Eric spun and jogged to where he’d been trying to rest. He tripped over the end of his sleeping bag and stopped.
No way. He turned in the same slow motion as Morgan. His backpack was gone, as well. How had someone gotten past them?
“He’s not working alone.” Morgan stepped closer, her voice grim. She held up a watertight bag. “Food was in the tree to protect it from animals and we have the water we filtered earlier, but...”
As she trailed off, Eric glanced toward the cottonwood about fifty feet from where he’d been lying before his anonymous attacker struck. The shadow of the pack that held his food and water filtration kit still hung there. They had food. They had water and the ability to purify more given enough time, but nothing else. No GPS, no maps, no communication.
In the literal middle of nowhere, they were completely cutoff and at the mercy of whoever was clearly trying to send them a deadly message. Eric’s lungs burned with the reminder.
That wasn’t the worst part. He’d lowered his guard, had failed to protect his sister and Morgan. If he’d been taken out tonight because he wasn’t paying attention, there would be no one left to spearhead the search for Hannah... And there was no telling what a sadistic madman would do to Morgan in the backcountry with Eric out of the way.
“Eric?”
He scratched his stiff neck and turned to her. “Well, you wondered why they didn’t try to kill us. Looks like they opted for the slow way.”
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Morgan lifted her face to the clouds. She was either praying or trying to think of a way out of this. If the past was an indicator, she was praying.
“How long before they organize a search party for a missing ranger?”
“Communication can be spotty this far out, especially if the clouds hang on, and I’m technically on vacation. Still, they’ll expect contact. I’d guess it will be about twenty-four hours before they worry.” Morgan slowly lowered her head to meet his gaze. “I just realized something, though.”
She was standing exceptionally close, so close he could make out her features, even in the semidarkness. He could feel her warmth. In spite of several days in the backcountry, the faintest scent of citrus still clung to her, probably shampoo or...
Eric took one step away. What kind of idiot was he, noticing such things right now? He cleared his throat. “Tell me you realized something good.”
She gave a small shake of her head. “I was out there alone while you slept. No one came at me.”
His gut twisted into freefall the same way it had when the call came about his parents’ deaths, in the same way it had when he realized Hannah was really gone. “I’m the target.” He watched Morgan pace toward her sleeping bag. “Unless taking me out would make you vulnerable? Someone could be preying on...on females.” Nausea clinched his gut. Preying on his sister.
Morgan turned away and rolled up her gear with quick, jerky movements. Even from this distance in the faint dark, there was a tense anger about her motions, one he couldn’t fault her for. Anger, pain and the edge of fear gnawed at him, too.
But there was no time to dwell on what felt like an unfolding horror movie. They had to get moving and conceal their location. Following her lead, he crafted a makeshift pack from his sleeping bag, then stowed his food inside.
If he kept moving, he couldn’t think, couldn’t imagine his sister in the hands of a madman.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. The words cycled over and over. Could he risk truly believing them? Because believing meant he couldn’t help himself and Morgan or Hannah.
Only God could.
No. Eric was God’s boots on the ground, and he had to keep moving or Hannah was lost forever.
Before he finished packing, Morgan was at his side, her bundled sleeping bag slung over her shoulder, hand resting on the grip of her pistol at her hip.
He’d stashed his gun in his pack before bedding down. With his pack gone, only one of them was armed, and if he had to guess, all Morgan had for ammunition was the bullets in her magazine. The bad news kept snowballing.
“I don’t know if you’re the target or if I am, and it doesn’t matter. Our biggest priority is making an almost three-day hike out of here as quickly as possible, because without communication...” She sighed heavily and hefted her bag higher onto her shoulder. “You didn’t happen to keep a flashlight in with your food did you?”
“Nope.”
“Figures.” She stepped slowly toward the river. “All I have is a small LED light, but using it is dangerous. We can hike a little ways along the creek edge, but we’ll have to move slowly and try to retrace our steps. No telling where holes or critters are hiding. One wrong step, and we’re in trouble. There’s no way for me to carry you out of here, and I doubt you want to hike out with me on your back either.”
With the ascents and descents they’d made over the past three days, the thought of one of them injured was more than he was ready to contemplate.
Morgan eyed the sky. To the northwest, stars began to peek out and the full moon brightened the sky. Light would be both a blessing and a curse.
Morgan made a slow turn and faced south, away from the direction they’d hiked for the past few days. “Actually, I have a better idea.”
“I’m game for anything.”
“Whoever is following expects us to retrace our steps and hike out. It will be a hard trek with only what we have left. We have no extra water and no time to wait for more to settle before we have to get moving. What if we do the unexpected?”
“Which is...?”
“We parallel the path you originally planned to take with Hannah and make our way to the Colorado. There’s a cache with provisions where Lava Creek comes out. If the river isn’t too high for it after all of the rains, we can flag down some rafters and hitch a ride or get a message out. Get more people searching, get some supplies, then return and resume our original search path. It will cost us a couple of days, but it might be our best option.” She hefted her bag and started walking. “We’ll have to stay out of sight and not right along the creek. It will take twice as long and be a tough slog, but it’s doable.”
