RUNAWAY TWINS (Runaway Twins series #1) (8 page)

As the twins and Justin
trekked south along the rushing stream, they could see it wasn’t narrowing as they’d hoped. If anything it was widening and producing more and more white water as it sped over rocks and boulders. “Rapids,” said Justin. “We’ll never get across here.”

“Can’t we just keep going this way?” asked Janie.

“The Continental Divide and Idaho are to the west. We need to go back the way we came, see if there’s a way across back there.”

“But we’d be heading toward whoever might be coming after us.”

“It won’t matter if we’re quick about it. We haven’t come that far.” He held out his palm. “Besides, we’ve got clouds again and we’re getting a dusting of snow. That’s good. It’ll cover our tracks.”

They hurried back the way they’d come; and about a half mile beyond the spot where Justin had tried to spear the trout, they noticed that the stream was indeed narrowing. And better yet, a fallen tree had spanned the rushing water. Justin ran to the natural bridge and said excitedly, “Can you believe this? We can crawl across! And it’s high enough so we won’t even get our boots wet.”

The girls eyed the tree suspiciously. “Unless we slip off,” said Rachel. “You’ve got to remember, Justin, that we’re not trained monkeys like you are.”

Justin laughed. “No, no. It’s not that hard. Use the muscles in your legs. Watch me. The limb’s small enough to wrap your legs around, and it looks strong enough to hold us—if we go one at a time. Watch.” He edged out on the log, riding it like he would a pony. After he’d progressed several feet he looked back at the twins and said, “See, it’s easy. Just keep scooting until you reach the other side.” Then without turning around again, he completed his trip to the opposite bank. He hopped triumphantly off the log and called out, “See! I told you! Now who’s first?”

Rachel said, “Go ahead, Janie, you always had more monkey in you than me.”

Stepping forward, Janie said, “Well, I’m not afraid.”

Rachel snorted. “Afraid? Me? No way!” And she pushed her sister aside and straddled the log. “Here I go.” She inched across, much more slowly than Justin had, but soon she, too, was on the other side of the stream.

Janie, having watched precisely how her two companions had made the transit, scooted across in record time, even faster than Justin had managed. When she jumped off, she said to Rachel, “I could’ve come over and gone back three times while you were crossing.” She punched her sister playfully.

“I told you you had more monkey in you than me,” said Rachel.

The light snow was continuing, and Justin said, “Perfect. They’ll have a tough time following us now.”

The searchers were hiking south-southwest,
but there were now no tracks at all to follow; and they were progressing slowly, not certain they weren’t moving away from their prey. Chuky held up his hand. “We stop. We split up. Come together there!” He pointed toward a prominent rock outcropping that appeared to be about five or six miles up the mountain.

The Prophet agreed and ordered the four Missoula men to keep to the present course, the three Sheba guards to head to the left in a southerly direction, while Flack, Chuky and the two Bitterroot guards would climb to the right in a more westerly direction. “If anyone catches sight of them, fire a gun twice. Do we have a gun in each group?”

“We all have guns,” said one of the Sheba guards.

“Good. Then get moving.”

When the Prophet’s group had separated from the others, Flack pulled Chuky aside. “Too many guns. I don’t want bullet holes in the boy if we can help it. See if you can get to him first. Break the little troublemaker’s neck.”

Rachel watched Justin as he
scanned the heavens, a frown on his face, looking for a break in the clouds so he could see the sun and determine more accurately which way they should go. “No sun, no shadows,” she said.

He nodded. “But not hopeless. Remember the growth rings I told you about. I’ve been checking those whenever we see a stump.”

“What about moss?” said Rachel. “Doesn’t it grow on the side of the tree facing south?”

“No, actually moss grows on all sides of trees, but you’re kind of right. It does grow more on the side facing south, but sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference because the stuff looks the same on all sides. Still we’ll see if moss can help.”

At that moment two white rabbits bounded out of the woods. “Oh!” exclaimed Janie, “Look!”

“They’re too fast,” said Justin. “We can’t run them down.”

“Run them down?” said Janie. “Why?”

“To eat, of course.”

“I wasn’t thinking of eating them. I was just happy to see them.”

“Believe me, before long, you’ll be thinking of eating them.”

The rabbits disappeared, and Justin went over to a maple tree and picked up a small broken limb lying against the trunk. The limb was as little less thick than a baseball bat and about half as long. “Just right,” he said. “Throwing stick. Heavy, hard, but not too heavy to toss like a boomerang. But we don’t want this one to come back. We want it to bop a rabbit on the head.”

