I saw him first!
Stop it, Reba! Stop it! I turn my eyes, my body, away. Sharon is looking down at Vadik, whose tail moves. She backs away. I don’t think he will wake up in the same way that Roma did, but I move to intercept anyway, just in case. Roma comes with me, and then, as if understanding, places himself between me and Vadik. Vadik wakes up slow and gentle, no yelling and screaming humans to get him riled up. Sharon and the loving couple stand together, some thirty feet away, watching. When I’m sure he is fully awake and aware of who I am, I go to him, rub his forehead, and give him soothing pictures.
Then I hear it. It is far away yet, but there is no mistaking the wup-wup-wup of a helicopter in flight. I turn to the three of them. “Time to go. The sheriff is on his way.”
“How do you know?” Sharon asks.
“Can’t you hear the helicopter?”
They all shake their heads.
“Well, I can. Trust me.” Vadik senses the urgency in my voice and struggles to his feet. “You guys head back to where Nadia is. I’ve got one thing I need to do. I’ll be right behind you.”
“What do you have to do?” Sharon says.
“I’ll tell you later.” The sound of the helicopter suddenly gets louder. They all look up. “Go! Hurry!”
They slip into their packs. Matt grabs Lester’s and Sarge’s guns, and they take off. I look at Roma and Vadik, point in the direction of Nadia and send them pictures. “Go!” Roma starts out and then stops and looks back at Vadik, who is slower getting going. “Go! Go!” I yell. He meanders toward Roma, and then they head off together. I watch them until they disappear into the trees, and then sprint for Lester’s camp in the cave. I make it under cover just before the sound of the helicopter suddenly increases to a roar and it appears above the meadow. My mission before I take flight behind the others is really quite simple; maybe it’s not even worth the risk. I am starving and I know Lester has food.
Chapter 33
It’s obvious that Lester didn’t hike in. There are two coolers. The first is half full of prepackaged sandwiches, well sealed, fortunately, as most of the ice has melted. I open the multipurpose knife on my belt and cut open a roast beef sandwich. It is delicious. I push aside a chunk of ice that’s floating in six inches of water, and come up with a twelve ounce bottle of Snapple. Raspberry. I twist off the cap and slug down about half of it.
I kick open the second cooler since both hands are occupied, and stare down at more Snapple, two twelve packs of Coors Lite, and a six pack of Diet Pepsi. I consider a Coors, and then kick the cooler closed.
I need something to carry stuff in.
There is a large backpack lying open on top of a crumpled, dirty sleeping bag. I gulp down the rest of the Snapple, stuff the remainder of the sandwich in my mouth and then go about dumping the pack. Of all the junk that falls out I put back only a small flashlight.
I pause for a second and look out through the breaks in the trees. The helicopter is hovering above the containers. Is it going to land or not? Until it does, I’ve got time.
I put four Coors in the bottom, followed by as many Snapples, and then all the sandwiches. They can keep the diet crap. I spot a two-pound canned ham lying behind the coolers. When I go to grab it I discover two more. I stuff them all in the pack.
The sound of the helicopter dies away. It has landed and shut down.
Oh shit!
I hurry to get the pack closed, heft it over my shoulder, and then turn to head out.
Oh shit! again. There are four men, none in the uniform of a sheriff. Two are looking down at Lester and Sarge. The other two are heading my way. They have guns. I wasted too much time; now there is no time to get out. Even if I try to slip away under cover of the trees, as I had planned, they are already close enough that they would probably spot me. I retreat deeper into the cave and start up through the passage to where Mandi and I were first caught, where my mother’s memorial plaque resides overlooking her memorial lake.
I get as far as the huge boulder that trapped Lester’s hand last summer before I hear them enter. I duck behind the boulder. Even over the waterfall I can hear them. Can they hear me? Of course not. I’m the only one with the super hearing.
“They’re probably long gone,” one of them says.
“I don’t get it. It’s just two teenage girls. How could they have done this? Those cats were drugged good, according to Lester. They shouldn’t be awake yet. No way.”
