A Forest of Corpses (16 page)

"Wild turkeys? Yeah, they're being reintroduced," I said, smiling along with him. "Though there are some people who say they weren't native. I don't believe it. They've found evidence of them in the Pleistocene era. Wow. I'm jealous.

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A Forest of Corpses

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First deer, now turkey." I stepped up to him and slipped my arms around his waist, leaning my pelvis against his. "Are you still sorry you came?"

"Sorry, no—" He caught my look. "Okay, maybe I was a bit."

"But it's good now?"

He hugged me back. "It's good. Now, are you going to feed me, boy?"

"Yes, Sir."

I was right. We made good time. We adopted a rhythm that didn't waste energy, filling up our canteen with water treated with our purification tablets, eating handfuls of trail mix while staying on the move. We were coming up on the point where we would have to turn back. One more day going in, then turn around so we could get back on schedule. We had a couple of days of leeway, but I knew it was better to have those days back at home. I wanted to write up a blog of everything that had happened in our hike—well, almost everything, I amended. I didn't plan on sharing our nights with anyone. I smiled at the memories. I sensed Alex was coming back. I hoped so. Ever since he had tracked me down in Los Angeles, convinced me he loved me and I came back with him, there had been a reticence in him. Small, but it was there. I loved the man who had come back for me, showing his willingness to change for me.

But still, he refused to touch me in the way I wanted—no, needed. He didn't believe me when I said I wanted his pain, his control. Instead he handled me like fragile glass, and while his touch always aroused me and I had never been 149

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more satisfied as a lover, I wanted my Alex back. The one sure enough in his needs to take control and bind me to him both physically and emotionally. Only rarely did he even use restraints on me anymore. I missed the days when he would put me in his sling or flog me to show me just how much I belonged to him, and him alone.

It wasn't my place to ask. He was my Master and it had to come from him. But oh, I missed it so when he was sure of himself.

Around us, the forest grew quiet as the heat of the day grew. Finally, we almost reached the point where we would have to turn around to make it back on our time schedule.

The next time we stopped for a brief rest I knew it was nearly time. Our eyes met. "Another half hour, then head home?"

I was surprised when Alex seemed reluctant to agree. I put my hand on his cotton-covered arm. "What, Alex?"

At first I didn't think he was going to answer me, then he shrugged and looped his arm around my shoulder, drawing me against him. I leaned my head against his chest, relaxing in the place I wanted to be most of all. I could feel the soft beat of his heart and his breath stir the hair on my head.

"You're not going to believe this, but I'm sorry to see this end."

My heart lifted and I raised my face to look up into his.

"Really?"

"Yah, really. Surprise, huh? But it's been good. When was the last time we got to spend this much time together, 150

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neither one of us being called away or answering to anyone else?"

I rubbed his chest and leaned up to kiss him. When we finished both of our hearts were beating a little faster. I laid my head back on his chest and inhaled his wonderful smell, playing with a button of his shirt.

"I love you, Sir."

"I love you, Jason Zachary."

I always knew he did, his actions told me so, but it was so rare for him to say it aloud. I never wanted this moment to end. If I could have suspended time right then I would have.

Lived like a creature trapped in amber forever, the world a golden blur beyond me, where it couldn't touch me or him ever again.

We separated and Alex took my chin in his big hands. "You know how special you are, don't you, Jay?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Come on. Just a little while more. We'll come back. Maybe later this year. Or if not here, maybe someplace else. Hawaii.

Canada. Would you like that?"

I tried to imagine us on a crowded beach at Waikiki and couldn't. Maybe one of the other islands. Someplace quieter.

Or Canada. They had gay marriage. Not that I ever expected Alex and I would marry. I knew he never wanted to do that ever again, but to be in a place that let that happen and it was okay, that would be nice. "With you? Anywhere."

When ten minutes later he saw movement in a nearby tree, he was the one who pointed it out to me. It was a 151

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Western Wood Pewee. When I identified the common woodland bird he grinned.

