Laura was going to get three people killed, including herself, and she would never know why. Even though she was in excellent shape, she was having trouble keeping her breathing even as they walked up the mountain. The air kept catching in her lungs, and she felt like no matter how deep she sucked it in it just wasn’t reaching her organs. Laura had never come close to drowning, but this had to be what it felt like. It just had to be.
Laura began moving them away from the river, into where the trees were thicker. The noise was louder in here, too. Or at least it should be. There should be birds and insects and squirrels and the noises from all the animals who lived in these wild woods. But all Laura could hear was her heart pounding.
Her despair was a train, roaring through and blowing its horn. The train really ought to slow down, but it wouldn’t. It just gained speed and shot off steam and plowed through whatever might be on the tracks.
She stopped walking. She couldn’t move another foot. Not right now.
“Laura?” Seth was there, with Abby, one of his warm hands on her shoulder.
She looked at the ground, afraid to meet his eyes. “Josh did this. Mahoney knew Josh. Knew about the key. Somehow the man I loved did something that is going to get us all killed.”
Laura hated the tears running down her face. She wiped them off, trying not to sniffle too loudly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We don’t have time for this. I’m sorry.” Laura felt calmer just having her fears out in the open. “Okay. I’m done now.”
Laura started walking again, away from Seth’s warm hand.
“Will you tell me about your husband?” He was walking behind her again.
Laura smiled as a wave of bittersweet memories came over her. She found that she wanted to tell Seth about Josh. She had done a lot of healing in the last few months. “Sure. I left the mountain when I was eighteen. I went to college in Denver and met Josh my freshman year.”
Laura flushed, feeling self-conscious at this next part. It made her sound naive. Too simple. But it was the truth, and Laura treasured the way it had all just seemed to happen. “He was the first friend I made. He was my first boyfriend. He proposed our junior year and we married the summer after we graduated. We had Abby two years later. He died eighteen months ago.”
Laura’s legs were moving on autopilot at this point. Her body was walking through the trees on her mountain but her mind was back in Denver. Back in that time of her life when things spiraled out of control. When nothing she did could make anything better. Her husband had been killed in a freak accident. Her daughter would never know her father, all because Josh was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was when Laura had realized her dad was right and the outside world was not for people like them.
“My dad came off the mountain to get me. Again. He hadn’t left since my parents died, except to buy supplies in town. When I called him, I thought I’d have to leave a message. Wait until he went to town and had a signal. But he was in town when I called.” Laura smiled remembering her shock at hearing her dad’s voice over the line. “When I told him that Josh was dead he said he was on his way. To hold on because he was coming. And, you know what, he did. He was there before it got dark, and I didn’t have to face a night alone. He held me and told me he loved me and that everything would be okay.”
Laura was jerked back into the present when Seth put his hand back on her shoulder. Suddenly, she wasn’t in that awful time. No, she was on her mountain. She could hear the birds and smell the pine. And the faint scent of smoke from the fire that was coming up to get them.
“I’m sorry, Laura. You were right about Malcolm being a good man.” It was the first time Seth had not called her dad Old Man Grant. “He sounds like a very, very good man. One who was misunderstood.”
“He was. He was so gentle, Seth. And hurt. He was just a hurt man doing his very best. Trying so hard.”
Seth nodded. “Tell me more about Josh?”
“He was a good man, too. He was. I know it sounds like I married the first man who gave me the time of day, but it wasn’t like that. He took the time to get to know my dad. He came up to the mountain and appreciated the world my father had made. He understood that I was the product of how I was raised, and he never tried to change me. When I just wanted to stay home, not socialize, he stayed right home with me. Josh never made me feel weird. Or deficient.”
There was a silence and then Seth’s voice sounded almost choked. “I’m really glad you found a man like that.” Laura wondered what he was feeling to make his tone sound like that. They walked for a bit, the quiet almost soothing after the rawness of her words.
Seth spoke again, his tone causal. “What did you two do for careers after college?”
“Josh was an accountant. He worked at a big firm in Denver. I majored in biology. I worked in a lab until I got pregnant with Abby, and then I stayed home.”
“An accountant? Did he ever talk about his clients?”
Laura smiled. “He tried a couple of times, but it was honestly the most boring stuff I’d ever heard. And I say that as a woman who spent years studying single-cell organisms. It wasn’t at all exciting or dangerous.”
They walked in silence a bit more. Then Seth’s voice was hesitant. Timid, almost. “Laura?”
