Ruthless (6 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

MY HOPE IS TO REACH
the cabin by dawn, but I have no idea if that's possible. I'm colder than I think is good for me. Sometimes half an idea flirts around the edges of my thinking.

I should be in more pain
.

But whenever it pops up, I push it away, worried if the idea gets too much attention the pain will come to the surface. My feet are chewed up; both arms are injured. There's been too much blood lost from the cut on my head and the bullet slice to the arm. Only two and a half apples have made their way into my stomach.

But at least I'm hydrated.

That's huge.

And maybe why I seem to be thinking pretty well.

The deer bolted in a westerly direction, leading Wolfman
further west. Of course he won't find me there, and at a certain point he will give up and go back to the cabin.

The odds are against me. I know that. Wolfman knows these woods; I don't. The chances that I can do anything like retrace my steps are low to nil. I've had a feeling that civilization would be found by going down in elevation, by going west. But that's nothing but a feeling. I could just as easily run into a hunting cabin going east.

If I can just get to the truck, it would be game over.

And it would be such a satisfying way to win, too. To take something of his out from under his nose. I imagine him returning to the cabin to find the truck missing. Would he feel fear? Apprehension? Even if he did, he wouldn't feel even 1 percent of the terror he's put into others. But I'll take what I can get.

Thinking back to the last time I was in the cabin, I can't remember if I saw the keys hanging on the nail by the door. But those keys weren't in his pants pockets, of that I'm pretty sure, and that's what's important. Those keys are somewhere in that cabin.

As I make my way, I take in everything. Searching for landmarks and sometimes finding them.
This dead oak. I remember this dead oak!
And looking for signs of either myself or Wolfman.
My footprint, in a bit of sand. I'm headed the right way.

It's slow going, and time and time again things look wrong and I retrace and start over. I need patience now, but patience is something I have. When you're starting a young horse, you've sometimes got to go at a glacial pace. Practicing a new skill takes repetition, repetition, and more repetition. This is something I know how to do. I know how to work a problem.

Frustration is the enemy. It makes you do stupid things. So you don't let it beat you. Instead you search for landmarks, look for signs, search for landmarks, look for signs. The task takes every single bit of me I have left.

It's good, this task, because it keeps my mind focused.

Things are going well. But then moonlight gives way to predawn gray. I don't like that. My gut tells me he'll go back to the cabin once morning hits. For food, if nothing else.

I don't want to be at that cabin at the same time he's there.
Then I smile and think,
The understatement of the year.

This goal of stealing the truck has been good for me. A little bit of my personality is surfacing. It's strange when I see it, like an old friend I'd completely forgotten.

I keep working the problem. Searching for landmarks, looking for signs.

In the background I recite my goals, with my new, fourth goal:
Steal his truck and ride to victory.
Between reciting goals, I think of the other girls, and of my family and friends, and I ask them for their prayers, their energy, their good intentions. These thoughts help.

The sun comes up in earnest, but I won't let worry and frustration take over.

I don't know where I am, but I feel like I should be there by now. The sun has been up for a while. A long while. Wolfman will want to eat breakfast. Or is it lunch? When did he head back to the cabin? Is he already there?

There hasn't been a landmark in a long time.

Pretty soon it'll be time to give up.

The thought scares me, but in the end, what's the difference between lost in a westerly direction and lost in an easterly direction? Either way, the important thing is to find help. Find a hunting cabin or a road.

Even though I tell myself this, it feels like defeat. With the disappointment my energy ebbs. The quest for the truck kept me going. It gave me a goal. Without that goal, I have nothing.

Get it together, Ruthie.

Maybe I won't get to steal his truck. So what? The idea had a lot of appeal, but in truth how much of that was just me wanting to show off? Besides, is the risk really worth the reward? Probably not. Getting the keys, getting to the truck, getting out of there—all of that is extremely high risk. What if the keys aren't on the nail? What if he grabs me before I get to the truck? What if the truck won't start and then he grabs me?

Not finding the cabin, not finding the truck, this is all a blessing. I need to accept it as such and move on with a new plan.

Just then I turn my head to the left, and there it is.

The truck.

Parked out front of the cabin.

Somehow I circled around the cabin, got in front of it, and damn near wandered to the front door.

Dear God, I'm an idiot. An idiot, an idiot, an idiot.

I find a hole to hide in. Some time ago a big, old oak fell over, and its pulled-up roots left a nice, me-size hole in the earth. I ­clamber
into it, feeling a little safer as I get my wits together. I had no clue how close I was to the cabin. No clue. The thought leaves me shaky.

Time to steady my breathing, steady my hands. Think. Time to think.

The good news is, I don't see or hear anything. If I'm lucky, he's far out west, hunting for me. But that's no certainty, and my blundering path through the woods has shaken my confidence.

Does it make such a difference, though, whether I approach the cabin from the back or the front? Isn't the important thing that I'm here now, twenty yards from the truck?

