Chapter 4

Day Four

Kimberley awoke at sunrise. She always did whenever she was camping, and she thought it was funny. Given a soft bed, she always overslept, and never felt as rested as she did after a night sleeping on hard ground. Before she got up, she listened carefully for sounds of anyone nearby. She heard nothing but birds and the wind whispering through the trees.

She unzipped the sleeping bag and stood up, stretching and yawning hugely. The sky was clear and blue, the air clean and pine-scented. Now, she thought with a chuckle, if only there were a nice bathroom handy.

She was packed up and back on the trail within fifteen minutes. One thing about roughing it: You were never inclined to linger over the same things you would back in civilization. As she hiked, she munched on a trail bar. It was better than nothing, but she sorely missed her usual cup of hot coffee. She had a bag of instant coffee in her backpack, but she hadn’t dared to light a fire. She knew how far the smell of wood smoke could carry. Maybe this afternoon she could risk a small fire for a hot lunch. She’d have to have at least one hot meal today, and a fire at night could not only be smelled, but also seen from some distance.

It was kind of exciting, being hunted. She had a sharp appreciation of what would happen to her if and when they caught her, and that was exciting too…if a bit scary. She grinned to herself. It was the scary part of it that helped to keep her moving.

He stood up, trying to work the kinks out of his neck. It looked like a nice clear day, and he ought to be able to pick up her trail without too much trouble. She’d surprised him so far, first in leaving the trail, and then in being able to cover so much ground. Somehow he’d never thought of an archaeologist as being an outdoor type. Oh, well. He used the radio once to contact Kurt, who’d stayed where they’d originally planned to intercept her, and found out that he’d relayed last night’s message to Lloyd, who was working his way back to that spot now. Once he arrived, Kurt could start uphill towards the upper trail. With any luck they could sandwich her today.

With any luck…he was sure she wouldn’t be easy to catch, luck or not. He shouldered his backpack and set off to pick up her trail. Starting with the footprints he’d found just before nightfall, he moved upslope, scanning the ground for any additional clues. Within twenty minutes he found where she’d camped last night, and it was a bit annoying to discover she’d been so close by. Elf-girl was elusive. He began trailing her again.

Her watch said it was time for a rest halt, and she was glad to take it. Her backpack was lighter than it had been when she started out all those days ago, but it was still a hefty weight to be carrying uphill. She sat on the trunk of a fallen tree and took a drink from her canteen. It was getting close to empty. She’d have to refill it soon, and the only source of water she knew of nearby was that ravine. The water was still running through it too swiftly for her to risk going down into it just to fill her canteen. Maybe further uphill, and later in the day, the runoff would have gone down enough for it to be safe. She huffed a bit from the effort it had taken to get here. The further up she went, the steeper the slope seemed to get. At some point she’d have to start heading west again, but that would mean striking out through the woods with no guide marks, except for the few times she could see the mountain through the trees. She had a compass, but didn’t entirely trust it. Up in the mountains there were too many things that could make that little needle move off of true north. The last thing she wanted was to start wandering in circles while her pursuers closed in.

It really was a beautiful day. Yesterday’s storm had washed all the dust out of the air, and the cooler temperatures that had followed were a welcome relief from the heat of the previous days. She didn’t know how long that would last, but she was grateful for it now.

Her five minutes were up. She walked a bit wearily uphill, guided by the sound of rushing water in the ravine to her left.

Normally, he’d be taking rest halts every so often, but he was trying to catch up with a young woman who was apparently in great physical shape, so he had to press on. The slope grew steeper the closer you got to the mountain itself, and he hoped it was slowing her down as much as it was him. At one point, he picked out a small, straight sapling and in a few minutes had made himself a walking stick, using his small axe. Maybe the help such a thing gave was mostly psychological, but he was glad to have it. He’d been able to pick up her tracks every so often, and soon realized that she was moving more or less parallel to the ravine. Was that on purpose? He rather thought so. She seemed to be at home in the woods, and keeping the ravine as a guide would keep her from getting lost. She ought to be getting very close to the upper trail now. If she took it, he could catch up with her more easily, he was sure…well, almost sure. He was developing a grudging admiration for elf-girl. When they finally captured her he was sure she’d still be a challenge. That was fine with him. He grinned wolfishly.

As he trudged uphill, he reflected that this was indeed an odd line of work for him to be in. He had a degree in civil engineering, courtesy of the G.I. bill, and could easily find work almost anywhere: Work that would keep him outdoors and active, which he liked. But what other job offered the unique challenge of hunting down women? Granted, they usually just walked right into the trap, knowing it was out there somewhere, but wanting to be trapped anyway. Trapped, held captive, used and abused. Every so often, though, one of them made you really work at it. Those were the memorable ones, the ones whose faces you could recall with perfect clarity even years later. The others...well, they tended to blur into indistinctness, faces and bodies almost interchangeable.

Finding a trail up here was a surprise. Kimberley looked up and down it carefully from cover before she ventured out onto it. There was nobody in sight. She stepped off briskly, rejuvenated by the relatively easy going. It even went pretty much the way she wanted to go, too. After a few miles, though, her enthusiasm for it began to wane. This trail might not be on her map, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t on somebody else’s. And if it was, and they were following her, they’d know that sooner or later she’d come across it. Following it, however easy a path it offered, suddenly seemed like a stupid thing to do. She’d abandoned the first trail because it was too easy and felt like a trap. Now, here she was happily hiking along another trap.

She kept walking as she thought. The trail was easy to follow, but visibility along it was never more than about fifty yards, because it dipped and wound along through the woods. What was the chance there was somebody ahead of her right now, waiting? About as good a chance, she thought, of there being somebody behind her, following. For no reason she could tell, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Well, it was time for another rest halt anyway, or close enough to it. She moved carefully off of the trail and into the cover of some underbrush to rest and think things out. Taking out her map, she unfolded it carefully. She studied it for a few minutes, trying to identify where she was.

There…that was the ravine she’d moved up and then alongside yesterday and part of today. She couldn’t tell exactly where this trail she’d discovered was on the map, but she thought she could make a pretty good guess. If it kept running in the general direction it seemed to now, at some point it would cross another fairly big ravine some distance along.

She nibbled at her lower lip, frowning. That other ravine would serve to guide her downhill all right, and at some point it would intersect the original trail she’d been hiking on. But then what? Go back on the old trail?

Her stomach growled politely, reminding her that there was another factor to consider: Food. She was nearly out of it, and couldn’t really spend the next several days eluding her pursuers by moving off in unexpected directions. She hadn’t seen much she could eat in the woods: A few berries, one small mushroom she was sure of. Those might serve to stretch out her rations, but she was running out of rations to stretch.