Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

T he scent of wet pine mixed with the old musty smell of the mist rising from the floor of the mountains in the early morning.

"Duke!" Connor Davis called then gave a whistle to signal his dog to return.

An excited howl sounded from up the holler and a moment later he saw the floppy-eared hound bounding through the trees in his direction. He held up his hand. Duke came to a stop and sat back on his haunches, just as he'd been trained to do.

Connor pulled a treat from his pocket and gave it to him.

"Good boy," he said as he patted Duke on the head.

As a Bluetick Coonhound, Duke was a natural scent hunter. They'd been out running trails since just after dawn. It was essential for a search and rescue dog to be capable of finding and following scents no matter the terrain or the weather condition. Last night's storm was a good ground soaker, which meant all the fallen leaves on the forest floor would've been washed of any scent on top and forced Duke to search deeper for a scent to trail. Another storm was predicted for today. This time bringing sleet and snow. Tomorrow they'd come out and practice tracking in that ground cover, too.

So far today, they'd found a rabbit warren, fox den and managed to avoid a skunk.

"Let's go up the creek bed aways, then you can see what else you can find, eh boy?" he said striding ahead through the underbrush along the sloping bank. Duke loped along beside him, staying at his side until he gave him the command. For Duke he used the word scent . Each dog he trained had their own command, so they could hunt as a pack and still be kept under control by their future owners. This was particularly useful if they were hunting a wounded animal such as a black bear or a wild hog, both prevalent in the woods here in northwest Virginia. A pack was the only way to safely bring down one of those big animals.

About a quarter mile along, Duke stopped, sniffed the air, and bayed. His howl signaling he had a scent. He stayed in position, looking up the ravine on the other side of the creek.

"What is it boy?" Connor asked pulling out his binoculars to scan the area. He didn't see anything moving.

Duke whimpered, looking up at him, then back to their left.

"Okay, go!" Connor said and Duke was off like a shot across the creek and up into the steep side of the ravine.

Slogging through the cold water, then up the muddy embankment, Connor followed his dog's trail. The incline on the mountainside required him to find footholds and use sturdy tree trunks to haul himself up in a zigzag pattern. The good thing about this assent, whatever Duke was scenting wasn't a wounded wild hog. They tended to like the lower parts of the mountains, not the sides of them.

Baying sounded again from above him. Connor looked up to see Duke standing on a rocky ledge to see if he was following.

"I'm coming," he said, pulling himself up to the next rocky foothold.

Duke disappeared back over the ledge. He bayed again but this was the call he gave when he'd found what he was trailing. Whatever he found, it was on that ledge. Pausing his climb, Connor listened.

Nothing but the sound of water rushing below and the ripple of wind through the trees around him. No snarling like a wounded bear. Duke's reaction to the scent he'd caught convinced him it was a blood trail of an animal.

Working to his right, he moved up to an angle with the ledge and secured his foot on the previous rocky outcropping. Then he reached left to snag his hand on the edge of the slab of centuries-old granite and hauled himself onto the ledge, pausing to catch his breath and see what Duke had found.

"Shit."

It was a body. If he was smart, he'd climb right back down this mountain and not look back. The day he got out of prison, he'd come to the cabin he inherited from his grandfather to be as far away from people as possible.

You can't hide for the rest of your life. We're put on this earth to help others.

Grandpa's words always seemed to come when he didn't want to hear them. But he was right. If this person was alive, he couldn't leave them up here to freeze to death tonight.

Slowly, he stood, testing the strength of the ledge. It seemed very sturdy. At least strong enough to support his weight along with Duke and whoever lay crumpled in front of him.

"Good boy," he said patting Duke as he neared the body to get a closer look.

A woman, lying face down on the cold rock. About five feet seven inches tall, by his best guess. The bulky blue nylon jacket, ripped in areas where the down stuck out, obscured her body, but her long legs clad in black denim appeared to be average weight. Her left foot was turned at an odd angle, indicating she'd broken her lower leg. The dark spot on her upper left shoulder looked like it was blood, probably what attracted Duke to her, and a bullet hole in it.

Wind whipped through the area and the dog's nose lifted to take in whatever scents wafted through the area, but he didn't move from his spot.

Reaching to smooth the dark hair from the woman's pale face, he froze.

A deep streak of blood etched along her temple. Leaning in he studied it closer. He'd seen this kind of wound once before when he was in Afghanistan. One of his unit's medics was winged by a bullet, meant to kill him. If the guy hadn't leaned just the right way, it would have. The furrow on the woman's head matched the medic's injury almost to a tee. So, she'd been shot twice.