She already knew she wasn’t going to like this question. Laura felt the pieces of that brick protein bar she had eaten make themselves known in her stomach. “Yeah?”
“How did Josh die?”
The brick pieces swirled and then sank. Hard. “He was mugged. From what the police said, someone shot him while he was walking from his office to his car in the parking garage. His watch and wallet were stolen.” She stopped and swallowed, slow and deliberate, trying desperately to calm the storm in her belly. “And his wedding ring. His wedding ring was also stolen.”
“I’m sorry, Laura. I’m really, really sorry.”
She had heard that a lot in the days after Josh died. From his coworkers and his friends. From her old coworkers. But from Seth it seemed genuine. And it actually helped a little. “Thank you.”
“Thanks for telling me.” He sounded sincere. Laura knew he was. It was nice.
Laura felt ready to leave the past behind and work on the right now. Plus, she needed to focus all her attention on her surroundings. If they were walking into a trap, or a fire, Laura wanted as much notice as possible. Her dad had always stressed the importance of focusing on the task at hand. And she had a major one right now.
She wasn’t going to let anyone down.
“I know we’re not close to the top,” Seth said, “but I can definitely tell we’re making progress. The ground is a lot steeper here. I feel like we’re walking up a ramp.”
Laura appreciated the change of subject. The lifting of mood. She was more than happy to play along with the subject change. Laura smiled at his observation. “Yeah, it’s going to stay this steep until we get to the top.” She had a sudden mental image of what they must look like, the three of them climbing up a mountain. Fleeing the bad guys. She started to giggle as her mind took the picture and added to it.
“Um, Laura, what’s so funny?” He sounded almost scared, like he was afraid she had crossed that thin line between sane and not so much.
“Nothing. I just suddenly realized we probably look a lot like the ending of The Sound of Music. You know, fleeing through the mountains?”
Laura turned to look at Seth and saw that he was also smiling. “Huh. Well, since that movie ended happily, I think I like the comparison. Don’t ask me to sing, though.”
Seth was smiling and playing along in their conversation about musicals and singing. Abby was still sleeping, and his arms were relaxed as they held her.
Sucking in a deep breath of air, he froze. Smoke. He was definitely smelling smoke stronger than before. He looked up, but could only see blue sky through the tree branches. Laura had done a great job of keeping them in the thicker parts of the mountain, so Seth couldn’t see all around. He couldn’t even tell which direction the smoke was coming from. He bent down and picked up a dry brown leaf. Letting it drop from above his head, he noted the direction it went as it fell to the ground.
Laura watched him, her expression some kind of grim understanding. It did not do anything to appease the dread building. “You smell it, too, huh?” She sounded like she knew the answer but dreaded hearing it anyway.
“The smoke? Oh, yeah. How long have you been picking it up?”
Laura shrugged. “Not long. I would get the occasional whiff here and there, but the strong hit of smoke didn’t start until the last few minutes.”
She looked at the ground where his leaf had fallen to blend in with all the others. “The wind is blowing the wrong direction.”
He knew what she meant. If the wind was blowing the scent of smoke in, then it was wafting away from the fire, which should be behind them. Straight behind them as they moved up. But the leaf had blown to the side. From where the wall of rock cliff was. “Yeah. That can mean a couple of things.”
Seth might not know this mountain like Laura did, but he knew about fires and how they spread. Traveled. Changed and charged and consumed. Destroyed. Killed. “One. Instead of moving up the mountain evenly, the fire has moved up a lot faster on the side bordered by the rock wall.”
“And so it is almost racing us up the mountain. And winning.”
Yeah, she got it, all right. “Two. There’s more than one fire.”
Laura’s brown eyes darkened, and Seth knew that she understood him. Her voice was almost toneless when she spoke. “You think those psychos set a fire to try to smoke us out. Or burn us up.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s actually pretty smart. With the big blaze going, their fire would not be noticeable. People will just think it’s part of the original blaze. Plus, it’s an efficient way to cover a large search area.”
“And by cover, you mean it’s a good way to force us out of hiding so they can kill us.” Her voice wasn’t toneless now.
“Hey, Laura, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” Abby stirred as Seth moved closer to her mother, but he didn’t stop. Holding the child with one arm, he used the other to reach out and pull Laura into a hug. She came easily, putting her arms around him, sandwiching Abby in the middle. Laura buried her face in Abby’s hair, and Seth heard her breathe in deeply. Shakily. Abby’s eyes opened. She moved her arms from around Seth’s neck and turned to wrap them around her mom.
