Rocky Mountain Showdown

by Victoria Austin

  But not today. There was someone in the bed with him. He blinked and tried to figure out where in the world he was. And how he got there.

  Then he remembered. His eyes popped open and he saw the warm body next to him. Abby. She was on top of the covers while he was under them, but he still felt heat coming from her small form. And she had a little hand thrown across his chest, little finger slightly curled.

  He turned his head and saw Laura smiling at him. She waved hello. Still slightly off-balance, Seth just waved back.

  It was daylight. From the brightness inside the cabin, it had to be well after sunrise. Laura was standing at the little table doing something with cans and plates. Seth sat up and slowly moved away from the little girl, doing his best to not wake her. He folded the covers over her as he got up.

  He walked over to where Laura was preparing breakfast of some sort. His stomach growled, and he knew he’d be grateful for the food even if it was more cold pork and beans. He looked at his watch. Eight thirty. He’d woken Laura up around three in the morning, hoping to get at least a couple of hours of sleep before sunrise.

  He’d overslept. On the run from too many bad guys to count, stuck in a hobbit fortress, a forest fire probably coming their way and he’d overslept. Unbelievable.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” He tried not to sound too accusing, but he was definitely having a surreal morning and that carried through to his tone of voice. Laura stopped what she was doing to look at him.

  “I’m sorry. You and Abby were sleeping so soundly. I watched the sunrise and just felt,” she paused and looked away, a blush rising on her cheeks, “peaceful. This is a peaceful place. I wasn’t in a hurry to wake you and have reality come back to slap me in the face.”

  Seth understood that. He did. And he certainly felt better after five hours sleep than he would have after two and a half. Besides, they were probably about as safe in this cabin as they could be, given the current circumstances. “I’m sorry, Laura. I get that. I didn’t mean to sound like I was mad at you.”

  She smiled a grateful little smile that made his heart feel funny, then went back to creating breakfast out of hermit survivalist rations.

  “How did Abby get in the bed?” This time his tone was all curiosity. He’d woken Laura and prepared to bunk on the floor, leaving the bed for the little girl. Laura had refused. To the point of almost yelling at him even though they were trying to be as quiet as possible. She’d picked Abby up and said she was going over by the door to keep watch and to snuggle with her baby and he better get his butt in bed.

  Seth almost laughed as he remembered. Laura Donovan was fierce and more than a little scary when she got going. Which shouldn’t surprise him too much since their introduction involved her punching him in the face.

  Abby had slept through the entire thing, as content to sleep in her mama’s lap as she had been in the bed. Seth wondered about that kind of trust. He had known it once. The knowledge that you don’t have to worry, because there was someone there to take care of you. He was overcome by the intense longing to make sure the sweet child stayed that way for as long as possible. He vowed internally that this little girl was going to come off this mountain with that innocence intact. Yes, she was.

  He was also a little worried. Abby had slept for a good chunk of their journey so far. Seth knew it was because she was sick. Laura had told him it was just a cold, just a slight fever. But she still deserved to recover in a nice bed. In a nice house. Free of the threat of violence.

  “I put her down in the bed around sunrise,” Laura said. “I’m sorry if she bothered you. I thought it would be okay since she was on top of the covers. And there seemed to be enough room.”

  “It was fine. I didn’t even know she was there until I woke up.” Seth wasn’t upset about what Laura had done, but he was shocked. Yesterday, he was the enemy park ranger. He’d had to talk her into letting him carry Abby even though Laura was exhausted. But today? Today she put her precious daughter with him.

  Seth felt something like pride in his chest at the development. It was ridiculous, but he took it as a sign that she was beginning to trust him. To see him as one of the good guys. It had been a long time since Seth had felt proud of his character, but he did today. Laura thought he was a good man.

  Please, Lord, let that be true. The plea was sudden and startling. He hadn’t consciously thought it, but it leaped out of his soul. A cry for help, still waiting for an answer. The blanket of shame and regret Seth carried with him, the one that covered him and smothered him, lessened for a moment. He could breathe. Feel hope.

  He’d been physically hurt in a war and then had hurt his family in return. Only, he’d hurt them emotionally instead of physically, which was almost worse. Then he’d left them, wounding them even more. Seth had somehow maneuvered himself into a dark corner with no light and no way out. It felt familiar to the current situation.

  And yet he was starting to find hope.

  Seth realized Laura was staring at him, and his ears started to burn. Yeah, he probably looked like a fool. Or a crazy man. She was probably back to wondering whether he was a reliable friend or not. “Sorry. I was just thinking. Can I help you?”

  “I’m not sure there’s much to do. I found some protein bars, but they look a couple years old. They haven’t expired yet but that doesn’t mean much when it comes to survival food. I thought we could take them with us. I also found some canned fruit. It didn’t have an expiration date, and it smells okay. So...” Laura’s voice trailed off.

  “So, we’re having fruit surprise for breakfast and bricks for lunch,” Seth finished for her.

  Laura laughed, a glorious sound that belied the danger they were in. “Pretty much. I’m going to wake Abby.” She took a couple of steps toward the bed. Stopped. “She’ll have to go to the bathroom when she wakes up. Do you think it’s safe to go outside?”

