Surrender: A Bitter Creek Novel Page 12

  His eyes narrowed. “Because it…”

  “It what?”

  “It pushed off. It leaped…” He turned the flashlight toward the opposite wall from the one along which he’d been following tracks. Starting at the bottom of the wall, he moved the flashlight slowly upward until he was nearly to the ceiling. He focused on an anomaly near the top of the opposite wall. “It leaped up there.”

  “Where up there?” Taylor asked. “I don’t see anything.”

  There was no hole where there should have been one, only a bunch of roots sticking out from the dirt wall, the way they did in places all over the cave. She’d watched Brian tug on a few of those roots when they’d searched in the first few days after they’d been trapped, but they hadn’t felt any air moving or seen any light, so they’d dismissed it as a possible exit. The bunched roots the fox had apparently penetrated were exactly like other patches of roots sticking out and hanging down all over the cave.

  Brian shoved a hand through his hair, leaving it tousled. “I should have looked closer,” he said. “I should have investigated every damned inch of these walls.”

  “Look at those bunched roots, Brian. Even now it seems impossible anything could have gotten through there.”

  Brian heaved a frustrated sigh. “I don’t see how else he could have escaped.”

  She eyed the tangled mass high above her head. “So, there’s a hole up there?”

  “Has to be.”

  She walked over and stood right in front of the opening. “How could it have jumped so high?”

  “It’s not more than seven feet.” Brian pointed to what he now recognized as claw marks, a foot or so below the opening. “It dug its rear claws in the last foot or so going up. I never took a second look when I saw those vertical lines in the wall.” She heard the disgust in his voice as he added, “I figured they were caused by erosion.”

  “I wonder what it was doing in here.”

  “My guess is it came here for a drink of water.”

  Taylor eyed the mess of roots. “How wide do you think the opening might be?”

  “Not wide enough for either one of us right now,” he said. “But we can fix that.” He eyed the distance up to the hole and said, “If I roll up the parachute in the PG bag, and stand on top of it, I should be able to reach that spot. While I chop roots, you start collecting water in our bottles. We’re going to need it when we hike out of here.”

  Taylor felt a surge of joy so strong she threw her arms into the air and shouted, “We’re saved, Brian! We’re getting out! We’re going home!”

  “Hold off on the celebration,” he snapped. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to get out of here, and a long way to go before we’re home safe. Save your energy and get to work.”

  He stalked past her, she presumed to pack the parachute in his PG bag.

  “You don’t have to be so mean,” Taylor retorted. “I don’t know about you, but I’m happy. And I intend to stay happy. So there!”

  He was already on his way back to her, hauling the parachute and the bag. “I’ll be happy when I see those water bottles filled.”

  “You sound like Leah. Work, work, work.”

  “Move your beautiful ass, Tag.”

  She turned, swaying her hips suggestively as she sauntered away. “Look your fill, because you’ve touched this ass for the last time, Mr. Flynn. We’re getting out of here, which means all bets are off.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before.”

  “This time I mean it. I don’t care if we end up trekking through the forest for another twenty days. My body is off-limits to you. When we finally get rescued—”

  “You’re presuming we get rescued,” he said in a harsh voice. “It’s not a sure thing, Tag.”

  She turned back to him, her hands on her hips, her chin upthrust. “Why do you always have to spoil everything? Why can’t you let me believe everything is going to turn out all right? Why are you such a pessimist?”

  She watched a muscle jerk in his jaw, but he didn’t reply. His face was set in forbidding lines as he turned his attention to the roots that needed cutting.

  She turned on her heel and stalked away. “Damned mule-headed Flynn,” she muttered. “Giving orders and expecting me to follow them. We’ll see how long that lasts, once we’re out of this prison. I’ve spent as much time trekking in the wilderness as he has. There’s nothing that says we have to find our way out of here together.”

  Nothing except common sense.

  It was entirely possible they would encounter other dangers, once they were out of the cave. A myriad of wild animals—grizzlies, black bears, cougars, moose, and wolves—could cause them grief. Lots of pitfalls—rugged terrain, geysers, and acid springs, for instance—could make their journey a nightmare. Finally, there was no telling how long their bottled water would have to last before they found water they could boil and safely drink.

  On the good side, they might be able to catch fish or set a trap for something they could eat, and there might be a few berries left on bushes they could scavenge. Even if they were lost for a long time in the woods, they probably wouldn’t starve.

  So why was Brian in such a foul mood?

  Then it dawned on her. His leg. Once they started walking, he was liable to be in a lot of pain. His wounds might get even worse.

  No wonder Brian wasn’t looking forward to the journey ahead of them. She quelled the impulse to return and tell him she understood why he was worried. There would be time enough for that later. Right now she needed to do as he’d asked. If they were lucky, they might be able to leave this cave by tomorrow morning.