"Tell me it's really rare and a once in a lifetime sighting."

"Of course it is. I'll call Audubon as soon as we get back.

They'll wri—"

His hand on my arm tightened, stopping me in mid-word.

In the silence an out of place sound came from ahead of us.

An engine.

"What is it?" I asked.

"There's no road around here, is there?"

"No..." I frowned. "Not for another twenty miles at least, and not in that direction. What do you think it is?"

I could almost see Alex, my doting lover, vanish, replaced by Detective Spider, the uber efficient and unemotional homicide cop. Alex had spoken sometimes of how his gut was good at giving him early warnings, that even when everything seemed good, when his gut told him otherwise, he'd learned to listen to it.

Is that what he was doing now?

"I don't know," he finally said. "But I don't like it."

Neither did I. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

But I followed him when he left our path and headed south, away from the path we had planned to take. Towards the rumbling engine noise.

The first thing I noticed was an unnatural looking clearing open up where there should have been dense forest. And this wasn't the result of a natural culling. That kind of occurrence would have left a lot of smaller, child trees ready to fill the gap. That hadn't happened here. Instead, it looked like a few 152

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select trees had been physically removed. There weren't any fallen giants anywhere, no understory at all, no broken or overgrown nursery logs feeding new growth out of their decay. This area had been clear cut. That meant heavy-handed human activity at work. An errant breeze brought the rank smell of smoke and diesel fuel over the more natural odors of things growing.

Goose bumps riddled my flesh as I watched Alex drop into a crouch behind a thick fir tree. Without a word, he dragged me down beside him. When I recognized the rows of nearly four-foot tall plants I knew we'd stumbled onto something that could get us killed. I couldn't begin to guess how many marijuana plants there were in the clearing. Hundreds maybe.

God, maybe even thousands. Maybe more. Alex shot me a warning look and I shrank back into the shadow of a cluster of firs.

I knew enough not to speak.

Over the sporadic sound of a motor that sounded too loud to be a car I could make out another, more familiar sound.

Running water. One of the ubiquitous creeks that criss-crossed the Matilija wilderness was nearby.

Alex heard it, too. Still without a word he led us toward the sound. Maybe he figured where there was water there was likely to be more growth to help conceal us. Conceal us from the owner of the truck and the illegal grow-op.

With less than a foot between us we slipped over the lip of a steep, vine and tree clogged ravine. Half sliding, half stumbling, we made our way down to the bottom. The rush of fast moving water grew louder and I remembered hearing 153

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that snow fall in the mountains had been higher than normal the last winter, so run offs would have been high. Like the other streams we had crossed, that meant more dead falls created by downed trees to trip unwary feet.

But this ravine was far worse than the last few we had traversed, and I knew where the trees that had been removed from the clearing above us had been put. The ravine was riddled with solid trunks that had water backed up behind them, creating treacherous pools that would have roots ready to tangle our feet, and enough current to snatch us away and sweep us into those dead falls. Once caught it would be damn hard to pull free. Drowning would be fast when you got knocked around and battered by limbs and stone. I began to wonder what was more dangerous, the rushing water below us or the men I knew would be armed behind us.

I wanted to tell Alex we needed to be careful, but I didn't dare speak. He wasn't rushing though, and for that I was thankful. I tried not to, but the sense of urgency I felt from Alex scared me and it was hard to move slowly when the dangers behind us were unknown.

My foot slipped on a tangle of ivy and roots nearly sending me headlong down the slope. Only a last minute grab at a leaning aspen kept me from rolling down the treacherous incline. The thin trunk bent under my weight but held, and I ended up on my rump on stony hard ground, slamming into it so hard my teeth clicked and I nipped my tongue, barely suppressing a yelp of pain.

