Chapter 7. The Living Trail #3
She got up anyway. The forest swallowed her. Behind came the first gunshot. The round struck a tree to her left. Not aimed to kill.
Again. Herding. Twenty years later and even their habits had survived. Maren changed direction immediately. If they wanted her north, she went downhill.
If they wanted her away from the river, she moved toward its noise. Branches tore at her face. Wet fern slapped her legs. The injured knee began to fail every third or fourth step, forcing her gait uneven. She found a game trail.
Followed it fifty yards. Then left it intentionally. Searchers followed trails. So did pursuers. She needed both groups to make different mistakes.
Maren stopped behind a fallen cedar long enough to breathe. Her lungs burned. The men behind her had separated. One crashing downhill too loudly. Another moving more carefully to flank.
She could hear them. Good. She checked her pockets. Nothing useful. No phone.
No knife. No jacket. No glove. Only the aluminum hair clip she had used to pin back one side of her hair before meeting Grant. She pulled it free.
Dark hair fell across her cheek. Maren bent the thin metal until it snapped. Two pieces. She pressed one into the soft bark of the fallen cedar. Then scratched a crossed raven beneath it.
Clue. Keep moving. Her captors were thirty seconds behind. Maybe less. The river roared ahead.
Then the ground disappeared. Maren stopped so abruptly her injured knee nearly folded. Ravine. Not the main river gorge. A tributary cut twenty feet across and perhaps thirty feet deep, white water racing along the bottom before joining Raven River downstream.
An old footbridge crossed it. If bridge was the right word. Two timber beams. Partial decking. One handline sagging between rotten posts.
Maren remembered it. Of course she did. Grant had mentioned it once when they were young, complaining that Crowe Timber refused to replace the thing because the county could not agree who owned the crossing. Behind her, brush snapped. No time.
Maren stepped onto the first beam. The wood shifted. She froze. Test weight. Still holding.
She moved. One foot in front of the other. Metal restraints changed her center of balance. Her knee throbbed. The water below pulled at her peripheral vision.
Do not look down. Grant had said that to her once on a training tower when she was nineteen. She had called him bossy. He had told her gravity did not care about her opinion. The memory came with such clarity she almost laughed.
Halfway across, the handline jerked. Maren looked back. The Crowe-jacketed man stood at the near side. Rifle lowered.
“You’re done.”
Maren turned forward. Another ten feet.
“Vale.”
She kept moving.
“We need you alive. That doesn’t mean we need you intact.”
There was the honest version. Maren reached the far side. Her boot slipped on moss. She hit one knee on the last timber. Pain blinded her.
The man stepped onto the bridge. Maren crawled the final yard onto solid ground and rolled behind the anchor post. He followed carefully. Not stupid enough to run. That gave her seconds.
She looked at the handline. Old rope. Mostly synthetic replacement over older fibers. Knife would help. She had none.
But one anchor had been repaired with a tension buckle. Modern. Maren grabbed it with both restrained hands. Pulled. Nothing.
Wrong direction. She flipped the locking tab. The line loosened instantly. Not enough. She braced one boot against the post and hauled the free tail through.
The bridge shifted sideways. The man cursed. He stopped halfway. Maren pulled again. The handline dropped two feet.
The timber beams did not collapse, but one rolled just enough to force him down onto one knee. He grabbed the remaining rope. Maren ran. The second pursuer reached the far bank behind him. Neither fired.
Too much risk. Still alive. Still needed. For now. The forest thickened.
Maren’s breath became ragged. Her injured knee stopped pretending it could continue at the same pace. She needed searchers. Not merely distance. She needed sound.
Her whistle was gone. Had been gone for twenty years. Hanging, apparently, beneath a bunk in the cabin where she once waited for Grant to come. The thought nearly broke her. Instead it gave her an idea.
The old signal did not require a whistle. Only rhythm. Two short. One long. Any sound loud enough.
Maren found a hollow length of dead alder beside the trail, snapped it against a rock, and listened. Sharp crack. Not enough. She hit it again against granite. Short.
Short. Then dragged the wood hard across the rock for a longer scrape. Pathetic. Maybe audible fifty yards. She threw it aside.
Behind her, someone shouted. Closer. Maren stumbled downhill. The ravine deepened on her left. A narrow shelf ran along its edge.
She followed it because the undergrowth was thinner and immediately knew it was a mistake. No cover. But the sound of the river carried farther here. So would another signal. She cupped both hands around her mouth.