  After she’d filled the water bottles, Taylor decided she ought to spell Brian. She observed him for a few minutes, seeing how he made short work of some roots and needed to chop harder at others. His face was covered with a film of perspiration, and his T-shirt was soaked with sweat down his back and under his arms. She watched the muscles and sinews in his forearms stretch and bow. He must be tired, but he was hacking at the roots even harder now than he had been when she’d started watching.

  “I can take over for a while,” she said.

  “No need. I’m pretty much done. As a matter of fact, I’d like to give you a shove and see how far up this hole you can get before you’re stopped.”

  “You want me to go in there? What about spiders?”

  “You can wear my gloves and squash them.”

  “And snakes?”

  “The fox scared them away.”

  “What about a grizzly waiting for me at the other end?”

  “I think we’ve already seen the only grizzly in these parts. Come on, Tag. You can do this.”

  She crossed her arms protectively over her chest. In the past, she’d been adventurous to the point of recklessness. But no one would ever have called her brave. They were two entirely different things. “Why don’t you do it?”

  “You’re smaller. I need to know whether there’s any chance of me getting out this way, or whether you’re going to have to leave me behind and head out on your own.”

  “I’m not leaving you behind.”

  “Don’t argue with me! Just get over here and check out the dimensions of this tunnel.”

  She was shocked by the harshness of his voice and the demand for obedience. She flashed her headlamp on his face and saw the desperation in his eyes.

  He doesn’t think he’s going to be able to get through that small opening. He thinks I’m going to have to leave him here and find help all by myself.

  Her stomach knotted as she turned the light back toward the foxhole. Even though all the roots had been cleared, no light or air was coming through. What if the tunnel was too tight for her to squeeze through? She shivered. Just how long—and narrow—was it?

  “Let me get your gloves,”
she said, “and I’ll be right back.”

  The gloves he used while fighting fires were too big for her, and they were filthy with soot and sweat. But they would protect her hands from spiders or the bite of a small animal, like another fox coming in while she was headed out.

  “Let me give you a hand up.” Brian cupped his hands as though he was going to help her mount a horse.

  Taylor put her foot in his hands and when he lifted, she dove headfirst into the hole he’d made. She winced and grunted when several roots gouged her sides but kept wriggling forward.

  “This is pretty narrow,” she called back.

  “Uh-huh. What can you see ahead of you?”

  Exhilarated, she shouted back, “It gets wider!” She scooched a little farther, and her spirits sank as quickly as they’d risen. “Uh-oh.”

  “What?”

  “It just stops.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Oh. It turns! It’s almost a right angle turn. That’s why we couldn’t see any light and why no air was coming in.”

  “I can barely hear you,” he shouted. “Talk louder.”

  Taylor was too excited to talk. The tunnel took one more turn in the opposite direction, and she could suddenly smell the charred landscape. She could feel fresh air on her face. She could, quite literally, see the light at the end of the tunnel.

  She paused at the opening to look around for any danger that might be lurking, before she shoved herself all the way out. She tumbled into powdery black soot, and brushed herself off as she stood and looked around. She was in the forest, on the far side of the large boulder that had initially concealed the entrance to the cave.

  Or rather, what was left of the forest after the fire had turned everything to ash. Black skeletons that had once been trees stood sentinel over carcasses of animals both small and large. Her nose pinched at the smell of burned and rotting flesh. Few trees remained standing. Most had fallen across one another like Pick-Up Sticks, as though an atom bomb had leveled the timberland.

  She turned in a circle, looking for something—anything—green in the distance. There was nothing to see but scorched devastation in every direction.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “There’s nothing left.” She had the urge to hurry back through the tunnel to tell Brian about the calamity she’d discovered and give him the news that the tunnel was large enough for him to escape along with her. But she thought of something else that couldn’t wait.

  She needed to see if Brian’s communication equipment had survived the fire. After all, he’d dropped his smoke-jumping coat as well. Maybe it had protected the equipment.

  It quickly became apparent that getting back to the front of the cave was no simple matter. Enormous downed trees and blackened vegetation blocked her way. She hadn’t gone very far before she realized she’d been gone a long time, and Brian must be worried. It might be better if she turned around, and they looked for the missing equipment together.

  She picked her way back to the tunnel and crawled into the opening through which she’d emerged. It wasn’t until she’d passed the second turn that she heard Brian’s frantic shouts.

  “I’m here!” she called back. “I’m fine. We can both get out this way.”

  When she reached the cave again, she fell forward into his waiting arms. He pulled her close and slid down the wall until he was sitting with her in his lap.

  “Don’t ever do that again!” he snarled.

  “Do what?”

  “Leave me to go crazy wondering what happened to you. Why did you stop talking?”

  “I didn’t realize I had,” she admitted. “The tunnel’s plenty wide for your shoulders. It makes two dogleg turns. That’s why there’s no light or air on this end.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Everything’s gone. Burned up, I mean. There’s nothing green in any direction.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. We’d better get ourselves packed up and out of here.”

  “Now? Why not spend the night inside, where it’s safe, and leave in the morning?”

