Spirit Of A Hunter

Nerves rattling, she ratcheted her chin up one notch…two. “I know where he likes to go when he’s scared.”

The Colonel’s face quivered in a purple mottle. “You’ve turned him into a sissy boy.”

I’ve made him into a sweet, mostly happy boy. Knowing her chances of searching for Scotty depended on the Colonel’s goodwill, she submissively lowered her head. “I’ll bring him home.”

“See that you do.”

With a shaky hand, Nora cranked the engine over and backed out of the garage bay. She stopped at the gate and waited for the iron monstrosity to lumber open.

The situation was getting worse. Every year the Colonel expected more out of Scotty, and his expectations were beyond Scotty’s age capacity, especially with the asthma factored in.

She had to get her son out. Somehow. She had to find a way. But how? A sea of tears formed in her chest, swirled into a hurricane and threatened the back of her eyes with landfall. Dumpster-diving for food was no life for a sick boy. How could she get him the medicine he needed, the education he deserved, the safe home every child should have?

The Colonel would never stop looking for them. She blinked against the coming storm of tears. He’d made that immensely clear after she’d had the nerve to divorce Tommy. And he’d follow up on his threats. Scotty was his only grandchild. His only heir now that he’d disowned Tommy. He had the resources—money, influence, power.

Her mouth opened, greedy for air. And she had nothing. No money, no family, no job.

She’d seen him break more than one person to get what he wanted—starting with his own wife and children. She couldn’t leave Scotty alone to be raised by such a hard man.

She rolled through the gate and shuddered. Once past the corner of the property, the concrete holding her shoulders stiff and high cracked, releasing them, and her breathing became freer. She’d often wondered if Scotty’s asthma was related more to the caustic air in the mansion than to inflamed lungs.

At the stop at the end of Camden Road, she hesitated, her foot tap, tapping the brakes. Tommy, where are you?

Band on the Run. Route 66. Deep Water. Graceland. Talking Heads: 77. What are you trying to say?

The blast of a horn behind her jolted her in her seat. She signaled a right and, after checking both ways, turned. She searched all the places Tommy liked to take Scotty. The ice-cream parlor on Juniper Street. The school playground off Red Barn Road. The pet store on Woodpecker Lane.

By lunchtime, she’d looked in every park and playground of Camden, at every trailhead, at every boat ramp, and she hadn’t spotted Tommy’s battered Jeep. He wasn’t answering his cell phone and, according to his boss, he’d cashed in his two weeks of vacation time.

What if, as the titles suggested, he’d run? Ice doused her veins. No, he wouldn’t do that, not knowing how much it would hurt her. He’d have included her in any escape plan. He knew Scotty was her life.

Unless.

The rock of her heart sank to her shoes and a cold sweat soaked her through.

Hadn’t Tommy said that the Colonel had first shipped him out to military boarding school at eleven? And military school hadn’t suited Tommy—just as it wouldn’t suit Scotty. If he was off his meds, then Tommy could become fixated on saving Scotty.

Cold seeped into her bones, clacked her teeth. What if he was headed to California and planned to hide with Scotty—as far away from the Colonel as he could get?

You should have talked to me, Tommy. The Colonel and I have an agreement. No boarding schools. Ever.

Bent over the steering wheel, peering out the windshield for any sign of her son, she inched on White Mountain Road along the Flint River. She cranked up the heat and the radio. She wasn’t panicked. Not yet. “Tommy, please help me.”

“Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads blasted over the speakers. Her brain fired with a bright light, and she bobbled the steering wheel, lurching toward the rain-swollen river. She jammed on the brakes, crunching on the shoulder’s gravel, and part of Tommy’s message became clear. “Oh, no, Tommy. What have you done?”

Chapter Two

Nora braked to a halt on the gravel shoulder. On the other side of the car, the Flint River pulsed and pounded over its rocky bottom in perfect imitation of Nora’s gushing thoughts.

Talking in code had been the only way to communicate certain things while living under the Colonel’s prying eyes. Talking Heads—telephone. 77—the last two digits of the emergency number Tommy had given her in one of his delusional phases. Her hands shook on the steering wheel, and she gripped it harder.

If you’re ever in trouble, Nora, Tommy had said, instructing her to memorize the number in blue ink he printed on her forearm. Call this number. Next to you, Sabriel’s the only person in the world I trust. He’ll help you. He owes me.

