Dream Man (13 page)

“Easy, now. We'll find him, Jeanie. There'll be lots of searchers. He will be found. Believe me. Trust me.”

She controlled her emotions, fighting back the tears that had threatened to overcome her. “Thank you, Max. How can I ever thank you for all this?”

“You can reach into the backseat and grab that empty pack there beside mine. Start stuffing your things into it. It'll save time and there won't be room in the chopper to do it.”

By the time she had the smaller of the two backpacks crammed with what she'd brought, they were at the private airport where Max kept his helicopter. It was a tiny machine, just big enough for the two of them and their gear. Its rotors already whirled overhead. Pressing her into a crouch, he shunted her into the left-hand seat, buckled her into a complicated set of crossed straps, tightened them, then ran around to replace the man who was at the controls. She could see but not hear the two men speaking, and then Max was pulling on a set of headphones, slamming his door, slipping into his own harness, and reaching for the controls, which he manipulated with both hands and both feet. The copter tilted, nose down, as they lifted rapidly and skimmed over the tops of a bank of trees at the far end of the strip.

Tapping another set of headphones hanging on the side of her seat, he indicated she should put them on. His voice came across clearly once they were over her ears, blocking the incredible roar of rotors overhead. “Press the little button on the floor when you want to talk. The one marked Intercom Switch. You're going to have to give me directions to your sister's house.”

She nodded her understanding, but he was busy speaking to someone on the ground. She had nothing to tell him yet. He was headed in the right direction. It would have been an exciting trip if she hadn't been so terrified for her nephew, so concerned for her sister. The trip seemed to drag on unbearably, but in actuality it was only minutes before the skyline of Nanaimo appeared.

“Go that way,” she said, pointing toward the hills behind the city.

“I didn't hear you. Press the button.”

She did as she was told and repeated her instructions, pointing again.

“Give me a landmark to aim at.”

“The middle gap in the ridge behind that tall church steeple. That's where the road goes that leads home. I don't know any other way than by road.” Her voice wobbled, and she felt less than helpful.

“That's okay,” he said. “I don't expect you to know any other way. We'll follow your road. Just warn me about two minutes before we get to where you want me to land.”

“There's the roof of the house,” she said moments later. “See it? Dark red tiles, two wings coming off the main section?”

“Got it,” he said, and she remembered the horrendous cost of having those tiles put on not six months before. She hoped the helicopter wouldn't blow them off, but if it meant finding Jason more quickly, then she'd replace each one herself, gladly.

“The field is the one just behind it.”

“Right,” he said, and then was speaking again to someone else about what he was doing and where he was about to do it. As the roof of the house went by under them, Jeanie recalled the first dream in which the man who looked like Max had appeared. In the dream, she had been coming home during a storm, cresting the hill in the road, on foot for some reason, when she saw Sharon on the roof trying to hold on the old silvered cedar shakes that were blowing away. The dream man had come up the drive behind her on a horse, scooped her onto the animal with him, and galloped to Sharon's rescue. He'd been wearing a black cloak and had flown, cloak billowing, to the roof, where he plucked Sharon to safety, waved a magic hand and restored the shakes. The storm had stopped as if by the same magic, and then the man had been gone.

Jeanie had laughed about it, put it down to the fact that she'd rented a Batman video for her niece and nephew the night before, and that she and Sharon had been discussing the cost of having the leaky roof repaired or replaced.

Yet, he had continued to occur in dreams for many months, always coming to Sharon's rescue, and now, Jeanie thought, as he set the helicopter down neatly at the edge of the field near the house, there he was, doing it again. But this time he was to rescue Sharon's son. As the sound of the rotors wound down and Max lifted off her headphones she looked into his eyes. He wasn't there to be a hero for Sharon. He was there for one reason only: Because Jeanie needed him.

Leaning over the couple of inches her tight straps permitted, she kissed him hard on the mouth. “Thank you,” she said. “You're a very special guy.”

