THIRTY-SEVEN

Mary opened her eyes. A hard white circle of moonlight burned through the black lacework of limbs above her. Joan snored softly beside her, curled against the logs that shielded them from the cabin. Panic shot through Mary. She had not awakened Joan to keep watch; instead, she had fallen asleep herself and both had carelessly dozed away the afternoon and most of the night. Her plan of watching the cabin in shifts had failed. She’d screwed up already. He could have sneaked up on them and slit their throats as they slept. How could she possibly expect to rescue Alex like this?

She rose and peered over the logs. The cabin sat silent in the silver meadow; not even a wisp of smoke seeped from the old chimney. Mary rubbed the sleep from her eyes and touched Joan’s arm.

“Yeah!” Joan jumped awake.

“Have you been asleep the whole time?”

“I woke up about dusk. A big flock of bats or something came swarming out of the chimney.” Joan shrugged. “I guess I fell back to sleep after that. Shit, my foot hurts like hell.”

“Did you see anything besides bats?”

“No. Thank God.”

“No sign of Alex?”

“Mary, if I’d seen Alex, I’d have woken you up,” Joan said testily, rubbing her grotesquely swollen foot.

By the high angle of the moon Mary guessed it was close to midnight. She and Joan had been asleep for hours. What could Ulagu be doing to Alex in the cabin? If indeed Alex was still in the cabin and not buried somewhere in the mountains. She shook her head. Some thoughts were better turned away at the door.

Joan was shivering, although a feverish heat radiated from her body.

“What are we going to do now?” she whimpered.

“I’m not sure.” Mary had hoped to sneak down to the cabin under the cover of night and peek in a window. But Ulagu’s being a trapper had given her pause. She had seen what traps did to an animal’s leg. The thought of those metal teeth snapping into her own flesh made her cold inside. She ignored the sudden queasiness in her stomach and said firmly to Joan, “First we need to see if Alex is really inside. If she is, then we’ll go get her when he’s out checking his traps.”

“What do you mean if Alex is there?”

“Like you said before,” Mary reminded her bluntly. “He could have killed her days ago.”

“But sneaking up and peering inside?” Joan shuddered. “Jeez, Mary. What if you looked in and there he was, staring right back at you?”

Mary did not answer. The sky above them shone like a clear obsidian bowl. It was a hunter’s moon, for sure. All prey would be illuminated tonight. She studied the terrain around the cabin. If she jumped over the logs and ran straight ahead, anyone who happened to be looking outside would see her the instant she left the cover of the trees. Circling around to the front offered no greater advantage, either. So that left the rear. She scowled at the weedy creek that ran across the back of the property. A trapper might have it studded with sets that could break her ankle as easily as snapping a twig. An injury like that would forever destroy whatever slim chance they had. But if she could make it unobserved to the water and then wade down the creek . . . then she might stay hidden until she could sprint across the back field to the cabin. The whole idea made her cold inside, but with Joan so crippled, it seemed like their only hope.

“How about this.” Hastily, before her brain had a chance to reconsider, she blurted out her plan to Joan. “You have to stay up here and be my lookout. If anybody comes out, yell.”

“Yell?” Joan stared at her as if she were insane. “Yell what? Fire? Police? Bloody murder?”

“Anything. Just something to warn me.”

Joan’s mouth curved down in disbelief. “And what will you do then, Mary, when I start yelling? That is, if I could yell. I’m dying of thirst.”

Mary shrugged, her cheeks warming with embarrassment. Out loud, all her plans sounded ludicrous. “Have you got any better ideas?”

Joan scowled at her. Then her expression softened. “No, I don’t guess I do.”

“Okay, then. That’s it.” Mary braced herself. More death might soon be upon your head, she thought, but she couldn’t help that now. As her mother had told her so long ago, sometimes there was no other direction to go but forward.

She tightened the laces on her boots and told Joan: “I’ll take the paint box and bring us some water from the creek. And remember, if you see anyone, yell.”

