Timber Lake (The Snowy Range Series, #2) (20 page)

The mule snorted and pawed, anxious to get to the stream for a drink and then enjoy his hour or so of grazing before being called on to do his job.

The red horse was gone, along with the saddle bags.

“Damn it, Brooks. You couldn’t wait, could you?”

Frustrated and annoyed, Sonny grabbed lead ropes and attached them to the halters so he could take the group for a drink. After that he’d let them graze while he redid the highline, moving it to the last area with grass. There was no way he was going to leave two of them to their own devices while he and the mule headed up the last knoll. Fortunately it was the closest to camp so he’d be able to keep an eye on their stuff.

Watching the wet ground as he maneuvered his charges toward the lake, he tried to spot any fresh tracks that might give him a clue in which direction Michael had gone, but the ground was either too hard or too soft for him to take an educated guess. All he recalled was Michael pointing to a section on the topographic map where he’d heard the tie hack camp might have been located. It had been a good two miles as the crow flies, probably a two or three hour trip one way. And any scouting around would take up additional time.

Realistically, he figured he had most of the day to spend on the installation and calibration. Just enough time to work himself into a fighting frenzy.

Spasms of rain blew through intermittently, interspersed with warm sun that dried you enough to lull you into taking your rain jacket off before it spit again. His saddle was wet. So was his ass. His jeans had rubbed his calves at the seams because he’d decided not to wear his chaps. His notebook wasn’t waterproof. And he was hungry enough to chew nails.

He threw the reins over the mule’s head and said, “Heads up, buddy. Time to go home.”

At the stream, he knelt and cupped his hands to splash water on his face, scrubbing through the scruffy growth of beard. The first thing he planned on doing was shaving the damn thing off. The second thing would probably land him in jail on a morals charge. He grinned. Spending time alone was all well and good when it was your choice. Usually he was most comfortable in his own company, but since he’d met Michael his brain and his cock had far more enticing activities to contemplate.

As he rounded the bend, he called out, “Yo, Warden!” only to be met with silence. Four hours later as the stars winked into the clearing sky, Sonny wondered if Michael had a problem. He kept a lookout, pacing the tie line and circling their campsite. Jumping at every night sound.

At five in the morning, with storm clouds looming, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt Michael was in serious trouble. The animals stirred restlessly, picking up on his increasing disquiet. He could sit and wait, see if Michael came wandering back with a story and a reassurance all was well. Or he could go with his gut instincts.

The choice made, Sonny stuffed their medical kit and as much survival gear as he could into the saddle bags and mounted his mule. Following the north shore, they found a crossing that Michael would have used if he had gone that direction.

On the other side of the stream, Sonny patted the mule’s neck and said a quick prayer to whoever was listening. Dropping the reins, he leaned forward and whispered, “Find Red. Please, boy, find him and Michael.”

Trapped

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M
ichael’s senses first forged awareness when the weight of air choked with debris settled onto flesh burnt so raw the mere whisper of movement was enough to force him to clamp his bottom lip in counterpoint. Pain overriding pain. The devil he knew inflicted discomfort he understood. Its origins, its lifespan, its lethal nature or lack thereof provided a measure of comfort.

It changed the focus. Redirected his attention from burning to pinching, allowing him to follow the flow of blood oozing and dribbling down his chin, the whiskers damming and releasing droplets in random patterns. A copper-iron scent flooded his nostrils, then faded into a stench of fear-infused sweat.

He prayed he was alone. No one deserved to inhale the rank odor of a man defenseless and awash in his own frailty, not even the man who applied incentives with inelegant grace. Metal forged to glowing, the heat announcing its arrival long before the actual kiss of searing pain... It had taken so little to tip him into unconsciousness, his body sagging thankfully into boneless nirvana as his shoulder joints popped and cracked under the onslaught.

He needed to shunt aside the odor of burnt hair and abused flesh eating at his armpits, but there was nowhere to turn. He’d tried not breathing, denying the maniac his mindless toying with his new prey. His body rejected that submission, countermanding his attempt to fade into unconsciousness again.

