Chapter Fourteen #2
“We walked and camped.” Jackson scowled.
“At first, he tried to make it sound like we were on a big, fun adventure. But it was just cold and boring. The last couple of days he was begging whoever was on the other end of the phone to come and get us. But they told him we had to stay out here until they told us we could come in. DJ said they were waiting for my dad to pay the ransom.” His face crumpled.
“I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just pay. ”
“Oh, honey.” Lily held him close. “Your dad has spent every spare minute trying to find you.”
Jackson pulled away from her and scrubbed at his eyes with his fists.
He sniffed, then said, “After the avalanche, I was worried Dad would think I had died, too. I decided I needed to hike out to a road or a house or someplace where I could get help. But I ended up getting disoriented in the woods and wandering around for a long time. And then somebody started shooting and I climbed that tree.”
“That was smart,” Lily said.
“It was freezing cold, and I was scared if I didn’t die by gunshot, I’d die falling out of the tree and breaking my neck.”
“You’re safe now,” Lily said.
“Do you have a gun?” Jackson asked.
“I don’t,” Lily said.
“What about him?”
Scott assumed this referred to him. He looked back over his shoulder. “I have a gun,” he said. “I hope I don’t have to use it.”
“The guys who are after me have guns,” Jackson said. “DJ forced me to come with him by threatening to shoot me.”
Scott looked past Jackson to Lily. His gaze met hers, and she raised both eyebrows, eyes wide.
He faced forward again. “We’ll just have to avoid the people with guns,” he said. And night vision scopes and who knew what else.
“I could call for help on my satellite phone,” Lily said. “I should call your dad and let him know you’re okay.”
“That’s a good idea,” Scott said. “Where are you going to tell the cavalry to meet us?”
She glanced around them. “We can give them our GPS coordinates, right?”
“My phone battery died sometime last night,” he said. “What about yours?”
She fumbled with her pack and pulled out her phone. “I turned it off last night to save battery.” She pressed the button on the side, but nothing happened. “I can’t get it back on.”
“Below-freezing temperatures drain batteries,” he said.
“Maybe they can triangulate our location from the sat phone signal,” she said. “Or we could tell them we’re headed to Pandora and they can meet us there.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Scott said. “We can probably make it to Pandora in three or four hours.” He didn’t think they were far from the last ridge before the ghost town, but it would take a while to make that climb.
“Are you up to walking that far?” he asked Jackson. The boy looked dead on his feet.
Jackson lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. “I’ll walk as far as I have to to get away from those guys.”
Lily took out the satellite phone and switched it on. “At least this battery hasn’t died,” she said after a moment when the phone lit up. She waited, frowning at the screen. “It’s searching for a signal.”
“You may have to wait until we get out of these trees to make a call,” Scott said. “Satellite phones need a clear line of sight to the sky.”
She continued to study the phone. “It says it’s unable to connect.”
“Switch it off, and you can try again when we’re on the ridge, without as much tree cover,” Scott said.
They trudged on, heads down, not talking.
Lily tried warming her cell phone next to her body, but if still refused to turn on.
They made slow progress, all three of them too exhausted to hurry.
She kept an eye on Jackson, who walked just in front of her.
The boy stumbled from time to time, practically asleep on his feet, but he refused any suggestion that he needed help.
Scott had an old-fashioned compass to navigate, and kept them headed toward Pandora.
They began to climb the ridge that separated the old mining town from this more wooded terrain, and the tree cover began to thin.
Lily tried not to think what a target they might present for anyone watching them through binoculars—or a spotting scope.
“Let’s stop a minute and have some more food and water,” Scott said after a while.
He halted in the shelter of a car-sized boulder, and they crouched behind it, hidden from view.
Within a minute, Jackson was shivering again, and Lily removed the extra clothing she had brought with her from her pack and handed it to him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t remember before now,” she said.
He removed his jacket to pull on the sweatshirt, and as he did so, the sleeve of the fleece top he wore beneath his jacket slid up, revealing a purpling bruise. “What happened there?” she asked.
He shoved the sleeve down over the bruise. “I refused to go with DJ, so he dragged me along.” He rubbed at his side. “He jammed the gun pretty hard in my ribs. There’s probably a bruise there, too.”
“How did you cut your finger?” Lily asked.
“I was trying to start a fire by rubbing sticks together. I’ve read about it, but it’s a lot harder than it looks. I jammed a sharp stick into my hand and never did get a fire going.”
Lily took his hand and examined the injury. “You can’t let that get infected. Let me get the first aid kit.” She pulled out the first aid supplies and began tending the hand.
