The Rivals (27 page)

Drew couldn't help feeling that any second the mountain of snow above him was going to slide down. His heart rate had skyrocketed as the walls of Game Creek Canyon began to rise on either side of them. He caught himself holding his breath until his chest ached and realized he was anticipating an avalanche that never came. He forced himself to breathe evenly, or as evenly as he could.

He glanced at Clay and saw his cousin was having an even worse time of it than he was. He knew Clay had never really recovered from the experience of digging him out of the snow on 25 Short. Clay was sweating profusely, and his jaw was set in a grimace of determination. But he'd never once suggested slowing down or turning back.

Which any sane person would have done.

By the time he and Sarah and Clay and Libby had met at Game Creek Road, just south of Jackson on Highway 191, conditions were
perfect
for an avalanche. Tons of snow had been dumped in the storm, and a warm, gusty chinook wind had blown in right behind it, windloading the powdery snow on angled slopes and sending the clouds scattering, making way for a surprisingly hot morning sun.

Considering the danger involved in snowshoeing up the trail, Drew had asked Sarah why they couldn't make a quick trip over the canyon in a helicopter looking for the four missing kids.

“I've already had someone up in a Bell 407 taking a look,” she admitted. “But he didn't see anything from the air, which isn't really surprising. Otherwise, that hideout would have been discovered long ago. He also didn't see any sign of Nate or Brooke or Ryan.”

Drew mentally acknowledged how impossible it would have been to discern three small, snow-covered bodies from the air.

“It's dangerous to fly too low with the avalanche conditions what they are,” Sarah said. “Vibrations from above could start an avalanche as easily as one misstep on the ground.

“Which is also why we're snowshoeing rather than taking snowmobiles,” she said.

Because of the deep, powdery snow, Sarah had suggested they use snowshoes instead of skis. Motorized vehicles weren't allowed in the wilderness areas of Game Creek, but Sarah had apparently considered using them anyway.

“I've got a GPS to mark our location if and when we need to call for help,” she said.

Drew and Sarah, and Clay and Libby, and Libby's two redbone coonhounds had traveled about three miles along the bottom of the canyon when they reached a fork in the trail. Drew was surprised to see snowmobile tracks. Someone had been there before them earlier that same day after the snow had stopped falling.

“What do you think?” Clay asked Drew. “The kidnapper?”

He turned to Sarah and said, “Guess someone isn't as worried as you are about their motorized vehicle starting an avalanche.”

“Someone is taking his life in his hands,” Sarah snapped.

That was the most she'd said in the thirty minutes it had taken them to get to the fork in the trail.

“I've been thinking about who might be anxious enough to risk coming up this trail in these avalanche conditions,” Drew said. “I keep coming up with the same answer.”

“It's some kid who wants to ride his snowmobile in all this powder,” Sarah said.

“Or someone who knows about that hideout up there and what's in it and wants to check on it after the storm,” Drew said. “Maybe even the person who kidnapped Kate.”

“I hope the hell that is who it is,” Clay said. “When I get my hands on—”

“There isn't going to be any vigilante justice,” Sarah said. “If we catch someone with Kate, I'll arrest him.”

“You're on administrative leave,” Drew reminded her. But he knew for a fact she was carrying the replacement Glock, and he didn't think a little technicality like not being on duty was going to keep her from arresting anyone she thought needed arresting.

“As long as Kate is found safe and sound,” Clay said, “I don't give a damn what you do with anyone else you find.”

Drew noticed nobody suggested the possibility that Kate might not be found safe and sound.

“It's amazing to me that someone would hide a kidnap victim so close to town,” Libby said.

“The less traveling a kidnapper has to do with a body in the trunk, the better,” Sarah said. “Besides, this terrain is rugged enough to discourage anyone skiing off the trail. And that hideout has to be well hidden to go undetected by the forest service, since they're up here all the time.”

“If that snowmobile is being ridden by the kidnapper, why didn't he bother hiding his tracks?” Libby asked.

“Good point,” Drew said.