Janie made a face.

“I wish I’d had it a minute ago,” Justin said, “I could’ve sailed it at one of those cottontails.”

As if to give him an opportunity to prove what he’d been saying, the two rabbits scurried out from behind a white poplar and stood watching the three trespassers. Justin put his fingers to his lips and held up his hand to tell the girls to be as quiet as possible and to stop where they were. He crept toward his quarry, grasping his throwing stick with both hands. The rabbits froze in their tracks, watching him come closer and closer as if they couldn’t believe that anyone or anything could be so foolish as to think that rabbits couldn’t dart away whenever they chose to do so. At ten feet, Justin ceased all movement and waited to make certain his prey was confident there was no threat. Then he slowly drew back the throwing stick until he was in a position to hurl it with the best possible leverage. He let it fly with all the strength he could muster, watching as it sped through the air toward the unsuspecting cottontails. He missed by five feet. The stick crashed harmlessly into a silver buffaloberry bush and the rabbits left the scene at once.

Janie and Rachel laughed. “You’re awful,” said Rachel. “I could’ve done better than that.”

Justin laughed, too. “That was pitiful, wasn’t it? But we won’t be laughing later. We’ll wish we had one of those guys roasting over our fire. But come on, not all is lost.” He led them to the buffaloberry bush and retrieved his stick.” Then he said, “Look, winter berries. They’re good and good for you. Eat some and fill your pockets. We don’t know what else we might have to eat later.”

“We know one thing it won’t be,” said Rachel.

“What’s that?” asked Justin.

“Rabbit.”

The four Missoula men stood
in the cave where the girls and Justin had spent the night. The tallest of the men examined the crack in the ceiling where the smoke had escaped, and then he kicked the remnants of the fire. “Smart kids,” he said. “This place’s like a Holiday Inn. I wonder what they’re eating.”

“I don’t know,” said the fattest man, “but I’m hungry, and this is as good a place as any to unpack some grub.” He had thick drooping jowls, and he had a swastika tattooed on his neck.

“Okay, but let’s not be too long about it,” said the tall man. Let’s find those brats, collect our money, and get out of these mountains.”

After moving steadily upward for
the next four hours, the three young people emerged on a high ridge, separated from an even higher ridge by a massive, inclined snow field. “Landslide territory,” said Justin. “We need to get up there, to the higher ridge, but we don’t dare go up that snow field. We might trigger a landslide that would bury us. I don’t even like hiking along this lower ridge, but I suppose if we hurry, it’ll be all right.”

They eased carefully along the trail, glancing uneasily up at the overhanging snow the entire way, until after a quarter mile they arrived at a point beyond the potential danger, Janie said, “That was scary. What’ll it take to set it off?”

“Just about anything,” said Justin. “Loud noise, falling rocks or branches—or nothing at all. Landslides are unpredictable….So now we go up to that higher ridge. I think there’s a broad plain up there, probably a butte. And we’d better start thinking about a place to spend the night.”

The butte was not as big as it appeared from below; but from the edge it offered a clear view of the unstable snow field, the lower ridge, and the valley beyond. No pursuer could approach from the northeast without being seen.

“This butte will do fine,” said Justin. “We’ve got to build a shelter for the night. Looks like there’s a stand of pine trees back there in the corner, close to what might be a natural rock wall. The trees will hide our fire and scatter the smoke, and the wall might serve as the back of our shelter.”

When they arrived at the pine stand and rock wall, Justin said, “A lean-to—we’ll build a lean-to with a fire reflector to the side to help keep us warm.”

He sent Rachel and Janie off to gather as many pine boughs, saplings, vines, and pine needles as they could find, while he used the serrated portion of the hunting knife to cut long poles. He cut and trimmed ten nine-foot poles and jammed seven of them into the snow and earth, leaning them against the wall. With vines and strips of bark he laced the remaining three poles horizontally across the others, producing a framework. When the girls returned, he wove the boughs they carried into the framework. He spread the pine needles on the floor and covered the needles with the tarp. He used the saplings and vines to patch open spots on the roof, and then said, “Let’s all go get more, more of everything—boughs and needles to go under the tarp, boughs and everything else to finish the roof. Then I’ll cut some shorter poles to enclose one side. The other side we’ll leave open for our fire and fire reflector. And logs, we’ll need all the logs we can find, for the reflector and for the fire.”

