MissTaken: Ch6

   If you haven't read the previous chapters, I recommend you go to this page which has links to all the chapters as I post them. 

Chapter 6

Jess heard the surprised yell from Marcos, and the sound of scrambling boots on loose rock. Her eyes went wide. “Oh crap!”

Thinking quickly, she released the emergency brake and moved the gearshift to neutral. The van began to roll backwards, and she turned so she could watch out the rear window as the vehicle picked up speed.

“This should be interesting,” she murmured. “What were you thinking Jess?”

The van was gaining speed. She glanced forward as Marcos clamored back onto the road. He was fifty yards or so away. He raced forward, brandishing his pistol. He fired wildly at the van but didn’t connect once.  The van rounded a corner in reverse, and she could no longer see Marcos.

Jessica tapped the brakes to keep the speed manageable on the narrow, winding road. But not so much that Marcos was likely to catch up. It was difficult to maneuver the van in reverse. The high, narrow rear window obstructed her field of vision, making it difficult to time the turns properly. She did her best to hug the uphill side of the road—better to bump it than to go careening over the edge.

She was navigating a sharp inside bend, when she realized there was an abrupt outside bend and a steep drop-off, she hit the brakes hard to shed speed, then released them as she jerked the wheel to make the bend, The left side front wheel, was nearly over the edge, breaking off loose dirt and rocks and sending them tumbling below. The body of the van tilted precariously outward, the right-side wheels almost lifting off.

Jess heaved a sigh of relief as the vehicle moved away from the edge. She continued down the winding road in a backwards descent for another ten or fifteen minutes, but the effort of managing the vehicle in reverse was fatiguing her. She was also becoming concerned about their ex-captors. How much longer before Juan returned with a vehicle? It wouldn’t take long to catch a VW bus, coasting in reverse.

Also, sooner or later they would run out of mountain. Probably sooner than later. The road was mostly following the river, and they were getting very close to the same elevation as the river now. There had been a few brief stretches of level and uphill on the road, but Jess had managed to build up enough speed to coast through them to the next downhill run. However, there was one uphill section that had her worried. Steeper and longer than the rest, it loomed before her in the back window.

The van began its way up the incline, tilting Jess forward in the driver’s seat enough she had to push back against the steering-wheel to keep her back against the backrest. Sky appeared out of the rear window as they neared the top of the hill. They were getting closer, but their speed lessened with every second. They had slowed to maybe five miles an hour as they reached the top and cleared the hump.

Jess exhaled, her shoulders sagging as the van started picking up speed again.

Ahead the road curved with an outside bend to follow the mountainside away from the river. Then an inside bend, then another outside bend. As she rounded the first bend, she looked out the side window at the second upcoming outside bend. The slope of the hill was relatively gradual. Roughly twenty yards down, a grove of oak trees started, and the river was another twenty or so yards beyond that.

She bit her bottom lip. Would rolling over the side work? What if she hit a tree or rolled and crushed them all?  She couldn’t continue to coast forever, hoping for a better opportunity. She maneuvered through the inside turn, applying the brakes lightly to shed speed. Out the back window the next outside bend was approaching. Now was the time to do it if she was going to.

“Hang on ladies!” She shouted. “The ride’s about to get bumpy!”

Jess turned the wheel to the right to follow the bend, then twenty feet into the turn, she spun the wheel hard left. The rear wheels were almost perpendicular to the road when they went off the edge. The bottom of the van scraped ground, then the front wheels reached the edge of the road, Jess straightened the wheels and tapped the breaks. Trying to control the rate of descent down the slope, which seemed considerably steeper now she was on it. She was worried if she gave it too much brake, the bus might just end-over and cartwheel down the hill.

The ground was also bumpier than it had seemed from a distance. The van bounced, tilted and careened its way down the slope as Jess fought the wheel, trying to maintain at least the illusion of control over the bucking vehicle. Her half-conscious cargo, thrown about like store mannequins, were heaped in an awkward pile of arms and legs at the very back of the van.

The trees were coming up fast. Jessica gritted her teeth and applied more brake, fighting the wheel to guide the van between two large trees, now looming on either side. As she passed those, she pulled hard right to thread between another cluster of large trees. She caught a smaller tree nearly dead center, snapping it off and sending splinters of wood flying. Jessica yelped but fought the instinct to close her eyes as she jerked the wheel to the left, panting under the exertion.  They traveled deeper into the woods, a few lower branches slapping the sides.

There was nowhere left to go. A large tree loomed directly behind; Jess slammed on the brakes. Moments later the back of the van hit the tree, and the van came to an abrupt halt. There were cries, more of surprise than pain, from the tangle of girls. Jessica felt the breath forced out of her, and she was driven into the backrest by the force of the sudden stop.

Jessica lay still for a moment, catching her breath and letting her arms stop shaking from the exertion of fighting the unruly van.

“Is everybody okay?” Jess asked. “Is anything broken?”

The number of distinct groans she heard reassured her that everyone was still alive and conscious. Looking at the pile of arms and legs, nothing seemed particularly out of place, and no blood was visible, so it didn’t appear there were any serious injuries.

She slipped out of the van on trembling legs and braced a hand against the side of the vehicle to steady herself as she looked around. They were fairly deep in the trees, but better not to take chances.

Removing the hatchet from her sack, she hurried to lop off a number of smaller branches and arrange them over the hood and sides of the van, in an effort to camouflage it. Looking up the hill, she could see several small but discernable indicators of their path down the hill. She couldn’t do anything about the dislodged rocks, broken branches and exposed tracks in the softer earth leading to them except pray her captors didn’t notice.

Jessica was arranging the last branch when she heard an engine.