On the other hand, I'd made some good arguments. Going to get the keys, that's just crazy. Out in the forest it sounded like a great idea. To me, squatting here in this hole in the ground, naked except for mud and blood, it sounds insane. Why would I go back into that cabin?

My mind pings back and forth, fear telling me to run and abandon my plan, courage telling me to stick it out. In the end, what decides it is the sight of my own body, the soles of my feet. I'm in terrible shape. I need out of this godforsaken wilderness.

The reward outweighs the risk.

No longer motivated by the idea of his shock and fear, no longer motivated by anything other than the desire to get this over with, I advance toward the house.

It's a hum. Everything is a hum. Sights, sounds, sensation, it all melds into a hum around me. I want to keep sharp, but I'm dulled by fear. I'm stuffed full of it.

There are only a few trees between me and the front door now.

It's now or never.

Before I'm really ready, I run.

Please, please, don't be home, don't be home.

Reaching the front door, I sling open the barricade, throw open the door, and find the keys on the nail. Like they were waiting for me.

I grab them.

Time does funny things, and now I'm in the truck without any memory of how I got there. I turn the key, and the old engine cranks.

“Oh, good truck, good truck,” I say.

I floor it.

This old truck has power. More power than I'm used to.

And now I know why he was so slow, so careful on this path that doesn't even count for a road. The curves and bumps send me to two wheels.

I'm going to crash before I've even gone a quarter of a mile.

I release the gas, and the truck returns to all fours, but it's jouncing up and down like I'm in an inflatable bouncy castle. No seat belt on, I can't quite get a good grip on the wheel. There's a bend in the road; I manage to crank right and follow the clearing.

And there he is.

Right in front of me.

With every bit of strength I have, I punch the gas pedal hard. Hard, hard, hard. I want to crash into him; I want to kill him; I want to flatten him.

The truck bears down on the Wolfman.

He half raises his gun, and I think,
Yes, mother-effer, take the time to raise your gun; take your time and see what it gets you.

But he's too smart. He abandons the gun, letting it sling useless against his side, and leaps into the brush as the truck barrels past.

He's behind me now, but I'm still not in control. It's too fast; everything's too fast. Another sharp bend almost sends me into a tree. Hitting the brake hard, I then try to figure out a pace that's doable on this treacherous mountain lane.

Sticking with the pace for a few seconds, I think of Wolfman gaining ground, climbing a ridge. Once he's on a ridge, with that hunting rifle, he'll look through his scope and he'll see me. He'll shoot up the truck. He'll get me. He can still get me. I know he can still get me.

I want to stop myself, but I can't. My right foot can't stop pushing the gas pedal, sending the truck lurching down the path. The road forks. I choose left.

Only two hundred yards later I hit a dead end.

It takes a million-point turn before I can get the truck going back to where I came from.

I'm ready to see him, standing in the lane, his rifle at the ready.

He's not there, not in person, but he's in my mind. He looms so large I can't get away from him. I get back to the fork and go the other way. Just a few seconds later and I'm forced to face another choice.

I don't want these damn choices; I want a route out. I want out of here.

But there is no clear path. There's a labyrinth of country roads,
more trails than roads, really, and I don't know where the hell I am.

I pick a road, but in no time I face another dead end.

And another.

And now I have no idea where I am.

I take yet another path that ends in a dead end, and I recognize it as a dead end I've already visited. I'm driving in circles. I'm not getting out.

I'd thought this truck was my trip to victory. Now I hate it. I hate it like I've never hated an inanimate object in my life. I hate the way it lurches; I hate the rotten mildew smell of it. It can't get me where I want to go. It can't get me anywhere but lost. Inside it I'm big and loud and visible; I'm an easy target.

These poor excuses for roads follow the low spots, the valleys. I'm a slow-moving bug down in a rut, and the Wolfman is up there somewhere, up on the ridges, with his high-powered rifle and his scope, and he's waiting for me.

How long have I been driving? I don't know, but I'm covered with sweat.

I've focused my energies, picking my way forward, making mental landmarks of where I've been. It's impossible to say if I'm taking the best path possible, but at least I'm not making the same dead-end mistakes over and over again. It takes a while, far longer than I'd like, but I find myself on a well-maintained gravel road. It's a huge improvement over the trails and dirt lanes of the morning. It's a strange road though. The gravel is piled on inches thick, and it's broader than you'd expect.

Driving conservatively, driving to preserve every drop of gas in the tank, I follow the gravel road like it's a lifeline. Because it is.

It goes on and on and on and on and on and on, and I start to worry about how much gas I have left. It dawns on me that this is a DNR road. Department of Natural Resources. It's kept up not because people are ever on it. It's kept up in case of wildfire or other natural disaster. All the same, even a DNR road will meet up with a real road eventually. I've started to lose faith in miracles, but one might happen, and I might run into a forest ranger making his patrols.

Up ahead there's something long and solid and white gray. It stretches across the road, and the sight of it puts a lead weight of dread into my belly. I think I know what it is, but I hope I'm wrong. Or maybe there's a way around it I just can't see yet.