Parting with Shauna so soon after finding her and Jonathan again wasn’t easy for Eric either. This quest the two of them had embarked on had brought out something in her that Eric hadn’t seen in a long time, and he had to admit that he liked it. His ability to do what had to be done now made him feel useful to her for the first time in so long. Now his life before made sense to her. He had skills and abilities to cope with a situation that overwhelmed lesser men. Shauna’s world had turned upside down now, and suddenly she was in a war zone where men like Eric were at home. That other world where Daniel’s money could provide her with security and stability was gone; at least for now, and Shauna had made her choice to leave him behind and go with Eric to find their daughter. It hadn’t been Eric’s intention to take her back from him, but he wondered now what would happen if they were together much longer and leaving now was one way to postpone having to find out. It had been so natural to kiss her that afternoon before and he hadn’t wanted it to end then and he could tell that she didn’t either. There was still something there between them, no matter how long it had been suppressed and put away, and it was hard not to think of the possibilities of a second chance, from an older and wiser perspective. The part of Eric that wanted to see if that could be wanted her with him on this journey. But the rational part kept him on track with his mission, reminding him that getting Megan came first, and that if he really cared about Shauna, it was best to leave her safely where she was.
Eric’s careful inventory of the cabin had reassured him that the three of them wouldn’t run out of any necessary supplies anytime soon. There was a huge stack of firewood ready to go and plenty more wood available to cut and split where that came from. Bob hadn’t missed anything in his preparations, at least not anything significant that Eric could find. And while he loved his antique firearms and other frontier tools, he was also apparently wise enough to take advantage of modern technology as well. There was a Colt AR-15 in his gun collection, along with plenty of magazines and ammo for it; enough so that Eric felt good about taking as much as he needed for his own M4 while still leaving plenty behind with the rifle. With it and all of Bob’s hunting rifles, shotguns and handguns, Shauna, Jonathan and Vicky were sufficiently armed to deal with any intruders, whether animal or human. They still had the rest of the horses too, if they needed them, but Eric had stressed in his letter that they’d be wise to stay close to the cabin and especially avoid the main trails.
Eric had only taken two horses and had chosen the mare named Maggie for his primary mount. She was the one that he’d first ridden that day he met Bob with Shauna on the trail, and since the two of them already knew each other, and he knew she had a good disposition, she was a good match for his limited riding experience. The packhorse Bob had brought with them that day was another mare named Sally, and Bob said she was easy to ride too. Eric had considered taking only Maggie and traveling much lighter but having the additional supplies the second animal could carry meant he wouldn’t be distracted by looking for more along the way. And if something happened to Maggie, he would have a spare mount. Megan would need a ride for the trip back too, although Eric hoped she and Aaron would still have the horses they got from Vicky’s grandfather. There was always the chance they would use some alternate transportation to return too, but there was no point in pondering that until the time came. If anything could begin to make Eric second-guess his decision, it was the thought of having to bring Megan all the way back to the cabin to get Shauna and the others before figuring out how to get back to Louisiana where Dreamtime was waiting.
Eric had barely slept the night before he left, tossing and turning instead as he waited for the hour to come. He’d managed to get all his stuff together unnoticed while going in and out for various chores the afternoon before. The saddlebags and packs were ready behind the woodshed, so that when he slipped out into the dark just before 0400, all he had to take was his rifle and sleeping bag. The cabin had a small upstairs loft that Vicky and Shauna were using, as the ladder going up there was impossible for Jonathan with the splint on his leg. Eric had thrown his own bag on the floor near the front door, which was hidden from view of the loft as it was directly overhead. All he had to do to get out unnoticed was to make sure Jonathan was still asleep, and from the kid’s breathing patterns, it was easy to tell that he was.
