by Jerry Cole
"Does it matter?" Daniel leaned on Susan, his eyes evasive. "He's not here. Are there medical people with you? I could really use some pain killers."
"Of course it matters!" Donahue scoffed. "We can't rescue only one of you! Even if you've only seen his body, just to know what happened would be a comfort, I'm sure."
"Asher's alive," Daniel said, tired and bitter as he leaned on Susan's shoulder. "He's not far away. We had an argument and split up just a little while ago. Where's the rest of the search party?"
"You two really don't get along, do you?" Donahue muttered. "To split up in a situation like this."
"We couldn't agree on which way to go," Daniel said, shrugging. "Is your car near? I've sprained my ankle and I'd kill for some real food..."
"We should find Asher first, don't you think?" Donahue steered Daniel back the way he had come. "We can't leave him wandering out here if he's nearby."
"Sir," Susan, supporting Daniel on one side, interrupted, "wouldn't it make more sense to have him wait with the truck? He's injured. He'll slow us down."
"Don't be silly, Susan!" Donahue said too loudly. "Carter here is tough as nails! He'd never leave a job half done. How many times did you go through that financial paperwork I told you to just sign and send to records?"
"Three times, sir," Daniel replied absentmindedly, looking tired and worried. "But really, if we could just go home..."
"Hang in there, Carter!" Donahue clapped him on the shoulder too hard to be encouraging. "I'm sure Price won't be far. Then we can all get out of here. We can go for burgers."
"I would really rather go to the hospital."
"Nonsense! All you need is some rest and a good American burger! Now, which direction is he in?"
Daniel, unable to fight Donahue's insistence, allowed himself to be propelled back into the woods, tiredly pointing them back in the direction he'd come from. Asher wouldn't be there anymore anyway, and at this point, it hardly mattered. Daniel wanted so badly to just lie down and sleep for a week.
"So, how did you and Asher make it this far?" Donahue asked, a hand on Daniel's back keeping him moving forward even when he wanted to stop. "That river must have done a real number on you. I can see the bruises from here."
"It did," Daniel sighed tiredly. "It kicked our shit in to be honest."
"Language, Carter!" Donahue laughed. "Price must have rubbed off on you."
"We wanted to stay by the river and wait for rescue," Daniel went on, "but a bear chased us off and we lost track of the river completely. We had to hike a couple of days to even figure out where we were again. Then we got caught in a blizzard and had to hole up in an abandoned ranger station for a few days. But we found a map that helped us figure out how to get back."
"Well aren't you two just a pair of lucky ducks!" Donahue said, smiling with no humor in his eyes. "Anyone else would have died three times over. You know, you should write an autobiographical book about your experience. People love those. You'll make a mint."
Daniel hung his head a little, thoughts far away, back in that cabin. That wasn't something he really wanted to think about right now, much less share with other people. "Right now," he said, trudging along under Susan's calculating gaze, "I don't really care about anything but getting home. I just want to sleep."
"You'll get your nap soon Carter," Donahue promised ominously. "The sooner we find Price, the sooner you can rest."
"He's not going to be where I left him anyway," Daniel complained. "He'll have moved on, looking for his own way back to the trail."
"Does he have the map?" Donahue asked, frowning.
"No," Daniel admitted with a frustrated sigh, "We fought over it when we split up and it got torn to pieces. I have parts of it, but not enough to make it useful."
"Well that will make things a little more difficult," Donahue said, but he sounded relieved. Daniel was sure he was glad Asher was less likely to stumble out of the woods and into other people before Donahue found him.
Before long, they reached the copse where Daniel and Asher had split. Tattered pieces of map still littered the ground, blown against the net of briar by the wind. Daniel watched them flutter, mouth pulled down by the unpleasant reminder.
"Where did he go from here?" Donahue asked impatiently. "Which direction did he go in?"
"Give me a minute," Daniel sighed, sitting down against a tree. "I've been hiking on a sprained ankle for days. Give me a minute to rest."
