We were all sitting around a small campfire that I had allowed once we’d found a spot on a rocky ledge that rose up seventy feet behind us in a wedge that cut us off from view below. The stiff wind that had blown up around midnight brought with it a sudden chill that cut through us.
We’d walked far longer than was safe, especially since I wouldn’t allow any use of flashlights or headlamps. Although I could see fine, they could not in the near black of the night so it necessitated that they walk directly behind me, one man holding onto the next. Sort of like prison lockstep. That made us extremely slow but we didn’t have to worry about anyone falling, twisting or breaking an ankle. It left us vulnerable to pursuit because the soldiers couldn’t venture off to check our back trail. If they were wearing NVGs, we were screwed. I was pretty sure that the NSA agents hadn’t picked up our tracks since we’d left the crash site. I’d seen on the USGS contour map of the area the place where we’d stopped, figured it was the safest place to camp since the view from three sides was blocked by the rocky outcrop and our fire couldn’t be seen. Not even from above as the top of the escarpment hung over and shielded the ground from overhead scanning.
Lindsey had taken on the job of cook and Adams had made the fire. I was resting against my rucksack, unconsciously rubbing my chest and hips. Dr. Pentelli came over and handed me a cup of black coffee which I took gratefully. One taste and I nearly gagged, it was nasty instant coffee but it was hot and full of caffeine.
“You hurting?” he asked quietly. “I can give you a pain pill.”
“Will it make me sleepy?”
“Knock you out, probably. It’s Oxycontin.”
“No. I need a clear head, need to be able to run if necessary,” I decided.
“Are we spending the night?”
“I think we have to.” I pointed up the escarpment. “Tomorrow, we have to climb up that.” He followed my finger up and looked shaken. “You afraid of heights?”
“I’m not afraid of heights, I’m afraid of falling,” he admitted.
“Someone will belay you. All you have to do is sit in the harness and hold on to the ropes.”
Adams came over holding a tin plate loaded with some kind of rice casserole. “Pork and rice,” he offered. “You need to eat something; you haven’t taken in much protein the last few days. You want me to set up guard rounds?”
“Not necessary. There’s only one way anyone came come in after us and that’s exactly how we got here. This is a bottleneck.” I took the plate and the spoon, tasting a few morsels and then devoured the entire mound. I felt a warm glow in my stomach and hadn’t realized I was so hungry and tired because I was hungry.
“Anyone sore or need medical attention?” Doc asked. No one said anything, especially when the MPs did their macho denials. The two whose names I didn’t know introduced themselves to me. They already knew Doc and Jeff.
The shorter, quieter man with gray eyes and light brown hair was named James Rollo and went by Jim. He was an AFC3 with a quick grin and a fondness for his rifle. The other man was around thirty, dark-haired with dark brown eyes and of mixed race. When he spoke, his words were pure Cajun. His name was Pete Lamoreaux. He was taller than me and knew his way around the woods with the ease of a hunter and outdoorsman.
Both of them shook my hand and offered to set up my sleeping bag. I was tempted because I was tired but they had come as far as me and no one was offering to do it for them.
I rolled over onto my knees and froze. The subtle sounds of something approaching from above came to my ears. I kicked dirt on the fire and covered the smoke with my blanket, freezing all of them with a hiss. A yellow and red striped nylon rope dropped from above, just missing my nose by a hair. I put my hand out and felt the vibration of something heavy descending from sixty feet overhead.
The first thing I saw with clarity were the soles of small hiking boots, then slender legs clad in loose black jeans. With fancy white stitching on the pockets. I reached up and caught the rope, stabilizing it as Mairy dropped gently to the ground.
She searched my face in the dark and as she kissed me, the clear area where we stood glowed as if bathed in silver moonlight. She wore a dark down jacket with a tightly cinched hood covering her blonde hair and I slipped the cowl down so I could hold her by the nape of her neck. She pressed herself against me, her hands exploring my body. It was not a pleasurable grope but a measured one---she was checking the state of my healing wounds. When she was satisfied, she stepped back, jerked twice on the line and Robin descended a few minutes later.
Both of them carried extensive backpacks loaded with extra gear. More weapons, Glocks and Sig Sauers, bows and rifles.
“We ran into a few amateurs out on the lower bench,” Robin reported. “Took a few toys off them. We figured you might need some firepower. There are more men heading this way.”
“Are we safe here?” Jeff asked and I made the rounds of introductions.
“You were supposed to be in Canada by now,” I snarled.
“Yeah, well, you weren’t supposed to have two hundred plus people after you, Lakan,” she retorted. “If you make it ten miles, it’ll be a miracle. Leon and George Little Bear called. Both of them said the agencies have gone crazy putting a $50-million-dollar reward out for whoever brings you in. People are flying here from all over the world. You think you can hide when there are thousands of hunters roaming these woods?”
“I had planned to meet up with George at Little Hat Rock,” I said naming a small canyon that skirted the river. There, he was waiting with inflatable boats with which we would cross the river onto the reservation, driving up to the border from there.
Robin shook his head. “There are Rangers patrolling the river and the river crossings. The road between here and there is blocked by National Guards. We came in over Big Top and there are men hiking in the same way behind us.”
“How do they know where I am and where I’m going?” I cried in despair.
“Cameron has figured out what you’d do in every scenario you could imagine, Lakan. He knows you, he knows how you think,” Mairy said in earnest. “So, you have to stop thinking like you would normally do.”
“How? All I planned for was to get to Canada, disappear on the reservation,” I said. “When I thought I had you safe, I made a deal with President Houston.”
“You what?” It was her turn to get excited. “What did you promise?” She was ready to cry.
“I told him I’d give him five years if he promised to leave you, Robin and all the others alone,” I mumbled. “He promised you’d be safe and to protect me.”
