Part 4
At first light Owen helped Lucy fasten her boot while Cal checked the window. The snow had thinned enough to show the far trees, though wind still lifted loose powder across the road. They left the fire low, took the usable dressings, and carried the broken drone in the scorched bag.
Cal could walk with Owen under his left arm. He used a stout branch in his other hand, placing his good foot first. Lucy followed with Flint, stopping whenever the wrapped paw slipped; the dog had already tried to lick through its covering twice.
Their best chance was the old access road below the ridge. Owen knew where it met the route the search crews would have to use. Cal could see it between the trunks when a man stepped into the gap ahead.
Then another appeared on their left. By the time Cal turned, there were six of them, their rifles angled toward the snow but close to their hands. The nearest wore the same dark face covering Cal remembered from the gate.
Cal put Lucy behind him. She caught the loose hem of his coat and held it so tightly that he felt the pull through the dressing on his thigh. Owen let Cal’s weight settle onto the branch and raised his empty hands.
“There’s a child here.”
“We can see her,” the man said. “Step away.” He glanced at the others. “Rusk wants them alive. He can finish with them himself.”
Owen watched the men take their positions, his eyes following the leader’s hand. “Rusk’s crew,” he said under his breath. Behind Cal, Lucy whispered that she didn’t want to go with them, and he moved his good foot until she was sheltered by his leg.
Flint growled. The nearest man reached across him for Lucy’s coat, and the dog sprang, catching the man’s forearm and driving him backward into a tree. A rifle hit the snow. Owen moved at the same moment, shoving Cal toward the break beside a fallen trunk. The men behind them swung their muzzles aside as their own people closed in.
Cal had no speed to give him. He hooked Lucy against his hip and took two lurching steps, dragging the branch until it caught. She planted a crutch and held him upright long enough for him to free it.
Owen wrestled a rifle from a second man and drove him back with its stock. Another attacker knocked Owen into the snow. A blade flashed across his shoulder as he tried to rise; he struck out with his elbow, tore loose, and got behind the trunk with the weapon held against him.
Flint released when Cal called, but another man came around the tree toward Lucy. The dog hit him low, knocking him off balance. Lucy stumbled into Cal’s arms, and the man caught himself on the fallen trunk instead of catching her.
“Down behind it,” Cal told her.
She couldn’t fold herself quickly with the stiff boot trapped under her. He helped her turn sideways, lowering her into the hollow behind the log. A man rushed him before he could follow, and Cal raised the branch between them. It broke under the blow; he dropped hard onto his good knee.
Flint came back across the narrow gap and seized the attacker’s leg. The man fell away from Cal, shouting, and Owen fired from behind the trunk. Cal ducked over Lucy as the men scattered for the trees. When he looked up again, Owen had the rifle steady, but blood was spreading down his sleeve.
The whole struggle had lasted less time than it took Cal to get his breath back. He counted Lucy’s crutches without knowing why he needed to: one beside her, one half buried beyond the log. Flint backed into the hollow, shaking, and Cal caught his collar before he could lunge again.
“Stay,” he said. “Stay with us.”
Owen shifted to cover the open side. He couldn’t keep his wounded arm raised for long, and Cal could see him calculating each movement before he made it. Behind the trees a man called for them to surrender the rifle.
Cal found a narrow space beneath the roots at the far end of the log. It would hide Lucy from the road and from the men if they got around Owen. He pointed, then tried to help her crawl toward it.
She clung to his sleeve. “Don’t make me leave.”
“Just under there. Where they can’t see you.”
“Come with me.” She pulled again, her face wet above the scarf tucked inside her coat. “You have to come, too.”
He couldn’t fit under the roots. He could get his body between her and the gap, though, and he lowered himself there, keeping hold of her hand. She moved only when he moved with her. “I’m staying with you, Lu,” he said. “When we’re out of here, too.”
Flint lay pressed against Cal’s shin. His bandage had loosened, and Cal could feel the dog’s breathing through his boot. Beyond the trunk Owen made a small sound each time he tried to shift his shoulder.
There was no more ground to give. Cal looked toward the access road, where the snow had stopped hiding the bends, and remembered Owen saying Captain Holt would know the spur. If a search team was coming uphill, the ridge would hide this hollow from them.
A strip of reflective cloth hung from his torn jacket. He pulled it free, tied it to the unbroken end of the branch, and raised it through the bare twigs above the log. Lucy steadied his elbow with both hands.
Then he touched Flint’s collar and gave the bark cue. The dog lifted his head and answered three times, paused, and answered again when Cal moved his hand. It was their old search signal, practiced along these roads in weather that had never seemed serious enough.
Owen understood. He let the rifle settle across the log and listened between the barks, his face turned toward the road. A whistle would have been better, a working radio better still, but Flint’s voice carried through the gaps in the trees.
The men drew farther back into cover. Cal couldn’t tell whether they had heard something beyond the barking or were only changing positions. He kept the strip raised until his arm shook, then let Lucy help him lift it again.
Flint barked three more times. Somewhere below the ridge, an engine stopped.
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