Donahue huffed impatiently, muttering about wasted time, but Daniel didn't budge, closing his eyes. He could almost still hear the angry words he and Asher had exchanged echoing in the branches, and they stabbed at him like a knife. He hadn't been wrong. But guilt still ate at him, insisting that two minutes together in willfully ignorant bliss was better than being apart. Daniel's worries nagged at him, wondering where Asher was and if he was going to be okay. Daniel was sure Asher would move much faster without Daniel to slow him down. But the worry stayed anyway. Hopefully it would fade with time. Donahue would give up hunting after a while, and he would get a proper doctor to look at his injuries, and then he would go home and sleep, possibly forever.
"Alright, alright, that's enough resting," Donahue pulled Daniel to his feet impatiently and hurried them on. "We've got to keep going. Don't you know a man's life could hang in the balance?"
"Alright, alright, we're going," Daniel muttered. "He'll be fine though. He's a trail guide, you know. He could survive out here for weeks probably."
"Yeah, I wouldn't be so sure about that," Donahue laughed dryly. "We should find him."
They kept going as the morning wore on towards mid-day. Daniel had to stop often, his ankle beginning to reach a point where it just wouldn't support him anymore.
"When we argued," Daniel said during one of his breaks, "Price said there was a trail on the map closer than the one at West Creek Falls. He wanted to head this direction and find it. I wasn't so sure."
"Well, I'm not seeing any sign of a trail this way," Susan pointed out.
"He's stubborn," Daniel said with the weariness of experience "He'll keep going this way till he finds it or something else stops him."
That stubbornness would probably get him killed, Daniel thought, his stomach twisting at the idea. He didn't want to see that.
"Then we'll keep going this way," Donahue agreed through gritted teeth. "We're bound to catch up to one lost, injured man eventually."
"Not when we're dragging an injured man of our own," Susan pointed out, eyeing the GPS in her hand over her cat eye glasses. "He's slowing us down too much, sir." She gave Donahue a significant look, but he shook his head.
"Fine," the man said, throwing his hands up. "Carter. Sit there. Susan and I are going to go ahead. We'll circle back if we don't see any sign of him in, what would you say Susan, an hour or so?"
Susan nodded and the two of them turned to leave.
"Wait," Daniel called. "Leave me the radio. If you two get lost, I'll need a way to call for help."
Donahue huffed impatiently and threw the walkie into Daniel's lap.
"Just don't lose it!" he hissed, then hurried away, Susan looking back at Daniel suspiciously before pacing after her boss.
Daniel sighed once they were gone. He settled back against a tree, glad for the opportunity to really relax, the radio held lightly in his hand. He wondered, worried, if they might find Asher. If they did, would they come back for Daniel at all? Or just leave him out here, a useless inconvenience...
Chapter Nineteen
Several hours later and a several miles away, golden late afternoon was turning bruise colored as evening settled over the Cow Creek Trail Head. It was a stoic image in autumn, brown and stark, the old ranch that marked it a solemn and solitary place of dusty historical plaques and little life. A dirt parking lot was empty except for a single, extravagant truck. Donahue's other two secretaries sat in its spacious cab, trading smokes and griping about being made to do this at all. They were both certain they didn't have muc
h longer to wait. It was getting dark and Donahue would not continue looking in the dark. He'd ask them to come and pick him up soon, driving the fat, overbuilt truck over the hiking trail heedless of the signs posted that warned them against just that.
In the meantime, they were keeping watch, waiting to see if any disaster-struck unfortunate stumbled out of the tree line, hoping to use the payphone in that parking lot to call for help. Disinterested and having been waiting there too long for too many days, they were not paying a great deal of attention. As the violet shadows lengthened out of the pines across the loose gravel, it became even more difficult to see the stealthy shape that slunk out from beneath the branches.
The figure cut a careful path around the edge of the parking lot, staying shadowed. The pale tubular bulb in the payphone's head shone, a lighthouse in the darkness, its fluorescent white glow glittering on the chrome wheel wells of the huge truck. And then, abruptly, it went out. The women in the truck took notice of this. They exchanged worried glances, and one muttered something into a long range radio. A moment later, the passenger side door of the truck was yanked open, and the radio recorded a brief flurry of violence before the finger holding its button went slack.