  Abby wasn’t the only one who needed a little privacy. “I’ll go check it out. I’ll be back.” He picked up his gun and cracked the door. He heard Laura murmuring quietly and Abby’s sleepy voice, but he focused his attention on the outside. He didn’t see anything. He didn’t hear anything. The birds were singing as though they were the only creatures out and about in the forest.

  Seth opened the door only as wide as was needed for his body to slip through. He stepped outside and shut the door, taking time to cover it up as much as possible with foliage. If there was danger out here, he wanted Laura and Abby to be as concealed and safe as possible. Seth walked around the cabin. He saw the footprints from the men last night. They had been close. Too close. Looking at the indentations in the mud just feet away from where they’d been hiding made Seth freeze for a second. Then he forced his body to relax and kept surveilling the area.

  They were safe. For now. Well, at least from the men. The smell of smoke was stronger than it had been yesterday.

  Seth took care of his business and went back to the cabin, making sure to obscure all of their footprints. He called out softly before opening the door. Laura had seemed both ready and able to fight him yesterday, and he didn’t want to catch her by surprise. Laura and Abby were both standing in the middle of the room. Laura had the rifle in one hand, though it was pointed down at the ground. Her other hand was holding Abby’s little wrist, as though to keep her from pulling away. He closed the door as soon as he was inside.

  Abby saw him and, indeed, began pulling at her mama trying to get to him.

  “I think it’s okay for now. I didn’t see or hear anyone.”

  At that, Laura let go of Abby and the little girl ran to him and hugged his legs. He bent down to pick her up. “Good morning, Miss Abby.”

  She put both of her palms on his cheek. Her hands were sticky and Seth wondered if she had been sampling the canned fruit. She smiled at him. “Potty!” She said the word proudly, like she was announcing some great accomplishment. Set
h laughed and looked at Laura, who set the gun down and walked over to pull her daughter out of his arms.

  “Yes, yes. We’re going potty. But remember, we have to be quiet.”

  Seth went back to the door and opened it, peeking out again. It was still quiet. “I’ll go out with you, just in case.” They went outside and Laura took Abby into the woods a ways. They came back quickly, Laura looking over her shoulder as she walked.

  “Was it okay? Did you see someone?” Seth hadn’t, but someone could have snuck up on them. The forest was large and there were too many places to hide.

  “No. No, we’re fine. Sorry. I’m just feeling especially paranoid this morning.”

  Seth understood that. He remembered past missions where he’d started seeing the enemy in every shadow. He was feeling that way right now. And this forest had a whole lot of shadows.

  SIX

  Back inside with the cabin door shut and camouflaged yet again, they ate the breakfast Laura had prepared. Well, the food she found. The mood was definitely lighter than it had been through the night, but Laura was now thinking about the day ahead. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

  “Seth?” He stopped chewing and looked at her. “What are we going to do? I thought about it last night after I woke up, and our options are all horrible. And limited.”

  “I thought about it, too. It was all I could think about, really.”

  “And?”

  “And? Well, I’m sure headquarters is missing me by now. I bet they’re looking. At least, I hope so. We can either stay here and wait for help to find us or we can try to go through the forest and get to safety.”

  “Go through the forest? You mean the forest fire, right?” Laura sounded scared to her own ears. Too scared.

  “Ideally we go up until we can go around the fire,” he said. “Or we hope that they get the fire put out and come up to see if anyone needs help. But I just don’t know.”

  Well, he summed that up. The options sounded limited and terrible, even though he was a law enforcement officer of sorts and even though it was daylight and even though her daughter was smiling and talking happily to herself. And even though everything—the options were still options in name only. “So what should we do?”

  “I don’t like sitting here. For one, we’d have to be still and quiet. And we’re well hidden, but there is always a chance they could find us. Then we’d really be trapped. Plus, there’s the fire.”

  Laura breathed in deeply, considering his words. He was...not wrong. Keeping Abby pinned up inside, spending every night terrified to move, waiting on help to find them? Laura thought she would lose her mind the first day, especially when she knew those circumstances were going to stretch out into the unforeseeable future.

  Seth was watching her, waiting patiently. She liked that he let her process her thoughts and didn’t demand instant answers. “I think waiting here is the worst of the two options.”

  Seth nodded. “I agree. Every way I thought it through, trying to get down the mountain made the most sense. But this is all going to be on you, and I’m sorry about that.”

  “What?”

  “You know these woods. You know this mountain. I only know the public parts, but you know this part.”

  He was right. Laura remembered how many times her dad had made her walk their mountain. Map it. Learn it. Come to know it on an almost instinctual level where each tree and rock and call of bird was distinct. She’d hated it. Complained endlessly about it. Been thankful when she had left this mountain and never had to do it again.

  And now, here she was, sitting in her dad’s shelter and thanking God and her father for all those lessons. Seth was right, she did know the mountain. More important, she knew every way off it. She just needed some information.

  “What do you know about the fire?”

  “It’s on the east side of the mountain. It’s wide. Moving slowly up.”

  Seth gave her all the information she needed because he knew exactly what she was asking. If she had to go through this, at least it was with a park ranger. A man who knew forests and fires.

