RUNAWAY TWINS and RUNAWAY TWINS IN ALASKA: BOXED SET (11 page)

The girls pulled more boughs over their bodies to serve as blankets, and Janie said, "Then we retrace our steps, but let us rest a little while longer, okay?"

"Okay," said Justin. "In the meantime, I'll go get us a rabbit."

**

Flack, Chuky, and the two
Bitterroot guards stood evaluating the fallen log spanning the rushing stream. They had followed the stream south, just as the pre-teens had, and had seen it widen and the rapids develop. They then turned around and hiked in the opposite direction until they arrived at the log bridge. "The kids must've crossed here," said the Prophet. "Can we go the same way?" He gestured as he spoke, his hands trembling with cold and frustration. The expression on his hatchet face had by now defaulted to a permanent mask of anger and impatience, and his eyes were filled with dark smoke and bloodlust.

The two Bitterroot guards looked as if they wished they were back at the lodge, dozing by the fireplace.

Chuky said, "Kids small, lighter than us. Log small, might hold us, might not."

The sun was only now beginning to make its appearance above the eastern horizon, for the Prophet had insisted that his group be up and gone before dawn. The runaways might be moving fast, but he would be moving faster.

Chuky had scooted out about three feet on the log bridge. "Seems okay. I go." And without further hesitation he made the transit across the stream. "No problem," he called out. "Come over…but one at a time."

The Bitterroot guards seemed unsure, for they were both considerably larger than the squat Siberian; but the Prophet ordered them to proceed; and since they feared him more than they feared the stream, they too made the crossing.

Flack followed and when they were all gathered on the other side, he looked up at the sun and said, "Let's go, I want those kids."

**

Justin felt no sense of
urgency about climbing down the butte, for he was certain they were far ahead of any possible pursuers. For that reason he wasn't concerned when the girls wanted to rest a bit longer in the warmth of the cozy shelter. In fact he welcomed the chance to grab his throwing stick and police the butte for signs of snow rabbits. He wasn't ready to admit that the spooky little critters had gotten the best of him. And if Rachel and Janie had liked the taste of ground squirrel, imagine how they'd appreciate a sweet juicy bunny. When he returned to the shelter an hour and a half later, he had a smug smile on his face and two cottontail rabbits stuffed into his coat. The girls were out and about now, and when they saw that his hands were empty, they mocked him and made snide comments about Justin the great hunter. "Going out for rabbit, eh?" said Rachel. "Looks like we'll have squirrel again for dinner—that is, if you can get lucky and trip over another squirrel."

He grinned and reached into his coat, lifting two white, floppy rabbit heads above the zipper. "Roast hare tonight, dears."

They all laughed, and then Justin said, "Let's get busy and break camp. We've wasted enough time. We've still got to get down off this butte."

It wouldn't be long before the three twelve year olds would wish they had left at first light, for danger was fast approaching in the valley beyond the lower ridge.

**

"We need to take a break,"
said one of the Bitterroot guards.

The Prophet scowled. "We'll rest when that boy has gone to his reward and when the girls are locked in their room at the lodge."

They hadn't yet reached the lower ridge, but Chuky was already eyeing the massive build up of snow between the high and the low ridge. He had experienced many landslides in his native Siberia, and he had no desire to experience one in Montana. "That snowfield up there," he said uneasily, "I don't like. Maybe we find another way—"

The Prophet cut him off. "You said this is the way they came—so this is the way we go!"

Chuky remained silent, and the two guards exchanged apprehensive glances. "Wait a minute," one said, "if the snowfield—" But he stopped in mid-sentence when he saw the Prophet's cold stare. The possible risk of a landslide was not to be compared with the certain risk of bucking J.J. Flack. The two guards did, however, begin to mutter nonstop, a continuous inarticulate whine, to let it be known they were unhappy about where they were being led.

**

Justin and the twins were
on the trail that led down from the butte, well to the side of the snowfield. "Hold up!" said Rachel, "I hear something. Listen, it sounds like another river." They halted and listened to see if they could identify Rachel's sound.