A little while later, the two women lay unconscious and bound in the bed of the truck, and there was silence in the darkening parking lot once again. A figure moved from the truck to the now dark but still operational payphone and placed a call.
Back in the forest, Daniel listened to the commotion on the radio and quietly ignored it. This was the last thing he could do for Asher, if the commotion had been him at all, as Daniel suspected. He didn't want to see the man killed, whatever their differences or arguments. He hoped Asher would be able to handle the rest of his escape from here. Daniel had his own path to walk, and it was tied up with Donahue, who he heard returning now, crashing noisily through the brush.
"Alright that's it!" Donahue spat, stomping like an angry toddler, leaves in his hair and brambles caught in his expensive designer hiking gear. This was the third time they'd gone out and come back only for Daniel to point them in another direction with a hopeless shrug.
"I've had enough!" Donahue was throwing a full blown temper tantrum, throwing his gear on the ground and kicking at bushes. Susan rolled her eyes as, not a hair out of place, she slid liquidly out of the shadows after him.
"Where is he?" Donahue rounded on Daniel, who held up his hands defenselessly. "Where did he go? I don't care if you cannibalized him to survive at this point! Just tell me so we can stop looking!"
"I don't know!" Daniel cowered against his tree helplessly. "We've tried everything I could think of."
"He didn't just disappear." Donahue hissed, "He must have gone somewhere. Try harder!"
Daniel scrunched his nose in thought for a few minutes, then looked up in realization.
"He might have gone back," he suggested, "the way we came. Maybe he regretted the fight, and thought I would too. So he went back somewhere we would both be able to find if we got lost. There was a meadow we camped in just last night. I'm sure he went back there to wait for me to get lost and come back to him."
"Great." Donahue didn't seem any happier, and grabbed Daniel by the arm, yanking him to his feet "This time you're coming with me. I don't care how long it takes. No mistakes this time."
"Sir, it's getting dark," Susan pointed out. "We should begin heading back. We don't want to become lost ourselves."
"It's not far," Daniel promised, limping ahead. "We hadn't been going more than a couple of hours before we split up. And with both of us injured, we weren't going very fast. We'll find him before full dark. And with your GPS and all your gear, we'll still be able to find our way back out."
"I don't want to be out here another day, Susan." Donahue snarled. "I want this over with tonight!"
"Yes, Mr. Donahue," Susan answered, discontent but with no choice but to comply.
Daniel led them on, heart racing as he realized he might be about to see Asher again. They shouldn't have split up. God, he hoped the other man was alright. He'd been so stupid to argue.
He still had to stop every little while, his ankle sending shooting pains up his leg with every step now. Donahue wouldn't let him rest long, pushing him ahead demandingly, shoving him forward, nearly all pretense of concern gone. Daniel just kept going, heart in his throat, not sure if he hoped Asher wasn't there more than he hoped he was. If he was there, Donahue would try to kill him. But if he wasn't…
"Sir," Susan stopped them suddenly, glaring down at her GPS, "we're going in circles."
Donahue turned on Daniel, murder in his eyes. Daniel backed up quickly.
"I'm sorry." he said quickly. "These woods are confusing in the dark!"
"Well you had better get un-confused right now!" Donahue's laugh was anything but cheerful as he took Daniel by the shoulders and shook him, "If I don't see that meathead's corpse in front of me in five minutes—"
"Okay, okay!" Daniel cringed away in fear. "I'm sorry. I've been doing it on purpose. I...I just really don't want to see him again. While we were trying to survive together, we got close. I thought we were, almost... but then as soon as we were about to be rescued he turned into a total asshole again. It was all fake, just to get me to cooperate with him so he could use me to stay alive."
Donahue laughed like a rabid hyena, covering his eyes with his hand.
"Christ, I should have known!" Donahue cackled. "The way he kept flirting with you was so obvious. Well guess what, I don't care if you and your new boyfriend broke up. Just find him. Now!"