Joan studied her face, then reached over and touched her cheek. “Please, Mary, promise me one thing. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

With her paint box tucked under her arm, Mary Crow nodded, and slipped into the shadows.

She reached the creek with surprising speed. The brilliant moonlight allowed her to thread her way easily between the trees. Every few moments she glanced at the cabin to see if anyone was sighting down a gun barrel at her, but the yard remained vacant, the cabin eerily silent. As far as she could tell, she was the only creature moving upright on two feet.

In the moonlight the creek rolled like a ribbon of gurgling black ink. It edged the clearing as neatly as a fence, keeping the wild dark tangle of the forest back from the cabin. Mary knelt on its bank and looked for any submerged stumps that a trap might be attached to, but the surface of the water flowed smooth and unbroken. If this creek concealed a trapline, the sets were buried deep. She shoved her paint box beneath a thicket of bearberry as she sat down to remove her boots. Wet shoes might squeak. After she untied the laces, she felt Wynona safe in the pocket of her sweatshirt.

She tucked her shoes beneath a bush and tentatively stuck one foot in the creek. Involuntarily, she gasped. The water pierced her skin like needles and a wet iciness began to numb her legs. If she was going to get there this way, she would have to move fast. She began to hurry forward, but her left foot slipped on a slick, algae-covered rock. For an instant she teetered over the chill water, then, miraculously, she regained her balance. More cautious now, she hunched over and began to creep down the center of the creek as if she were walking a tightwire, arms extended.

She moved carefully, testing the slimy bottom with her toes, waiting with every step for the snap of a trap to clamp down on her flesh. Twice, she felt something slither around her ankles, but she pressed her lips together and waded on through the black water. By the time she stood abreast of the cabin, both legs were numb from the knee down. Slowly, she edged to the bank, then stepped out of the water, lowering herself down among the weeds.

“Wahdoe, Wynona,” she whispered as she peered over the razor-sharp rushes and studied the cabin, yards away. Though the back wall was windowless, the only cover between the creek and the house was a single maple tree. Anybody peering through a missing chink would clearly see her crossing the meadow. She looked up at the hunter’s moon and had to smile at the irony: on one hand she was the hunter, on the other hand she was the prey.

Run! The warning rippled inside her head. If he has a gun you’ll be harder to shoot. Without considering further, she took a last look around, then leapt out of the rushes and dashed across the meadow. Her feet hit the ground like frozen stumps, but she did not break her stride until she dived into the concealing shadows of the chimney, gulping air like someone drowning.

Lungs burning, her body pressed tight against the chimney, she waited. Then she realized she was safe. No one had awakened. No one had seen her. The meadow and the cabin were as silent as they’d ever been. Now she just had to find the right window to look into. Cautiously, she turned and moved toward the corner of the cabin.

Foot by precious foot she slunk along the back wall. A bat swooped low over her head; there was a sudden thick splash in the creek. Dear God, she thought, her heartbeat accelerating. He’s been out setting a trapline. Now he’s coming home. She dropped to the ground and pressed herself against the earth. With the blood rushing through her head she waited for him to lumber dripping from the creek, but the meadow remained empty. When her vision began to blur from staring at the muddy bank she realized that whatever had splashed in the water had nothing to do with her.

Still, she remained on her belly. It would be slower, but down low she would be harder to spot. She crawled along the ground, rising only to press her ear to the cabin to listen for any sounds inside. All she heard was the rattle of her own breath.

Finally she reached the corner. She tried to spot Joan across the meadow, but the woodpile was invisible in the shadows of the forest.

For a moment she lay still, thinking hard. The earth felt warm against her cheek; the sweet aroma of autumn grass filled her nose. This is insane, another voice taunted in her brain. You are an assistant District Attorney for Deckard County, Georgia, not some Cherokee commando.

“Oh, but tonight I am,” she countered silently. “Tonight I am exactly that.”

If she was going to do this, she must do it now. With a final flex of the cramped muscles of her legs, she crept toward the broken window.