Chapter 101
They were SNA. Charlotte knew it from the plate carriers and rifles she’d seen at the river barricade and again at Claudia’s farm, and from the way they positioned themselves.
They weren’t panicked or searching blindly.
They were waiting with the certainty of trained men.
There were three of them. One carried a marksman rifle with a scope.
The other two had carbines slung across their chests.
All three wore the same dull green plate.
Charlotte lowered the binoculars and turned the mare without visible urgency. Her body had learned to separate calculation from presentation, and what she showed now was the casual redirect of someone changing course for reasons that had nothing to do with armed men on the opposite ridge.
“Mason,” she said. “We’re taking the lower trail. Follow me exactly. Don’t look back.”
He nodded. His eyes, still hollow from the collapse the day before, met hers briefly before he fixed his gaze ahead, showing the focused attention of a child who understood the tone of her voice.
She led them away from the overlook at an angle that kept the ridge between them and the soldiers’ line of sight.
The trail steeply descended through a ravine where runoff had exposed tree roots and loose stones.
The mare carefully picked her way down while Charlotte kept one hand on the saddlebags that held the messages.
The gelding followed closely. Mason leaned forward, centering his weight over the horse’s withers, just as Charlotte had taught him during the river crossing.
They reached the bottom of the ravine, where a creek ran brown over stones.
She turned them upstream, away from the main trail, following the water below an overhang that provided cover from above.
The sound of the creek masked their movement, and the horses’ hooves left no clear track.
For several minutes, it almost seemed possible that they would escape.
The ravine curved, the canopy thickened, and the only sounds were the rushing water over rocks and the steady breaths of the horses.
Then, the dog’s ears perked up. Its head whipped toward the entrance of the ravine behind them, and a low growl began to rise in its throat.
Charlotte heard it a moment later. One set of footsteps, then another, and then a third.
They were being tracked. The SNA soldiers had found the ravine entrance and were following the creek upstream.
Charlotte urged the mare faster. The creek narrowed, the banks steepened, and the trail became a choice between the water and a game path climbing the eastern slope through dense underbrush.
She took the game path. The climb took everything the mare had.
The gelding struggled behind them, and Mason leaned forward over the animal’s neck.
The dog scrambled alongside, and Charlotte heard it growl toward their back trail where the soldiers were still coming.
They reached the ridge top, breathless. The trees here were younger, and the ground was softer, better for the horses’ legs but worse for hiding their passage.
Charlotte turned them west along the contour and set a pace the horses could sustain.
For twenty minutes, they heard nothing behind them.
The forest absorbed sound, and Charlotte allowed herself to consider that they might have gained enough distance.
Then the dog became rigid. Its entire body locked up, ears perked forward, and eyes fixed on the trees behind them.
A low, continuous growl emerged from its throat.
Charlotte turned in the saddle and, through a gap in the aspens about sixty yards back, saw a figure moving with the steady pace of someone following a well-known trail. The lead soldier had found them.
Without hesitating, she urged the mare into a trot and then into a canter when the ground allowed it.
Mason’s gelding matched her pace. The forest opened ahead into a meadow dotted with granite outcrops, and Charlotte aimed for the largest one.
They reached it, and Charlotte quickly dismounted, pulled Mason from his gelding, and pressed both of them against the shadowed side of the rock.
She ground-tied the horses with practiced speed.
The dog pressed against Mason’s leg, trembling with alertness.
Silence followed. The forest held its midday stillness as Charlotte listened for clues.
She heard birds, the wind rustling through the aspen leaves, and the horses shifting behind the pines.
Then came the sound of boots on stone. They weren’t running but walking with the measured pace of a man who knew exactly where his target had gone and wasn’t in any hurry to reach it.
Charlotte peered around the boulder’s edge, and the lead soldier had reached the meadow’s eastern tree line.
He stood there with his carbine at low ready, scanning the open ground with the trained eye of an observer.
Behind him, the second soldier emerged from the trees, then the third with the marksman rifle.
They had spread into a loose line. The lead soldier said something to the others, but Charlotte couldn’t hear the words.
She saw the raised hand directing them to advance, and they moved into the meadow with twenty yards between each man, covering the ground methodically toward the granite outcrop where Charlotte and Mason hid.
She knew she only had seconds. The rock offered cover only from one direction.
If they circled, or if the marksman climbed for elevation, the advantage would vanish.
She needed to move, and she needed Mason to move with her, and the calculus of that reduced itself to a single fact.
Time was running out. The lead soldier raised his carbine to his shoulder.
Charlotte pulled Mason flat against the rock.
The dog pressed closer, and in the terrible clarity of that moment, with a soldier’s rifle aimed at the stone six feet from her head, she understood that avoidance was no longer an option.