Laura turned the group hug into her holding Abby. Once she had her daughter, Laura stepped away. Not far, but Seth could no longer feel her body heat. And he no longer had that sweet child against his chest. He found he missed both very much.
Abby was looking at Laura and Laura was murmuring something into Abby’s ear. It sounded motherly and warm. Reassuring. Whatever fears Laura had, she set them aside for her daughter. She calmed her child and made her feel safe. Seth wished he had the ability to do that for Laura.
Abby kissed Laura’s cheek and said something to her mom. Smiling, Laura kissed the girl back and then set her down on her feet, keeping hold of her hand. “Abby says she wants to walk for a while.”
Seth looked at the ground, concerned. Laura smiled, seeming to read his mind. “She’ll be fine. She’s more than used to exploring the mountain with me.”
Seth couldn’t stop his smile. “Are you going to lead the way, Miss Abigail?” Seth kept his voice light and teasing, not wanting to undo any of the work that Laura had just done.
“Shhhh. Quiet game.” She tried to whisper. Tried, because it was the loudest whisper Seth had ever heard. It made him smile, for real.
Laura’s smile looked less real and more worried. The fire. “What should we do, Seth?”
“We know for sure the fire is behind us. It’s also coming from the direction of the rock wall. That means the river is still our best Plan B. I say we keep going up the mountain, but maybe stay just a little closer to the river. Just in case.”
Laura nodded and started walking. Seth noted that she headed more in the direction of the edge of the trees than she had been before. She was slowly angling them closer to the river. That thing was a beast the last time Seth had seen it. Just a couple of weeks ago. But if it came down to men with guns, a blazing inferno or that river, well, he picked the river.
He really hoped it did not come down to those choices.
Abby was keeping pace with her mom really well. And she wasn’t making much noise at all. It seemed all the women in Malcolm Grant’s family knew how to handle themselves out in nature. That made sense. For all she might have disliked her dad’s hermit ways, Laura had proven to be very much his daughter. She was surely teaching her own daughter the same.
And Seth was beginning to understand the quiet dignity they all had as a result of this way of life.
They were at the edge of the tree line now. Still under cover, but Seth could see the open meadow Laura had talked about. It was beautiful. He couldn’t see the river, or hear it, but he felt reassured knowing that it was there. Just across the open ground.
Just like God is. His heart was hit with the conviction and he missed a step. Laura turned to look at him, and he waved her on. Just as he had God. How many times had Seth assumed that God was not here simply because he could not see Him? Or hear Him.
Seth had been raised in the church. His parents had taught him better. Had shown him better. And still, he had forgotten too many times to count.
But Seth could feel Him now. Seth had come up this mountain, been shot at and was currently trapped by man and nature. If there was ever a time that Seth should have felt completely alone, it was now. But he didn’t. He could feel the Lord walking with him. He just knew he, Laura and Abby were not alone in this thing. They just weren’t.
The sun was out and shining, and Seth had to squint his eyes. The inner forest had been dark, even though it was the middle of the day. Coming to open ground was shocking in its brightness. His eyes adjusted, and Seth was able to pick up some of the finer details. The small plants growing in the open clearing were blowing slightly in the breeze. The same breeze that was sending one or more fires right at them. There was a sprinkling of color from the scattered flowers that were starting to bloom. The sun was reflecting off—
Seth didn’t think, he just reached out and grabbed Laura’s arm, the one that was holding Abby’s hand. “We have to hide. Now. Quietly.”
Laura did not waste time looking around, though Seth knew she must have wanted to see what was making him act like this. Instead, she picked up Abby and put a finger over Abby’s lips. Her face was so stern that even Seth felt the urge to shush and stay shushed.
Laura began to walk deeper into the forest, quickly but quietly. Seth followed, turning frequently to look behind him. The trees were enveloping them and any view of that open area and light was gone. But Seth wasn’t hiding from grass and light.
Laura stopped and looked at the trees, and Seth wondered yet again how she was able to know where she was based simply off of a bunch of trees. He was a skilled forester and they all looked the same to him. He could navigate using a compass. Rivers. The stars. But he did not see how one could navigate in a forest full of identical trees.
She turned sharply and it felt like she was backtracking a bit. Seth didn’t care, so long as she was taking them somewhere safe. Somewhere hidden. Or at least somewhere that was not here. Seth turned and saw the shine. Again. Except it wasn’t a shine. It was a reflection. Sun on something metal. Something that didn’t grow on this mountain. And it was heading into the forest. With them.
Someone with a gun was coming their way.