Cruz nodded. “You mean like a wolf pack runs a deer.”
He was already looking up the trail, trying to visualize how it would go. “You got it.”
“What can I do?”
He held his friend’s gaze for a moment. “This may be a long run. If the worst happens and he kills the girl… I’ll stay with him. Once I start running him, he’ll know that. You and Katherine round up some men, and supplies to follow, but not too close. Just stay close enough that I can find you. If I don’t get him right away, I’ll need supplies. If you get a chance, and can see where he’s going, cut in front of him. We don’t want to lose him. Not now.”
“Then you better hurry. This man is a devil. You must run like the wind.”
He didn’t answer. He was already ducking into the gloom of the forest.
7
Trent hit the edge of the forest at a dead run. For the first few minutes, he would throw aside caution. The girl’s life was at stake. He picked up the trail immediately. Broken grass and bent limbs, then the churned grass where the man had mounted a skittish horse. The trail went straight away down a dim path in the forest that would skirt around the mountain. This was second growth forest, which meant there weren’t many large trees, and the grass and bushes were almost waist high.
Keeping his lungs from trying to match pace with his legs, he ignored the burning pain in his chest. He was trying to match the pace of the man ahead. The assailant’s first burst of speed would be from the panic of discovery and trying to get away. Soon, reason would set in and he’d stop. If Trent could keep from overrunning them, that would be his first and best chance.
The initial burst of speed from the man was a lot longer than he expected. It was a full half hour later when the stride of the horse he was trailing began to shorten. Keeping his eyes as far up the trail as possible, Trent still almost missed the torn grass and dirt clods where the man had reined in his horse and gone off the trail about fifty feet ahead.
The first shot passed with a sonic crack and punched into a tree behind him, the second creased his hip, leaving a burning red hole in his hunting shirt. Panic shooting? Or, a warning? The first came too high, the second too low. He didn’t stop, just swerved to the side and into the brush. The growth under the taller trees wasn’t thick here, mostly sumac and scattered fern, so he began a weaving approach toward a copse of trees ahead.
Moments later he rolled into the clearing, bringing his rifle to bear around the perimeter. Nothing. The sun glittered off the bright shell casings ejected into the grass. The man had dismounted to shoot. The imprints in the soft earth were small, maybe a size nine or ten. After the missed shot, he’d mounted and continued down the path, leaving a trail a child could follow. Knowing something of the man he followed, that fact worried him more than anything else. This man never left a trail before. All right, then. A challenge—and maybe his first mistake.
Standing in the middle of the clearing, breathing heavily, he silently cursed his luck. He hadn’t been fast enough. The man was gone… and so was the girl.
He quickly cut three sticks and made a crude arrow in the trail to show which direction he was going. Stepping into the trail, he felt cold fear knot up in his belly. From now on, the man would be more cautious—and he would have to give him the first shot. He wouldn’t miss the next time.
An hour later found him on top of a bald knob overlooking the trail ahead. He was scratched and bleeding from the nearly impenetrable shortcut he had taken. His knee-length moccasins had a jagged tear near the top from the fangs of a startled timber rattler that was sunning itself on a limestone ledge. He’d merely ripped it out of the leather and tossed it away, his mind was on the quarry ahead. If the man followed the trail around the mountain, he would have to appear in one of the clearings below. He picked the clearing that had a stream in it. If they would stop for water….
He set the sights of the rifle to battle setting for longer range, and settled down to wait. Watching the clearing below, he tried to control his breathing. What he was doing was a real gamble. If he guessed wrong and they didn’t show up, he’d lose an hour picking up the trail again, and the girl would be dead. If they did show up and he missed his shot, he’d be behind again. It would take valuable minutes to get off the promontory he was sitting on.
8
The young girl regained consciousness with a rush of pain and nausea. She remembered someone grabbing her from behind when she was at the church. She had tried to struggle and remembered screaming, but didn’t remember much after that.
Now she was sitting on the ground where the man had unceremoniously dumped her. Her stomach was sore from the ride—from the way he’d draped her over the saddle. She moved to a sitting position and addressed the man. “Mister, don’t do this.”
“Now you just be quiet, missy,” the man said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She wanted to spit at him, but couldn’t find enough moisture in her dry mouth. Her voice came out as a dry rasp. “Like hell you don’t. You’re the one who’s been killing all the girls.”
He pointed his handgun at her. “Hold out your wrists.”
When she didn’t, he casually reached out and hit her on the side of the head with his pistol.
“Now,” he said reasonably.
She held her hands out. Stall. Do what he wants. Anything. Trent would be coming. She’d heard her father talk of him. He was like a god to the woods runners. Everyone either admired him, or was afraid of him. He would come.
Seeming to read her thoughts, the man spoke again, laughing. “That boy won’t catch up to us.”
She turned a defiant face upward. “He’ll come, and if not him, my father will. You don’t know what you’ve done do you? My father is Jeremiah Starking.”
The Watcher, unimpressed by her father’s name, turned to face the direction they’d come from. The trail spiraled around the mountain. At points, he could see the back trail. He was about to give it up, when he saw Trent drift through a clearing in a long-legged woodsman’s lope, head down, rifle in his right hand. Immediately the Watcher snapped his rifle up and fired. And missed.
Trent disappeared into the shadows almost immediately.
The Watcher turned to the girl, chuckling. His body and mouth looked like he was laughing, but his eyes were stone cold, and lifeless. “I believe you may be right. That boy is running, not using a horse. Smart. Knows he can go where we cannot. Yeah, I’d say this is going to be right interesting.”
“See? Like I said mister, you’d better let me go.”
Without replying, the man picked her up and put her on the front of the saddle. Mounting behind her, his hands lingered on her thighs and breasts, as she tried to twist away from him. “We got to move, missy.”
Later in the morning, both the horse and riders were hot and tired, and the Watcher stopped to water his horse. Carrying double in this heat was hard on the animal. Walking upstream from the animal, he braced himself on his hands, and leaned forward to drink from the cool water.
The Watcher’s reflection in the stream exploded in a froth of mud and water. The man jerked backwards as a second round hit the soft earth where he’d been, splattering him with mud. A third notched the heel of his moccasin, taking a bloody piece out of his heel. Whining with fury, he went running and dodging back to the horse, bullets kicking rocks all around him. The girl stayed motionless, hoping to go unnoticed and knowing if she moved it would hamper the shooter. The Watcher gave her one wild look, stopped, and then threw her on his horse and went pounding down the trail.