Sabriel Mercer. Tommy’s best friend. Anna’s husband. One of the unfortunate victims of the Colonel’s vengeful bent. He’d been Tommy’s best man at their wedding. That was the one and only time she’d met him. They’d barely exchanged more than a few words. She couldn’t even bring up a clear picture of the man other than dark and brooding—a little scary, actually, with those feral green eyes peering out of the shadows of the room. The ex-Ranger seemed alone even in the roomful of acquaintances Tommy had gathered to witness their exchange of vows—an event unsanctioned by the Colonel. She’d had no idea the flak that would cause once he heard the news.

She didn’t know much else about Sabriel Mercer, except that something had happened to him and Tommy at Ranger School, something that Tommy would never talk about. Something that had changed them both.

And if Tommy was asking her to call Sabriel Mercer for help, something was terribly wrong.

The mountains spread out in front of her in an endless vista. The rusty blanket of dying autumn leaves faded to blue and purple in the distance. Centuries of wind and rain had sculpted the granite and trees. Those mountains were both an awe-inspiring beauty and a treacherous territory that swallowed up hikers like sacrificial offerings. They were the only place Tommy had ever felt at home. The only place his broken spirit could rest.

A sinking feeling weighed her down into the seat, making it impossible to breathe. Band on the Run. Like he had that summer with Sabriel when they were fifteen? If he’d sought refuge in the mountains, then she would never find him, and the Colonel would win. Scotty would lose his father, and she would lose another foothold in directing Scotty’s upbringing.

Her chest stuttered. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t go into those mountains and hope to find her son. Not alone. She didn’t even know where to start.

But Sabriel would.

The tightness holding her breath hostage released a finger of its hold. Sabriel had wandered those mountains with Tommy. He might know what Route 66, Deep Water and Graceland stood for. He’d know where to look. He’d know where to find Tommy before the Colonel’s trackers did. And if she brought Scotty home instead of the hired muscle, then the Colonel would have to respect the status quo.

The tires squealed as Nora pulled a U-turn in the middle of White Mountain Road and pointed the car toward Camden. She’d grown paranoid over the years and was sure the Colonel somehow monitored her cell phone as well as her social calendar and her food intake. After all, she was a Camden and Camdens were expected to behave in a certain manner.

She piloted the car to the local gas station—a lowly place the Colonel would never frequent—and parked in front of the convenience store. The crazed ding-ding-ding of the open car door chased her to the pay phone. The expectant hiss of the receiver added to the static of her mind. Squeezing her eyes closed, she brought up the image of Tommy inking Sabriel’s number on her forearm. She fed coins into the machine, dialed and waited, biting her lower lip, while the number rang and rang and rang.

“Mercer.”

Nora jumped at the terse sound of the voice. “Tommy’s friend?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Nora Camden.” She wriggled her body until she faced the parking lot and Main Street, scanning both for signs of the Colonel’s men. “Tommy told me that if I was ever in trouble, I should call this number.”

Silence. Had the line died? “Mr. Mercer?”

“Are you in trouble?”

She scraped her fingernails along her scalp, pulling her hair tight when she reached the crown of her head. “Yes. No. I mean, Tommy’s in trouble.” She puffed out a breath. “He took our son. If the Colonel finds him before I do, he’ll take Scotty away from me, and he’ll deny Tommy visitations forever. You know how the Colonel is. No give. Those visitations mean the world to Tommy. He needs them as much as Scotty.”

More deafening silence.

Nora cradled the receiver with both hands. “Mr. Mercer? Are you there? If Tommy’s off his meds, then Scotty could be in danger, too.”

Still no response. But in the background, a voice intoned some sort of incantation.

“Scotty has asthma,” Nora continued, compelled to plead her case. Surely Sabriel wouldn’t be heartless enough to let a sick boy die. “He left with an inhaler that’s almost empty. I need to get his medicine to him. If he has an attack out there, he could die.”

Her top teeth sank into her bottom lip and drew blood. He doesn’t care. Tommy was wrong. Sabriel wasn’t going to pay his debt. She blinked back the tears scoring at her eyes. “I think he’s planning on hiding Scotty from the Colonel. I think he thinks he’s helping Scotty. I think he’s gone into the mountains.”

“Was there a note?”