  “It doesn’t get dark until nearly ten. That gives us four or five hours to find our way to forest that hasn’t been burned.”

  “Why don’t we just stay here? I mean, now that we can come and go from the cave, we could open up the parachute and wait to get spotted from the air.”

  “What if they’ve already searched here?”

  “There’s still the ground search. We would have heard them, or they would have heard us, if they’d been anywhere near here.”

  “They can’t possibly search the whole forest, Tag. There’s too much territory to cover. They could miss us by a mile. And from what you’ve described, there’s no food to be had around here. We’d just starve to death aboveground, instead of below it.”

  She hadn’t let herself think about the fact that there were no berries on bushes, no small animals to trap. Brian was right. Although the cave was a safe refuge, it could end up becoming a death trap.

  “Do we really have to leave right now?” she said. “I mean, one more day—”

  “One more day could mean the difference between living and dying,” he said in a harsh voice.

  She eyed Brian sideways. Then she leaned her cheek against his, as though conceding her willingness to do as he asked. In reality, she was checking to see why his face was still flushed, long after he’d stopped working. She draped her arms around his shoulders and held him close.

  He was burning up with fever.

  Now she knew why Brian was in such a hurry to leave. They had a matter of days to get back to civilization, back to a hospital where his wounds could be treated with antibiotics. They were in a deadly race to save Brian’s leg—and maybe his life.

  BRIAN WAS BATTLING against time. He felt feverish, which was the beginning of the end, where sepsis was concerned. The first thing he did, once he was outside the cave, was check to see if their communication equipment had survived the fire. He found his Bendix King, but the radio had melted. We won’t be calling for help on this. He left it where it was.

  His Pulaski tool and the cargo box, which had contained additional food, were buried under the giant spruce that had come down over the cave opening. He fought off a wave of despair. I should have gotten this stuff inside. I should have found that foxhole and gotten us out of that cave. I should have done better…at everything.

  “Now what?” Tag asked.

  He took a deep breath and let it out. No sense worrying over spilled milk. He had to focus on getting the two of them back to civilization in one piece.

  Tag’s face bore streaks of soot where she’d shoved her windswept blond hair behind her ears with blackened hands. In the waning light, the ravages of the seven days they’d spent in the cave were evident. Deep hollows furrowed her cheeks, and her beautiful blue eyes looked bleak. He resisted the urge to offer comfort. He didn’t want to suggest their situation was hopeless.

  But it’s pretty damn bad.

  There was no telling how much timberland the fire had consumed. Until they reached green forest they had no hope of finding berries or something they could trap and eat. Nor did they have wood for a fire to keep away wild animals that might be foraging for food in the devastation, like wolves and coyotes—and the vultures that soared overhead.

  Brian had slung his PG bag over one shoulder and settled the rolled-up parachute across the other. “Are you okay with that sleeping bag?” Tag had offered to carry something, and it had a strap she could throw over her shoulder.

  “I’ve got it. We should get moving, Brian. The sun’s heading down.”

  It had taken far longer than he’d expected to work his way around the rock to search for the items they’d left behind, which had turned out to be an exercise in futility. He retrieved his compass from his PG bag. It had
been useless while they were trapped in the cave but was absolutely necessary now. “We were headed west when we left the Otter. I think our best bet is to head back to the open area where we dropped the smoke jumpers. There’s a slight chance they haven’t been evacuated yet, and even if they’re gone, they may have left some supplies behind.”

  When their job was done, smoke jumpers packed up their gear, leaving the forest as pristine as they’d found it, and hiked, sometimes several hours, to a spot where they could be picked up by a vehicle. If the site was too remote, as this one was, they’d be airlifted out by helicopter, once the fire was under control. Brian knew from experience that the odd bit of food—a heavy can or damaged item too inconvenient to haul away—might be left behind.

  He tripped when his bad leg didn’t make it over a downed limb and swore as he recovered his balance.

  “Are you okay?” Tag asked.

  “Don’t be asking me every five minutes how I am,” he answered curtly. “Save your breath for walking.”

  She shot him a look that said he was being a prick. “God forbid a Grayhawk should ask about the well-being of a Flynn. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Doesn’t she understand I’m trying to protect her from the truth? Doesn’t she understand I want to get her somewhere she can survive on her own, if I’m laid low by the infection coursing through my body?

  She was looking for an argument, but he turned his back on her and headed through the morass of downed trees, picking the easiest, safest route he could find over the steep hills and deep gullies. He never looked back, trusting her to follow.

  Except for warnings like “Watch that limb,” or “See that crevice?” or “Be careful here!” they didn’t speak for the next two hours. Brian did his best to control his limp and avoid stumbling, because he didn’t want Tag to know how much his leg was bothering him. He drank often, knowing his excessive thirst was caused by fever, and because he felt sure they’d run into a stream before they ran out of water.

  He was surprised at how much woodland the fire had demolished. They’d walked nine or ten miles over burned-out terrain, and he still couldn’t see green forest.