Eric latched the door behind him and quickly saddled Maggie and loaded his packs onto Sally, leading them both as he started up the draw to the trail on foot. The ridge top route exposed him to bitter cold in the predawn hours, but now he was miles along and the midmorning sun warmed his face as he rode south. When he passed the place where the gravel road led down and west to the ranch where he’d found Vicky, Eric gave it only a glance. He wondered for a moment about Brett and Jeremy, and whether they’d made the smart decision to leave the high country and go turn themselves in to a shelter or refugee camp. It wasn’t an attractive proposition, Eric knew, but if they did it at least they wouldn’t die of starvation. Eric had given them a chance by leaving them enough food to make the trek but if they didn’t go it wasn’t his problem. He had no time to make a side trip to the ranch to see, and he wasn’t worried that they would find Bob’s cabin because they had no idea even which way it was, and besides, he’d warned them they’d be shot on sight if he ever saw them again. From the looks on their faces after that last conversation, Eric didn’t think either one of those two would push their luck.
As he continued on south, the only other thought Eric gave to Brett and Jeremy was the description they’d given him of the place where they’d last seen Colleen, the camp that Gareth had wanted to steal from, using her as bait. Eric was interested in investigating the site, not because he thought he could help her in any way at this point or that anyone would even be there, but simply because it wasn’t far off the trail and he was curious. The boys had thought the men they saw there were members of some kind of militia group, and he figured any intel he could gather about that would be worth the effort. He’d already learned from the soldiers that drove him to the campus in Boulder that the army was focused on regaining control of the roads and populated areas and that the wilderness areas of the high country and other uninhabited or low population areas were a low priority for the foreseeable future. The only thing that would change that would be opportunities to strike specific targets, like the one Lieutenant Holton had sent him to investigate on that lakeshore back east.
It was expected that terrorist or insurgent groups would use remote areas as hideouts and bases of operation to plan further attacks, but only to a point. For them, being too removed from civilization would defeat their purpose because their targets were in the populated areas for the most part. But Eric didn’t discount the possibility that other, possibly larger organizations were using such places to gather their forces. Some of the militia groups that anticipated something like this happening would be interested in completely restructuring things in the aftermath and controlling large areas of undisputed territory would be very much in their interest. If the gang that had detained Colleen and then tried to hunt down Jeremy and Brett were as well-equipped as the boys had said, then it was possible they were indeed part of something larger, or that they might be looking to join up with such a group. The last thing Eric wanted on his trek south was any contact with such an organization, but the best way to avoid them would be to know whether or not they really existed and where they were operating. Even if the bunch the boys had seen were the only ones out here, it was good to have a heads-up and know they were around in advance. Eric figured he’d be near the area of their camp in a couple more days of travel if the directions they’d given him were accurate.
“I doubt they’ll be staying at that elevation much longer,” Vicky had said when Eric was going over the location with her on Bob’s maps in the cabin. “They’ll freeze if they do.”
“Well, if they are still there, that could be a good indication that they’re not locals. Maybe they don’t know any
better. They may be tourists from Florida like us!”
Vicky had laughed at this, but she knew what the weather could be like here in the high country, and she strongly recommended that they pick the lower elevation alternatives for their route in every place that they had a choice. “Seriously guys, the weather up here is no joke. Trust me on this!”
Despite spending most of his formative years in south Florida though, Eric was no stranger to the cold. He’d operated in high mountain areas in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, and more recently in parts of Europe. Dealing with winter weather was a real pain even without the complications it added to combat operations. It was another reason he wanted to move fast. He could beat the worst of the weather on the way south. Returning to the cabin might be another matter, but when he did that, he planned to have Megan with him, so it wouldn’t matter if it took longer, waiting out storms or whatever was necessary.
When it was time to stop for the night, Eric turned off the trail in a low saddle where the slopes dropping down to the east side were heavily-timbered. It was too steep to ride comfortably at his level of experience, so Eric dismounted and led the horses until he was certain he was far enough down to be out of the wind and far enough off the trail that he and the horses wouldn’t be seen or heard.
