Guarding the Witness. Margaret Daley
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the fire intensified even as they moved away from it. When she inhaled deep breaths as she ran, she couldn’t fill her lungs with enough oxygen. Pain in her side stabbed her, her breathing grew more labored with each stride she took.
She periodically looked over her shoulder, checking the area behind her. At any second she had to be prepared to encounter people. Whether friend or foe didn’t matter because they couldn’t take a chance on being seen.
Brody came to an abrupt halt, his arm going up to indicate he heard something ahead of them. Arianna nearly collided with him but managed to stop in time.
He pointed to the left then whispered into her ear, “Someone’s coming.”
Arianna glimpsed something orange where he’d indicated. She scanned the forest, saw a place they could hide and tugged on Brody. She just hoped it wasn’t a tracker with a dog or their hiding would be in vain.
As quiet as possible, she crept through the underbrush with Brody at her side. Lying down on the forest floor beneath some dense foliage, she pulled her gun, praying she didn’t have to use it. Brody brought the rifle around and aimed it in the direction where he saw the orange.
Two men dressed as hunters, rifles in their hands, trekked toward the fire. While in Kentucky, Arianna had familiarized herself with every person known to be associated with Joseph Rainwater. She had planned on going back to Alaska as prepared as she could be. The larger of the two that passed within ten yards of their location was Boris Mankiller, an appropriate name for him because he was believed to be one of Rainwater’s most valuable guns for hire.
Mankiller and his comrade halted about twenty feet away. Mankiller made a slow circle, his rifle raised as though he sensed them nearby. Her heartbeat hammered so fast and loud she wondered if he heard it.
Brody signaled he had his rifle pointed at Mankiller. She lifted her Glock and targeted the man’s comrade, her breath bottled in her lungs.
One minute passed. Mankiller pointed at the sky in the direction of the fire. Arianna glimpsed the growing smoke, obscuring the sun and leaving a dimness in the forest as if it were dusk instead of the middle of the day.
The two parted—one went to the left while the other moved to the right and slightly toward the fire, fanning out. She saw through the foliage another pair of guys a hundred yards away. She leaned toward Brody and whispered, “They’re trying to close in on us.”
“They may be part of an inner ring around the cabin. We need to watch for any people forming an outer circle. Let’s go. It’s even more important to get to the river.”
When he said the word river, a ripple of fear snaked down her spine but her fear of the water was far outweighed by fear of the men after her. In this small part of the forest she knew that Rainwater had four men looking for them. Multiply that over the large area of this wilderness and he must have hired a small army to look for her and anyone left to protect her.
Sneaking out from under the brush, she ran while crouched right behind Brody, swinging her attention back every once in a while to make sure no one had spotted them. Her back hurt from being hunched over and her thighs screamed in protest at the punishing pace Brody set but she didn’t dare voice a complaint.
Forty-five minutes later, Arianna stared down at the raging river, its water churning like a boiling pot of liquid. She froze at the sight.
Brody came up beside her. “You okay?”
She opened her mouth to answer him, but no words formed in her mind, her full attention glued to river. Reminders of when she had been young and swept away from her parents in something similar inundated her. Her younger sister had died in the flood. Arianna had tried to save her, but her grip on Lily had slipped away. The last thing she remembered was her sister’s scream reverberating through her head against the backdrop of the gushing sound of the water—a raging turmoil.
Brody grasped her arm and swung her around. He waited until her gaze latched on to his before saying, “All you have to do is get yourself across the river. I’ll take care of everything else. Okay?”
She nodded, her mouth so dry she should be happy to immerse herself in water. She wasn’t. Fear held her immobile, unable to take a step toward the bank.
She hadn’t known how hard controlling her fear had been until her army unit had been forced to cross a swollen river. Watching one of her comrades swept away by the power of the water brought her childhood trauma to the forefront after years buried deep in her subconscious.
“We don’t have much time to get across the river and hide before the dogs track us to here.”
Her attention drifted away from the water to focus on Brody. “What do you need me to do?”
“We need to wade in the water along the edge as far upstream as we can go, then go straight across. They’ll assume the current will take us downstream.”
“Or they might assume the opposite. Either way we’ll be taking a chance. Actually with all the men I have a feeling are out here, they probably can cover both areas.”
“Don’t forget they can’t be openly looking for you. By now the U.S. Marshals Service is all over here, too.”
“If only we knew who to trust.”
“Can’t take the chance. You don’t know how much that pains me to say.”
She stared into his brown eyes, full of sadness. “I was betrayed by a team member, so yes, I do know how you feel.”
“When we have time, you’ll have to tell me about that.” He took her hand and started down the incline to the river.
Scaring off a bear was nothing to Arianna, but this was a big deal. She stepped into the water until it was swirling about her ankles. Still grasping her hand, Brody led her a few more feet out to where the river came up to her knees, then he trudged upstream. The feel of his fingers around her fortified her with the knowledge she wasn’t alone to face her worst fear.
After about a hundred feet up the river, Brody rounded a corner and came face to face with the water racing over a mound of rocks. Blocked from going any farther in the shallow part of the river, he stopped and took her backpack. He opened it and gave it to Arianna to hold.
“You can’t swim holding the rifle and a duffel bag,” she said.
After removing some rope from his duffel bag, he piled it into the backpack then began adding other items. “I know. I’m putting what I think we need the most in the backpack. The rest I’ll sink in the middle of these rocks. It’ll be hard to find.”
He left food or items that would be ruined from being dunked in the river in the duffel bag, then scrambled up the rocks. When he slipped and fell back into the river, Arianna rushed to help him. Suddenly she realized she stood in thigh-deep water with a strong current tugging at her. Panic seized her. She shoved it down. She had no time to be afraid. The alternative was to stay on this side of the river and try to evade tracking dogs and men with rifles.
She waded to Brody and helped him up, taking the backpack from his hand. “I’ll toss you it when you get up on top of the rocks.”
This time he succeeded without the burden of carrying the pack. She threw it to him. He caught it and disappeared from view. Arianna hastened back closer to shore and waited. Two minutes passed and worry nipped at her composure. She thought about shouting his name over the rushing sound of the water, but that might only lead the dogs and men to their location.
Opening and closing her hands, she gritted her teeth. She’d never been good at waiting. Lord, I know I haven’t been talking with You lately, but please help Brody and me get to Anchorage safely. Rainwater needs to go to prison for what he did. I need You.
The last sentence had been the hardest to say because she’d come to depend on herself so much in the past four years. I don’t know if I can make it across this river without Your help.
As she stared at the rushing river, the earlier tension