Chapter 6
The bear screamed behind her.
Hattie screamed, too. The small amount of rest she’d gotten in the cave wasn’t enough to reenergize her, and it certainly wasn’t enough to help her deal with a beast like this one. The bandages barely cushioned her tender feet as she fled through the woods and back out to the road.
The bear’s paws were heavy. Every time it galloped forward, it sent a shake through the ground that threatened to knock Hattie right off of her sore feet. Its breath grunted with every step.
Watch for bears if you go out looking for berries.
Oh, Mama. The bears don’t care about me. You worry too much.
Well, all of Mama’s worst fears had come true, but she wasn’t there to save Hattie as the bear came closer and closer.
Another scream rose up in her throat, driven by the fear of her imminent death, but the bear wasn’t the only danger that put her at risk. She was hurtling through the night, straight toward the road she’d been on earlier. She couldn’t give herself away if Cutter’s men were still nearby.
Or were they? Had they moved on while she slept? Had she fallen out of danger with them, only to fall straight into the bear’s jaws? Hattie could imagine Cutter’s satisfaction when he found her carcass ripped to shreds.
Well, that was fine. Hattie would rather fall victim to the bear than let Cutter get anything else out of her.
The earth gave way under her feet as the ground dipped down, and then Hattie landed hard on the road. She tipped forward, falling to her knees. The harsh dirt scraped open her skin and burned her palms.
She scrambled to her feet and turned to her right. In that direction lay the hillside she’d used to get away from the men. Would it be enough to get away from the bear? How well could it climb up such a slope?
As soon as she’d thought of the idea, she dismissed it. The bear would climb up just as fast as she could. Probably faster, since it hasn’t been running all night like I have.
Hattie despaired of a plan. The night was so dark. The path ahead was unknown. She had no weapons and no shelter. It was becoming clear that it was her destiny to die that night, but by whose hand?
A twinkle of orange light shone somewhere ahead.
Hattie’s heart surged. A house! Safety! She pumped her arms and forced her knees to keep lifting. She ignored the searing pain in her feet as the rough ground wore through her bandages, exposing her soles bit by bit.
Then a second light shone next to the first, and then a third.
It wasn’t a house. It was the torches that Cutter’s men carried. They must’ve realized she hadn’t gone that far down the road and were coming back to double down on their search.
Hattie was giving herself to the enemy, literally running straight toward him.
The bears paws continued to thunder behind her. He had far more stamina than a beast of his size ought to, and certainly more than she did.
An idea occurred to her. It was wild. It was risky. It was even a little bit wicked, perhaps, but all of that made it perfect.
My dear Hattie, you never were a conventional girl.
And I’m still not, Papa.
With a renewed surge of energy, Hattie raced onward down the road.
It didn’t take long for one of Cutter’s men to spot her.
“What the hell is that?” a man cried out.
Her stomach jumped, but Hattie reminded herself that this was the plan. She wanted them to see her. She wanted them to come toward her. She’d spooked them a little, and with any luck that wouldn’t be her only success for the night.
“It’s her!” The deep baritone belonged to Bo.
Cutter’s laugh rang through the hillsides, far more frightening than all the noises the bear had made. “I guess Hattie has realized she’s afraid of the dark, and now she’s coming right back toward us!”
“I’ve got her!” One of the men rode up past Cutter and straight toward her.
Hattie’s heart thundered. Fear darted through her veins. What if she’d made a mistake? Cutter and his men were far better equipped to be out there in the mountains. If this went wrong…well, she didn’t want to imagine what they might do to her.
One of Cutter’s thugs leaned down from the saddle, swinging his arm wide in an attempt to grab her.
Hattie threw herself to the right, going as far to the side of the road as possible. The man’s fingers grazed her skin, his fingernails scraping for purchase, but he’d missed.
“You idiot,” Cutter grumbled as he guided his horse directly into her path.
She could see his face in the torchlight. Shadows and firelight danced in the hollows of his cheekbones, but his shockingly black eyes absorbed all the light. He’d grown out his mustache, but it couldn’t quite hide the twisted scar at the center of his upper lip.
The devil touched him before he was born, Mama had said once. The doctor put it back together, but you can’t ever get rid of the devil’s touch.
His yellowed teeth showed as he grinned, ready to capture his prey.
She wasn’t going to make it. She couldn’t. She’d been an absolute fool to come up with such a plan, but she was going to carry it through as best she could anyway.
