The Story Keeper (33 page)

Chapter 28

T
he weather had turned clear again, at least, and warmer. The dusting of snow melted off by ten, other than the bits that lay hidden in moats of fall leaves. The sun had burned away the mist even in the valleys, allowing good visibility for searchers and helicopter pilots, yet half the day had rushed by and still there was nothing.

Even the beauty of the afternoon couldn’t eclipse the growing horror of its reality. With each hour that passed, the chances of finding Hannah healthy and unharmed were waning.

“We’re almost back to the road again.” Lily Clarette pointed to the path ahead of us. We’d been following horseshoe imprints on a deer trail, but it was anyone’s guess whether the single set of tracks had a thing to do with Hannah.

“I don’t think it’s her, anyhow.” Lily Clarette pushed back her hood and squinted at the ground, leaning low over her mount’s shoulder. “There’s what looks like dog tracks here too. Sometimes
the horse stepped over the dog track and sometimes the dog stepped over the horse track. They must’ve been made at the same time, and Hannah didn’t have no dog with her.”

Once again, we’d come up dry. Above, cars zoomed past as if it were another normal day. Did those people have any idea of the trauma of hope and disappointment playing out in the woods around Looking Glass Lake?

“Let’s go on up to the road and I’ll see if I can get cell service. We haven’t checked in a while. Maybe . . .” My voice broke, and I couldn’t say it again, even though I wanted to.
Maybe someone’s found her by now. Maybe everything’s fine.
The search force had nearly doubled this morning. They were moving even farther afield, checking areas that seemed too out-of-the-way for Hannah to have wandered . . . unless someone had taken her there. The more time that elapsed, the greater the assumption that she hadn’t disappeared on her own . . . and that this might be a recovery operation, not a rescue.

Our mules lugged uphill until we cleared the trees. The phone reception looked unpromising, but I sent a text to Evan.
Anything?

No answer.

I tried not to imagine what one more cold night might do if Hannah was still out there somewhere.

The phone emitted an electronic chime. Lily Clarette looked on expectantly, reading Evan’s reply along with me.
Something found. Headed back to town now. Word is, good news.

My sister caught a breath. “It’s happenin’. I know it. How far from town d’you think we are?”

I looked back and forth, but all I could see was a mountain on one side and a mountain on the other, a ribbon of highway connecting them. “I have no idea, but there’s one way to find out.”

The mule snorted happily and leaned into the bit as I turned him toward Looking Glass Gap and let him have his head. “Let’s go.”

Lily Clarette urged her mount into a lope, and the mules ran side by side, covering ground until the roadside finally narrowed and we took to the woods again, working our way over a rocky crest. When we topped the hill, what remained of the Time Shifters encampment lay visible in the river valley below.

The buzz of excitement was evident even before we reached the edge of the field where the search volunteers’ vehicles and stock trailers were parked.

Robin ran to meet us. “We heard that one of the dogs hit on somethin’, and they followed the trail till it got away from them in a crick. Then one a them fellas smelt a fire burning and he climbed up a tree, and sure ’nuf, there was a little smoke comin’ from the next holler over, but they couldn’t get there. They sent in a helicopter and it was her. That’s what we heard. Ray’s headed to town to see what’s goin’ on, if you wanna hop in the back a his truck. I’ll look after your mules.” She pointed to a vehicle nearby, where Braveheart, in jeans and a jacket, his dreadlocks bound in a ponytail, was climbing into the cab. “Hey, Ray, wait a second! You got s’more passengers!” Robin yelled.

“Y’all come on.” He lowered the tailgate to let us in with several other searchers who were already waiting to make the trip.

My pulse raced with anticipation as we ran to the vehicle. “Let me know when you find out if it’s true, a’right?” Robin called after us. “I wanna be sure if that little girl’s okay!”

The truck was abuzz with theories as we drove to Looking Glass Gap, but it was clear quickly enough that no one knew what was fact and what was fiction. Lily Clarette took my hand, held it between hers, and squeezed tight.

In town, news crews with cameras had begun to scramble into position on Main Street. Clearly they were preparing for some sort of event.

Evan’s height made him visible among the sheriff’s department personnel in front of the Mountain Leaf store. At the opposite end of the street, something else caught my eye
 
—a black Appaloosa mule with a blaze and an unmistakable splash of white over the hindquarters. Beside it, my father stood among a nest of family members, Brethren Saints, and coon hunters controlling nervous dogs and livestock.