“My ears are burning, Maggie!” Eric said, gently rubbing the horse after taking off the saddle and laying it across a nearby log. “They’re calling me every name in the book back at that cabin. Can you hear it too, girl? What about you Sally? Shauna is one unhappy woman, but I sure hope she does what I asked her to do, no matter how much she hates me for it!”
Eric tried not to think about the possibility that she wouldn’t, and that she was so stubborn she had set out with Jonathan and Vicky anyway, determined to catch up to him. If Shauna had one trait that stood out above all others, it was hardheadedness! In many ways, it was a good thing. She made her decisions and stuck with them, come hell or high water, but trying that could get her and those kids hurt this time. If they left anyway and didn’t catch up or find him, then what? He would have no way of knowing and might return weeks later with Megan only to have to start all over again, looking for them. He’d laid that argument out to her in his not-so-brief letter, but whether or not she’d let it sink through that thick skull of hers, was another matter. It sucked that he couldn’t have just had a rational face-to-face conversation with all of them to tell them straight up what he planned to do but knew that wouldn’t have worked; not with her, and especially not now, after she’d come this far. Eric knew he had to stop thinking about it and get some sleep, and he finally did, but something spooked the horses and woke him just a short time later.
Eric was on full alert within seconds, scanning the shadows around him in the forest with the night vision monocular, but finding nothing. He didn’t know enough about traveling with horses in the wilderness to know what would or wouldn’t make them jumpy. Had they caught a scent or heard something he couldn’t hear? He was looking for something big and threatening, like a man, bear or mountain lion, but after a while, he concluded it could have been nothing at all, or maybe just some small nocturnal creature like a rabbit that the horses freaked out over anyway. Bob would know all their moods, but Eric would just have to guess and figure them out on his own as best he could. He whispered reassurance to them and then slid back into his sleeping bag inside the bivy, the M4 in reach close beside him and the custom blade his friend Drew had given him in its sheath inside the sleeping bag with him.
Eleven
THE NEXT DAY ERIC found the stream crossing where Brett and Jeremy claimed they’d lost all their supplies, and looking at the rapids below, he could see that it was a plausible scenario, especially for the inexperienced. He could hear the roar of a larger waterfall around the bend over the sound of the fast shoals in front of him. Eric didn’t have to go have a look to know it was the one they told him about, over which their bags of stolen supplies had been swept out of reach and washed away. Seeing how easy such a thing could happen, with one simple misstep while fording, Eric wasn’t taking any chances. He dismounted and led the horses upstream, working his way through dense thickets along the bank until he found a quieter place to cross. The last thing he wanted was to have to put down another horse for a broken leg, but both of the mares made it across without incident. He stopped on a sunny knoll to dry out and warm up, and by the second night’s camp, he was beginning to feel better about leaving the way he did. Like he’d known he would, he’d made good time in those first two days, and he doubted he’d be near this far if they’d all come with him.
When morning came, he studied Bob’s maps, comparing them to the actual landmarks he’d seen along his route as he worked out his plan for the day. He would reach the place he was seeking later today, and he studied the topography, working out the best and least-expected angle of approach in case the campsite was still occupied. The gravel road crossing that had led Gareth and his friends to leave the trail and find the camp was the most direct route, but Eric wasn’t about to go walking down a wide-open road like that, where he might be seen from a distance. Like most of the places where roads crossed the trail, this one was in a pass, and parts of it were visible from above as he descended from a crest to the north. When he got there around mid-afternoon, Eric stopped and watched for several minutes, and then led the horses off the trail and secured them before setting out to make his approach.
He descended a steep wooded slope heading west, roughly parallel to the road, until he was several hundred feet lower and standing on the edge of a ravine overlooking a small stream. Jeremy and Brett had mentioned the stream, saying it crossed the road and ran behind the camp area, providing a handy water source. Eric wanted to approach from alongside the stream on the opposite bank. He could keep to thick cover that way and the noise of the fast-running water would mask any sound he might inadvertently make. Going that way meant that he would be close before he could see the site or even whether or not the tents were still there, but when he did get into position, he would be able to observe from much closer than the area out near the road from which the boys had seen it. They’d made several mistakes, which was to be expected given their youth, inexperience and lack of training in such matters. The worst of those mistakes was not watching long enough to really determine who they were dealing with and how many there were. But Eric didn’t like surprises, and patience was something he didn’t have a problem with when it came to situations like this.
