Say That Again (34 page)

“No, I kind of understand. I’m that way, too. Have been my whole life.” Suddenly, Heck’s reticence was a lot clearer to Hunter. He hadn’t been the way he was because he was without emotion. Quite the contrary. He had more than he could deal with sometimes.

A pause opened up between them. They’d both said a lot in a few words and seemed to have reached some kind of understanding about each other.

Finally, Hunter said, “Echo’s with Hannah.”

Heck nodded once. “I heard. That’s good.”

They fell silent again, both pretending to watch as the camera panned expansive spreads of intricate shrubbery and marble fountains. Hunter had just shifted forward, ready to excuse himself when Heck spoke.

“We tried for years to have children.”

Easing back against the cushion, Hunter stayed put.

“On her forty-third birthday, Sophia learned she was pregnant. Our prayers had been answered. There were complications, however. She was relegated to bed rest, but the baby still came early. A tiny thing. Blue eyes and a tuft of yellow hair, the exact same shade as her mother’s. We never got to bring her home, though. Her lungs were too weak. In the end, she wasn’t strong enough. Sophia was heartbroken. So we looked into adoption. Twice, it fell though. Eventually, we gave up hope. It was too late in life for us to think about raising a child.” The TV cast the only light in the whole house. In its pale glow, Heck looked even older than his years. “I hope and pray they find her, Hunter. That little girl has so much to give to the world.”

Nothing more between them to say, Hunter rose and went to the door. He wanted to tell Heck that hope, so far, hadn’t brought his daughter home, nor had prayers, but he wouldn’t say it out loud.

Just as he put his hand on the knob to leave, he paused. “What was your daughter’s name, Heck?”

“Hannah,” Heck said softly, as if calling to her in the quiet of the night. “Her name was Hannah. When you showed up at my door and asked me to watch
your
Hannah, I thought ...” He shrugged off whatever he was about to say, then fixed Hunter with a pensive gaze. “Well, suffice it to say that if her name hadn’t been the same I would have said ‘no’. That would have been a great tragedy, because I would never have gotten to know your little girl.”

A beam of headlights arced across the wall of Heck’s living room. He joined Hunter at the front door. An Adair County sheriff’s car had pulled in the driveway.

Nate Bowden got out and came to the door, a lump of pink and purple tucked beneath his arm.

Opening the door, Hunter’s hope dimmed as the realization dawned on him.

“Dr. McHugh,” Sheriff Nate began, “they found her backpack in a river on the outskirts of Daniel Boone National Forest.” He held it out, a damp, muddy nylon backpack, one strap broken and tattered.

His stomach coiling into knots, Hunter opened the zipper. Inside were a few extra articles of clothing, a travel book on Disney World, and a box of unopened cheese crackers, the cardboard container so saturated it was close to disintegrating.

“Any sign of Hannah?” Hunter uttered.

“Sorry, no. I’m afraid they’ve called off the search for the night, on account of darkness, but they’ll be back at it first thing in the morning.”

It was only a backpack. Only a backpack. Hannah was still out there, somewhere. She had to be.

“Go on home, Hunter,” Heck urged, placing a hand on his back. “Jenn and Maura need you.”

“I can’t. I ...” Grief crashed through Hunter like a tsunami. Dropping the backpack, he covered his face with his hands. Morning was such a long way off. He tried to stop the torrent, but it slammed through him.

“I’ll take you home,” the sheriff offered, turning aside to let him by.

Still, Hunter didn’t move. He couldn’t. All he wanted was to wake up from this nightmare.

Heck put his hands on Hunter’s shoulders. “Remember, she has Echo with her. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

As much as Hunter tried to take consolation in that, there were so many unknowns. They were alone and lost, without food or water — an almost six-year-old girl and a dog — in a mountainous wilderness that stretched for tens of thousands of acres on yet another frigid winter night.
How could they possibly survive that?
he asked himself.

Then he remembered a dog named Halo ... and the lengths to which that one dog had gone to protect those she loved.

With a trembling hand, he wiped away his tears and followed the sheriff to his car.

––––––––

T
hey say that love conquers all. That it defies reason. Chases away fear. Makes anything possible.

