Chapter Two #2
He ended the call and ten minutes later pulled into the hiking trail lot at one of the less popular trail heads.
He climbed out and went to the back of his Range Rover, lifting the back, and pulling out his heavy gear.
The SAR rucksack with all his supplies weighed about thirty pounds.
He’d carry it and a few extra bottles of water, just in case.
Last he grabbed the SAR baseball hat he wore for their softball games.
Before he put on his rucksack, he did some stretching behind his car, loosening up his muscles.
He’d learned with his extensive injuries, though recovered, he needed to take the time to warm up or he’d seize up later.
The sun was high. He’d get in a few miles of hiking before he had to head back to the bar to check in with the manager and go over inventory. Right now, he just wanted to get lost among the trees and nature, so he could let his muscles work and his mind rest.
He started down a trail that usually challenged him.
Three miles in, he hit the fork and decided that he’d been going easy on himself a lot lately and needed to push himself with some rougher terrain to build up his stamina.
He turned right down a lesser used trail, and really worked his legs as he traversed the winding hillside that brought him up to another plateau and around to another narrow gap between two hills.
The trail was a little overgrown, but he could still navigate it.
If he kept going, he should make it to another fork and yet another trail that wound back to his starting point.
The wind whispered through the valley and trees. He stopped at a large boulder and sat, taking out a bottle of water and downing all of it. He pulled off his ball cap, held it up, and wiped his brow on the crook of his elbow and arm.
“I’m here. Help me! I’m here. Help me!” The words were barely discernible, so much so that for a second he thought he’d imagined it as the wind’s whispering picked up again.
But something in him wouldn’t let him dismiss it as nothing. He pulled on his ball cap and headed deeper down the path, calling out, “Is someone there? Can you hear me?”
He waited, holding his breath, but didn’t hear anything more. He kept moving forward, slowly scanning his surroundings, looking for anything, anyone, out here.
“Hello. Can you hear me?” He thought he heard a soft groan. More whispers.
Suddenly, a small rock landed five feet away and tumbled toward him. He turned his head to the hill up ahead of him. It took his eyes a second to register what he was seeing. Someone’s bare feet. Whoever it was, he couldn’t see the rest of them from his vantage point.
He ran to the slope where the trees grew out of the hill and jumped up to see if he could spot the person above him.
All he caught was a glimpse of long blonde hair, dried blood matting some of it down as the breeze blew other strands, tangling them in a branch.
“I see you. I’m coming up. Just hold on. ”
He didn’t get a response and his gut knotted with dread.
He studied the terrain leading up and figured out some handholds and footholds for him to haul himself up the seven foot rise.
The second he braced himself at the top with the two trees as support, he gasped at the nearly naked woman lying face down, a thick stick sticking out of her shoulder, blood covering her back, her head, and dried and pooled beneath her.
Fuck!
He pulled off his pack and set it aside, then kneeled beside her, and gently brushed the hair away from her face.
“Help. Me.” The words puffed out of her chapped and cracked lips so softly he’d barely heard them.
But then he pushed the last of her thick hair back, leaned down close, and really looked at her. Shock rocked him. “Lucky.” It couldn’t be. What was she doing way out here? How did she get here?
Why the fuck is she naked?
He looked up the hill from where she lay and could practically see the entire path she’d slid down by all the disturbed plants, dirt, and debris.
She didn’t answer him, just groaned.
“Lucky. It’s me. Hawk.” His voice trembled. His heart thrashed in his chest. “I’m going to help you.” He pulled out his phone and cursed. No signal. Of course not. And he hadn’t brought his SAR satellite phone. Damn.
Stupid.
At least he was prepared to tend to her injuries and try to get her stable. First he needed to figure how bad she was hurt. Right after he called for help. “Lucky.” He patted her cheek gently, trying to rouse her. “Hey. I need to head back down the trail a little ways so I can call for help.”
“Staaayy.” The word wheezed out of her.
He leaned down so he could hear her better, but he didn’t like what she said at all.
