Gone South (A Butterscotch Jones Mystery Book 3) (12 page)

“You don’t even know how much I’d charge.”

“I don’t care.”

Danny stood wiping his greasy hands on a rag and considering the man who would not give up before breaking out in a broad smile. The wide stretch of lips was not reassuring.

“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?
Welcome aboard, mister.”

Danny reached out his hand and the suit shook it.
When the man released Danny’s hand, he held it out in front of him to examine the grease stains.

“Sorry about that,” Danny said, handing the man his grease
-
stained rag.

The suit accepted the rag and did the best he could with it to clean his hand.
When he was done, he handed the rag back to the Wings.

“Climb onboard, fellas.
This is likely to be one hell of a ride.”

“Reese, Dawson, get in the back.”

The one named Dawson climbed onboard readily enough, but the one named Reese paused before boarding.

“This plane is safe, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” Danny asked
as drops of rain began to fall
.

“I mean, it’s been properly maintained and inspected.”

Danny laughed out loud as he walked around the plane to climb into the pilot’s seat.

“You Americans.
You have one hell of a sense of humor.”

Reese climbed shakily into the back seat, beginning to sweat bullets.
The man in the black suit released a sigh of frustration as he climbed into the copilot’s seat.
Yes
, he thought,
this was likely to be one hell of a ride.

*  *  *

The sky looked like concrete. My head felt the same, but if our luck and the weather held we would be to Seven Forks by dark. Bi
g John would have phoned
Anatoli and warned him
—
shelter and protection would be waiting. And food,
l
ots of
f
ood.

“I’m hungry for pizza,” I said.

“What kind?” Chuck asked
, trudging just slightly behind me
.
The trees were close enough that we couldn’t walk two abreast in most places.

“Zucchini and anchovy.”

“Huh. Too healthy. I want bacon and pineapple with red onion.”

“Pineapple? Too silly.”

“I like pizza with a sense of humor,”
t
he Mountie replied. “And a bit of sweet to offset the tart and crazy.”

I thought maybe he was talking about me.

“Hm. Okay, bacon and pineapple with red onion. But only to prove that I have a sense of humor too.”

“I’ve never thought you lac
k
ing in humor.”

No
, I thought,
just good sense
.

All this talk of food was making my stomach growl.

“How to you feel about goose for Thanksgiving?” Thanksgiving in Canada is in October and not November like
t
he States.

“I like anything except anchovies.” But he smiled at me
as he said this
and I was glad that he thought maybe we would still be together at Thanksgiving.

Before I could begin feeling too rosy, a flock of birds rose into the sky. Given that birds prefer to roost during a storm, I had to assume that our followers were still blundering after us. Th
ough th
ey weren’t far behind as the
c
row flies, the terrain was rough and I refused to worry that they might be getting closer.

I couldn’t let fear engulf me. Or Chuck. Panic in the wilderness will get you dead.

Trying to be subtle, I picked up the pace.

*  *  *

I will not puke.
I will not puke.
I will not puke
.
Agent Reese continued the litany over and over again in his mind in the hopes that it would distract him from the realization that he was thousands of feet in the air flying in a poorly maintained small aircraft with a crazy man at the controls
—
all of which made him want to puke.
However, the drone of the twin engines and the constant shaking of the plane caused by turbulence would not allow him to ignore these pertinent facts.
Just when he thought he might have tamed his out
-
of
-
control nerves, the plane gave a massive lurch and dropped several dozen feet in altitude.
The engines groaned, propellers digging into the air in an attempt to regain their previous elevation and speed.

“Ack!” Reese screamed.
“What was that?”

“Just a low pressure pocket of air.
Nothing to worry about,” the Wings assured him.
“It happens all the time when crossing over the mountains.”

The cabin of the plane returned to relative silence below the hum of the engines.
Agent Reese recommenced his litany.
Then the Wings began tapping one of the gauges on his control panel.

“Uh
-
oh,” said Danny.

“Uh
-
oh!” Reese responded.
“Uh
-
oh what?
What uh
-
ho?
Why uh
-
oh?
What does ‘uh
-
oh’ mean?”

The Wings started to chuckle uncontrollably and slap at his knee.

“Relax, Agent Reese.
The pilot is just messing with your head,” Desoto said hopefully.

The tangled briars weren’t impassable, if you were a mouse or had a chainsaw and lots of time and blood to spare, but it wasn’t hyperbole to call the thicket that ran the length of the gorge inhospitable. Possibly there was a deer trail somewhere, but I hadn’t a clue where to start looking.

“We go around, right?” Chuck tried to brush the rainwater off his face but it was coming down too hard for it to make any difference.

“No, we go up.”

“But
.
…” Chuck gazed up the trunks of the few trees that weren’t buried in wicked vines. They were leafless and looked dead.

“We’ll lose too much time if we go around and if we do there may not be any way to cross. And if we can shake these assholes here, we are home free. Seven Forks
and Anatoli’s cabin
are
only a quarter mile away.”

“Okay.” Chuck, bless him, didn’t argue. He gave me a leg up and I appreciated it. Climbing in wet denim was harder than you can imagine. We made it to the first branches relatively free of briars and then started across the gorge. Chuck
usually
has a thing about heights but he seemed fine, perhaps because he couldn’t see how far down the ground really was. I spent my time praying that the limbs hadn’t rotted.
I didn’t know how deep the gorge was either, but I bet it
had
rocks in it.

Our arboreal tightrope act wasn’t ready for the big top, but we managed not to fall or cut ourselves, so I was happy right until we reached the end of the main branch. We were only a few vertiginous feet from the other side of the gorge, a
n
easy jump if you are upright, on solid ground
,
and in dry clothes. But we weren’t upright or dry, and the limb beneath us was a long way from sturdy. I began looking around for another tree that might get us closer. There wasn’t one.

“Damn.”

The tree began to shake. I looked down but saw nothing but thorny vines and
an unwelcome
sparkle
that was closer than it should be
.

“What is that?” Chuck asked.

There was a pressure drop in my brain as I recognized the distant roaring filling up the gorge. One of the deadfalls must have given way and the natural dam had broken.

“Damn,
”
I said again.
The dead tree branches were definitely too thin to take us all the way to the other side of the gorge. They would get us halfway up the
steeply
slope
d embankment
but no more.

“Jump for the bank and then climb!” I said.

“Climb that?” Chuck blinked his eyes but the sight remained the same, crumbling cliff sheeted with running water. There weren’t a lot of obvious ledges or toeholds. “Shouldn’t we look for something safer?”

“It’s a flash flood. If we climb down we’re dead. If we stay here, the trees may uproot and then we’re dead.” And if we went back we were dead too.
I could hear voices behind us.

Deciding to lead by example, I hurled myself at the side of the gorge. By some miracle I found purchase
on the cliff face
,
though my sodden clothes felt like they weighed more than I did
and threatened to pull me down
. A moment later Chuck landed beside me. He also stuck
to the cliff
,
but a large chunk of rock broke away beneath his feet and we both had a bad moment wondering if he would fall too.