"Oh, no!" said Justin. "I shouldn't have been so careless. We should've been long gone by now."

"What?" said Janie.

"Voices! Men's voices from down in the valley, close to the entrance to the lower ridge."

"Who?" asked Rachel.

Justin shrugged. "I don't know, but who else could it be? They're close on our heels and we're cornered. If we go down, we'll run right into their arms. If we go up, we'll be trapped on the butte."

"Maybe we can hide," said Rachel.

Justin shook his head. "They can see us here from any angle."

"Can we hide up on the butte?" said Janie.

"They'd find us eventually, and they'd put a guard on the trail so we couldn't sneak down."

"Then we really are cornered," said Rachel. "Are we caught?"

"Not yet," said Justin, "I've got an idea. First, you two go back up, stay hidden, but near the upper ridge. I'll join you as soon as I can see who's coming up the trail. What I have in mind is pretty drastic, and I want to make sure there aren't any innocent fishermen down there."

The girls hurried away, and Justin scrambled down to the edge of the snowfield and then walked slowly and carefully across the lower ridge with the mountain of accumulated snow looming above him. He could now make out the words from the voices in the valley. "Stop moaning! This is the way we're going and that's all there is to it." He was fairly certain it was the voice of the Prophet, but he wanted to remove all doubt. He reached the far side of the lower ridge and then crept forward until he came to a strategically placed oak tree. He peeked around the tree and discovered he had a clear line of sight on the men who were marching up the trail several hundred yards below. He'd been right. It was J.J. Flack. He could also make out Flack's personal bodyguard, the oily-looking little Siberian; and bringing up the rear were the two camp guards.

He dashed back to the ridge, made another careful crossing, and then climbed back up to the top of the butte at breakneck speed. He found the girls in a small grove of cedar trees not far from the edge, and he told them what he'd seen and heard.

Rachel and Janie lowered their heads. "Is it hopeless?" asked Janie, looking up.

"No way," said Justin, "come on." He led them closer to the rim where three good-sized boulders perched precariously on the edge. "Help me," he said. "Let's see if we can roll these. I'm pretty sure we can get them to move." The twins understood his plan at once. The fear and defeat left their faces, and they pitched in to help him loosen the boulders. They succeeded in dislodging two of the large rocks, but the third was simply too big to budge.

"A landslide!" said Rachel. "We're going to drop a landslide on them."

"If we can," said Justin. His face showed determination and purpose, but his mind was filled with hesitation and reluctance; for he knew he was attempting to create the same catastrophe that had killed his father and his uncle.

**

The four pursuers had
now rounded Justin's oak tree and were about to step onto the lower ridge. They looked up uneasily at the tons of snow and debris above their heads, and even the Prophet seemed hesitant to move forward; but his determination returned, and he said, "It's not far to the other side. Just be careful."

"And quiet," said Chuky. "No noise, no talk."

**

The pre-teens waited
until the search party was almost halfway across the lower ridge before leaping into action. At that point Justin and the girls began to push the first of the movable boulders over the edge. The huge rock tumbled down the snowpack exactly the way Justin had hoped; and he quickly turned his attention to the second boulder. "Come on, ladies, let's do it!" When both boulders were moving, the trio stood on the rim to watch the results of their efforts. They were devastated by what they saw, for the two giant rocks had stopped rolling about a hundred yards down the incline, and the snowpack had not loosened at all. "It didn't work," said Justin.

The twins didn't speak.

**

"Look!" screamed one of
the Bitterroot guards, "Up there, above us! The kids! I saw them first. I get the bonus." The others raised their eyes to the three tiny figures standing high above the ominous snowpack; but Chuky quickly lowered his gaze and turned to the guard to warn him about the danger of making too much noise. The guard, however, in his excitement at being the first to spot the runaways, had lost touch with reality and with the present circumstances. He removed his revolver from the holster in the small of his back, and before he could be restrained, he fired two shots in the air—the signal to summon the other search parties to the scene.