  Laura choked on air as she thought about how thankful she was that she had a park ranger here to help her. Her dad might actually be rolling over in his grave right now. Or, not. Malcolm Grant had understood so much more about the world than Laura had ever given him credit for. He would understand this situation with the same practicality that had helped him survive the Vietnam War and a hostile return to his country.

  “We need to get off the east side, then.”

  “Yeah. You know about the breaks?”

  “Oh, yeah. The mountain at its finest when it comes to protecting its own.” The mountain was geographically set up so that a fire on one side would not spread laterally around it. There was a large river going down one side and a wall of barren rock cliffs on the other. Basically, the mountain was divided into two halves and a fire on one side would not spread to the other unless it came over the top. That had saved homes and people more than once.

  “The fire looked like it was going to spread laterally as far as the breaks and then move up.”

  “So we can’t go down. We can try to cross the river. Or the cliffs. Or we can go up and over, hopefully ahead of the fire.”

  Seth’s eyes were serious, all sense of amusement and joviality completely gone. “That’s pretty much the conclusion I came to, too. This is where I need your expertise. Which option is the best?”

  Laura really hated that she was the one with the information to make this decision. She was terrified of choosing wrong. “Those men are probably trapped by now, too. Don’t you think?”

  “They have a helicopter, but they still need to hurry. The fire is spreading, and a helicopter is very noticeable up here, especially with all the firefighters and emergency personnel activated.”

  “Okay. So that means they need to find us fast and then try to get off, as well.”

  “That would explain why their boss had them search all night. He must know they are up against a ticking clock.”

  A burning clock, really, but Laura didn’t want to make that distinction. “The cliffs are out. I’ve tried climbing them a couple of times before, and it was nearly impossible,” she said. “And that was with climbing and safety equipment.”

  “Okay.” Seth didn’t question her assessment. “So the river, or up and over?”

  She wanted to say neither. “I really don’t like the idea of the river. It’s wide and usually has a nasty pull to it. Plus, it’s raging right now.”

  “It is high. I saw it a couple days ago, and I’m not sure I’ve seen it that full,” he said. “I don’t suppose your dad left a raft or boat hiding somewhere, did he?”

  Laura’s lips quirked. “Not that I know of. I mean, he probably wouldn’t have told me anyway for fear I’d go on a joyride.”

  Seth smiled slightly, too. Laura liked it. “So you think over is the best way?”

  Laura hated the weight of this decision. “Maybe. I mean, yes. I do. Except we have those men looking for us, and I bet they are going to be picking the up-and-over route, too. It’s the easiest choice, for whatever that’s worth, and it’s predictable that we’d head that way.”

  “I agree with you there, too.” Seth sighed, long and deep. It was a weary sound. Laura felt a similar drag and they hadn’t even started yet.

  “I think we should head toward the river but plan to go up,” she said. “We’ll do the up-and-over path, but if we need to try to cross the river we’ll be close enough to attempt it.”

  “You can do that? Lead us over the mountain, but also close enough to the river to use it as a Plan B?”

  Laura thought about his question. There were three lives on the line. This was not the time for false bravado and ego. It was the time to assess. And be honest. “Yeah. I can. It’ll be a little zigzaggy, because the river i
sn’t straight. But we should have good cover. Yes. I can do it.”

  Seth didn’t question her more. He nodded his acceptance and stood. “All right. Then we should start out. The faster we get going, the faster we’ll reach safety. Do you know if there are any bags or packs in here?”

  Thankful to do something other than sit and worry, Laura stood. “Yes, we’ll be able to take enough supplies with us to last the trip.” If they made it, that was.

  * * *

  If it weren’t for the armed men and the forest fire, this would have been a beautiful walk through the forest. Seth had always liked the woods and had spent much of his childhood exploring them with his family. When he’d been in Afghanistan, he’d almost craved them. Seth had walked out of that rehab center and demanded his dad take him to the forest. Any forest. While his dad waited in the car in the parking lot, Seth had limped into the cluster of trees and just breathed. It was the first time he’d felt like he could breathe since the IED had gone off. The forest in his home state of Oregon was every bit as pretty as the one they were currently walking through.

  Even though he’d been released from rehab, Seth still wasn’t able to live on his own. His injuries, both physical and mental, required almost constant care. Seth’s pride hated being dependent on his family for everything. So, he lashed out at them. Yelled at them, called them names, told them that nothing they did for him was right or good enough. He had hurt the ones who loved him.

  Then, he’d been ashamed. So very ashamed of the man he was to them. The man he had become. Of the months abusing them that he could never take back. When Seth had realized how badly he’d failed his family, he could not stay there with them anymore, so he had fled. To the woods.

  And he had been in the woods ever since, it seemed. Sometimes they soothed him. Healed him. Helped him understand where he had gone wrong.

  But today’s trek wasn’t a stroll with God and His beauty. Laura was busy navigating their course. Abby was doing her part by playing the quiet game with admirable determination. And Seth needed to be alert for the men hunting them down. He had to stop reminiscing and start focusing or he would add even more regrets to his list. Regrets so big that the list itself might just disintegrate.