“There’s Daddy.” Lily Clarette seemed almost relieved to find a familiar face. “I’m gonna see what he’s heard.”

Instinctively, my arm snaked out, the motion like that of a mother protecting an unrestrained toddler from a sudden stop. “Let me talk to Evan and see.”

A frown answered. “They’re fam’ly, Jennia Beth, no matter how you feel about it.” She was gone before I could protest again.

I pushed partway through the crowd before a policeman detained me, then decided to let me through. Evan looked my way as the sheriff issued a radio order for his deputies to clear the street. A National Guard helicopter was on its way.

Uncertainty was evident on Evan’s face. Last night’s worry lines remained deeply etched.

“Is she all right?”

“We don’t have a lot of news yet. They say she’s in fairly good shape, considering that she just spent two nights with practically no shelter.”

“Where was she?”

“She and the horse took a fall down a canyon. That’s why the helicopters couldn’t find her. The horse couldn’t climb out and Hannah has a broken leg.” He scanned the horizon, watching.
“If it weren’t for the coon dogs tracking so far over that way, it might’ve been another day or two before anyone covered the area on foot. And that would’ve been too late.” His jaw clenched beneath wind-blistered skin, and he closed his eyes, struggling to hold himself together.

I waited for him to look at me. “But she’s all right, Evan. She’s okay.”

“We came so close to . . .” The sentence hung unfinished.

“Hey . . . she’s
okay
. She’s coming home.” The next thing I knew, I was wrapping my arms around him and holding on, weary with relief, with gratitude, with the slow building of a monumental joy I was afraid to let myself feel until we saw Hannah in person. Evan was right. It could’ve so easily gone the other way.

We clung to each other in shared relief, the din around us fading, time pausing until finally the whir of an approaching helicopter drummed the air. News crews went into coverage mode. Voices and electronic noises mingled with the shouts of sheriff’s deputies, the clattering of hooves on pavement, and the nervous baying of hounds.

It wasn’t until the swirl of debris from the updraft forced me to shield my eyes that I realized I was clutched in Evan’s arms. For a moment, it had seemed as natural as breathing, and then suddenly I was aware of our nearness. He seemed to realize it in the same instant and loosened his hold, stepping away.

“She’s home,” I said, clearing my throat uncomfortably.

“Yes. She is.” He was turning toward the chopper before the skids even touched the pavement. I stepped back, clearing the path.

“Come on,” he yelled over the roar of the Army-green beast, holding his hand out for mine. An unexpected anticipation shivered through me as we formed the link and then ran through the
empty space, ducking down even though the rotors were well above our heads.

The helicopter door slid open, and a guardsman jumped out as the engines slowly whined toward a stop. Inside, Hannah lay in a rescue basket, wrapped in a combination of silver insulator blankets and security straps.

“Hold on there,” a medic was saying as he unbuckled the bindings, letting her wiggle her hands free.

Hannah stretched out her arms and tried to sit up. “Uncle Evan!”

Crawling into the helicopter, he embraced her so tightly that she disappeared from view, other than a pair of hands encased in camo mittens that were several sizes too large. Inside them, her fingers clutched Evan’s jacket as his shoulders quaked over her.

I stood by the door, once again losing awareness of the noise of reporters, equipment, and officials holding the onlookers at bay. All seemed remote, unimportant. The only thing that mattered was that Hannah had come home alive. Alive, and able to speak and cry and hug. The fact that they hadn’t rushed her straight to a hospital had to be a good sign.

I peered in as Evan held her face away, checking her over. Her cheeks and nose were blistered, the fringes of the sores slightly blue. Her lips were swollen and cracked, but the damage could have been so much worse.

She spotted me. Smiled as if it were any other day. “Hey, Jennia Beth! You’re still here!”

“Are you kidding? There was no
way
I was leaving until we found you.”

Pulling her hands into her lap, she studied her mittens. “I’m sorry I made so much trouble for everybody. Is Blackberry okay? Did they get him out yet?”

“They’re working on it,” the pilot answered, flipping a few switches in the cockpit before stepping out his door into the glow and flash of cameras.

“Don’t worry, Hannah. They’ll bring your horse back,” the medic promised, checking some sort of monitor before backing away. He smiled at me on his way out. “That was all she could talk about on the ride here
 
—whether the horse would be okay. She stayed curled in next to him to keep warm. That and knowing enough to den up in a layer of leaves are the only reasons she’s in such good shape. Smart kid. You’ve got a minute or two with her, and then medevac will be here to take her on to the hospital.” A concerned glance drifted over Hannah’s feet before he left, and apprehension burrowed deep in the pit of my stomach.

