Page 69 of Dark Roads
He would be freaking out, wondering what was going on, but now he’d know I was safe and hiding out at my lower camp. Or at least I would be after I stole the clutch lever.
The forest sloped down toward the lake, so I could walkalong the edge above the campground, staying hidden in the trees, and check out all the sites below. Andy’s truck was gone. He and the guys often camped out during the summer. I never stole from them.
I found the site where the men from Alberta were camping. Three of them, sitting in lawn chairs and drinking beer around a propane fire ring. It would be a while before they went to sleep. I continued along the deer trail until I was closer to Beth’s site. Her car wasn’t there yet.
The first morning she had camped at the lake, I recognized the university sticker in her back window. I’d seen it the night I was waiting outside the motel to catch a glimpse of Amber’s sister, who Jonny had told me was working at the diner. When I’d heard Vaughn’s voice, I hit the ground hard, and then watched as he helped Beth to her room, his arm around her waist as she stumbled. After he hadn’t come out for a while, I’d found an expensive car, pulled on the handle and slapped my hands on the hood until I’d set off the alarm. Vaughn had rushed off, and when I sneaked in her window, I found her sprawled on the bed, with her dress pulled up around her waist. Vaughn had been taking photos. The gun in her purse had been a surprise.
With my backpack for a pillow, I rested against the trunk of an old fir tree. Wolf sat beside me, his nose testing the air and his ears flicking. I chewed my nails and worried about Jonny. After I got my dirt bike fixed, I’d ride the trails to his house and find out if he was okay.
Beth’s car drove through the campground and slowed to a stop near her tent. I crept alongside the creek with Wolf. We watched through a wall of ferns while she ate a sandwich, then poured vodka into a red plastic cup. She was sitting on her picnic table, staring out at the lake and holding her cell. She glanced at it a few times, but she didn’t text or make any calls.
She poured another drink. Then a couple more after that.No mix. I remembered how shocked and upset she’d looked when she realized that Jonny had lied to her.
It was getting dark, and her head was drifting lower, her body weaving. She set her phone down on the table. She got up, crouched behind a tree, and then stumbled to her car.
I waited fifteen minutes, then crept along the shore of the lake, around the back side of her car. I brought my head up slowly and peeked through the side window. She was on the backseat, curled into a ball, with her eyes closed and her arm hanging limp.
Wolf and I shared some of her fruit and a slice of cheese and a bun. She didn’t have many clothes, nothing suitable for living on the mountain. Her bottle of pills was still hidden in the side of the tent. She was running low. Outside the tent, I froze when I heard a vibrating sound, a soft hum. Something was glowing on the picnic table. Her phone. I scrolled through her history. She hadn’t called the cops or Jonny. No text messages to him—not recently. There were others. I skimmed them. If she woke up in the morning angry, she might call the police about Vaughn.
I tucked her phone into my pocket.
The rednecks were still drinking, but most of the other campers had turned in. Wolf padding at my heels, I kept to the shadows and drifted through a site with a blue tent. They had a posh-looking SUV, and their gear was new. I found a few bags of chips, a flashlight, a knife, some toilet paper, and a cooler full of hot dogs and steaks. My hands skimmed over the items without making a rustle, my feet whispered across the ground, my breath was soft. I tossed Wolf a weiner, and he snatched it out of the air fast and silent, his teeth barely clicking together.
At another site, I picked up a lighter, boxes of Kraft dinner, a long-sleeved shirt, and a package of marshmallows. I tucked what I could into an extra bag I had in my backpack and slung it over my shoulders. When I was finished, I moved back to thehill above the campsite and watched the rednecks drink for the next hour.
I liked being near the lake this time of night. The quiet campground. In a couple of months the weather would turn, and Jonny would begin to urge me down from the mountain. He wanted me to go to the Yukon. I rolled on my back, looked up at the starry sky. I’d thought I was hallucinating last winter when I’d opened my eyes in the middle of the snowstorm and saw Jonny’s blue ones staring down into mine.Hailey? Wake up.