Dragging Daniel by his shoulder, Donahue forced the other man forward. Daniel, head low with shame, led Donahue and Susan on towards the meadow, knowing he wouldn't be able to lead them in circles any more now that Susan was watching the GPS like a hawk. It was time for him to face his fears.
"It's just a little further," he promised as they approached the meadow. "It's through this briar."
"Of course it is," Donahue sulked, "Why not walk through a mile of thorns on top of everything else? Why did I ever think this trip was a good idea? Remind me to make the company trip to a sinkhole next time. Much more convenient."
"As long as it isn't anywhere hot, sir," Susan suggested. "You know what the heat does to you."
"Of course, of course," Donahue waved Susan's concern off, trying to yank his pants free of a stubborn thorn. "You'll arrange everything, I'm sure. For the love of shit I will strangle whoever came up with thorns!"
"That would be God, sir," Susan said dryly. "According to conventional wisdom anyway."
"Susan! Make a note! I'm going to strangle God."
"Duly noted, sir."
Daniel began to wonder if it was possible to start hallucinating before passing out. He used his stick to flatten another section of bracken and step over it. "Almost there!" he announced excitedly. "I think I can see the clearing!"
He pushed forward eagerly, then froze as he stepped into the small, flower covered circle.
The once vibrant wild flowers had been torn up in violent furrows. Canvas tatters of the sleeping bag were scattered across the grass, waving in the night breeze where they hung from tree branches. The contents of the bag of supplies they'd brought from the cabin were flung wildly in every direction. And at the center of the mess a body was slumped, clothing in ragged tatters, soaked in blood.
Daniel made a strangled, horrified sound and rushed forward as Donahue and Susan climbed through the bramble behind him. He dropped his walking stick and fell to his knees, wordless sounds of distress leaving him as he took Asher's handsome, bloodied face into his hands.
"Looks like a bear attack," Susan murmured, observing the destruction as Daniel, weeping openly, cradled Asher close. "We shouldn't linger here. It will be back."
"Well that's anti-climactic," Donahue sighed as he watched blood seeping into Daniel's clothes from the corpse he held. "We come all this way to kill him and a bear gets to him first? Whatever gets the job done I supp
ose."
He shrugged and Daniel looked back at him, wide eyed and confused. "Kill him?" Daniel repeated, shaking. "I thought you wanted to save him?"
"God, Carter, for a smart guy, you are unbelievably stupid," Donahue rolled his eyes. "You really thought that guy was a trail guide? Honestly? He's a thug. A hired gun from the mob. He only came out here to hound me about money. And I insisted on this location because of just how many ways something can go wrong and a person can disappear and never be found."
"You were planning to kill him the whole time?" Daniel stared at Donahue, stunned and afraid.
"Of course!" Donahue gave Daniel a look that spelled the word, 'duh!'
"I shouldn't have tried throwing you in the river," he confessed, shrugging. "I didn't anticipate how difficult it would be to find your bodies afterwards. I certainly didn't think you'd survive. But it will certainly make covering all of this up easier! You and the meathead will just never be found. The mob will go after him thinking he ran off with the money, and my debts will be erased. A happy ending for everyone."
Daniel clung to Asher's body like he could protect it, horrified. "You're going to kill me too?"
"Carter," Donahue laughed, "why do you think I insisted on you coming on this trip in the first place? All that digging in financial records you should never have been looking at, whining about attorneys and money disappearing. Did you really not put it together?"
Daniel, stunned, looked down at Asher, shame at his own stupidity seeming to wash over him. "You were embezzling from the company," Daniel concluded. "That's why the finances didn't make sense. Were you just burying the evidence in records?"
"I had someone down there paid to make sure the relevant documents found their way into a furnace," Donahue said, smug, proud of his sloppy work. "I can live as I like on the company funds for now, and if the water ever gets too hot I have millions put away to retire on. If you hadn't been so bone-numbingly stupid, you could have had a cut. But you decided to be a nosy busybody instead. Maybe I'll move Lynda-with-a-y to your desk next. She seems like a lady who can mind her own business."