He slid his hand down her cold cheek to her neck until he felt a pulse against his fingers. It wasn't pounding strong, nor faint. Just steady.

"Ma'am?" he said, again smoothing the hair from her face.

No response. Which, given what he was going to have to do, it was probably best if she stayed unconscious at least until he got her off this mountain. And how the hell was he going to do that?

He stood, reached into his pocket and got another treat for Duke, who gobbled it down.

"Protect," he commanded.

Duke moved up to the woman's side, laid down next to her. He'd trained him to do exactly that when commanded to on a search and rescue mission. Find the person. Alert to their location. Protect them with their body heat until the person is rescued.

Now that he ascertained her pulse was steady and no fresh bleeding seemed to be going on, his first course of action was to stabilize her left leg. He ran his hand over her lower calf. No blood on the pant leg, just mud and crushed leaves. Easing up the pant leg, he confirmed the bone hadn't broken the skin, so no compound fracture.

Good thing about being in a forest, plenty of sticks to use for splints. How to secure it? He hadn't been planning on being out more than the morning with Duke, so he hadn't brought along any kind of pack. He moved to the base of the mountain side, reached up and grabbed hold of a sturdy, but young tree. Putting all his weight into it, he snapped it down. Then he pulled his hunting knife from the sheath strapped to his thigh, the only weapon he ever had with him these days, and hacked the tree into two pieces, each about the length of the woman's leg.

Squatting back beside her, he unbuttoned his camo jacket, pulled his tee shirt off and put his jacket back on. He poked a slit into the tee shirt and began tearing it into strips. Hoping not to hurt her too much, he gently pulled her left foot back into proper alignment, feeling the bones in her calf until it popped back into place. She didn't wake up.

Setting a broken leg was painful, even for field-tested service men. He expected it to at least elicit a moan from her, nothing but silence. How bad was her head injury? Had she hit her head on the way down the mountain? He had no doubt she'd come down from the highway above. It was the only explanation. As he considered all this, he wrapped three of the strips of cloth around her leg and the two thin logs to secure them all in place.

Satisfied the leg was as stable as he could manage it, he slowly turned her body. There was bruising and cuts on her face, nothing that looked like a fist. Probably sustained those coming down the mountainside. He smoothed the dirt away. He'd have to clean those well once she was off this ledge.

He opened her coat and looked at her shoulder. A large bullet hole just above the heart, but below the shoulder. Lucky shot for her. Lower and it would've killed her. Higher and it might have shattered her clavicle. It didn't seem to be actively bleeding. Although by the look of it, she lost quite a bit of blood from the injury already.

"That's what you smelled, wasn't it boy?" he asked Duke, who whimpered, still lying beside her. "Okay, we're going to have to figure out how to get her down from here."

If he was smart, he'd climb down and go get help. But the winter storm was supposed to move in by noon and it was predicted to be a blizzard. The choice was simple. Take her down now alive or come back with help to get a corpse.

Decision made he studied the rock and vegetation above him. The highway was a good three hundred feet up by his best guess. Moving to the edge of the ledge, he looked down. Maybe twenty feet.

"Down it is."

What he needed was some rope. He scanned the cliff walls again. Copper-colored leafy vines climbed up the wall. Virginia creeper. He remembered his brother cutting it down and twining it together to make ropes up to the tree house fort he'd built one summer as a kid.

He hacked down half a dozen of the vines and began braiding three into a rope, repeating the effort with the other three. Pulling on the viny ropes, he was satisfied they'd hold together at least for the short trip back down the mountain.

For a moment, he considered the fireman carry, but nixed the idea as he was going to need both hands to scale back down the wall. So, he'd have to strap her to him like a backpack.

He tied the ends of the two ropes together, then looped them into layers of an oval, twisting them as he went to strengthen them more, finally tying off the other ends. Careful as he could not to undo the splints on her left leg, he wiggled the loop of viny rope beneath her—half under her back, and the other half under her legs, leaving the ends of the oval loop hanging to either side of her.

So far, so good.

He took the last of the cotton strips from his shirt and wove one around her hands, binding them together like hand cuffs. Then he gently laid down on top of her, his back to her front, and pulled her arms down over his head to secure her upper torso to his back. He felt below his right leg and used one of the last strips of cloth to secure her thigh to his.

A whimper sounded beside him. He turned to see Duke sitting beside him with his head cocked to one side as if wondering what the stupid human was doing.