It had been a snowmobile that I’d heard. Not our imagined dirt bikes. My radio calls had gone through, crackling, disjointed, but enough, and he borrowed his dad’s snowmobile, rushing out to save us. When he got close, he’d heard Wolf howling. He’d taken us back to the cabin, wrapped me in blankets by the fire, then warmed me with compresses and broth. Wolf got the same treatment, including antibiotics. Jonny’s dad had a bottle for their farm animals.
When Wolf and I were stronger, Jonny took us to his place. We built a bunker in his workshop, but we mostly stayed inside Jonny’s house, and hid if anyone showed up. Over the winter I helped Jonny fix bikes and we painted his helmet. Blue flames. We watched movies, played cards, and I checked on Cash through Lana’s Facebook page—she’d never set it to private. We were safe and warm, but I’d missed my mountain. My cabin. How could I leave?
I rolled back onto my stomach and watched the campers from Alberta. When the last two stumbled to bed, I slid on a pair of leather gloves, took my wrench out of my backpack, and double-checked the knife in my calf holster. I left Wolf at the head of the trail guarding my mountain bike. He gave me a few complaining growls, but I didn’t want him to get hurt.
I waited another ten minutes in the shadow behind their camper. The lights were off, blinds closed. No movement.Loud snoring. I slipped around to where they’d parked the dirt bikes. I had the bolt off and was beginning to remove the clutch lever when the camper door flung open and slammed against the side. I tugged the lever free and dropped to my stomach.
A hulking shape was shining a flashlight around the site. His body was clear in the cast-off beam. Tall, with a shaved head, and a series of tattoos down both biceps. He would be violent if he caught me. He was searching for something on the picnic table—knocking over empty beer cans, letting out long burps. He picked up a cell phone. The bright screen lit up his face as he swiped at it roughly, muttering to himself.
The glow disappeared. He’d put the phone away. The flashlight shone at a tree near him. His steps were heavy as he stumbled over to the edge of the site, unzipped his pants, and began to let out a loud stream of urine, while burping again. When he finished and was trying to zip his pants up, he dropped the flashlight. It shone in my direction like a compass arrow. I held my breath.
He bent to pick up the flashlight, and for a moment it seemed as though he were turning back toward the camper, but he must have sensed me, or wanted to do a final check on his bike, because he spun around—and shone the light straight at me.
I ducked, and, gripping the clutch lever, sprinted through the woods. The dense bush grabbed at me, blocked my way, sent me into dead ends. I had to zigzag. For a big drunk guy he was moving fast, boots thudding behind me, his breath huffing out in grunts like a bear.
I glanced over my shoulder—and stepped into the stream, dried out except for the thick, tar-like sludge at the bottom. My foot sank. I lurched sideways and hit the ground, dropping the wrench and the lever. Before I could take a breath, the guy was on me. A hard punch to my guts, my lower back. Flipped over. A fist to the face—shock of pain, a rattle of teeth.
Barking noises. He turned to look. Knee to his groin.
The man grabbed a handful of mud and smashed it into my face, filling my mouth. I choked on the grime, trying to spit it out before it slid down my throat. Wolf was growling and attacking the man. He screamed and kicked out. Wolf yelped. The man stood to kick him again.
I felt around in the mud, grabbed the wrench, and in one motion I leapt to my feet and clubbed him across the head. He grunted but didn’t go down. He knocked the wrench free of my hand. He was pulling his shoulder back, ready to punch. Wolf soared through the air and latched onto his arm. The man screamed, trying to shake him off as he spun around. I lifted a rock out of the mud and slammed it against the back of the man’s head. He fell to the ground. Wolf landed, still growling, twisting the man’s arm in his teeth. I pulled him away.
I looked down at the man, faceup, the flashlight beside his open hand. I nudged his big body with my foot, bent over and listened. Breathing—and no blood on his skull. His shirt was ripped on his arm and Wolf had punctured the skin, but none of the wounds were gushing. I used the guy’s flashlight to find the wrench and lever. “Wolf, let’s go.”
We ran back up along the creek. Each step jarred the breath out of my chest, my bruised ribs. My face felt swollen, my lip puffy. I tasted blood. He would guess that I was male, maybe young, but it was still a problem. He’d report the theft. He’d have dog bites.
Beth’s phone vibrated in my pocket as I ran. Someone was calling her.
CHAPTER 28
