Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

I'M FINE

I hit send on the satellite messenger in reply to Rose's last message from earlier that morning, then put it back in the waterproof case. I was, of course, not fine. I looked back the way I had come the previous evening and knew I was in trouble. All had been going well, okay, poorly, actually badly, up until this morning when I saw the two sets of footsteps in the snow, about a quarter mile away. Someone was following me. Two someones. I doubted it was to wish me holiday cheer. Christmas was still three weeks away.

I looked back at the text I'd gotten. Footloose guy. That was Rose. Worried but still cracking jokes. I'd only known Rosalie Malone a few weeks, but I hoped she'd miss me if I died today. I think even my dog, Maggs, would miss me too, although she hadn't seemed too distraught when I'd departed Rocky Start to finish the Appalachian Trail. I'd left her there with Rose because I couldn't think of a better way to protect Rose. And to tell her I'd be back.

Now I realized I could have just said "I'll be back."

I had a lot to learn about relationships. And communication.

Maggs would be very useful right now because a hard situation had just turned dangerous.

Heavy snow was falling, very pretty, Christmas-y snow, unless you're at 5,000 feet altitude, twenty miles from the nearest civilization, and in the midst of a forest. Sure, I'd been in worse places. Plenty of times. With people trying to kill me. So last night as the snow came down, I had taken some solace in the fact it was only the weather and terrain conspiring against me to keep me from fulfilling my quest the past couple of weeks.

Quest sounds rather dramatic for simply finishing a through hike on the Appalachian Trail, but I had over 2,000 miles invested since I'd left Maine months ago and I was damned if I was going to let a little (lot of, actually record-setting) snow and freezing temperatures stop me. However, most (all) hikers do it spring through fall, not in the dead of winter. I'd actually left Maine in the spring, but my Rocky Start detour had cut into my progress, to say the least.

Rose had said I was a dumbass for leaving town in the winter.

She was, as I was learning, right.

I was just off the Appalachian Trail in the Smoky Mountains, in one of the most remote stretches of the entire two thousand mile plus route. I'd crossed Interstate 40 five days ago and the next sign of civilization, Fontana Dam, was twenty miles ahead. The only road that bisected the trail between those spots, US 441, had been covered in snow when I crossed it late yesterday, indicating it was closed due to the weather. There had been no tracks other than mine in it, but now as I looked through the drifting snowfall and a gap in the leafless trees in the early morning gray from a small knoll, there were two fresh sets across the road. I'd climbed the knoll to get a clear satellite signal and that was the only reason I'd noticed.

A normal person would think: it's just two more hikers on the trail. Except it was the middle of a bad snowstorm and I hadn't passed another hiker since I left Rocky Start two weeks ago. Only a fool would be hiking the trail now. Which Rose had pointed out more than once.

So they were either fools like me or killers sent after me.

Again, a normal person would lean toward fools, but I wasn't normal. Sometimes I think my life is a simulation, a sort of a dark Matrix and the Entity that was running it had a sick sense of humor. This thought had been proven more often right than wrong. Plus, the footprints were spread, ten meters apart, meaning they'd crossed the road tactically on either side of the trail.

Killers.

Who would want to kill me?

Well, that's a long list, but did it matter? Focus on the immediate. I stepped back from the tree I had been hiding behind and went down to my campsite ten meters away. I slid my plus-20 bag out of the snow trench I'd slept in last night. I shoved it in the stuff sack, put it in my ruck, then shook off the snow off the poncho covering the snow trench. I quickly folded it and strapped it to the outside of the backpack. I had everything ready in under a minute. Travel light, freeze at night. It's a mantra from my early days in the military and then into other nefarious endeavors.

I retrieved my Glock pistol out of the ruck and made sure there was a round in the chamber. Of course, if the intruders were armed with rifles, I was not only outnumbered but outgunned. I put it in the outside pocket of my parka. Yes, I had the satellite phone but there was no point using that to summon assistance. I was far from any help and I didn't see my former boss, Herc, cranking up a chopper to come get me. Regardless, it couldn't fly in this storm.

I was on my own.

I could send a message to Rose about the danger, but that would worry her unnecessarily and there was nothing she could do. Probably best if I kept myself alive. I was sure she'd appreciate that.

Pretty sure.

The problem was the snow. It had given away my pursuers, but it was also leading them right to me. I headed southwest, sticking with the Appalachian Trail. This wasn't the time to be bushwhacking. Besides, the trail was along the top of a ridgeline, limiting my options. There was impassable steep, wooded terrain to either side.

It was tough walking through the two feet of snow. It was east coast snow, wet and heavy, not Rocky Mountain powder. It had first snowed right after I crossed Interstate 40, and that had slowed me down considerably. Snowshoes would have been a good idea, but I hadn't been thinking too clearly, too much Rose on the brain when I left Rocky Start. Besides there wasn't an outdoor supply shop in Rocky Start. I was basically being a human snowplow.

I was too old for this.

I had limited options. I couldn't hide my trail in the snow. I'm sure Daniel Boone would have backtracked in his own footsteps, leapt up into a tree, and ambushed his followers with a Bowie knife but my Daniel Boone days were behind me and there were two of them and they weren't going to be close enough for me to take out both and I'd look like an idiot trying to hide in one of these leafless trees. I'd just die stupid.

I'd have to out-hike them. I considered dumping my ruck to lighten the load, but then I'd just die frozen. My Entity was having a great chuckle about my current conundrum. Me, not so much.

Then the simulation dialed up the threat. The ridgeline broadened into a slope full of boulders amongst the trees. The trail broke out of the trees onto one of those bald mountaintops that are scattered throughout the Smokies. The thick blanket of snow covering it was pristine. No one quite knows how these treeless balds were formed, but there was a clear upslope of about three hundred yards covered in untouched snow. I could go around, left or right along the tree line which bordered a steep drop off, but that would give my pursuers a chance to gain ground. I could push on, a straight line being the shortest distance—and probably die in the open terrain—or I could turn and fight. The marker on the tree for the Appalachian Trail went off to the right.

I took several steps onto the bald, then carefully backtracked, stepping in my own depressions in the snow. It would be confusing for a moment and often a moment is all you need to gain the upper hand in a gunfight. Maybe they'd suspect big eagles had flown me off to Mount Doom which felt like a decent alternative. A ring of invisibility would be even better.

I walked off trail left and right to positions of cover. I came back and wiped both trails as best as possible, meaning the pursuers wouldn't know which side I was on and might suspect me of trying to go around. Then I hid myself in a cluster of boulders on the left with a clear view of about twenty yards. I lay down in the snow, cleared just enough in front of me to have that view and popped my trigger finger out of the small hole in glove, yes specially made, and put it on the sliver of metal.

I thought about Rocky Start for a moment, a place of peace and warmth and safety and Rose.

And then I watched for what was coming next.

The Honey Pot Plot will be out in early 2025.

Nothing but good times ahead!