"Trust me, I'm wondering the same thing, boy."

Grabbing the loops of the viny rope, he pulled them onto his arms and shoulders like backpack straps, then carefully rolled to his side towards the mountain side of the ledge. No use just rolling off to their mutual doom going the other direction. He continued the roll until he was on his hands and knees, the woman's body strapped to his back, her head hanging down to rest on his shoulder. She wasn't a heavy woman, probably underweight if he had to guess, but the dead weight of an unconscious person always added ten or fifteen pounds. He knew that from his time in the Army.

Slowly, he stood, holding the ropes tight and testing how secure she was. He adjusted the upper part of her rope binding to tighten her more securely, then inched his way to where the ledge jutted out of the mountain.

"Duke, down," he said, motioning with one hand back the way they'd come.

The coonhound jumped off the ledge landing where the sheer rock was more of a slope. Connor didn't watch him anymore, knowing the dog would make his way down to the creek bed and wait for him there. He'd trained him that well.

Now, he just had to get himself and the woman down without killing them both.

Reaching to his right, he felt along the mountain wall until he found the niche of a sturdy tree trunk protruding out from the rocks. He grabbed ahold and pulled his body that direction, feeling along the wall below him for a toe hold to sink his boot in.

There .

Now he was straddling the gap with one leg on the ledge, one on the mountainside. His right hand gripping the tree branch, he slid the left down the mountain until he felt another thick rock protruding out. He latched onto it and leaned slightly that direction to wiggle his left leg about a foot lower than the right.

Once his foot was secure, he repeated the same maneuver with the right. Like a four-legged crab, he moved one side then the other a few feet at a time, his arms and legs aching from the strain of going slow with at least an extra hundred and twenty pounds strapped to his body. Slowly, he inched his way down the mountain side. The footholds became easier to find once he got to the spot where the slope steadily increased, until he finally set foot on the creek bank where Duke sat patiently waiting for him.

He stepped over to where the ground was covered with leaves and not rock and untied the strip of cloth holding the woman's thigh to his. Squatting down despite the anguish in his legs, he eased the woman's arms over his head, then maneuvered the viny straps from his shoulders to lower her as gently as possible onto the ground. He checked the straps on the splint to be sure her left leg was still stabilized in a straight position, then reached up to check the pulse at the base of her slender throat. Lastly, he opened her coat to look at the shoulder wound. Blood oozed from the previously dried area.

Must've knocked it loose on the descent.

Catching his breath a moment, he patted Duke on the head. "Protect."

The dog once again laid down next to the woman. Connor picked up the loose cotton strip and walked over to the creek, squatted down to dip his hand into it and cup some to his mouth. As he drank, he studied the sky through the break in the tree canopy. The clouds were growing thicker and more grey as if ready to dump the predicted foot of snow. He still had almost a mile to cover to get them all back to the cabin. Crumpling up the strip of cloth, he soaked it in the water, then hurried back to the woman. He lifted her head and dripped some of the water onto her parched lips. She didn't drink, but he continued to dribble more in, thinking her body would naturally swallow any that landed in her mouth, despite her unconscious state.

After that climb down the mountainside, he doubted he'd be able to carry her back to the cabin. What he needed was an old-fashioned travois sling, like the Native Americans on the plains used to transport things long distances.

Duke had laid his head on the woman's uninjured shoulder. The dog would stay by her side until released from the command, so Connor knew she'd be safe from any animals while he hunted up what he needed to make the travois.

Pulling the viny rope from beneath her, he looped them over his neck and headed across the creek at a shallow spot. He'd build the A-frame stretcher on the opposite side of the creek and carry her over the water to it, that way she might not be exposed to extra moisture on the trip to his cabin.

On the other side of the creek, he found a huge pine with boughs that hung down to the ground. He cut seven and began weaving six of them together with the viny ropes, leaving the ones with the longest and sturdiest limbs sticking out at the top. Once he was sure it was well put together, he crossed back over the creek, stopping to drink some more water.

Squatting once more, he lifted her into his arms, being sure to keep her left leg as straight as possible in the splints.

"Duke, heel," he said as he crossed back over the creek, the dog immediately at his left side.

Once at the travois, he settled her on it again and took the extra pine bough to lay over top of her.

"Hopefully that'll hold some of her body heat in for the trip," he said to Duke who grinned up at him. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out another reward treat and gave it to Duke. "You did a good thing, buddy."

Some cold moisture fell on his face.

