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Rene and I looked over the map and made notes of the Forest Service Roads we needed to take to get to our target area. I'd been keeping track of the time we'd been on the road. If we went more than three and a half hours, we'd gone too far. That could mean we had chosen the wrong roads or the wrong location, but it was all we had to go on.
We stuck to the roads, knowing they wouldn't have been able to hike far with Chance's cast or if they knocked him out and had to carry him. Jerry's laziness was obvious, so I counted on him taking the easy way out of everything.
It was dark, and the hi-beams only lit the narrow road through the forest. For the past half hour, ash had been coating the windshield making it difficult to see much of anything. "With my luck, I'll run into him," I quipped.
Rene and I decided to switch places every half hour. Both driving and looking in these conditions required intense concentration. Rene was driving, and I was looking. "Stop the car," I said.
My feet hit the ground before the vehicle completely stopped. "Chance." I called while I fished in the pack for a flashlight. The falling ash made visibility only about twenty feet. I thought I'd seen someone walking down the road toward us. I heard Rene get out of the truck.
I headed up the road. On the drive, Rene warned me that there could be creatures out here running from the fire. The thought crossed my mind, but I was sure I saw a person wearing clothes.
I ran up the road, sweeping the flashlight from side to side. I crashed into something and fell backwards dropping my light. "City Girl, you're gonna be the death of me," a familiar voice said.
When Rene caught up with us, I could see Chance lying in the road. I crawled over to him. "Chance, are you OK? Did they hurt you?"
"I'm fine. Ankle's broken, but you already knew about that," he said. I helped him to a sitting position. "Hi, Rene. Thanks for the help."
Rene went back to the truck to get water for Chance and, I think, to give Chance and me a moment alone. "How did you find me, City Girl?"
"It's a long story. I think we'd better start back. We need to call off lots of people when we're back in cell coverage."
I helped him up, and we walked back to the truck arm in arm. "Tell me what you need, Chance," Rene said. "I'll give it to you if we have it."
"Water first," Chance said, downing the bottle of water Rene handed him then dissolving in a fit of coughing. Chance got in the passenger side and Rene climbed in back.
In the truck lights I could see that Chance had some bruises on his face. One eye was pretty swollen. I knew how tough he was, so I didn't ask about it. When we got back to the city, our first stop would be the emergency room. I wasn't planning to ask if he thought he needed to get checked out. I turned the truck around and headed back to town. "Rene, check your phone every few minutes. We'll stop when we have coverage so we can let everyone know we found him."
"Yes, ma'am. I'll let you know."
"I've only told folks the minimum to get them to help me find you. I've warned Tom and Jim that they could be in danger."
"I suspect you want to know how I ended up out here." He started coughing again. "Sorry. I've inhaled a lot of smoke."
"You know what," I said. "It's probably best if you don't talk too much. Let me tell you what we know and ask some questions." He nodded and sipped at the new bottle of water Rene handed him.
"We know Helen checked out Saturday night. I'm guessing the front desk told you the same thing. Is Jerry the one that did this?"
He nodded in the affirmative. "He had help."
"We figured," I said. “I assume this has something to do with what Tom and I found in the woods."
"I think so," Chance said.
I continued explaining what we did when we realized he was missing. For his part, Chance kept his answers short, but even that caused a lot of coughing.
"I've got signal," Rene said, holding his phone up.
I stopped at the first wide spot in the road and pulled out my phone. "Rene, you call Loren. I'll call Tom."
"Hi, Tom. Where are you?" It was so noisy I couldn't hear him at all. "I'll text," I said and ended the call. My message said, "We found Chance. He's OK. Taking him to the hospital to get checked out."
"Call Jim." The connection had the same noise as my call to Tom. They were probably on their way together. I left a message. "Jim, we found Chance. He's OK but I’m taking him to the hospital to get checked out."
"No hospital," Chance said in a whisper that sort of turned my insides to mush. I could feel a blush creeping up my cheeks. Nothing about this situation should be sexy, but apparently my body disagreed.
"Like the voice, huh?" he asked.
"I told Tom as much as I could, Jim knows less. I haven't been able to talk to them for a while. I'm not sure, but I suspect Tom called out the Wilkins’ Gap SAR," I said. "He was going to contact the firefighters working the fire out here and have them keep a look out for you. He was going to run Jerry's plate too. I suspect he and Jim are together on their way here."
"Loren rounded up some of the cryptid hunters that were still at the hotel," Rene said. "They were on their way too. I reached them. They're heading back to the hotel."
"I want to know how you figured out where to find me, but not now," Chance said, coughing again.
"Just rest, we'll go through everything after we make sure you're all right."
"No hospital," Chance said.
I nodded but the hospital was still my next stop. We just made it back to the highway, when there were bright lights above us in the sky. "What the fudge?"
"Pull over," Chance said.
"I have a gun," Rene said. "Do you want it, Chance?"
"No. I'm pretty sure these are the good guys. I'm betting there are more of Everly's fan club on that chopper."
We watched as a helicopter landed in the road and two figures got out. "Everly?" Is that you?"
"It's Tom," I said, climbing out of the truck and running into Tom's arms with enough force to nearly knock him off his feet.
"How on Earth did you find us?" I asked. I let go of Tom and moved over to hug Jim who was standing beside him.
"Let's get out of the road so they can take off. "Do you have room for us?"
"Sure, Come on. I'm planning to take Chance to the hospital, but he doesn't want to go. He's coughing a lot, and someone used his face for a punching bag."
Tom stopped walking. "How are you, Everly? You, not chance?"
"I'm OK. Tired but relieved we found him so quickly. This is all just a big confused mess, but we can sort it all out now that everyone's safe."
I was so happy to have Tom and Jim there to take over. I was quickly learning that I hated being responsible for anyone else's safety.