Finally, we reached the bottom and crouched on the damp, but relatively smooth, surface of a large, glacier-carved 154

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boulder. On three sides water foamed and sucked as it hurried down the mountain on its hazardous way to the ocean hundreds of miles away. I watched a branch twist and bob in the current a few feet from my feet. It finally broke free and swirled away, only to be caught up by another submerged branch.

Alex looked back at me. The look we traded said it all. We needed to get over that rushing water. The other side represented more safety than this side did. But how to navigate the chaotic, fast-flowing water?

I looked up at the vault of cerulean above us. Clouds dusted the deepening blue of a mid-afternoon sky. We might have five hours of daylight left. We sure as hell couldn't be down here when night fell.

We backtracked to the shore and clambered over ground constantly shifting under our feet, slimed by algae and pea sand made unstable by the fast moving water. We were soon soaked to the knees, shivering and beginning to tire. But a quick look back showed us the way was clear. Maybe we hadn't been spotted.

Ahead, a natural bridge of stones led us finally to the other side.

Alex waited for me to come up beside him. "Check your phone. You got a signal?"

I did as ordered. The phone was seeking...seeking, but couldn't lock on a signal. Not surprising. Disappointing, but not surprising. We were too far down in a ravine surrounded by rock below and trees above, to pick up anything.

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"We have to keep going," Alex said. His whole body was tense, only his eyes never stopped moving, continually scanning, looking everywhere for signs we'd been spotted.

That we were being hunted. "Keep trying the phone. As soon as you get a signal give them our coordinates, tell them to move fast."

I nodded and slipped the iPhone into my shirt pocket, where it would hopefully stay dry and I could check it easily.

Alex spotted it first. Maybe it was his cop eye that let him see the anomaly. He grabbed my arm and pointed downstream on the side we had just left.

"Hold on, I need to go take a look at that."

"What is it?"

"I don't know. But I want you to stay here while I check it out."

* * * *

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Ice water squelched in my Merrells as I retraced my path back over to the other side. Jason was right on my heels, ignoring my orders to stay put. I'd deal with him and his disobedience later. Right now I had to investigate what I had spotted. I wasn't exactly sure what I had seen: a splash of color out of place, an odd unnatural shape. Jason might be good at finding the things that did belong, but I'd spent enough time in the forest now to see things that didn't.

I kept continuously scanning everywhere, my gaze making passes over both sides of the stream, and back the way we had come. Back toward the concealed grow-op we'd stumbled upon. I hadn't wanted to believe it. I knew a couple of them had been found in recent years, both run by Mexican cartel connected locals. I remembered the shot the bikers reported hearing. Could it have been linked to that? There were other hikers up here. What if someone else stumbled on this? I never met a drug dealer who wasn't heavily armed. Why would this bunch be any different?

The midday air was somnolent, heat shimmered off the sun-baked rocks, shards of light danced off the restless water straight into the back of my eyes. I wished I could pull out my sunglasses, but I didn't want to risk missing anything by cutting down my sight. So I squinted and endured peering through my regular glasses. I glared back at Jason, reminding him he was supposed to stay back.

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"What is it?" Jason repeated. "I don't see—" Then he did.

"Is that a shirt?" His voice rose.

Plaid, red and blue, which had stood out from the green background as something alien. I was leading us now, my protective instinct kicking in. I didn't want Jason anywhere near this until I knew what 'this' was. Since I could hardly send him to the other room, I had to be satisfied to have him behind me. I waved him to stay and this time he obeyed.

Maybe he was getting the same uneasy feeling I was.

A side pool of motionless water had been cut off from the faster moving stream by a twist of land and a pile of fallen branches that had washed down over the spring thaw and been caught up by a pile of rocks. Between the rocks and the fallen branches, an effective natural dam had formed. Like the pool we had played around in earlier in our hike, this water ranged from a few inches to knee deep in spots. Dark shapes darted through the depths. Trout? What other kinds of fish existed up here? I stepped closer to the mass of tree branches.