It is, without question, the most powerful force in the universe — as it was that day when I saw the bear crashing through the brush and launching itself at Hannah.

I didn’t stop to calculate the risks to myself or assess the situation. I simply acted. My only thought was that I had to save Hannah.

Or die trying.

Hackles raised, I hurtled myself forward, swallowing ground with fluid ease, my body a stone shot from a sling.

In the periphery of my vision, I saw the two cubs skitter off through the tall grass, hop over a fallen log, then turn to watch behind safe cover.

The mama bear, a beast more terrifying then any bull or boar or ram I’d ever seen, stood on her hind legs to tower above Hannah. The bear’s jaws gaped wide. Her lips pulled back, revealing a jagged row of yellow teeth. She stretched her neck to bellow. The ground shook in the wake of her throaty roar. Claws outstretched, she swaggered forward.

Hannah’s eyelids fluttered. Then her head lolled sideways. She crumpled to the ground, as if her bones had suddenly been yanked from her body.

The bear went down on all fours, turning its great maw sideways as it dove toward Hannah.

My feet left the ground. I sailed through the air, arcing high and long. And didn’t stop until my paws slammed into the bear’s shoulder. The jolt of the impact jarred me to my teeth. I bounced off, landing on my side a few feet from Hannah.

The collision was just enough to knock the bear off balance. But more than that, it diverted her focus from Hannah. Like it or not, I had that bear’s full attention. I also had about two seconds to come up with a plan.

Hannah still lay motionless, her knees drawn up, head tucked to her chest like a turtle drawn into its shell. I leaped to my feet, placing myself between Hannah and the bear. My head was still ringing from the impact, but I readied myself for battle.

The bear shook her withers, letting out a yowl of rage. Then with a snort, she swung her head to level me with a murderous gaze. Steam billowed from her black nostrils.

A low growl rose from my belly. I bared my teeth and placed one paw forward. I was no coward. I would not run.

For a fleeting moment, as she took the first stride toward me, I reconsidered that. She was five times my size, maybe ten. She could crush my head in her jaws. But brute strength is not everything. Cunning and quickness are their own advantage.

I rushed at her, barking frenetically. Which angered her greatly. As was my intention.

She bounded at me, swiping a paw at my head. I jerked back, spun on my hind feet, then ducked in low for a bite. My teeth barely grazed her leg. Huffing, she flicked her paw at me. I felt the slice of a claw across my muzzle — and then the burn of cold air as blood welled to fill the tear in my flesh.

I dodged another swipe, then lunged again and again and again, my jaws snapping, pulling fur, spittle flying. That dark mass filled my vision, a mountain of muscle beneath sleek hair, black as blackest night.

Time raced by in a blur of madness. As much as I could, I tried to draw her away from Hannah, barking as I backed up, nipping at her hindquarters, her feet, her belly, steering clear of her head so I would not feel the vise of her jaws compressing my skull. But I felt her swat pummeling my ribs, her claws cutting into skin.

How long we went at it, I’m not sure. But at some point we stood apart, staring at each other, both of us heaving for air.

And then one of the cubs ambled across our path. It paused to gaze at me with soft brown eyes above a golden muzzle. Small round ears twitched in curiosity. Then, as if bored of the drama, it rubbed the topside of its head against its mother’s chest, and bounced back in the direction of its sibling, still half-hidden behind the log. They both turned and went off into the woods, not bothering to look back for their mother.

She huffed twice more, gave me one last disdainful glance, and loped away after them.

I swear she had a limp now.

I watched until they were long gone. Stood guard. Alert. And enormously grateful that our brawl had not gone on one minute more. Because I don’t know that I would have lasted.

Hannah stirred. She pried one eye open to look around.

“Are they gone now?”

I went to her, lay down beside her, and licked her face.
I think so
.

She touched a finger to my nose, then drew it back for me to see. “You’re bleeding.”

I’m okay
.

“No, you’re not. We need to get help.”

I’ll be fine
.

Her arm curled around my neck. “Did I do the right thing — pretending to be dead?”

You did
.

“You were brave, Echo.”

Only because I had to be
.

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—o00o—

––––––––

O
ur progress was agonizingly slow. Not because of Hannah. Because of me.