Counting his blessings, Michael tempered hopelessness with satisfaction his jaw wasn’t broken, that he still had his eyesight, though the crust of blood and mud and gravel acted like a screen through which dust motes danced in lazy patterns. It told him one thing. He was alone. For now.

Not that it mattered, but he would have enjoyed knowing how he’d ended up in the cabin, strung up like a carcass. He’d been careful, watching his step, moving quietly as he circled the abandoned building in wide, concentric arcs. The snap of a trap closing had triggered his alarms, but it was already too late. His temple exploded with pain trailing the echoes of gunshots. Had he fired, or had it been his imagination?

Behind him, the door creaked open, the light casting his shadow forward into the confined space. It patterned the dirt floor in lazy, twisting circles, oscillating forward, back, forward. Lengthening and shortening. He observed beneath eyelids squinting from the invasion of daylight, much preferring the dim interior to the stark contrast of his predicament so boldly displayed.

The shadow objectified his powerlessness, driving a wedge between acceptance and rage. Like the animals caught in the madman’s snare, his fate was never in question. That left him with few choices: the martyrdom of acquiescence or the implosion of senseless fury, neither state conferring dignity nor meaning to his struggles.

And no one was coming to humanely put him out of his misery.

The door closed, his shadow vanished. Rage and passion jousted with serenity. He did not dare think on the last few days when he’d experienced a new kind of affirmation, even joy, in the company of a man who surprised him at every turn.

The one thing he’d feared above all others was caring for someone else. The obligations and insecurities, the voluntary exchange of freedom for dependency, capitulation to avoid the drama of confrontation. Enslavement to another’s whims.

There were a thousand and one reasons to go through life alone, content in your own company, never having to face unpleasant surprises and disappointments. Never confronting the inevitable when your heart shattered into a million shards as you watched your dreams vanish like mist over the lake.

Michael pondered what images would flash before his eyes when it was finally his time. After a lifetime of pre-emptively avoiding entanglements, he had precious little in the way of those small regrets that loom large when time runs out.

His walls had held, for years. Now, when he most needed them, they were no longer there. Fate had conspired to tear them down, brick by brick, until he’d been left naked and exposed. The persona of Mister Zero had flamboyantly turned his solitude on its ears, the friend he called Tex had opened his eyes to new possibilities. But it was Seamus Rydell who had taken him beyond caring into a universe of need and desire that blew all his boundaries to hell and gone.

Maybe his one biggest regret was never having told Tex how he felt.

“Good, yer awake.” The gravelly voice assaulted his ears on a whisper of fetid breath, snapping his awareness into high gear. Reminding him he still had obligations and perhaps a modicum of purpose remaining.

He should have been cataloguing his injuries and assessing his strengths instead of mooning over what he’d never have. Michael knew he was disoriented, in pain, and trussed like a side of beef ready for the meat locker, but on the plus side he still had his faculties and the patience to wait for an opportunity.

The madman had made a mistake by going after that boy at the lake. If Michael was lucky, he would make another one. Michael knew all he had to do was stay awake and alert enough to recognize an opportunity, no matter how slight. Perhaps the counselors and their programs had been right. You never lose the anger or the pain, but you can learn to manage it. Channel it. Use it to buy you time, hold it tight so that when the pain starts it’s like the comfort of a warm embrace.

Like Sonny...

The man limped into view, licking his lips, his face cast in weak light. Pale eyes, the color of brutality, swept Michael up and down, lips pursed and assessing. He gave the appearance of being frail, but Michael know that to be false. He’d struggled with this creature, pinning him to the rocky ground as his life force pumped rust buckets of blood in a stuttering stream.

They’d cleaned him up in the hospital, shaved his face, though the whiskers had grown back in splotches around scarred ridges from wounds left to mend on their own. Michael wondered if they’d been self-inflicted.

The question of why... why me, why here, why do this or that... none of that would influence the outcome of this day, in this cabin, with him at the mercy of evil. Michael was content to go to his grave never knowing the answers because in truth, he’d already born witness to that dislocation of sanity and the sadism of a psychopath. Understanding added nothing to an experience with the end game already rigged.

