Mountain Captive. Sharon Dunn

against metal. The whole car seemed to be vibrating and creaking. His back end fishtailed. And then he was sliding sideways. His hand gripped the wheel. He pumped the brake. The car slipped off the edge of the road. He felt weightless as the seat belt dug into his chest and the car rolled twice before coming to a stop right side up.

      The crash had taken the wind out of him. Still numb, he unclicked his seat belt. His door was too bent to open. Though he was in pain, he didn’t think he’d broken anything.

      He pulled his phone out. No signal.

      Jude dragged himself toward the passenger side door. He clicked the handle and pushed it open. A gust of snow chilled his face as he crawled out.

      He heard the zing of the rifle shot before he heard it hit the metal of his wrecked vehicle. His heart pounded. He could just make out the silhouette of the possible kidnapper standing in the headlights of his car, aiming a rifle down the mountain at him.

      Adrenaline surged through Jude’s body as he crawled around to the front of his car for cover. His bright colored ski jacket would be easy to spot even in the storm.

      The freezing cold enveloped him. He’d kept his winter coat on, but he had no hat or gloves. He wrestled with the thought that he might die out here. That his life would come to nothing. And that the little girl would not be brought home safe. That bothered him more than the reality of his own death.

      Another shot rang through the air. Glass shattered.

      The possibility of bringing that little girl home safe to her parents had felt like a shot at redemption to him. He wasn’t a private investigator by choice. At the age of twenty-one, ten years ago, he’d washed up as a rookie officer when a domestic call he’d been sent on had ended in the murder-suicide of husband and wife. Their ten-year-old daughter had witnessed the crime. The last he’d heard she was under a psychiatrist’s care. Her life would never be the same. The guilt weighed on him every day.

      If only Jude had said the right words as he’d talked to the husband through the open window. If only he’d chosen a different tactic. If only...

      Jude peered around the side of his car. The man with the rifle was nothing more than a dark spot, but he was still there waiting to take another shot at Jude.

      The cold seeped into his muscles as he wondered if he had the strength to make a run for it into the unknown down the mountain. The winding road was the one he’d just come up in his pursuit. Maybe there was somebody down there, a hunter perhaps. For the first time in ten years, he said a quick and desperate prayer.

      Lord, send help or show me a way out of this.

      Wildlife biologist Lacey Conrad put the binoculars up to her eyes and scanned the winter landscape until her view landed on a ridge where she expected to see elk appear within the next hour. She gripped the binoculars a little tighter. She wasn’t going to see anything with the storm moving in. Not a good day for research and observation. She let the binoculars fall around her neck. Even on days like this, she loved her job. She preferred being outside and the research allowed her to move around Montana. Since the death of her parents and little brother in a car crash when she was in college, she had lived like a nomad, never putting down roots anywhere. That was the way she liked it.

      The wind died down for a moment and movement much closer to her caught her attention. On the mountain road above her, a car had rolled off the road. She’d heard the muffled sound of a crash only moments before. Now as the wind died down, the noise made sense.

      She saw a man crouched in front of the car. Her heart squeezed tight. A man holding a rifle was headed down the steep incline. She’d thought the shots she heard before were from a hunter somewhere on the mountain.

      The man by the car bolted to his feet. She could see the bright colors of his ski jacket even when the wind picked up. Panic filled her body. It was the man in the ski jacket who was being hunted. The man must have seen the orange of her hunting vest. He made a beeline toward her.

      Another shot was fired. The man in the ski jacket fell in the snow. Her heart lurched. Had he been hit?

      She ran toward him. Her boots sank into the snow. She looked up the mountain seeing only white. The neutral colors the man with the rifle wore made it harder to see him.

      The man in the ski jacket got to his feet. She ran toward him, nearly crashing into him.

      He gripped her arm. The fear she saw in his face turned to relief.

      A thousand questions raged through her head. Was this some sort of drug deal or other crime gone bad? Was she helping a criminal? Was the man shooting at a hunter who had lost his marbles?

      Another shot rang through the air. She scanned the landscape in the general direction the shot had come from, but she could see nothing through the blowing snowfall.

      The man in the ski jacket would have to explain later.

      The only thing that was clear to her was that his life was in danger.

      She tugged on his sleeve. “This way.” Her truck was parked down the mountain in a grove of trees.

      They half ran and half slid down the mountain toward the next section of winding road. She hurried through the evergreens to her truck. She yanked open the driver’s side door. The man in the ski jacket got into the passenger side of the truck.

      She glanced over at the stranger sitting across from her. Her heart was still racing from running from the shooter.

      He met her gaze. His eyes looked honest, anyway. “Thank you,” he said. “You saved my life.” He was still trying to catch his breath.

      She wasn’t sure what to think about this stranger. She pulled through the trees and out onto the road. The heavy snowfall on the unplowed road meant she had to go slow. “I’ll take you as far as Lodgepole where I’m staying. There’s no law enforcement there. Tiny town, only two hundred people.” Her voice dropped half an octave. “Obviously, you have something to report. There’s a sheriff in Garnet about fifty miles from Lodgepole.”

      He nodded but offered no further explanation. “Again, thank you.” He let out a breath. “I’m Jude, by the way.” His voice had a soft melodic quality.

      “Lacey. I’m a biologist doing research on elk.” She hoped he would return the favor and explain what he was doing up in these mountains.

      He nodded but didn’t say anything.

      She maneuvered the truck through the heavy snow that had already piled up on the road. An object hit the truck with a violent thud. Her heart pounded as every muscle in her body tensed. The man with the rifle had thrown something at the truck.

      “He must be out of bullets,” said Jude. “I think he threw a rock at us.”

      Lacey glanced out of the driver’s side window. The man was close enough for her to see his face. He ran toward them, rifle raised to be used as a blunt instrument. She saw him clearly. He was maybe ten feet away, a hulking mass of a man. The white-and-gray hair, the beard, the eyes that were filled with a murderous rage. A face she would not easily forget. The man looked right at her. A chill skittered over her skin.

      She pressed the gas even harder, accelerating to a dangerous speed. She swerved.

      Another blow struck the back end of the truck. In the rearview mirror, she saw the man raising his rifle to hit the truck again with the rifle stock.

      Lacey gripped the steering wheel and chose the path of least resistance where the snow wasn’t as deep. All the same, her truck drifted toward the edge of the road. She straightened her steering wheel, finally gaining control.

      “Good job,” said Jude. “That takes some skill.” He still had a white-knuckle grip on the dashboard as he glanced nervously out the back window.

      She had no idea what to think about this man sitting in her truck.