Snow.

Well, that was better than freezing rain or sleet.

Stepping to the top of the make-shift stretcher, he pulled his gloves out of another pocket of his cargo pants. Donning them, he then grabbed the two poles protruding at the top. For a moment he looked over his shoulder at the pale, unconscious woman. "Be glad you're out cold lady. This is going to be a bumpy ride."

He adjusted his hold on the poles and started back down the creek bed to the holler where his cabin lay. "Duke, heel."

?

By mid-afternoon the snow changed from flurries to fat flakes falling at a good clip. Another quarter of a mile and the cabin would come into view. If he wasn't carting a half dead woman around, he'd already be home in front of a toasty warm fire, sipping coffee and reading the latest spy novel he'd gotten from the library last week.

He paused to catch his breath and took a look back at the pale woman nestled in her bed of pine boughs.

What the hell was she doing out in the bad weather last night? What happened to cause her to fall down that ravine and land on that ledge? Who shot her? Why?

Duke, sitting staring up at him, barked. Not a baying to indicate he'd found a new quarry. Nope it was his "what's up?" bark.

"Sorry, boy. Just taking a break. We'll be home soon."

He reached down to check her pulse. Her skin was a little warmer to the touch. Maybe all the pine boughs over and under her had trapped in her body heat. Probably just getting her off that cold granite helped.

Taking a deep breath, he stretched his arms and rolled his shoulders.

"Time to get on home," he said, grasping the poles once more and started the final leg to the cabin.

By the time the cabin came into view, snow covered the rooftop and the trail leading up to the porch, prepped for the inclement weather with stacks of firewood. The snow made pulling the travois over the terrain easier. However, it was coming down in big fat flakes, which meant the access road to his holler was going to be unnavigable before dark. Getting the woman to any medical help tonight was out of the question.

Stopping at the bottom step to his porch, he once more rolled his shoulders and stretched to get the kinks out his muscles. Then he pulled off the top pine bough and lifted the woman once more, stopping once at the door to push it open and carry her inside. Duke happily ran inside to his water bowl and began lapping to his heart's content while Connor kicked the door closed and laid the woman on the bed in the corner of the cabin's main room. He quickly draped one of the quilts on the foot of the bed over her to keep her from losing any body heat she may have stored inside the pine boughs.

Going to the wood burning stove, he struck one of the matches he kept nearby and lit the kindling inside, blowing to be sure it ignited beneath the logs he'd already prepped for his return. As was his habit, he never left the cabin without having the fire ready to go when he got back.

Now that he had her in a warm place, he needed to see to her wounds.

The fact she was unconscious still worried him, but at least she wouldn't fight him while he did what he had to do. The broken leg was set as best as he could manage, but he was going to have to get her damp clothes off her. Which meant in order to get the cold damp pants off her, he'd have to loosen the splints and re-stabilize the leg.

Striding to the dresser next to the bed, he pulled out one of his clean flannel shirts and two pairs of his wool socks and laid them on top of the dresser. From the pantry he grabbed a few washcloths, a towel and a jar of honey he'd bought from the farmer a few miles up the road. He set them on the dresser, too.

Duke whimpered.

"You hungry?"

As if he knew he shouldn't disturb their patient, Duke gave a quiet "Whoof," instead of a bark.

"Okay, you might as well eat while I work," Connor said and filled his bowl with dry kibble. "We'll do bacon in the morning."

As Duke happily tucked into his food, Connor filled a pot of hot water and set it on the floor by the bed, tossing in the washcloth. Standing by the bedside, he stared down at her. It had been years since he'd touched a woman, much less undressed one.

"Just think of her as a patient in a hospital," he said out loud. "It's just a job you need to do, nothing more."

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled back the cover and began unbuttoning her coat. He wiggled it out from under her. The bottom was weighty. Something was in each pocket. How had he missed that when he found her or brought her down the mountain?

Duke made another quiet "Humph."

"Yeah, I know I was a bit preoccupied trying to save her life," he said to his dog as he searched the first pocket and pulled out a wallet and cell phone. He opened the wallet to find a Maryland driver's license.

Zoe Edgars .

"Hello, Miss Zoe. What put you on that mountain?"

Only other thing in her wallet was two credit cards, a library card and some cash. The phone was dead, which didn't surprise him, since he didn't know how long she'd been on that ledge—at least twelve hours by his best guess.

He set those on the dresser.

"Wonder what's in the other pocket?"

He reached in and pulled out a gun.