attempting to look for her. If she’s not right here, she could be anywhere, so what’s the point? I push through the bushes and tree branches. A branch hits me in the face. I cuss and then hear Aileen’s voice.
“What?”
“Turn off the damn light!”
“Then I can’t see.”
“You also can’t be seen. Douse it NOW!”
I do and then wait for my eyes to dilate. There are no stars, which means there must be cloud cover and it is covering the moon. Maybe there is no moon. What time did it set last night? “Where are you?” I ask. Her voice had sounded like it was coming from above my right shoulder. She doesn’t answer. I strain to hear movement. There is only my breathing, my pulse surging through my head, and the muffled waterfall. “Aileen!”
Still nothing.
“Sam!”
“What?” She’s above and to my left now.
“Can we talk?”
“What for?”
“We can’t stay hidden forever. He’ll still find us.”
Silence. I hold my breath and listen for sounds. When I can no longer hold it, I let my breath escape, call her name again and then take another breath. For a full minute I strain with every nerve fiber in my body to try and hear, smell, taste, feel her. I slowly turn to my left and let out my breath again. I take another.
She grabs my arm. I jump high enough to hit my head on a tree branch.
“It’s me,” Aileen says.
“Jesus Christ! Why didn’t you say something?”
“Didn’t want to startle you.”
My legs feel like rubber. “Instead you decided to just scare the shit out of me.”
“So, what’s your point?” she says. No chuckle. No giggle. No apology.
“You grabbed me in the dark when I thought you were somewhere else.”
“No. You said he’ll find us. What’s your point?”
“Oh! Can we go where we can sit for a bit? My legs are shaky.”
She lets out a lungful of impatience. “Then sit.”
“Here?”
“It’s dirt. You said your legs are shaky, so sit!”
I squat and then lower myself and cross my legs. “We have to call the FBI.”
“Why?”
“Be
cause your reason for not wanting to is no longer valid. Obviously he’s already on to you. A paid informant on the inside will not help him any longer. On the other hand, the chance of getting someone who is not in Vandermill’s pocket is rather high.” She doesn’t answer. “It’s a no lose, possible win situation.”
“It’s too late. It’s a no win situation now.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s camped about two miles away. . . or his people are anyway. They’ll be here by midmorning, if not earlier.”
If I was standing, I’d sit down.
“They have dogs,” she adds.
My legs turn to jelly and my mouth goes dry. I manage only to say, “They’ll sniff us out.”
“Without a doubt. It’s only a matter of time, and not all that much time. And these aren’t just search dogs. These are search and kill dogs.”
I bend forward and put my head in my hands. My gorge rises in my throat. I fight it down as a cold sweat breaks out on my arms. “Shit to Hell!” I want to say something stronger than Becky’s three words, but I’ve never been the swearing kind. “Now what?”
“Take the lantern and get out of here.” Her words surprise me because they aren’t said with anger. On the contrary, her tone is just the opposite. “You guys can leave the way you came in. Go back to the Rhino. I’ll give you directions to an old mining road that will take you East to Hungry Horse Reservoir.” She places her hand on my arm. “It’ll give you an edge. He’ll still go after you but he’ll have to go through me first. I’ll buy you as much time as I can so you can find a phone and call whomever you like.”
“Won’t work.”
“Why?”
“Tanya’s back was injured when Becky tackled her to keep her from beating you to death. She won’t be walking for some time.”
She says nothing. I say nothing more. The night would be silent if not for the constant waterfall and the slamming of my heart. She sits down and rests her head on my shoulder. The heat of her is only adding to my own internal generated heat, and the chill I was feeling a few minutes earlier is now gone. I shouldn’t be having any feelings except how to get out of here and save my family, so on top of it all, I feel guilty. Still, somehow or other, my arm slides from under her hand and snakes around her shoulder. It’s just a comforting thing, I try to tell myself, but which of us is really being comforted?
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 72