Chapter 33
The strap of his backpack hooked a branch. Adam yanked it free. He turned back too fast and the ground tilted again. He prodded the spot where his bandana was folded under his cap. It didn’t seem any damper than the last time he’d checked. As he turned, the LED light clipped to the bill of his cap illuminated a patch of trampled chicory flowers. At first he hadn’t been sure Lexi was marking the trail on purpose. But there were too many signs. Maybe all the times he’d read his survival books out loud, she’d actually been listening.
What he didn’t know was whether or not she was alone. If Ben was following her or dragging her, he could be reading the signs wrong. Maybe it was Ben, running like a fat bear, trampling everything in his path. Maybe Ben was running scared and Lexi had gone for help. If he hadn’t broken the file off in the ignition, Lexi could have driven to get help. She knew enough about cars to do that. All he’d been thinking about was keeping Ben from taking them anywhere else. Far off, a coyote howled. The sound was followed by yapping. Don’t get scared. Panic was the biggest mistake people made in the wilderness. He wouldn’t allow tears. He had to find Lexi.
He busied his mind with things that would keep him from panic. He imagined being a runaway slave fleeing to freedom. In his head, he sang some of the Negro spirituals from one of Mrs.
Willett’s books. Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt land, Tell ole Pharaoh, To let my people go.
He dropped a chunk of flowerpot and kept walking. No one would see the broken pieces at the campsite until morning. It would probably just look like an accident. Nobody would report it. The quilt square he’d drawn back home wouldn’t mean anything to anyone but Emily, and who would think to show it to her? It just looked like splotches of cinnamon on a wrinkled paper.
Doubts whispered through the oak branches, growing louder with each silent step on the leaf-padded ground.
He stopped and knelt by a patch of matted grass and set a piece of flowerpot in the center.
A branch snapped. Lexi’s pulse pounded in her neck. The thing was getting closer. Were there bears? A fat raccoon waddled past. She made herself think of rabbits and squirrels and fuzzy, harmless creatures. A wheeze whistled from her throat. She tried to quiet her breathing, but the harder she tried, the louder it got. Slow. Calm. Fear would make it worse. She tried to pray, but no words came to mind. She pushed herself to a stand. The stars came back. Bending over, she rounded her shoulders and rubbed the sore spots between her ribs. Adam had read about it once. Acupressure.
Another sound. Footsteps. She held her breath.
“Lex?”
So faint. Had she imagined his voice? “Adam?”
And then he was there, grabbing her arm, hugging her.
“Adam!” She wrapped her arm around him. “Ben might still be close,” she wheezed.
“Where’s your inhaler?” he whispered in her ear as his hand followed her arm up to the belt.
“He threw it.”
He rummaged in his backpack and handed her a candy bar. “Theobromine. Remember? Relaxes bronchials.” His knife snapped open and he sawed through the belt in seconds.
As Lexi’s arm dropped to her side, a deep, gravelly laugh boomed down the hill and ricocheted off the trees.
Walk faster. Emily gripped a chunk of terra-cotta flowerpot she’d picked up at the campsite as she swept the woods with a flashlight beam. She craned her neck to the left, and her toe caught in a tangle of roots. She lurched forward, grabbing a sapling and catching herself, but wrenching her lower back as she did.
Faster. She’d seen the blood on the cement slab. The ranger had tried to hide it from her and now she wished he’d been successful. She couldn’t dismiss the image. Her teeth dented her bottom lip as she kept her screams inside. The ranger’s reluctant assent to her joining the search was based on her promise to not make a sound.
Twelve more steps, gradually uphill, and her back cramped. She thought of the paisley cane at the bottom of the river as she painted the ground with her light, finally landing on a piece of wood the right length for a walking stick. With the stub of a branch, about three inches long, sticking out from one end, it looked like a long-barreled rifle.
“Why is it that you can hunt possum in the dark of night and paddle the river by day and I must stitch by candlelight and bake bread at sunrise?”
Hannah’s words occupied her mind and took the edge off her fear. She’d walked a dozen more steps when a light flashed at her. She held her breath. “Miss Foster?” The ranger’s hushed voice restored the cadence of her pulse. As he neared, the beam from his headlamp dipped toward something red in his hand.
Lexi’s inhaler.
“Oh God.” Emily’s hand flattened against her chest. “Lexi has asthma. This cold air…” She stifled a sob. Her fingers closed around the inhaler. She slid it into her pocket next to the pottery piece. The ranger nodded and walked away.
Minutes passed. Lightning flashed through the dense trees. The wind picked up. It smelled like damp earth and something else. Something out of place.
“Chocolate!” She whispered it out loud without thinking. A faint sound filtered through the brush.
Wheezing.
“Lexi! Where are you?” Her voice echoed. A louder wheeze answered. “Lexi!”
“Em—”
Her hand shook, her light swung wildly. She froze as it hit an expanse of white. A man. Ben. Huge arms wrapped around Adam and Lexi, fat hands curled over their throats.
“Let them go. Now. Or I’ll…” She raised the walking stick to her right shoulder and aimed it, and the flashlight, at Ben Madsen’s eyes. “Let them go or I’ll shoot.” The words hissed from her.
Wild eyes opened wider. Ben’s. Adam’s. Lexi’s. And her own. Her throat constricted. Black dots danced. “Now.” The fat fingers straightened and lifted slowly away. His arms stretched to the sky and Adam and Lexi ran toward her.
“Don’t move!” The ranger’s voice split the darkness.
And Emily’s legs gave way.
“Emily!” A wheezing sob ripped from Lexi as Emily slumped against Adam. Never in her life had she been so happy to see someone she thought she never wanted to see again.
Emily wrapped her in a one-armed hug and the strength seemed to return to her legs. “Here.” Emily opened her hand.
Lexi grabbed the inhaler, took two long puffs, and fell into Emily’s arms next to Adam. Nothing, in over a year, had felt so good.
A radio beeped in the hand of a man in a uniform. A staticky voice from the radio said, “The kids’ uncle is here.”
“Put him on.” He handed the radio to Emily.
Emily laughed over her sobs. “We found them. They’re fine.” She rested her head on Lexi’s.
Adam leaned toward the radio. “Emily found us, Jake. She found us.” His voice cracked and he turned away.
“Thank God.” Jake’s voice was like music. “Thank Emily.”
“Yeah.” Lexi nodded against Emily’s neck and hugged her tighter. “Thank you”—she laughed through her tears—“muchness.”