Two short whistles. Human. Loud. Then one long. Her breath almost failed halfway through the last.
She tried again. Short. Short. Long. The sound disappeared into fog.
No answer. Maren continued. She had survived twenty years without anyone coming. She could survive another ten minutes without believing they would. That thought was safer.
It was also a lie. Because she had left a glove. A thread. Crossed ravens. A key.
Because somewhere behind her, Rook had found the safe house.
Because the Raven Ridge team had already dug Vehicle Two out of Whiteout Ridge when everyone else preferred it buried.
Because Grant had come alone when she asked.
Because for the first time in twenty years, Maren had done the most dangerous thing survival allowed. She had made herself findable.
She whistled again. Short. Short. Long. Then the hillside answered.
Not with a human voice. With a dog barking somewhere far above the river. Once. Then silence. Maren stopped.
Her heart slammed. Dog. Or imagination. The pursuing men heard it too. One shouted behind her.
“Move!”
Not to her. To each other. They were scared now. Maren smiled despite the pain. Then ran.
Grant heard the whistle from the river staging road.
At first he thought it was brake noise. Finn’s rescue truck had just stopped beside the old emergency shelf, Atlas standing behind the front seats while Cole’s vehicle pulled in downstream with Bear and the water rig.
Grant had ridden with Miles rather than walk the mine route, his knee eliminating any fantasy that he belonged on a steep-track K-9 search. He had accepted that.
Mostly. Then the sound came through the fog. Short. Short. Long.
Grant stopped halfway out of the federal SUV. Every part of him went still.
Miles looked back. “What?”
Grant raised one hand. Wait. The river thundered below. Radios cracked. A truck door closed.
Then again. Short. Short. Long. Faint.
Human. From the ravine north of the river shelf. Grant’s face emptied. Miles saw it.
“What is that?”
“Maren.”
The word came out almost soundless. Miles looked toward the forest.
“You’re certain?”
Grant was already reaching for a radio, then stopped because the one at his belt was no longer his. He looked at Miles.
“Give me the channel.”
Miles handed him the spare. Grant keyed it.
“Command, Hollis on federal auxiliary.”
Mara answered. “Go.”
Grant looked into the fog.
“I have an emergency signal from the north ravine. Two short, one long.”
A pause.
Then Mara said, “Meaning?”
Grant closed his eyes.
“It was ours.”
Silence.
“Explain.”
“When Maren and I volunteered together, we used it if radios failed. Two short, one long meant alive and moving toward contact.”
Miles watched him. Grant forced the next words to remain operational.
“Signal repeated twice. Bearing approximately northeast from River Three staging, somewhere above the tributary ravine.”
Mara did not waste a second on history.
“Asher, status.”
Rook’s handler answered from underground.
“Still working east branch. Scent increasingly mixed at exit airflow.”
“Pull to surface route. We have possible live auditory contact northeast ravine.”
“Copy.”
“Rowan?”
“Echo suspect track also trending river.”
“Finn, Atlas bank sector. Cole, Bear downstream safety. Nobody enters water without water command.”
Finn answered, “Copy.”
Mara continued.
“Nate, get eyes on ravine approaches. Grant stays with Miles.”
Grant almost objected. The instinct rose automatically. He crushed it.
“Copy.”
Miles looked at him.
“That hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Good sign.”
Grant stared into the trees. Another whistle. Short. Short. Long.
Closer. His chest tightened so hard it became difficult to breathe. Twenty years ago, a recording from the North Shelter had captured Maren saying his name because she believed he would come. He had not. Now every nerve in his body demanded that he run toward the sound.
His injured knee would fail. He would contaminate the search. He could force Asher to manage him instead of Rook. He could turn Maren’s rescue into another story about what Grant Hollis needed. So he stayed beside Miles.
It was one of the hardest choices he had made all night. And perhaps the first one that was entirely about her.
Atlas found the river transfer point before the humans did.
Finn worked the Labrador along the upper bank with a long line and flotation vest already secured.
The river was too high for free water work, so Atlas stayed on land, sampling the wet edges where current deposited branches, clothing, oil, and everything else Raven River stole from upstream.
The dog showed interest near an old concrete boat ramp half hidden beneath blackberry. Finn stopped. Fresh fuel smell. Tire impressions above the shelf. Boot traffic.
A mooring line tied recently around a rusted ring.
“Command, Water One. We have active transfer site at River Three. Recent boat use probable.”
Grant heard the report through Miles’s radio. His stomach dropped. If Maren had already been moved by water— Finn continued.