“Don’t. Want. To. Die.” She sucked in a ragged breath and let out the next word on her exhale. “Alone.”
“You’re not dying. I’m going to get you to the hospital. But I need you to hold on. Can you do that for me? Please,” he begged.
It was impulsive, out of character, and crossing a line, but he pressed his forehead to hers and kissed her cheek, feeling how cold she was. “You’re not dying on me. Okay? I need you to live.” He should have simply stopped at, I need you, by the way his heart pounded in his chest.
Damn. He really cared about her. More than he’d let himself admit or feel until now.
He dug into his pack and found the Mylar blanket, unwrapping it and spreading it over her, worried it wouldn’t be enough to bring her body temperature up.
He took her temp with a digital thermometer.
Ninety-five. Too low. Knowing she’d last been seen Saturday night, he figured she’d been out here in the elements for nearly three days.
Fuck!
She was very close to dying. She needed fluids, heat, and a hospital. Not to mention he needed to stabilize any injuries she had from coming down the twenty-something foot drop from above.
He pulled out a saline bag and IV line. It only took him a minute to set it up and hook the bag above her on a tree limb.
It took a hell of a lot longer to find a vein.
He couldn’t get to the inside of her arms, so he went through one in her hand.
Took him three tries to find a good vein because of her dehydration.
He squeezed the bag to get it going, hoping he wasn’t too late.
He pulled out his stethoscope and listened to her heart through her back. Slow. Thready. Not good. He needed a helicopter evac if he was going to save her.
He leaned down close to her ear. “The fluids are going to help. I have to go make that call.”
“Stay. Dying.”
“No. You’re not. You’re going to fight. Promise me.” A tear dropped onto her cheek. He hadn’t even realized it slipped down his face. “Please, Lucky. Don’t give up. Not now when you’re so close to being saved.”
“Promise. Try.”
“That’s my girl. Hold on. I’ll be as fast as I can.
A few minutes. Okay. Hold on.” He didn’t waste any more time and slid down the embankment he was on, hitting the trail at a dead run.
He had to go back about half a mile to reach higher, open ground.
His phone chirped with several incoming messages.
He ignored them all and hit the speed dial for the SAR office.
The second Randy picked up, he started issuing orders.
“I need the chopper up in the air immediately. I have a woman, twenty-four, hypothermic, stabbed through the right shoulder with a tree root, head and body injuries from a fall of about twenty to twenty-five feet down a hill. She’s been out in the elements for approximately three days.
Lucky Sinclair went missing as far back as possibly Saturday night.
She’s naked. Possible rape and dump.” Those words coming out of his mouth about her nearly sent him to his knees.
“I’ve got fluids started. I need to get back to tend to her wounds.
I’m dropping you a pin now for my location, though she’s north of me by half a mile on the hiking trail. ”
“Got it. I’ll assemble the team and notify the sheriff’s office. We’ll be ready to airlift her out as soon as she’s stable.”
He hoped she wasn’t dead by the time he got back to her.
“Hurry. There’s no time to waste on this one. She’s critical.” He hung up and started running again. He’d never pushed himself so hard or so fast, but for her, where every second counted, he wouldn’t quit. Not until she was safe and healthy again.
He climbed back up to her, relieved to see the metallic space blanket rise and fall as she breathed.
“I’m back. The cavalry is on the way.” He hunched down next to her again and started assessing her critically, starting with her head wounds.
He found two large bumps, one with a laceration.
He cleaned and bandaged it, then moved on to her neck.
She was lying at an odd angle.
“Lucky. Does your neck hurt?”
She tried to lift her head to answer him.
“Don’t move. Just tell me.”
“Head. Shoulder. Neck stiff. Back aches. Knee, thigh hurt.” She moved her left hand. “Pinky.”
Yeah, that was dislocated and turned sideways.
He checked it out, wincing at the odd angle.
Unfortunately that meant he needed to pop it back into place and splint it.