Evan turned back to his niece. “Hannah, what were you
doing
way out there?”

Her dramatic sigh seemed to make light of all the hullabaloo. “I didn’t mean to. I got lost. And then I was trying to find my way back, but it got, like, really dark after a while. I thought I was on the trail by the south gate, so I kicked Blackberry up into a lope, but I wasn’t where I thought. All of a sudden the trail was just . . . gone, and dirt and leaves went everywhere. I couldn’t see, and I couldn’t breathe, and Blackberry rolled over the top of me and I thought maybe I was gonna die. I don’t remember what happened after that, but then I woke up, and it was dark, and I could hear a creek, and I could hear Blackberry breathing, and I kept thinkin’,
I’m just dreaming it all.
But I was so cold, and when I got up on my leg, I couldn’t stand on it and there were, like, rocks all over the place. I started bawling and screaming, and then finally I crawled down to where Blackberry was and started thinkin’ about what I needed to do
 
—like getting leaves to make myself a nest and getting Blackberry to lay down so I could get close by him and . . .”

She hesitated then, peered around Evan’s shoulder. A grown-up look of concern conflicted with the naively matter-of-fact recounting of her accident. “Where’s my dad?”

Evan and I exchanged glances. His lips compressed into a thin, hard line.

“Oh.” Hannah focused on the mittens in her lap. “He didn’t come back. I thought he’d be lookin’ for me with everybody else.”

“He didn’t know. . . .” The explanation was all I could think of, but it felt pathetically lame. A father who failed to realize that his daughter had been missing for two days wasn’t a father.

Evan cleared his throat, the muscles in his neck holding position for a moment before they loosened to allow words. “Is that why you ran away, Hannah? Because you heard your dad and me fighting?”

Hannah blinked, startled. “I didn’t run off. I just went to find Dad. He hangs out at that place down by the river sometimes and plays pool and stuff. There’s some lady he knows there. I heard him on the phone the other day, talking about movin’ back to Oklahoma with her. That’s where she’s from. I thought if I could catch him, I could tell him to come on home. That you didn’t mean it when you said to move out.”

“Hannah . . .” Evan’s hand smoothed over her hair, swiped a tear as it trailed down her cheek. “All of that doesn’t have a thing to do with you, and you can’t fix it. Your dad’s an adult, and he’s just . . . not thinking like one. But you can’t take that on. You need to worry about making smart choices . . . and about listening when we tell you not to do something.”

“I know.” She sighed. “I learned my lesson, okay? I almost got Blackberry killed. And me.”

“You did a good job, Hannah,” I interjected. For a girl who’d just survived an incredible ordeal, she looked monumentally sad
now. “You did everything you needed to do to get out of there. You kept a cool head.”

The praise won a halfhearted smile. “Well . . . at first, I wasn’t a whole lot worried. I thought someone’d come find me right off. But then when the screaming didn’t work and the
whole
night went by and I didn’t hear any people or four-wheelers or anything, I told Blackberry, ‘This is not lookin’ good. We gotta be a
long
way from anyplace.’ By the next day, I heard helicopters, but they just flew right over every time. So I told Blackberry, ‘We are gonna have to figure a way outta here.’ But of course, we couldn’t climb out. So by then, I knew I had to figure how to get a fire. I had matches in my coat pocket because Granny Vi always says, when you go in the woods, a book of matches can be the difference between livin’ and dyin’. But all the wood I could get to was, like, really wet. I used up most of the matches and couldn’t get anything lit, and I figured I better save the last few.

“So then I cried for a while again. Then I started thinking about, how did they do it in the story? And I remembered how she put the little tinder bundle under her clothes when they walked all day so it’d get dry. I got some cedar bark and pine needles and stuff and put it up under my coat, and then I got Blackberry to lay down again, and I just squeezed up close to him as much as I could and piled the leaves back over us again. I knew I better not try the rest of the matches till I had some good dry stuff to burn, so I denned up and waited. Today, once the sun was up good and I figured people were looking for me, I made a fire.” Turning her mittens palm up and flipping them through the air, she offered an incongruously impish
eureka
. “The tinder bundle worked, just like it did in the story.”