Beneath a Winter Moon (37 page)

Thomas took a sip. “Now that is good tea.” He wondered what Jeremiah had meant by,
the old life
.

Jeremiah smiled. He turned to look at Jenny, who still slept on the couch. “Are you sure she is going to be okay?”

“The sooner we get her out of here, the sooner she can start to get better,” Delmar said. “After what she’s seen and what she’s been through, it is a wonder that she’s able to function at all.”

Thomas set down his cup and looked at Jeremiah. “How long were you out this morning, Jeremiah? We didn’t see any tracks.”

Jeremiah leaned back and stretched his arms. “I went out just before daylight. It was still snowing, though not as bad, and I had to check my traps.”

“
Before
dawn?” Delmar asked.

“Just before, yes. The sun was up before I reached my traps, for what good it did. They were empty.”

“You didn’t wear much to keep you protected from the snow, never mind the cold,” Thomas said.

Jeremiah nodded. “I’ve grown exceptionally comfortable with the cold in my years out here. What I had on was fine for me for a few hours.”

“That’s pretty amazing.”

“Well, Thomas, if you spent a decade out here you would be the same, I am sure.”

“I guess so,” Thomas lied, knowing that it was impossible for anyone to grow that accustomed to the cold. He knew there was more to Jeremiah’s morning activities than the Scot cared to admit…but he was not sure that his deception was nefarious in any way.

Jeremiah saw his way out. “In fact,” he said as he stood up. “That reminds me that I must go and check my northern traps before we’re taken out of here. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving animals in my traps out there to starve themselves—or worse.” He took a coat from a rack and grabbed the gloves that he had worn earlier, then went to the gun cabinet and removed the pistol belt and buckled it around his waist. He picked up the rifle and stopped at the foyer, wrapping a neoprene scarf around his neck. “It’ll take me no more than an hour. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“But what about the storm?” Delmar asked. “It’s pretty bad out there. Are the animals worth it?”

“To me, they are.” He gave the men a nod, “Enjoy the tea, then.” As he reached the door, he turned as if he had remembered something important. “Your dog, Thomas? Can you come and watch over him? I don’t think he likes me very much.”

Thomas stood up and went to stand by Jeremiah for a moment. “It’s not that he doesn’t like you. I’m sure it is just a smell or something. Anyway, I’ll get him.” Thomas opened the door and tried to ignore the wind and the snow as he stepped out to stand next to Jack. The dog was wagging his tail and wooing at Thomas as if he were having a great time being chained to the steps. The Husky shook himself, the undulations beginning at the dog’s head and moving down to dissipate at the tail. A moment later, Jeremiah hopped down from the steps and
trodded
off without a word. A short rumble came from Jack’s throat as Jeremiah leapt past him.

“Easy, boy. Hey…good news. You can come back inside now that he’s gone…but only for a little while.” Jack wooed loudly as Thomas unclasped the D-ring from the steps.

Jeremiah stood behind a tree and waited for Thomas to go back inside. Seeing that the door had closed behind Thomas and the dog, Jeremiah skirted quickly back toward the cabin, making a wide arch through the trees. He kept moving until the generator shed was in sight. Quickly, he ran through the deepening snow and into the shed, where he pulled out his small flashlight and peered at the loud machine. He removed a wrench from a small toolbox that sat on a shelf, and yanked the wire free from the generator’s only spark plug. He had to be fast, he knew. It would take them only moments to figure out that the generator was out. He quickly loosened the spark plug and twisted it several times so that it fell free. He could feel the heat through his gloves as he opened the shed door and threw it as far into the trees as he could. He smiled. They would never find it.

It took only a few minutes for Delmar to notice that the radio was not working and another minute to see that the stove was out as well. Only then was it realized that they could no longer hear the low hum of the generator. Both men donned their Gore-Tex jackets and went outside. Jack had wanted to come, but Thomas commanded him to stay.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Thomas said loudly over the sound of the wind.

“Me too,” Delmar answered.

They reached the shack and noticed that, although there had been no tracks leading from the cabin to the shed, there were indeed fresh tracks looping around from behind. The tracks led straight into the shed.

Inside, Delmar pulled the mini-flashlight from his pocket and looked at the generator. “Sonofabitch, sonofabitch!”

“What?” Thomas asked. “What’s wrong?”

“He took the damned spark plug. He took it! Why the hell would he do that?”

“Only one reason,” Thomas answered after a moment. “There is only one thing that we…you and I needed it for. Just one thing.”

“The radio.”

“Yep.”

“He’s got something to do with all of this, Thomas. I don’t know how he figures into it, but I am telling you that sonofabitch is the key. He knows what is going on and he knows about that damned
thing
out there.”

“You’ll get no argument from me.”

“We’ve got to get the bastard.”

“Now wait a minute,” Thomas said. “He’s armed. He might not want to come quietly...assuming we can find him.”