The sun, which had made a late appearance, was disappearing behind the western horizon when they completed their chores. The fire wall, consisting of two rows of long logs stacked about three feet high with dirt and debris piled in the middle, stood just outside the blazing fire; and the reflector performed its function well. The cozy little lean-to was warm, dry, and safe. Nevertheless, the trio huddled together for added warmth and encouragement, Justin sitting between Rachel and Janie. They were taking turns sipping pine-needle tea from the turtle shell. “Pretty good deal for me,” Justin said, “sandwiched between two gorgeous blondes.”

“I wish you’d hit that rabbit,” said Rachel. “These buffaloberries are starting to taste like sour milk.”

The three groups of searchers
had met at their rendezvous point, and the Missoula men told about finding the cave and about how they had later come upon a swiftly moving stream with no apparent crossing point. They had then turned back so they could meet the others as previously planned.

The Prophet listened intently and said, “My group will take that route in the morning. You men swing to the south and start back to the west about noon.” He then instructed the Sheba Hill guards to head north-northwest, also making their turn to the west about noon. “We’ll catch the little runaways in a vice.”

The eleven men ate a heavy meal that two of the Missoula men cooked on a Coleman stove; and then all eleven searchers gathered around a roaring bonfire. “Break out the booze,” said another Missoula man. “It’s going to be a long cold night.”

The Prophet did not object to the drinking, but he didn’t participate.

When it was time to bed down for the night, each of the men unpacked an insulated sleeping bag and an air mattress and then claimed a spot in one of the four multi-room winter tents that had been set up around the bonfire.

“Like the Red Lion back home,” said the fat Missoula man with the swastika tattooed on his neck.

“Ground squirrel.” Janie rolled her
eyes. “If you’d told me yesterday I’d be eating ground squirrel for breakfast and I’d be enjoying it, I’d’ve said you were crazy.”

The morning fire was bouncing heat off the reflecting wall, and Janie and Rachel were sitting inside the lean-to, each gnawing on a piece of charred squirrel. “More squirrel, please,” Janie called to Justin, who was outside, adding wood to the fire. “More squirrel, please,” she repeated.

He stuck his head inside. “That’s all there is. I told you you’d like it.”

Rachel said, “Tastes like ground squirrel.”

Justin had risen before the girls, rekindled the fire, climbed the wall behind their shelter, and had gone for an exploratory trip to see if he could get his bearings. After about a hundred feet he had seen two plump squirrels playing tag on the snow-packed ground beneath the wall. He found a flat, heavy rock, held it over his head and dropped it on the playmates. One scurried away, but the other became breakfast. The girls hated the story, grimacing at the thought of what Justin had done; but after he’d cleaned and roasted the squirrel, their hunger took precedence over their sensitivities, and they ate heartily.

When the twins had eaten and were stretched out again on their mattress of pine boughs, Justin gave them the bad news. “There’s no way down, except the way we came. We’ll have to retrace our steps and go around the butte on a lower level.”

The girls pulled more boughs over their bodies to serve as blankets, and Janie said, “Then we retrace our steps, but let us rest a little while longer, okay?”

“Okay,” said Justin. “In the meantime, I’ll go get us a rabbit.”

Flack, Chuky, and the two
Bitterroot guards stood evaluating the fallen log spanning the rushing stream. They had followed the stream south, just as the pre-teens had, and had seen it widen and the rapids develop. They then turned around and hiked in the opposite direction until they arrived at the log bridge. “The kids must’ve crossed here,” said the Prophet. “Can we go the same way?” He gestured as he spoke, his hands trembling with cold and frustration. The expression on his hatchet face had by now defaulted to a permanent mask of anger and impatience, and his eyes were filled with dark smoke and bloodlust.

The two Bitterroot guards looked as if they wished they were back at the lodge, dozing by the fireplace.

Chuky said, “Kids small, lighter than us. Log small, might hold us, might not.”

The sun was only now beginning to make its appearance above the eastern horizon, for the Prophet had insisted that his group be up and gone before dawn. The runaways might be moving fast, but he would be moving faster.

Chuky had scooted out about three feet on the log bridge. “Seems okay. I go.” And without further hesitation he made the transit across the stream. “No problem,” he called out. “Come over…but one at a time.”