“There’s something more here that we’re not seeing. Those brats couldn’t have killed Lester and Sarge.”
“We didn’t kill them, you morons,” I want to yell.
“How did they know to call Mick? It doesn’t make sense. There must be someone else involved.”
“They were using Lester’s sat-phone. Could be random, but I doubt it. The one bitch is from Texas. Somehow she figured out that’s where Mick is from, and called it to see what she’d get. How she figured out who I was, I have no idea.”
Sheriff Dan! I poke my head around the boulder to get a look at him.
“I’m the one who programmed the sat-phones. We only go by first names.”
He’s as big as Sarge, only, I’m sure, a hell of a lot more intelligent. In addition to the gun resting on his shoulder, there is a pistol strapped to the belt in the middle of his back. I’ve read that law enforcement officers often carry a backup strapped to the calf of their leg. I wonder.
“However she did it,” Sheriff Dan continues, “she’s too damned smart. We’ve got to find her and her friend, and anyone else they might be working with and get rid of them. Why the hell did Lester let them go to begin with?”
“Damned good question. I’d sure like to know who else they called. Do you think her old man is involved.”
“No. Lance has a watch on him. It seems they’re sort of estranged. She could be in China for all he’d know. The other daughter knows she’s here, but that’s it. The two of them are on the outs as well.”
Holy shit to hell! Dad and I scoured that house for bugs. We either missed one or they’ve been back and planted new ones. Or are they listening in on the phone?
“Have you figured out who her friend is yet?”
“Mandi Saulminor. Canadian. Best I can get so far. College semester ended Friday and everybody split. They were last seen together that evening at a restaurant. Best friends. Loners. Can’t imagine who’d they be partnering up with. They had told Lester that they’d come to visit the one’s mother who died here last year. Zach Price and his other daughter had come up in the fall and placed a memorial. No sign of any of them since, so I really hadn’t considered them to be an issue anymore. I’ll take responsibility for that faux pas.”
The sheriff’s buddy looks around. “I think the biggest faux pas was bringing these two guys in on it.” He points at the skinned deer. “What the hell is this shit? We didn’t send them up here to go poaching.” He looks in the coolers. “Did they already eat everything we gave them? We’d been better off grabbing a couple of meth bums out of lockup.”
Lockup? This guy must be a deputy.
“They had history. What can I say?”
“History? Just because they worked for Vandermill once?” He shakes his head. “I’m not getting on you, Dan. I was all for it, too. What the hell is going on that you can’t buy good help anymore?”
“And what the hell did Vandermill see in them?”
“He’s dead. That should tell you something.”
The sheriff laughs. “Well, I’d better go report to Lance. He’ll be pissed.”
They start out of the cave and I retreat back behind the boulder, not noticing the stone balanced precariously on a smaller adjacent boulder. I hit it and it skitters off, bouncing twice before coming to rest. I don’t expect that they hear it over the sound of the waterfall. I hold my breath anyway. There is nothing. I want to look but fear that their eyes will be peering right where my head would poke out, and being backlit, I might as well wear a blinking light.
Seconds tick by. I relax. They didn’t hear. I hook my hand around the strap of the pack and then, just before standing, take a peek.
Holy Shit! I can’t believe it. They’re standing side-by-side, guns pointing at the ceiling, looking right at me. Without thinking about whether it is stupid or not, I swing the strap over my shoulder and dash up the slope and over the top. The guns go off, one right after the other. Something knocks me off balance, but I feel no pain, can’t imagine that I’ve been hit. I stumble for only a second before I’m out of their sight and line of fire.
Shit to hell, I’m trapped! Just as Lester walked up and took Mandi and me, Sheriff Dan can walk up and take me now, only this time, he plans to kill me; and then he plans to find Mandi and kill her, and when he discovers Matt and Sharon, he’ll kill them. I stop at the river that runs out of the mountain and consider the route out and down into the pool at the base of the waterfall. I was lucky a year ago, taking that route not of choice when the blast from the dynamite sent me out of the mountain. I don’t think I’d be so lucky this time.
