13

 

For the first time in several hours their world grew light as Lee and Jennifer approached the hole at the top of the chimney.

Lee tugged on Jennifer’s leg and she stopped climbing while he studied the chimney wall above them looking for a way out through the crack in the rock.

He sighed in relief. “Thank you, Lord. Jenn, the opening’s accessible from the wall we’re climbing.”

Jennifer looked down into his face from her perch above him. “You prayed, Lee. What did you expect?”

“What if we climbed the wrong wall and couldn’t reach the opening? You know God doesn’t rearrange the world for us each time we pray.”

He looked at her face, a dark oval against the sunlight pouring in through the crack.

“Wait a minute. Are we talking about that infinite God of yours? Wouldn’t He have known about your prayer before you prayed it? Couldn’t He have chased us up the right wall?”

“Oh, me of little faith.” He climbed beside Jennifer and stopped. “Yeah. He can do that.”

He looked at her and saw Jennifer’s face in full sunlight less than three feet from his.

She was breathing deeply. Her cheeks were flushed from the climb and her hair danced with each puff of breeze from above.

He gasped.

“Lee, what’s wrong?” She looked at him staring at her. “Oh.” Her flushed cheeks turned a deeper shade of red. She looked away.

When she looked back at him, he tried to give her his warmest smile. “Oh…my sentiments exactly.” He paused. “Now I’m going to check out our escape hatch. Watch closely how I wedge my body between the two walls. It’s called jamming. When I get to the top I’ll make sure the area is clear. If there’s no sign of anyone I’ll climb back down. When we both go up I’ll be right behind you. We’ll finally complete this climb we started who knows how long ago.”

When he turned to climb to the top, Jennifer whispered behind him, “However long ago, it was worth it for me to see the light.”

As Lee wedged his body in the crack of the rock, Jennifer’s words wedged their way deeply into his mind. Why did this woman always use phrases having double meanings? And what did she really mean when she said “light?”

His train of thought jumped the tracks when his head popped out of the chimney. Temporarily blinded by the bright world of a sunny, mid-March afternoon, he pictured his pupils shrinking to pinpoints when the sunlight hit his eyes. After a second or two in the light, he could no longer see Jennifer in the semi-darkness below. Looking into the daylight again he carefully scanned a complete circle around his position and then stuck his head down into the crack in the rock. “No one in sight, Jenn. Have you heard anything from the cave?”

“Not a sound.”

“OK. Make some room. I’m coming down.”

Climbing down proved trickier than ascending. His eyes had adjusted to the sunlight so he could see nothing below him. Feeling his way down to the ledge where Jennifer stood he stepped onto it and slid over to the far side to give her climbing room.

“Jenn, just give me a second for my eyes to adjust, and then we’ll go up where we can both see the light.” He watched to gauge her response.

It was only fair that she wrestle with some double meanings, too.

She avoided his gaze. “What I said, you mean, but, Lee, I didn’t…”

Lee let her stumble for a few seconds. He thoroughly enjoyed her discombobulation. Perhaps he enjoyed it because it was a rare event. Or maybe because he enjoyed everything about Jennifer. He put his hand on her shoulder. “You know something, Jenn?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “I don’t think either one of us could survive an Alaskan winter. Think about it—three months without light. Three hours in a cave and I’m already starved for sunlight. Let’s go get some together.”

Jennifer eyed the gap above her with a serious frown. But she started climbing into the base of the crack.

He looked up at her silhouette. “Jam your body in like I did. I’ll be jammed in right below you each time you take a step. You can’t fall.”

“You’d better be right about that, Lee, or I’ll kill you.”

Double meanings. This woman is full of them.

Jennifer worked her way up the crack in the chimney with no problems. After slowly raising her body out of the opening in the huge rock she swept her gaze over the entire panorama. She shielded her eyes with one hand when she looked westward into the sun. “It’s still clear.”

“Good. Wait for me and then we can work our way over to the lookout point.”

A few seconds later they crouched in a small depression near the top of the towering peak. They raised their heads and he pointed to the lookout point thirty yards to the west at the very pinnacle of the spire.

“C’mon, Jenn,” he whispered. “Try to keep low and be as quiet as possible.”

Like the prolonged darkness in the cave, whispering had started to grate on Lee’s nerves. He wanted to use the full range of his vocal expression because there were things he wanted to tell Jennifer for which a whisper was completely inadequate—things where even his words might prove to be inadequate. But first, I need to carry out this plan.

Jennifer gasped and closed her eyes when they reach the lookout point. “I can’t look down.”

He forgot to tell her they would be perched on the very edge of a sheer three-hundred-foot cliff, the north face of the limestone spire.

“Jenn, open your eyes or you really might fall.”

Her eyes popped open.

“Slip your legs in here.” He pointed to a narrow crack in the rock about two feet from the edge of the cliff. “It’s just big enough to jam your legs into up to your thighs, or in your case, to your waist.”