The Bitterroot guards seemed unsure, for they were both considerably larger than the squat Siberian; but the Prophet ordered them to proceed; and since they feared him more than they feared the stream, they too made the crossing.

Flack followed and when they were all gathered on the other side, he looked up at the sun and said, “Let’s go, I want those kids.”

Justin felt no sense of
urgency about climbing down the butte, for he was certain they were far ahead of any possible pursuers. For that reason he wasn’t concerned when the girls wanted to rest a bit longer in the warmth of the cozy shelter. In fact he welcomed the chance to grab his throwing stick and police the butte for signs of snow rabbits. He wasn’t ready to admit that the spooky little critters had gotten the best of him. And if Rachel and Janie had liked the taste of ground squirrel, imagine how they’d appreciate a sweet juicy bunny. When he returned to the shelter an hour and a half later, he had a smug smile on his face and two cottontail rabbits stuffed into his coat. The girls were out and about now, and when they saw that his hands were empty, they mocked him and made snide comments about Justin the great hunter. “Going out for rabbit, eh?” said Rachel. “Looks like we’ll have squirrel again for dinner—that is, if you can get lucky and trip over another squirrel.”

He grinned and reached into his coat, lifting two white, floppy rabbit heads above the zipper. “Roast hare tonight, dears.”

They all laughed, and then Justin said, “Let’s get busy and break camp. We’ve wasted enough time. We’ve still got to get down off this butte.”

It wouldn’t be long before the three twelve year olds would wish they had left at first light, for danger was fast approaching in the valley beyond the lower ridge.

“We need to take a
break,” said one of the Bitterroot guards.

The Prophet scowled. “We’ll rest when that boy has gone to his reward and when the girls are locked in their room at the lodge.”

They hadn’t yet reached the lower ridge, but Chuky was already eyeing the massive build up of snow between the high and the low ridge. He had experienced many landslides in his native Siberia, and he had no desire to experience one in Montana. “That snowfield up there,” he said uneasily, “I don’t like. Maybe we find another way—”

The Prophet cut him off. “You said this is the way they came—so this is the way we go!”

Chuky remained silent, and the two guards exchanged apprehensive glances. “Wait a minute,” one said, “if the snowfield—” But he stopped in mid-sentence when he saw the Prophet’s cold stare. The possible risk of a landslide was not to be compared with the certain risk of bucking J.J. Flack. The two guards did, however, begin to mutter nonstop, a continuous inarticulate whine, to let it be known they were unhappy about where they were being led.

Justin and the twins were
on the trail that led down from the butte, well to the side of the snowfield. “Hold up!” said Rachel, “I hear something. Listen, it sounds like another river.” They halted and listened to see if they could identify Rachel’s sound.

“Oh, no!” said Justin. “I shouldn’t have been so careless. We should’ve been long gone by now.”

“What?” said Janie.

“Voices! Men’s voices from down in the valley, close to the entrance to the lower ridge.”

“Who?” asked Rachel.

Justin shrugged. “I don’t know, but who else could it be? They’re close on our heels and we’re cornered. If we go down, we’ll run right into their arms. If we go up, we’ll be trapped on the butte.”

“Maybe we can hide,” said Rachel.

Justin shook his head. “They can see us here from any angle.”

“Can we hide up on the butte?” said Janie.

“They’d find us eventually, and they’d put a guard on the trail so we couldn’t sneak down.”

“Then we really are cornered,” said Rachel. “Are we caught?”

“Not yet,” said Justin, “I’ve got an idea. First, you two go back up, stay hidden, but near the upper ridge. I’ll join you as soon as I can see who’s coming up the trail. What I have in mind is pretty drastic, and I want to make sure there aren’t any innocent fishermen down there.”

The girls hurried away, and Justin scrambled down to the edge of the snowfield and then walked slowly and carefully across the lower ridge with the mountain of accumulated snow looming above him. He could now make out the words from the voices in the valley. “Stop moaning! This is the way we’re going and that’s all there is to it.” He was fairly certain it was the voice of the Prophet, but he wanted to remove all doubt. He reached the far side of the lower ridge and then crept forward until he came to a strategically placed oak tree. He peeked around the tree and discovered he had a clear line of sight on the men who were marching up the trail several hundred yards below. He’d been right. It was J.J. Flack. He could also make out Flack’s personal bodyguard, the oily-looking little Siberian; and bringing up the rear were the two camp guards.