He fell into step behind Morgan, watching her take step by methodical step along a nonexistent trail. Her head swiveled as she searched the ground in the ever-increasing moonlight, probably watching for snakes and hidden holes.
Eric exhaled and tore his eyes from her to watch the area around them. Turning away from their planned search route was harder than he expected, his muscles aching to continue the search for Hannah. But he had to follow Morgan and get to safety. They were in direr straits than she’d verbalized, with a long trek ahead of them and only one day’s worth of water each. Any delay in getting to the river and neither they nor Hannah would make it out of the backcountry alive.
Adrenaline had long ago worn off, and the aftermath was not Morgan’s friend.
They’d been walking for two hours at a century-old tortoise’s pace. Every muscle ached. The gnawing anxiety of being trapped in the backcountry with a stalker and no way to call for help dogged every step. And Eric’s steady breathing close on her boot heels layered the past over every thought.
What would life be like if he’d been willing to stay here with her? If she’d been willing to pack everything to go with him?
She rolled her shoulders and kept her eyes on the ground. Focus. It was her job to get them out of this alive, to lead them to the river and help.
Their nighttime journey was doubly tough when past memories clashed swords with present danger. They weren’t alone out here. Someone was tailing them, toying with them. Every theory she came up with shattered under one question: Why keep them alive when killing them would be easier?
Somewhere nearby was a small cave with a barely visible opening etched into the rock face. It would offer them a place to rest and maybe to hide, at least until they could set off with more energy.
Morgan brushed her fingers across the grip of her Glock, taking a small measure of comfort from its weight at her side. The magazine held only fifteen rounds.
Fifteen rounds to protect them from dangerous animals...or dangerous humans.
A shove from behind pushed her forward another step.
“Why’d you stop?” Eric edged around to stand beside her.
She must have slowed, dragged by her thoughts. “We have to break soon. If we don’t rest, we’re never going to make it through this.” She glanced around. “If I’m not totally missing my mark and walking in circles, there’s a cave nearby. The bend in the creek back there is the landmark for it.” She stepped closer to the rock face, searching for a shadow to indicate the entrance.
There. “It’s a tight squeeze in, but that’s in our favor.”
They tromped the last hundred yards, turning sideways to slip into the darkness. Morgan produced her pocket flashlight, finally feeling she could use it without giving away their location. She swept the area. No animals. No spiders. No snakes. At least not in plain sight, and she sure wasn’t going on the hunt for one.
She dropped her bedroll, tension easing for the first time in hours. For the moment, they were safe, hidden from view and hopefully out of harm’s way. “I think we’re clear.”
Eric slid his makeshift pack from his shoulder, then settled to the ground beside it, rubbing his neck. He’d probably wrenched it during the attack. “Far as I could tell, nobody followed us. Tough to hear, but I didn’t see anything suspicious.”
Neither of them had seen anything at the campsite either. “I say we rest here and wait for daylight. Grab something to eat and keep going. The river’s too muddy here to filter water from it, so we have to go with what we’ve got. Once we reach the river there’s a cache with MREs and water so we won’t have to wait hours to filter it.” No ammo and no radio, but the knowledge that supplies lay ahead at least offered hope...even if the food was military rations.
“Mmm... MREs. Nothing like ‘Mr. E’ to make life better.” Sarcasm laced Eric’s voice, then he sat forward. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and there’ll be a chili mac. Not the greatest, but it has pound cake. And coffee.”
“You know way too much about this.”
“Hey, everybody has a favorite. I’ve seen guys almost come to blows over chow.” He scratched the side of his nose and stared over her head as though he could see a memory there. “My last deployment, we had a guy who hated chicken. Hated it. Wouldn’t touch the stuff. We’d been in the middle of nowhere forever, living off what was in our rucksacks, so MREs were an oasis in the desert. When we got them, every meal was chicken. Poor guy lived for two weeks on whatever nobody else wanted out of their chow.”
Clearly, he was feeling relief at being tucked out of sight. Either that or this was a coping mechanism. Eric was talking about the past to keep from thinking too much about the present. She could appreciate the motivation behind the words.
He clearly loved the military. Knowing him and his constant drive for adventure, he’d seen and done it all. Morgan sank to the ground across from him, her weary muscles grateful for rest. “What made you want to be a soldier?” They’d never talked about it before. Maybe it was off-limits, too close to the thing that had kept them apart.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one who’d rather talk about anything other than their current dire situation.
Eric didn’t seem to notice her verbal faux pas. At least, he didn’t react to it. He stretched out his legs and rocked his feet from side to side, probably working the kinks out of his ankles. “No fair. I asked you about rangering, years ago. You blocked me. Changed the subject. Complete—”
“Got it.” He’d always been given to exaggeration. It was one of the things she’d fallen in love with. He could make her laugh when no one else could.
For the first time ever, she wanted to tell the truth and confess the fear that had driven her into the wild.
Maybe it was because he was no longer tied to her future. Maybe it was because there were no longer high stakes between them, and he couldn’t call her a coward and then leave the way the man before him had. Maybe it was because he was hurting and scared over Hannah and she wanted to give him something.
Whatever the reason, she was about to tell him the story he’d asked her about so many times.
She was about to trust him.