Bitter Wild (9 page)

“I’m
going for the tower. You stay right here. Don’t move so much as an inch. I want
to know exactly where you are, okay?”

Casey
nodded. “You know that if he’s here, the smartest place for him to be would be
the tower. It’s the high ground. If he’s up there, he’s bound to have seen us
by now and he’ll be waiting for you.”

Jack
nodded. “I know.”

He
started to turn away, but she reached out and touched his arm. He met her gaze
once more. “Be careful, Jack.”

He
almost kissed her. They were so close that all he would have had to do was lean
down. He was shocked by how much he wanted to taste her. He was even more
alarmed by how hard it was to resist that desire. Finally he just nodded and
turned away. He leaned against the tree for a moment, then took a deep breath
and hoped it wouldn’t be his last as he ran toward the base of the tower
stairs. He expected to hear a shot with every step he took. When he reached the
stairs without incident, he didn’t dare let himself relax. He climbed the
stairs as quickly as he could, not stopping until he was crouching beneath the
window just outside the door. He took another deep breath, then jerked the door
open and rushed inside.

Casey
held her breath as she saw Jack enter the tower. It seemed like minutes before
he came back out, though she knew it must have been mere seconds. Immediately
his gaze sought her out. He shook his head and she nodded, then shifted her
gaze to the buildings. The shed that held the vehicle was open. She hadn’t seen
any movement from inside, though she knew that didn’t mean it was empty. The
other building was the ranger’s living quarters. It was a small two room wooden
structure. She’d been inside it several times. From where she stood, she
couldn’t see either of the two windows. The door was closed, which left her wondering
if the man they were chasing might be holed up inside. It wouldn’t have been a
wise choice. She doubted that this fugitive would be so foolish. If he had a
death wish he would have just waited for the authorities to catch up to him so
he could die in a hail of gunfire. The fact that he was running implied that he
still hoped he might reach freedom. He’d managed to stay ahead of his pursuers
for days, now. She couldn’t imagine why he would suddenly stop running. She
focused on Jack once again as he stepped off the stairs and headed for the
building. It took him several minutes to go through it and the other one.
Finally, he called her name and she joined him at the foot of the tower stairs.

“He’s
gone.”

She
couldn’t say she was particularly surprised. “And what about the ranger?”

Jack
nodded to the tower. “He’s dead and the radio has been destroyed.”

Casey
tried not to think about the family of this latest victim. “And Jesse?”

Jack
shook his head. “I didn’t find anyone else.”

Casey
mulled that over. If Jesse wasn’t there, then where was he? She’d suggested
that he might have gotten away, just like Terry and Paul, but she had said that
more to give Terry some comfort than out of a genuine belief that it was true.
She turned and scanned the area, then released a sharp whistle. A few seconds
later, Chance came trotting up.

Jack
stared at the dog. He’d assumed it had stayed with the horses. She’d told it to
sit and wait. “I thought you left him with the horses.”

Casey
looked up at Jack. “I did. But Chance has a way of always being around when I
need him. Call it a sixth sense or just plain stubbornness, but there’s never
been a time when he wasn’t somewhere close by. I figured he’d followed us.” She
glanced up at the tower. “I need to get up there and take a look at the radio.
Maybe I can get it working.”

Jack
shook his head. “I don’t think so. It looked like it was pretty much beyond
repair.”

She
shrugged. “It can’t hurt to take a look at it.”

She
started to turn for the stairs and Jack reached out to catch her arm. She met
his gaze as he shook his head again. “It’s a mess up there.”

She
understood then that he wasn’t just talking about the broken radio. She nodded.
“I can handle it, Jack.”

He let
her go then, because he couldn’t very well demand that she stay. He followed
her up the stairs while the dog prowled around the buildings.

Casey
braced herself for the sight of death. Even so, she felt her stomach lurch when
she stepped into the interior of the tower. The ranger lay in a heap on the
floor. His face was gone and there was blood all over everything. Jester must
have shot him at near point blank range with a shotgun. She pulled her eyes off
the dead man and focused instead on the radio. It took her only seconds to come
to the same conclusion that Jack had reached. It was beyond repair. She turned
away and watched as Jack draped the ranger’s jacket over his mutilated face.
When Jack met her gaze she nodded. “You were right. There’s nothing I can do to
fix this.”

Jack
glanced around the small room. “Is there anything else here that we might be
able to use?”

Casey
shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m sure there are basic first aid supplies, though I
imagine those would be in the main building.” She scanned the interior of the
room, then stopped when she spotted the backpack resting against the wall near
the open door. “Jack.”

He
turned as she moved to pick up the bag. She sat it on the nearby table, then
opened the zipper. It took her only seconds to determine that it must belong to
Jesse. She lifted her gaze to Jack.

“This
is Jesse’s backpack. I’m sure of it.”

Jack
didn’t argue with her. She stared at the bag for a moment, then turned to look
out the windows that surrounded them. The trees stretched on as far as the eye
could see. There were mountains rising all around them. As far as Jack could
tell, they were in the middle of nowhere. Casey turned away from the windows
and met Jack’s gaze.

“He
took him.”

Jack
frowned at her. “What?”

“Jester
took Jesse with him when he left. He must have.”

Jack
could imagine how much she wanted the boy to still be alive, but it wasn’t
Jester’s style to take hostages. Not unless they were female. He shook his
head. “He wouldn’t, Casey. The boy would just slow him down.”