“Yes, sir.” Max was speaking to the RCMP officer in charge of the search coordination. “I'm with the PEP group in Victoria, and a friend of the family.” Max looked over at where Jeanie held her weeping sister and niece close. “The boy's aunt and I have come prepared to search. We'll put ourselves at your disposal. Instructions?”

“Maybe the girl should stay with her sister.”

“Maybe she should, but she won't. Believe me. I know her. Besides, she grew up here. She knows the area perhaps better than most, knows what might tempt a kid off the normal trail to his friend's house. She might be able to figure out what could have fascinated him so much that he lied about going to the friend's house in the first place. She is also with PEP,” he said with a completely straight face. “We work well together as a team. Can you assign us an area?”

“If the boy's aunt knows the immediate area, then that's what she should concentrate on. It was gone over first, of course, the entire trail and a hundred feet or so to each side of it. The search commenced right after the mother called, even though we feel we have to treat this as a runaway, in spite of the kid's age. He did clearly state that he was invited to spend the night with his friend, and we know that was a lie. His mother's blaming herself, poor woman, but all mothers do in cases like this.

“We are also not discounting kidnapping,” the policeman continued. “The father's whereabouts are unknown, except that he's believed to be in Europe. Interpol has been advised and are trying to locate him.”

“Lord! I don't think that's occurred to Jeanie. Has the mother mentioned it?”

“No, but we mentioned it to her. She doesn't believe it's possible. She is convinced the boy is lost, pure and simple, that he expected to get permission to spend the night with his friend when he got there.”

“Well, he's a ten-year-old.” Max shook his head. “It sounds reasonable, I guess.”

“I think so, too, but we have to take everything into account. In the interim several teams have combed the woods just back of here, but they'll have moved further out by now. Those woods are full of gullies and tangles of deadfalls and Lord knows how many places a kid could be lost. He could even be bushed.”

Max nodded. “You mean have convinced himself that everything he sees, including a rescuer, is a danger to him?”

“That's it. Maybe if he hears his aunt's voice, he'll respond.”

“Right. Has each previously searched area been tape-marked?”

“Every fifteen feet—orange survey-tape. But at this stage, and in this terrain, even taping doesn't always mean the ground has been thoroughly searched. If he's unconscious, as he could well be after a night with the temperature down to about seven Celsius, unless he managed to keep moving, he's going to be hard to see. He's wearing a red down jacket with a hood and warm jeans. And at least it was a dry night, so we're hoping he isn't suffering too badly from hypothermia. And one more thing we have to consider, Mr. McKenzie”—the cop paused as if not wanting to go into it but knowing he must—“the area, indeed the entire damned city, is riddled underneath with old coal mine shafts. Most of the entrances to them have been located and sealed, but new ones are always cropping up after each of the frequent little earth tremors the whole coast gets. All the teams have been warned to be extremely cautious. I'm warning you too; watch where you put your feet.”

“Okay.” Max nodded. Jeanie, her pack already riding high on her back, was coming toward him, her face pale and her mouth taut.

“You sure you don't want to stay with your sister?” he asked as the police officer moved away to talk to another group who were just stepping out of the back of a large bakery van.

“I'm sure. She understands. She wants me to go out. She … oh, Max, she believes I'm going to find him.” For a moment she came close to breaking down, but thrust her chin high and held onto her composure. He steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. “Max… what if I don't?”

“Then someone else will,” he said. Taking her arm, he turned her toward the trail Sharon had seen Jason take into the woods. “We're to start here. Every few feet, we stop and you call. We're hoping he'll respond to your voice, if he's gotten so scared he's afraid of everything. That often happens with lost kids. Adults, too.”

“I understand.” Drawing in a deep breath, Jeanie took Max's warm, dry hand in hers and held on for dear life. As they strode into the forest, a light drizzle began to mist the branches of the trees overhead. “Jason?” she called, waited. listened, then called again. “Ja—a—a—son!”