“He’s got maybe ten minutes on us, and he can’t move an inch without leaving a trail. We can get him. If we don’t, who knows what he might do? Who’s to say he’s running away and not really just sitting out there making plans to come back? He could come back and burn the cabin down around us for all we know.”

“He could have shot us back there before he left. We were easy pickings. So, hurting us can’t be part of his game plan, whatever it is. He’s probably just running, Delmar. For all we know he has some beef with the law and that’s why he is here in the first place.”

“He has just cut off our only contact with the outside world. He’s involved in Steven and Daniel’s death somehow…and I’m going after him, Thomas.” Delmar pushed past Thomas and ran out into the snow and back toward the cabin.

Delmar opened the cabin door and ran to his gear. Jenny sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“Jeremiah just killed the generator and he has the only thing that can start it up again. Without it, we have no radio.”

“But we’ve already called for help,” she said.

Thomas stepped into the cabin. “She’s right; we’ve already told Mountain Rescue where we are.”

“I’m going after him,” Delmar said. “I don’t mind going alone.”

Thomas sighed. He knew there was no use. “Half an hour, Delmar. That’s it. After that, you
will
be on your own. If we don’t catch up to him by then, we turn and come back.”

Delmar nodded as he slipped on his gloves.

“Jenny, you bar the door behind us and only let us back in. If Jeremiah comes without us, you just ignore him. He can’t get through that barred door. We will be back in no later than an hour. There will still be plenty of daylight left.” He handed her his rifle. “It’s loaded. If he tries to get in, shoot him.” She stared at him. “Jack is staying with you. I promise that we will be right back. No matter what…we will be
right
back.”

Jenny nodded.

“There is tea in that kettle, Jen. It’s still warm. There are power bars in my backpack if you are hungry.” Thomas slipped his own gloves on and pulled the Gore-Tex hood over his head. He smiled at her. “Don’t worry.” She tried to smile at him as she nodded.

They picked up Jeremiah’s trail outside the shed. Thomas commented on how quickly Delmar had recovered from the badly bruised ribs, but the big man shrugged it off. Though Thomas hadn’t seen his friend use any medicine, he figured that maybe Delmar had some sort of painkillers of his own.

  The snow was too deep for them to run, so they stepped through the snow as quickly as possible as they followed the tracks into the forest. The trees deflected some of the snowfall and the wind as they silently moved through, careful to stay right on top of Jeremiah’s tracks. They hadn’t traveled very far when they saw something up in the distance…something that did not look like it should be there. Jeremiah’s tracks went to the left of the structure, but Thomas and Delmar could not help but sway off of the trail to get a better look.

At first, Thomas thought that the structure was some sort of lift used for heavy logs, perhaps to lift and hold them while bark was stripped, but when he saw the left and right chains, arm rings attached and hanging down. “What the hell is this thing?” he asked.

Delmar walked around the structure, gawking. “King Kong,” he said.

“What?”

“It’s like one of those movies…the thing that they held King Kong in…for the crowds.”

“Nah can’t be..,” Thomas said as he stood and stared at the structure. He leaned over and wiped snow off of the wooden platform and pointed at the claw marks etched deep into the wood. “God almighty.” He stood up abruptly, then jumped up on the platform and looked around. He found a shirt and some neoprene leggings, frozen solid and stuck to the surface. He reached out and grasped one of the chains and saw where a link had been bent and torn away. There was blood. “God almighty,” he said again.

Delmar had jumped up to stand next to Thomas. He shook his head in disbelief. “He chained people here? The clothes…he stripped, chained…maybe he tortured people here?”

Thomas shook his head. “We’ve got to find him. We’ve got to find him, and quick.” Thomas saw Delmar’s puzzled look, so he continued. “He hasn’t been chaining people here. Don’t you see? The
thing
had shackles on it.” Delmar had been looking closely at the chains. He dropped them and froze. Thomas nodded. “Jeremiah had that thing chained up and it got loose.”

They moved faster through the snow and the wind, realizing that they had no choice, now. Delmar had been right, but even he hadn’t really expected his assertions to really be true. Jeremiah and the thing…they were connected. Jeremiah was indeed at the center of what happened to Steven and Daniel.

Jeremiah cursed the snow as he shuffled through the contents of the container. The long, deep fiberglass chest was one of many that he had hidden, partially buried, all around the wilderness that was his alter ego’s territory. This one was the container closest to the cabin, so it was the one he had run to out of necessity. He needed a small pack, a poncho or a tarpaulin that could serve as a shelter if things went bad, he needed waterproof leggings and the winter parka that he knew was still inside. He knelt in the snow, digging through the contents. He hadn’t used this cache in a while, and knew that everything was still inside. A rifle, a small backpack, materials for a shelter, clothing, food, water…everything that a human could need after waking up naked in the middle of a winter wonderland. He cursed the idiots at his cabin as he shuffled through the contents, taking out things that he needed. He did not want to hurt them…well…he wouldn’t mind so much if killing them would not serve to just make his already bad situation worse.