She was the one urging me on now. Patting her leg. Offering words of encouragement.

“We’re getting closer. I know we are. We have to be. Soon, we’ll get to the road and someone will find us. I know it.”

I wasn’t so sure. At this rate, we wouldn’t reach the road by nightfall. And anything could happen between now and then.

The surge of adrenaline that had flooded my veins during the fight quickly wore off. In its place, I felt nothing but intense, bone-deep weariness. I didn’t remember getting half the cuts or scrapes I now bore. When I first pounced on the mama bear and fell to the ground, I must have jammed my hip. Now I was dragging that leg, reluctant to put weight on it. Every time I flexed a joint or stretched a limb, it felt like my cuts were pulling open wider. My ribs ached to draw in deep breaths. Pain filled my head. And my mouth pooled with blood from a missing tooth.

Yet despite it all, I continued on. If not for Hannah, I would have dropped right there on the road, wretched and battered, too broken in spirit to go on.

Clouds so low they scraped the treetops rolled in. Wind buffeted our faces, prying icy fingers beneath my thick coat. Hannah kept her sock-mittens tucked beneath her armpits. Our only blessing was that the trail was smoother than the deer path we’d been following. My thirst, however, was draining me. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I could have drunk a lake dry.

We crested a small rise and found ourselves looking over the answer to our prayers. It was a brook, glittering with fast-flowing water.

We could have waded across it, but for one problem. Although the water wasn’t nearly as deep as the river we’d had to cross by way of the fallen log, it had carved deep into the earth. Given my current state, jumping across was out of the question.

The trail led right up to it. Except that where once there had been a bridge there was now nothing, except for a few bits of framework jutting out into the rocky ravine.

Before I could even search for another way across, Hannah was jogging down the hill toward it. She reached the remnants of the bridge, leaned out to look over the front of it, then to the side.

I was only halfway there when she shouted, “This way!”

She motioned to me and went between the base of the old bridge and the rocky wall of the creek bed. Grasping a sapling rooted nearby, she stepped down onto a stone. But it was loose. Even under her slight weight, it wobbled. And then ... a tiny squeal escaped her throat as rock and earth gave way. Her hand ripped free of the sapling. Her body plummeted.

I half-ran, half-hobbled to where she had disappeared to gaze over the edge. At the bottom, a few feet from the narrow span of water, sat Hannah, one leg extended before her, the other tucked beneath her bottom. She rolled over onto her side, looked up at me ... and burst into tears.

My whimpers rose to a whine as I franticly searched for a safer way down. I paced the ledge, ten feet one way, ten another. Back and forth, back and forth, each time going farther, until I saw a place where the roots of a huge pine tree partially hid a broadening crack between a boulder and the dirt where the runoff from uphill ran. The channel was dry now, but suffocatingly narrow.

Into the shadowy crevice I plunged, drawn onward by Hannah’s yowling sobs. Twice I had to wiggle my way through, the rock pressed so close, but somehow I made it to the bottom.

I ran along the water-slicked stones, my paws slipping with each stride, not even thinking to stop and drink. When I reached Hannah, she calmed visibly, but she was clutching her ankle. It hurt. Badly.

I didn’t know what to do except to be there for her.

Once her tears stopped flowing, Hannah carefully removed her boot and sock. Her ankle was ten shades of purple, the bone surrounded by puffy flesh. Her forehead puckered in concentration, she wiggled her toes. When she tried to point them, she gasped in pain.

“Ow, ow, ow!” She bit her lip until the pain passed. Shaking her head, she looked at me. “I can’t walk, Echo.” Then, fresh tears sprang anew.

The warmth of my body being the only thing I had to offer, I huddled next to her. Snowflakes swirled around us, melting as they met the earth. Hours slipped vaguely by as we listened to the wind whispering through the little valley and rustling the tree limbs far above. Daylight faded. At least down here, out of the wind, it was a little warmer. But not nearly warm enough.

I drank my fill from the stream, trying to fool my belly into believing it was full, but the water was ice cold and tasted of dirt.

As I lay next to Hannah, the world around us darkening, the taste on my tongue brought back memories of the day that Ed stuffed me in the sack and tossed me from the bridge. After that, I had vowed to give my loyalty to no human being ever again.