Authors: Ribbon of Rain
Chapter1 (16 page)
The three of them slipped out into the dark quiet night and headed north through the forest.
Chapter 7
The trio moved as one through the thick woods.
Kat was in the lead.
Cody brought up the rear.
Jude tripped over one tree root after another.
He felt like a fish out of water.
Christ, he should have stayed back at the lodge.
Forgetting his promise to God, he cursed Frank for sending him here.
Skulking in dark city alleys and leaping over chain-linked fences was his specialty, not sneaking around the woods on a dark night dressed like a commando.
He hoped he wouldn’t screw up the mission.
For all he could see of her, Kat might as well be invisible in front of him.
If she stopped short, he’d more than likely plow right over her.
Occasionally, he glanced over his shoulder, but Cody was indistinguishable.
The quiet of the woods, denser than the woods themselves, created an eerie atmosphere, magnifying his already frayed nerves.
His ears had become accustomed to peeping frogs, crickets and the loons, but this silence freaked him.
Kat stopped, putting out a hand, preventing him from knocking her down.
Jude halted.
The blackness prevented him from reading her expression.
She leaned into his neck and whispered.
“I feel your anxiety.
You don’t need your eyes to see, use your feet.
Feel the ground with each step.
The terrain will soon become familiar.
Focus on the ground ten feet in front of you.
Don’t look at your feet.”
Before he could respond, she disappeared.
Right.
Focus on the ground in front of him.
Her words skipped through his mind.
Good idea, if he could freaking see the ground.
He gripped the .308 as if it were a life raft.
At least an hour passed.
Although they moved at a snail’s pace, they had to be nearing the border.
Unless Kat had circled around to avoid beaver flowages she’d mentioned.
Jude’s mood improved when he realized that he could now see Kat, and at times, even distinguish trees.
The rising full moon explained his sudden night vision.
A branch cracked to their left.
All three froze.
Jude stilled his breathing and waited.
For what, he wasn’t sure.
Within seconds, a huge black bear lumbered from the thicket.
He prepared to ready the rifle, but Kat’s hand on his arm stopped him from shouldering the gun.
She put her finger to her lips.
He nodded his understanding for silence.
Sweat beaded on his forehead.
He hoped the paint wasn’t dripping off his face.
A light reassuring tap on the back from Cody didn’t ease his fear.
The bear huffed several times, stood on its hind legs and sniffed the air searching for the unseen enemy.
Jude started at a sudden bawling cry.
Kat squeezed his arm in warning.
Immediately, a small cub ran out of the thicket and stood by its mother.
Kat readied her bow.
After a few more sniffs, the sow growled and nosed her cub back towards the thicket.
Together, they bolted into the hemlock stand.
Jude’s lungs functioned again.
Kat waited several minutes before motioning them forward.
The so-called trail they followed disappeared.
Kat moved through the thicket, making a minimum of noise.
He wondered at her skill.
She held branches for him so they didn’t slap him in the face.
He did the same for Cody.
Kat abruptly stopped, her hand slapping into his chest.
“Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo.”
Her owl imitation sounded
bona fide
.
Cody responded in the same manner.
What in hell were they doing now?
Just a thrill a minute.
Kat spun around, pushing Jude towards Cody.
Both men bent close to hear her words.
“Do you smell it?”
Cody nodded.
Smell what, Jude wondered.
He sniffed the air several times before picking up the faint scent of a burning cigarette.
He wrestled with feeling inadequate, knowing he’d never have noticed it on his own.
Jude moved to follow Kat as she started forward, but Cody grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.
Jude shook his head vehemently.
Cody’s grip tightened.
Jude broke the silence.
“She can’t go by herself.”
“She can and she will.
She’s the best tracker I know.”
The calmness in Cody’s voice didn’t ease the icy fear twisting inside Jude’s chest.
Minutes became eternity as they waited for Kat’s return.
Neither man spoke again.
Jude’s thoughts ran rampant.
What if something happened to her?
Worries of Kat being captured by unknown villains, or falling and breaking a leg gnawed at him.
Tension drained from his body when she reappeared, holding up two fingers.
Cody nodded his head.
They traveled forward.
The ground became wet and mushy.
Their feet sank into the soft earth, making slurping noises.
Soon they found dry ground.
Kat signaled to get low, and they crawled a few hundred feet until they reached the top of a hill, overlooking a good-sized clear cut.
Kat placed herself in the middle as they got on their bellies.
Hair rose on Jude’s arms when voices from below ended the night’s silence.
“This guard duty shit’s getting old.”
“Quit whinin’.
We get paid good money, and don’t need to worry about gettin’ our heads blown off.”
*****
Kat inhaled the sweet night air and forced her body to relax.
Tenseness wreaked havoc on one’s muscles.
No telling how long they’d be here.
She hoped to God Callahan could stay still for the duration.