“There's no reason to hide his tracks—until he leaves the trail,” Sarah pointed out.

“So we should be watching for a place to the side of the trail where the snow is disturbed, where this guy might have brushed out his tracks?” Drew asked.

“Exactly,” Sarah said. “With any luck, he'll only try to hide them for a while, and we can pick up his trail again in the rough.”

“The dogs can help us with that,” Libby said. She put Doc and Snoopy on the trail of the snowmobile, and not far up the canyon they bounded off into the undergrowth.

“He did a pretty good job of hiding the fact that he left the main trail,” Libby said when they reached the spot.

“Which makes it unlikely that this was a kid enjoying the powder,” Drew said.

“It doesn't look like there's much room to take a snowmobile between all that foliage,” Clay said, his eyes narrowed as he gauged the dense undergrowth through which they would have to travel.

“There's got to be a trail,” Sarah said. “All we have to do is follow where the snowmobile leads us.”

“Are we sure this is the way to go?” Drew asked. “Does this jibe with what Donnelly said?”

“He said we should turn off the main trail into the wilderness at a blazed tree about twenty minutes after the fork,” Sarah said. “We haven't gone that far yet, but I suppose whoever is on that snowmobile knows a quicker, easier way to get where we're hopefully going.”

“If we're going, let's go,” Clay said.

“Day's wasting.” Drew had heard Blackjack use the same expression to his cowhands when they began a roundup. He watched as Clay pushed out ahead of everyone, with Libby on his heels, both of them following the two coonhounds, whose noses were leading them ever higher up the canyon.

Drew was last in line. Which might be the safest place to be if the dogs or Clay triggered an avalanche. Although, sometimes the first person crossing a fracture in the snow only loosened it, and it didn't come free until two or three more skiers had passed by.

There is no safe place on this goddamn mountain,
Drew thought.

“Avalaaannnche!”

Even though Drew had been expecting the worst, his heart took a quick leap into his throat as Clay's warning echoed back to him. What astonished Drew was that he found himself skiing hell-bent
toward
the sound of Clay's voice, rather than away from it.

As Drew looked up in horror, he saw that the snow had fractured along a hundred-foot line above them and was barreling down the mountain, pulverizing trees and burying brush. He saw Clay grab Libby's hand and yank her after him as he sped away from the closest edge of the onrushing snow.

As he watched, Clay pulled Libby tight against his chest and braced his back against a thick aspen, waiting for the snow to race past them. Drew heard one of the dogs yelp and realized they'd been too far ahead of Libby and Clay to make it back to safety.

Drew caught up to Sarah, who'd stopped in her tracks, and slid a reassuring arm around her. “Are you all right?” he said.

She nodded, then pointed, her eyes stark.

Drew saw the silky red head of one of the dogs appear above the tumbling snow and disappear again as the thundering avalanche continued down the mountain. The second redbone hound appeared briefly, disappeared and then reappeared paddling along the top of the snow as though he were swimming.

The slide stopped sooner than Drew would have expected, only a couple of hundred feet down. The instant it did, the hound that was still on top of the snow freed itself, raced twenty feet up the mountain and began digging.

“That's Snoopy,” Drew heard Libby cry. “He must be digging for Doc.”

Drew saw Libby take off across the tumbled snow, Clay on her heels, grabbing for the shovel in his pack.

Drew's gaze shot to the top of the mountain, wondering if more of it was going to come down. But when Sarah took off to join Libby and Clay, he followed.

A moment later, the four of them were digging—with Snoopy, make that five. They were racing time, knowing that the buried hound would suffocate in a matter of minutes.

“I found a paw!” Clay said.

“I've found another,” Sarah said.

Libby carefully cleared the area where they believed the dog's head to be and found a cold black nose. Soon, Doc's whole head was visible. When Clay finally pulled the redbone hound free of the snow, he let out a baying howl.

Libby hugged the dog, laughing and crying, then rose to fling herself into Clay's arms. “Thank you!” she cried. “Thank you!”