“I should have killed you, you son-of-a-bitch.” Michael’s body swung backwards and forwards as he leaned into the hate. He embraced the truth of a moment lost, an opportunity squandered to rid the world of vermin so foul no one, not even God, would mourn his passing.

The man stood back, spread his arms in a tah-dah movement, and grinned. He chirruped, “Seth,” as if his name added weight to the proceedings, then pirouetted and giggled. The sound was high pitched and girlish, grating on the nerves. Michael would promise the moon not to hear that noise again.

Michael growled, “Names are for tombstones, asshole.”

“Might do, yes indeed, might do.” Michael had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Fisting his hands, he tried to relieve the pressure on his shoulder joints by lifting his not inconsiderable weight against the pull of gravity.

Seth giggled again and muttered, “Yes. Yes, indeed,” as he disappeared toward a corner near the stone fireplace. Returning with two traps, he set them on the dirt floor and pried them open, making small adjustments to the tension on the one but seeming satisfied with the other.

Michael had been dimly aware he was suspended to the rafters by a pulley system, his wrists bound securely with coarse nylon rope similar to what they used for lead lines for the horses. His skin already bore testimony to the chaffing from weathered threads slicing across the grain. It hadn’t cut through, yet. The simple act of breathing set his body in slow motion, activating random patterns of shifting weight as he followed his tormentor’s movements. It wouldn’t take much to saw a ragged path through the superficial flexor muscles before attacking tendons and ligaments in his wrists.

Seth nudged the two traps into position underneath Michael’s feet. Sweat beaded the madman’s brow as he considered his next move.

Unsure if he was attempting to distract himself or the lunatic working below him, Michael asked, “How the hell did you find this place?”

Seth shrugged. “Lotsa good hidey holes.” He examined his handiwork for a few minutes, then said, “Just gotta know where to look.”

Michael’s stomach flipped. The lodge cabins at Sand Lake. He’d thought one had had a recent occupant. The thought of this lunatic being so close to the campground, with outdoorsmen and their families easy prey, nearly drove Michael mad.

He hissed, “You won’t get away with this.” It was a meaningless threat and Michael knew it.

The bastard would get away with it; he already had. They were in the middle of nowhere, in a cabin few knew about and buried deep in the Medicine Bow Forest where no one would hear him scream. No one would come for him.

“Shut it.” Seth tugged on Michael’s belt buckle, removing the leather strap with one sharp yank and tossing it aside. He clucked to himself, “Stupid,” and poked at the traps, moving them out of the way so he could strip the jeans and underpants, leaving Michael naked.

Michael had expected it, had mentally prepared himself for that kind of debasement, but the reality of cold air finally teasing his skin shook him to his core. He grappled for purchase, trying to wind his fists around the line holding him captive, kicking at the phantom controlling his movement.

Nausea ripped through him, his scalp on fire. He shut his eyes to regain control, but disorientation won out and he slipped away momentarily. When he recovered, his legs were trussed, the distance between his bare feet and the gaping maws of the two traps lessening steadily.

Gasping, “What the fuck,” Michael lifted away from the descent, shredding his joints in an agony of desperation. His feet dangled millimeters above the traps, held aloft by sheer strength and murderous rage. If he lost it, lost the hate keeping him alive, he’d fall and spring the traps.

Seth chuckled. This time the sound was warm and filled with contentment. He produced a blade with a curvature, shaped like a raptor’s head with the end pointed. It looked surgically sharp.

With a toothy grin, the sadist said, “Let’s see how well you can control yourself.” He pricked at the join of hip to thigh. “Feel free to scream, Warden Brooks. There’s no one to hear you now.”

****

D
ismounting, Sonny traversed the slope alongside the mule, both of them slaloming downhill on heels, hocks and butts. He was taking insane risks, but something in the back of his hard skull told him he was heading in the right direction.

At the top of the rise, he’d traced what looked like a trail snaking through the stand of timber at the bottom of the hill. The valley spread out in a roughly north-south direction, with hummocky hillocks rolling to the east like giant moguls. Eventually they converged at a creek that led to the interstate and civilization.