She slipped behind a large tree trunk for cover and peered around. A car came into view around the first outside bend, moving fast and kicking up a large dust cloud behind it. She followed its progress, shifting to keep the tree trunk between her and the vehicle as it advanced, then passed the point where she had left the road. The car continued out of site around the next bend.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Jessica returned to the van to check on her companions again. She climbed back into the driver’s seat and peered over the backrest. They all seemed okay—relatively speaking. They were too out of it to be especially coherent, but they had managed to disentangle themselves from each other, so everyone was at least semi-conscious, and arms and legs appeared to be functioning. She’d have to wait for them to sober up to be certain. She twisted in the seat and stuck her head out the driver side window, looking at the sky speculatively. They were probably going to be spending the night here. Oh well. The van was shelter at least.

Jessica began an inspection of the van interior, looking for items that would be of use. She found a couple of empty beer bottles, a half-eaten sandwich, and a pack of cigarettes on the floor of the passenger side. In the glove compartment she found some loose papers, a handgun, two spare magazines, several loose rounds, and a few shotgun shells.

She removed and examined the pistol. It was a dull gunmetal gray with brown, plastic grips. The word “Colt” was engraved on the side, followed by “Super 38 Automatic” in smaller print. To the right of the text was an engraving of a rearing horse. Her daddy had a similar Colt 1911 38 Super, only his was shiny silver, with pearl handles. His was well cared for, whereas this one looked neglected.

She checked the safety, removed the magazine and cleared the chamber, then inspected the gun. The slide seemed to run smoothly enough; The trigger had more play than it should have. She dry-fired the gun. The hammer snapped forward powerfully. There was no holster to be found, so she stuffed the gun, spare magazines and loose shells into her sack.

Jessica crawled between the front seats into the back of the van to continue her exploration. Behind the passenger seat she struck gold. A weathered rucksack lay on the floor. She opened it up and emptied out the contents for inspection: a piece of camo netting, a pair of binoculars, a small first aid kit, a roll of electrical tape, flashlight, Swedish fire steel, and a metal canteen. The canteen was empty but smelled of something alcoholic.

She returned the items to the rucksack and transferred the gun and shells she had just deposited into her bag as well. She slipped the handle of the hatchet into a loop on the back of the rucksack, designed for that purpose. She tucked the arrows into an open side pocket, and the now empty bag into the main compartment of the rucksack.

Jessica peered out the window. The light was fading fast. She crawled back to the front seats and rolled up the two side windows. Back at her camp she would be huddled next to a campfire now, hopefully with something to eat. Since they had the van for shelter, and nothing to cook, a fire was pointless; they were close to the road, and she didn’t want to risk being seen.

A glance over her shoulder confirmed the girls were asleep. She sat in the passenger seat and thought over the details of the dream the previous night.

“I think you should try North instead. I think you will find the hunting more productive,” Her grandma-great had said. Lucky coincidence? Jess wasn’t much of a believer in luck. She adjusted the backrest as far down as it would, settled in as comfortably as she could, and closed her eyes.

“Grandma Dalton,” Jess mumbled, sleep taking hold of her, “If you can hear me, thanks. For rescuing my friends.”

Jess was awakened at some point in the night by a panicked whisper.

“Jess,” Came the hiss from Merideth again. Her words still slurred, but the tone of panic suggested soberness was returning.

Jess snapped to attention at the rustling sounds outside.

“I hear it Mer” She whispered back keeping her voice low. Jess reached into the rucksack and withdrew the pistol. Using it would be a last resort. The report of a fired handgun would give away their position, and her rescued companions were still in no shape to run for it.

The sounds drew closer, the sounds of something rustling through the leaves and grass on the ground. She heard no whispers or footfalls. Slowly, Jessica raised her head in order to peer out of the window. She couldn’t see anything from the passenger side of the van. The sound seemed to be coming from the driver’s side of the vehicle.

The sounds stopped. Jessica tightened her grip on the gun as she flicked her gaze about in the darkness searching for some clue to what was out there.

Jessica lowered her head and slithered from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat. She worked her way up so she could peer out. Still nothing. The small sliver of moonlight passing through the dense foliage provided little help in separating shadow from darkness.

Then she caught a faint movement of blackness against blackness, close to the ground. She looked to the side of the movement, to use her peripheral vision. It helped a little, but not enough to identify anything. Too close to the ground to be a person—unless they were crawling. However, the movement wasn’t right for that. It wasn’t going anywhere. The motion was in place. It reminded her of something she had seen before. A memory of the ranch flashed in her mind. A late evening, with heavy shadows on the northeast facing slope. She was riding a horse, next to her father, looking for a missing calf. He father stopped abruptly and pointed up the slope. In the deepening shadows she could make out the carcass of the calf, being dragged up the mountainside by a cougar. The movement and sounds outside were similar enough to ease her worry. She relaxed her grip on the gun.

“It’s just a big cat, Mer.” Jessica whispered, returning the gun to the rucksack. “Go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” Meredith rolled over to sleep, and Jess did likewise.

Grandma Dalton was in her rocker again. It seemed strange, since they were sitting by a campfire, next to an olive green, square, canvas tent. The stars above her were unfamiliar. Beside her, a coal-black cat was curled up, purring softly with an unusually large mouse carcass between her front paws. She examined Jessica with cool, uninterested eyes.

“This is a pretty spot.” Grandma said.

Jessica looked around. It was dark, but she could still make out tall, inviting trees and hear the soft babble of a nearby stream. The grass under her was cool and soft. The air smelled of lilacs and roses. Jessica breathed deeply and sighed.

“Can’t stay though,” Grandma said, her tone stern. “Storm’s a comin’. Need to get moving at first light if we’re to stay ahead of it.”

The cat stretched, yawned, then casually swatted at its prize a few times.