His circuitous route took him a full hour, but he was glad he’d made the choice when he finally got a look through the trees and saw tents still there. At least one of them was occupied, as he could see through the open flaps enough to make out the boots and lower legs of at least two men, probably sitting at a table inside eating or playing cards. He didn’t see anyone else at first glance, but grazing nearby, in a makeshift barbed-wire corral, were several horses, more than half of them bearing similar spotted patterns as the Appaloosa gelding that Vicky had been riding when she had her final confrontation with Gareth. Eric knew when he saw them that these horses were also from the ranch, and their presence was proof enough for him that these were indeed the men who’d raided and burned the place before killing Vicky’s grandparents.
Eric was sure too that the occupants of this camp were also responsible for Colleen’s disappearance. The tents were as the boys described them; old-fashioned looking canvas wall tents with big wooden poles and stove pipes passing through their roofs. They were the kind of expedition tents that were common back in the day before lightweight nylon coverings and aluminum frames came into existence, and were still favored by hunting outfitters and others setting up base camps in cold-weather conditions. They certainly weren’t the kinds of tents you carried in a backpack, but Eric saw several big quad ATVs with cargo racks parked nearby. There were stacks of boxes and crates around the perimeter, many of them bearing markings that identified them as military property, no doubt stolen from a Na
tional Guard depot or convoy. Most of this stuff was covered with canvas tarps, but out in the open there were propane tanks and large metal gas cans, the latter no doubt containing fuel for the ATVs. The absence of trucks or other full-sized vehicles was likely due to the condition of the ‘road,’ which was really just a two-track trail, too rough and narrow for most anything but ATVs.
Whatever it was these people were up to, Eric knew at a glance it was pretty well organized and serious. This wasn’t just a bunch of hunters who’d decided to bug out up here until things calmed down. The camp was arranged with military precision and efficiency, with everything sorted and in its place, right down to the parking of the ATVs. Eric still didn’t see a guard posted on site, but a few more minutes of watching revealed movement out among the trees a couple of hundred yards to the east, exactly in the area that he would have crossed had he approached from the road the way Gareth and his buddies had. Eric watched until two men materialized, dressed in camo BDUs and carrying M4-type rifles. They weren’t heading back to the tents, but instead were working their way around, likely on a scheduled patrol of the perimeter. How many others might be around or occupying the tents, Eric couldn’t tell. It was either watch and wait until dark to find out, or speed things up by questioning these two fellows he could see. Eric was patient, but he also had a long journey ahead of him and didn’t want to spend a lot of time here if he could get the information he sought sooner, so he chose the second option. They would tell him whether or not Colleen was there too, Eric was quite sure of it.
That the two were walking together and appeared to be in conversation told Eric that they probably weren’t really expecting a threat at the moment. It was a logical assumption, considering the location, and he figured they may not have had visitors here since the day Gareth and his friends showed up. But the fact that there was a patrol at all told him that there was some semblance of military discipline and experience here, which backed up his previous presumption that this wasn’t just a bunch of hunting buddies. Eric watched the two as they headed north across the rutted two-track road. If they were going to circle around the camp from there, they would soon cross the creek he’d followed to get to where he was presently watching, and Eric figured they would wind their way around in a big circle through the more open woods on the rise behind him. The place to intercept them would be down in the thickets near the streamside, and Eric decided to move closer to where he anticipated they would cross and then come up behind them once they were on the other side. It didn’t bother him that there was two of them, despite the fact that it might be a little harder to gain control without alerting the others in the tents. Eric only needed one of them in a condition to talk in order to get his answers, and whatever he did to his partner might be convincing motivation for the survivor to loosen his tongue.
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