To distract the boy, Scott crouched in front of him. “Do you know who was working with DJ?” he asked.
“I don’t know. DJ complained about getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere with me while everyone else got to sit around in a cushy rental.”
“Why take you out into the wilderness anyway?” Lily asked as she dabbed antibiotic ointment onto the wound.
“DJ said nobody would ever look for me out here. They’d look for the kidnapper to get away in a car, not on skis.
And even if they did figure out we were here, we’d be hard to find, with all the trees and snow.
I guess he thought it was a pretty smart idea, until we were actually out here freezing and falling over logs and stuff. ”
“We saw your tracks that first afternoon,” Scott said. “And we had a helicopter up looking right after that.”
“I heard the helicopter,” he said. “I wanted to find a way to signal to it, but DJ was watching me too closely.”
Lily stuck a bandage on his hand, then closed the lid of the first aid kit. “That should keep it from getting infected.”
“Thanks.” Jackson pulled on the gloves Scott had given him. There were much too big, but warm. “Where are we going now?”
“Pandora is closest,” Scott said.
“That old ghost town?” Jackson asked. “Is it near here?”
“Just on the other side of a ridge,” Scott said. “There are buildings there we can shelter in.”
“Won’t the kidnappers know that, too?” Jackson asked. “We could get there and find them waiting.”
“We could, but other people go there, too,” Scott said. “Even in winter, it’s a popular destination for cross-country skiers. And I’m pretty sure there are no fancy rentals there. Once we get there, we can call for help. We’ll have shelter where we can wait.”
“I hope we can get someone to meet us there,” Lily said. She took out the satellite phone again and switched it on. After a few seconds, a grin erased the weariness on her face. “We have a connection.” She punched in a number. “I’m calling your dad,” she told Jackson.
“Hello?” The man on the other end of the phone spoke so loudly and clearly Scott and Jackson could both hear him.
“Denny?” Lily asked.
“This is Mike. Lily, is that you? Are you okay?”
“Mike? Why are you answering Denny’s personal phone? Is he okay?”
“He’s tied up with something else right now, but he asked me to monitor his personal phone in case you or Jackson called. We’ve been worried sick.”
“Jackson is with me now. That’s why I’m calling.”
“Is Jackson all right? Where are you?”
“He’s fine. We’re both fine.”
“Thank God for that. Where are you?”
“We’re near Nickel Ridge,” she said. “We’re on our way to Pandora.”
“Pandora. That’s great. I’ll send someone right away.”
“Let the sheriff know what’s going on. And the resort? I’m sure people are wondering where I am. And Scott Linden. He’s with us.”
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it. You get to Pandora and you’ll be safe. I’m so glad you called. Denny is going to be overjoyed. Now let me make some calls and get you taken care of.”
Lily took the phone from her ear. “He hung up before I could talk to Denny or ask him any questions,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Scott said. “He’ll send help. All we have to do is get to Pandora. We don’t have much farther to go.”
Lily looked up, at the low bank of clouds moving in. “It looks like we could get more snow,” she said.
“Then let’s get moving.” Scott stood and slipped on his pack. “Let’s try to get ahead of the storm.”
Lily stowed the phone and donned her own pack, then the three of them, plus the two dogs, set out again. The route grew steeper, devoid of trees or even brush. “We don’t have far to go now,” Scott said. “We should be able see Pandora from the top.”
It began to snow, big, soft flakes flitting down.
But the scattering of flakes became a deluge, and wind blew the snow sideways.
It hit their faces like shards of ice, and the swirling snow blinded them.
The flakes piled in miniature drifts on their shoulders and the tops of their helmets, and soon obscured the rocky ground.
At every breath, Lily inhaled snow. “Do you even know where we’re going? ” she gasped.
“Just keep climbing,” Scott said. “We should be more sheltered on the other side of this ridge.”
At last, they reached the top of the ridge. They paused and looked down the other side. “Do you see Pandora?” Jackson asked.
Lily couldn’t see anything but snow. All that white could be covering boulders or buildings—at this point, she couldn’t tell.
“I think it’s over this direction,” Scott said, and raised his arm to point.
A thud, like a fist punching a pillow, made a dull, hollow sound. Scott grunted, then sank to his knees. A second dull thud sounded to his right, and Lily recognized the sound of a bullet striking a target. She screamed and shoved Jackson to the ground. “Scott!” she shouted. “Scott, what happened?”
“Stay down,” he said, his voice surprisingly calm.
She stayed down, but she crawled toward him. “What happened?” she asked.
“Stay away,” he cautioned. “I’ve been shot.”