He dashed back to the ridge, made another careful crossing, and then climbed back up to the top of the butte at breakneck speed. He found the girls in a small grove of cedar trees not far from the edge, and he told them what he’d seen and heard.

Rachel and Janie lowered their heads. “Is it hopeless?” asked Janie, looking up.

“No way,” said Justin, “come on.” He led them closer to the rim where three good-sized boulders perched precariously on the edge. “Help me,” he said. “Let’s see if we can roll these. I’m pretty sure we can get them to move.” The twins understood his plan at once. The fear and defeat left their faces, and they pitched in to help him loosen the boulders. They succeeded in dislodging two of the large rocks, but the third was simply too big to budge.

“A landslide!” said Rachel. “We’re going to drop a landslide on them.”

“If we can,” said Justin. His face showed determination and purpose, but his mind was filled with hesitation and reluctance; for he knew he was attempting to create the same catastrophe that had killed his father and his uncle.

The four pursuers had now
rounded Justin’s oak tree and were about to step onto the lower ridge. They looked up uneasily at the tons of snow and debris above their heads, and even the Prophet seemed hesitant to move forward; but his determination returned, and he said, “It’s not far to the other side. Just be careful.”

“And quiet,” said Chuky. “No noise, no talk.”

The pre-teens waited until the
search party was almost halfway across the lower ridge before leaping into action. At that point Justin and the girls began to push the first of the movable boulders over the edge. The huge rock tumbled down the snowpack exactly the way Justin had hoped; and he quickly turned his attention to the second boulder. “Come on, ladies, let’s do it!” When both boulders were moving, the trio stood on the rim to watch the results of their efforts. They were devastated by what they saw, for the two giant rocks had stopped rolling about a hundred yards down the incline, and the snowpack had not loosened at all. “It didn’t work,” said Justin.

The twins didn’t speak.

“Look!” screamed one of the
Bitterroot guards, “Up there, above us! The kids! I saw them first. I get the bonus.” The others raised their eyes to the three tiny figures standing high above the ominous snowpack; but Chuky quickly lowered his gaze and turned to the guard to warn him about the danger of making too much noise. The guard, however, in his excitement at being the first to spot the runaways, had lost touch with reality and with the present circumstances. He removed his revolver from the holster in the small of his back, and before he could be restrained, he fired two shots in the air—the signal to summon the other search parties to the scene.

The mountain began to move, slowly at first, unnoticeably, because the actual slippage was occurring below the surface in the slush and debris beneath the hard-packed ice. But in seconds the entire hillside joined in the slide, hurtling faster and faster toward the valley below.

The men on the ridge knew they were in a terrible position. Should they turn around and race back the way they’d come, or should they try for safety on the far side? Indecision caused them to freeze in their tracks unable to function or to attempt an escape in either direction. When they came to their senses, they all began to run toward Justin’s oak tree, with J.J. Flack in the lead. “You bloody fool!” he shouted back at the guard who had fired the pistol, “you’ve killed us!”

The young people watched in
wonder as the scene developed below them. “The gunshots did it!” cried Janie. “Why would they fire a gun down there?”

“Because one of them is stupid,” said Justin. “I’d guess it was a signal of some sort. They couldn’t hope to hit us at this distance.”

The landslide had now reached its maximum velocity, and it was clear the four men would soon be engulfed; but they had not given up and were making a last ditch effort to save their lives. The Prophet was still in the lead, with Chuky close behind and the guards in the rear.

“They’ll never make it!” Justin shouted, his voice almost drowned out by the roar of the landslide. “Flack’s close, but not close enough. He’ll be swept away with the others. Watch.” It was a ridiculous command, for there was no way the girls would turn away from what was happening to their pursuers. The disaster below was like a high-energy action movie being screened solely for their benefit. The Prophet lengthened his stride in desperation, and the squat Chuky somehow managed to keep pace. The guards were now lagging badly, almost as if they had caught a vision of their doom and were resigned to it. The wave of snow and rubble caught the two men in mid-stride and lifted them high in the air and hurled them hundreds of feet into the valley.

“And now for the Siberian,” said Justin, “and then Flack himself.”

But Chuky apparently had other ideas, at least when it came to his boss. A fraction of a second before the wall of snow reached them, Chuky dove forward into the Prophet’s back and propelled him out of the path of danger. Chuky himself was not so lucky. He fell face down some distance behind Flack; and the edge of the landslide struck him at the waist, spun him around, and buried his head beneath thirty feet of snow.