I turn the other way instead, into the mountain. I glance at Mom’s memorial plaque as I race by, gain thirty feet along the running water’s edge before I’m forced onto the rocks. If I jump in now the rush of the water will drag me back and over the falls. I need to get farther in, farther around the bend, away from the pull of the current, to where the lake is more stagnant. I have no other choice. There is no way around the lake. I’ll have to swim to the other side. And there is no time to consider other options. The roar here is deafening as the creek dumps from the hole in the ceiling, the source for the lake. It masks even my feline hearing. I consider the best possible entry point, jump from boulder to boulder to get there and then, without a pause, leap.
My every nerve ending ignites in fire, and for a long time I lose my sense of anything. Up from down. Left from right. Forward from back. It is seconds . . . minutes . . . hours before I remember why I’m in this ice-cold bath. I do suddenly sense that I am being pulled into the current, that to stay alive long enough to freeze to death later I am going to have to start swimming. I also know that to build internal body heat, I am going to have to start working. The swimming part is easy for me, the 100 meter breaststroke state champion. Swimming in all my clothes in ice cold water while dragging the pack is an entirely different story. Air trapped inside of it keeps it afloat, so I push it ahead of me and start kicking. The boots are a drag, but I dare not get rid of them, even if I had the time to spend trying to get them untied and off.
Without my super night vision, I wouldn’t have a clue where to go, but I can see the ledge maybe 50 yards away. On a fair day in my lycra suit with proper warm up and mental conditioning, I could push 50 meters from the gun in under thirty seconds. You’d think it’d help with the gun shooting at me. Now, against the current, with all my clothes on, and not being able to use my arms because I’m pushing the pack—stupid, I know—I’ll be lucky to climb out the other side sometime today. I just hope that they’ll not be able to see me. A disadvantage of having such good night vision is I have no idea what the other guy can see.
I glance back over my shoulder. They’re standing on the water’s edge, backlit, weapons at their shoulders. They don’t see me, aren’t even pointing in my direction. I’m just more darkness in the black water.
Except . . . my face. Too late. Sheriff Dan points with his arm and then brings his gun around. I dive below the surface, go under the pack and start kicking for everything. If I don’t lose my direction I should be able to cover the remaining distance without surfacing, even while dragging the water heavy pack behind me. I refuse to let it go. Kicking is hard because the pack is in the way and I only have one arm to reach and pull. I pray fervently that I will, very soon, feel the wall on the other side, or rocks, or anything solid. There is nothing. Seconds move forward as I keep kicking and struggling, now pushing the pack ahead of me again, trying to keep my head and my kick below the surface. Two minutes into my underwater struggle—has to be at least that much—my bursting lungs force me to surface. I swing onto my back and place the pack in front of my face, taking huge gulps of oxygen. I have to get out of this water or I’m going to die. I may die anyway but I’m not about to give up easy, though it would be most appropriate to die in the same place as my mother, floating thirty or forty feet above her.
The pack is heavier now, very little of it above the surface. Still, there is enough to hide behind, and the loop of a strap to peek through. Sheriff Dan is gone. The deputy has moved around the edge to where he is no longer backlit, where he thinks I cannot see him. Jokes on him. Ha ha! He expects I’ll think they have both left and will sit and wait for me to make my exit. My light colored clothing will probably give me away in an instant. How long will he wait? How long before I slip into hypothermia?
Still on my back, I start scissor kicking. Another two minutes go by. I kick even harder, determined to reach the far shore when suddenly my head slams against a rock. My scream is stifled only by biting the side of the pack. You’d think the cold would have numbed all my nerve endings by now. My head is ringing. Maybe the cold will at least stop any bleeding. Life is full of small blessings, another of my grandmother’s words of wisdom.
I find a handhold under the surface, press my face against the pack, and wait for the pain to subside. Another two minutes pass, altogether at least six now, maybe seven. How long can someone survive at these temperatures? I know that information, but my mind refuses to sort it from the ice cubes my brain cells are turning into.