Drew watched as Clay rocked Libby in his arms, while both dogs bounded around them, apparently fine after their avalanche adventure. Libby was smiling up at Clay when he said something Drew couldn't hear. Her smile suddenly disappeared. Abruptly, they stepped apart. Libby bent down to fondle Doc's ears, while Clay folded up his shovel and put it back in his pack.

Drew shook his head. Those two were meant for each other, but he doubted Clay would ever allow the past to be forgotten—or forgiven.

He turned to Sarah and said, “That could have been a helluva lot worse. And there's more snow where that came from.”

“Are you suggesting we turn back?” she asked.

Drew realized there was no turning back, no matter how great the danger. There were four precious lives at risk. Even so, the cost of saving them might be too high. He met Sarah's gaze and said, “I don't want to lose you.”

Sarah seemed surprised by the admission. She avoided acknowledging its import by saying, “We'd better get moving if we want to catch up to that snowmobile.”

“If we move across this slide to the other side, the dogs should be able to pick up the scent,” Libby said.

They were soon across the slide area and headed back up into the high timber. Sooner than any of them expected, the dogs found the snowmobile's tracks.

Which was when Drew realized that the passing snowmobile had probably precipitated the avalanche.

“I wouldn't have thought he'd keep on concealing his tracks once he got off the main trail,” Libby said.

“He probably has something tied on the back of the snowmobile to brush them out, and it's easier just to leave it there than to stop and remove it,” Clay said.

“If the kidnapper wants the location of his hideout to remain a secret, he has to be this careful,” Sarah said.

“I wonder how close we are,” Libby said.

“We're not going up anymore,” Drew said. Which was important to him, because it was often along the ridges that the snow fractured and an avalanche began.

Clay halted and pointed ahead. “There's something up there. Do you see it?”

Libby called the dogs to her and put them on a lead. “I don't want them smelling Kate and making a beeline for her,” she said. “Assuming she's there,” she added softly.

Drew had to squint to see the strange-looking structure through the thick underbrush that surrounded it. He turned to Sarah and said, “What is that?”

“It's a yurt!” she said. “No wonder it was never found! They probably put it up when they need it and take it down when they're done.”

“What's a yurt?” Drew said.

“It's what's being used these days as a portable ski cabin,” Sarah said. “Mongolian nomads who roamed China and central Asia thousands of years ago invented them. They're made of locking wood poles and have a conical roof with a hole in the top for smoke to escape.”

“So it's the Mongolian version of a tepee,” Drew said.

“Rounder and flatter,” Sarah said, “but every bit as fast and easy to dismantle and transport. In the old days they were covered by animal skins. The modern ones have a wood framework covered in canvas or some fabric.”

“How do we do this?” Drew asked. “Do we ski up there and announce ourselves? Do we sneak up? What?”

“I go. You all wait here,” Sarah said.

“No way,” Clay said. “There could have been two people on that snowmobile. There might be others at that yurt. If they see a lone woman—”

“I'm a deputy sheriff.” Sarah smiled and added, “And I have a gun to even the odds.”

Drew wondered how often men underestimated Sarah because of her sex. Her voice had been patient, but firm, as she insisted on being treated like what she was—the law in these parts.

“I wouldn't mind having you all handy as backup,” she said. “I want to know where you are, so I'm not shooting in your direction if bullets start flying.”

Drew was right behind Sarah as they moved quietly toward the yurt, trying to stay hidden as they watched for any movement.

“The door's on the other side,” he said to Sarah. “How are we going to get there without being seen?”

“Very carefully,” Sarah said.

 

Sarah had put up a brave front, but she moved toward the yurt with a heavy heart. Was it possible her children had found this remote destination and were safe inside? Even if they'd escaped the storm, how safe could they be if this place was truly the den of a murderous kidnapper?

She wanted to believe she would find all four children safe inside, but as she turned the corner and saw there were
two
snowmobiles parked out front, and no one to be seen, she realized that rescuing the four children—if they were all there—might not be that easy.