“I’m really sorry about this. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.
But your finger is dislocated and I need to fix it.
” He got the splint and tape ready, then took her hand, gripped the dislocated portion, pulled, and realigned the bones.
She squeaked out what should have been a scream if she could manage it.
He splinted the finger and taped it to her ring finger as well to keep it stable.
He checked the fluids, they were about half in her. “Are you feeling a little better?”
“No.”
“I don’t blame you. I honestly don’t know how you survived this long. The temps at night had to get below fifty. You must have been freezing.”
“So c-cold.”
And she was partially lying on stone.
“Okay, here’s the hard part. I need to get a look at your shoulder.
If I can cut the limb stabbing you, maybe I can roll you over to assess your other injuries.
There’s blood by your thigh, face, neck, and upper body.
You’re covered in scrapes and bruises.” He wanted to ask about the old, healed scars on her body.
It looked like someone had taken a knife and sliced away at her.
He’d suspect self-harm, except for the fact that they were all over her back and the back of her thighs.
He wondered if her front looked the same.
“Hawk.”
He brushed his fingers softly through her hair. “Yeah. I’m here.”
“Don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Me either. You and me, we’re going to stick together. Okay. You promise me that.”
“K.”
“I need to hear you promise.”
Her eyes opened for the first time.
He leaned in close, staring into the blue pools. “There you are. I got home yesterday and saw that you hadn’t been there and…” He went for it. “I missed you.”
She blinked back tears. A good sign the IV fluids were working. “Scared. So tired.
“I know. I won’t leave your side. Now promise me you won’t give up.”
“Should have asked you out. I wanted to. So many times. Too late…now.”
“No it’s not. You just need to fight.” He hoped she understood what he was asking for because he was having trouble finding the words. “You want a date. Done. Dinners. Movies. Sitting on the couch reading books together. Anything you want.”
“Time. With. You.”
“I want that, too. I have for a long time and I was stupid for thinking I didn’t deserve someone like you. And look. I almost lost you, before I ever got the nerve to ask you out. Do you know how many times I wanted to come home early and find you in my house just so I could see you there?”
“Every time…I wished you were there.” She sucked in a ragged breath. “Thought I was silly to dream you’d like me.”
“I more than like you. You’ve been a really good friend.”
“You. Too.” She was having trouble staying awake.
He needed to put their personal stuff on hold and tend to her.
First thing he did was take off his boots and socks.
He slid the socks on her feet, hoping to help warm her up some more.
He pulled on his boots, then tended to some of the deeper scrapes on her backside.
He took a chance and gently shifted her left leg so he could see the long gash running down it in addition to a lot more of those scars.
“This is going to need stitches. It’s really deep.
Right now, I’m going to clean and bandage it. ”
She didn’t answer him, but he let her know he was there by giving her leg a soft squeeze, then he cleaned the wound, put a thick pad to staunch the new flow of blood, then wrapped her thigh in gauze to add pressure.
He didn’t tell her about the maggots he’d brushed out of the wound.
“Panties wet. Couldn’t hold it,” she mumbled, shifting her hips like she was uncomfortable. With the wind blowing down the hill, he bet those wet panties were cold against her skin.
He grabbed a pair of scissors and cut them on both sides, then pulled them off and stuffed them into a plastic bag for evidence.
Just in case. He didn’t let his mind go there and took some comfort in the fact that she didn’t seem afraid of him, or opposed to him touching her. Not that she could move all that much.
A new sound joined the whispering wind and he looked up. “I hear a truck coming. It’s probably my guys.” A few seconds later, a chopper hovered high above them, too. “Down here,” he shouted up the hill, then grabbed the whistle out of his pack and blew it three times.
“Hawk?” Randy called over the ledge. “You down there?”
“What’s up there?”
“Fire road.”
That explained how she got here. Someone drove her and dumped her.
The rage that incited in him didn’t bode well for the person who hurt her. He’d make them pay. One way or another.
But first he needed to get her out of here. Alive.