I open my eyes in time to see a flash of light illuminate rocks thirty feet to my right. Sheriff Dan has returned with a flashlight. Where he is searching is where, initially, I was heading. When I dove under water I lost my bearings and wound up way to the right, now my left as I look back. More little blessings. I am farther from them than I would have been if I had stayed on course. His flashlight would have picked me out. I start pulling along the rocks in an attempt to put the incoming waterfall between them and me. It seems like a solid plan, great in theory you might say. In actuality I shall become delirious before long, become spotted and shot, or simply drift out and over the outgoing waterfall to be smashed out of my misery on the rocks below.
Door number one or door number two. One of my grandmother’s sayings when a decision needed to be made. Something about some game show she used to like to watch. Death number one or death number two. Life is full of such decisions.
Ha ha.
Death is full of such decisions. I’m deliriously funny.
But I’m not dead yet and there is still some inner functioning piece of intelligence operating and keeping my right hand and arm working, reaching and pulling me along the rocks. I don’t think I could release the pack if I wanted to now; my left hand is frozen like a vice around one strap, though I can no longer feel it. I cannot feel anything, actually.
The flashlight flashes on the rocks right next to me. I dip below the water for a count of ten and then surface.
Think! I’ve got to think, keep my mind working. Why is Sheriff Dan involved in this? Did Lester tell the truth that he’s making four million per cat? He alluded that after slipping a half million to me, he’d still have a sizeable bundle to split with Sarge; with two cats that’d be $3,500,000 each, less expenses. How does Mick, Sheriff Dan, and the other three with him, come into play in this? Lance! I can’t remember who Lance is, but he was some mucky muck in Vandermill’s organization.
My thinking has brought me to a halt, and I'm panicking because the pack is gone. I can’t feel it and my face is in full view of Sheriff Dan, though I am a long way away from him now. I turn away and reach again. Although I know there is something there, I cannot feel it with my fingers. I hook my hand like a big frozen club, and pull. A few more times, a few more yards, and I’ll have the waterfall as a cover.
Then what? I hook again and make another two feet.
I smell something. My sabre-toothed c
at olfactory center is still operating, and what I smell is glorious. Though I have no idea what it is, I am excited beyond reason. I start hooking and pulling like crazy and the odor gets even stronger. Memories of last July come to me, but I can’t focus hard enough to reconstruct them. “And stay out of my head!” Mom had yelled at me. “Don’t ever try to talk to me without words coming out of your mouth.” She was angry, and she was sitting in a bath.
“Don’t you ever question me again.”
In a bath.
“EVER!”
A hot bath.
“. . . stay out of my head!”
The smell of the hot bath, like a hot tub, in the mountain! I look toward where I remember it was. Sure enough, that opening, passage, to the hot spring is higher than the level of the lake. It is still there. I can smell it. It is super glorious.
I hook and pull with abandon, unconcerned about what damage I’m doing to my hand, not caring if I lose the entire arm. As far as I know my left arm is already gone. It drags useless behind me. I try to kick, but have no idea if I’m doing anything except just wiggling my legs. As far as I know I’ve been shot in the spine and I’m paralyzed. Ten yards to go.
The waterfall roars in my head, driving out any more effort at thought.
Eight yards.
And then what? I’ll have to crawl out, up the slope to the opening and then roll my frozen, paralyzed body into the hot spring.
Six yards.
Get out of the water first.
Hook and pull.
So close. Pull again. Three yards.
One thing at a time. Get out of the water. Only a few feet.
Hook . . . pull . . . hook . . . pull. I’m there.
I lift, then drag, my body as far out as I can, and then stop. There is a protrusion just inches beyond my fingers. I stretch and hook the fingers, not able to feel it but knowing by sight that I have it. I pull, move only six inches, and then cannot move any farther. Some part of my lower body, my belt, or maybe my shoe, is caught on something. Someone please cut off my legs so I have less to drag behind. They’ll be useless anyway as a paraplegic. Hell, I’m going to be dead so what’s the use of all this fussing anyway?
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 106