Hattie pulled her arms in, ducked low, and darted between Cutter and Bo.
She felt them reaching for her, but then someone cried out. “The hell? A bear! It’s a bear!”
Hattie plunged past the men and into the night.
Screams erupted behind her. Cutter shouted orders. Horses whinnied. The bear’s roar broke through it all, topped only by the horrific shriek of a man who would never be the same again.
Several gunshots blasted through the air. The muscles on Hattie’s back contracted as she expected one of the bullets to pierce her skin and take her down for good, but none came. She didn’t even hear them whizzing overhead or around her.
The men had forgotten about her for the moment.
She plunged on into the night. Hattie passed the hillside that’d sheltered her for a brief moment. The road dipped down, but she let it lead her where it wanted. She had no direction other than away.
At last, when the road rose up again, Hattie paused to look behind her. The torchlights shone like tiny stars in the distance. They bobbed back and forth, but she couldn’t tell if they were coming toward her.
Either a stomach full of scumbags had satisfied the bear, or else the men had dispatched it quickly and were deciding their next move. Finding out for sure wasn’t worth the risk.
The road wasn’t her friend. Cutter and his men—if they still lived—would surely use it. Hattie moved into the woods.
Dried leaves crunched under her feet. An occasional unseen rock poked up from underneath them to trip her. The dry, sticklike limbs of the surrounding brush clung to her, trying to slow her down, but she refused.
Hattie let whatever God there might be guide her. The moon wheeled overhead with its accompaniment of stars. She couldn’t stop. Maybe she’d never be able to stop. Maybe she’d be running for the rest of her life.
Finally, after what felt like days, Hattie emerged from the woods and into a sloped clearing. The earth closest to her looked strange. She slowed down as she tried to understand. The plants that grew there were arranged in rows, and the soil between them was far too dark.
A garden! The earthy smell of tomatoes rose to her nostrils as she worked her way between tall plants. Blindly, she reached in among the leaves until she found an orb. It was too dark to tell if it was ripe or not, but Hattie didn’t care. She twisted it from the vine.
It was sweet and juicy, a fruit that seemed to come straight from heaven. The seeds dribbled down her chin as she took bite after bite, but Hattie didn’t care. When she was done, she stuck her hands back into the vines, searching for another one.
When she finished, Hattie sank to her knees in the soft earth between the plants and listened. She waited for the sound of approaching hoofbeats, shouts of anger, or the angry roar of a creature who’d been denied its original meal.
Nothing. She heard absolutely nothing beyond the continuous chirp of insects.
Was she truly safe? At least for the moment? She believed it was possible, and her shoulders relaxed. Maybe she only wanted to believe it because she was so tired of running.
The gleam of metal at the edge of the garden caught her eye through the vines. It had to be a gun. The owner of the garden had heard her and come out to take vengeance upon her for stealing his tomatoes.
She quivered among the tomato plants for a long moment, debating whether to hide or to present herself and accept whatever punishment he might want to dole out.
Hattie was just so tired, tired of running, tired of worrying, tired of trying to figure out what to do when it seemed there would never be a good answer.
Slowly, she raised herself to her feet. Hattie lifted her chin, ready to face her punishment.
But no man stood at the edge of the garden. Nobody was there at all. The metal that gleamed in the moonlight was merely a water pump.
She would’ve giggled in delight, but all of her energy was spent staggering through the garden to get to it.
Hattie lifted the handle and shoved it down.
It stuck a little, and tears of frustration burned her eyes.
She summoned strength she wasn’t sure she had and shoved it down the rest of the way.
A rush of water escaped the pump and sluiced down into a bucket. Hattie shoved her hands into the cool water. She brought it to her lips and splashed it over her face. It splattered on her dress, softening some of the crusted blood. She swept her damp hands through her hair.
Hattie pumped the handle a second time and then a third, drinking deeply and splashing in the water like a bird in mother’s little bath in the garden, letting the droplets run down over her body.
She leaned against the pump and looked around. The stars in the sky were cut off at the bottom, suggesting she was in a valley. It was darker down here than in some of the other areas of the mountains she’d been through that night, but to her left she could just see the outline of a building.
It was small, with an angled roof. The pale siding picked up the moonlight, but all the windows were dark. A steeple shot upward, and after she studied it for a moment, she spied a cross on top.
A church.
A refuge.
Hattie had spent herself several times over, but she forced herself back to her feet.