The mountain began to move, slowly at first, unnoticeably, because the actual slippage was occurring below the surface in the slush and debris beneath the hard-packed ice. But in seconds the entire hillside joined in the slide, hurtling faster and faster toward the valley below.

The men on the ridge knew they were in a terrible position. Should they turn around and race back the way they'd come, or should they try for safety on the far side? Indecision caused them to freeze in their tracks unable to function or to attempt an escape in either direction. When they came to their senses, they all began to run toward Justin's oak tree, with J.J. Flack in the lead. "You bloody fool!" he shouted back at the guard who had fired the pistol, "you've killed us!"

**

The young people watched
in wonder as the scene developed below them. "The gunshots did it!" cried Janie. "Why would they fire a gun down there?"

"Because one of them is stupid," said Justin. "I'd guess it was a signal of some sort. They couldn't hope to hit us at this distance."

The landslide had now reached its maximum velocity, and it was clear the four men would soon be engulfed; but they had not given up and were making a last ditch effort to save their lives. The Prophet was still in the lead, with Chuky close behind and the guards in the rear.

"They'll never make it!" Justin shouted, his voice almost drowned out by the roar of the landslide. "Flack's close, but not close enough. He'll be swept away with the others. Watch." It was a ridiculous command, for there was no way the girls would turn away from what was happening to their pursuers. The disaster below was like a high-energy action movie being screened solely for their benefit. The Prophet lengthened his stride in desperation, and the squat Chuky somehow managed to keep pace. The guards were now lagging badly, almost as if they had caught a vision of their doom and were resigned to it. The wave of snow and rubble caught the two men in mid-stride and lifted them high in the air and hurled them hundreds of feet into the valley.

"And now for the Siberian," said Justin, "and then Flack himself."

But Chuky apparently had other ideas, at least when it came to his boss. A fraction of a second before the wall of snow reached them, Chuky dove forward into the Prophet's back and propelled him out of the path of danger. Chuky himself was not so lucky. He fell face down some distance behind Flack; and the edge of the landslide struck him at the waist, spun him around, and buried his head beneath thirty feet of snow.

19
Blizzard

It had snowed without stopping
throughout the day. Large billowy flakes stuck to the ground and accumulated in piles and drifts that made hiking without snowshoes extremely difficult. Each step the runaways took was a challenge—knee deep in slush, strain to extract the leg, and repeat the process over and over again.

"I'm tired and I'm hungry," said Janie. "Let's stop for a rest and some more rabbit. We've put a lot of miles between us and the search party by now."

Justin pulled his leg from the deep snow. "There's a cedar grove up ahead. We can rest there, but we'd better save the second rabbit for later. We don't know when we'll find something else to eat."

Rachel said, "Rest then. Janie and I are dead on our feet."

At the cedar grove they found a spot where the falling snow was partially blocked by the trees, and they spread out their silver tarp as if they were preparing for a picnic. Janie and Rachel collapsed in exhaustion, and Justin stood looking at the dark sky.

"Boy, would that second rabbit taste good right now," said Rachel. But she laughed to make it clear she knew that Justin was right in saving their food until it might be needed desperately.

"They'll never be able to track us in all this goop," said Janie.

"No," said Justin, "but I'll bet they have snowshoes, and that means they can move a lot faster than we can."

"If they're moving at all," said Janie. "When we saw the Prophet stumbling down the mountain, he looked like he might run all the way back to Sheba Hill."

"Not likely," said Justin. "He'll chase you two till his last breath."

**

The remaining eight members
of the search party had set up a base camp north of the valley the landslide had destroyed. The bruised and bandaged Prophet sat under a sloping awning that had been strung to protect him from the falling snow. One of the Sheba Hill guards approached him and began to speak; but the Prophet raised his hand to indicate the guard should wait. "Weather report," said the Prophet, pointing to the radio. "Let's hear what they've got to say."

…And the storms will produce blizzard conditions for much of western Montana and eastern Idaho. If you don't have to go out, remain in your homes for the next day and a half, beginning at ten or eleven p.m….