“He’ll just use you until there’s nothing left, Lakan,” she cried.
“As long as you’re safe, it doesn’t matter,” I told her softly. The glow dimmed leaving us in the darkness as Robin snapped the rope free, coiling it as it came down.
“We’re tired,” I decided. “Do you think we can go on?” I asked as I looked at all of them. Everyone nodded vigorously but I knew that they would say that even if they were on their last legs.
“We go up?” Adams questioned and I shook my head.
“No. That’s what I would do if I was me so we’ll head down instead. Back to Wyoming.” I pointed to the edge of the out-thrust we were presently occupying and too close for Doc’s comfort. “That’s the only other way down beside the trail we hiked in on. It’s supposed to be unclimbable, the rock too friable. The drop is over 400 feet straight down. No one in their right mind would try it when there was a perfectly good trail up.”
“We’re not climbers,” Adams said.
“I know. That’s why you’re taking the trail back down to Red Lodge. Mairy, Robin and I will rappel down and meet you on the road into town.”
They protested but I didn’t argue, I waited patiently until they sputtered to a stop and gave up. “You lead them back, Sgt. Adams. I know you are comfortable in the woods and can find your way. You’ll be safe until daylight but leave then. You should be hours away from here before the search team gets here. Even with NVGs they won’t risk a trek through these woods, too dangerous.”
“How can you do this in the dark?” Doc demanded.
“I can see in the dark, Dr. Pentelli. Almost as well as an owl. Just another one of the genetic modifications that Cameron did on my DNA.”
I opened the rucksack and went through the contents, pulling out the gear I thought I might need. It even had a pair of climbing harnesses in it but the last few items puzzled me, they were bobby pins and hair clips. So either the climber was a guy with long hair and feminine tendencies or he was a she. Both Mairy and I pulled on the belts and hung the pitons, carabiners, and jackknife off the clips.
Mairy giggled and took the diamond-studded hair clip, placing it in her own hair. It twinkled like an expensive tiara. She pointed to a deep crack near the edge and told me to rope off that spot. I used the hammer now hanging from my harness along with assorted pins to drive in a medium weight piton of stainless steel into the narrowest part of the crack. Tugging sharply on it, the steel remained tightly wedged gripping the stone. Instantly, my mind engineered a new type that when inserted would automatically engage with a twist of its shaft and lock in place to be released with the opposite twisting motion. It would not engage unless it sensed a secure connection and would telescope down until it reached solid rock. In short, it would be a ‘smart’ piton that would not come out or release, leaving the climber to a fall.
The ropes were color coded by size and length, I found two that were two hundred feet long and a scant 3/8ths thick but I knew they were rated for over a thousand pounds per inch---more than enough for our weight. Tying the end to the pin with a belaying knot, I threw the rope over feeling it snake its way down the incline.
Before anyone could blink or stop me, I was hitched and jumped off, catching the wall with my feet some ten feet down. Sheer fall, no ledges, no trees to catch anything, no stopping me from rappelling in ten-foot increments until I reached nearly the end of the lines. At the end of two hundred feet minus ten feet or so, there was a rudimentary ledge some four inches thick. Just wide enough for my toes to catch and there I secured a second piton, released my belay rope from the first line and secured myself to the piton and then tethered my harness to the lines. I jerked on it as I waited on the narrow ledge.
Mairy was the first down and she stepped onto the small space next to me, looking exhilarated. “Wow. That was fun.” She kissed me lightly on the cheek, the tiara still on her head. “Lucky this was here and not another ten feet down.”
I pointed over to the massive vertical crack that bisected the base of the cliff. More followed on both sides of us and offered a way down if we wanted to descend what was basically a chimney flue.
“You going that way?” she asked as I threw the next two hundred feet down and felt it hit the ground.
“No, this is faster and safer. You think those macho dudes will return or try to follow us? Or worse, engage the bad guys and try to delay them for us?”
“That would be my guess except they won’t risk Dr. Pentelli, one of them will sneak him home if they don’t meet up with us. Besides, they haven’t any rope, harnesses nor are they climbers.” She studied my face in the dark, her eerie blue eyes like mine glowing as if lit from within. “There is no road meeting up with where we’re going.”
I grinned. “I know. I sent them to Hwy. 37 back towards the east side of Red Lodge, near the Ranger Station.”
She laughed and I told her to wait till I hit the ground before she told Robin to rappel down. Kicking away from the wall, I swooped down the line fast enough to make the rope sing. By the time I had reached the boulder strewn bottom, I could feel Mairy’s touch on the lines. Two jerks told her to come ahead.
Twenty minutes later, the three of us had leapfrogged onto the ground at the cliff’s base and we stared out over an endless sea of trees, mountains, fissures, and huge ramparts. It appeared as if they were giant hands clawing their way out of the foundation of the earth.
Gray, weathered and covered with lichen, they reminded me of the menhirs of England.
“What is this place?” Robin asked me in a whisper. It evoked that kind of hushed reverence once you stood in its midst.
“The maps call it Little Cardiff Valley. It’s supposed to resemble the area in Wales where the Picts cut the stone for Stonehenge,” I explained. Walking past the first menhir, I noticed petroglyphs carved into the sides.
Hands. Spirals and winged lizards were still legible on the surface of the pitted stones. Traces of red and yellow ochre could still be seen. Some of the local Indian tribes had legends that said a great thunderbird had fought here, knocking the rocks from its nest in a battle of epic proportions. I could well believe it. It was also a tourist attraction that although difficult to reach, still brought the hardy and intrepid to its site. I figured we’d find a trail or road of sorts that would take us out of there.
We were on it making good time and less than ten minutes later, we were heading east into the rising sun.