She was surprised he’d done as well as he had so far.
Kat had fought her emotions the entire trip.
Total concentration was paramount to staying alive, but memories of Jude’s words earlier that day still haunted her.
How could she have been so stupid?
She’d given in to longings to be close to someone.
Something new and exciting had come alive inside her since she met Jude Callahan.
Now it was over as soon as it began.
She pushed her personal problems away and concentrated on the drama unfolding below.
The voices of the two men sounded young.
Cody had hit the nail on the head about former military training.
Military personnel tended to have an accent, no matter where they were from.
The same accent that these guys had.
“Heard a rumor that we’re movin’ outa’ here in a few days.
Goin’ back to
“That right?
I could handle that.
Too many bloodsucking insects in these parts.
The desert’s better.”
Kat wasn’t able to see what they carried for weapons.
The possibility they carried grenades couldn’t be ruled out.
These pseudo military groups had access to all sorts of weapons from grenades to rocket launchers.
“Why can’t we just take out the girl same as her parents?”
“Don’t know.
Boss said don’t touch the girl.”
Murderous rage surged through Kat.
Her fingers clenched and unclenched on her bow.
She could kill both of them.
A bow was quiet.
She could get off two arrows, and they’d never know what hit them.
But she didn’t need Cody’s hand on her arm to resist the temptation.
She wanted the boss, not his lackeys.
The two men were in talkative mood.
“When’s the next shipment arriving?”
“How the hell do I know?
Think I’m privy to that kind of information?
But if we’re pullin’ out in a few days, I’d say it’s gonna be soon.
Maybe there won’t be another one.”
“Perhaps be a good thing if there isn’t.
Last time, I thought for sure the girl would get hit.
Then we’d have been in deep shit with the Boss.”
Jude shifted his position and a few rocks slid down the banking.
Kat sent him a withering look.
He met her eyes without flinching.
His mouth tightened, but Kat saw an apology in eyes.
“What’s that?”
One of the pseudo soldiers headed toward the banking to investigate.
His comrade scoffed.
“Just a fuckin’ animal.
Will you relax?
We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
A pack of coyotes yelped and howled in the distance.
“Yeah, you’re right.
I’m skittish.
Our replacements should be here soon.
I’m lookin’ forward to some shut eye.”
Kat signaled and wiggled backwards, still flat on her belly.
When they’d reached a safe distance, they stopped.
“You were right, Cody.
It’s a smuggling operation–either drugs or humans.”
“Looks that way, Half-Pint.
There’s nothing more we can do here tonight, unless we circle further around and check out the main camp.
Without knowing how many are holed up there, it’s not a wise move.”
She had no argument with that.
“How about you, Callahan?
You agree?”
Kat bit the inside of her cheek to stop from smiling at the surprised look on his face.
He didn’t expect to be consulted.
“We’ll head out on the lake first thing in the morning.
I’ll call
“Sounds good.
Let’s take a different route back to the lodge.
Walking the same path makes an easy trail to follow.”
Kat stood, stretched her muscles, and then shouldered her bow before taking the lead.
An hour later, she walked into a wall of smell that brought bile to her throat.
The sweet stench of death saturated the area.
She spun around when a hand fell on her shoulder.
“Want to ignore it?”
Jude squeezed her shoulder gently.
Kat shrugged and lifted her eyes to Cody, silently seeking his opinion.
“It might be a dead moose or other animal.”
Cody didn’t sound as if he believed his own words.
Kat shook her head.
“I doubt it.
That’s the smell of someone or something gut shot.
Let’s follow our noses.”
Neither man cracked a smile at her attempt at humor.
About three hundred feet away, Kat found the dead body, face down on the forest floor.
“It’s Willie Card,” she said, with no emotion in her voice.
Jude and Cody arrived on either side of her.
At a low growl from the bushes, Jude raised his weapon, ready to fire.
“Coyotes.”
Kat stared down at Willie.
Intestines oozed through the huge hole in the side of his stomach and spilled onto the ground.
“Fitting death for the weasel.
Fodder for the coyotes.
Let’s head home.”
She refused to acknowledge the troubled expressions on her companions’ faces.
When neither man followed her, she pivoted.
“What do you want to do?
Drag him back to the lodge?”
She made no attempt to disguise her disgust.
“Help yourselves.
Drag away.”
Without another word she left.
Willie Card stayed with the coyotes.
Red’s bark from inside lodge took the edge off Kat’s sour mood.
She was glad to be home.
She glanced at her watch, three in the morning.
Once inside, she hugged Red and headed straight upstairs to take a shower.
Standing under the spray of hot water, she willed it to drive the chill from her bones, a chill that had started in the afternoon and grew worse through the night.
She now had answers to some of her questions, but it didn’t alleviate the anger and pain she felt at her loss.
Her parents had been murdered because of a smuggling ring less than a mile behind their home.