After Jennifer dropped into the crack Lee slipped in beside her and gestured towards the open space in front of them. “My buddy and I used to fly paper airplanes off this rock. We had to lean over the edge to launch them.” He leaned forward to demonstrate. “See, it’s impossible to fall from here with your legs stuck—”

“Please don’t do that.” She grabbed his jacket and pulled him back.

“Sorry. But look, you can see all of the limestone formation and most of the entire river valley. Look over there.” He pointed down to their right. “No, a little more to your right. That’s your car and there’s the SUV.”

“Lee, can’t we just—”

“Don’t even think about it.” He read the urge in Jennifer’s eyes and face. “If we make a run for your car we wouldn’t make it halfway down before they shot us.”

“But it’s right there, Lee.” Her eyes and voice pleaded as she pointed at her car.

“So close, yet so far away, huh? Well it’s only little further down the other side of the mountain to houses, people, and safety.”

“I know you’re right, but I’m getting impulses to run down to my car.”

“Like dangling a carrot in front of—” He’d painted himself into a corner with his simile.

Jennifer rescued him. “Like a chocoholic with a chocolate truffle dangling in front of her.”

Lee put his hand on her cheek and gently turned her head away from her car. “Think about it, Jenn. What if somehow we did make it? We would end up in another chase just like last night.”

Jennifer placed her fingers over Lee’s on her cheek. She squeezed his hand and met his gaze with her intense, brown eyes. “I’m sorry, Lee. I know we can’t go down there now and there’s no way I want to risk a repeat last night. When you see it in the movies it’s all action and adventure. When you live it, it’s nothing but panic, terror, and hyperventilation.” Jennifer sighed. “So, where is this path you want me to take down the back side of the mountain?”

She still held his hand when he slipped from the crack in the rock. He took her other hand and pulled her out, setting her down a few feet back from the precipice.

“Over here.” He continued holding one of her hands and led her between two boulders. They circled a big rock on their right and stopped behind it well-hidden from sight.

“See the old logging road? Look a little to our left and down about two hundred yards.”

“I see it. After the big turn it runs almost straight down the side of the mountain.”

“That’s the idea. Actually, the same road passes near where we’re standing. If you go about thirty yards straight through the trees ahead of us you’ll find it. It will take you all the way back to civilization.”

“I hope so. The people up here are too uncivilized for me. Well, except for one.” Jennifer glanced at him.

“And that person is just about to become very uncivilized, too. At least to some spies, terrorists, or whoever these goons really are. When you reach the first house don’t stop unless there aren’t any other houses nearby. Go on to the second or third house before you knock on any doors. When you call the police remember to tell them the cars are on Holten Creek Road.”

Jennifer squinted and frowned, forming what Lee now recognized as her curious face. “Why the second, or third house?”

“There are a few survivalist types around here. Usually they prefer the end of the road—the highest house on the mountain. After escaping the goons we can’t have some American citizen with an overactive imagination shooting at you, can we?”

“I’m not big on irony, Lee.”

“Neither am I.” He paused. “Are you ready to do this?”

“Only if you follow my rules. Don’t take any chances and please come down to me quickly.”

“You got it.”

“You better have it. Because if you misbehave I can really get you in trouble with NSA. It would be Leavenworth for life, buddy. You got it?”

“I do.”

Jennifer smiled briefly, but the smile was cut short by a frown—one he suspected wasn’t going away until they were both safely off the mountain. Another reason his plan must succeed.

“I’m going back to the top now, Jenn. If you stand where you are I’ll be able to see you. When I’m certain the goons aren’t anywhere near the top I’ll signal. Then you move straight ahead to the road and run like the wind. But watch the road surface. We can’t have you twisting an ankle.”

She didn’t reply, but she stepped closer to him.

The pain on her drawn face and in her eyes ripped at his heart.

If he didn’t go now he might not be able to. He pulled his gaze from the beautiful face and the eyes so deep he feared he might drown in them. He looked at the ground. “When you see me on top, wait for my signal. Godspeed, Jenn.”

As Lee turned to climb back to the top two arms encircled his neck, nearly choking him in a fierce hug. Then they were gone.

The range and intensity of emotions he felt as Jennifer left were impossible to describe with words. In the end, only one emotion remained. Deep determination—a determination to see this plan through.

From the top of the spire he surveyed the entire area around the limestone formations. He raised his hand to give Jennifer the signal to go, but noises came from one of the caves located at the base of the rock.

This was good. Not ideal, but nevertheless good. Though the goons weren’t deep inside the rock he knew for certain where they were. From there they could never get to Jennifer if she left now. He gave her the down-the-mountain signal and she disappeared into the trees.

Before launching the second part of the plan—the part he hadn’t completely disclosed to her, Lee wanted to see her running far down the road. He needed to be certain she was out of danger.

He stood at the vantage point and waited. In less than a minute she appeared nearly two hundred yards down the road and in a few more seconds she rounded the switchback. When she started down the steep slope Jennifer ran like she was coasting, using gravity to propel her. And she ran like the wind.

“Smart woman,” He whispered, smiling at his understatement.

Lee looked upward into the blue sky. “Jenn’s away safely. Thank You.” He turned his attention to the work at hand. Building a goon trap.