She had expected the lush, cool forest around them to gradually give way to drought-stricken trees that would at last begin to look familiar. Though she had caught no sounds of a river or stream, she had reasoned that they had perhaps begun their search near a lake or other waterway she simply couldn’t see. This part of Texas was riddled with them, which was why Houston was commonly known as the Bayou City. Trees were always greener near water sources. But if that were the case, the farther they moved away from the water, the drier the trees and foliage should have become.
That just didn’t happen. And she was pretty sure the forest on the outskirts of the Woodlands wasn’t this large, so her belief that she had ended up there faltered.
Perhaps, she speculated in desperation, she had wandered onto private land after being shot. Private land that thrived because the owner had opted to ignore the water restrictions and regularly quenched the land’s thirst with an excellent irrigation system.
But who would own this much land and spend that much money irrigating it when it wasn’t farmland?
She wasn’t sure how far a horse could travel in a couple of hours, but they should have encountered something by now. A house. A farm. A road. A rest stop. A barbed wire fence. A sign letting them know they were trespassing on private property or had wandered into some kind of wildlife preserve. Anything.
She frowned.
As far as she knew, there weren’t any wildlife preserves outside of Houston that were this large. But there was a huge national forest north of Conroe that was bracketed by two large lakes and peppered with waterways. That might explain the lusher forest. There had been many times when the Houston area had suffered a drought while areas to the north or west flooded. And it was pretty common for cold fronts to stall north of Houston and cool things down there while providing no relief from the heat in Houston.
But this cool? She didn’t think so. Besides, Sam Houston National Forest wasn’t within walking distance of the one that boasted Kingsley’s hunting cabin. She would’ve had to get in the car and drive to where she had woken up. But they had not found her car. And Beth knew she would never have left Josh behind.
It just didn’t make any sense.
Nevertheless, Beth opened her mouth to suggest they turn around, convinced that they were too far north, but the words froze in her throat as the trees parted before them and Berserker carried them out of the forest.
Her stomach twisted into a nauseated knot as she took in their surroundings. Fear—entirely different from that which she felt for Josh’s safety—sprouted within her and grew in tandem to her racing thoughts.
She and Robert had passed in and out of several clearings and meadows, but none had been large enough for her to see any farther than the trees on the opposite side. This…
This was different.
Robert guided Berserker onto a dirt road that stretched far into the distance. Beth stared straight ahead, then leaned over and looked behind them, fighting back panic as cries of protest filled her head.
Having been born and raised in Texas, she was pretty familiar with the Lone Star State’s landscape. She and Josh and their dad had driven to Galveston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso and all the way down to Mexico through one small town after another. And there was one thing you could safely say about Houston: It—and the land around it—was flat for miles and miles in every direction.
Yet that wasn’t what she saw and experienced as they continued along the road Robert had chosen to follow. The land sloped up behind them and down in front of them as they pressed on to the bottom of what could only be described as a substantial hill. Only one of many, she learned much to her dismay, when they topped the next even larger one.
“Jooosh?” She couldn’t quite produce a shout this time, so stunned she could barely find her voice.
All the way to the distant horizon, the trees were as green and healthy as the forest she and Robert had just abandoned. Verdant grass and flowering weeds rolled like ocean waves in a breeze chilly enough to make her shiver. Now that the forest no longer kept the wind from buffeting them and hitting them head-on, she guessed the temperature must have dropped a good forty degrees while she had lain unconscious, something that should have spawned violent thunderstorms and left the ground saturated. Yet not a drop of rain had fallen.
“Jooosh!”
And the dirt road…
Though narrow, it gave all appearances of being well-traveled. Yet it lacked the assorted litter that usually made Beth grouse. No tissues. No soda cans. No fast-food napkins. No dirty diapers. No discarded potato chip bags, gum wrappers, or cigarette butts.
And no tire tracks.
Though she searched and searched, Beth could locate not one tread mark. Instead, deep grooves that looked as though they had been carved by large wooden wagon wheels marred the dirt’s surface.
Her heart began to slam against her ribs.
The only people she could think of who used wagons like that—aside from those who offered downtown and midtown carriage rides—were the Amish. But the only Amish communities she could think of in Texas were up near Fort Worth and down by Corpus Christi, both of which were about a four-hour drive from Houston.
It wasn’t right. None of it was right.
“Jooooosh!”
Fear must have crept into her voice, because Robert tightened his arm around her.