Casey
turned so that she was facing him fully. “Think about it, Jack. When he left
Millie’s house he took everything he needed to stay in these woods
indefinitely. He has experience with nature. He must have thought it was a
brilliant idea to head off the beaten path. But he’s had a couple of days now
to learn just how different these woods are from anything he’s ever known
before. I told you it wouldn’t be easy for him. Even with maps and a compass,
it’s incredibly difficult to find your way if you’re not at least vaguely
familiar with the area. And unless he was traveling with an electronic GPS
unit, he wouldn’t have found one of them at Millie’s. There aren’t all that
many large markers. There’s this ranger station and a handful of others
scattered over thousands of square miles of raw forest. He found his way here,
but there’s no guarantee that he’ll get to the next one.”

Jack
still didn’t see what that had to do with the boy. “What’s your point?”

“Put
yourself in his shoes. He’s fought his way through the woods to this station.
He kills the ranger because he knows he can’t risk letting him live. But then
he’s got to decide where to go next. He can’t go south because that will take
him right back into town. He knows someone will be coming after him, and if he
wanted to face that kind of fight, he wouldn’t be running in the first place.
So that leaves North, East, or West. East and West would be the shortest routes
out, but he’d have to know we’ll be expecting that. Which leaves him with only
one other choice: north, deeper into the heart of the mountains. And then Jesse
falls right into his lap. Jester must have enough sense to realize that the boy
is a local. A local who obviously knows his way around the area. So he doesn’t
kill him. Instead he hangs around, knowing that Jesse’s brother will eventually
come looking for him. He shoots Paul and tries to hit Terry. He couldn’t have
known for certain if he got them both. But he wouldn’t have wanted to waste any
more time than he already had. So he leaves, taking Jesse with him as a guide.”

Jack
had to admit that it made a certain kind of sense, but he still wasn’t all that
sure it was anything more than wishful thinking. At the moment, he couldn’t
come up with any better ideas, though, so he shrugged. “Maybe. But there’s no
way for us to know if that’s what really happened. Not until we find either the
boy or Jester.”

Casey
nodded. “Yes there is.”

She
picked up the bag and hurried down the stairs. Jack followed her, wondering
what she was up to now. She called the dog when they finally reached the
ground. She let the dog smell of the bag, then she gave him a silent hand
signal. Jack watched as the animal spun around and ran off. She turned to look
at Jack. “If Jesse is around here, Chance will find him. Meanwhile, I think you
and I had better see what we can find in the way of medical supplies.”

They
found what they were looking for in the living quarters. Casey left Jack to
assemble the supplies they thought they might need while she went outside to
check for tracks. He heard her calling him only minutes later. He found her on
the other side of the tower. She pointed at the ground.

“This
is where Jester tied up his horses while he was here. And there are two sets of
tracks. One large, matching the ones I’ve seen at the two campsites we’ve found
and the other smaller. They have to be Jesse’s. There’s no other explanation.”

The dog
returned then, and sniffed of the area around the tracks she’d located. Finally
it lifted its head and whined softly. Casey nodded. “See, Chance can smell
him.”

Jack
finally accepted that she might be right about the boy. “This isn’t going to
make things any easier, you know. Now he has a hostage to bargain with.”

Casey
nodded. “I know, but at least we know Jesse was alive when he left here.” She
looked off into the woods for a few seconds, then turned back to Jack. “Come
on. We’ve got to go get the others and try to stabilize Paul as much as we
can.”

The
trip back to the others was quickly accomplished. Casey used some of the
supplies they’d brought back with them to re-bandage Paul’s wound while Jack
filled Skip in on the things they’d found and what they’d guessed. Jack watched
as Casey told Terry that his brother was still alive. The older boy took it
fairly well, though Jack could see that he was worried sick about his younger
sibling. Casey gave him what comfort she could, without giving him any false
hope.

They
decided to put Paul on Jack’s horse with him. Ideally, they would have liked to
keep him as flat and still as possible, but under the circumstances, this was
the best they could come up with. Terry rode with Casey as they all made their
way back to the ranger station. Once there, they put Paul in the bedroom and
Casey gave Terry the job of fixing them all something to eat. Then she led Jack
and Skip outside on the premise of tending to the horses. Once they were out of
earshot of the boy, though, she stopped and faced Jack and Skip.

“Okay,
we’ve got a serious problem here. We’ve got to decide how we’re going to
proceed.”

“We
can’t just leave these two boys here alone.”

Casey
fixed her gaze on Jack. “Right, but if we wait here for help, it’s going to
give Jester an even bigger lead on us.”

Skip
shook his head. “So what do we do?”

Casey
was silent for a while, then she spoke up. “I’ve got a solution. I know neither
of you is going to like it, but under the circumstances, I don’t see that we
have any other choice. I think one of you ought to stay here while I take the
other one and stay on Jester’s trail.”

Skip
started shaking his head immediately, but Casey held a hand up to stop him.
“Think about it. We can stay here and wait for help, which will put a lot more
distance between us and Jester and Jesse, or we can leave Terry and Paul here
while we all go after Jester, which we’ve already agreed isn’t a viable option.
So what do you want to do? Personally, I don’t want to leave Jesse in Jester’s
hands any longer than is absolutely necessary. You know it won’t be long before
Jester gets tired of dealing with him and puts a bullet in his head. He’s
fourteen. He hasn’t even begun to live his life yet.”

Skip shot
Jack a frown. “This is nuts. It was risky taking Jester on with just two of
us.”

Jack
nodded. “I know, but Casey’s right. We’re out of options.”

Skip
clearly didn’t want to agree, but he finally sighed and nodded. Jack glanced at
Casey. “Okay, so who goes and who stays?”

“I’ll
warn you that it isn’t going to be easy. I intend to dump every ounce of extra
weight I can. That means no packhorse and no tents. Things are going to get
really rough from here on.”

Jack
glanced at Skip, who just shook his head. “I don’t care, you decide.”

Casey
hesitated for a moment, then cleared her throat, drawing both men’s gazes back
to her. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but if you’re interested, I have an
opinion.”