They did the entire path, then moved to the west side, following the line of bright orange surveyor's tapes through the tangled forest, keeping each other in constant sight. Presently, they were joined by three more teams of two, each one taking another line of tapes to follow, each team stopping and waiting after Jeanie called her nephew's name. They probed the thick salal, looked under the low-hanging branches of cedar trees, tore aside small hemlocks to peer under ancient downed trees, and examined the inside of each hollow stump they encountered.

Hours passed. Fine drizzle turned to steady rain. Max pulled bright yellow slickers for both of them out of his pack. The small one belonged to his mother, he said. She had been happy to lend it for the search. The rain eased and then stopped, but the bushes were sodden. They kept the waterproofs on.

Some of the searchers had returned to the control point for hot food and drink and to replenish their supplies of marking tapes. A couple of them brought thick, roast beef sandwiches for Max and Jeanie because she refused to leave. Periodically, she nibbled chocolate chips and almonds. When he could, Max made her pause long enough to drink half a cup of brandy-laced coffee from the Thermos in his pack, and then they were on again.

“Jason! Ja—a—a—son!” Her voice was growing so hoarse, she wondered if he'd even recognize it now if he heard it, but she would not give up.

“Jeanie, we have to turn back soon,” Max said. “The light will be gone by the time we make out way back to the main trail. And it's starting to rain harder again.” Leaving tapes tied to trees every fifteen feet, they were following what might have been a winding, natural trail through the woods, a trail likely made by deer and other animals on their daily forages for food and water, but it interested Jeanie because it might also have been a trail made by a little boy who had played here often over the past three years. Something about it drew her on.

“We both have flashlights.” she said, “and the slickers are keeping us dr—” Her sentence broke off as she stopped and stared in dismay when the trail came to a dead end just where a particularly densely leafed branch of cedar swept to the ground.

“No. See? It's petered out.” Max's tone held despair, and she knew how hard he had been hoping too.

On the left was a pile of tangled branches and logs, where several trees had blown down together years ago in a storm. No trail went that way. On the right an impassable stand of sharply thorned devil's club barred the way, with a steep, rocky bluff immediately behind it. Jason knew enough about devil's club not to tangle with that particular hazard. Jeanie was about to agree with Max and turn back when she looked again at that thick cedar bough and thought what a perfect shelter it would have made for a little boy lost at night. Underneath, it would be just like a tent. As she lifted it back and peered beyond it, she saw a very distinct path leading away from the far side of the massive trunk. “Max! Look at this.”

He crowded in beside her. “What?”

“The trail goes on. See it?” She slipped under the sweeping cedar bough and began to follow the beaten track.

“Honey, no. Come back.” He took her arm. “It's nothing more than a deer trail, and we can't follow it. Besides, we only have one more tape, and you know the rules. We don't go fifteen feet in any direction without leaving a tape.”

“I don't think it's just a deer trail. Look, branches have been broken off, not eaten off the way they'd be if only deer used it. It might have started out that way but … Max … look! A sneaker track! Please. Go tie that last tape to the cedar. We have to go on. This might be it. I have a feeling. Please, Max! I can't leave until I know where this trail goes!”

“All right,” he said, “but we'll follow it for only a very short distance, Jeanie. Wait here while I tie that tape.”

But she couldn't wait. She seemed pulled by a force too strong to withstand, and when the trail ended abruptly against a rock face, she couldn't believe it—until she saw the fissure. Bending, turning on her flashlight, she shone the beam inside and saw a glimpse of bright red. Jason, she knew, was wearing a red ski jacket.

“Max!” she screamed. “He's here!” Then, turning sideways, she slid out of her pack, shoved it in before her, and scrambled into the narrow cave, feeling the terror of claustrophobia begin to claw at her but fighting it down. Jason was more important. He was there. That tiny scrap of red that was probably his down jacket lay so still, she knew he must be asleep or unconscious. She had come to the point where she could get to her knees she moved faster now, still shoving her pack ahead of her, and behind her she heard Max calling her name.