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The puma grumbled again, and then the sound vanished. Had it moved away or come closer to try to take a bite out of her? She yelled and banged some more. No response.
Her heart beat wildly in her chest as she propped her crutch under her arm and began to move away. Her legs trembled and felt weak. Had her noise carried to her abductor? If so, he’d be heading this way, too, but she’d had no choice.
She shuffled through last year’s fallen leaves as quietly as possible. It felt like she’d been wandering down here for hours, but she was encouraged by not hearing signs of pursuit behind her. Maybe her yelling hadn’t brought the man after all. He’d been gone a little while, and fog tended to muffle noises.
She needed another rest and it took a while to find the right place to shelter, where she hoped she wouldn’t be seen as she elevated her foot. Her eyes closed in spite of fighting to stay awake.
A cough filtered through her consciousness, and she opened her eyes to dim the light of morning breaking through. A shuffling movement from above her head made her freeze. Was the cougar back?
Thirty-Eight
Was that the man beneath her tree perch? Sarah’s muscles ached and spasmed from being in the tree for so long. She stared down through the fog as a figure moved beneath her. A scream built in her throat, but she stuffed her fist in her mouth and held it back by sheer force of will.
Her foot slipped, and she grabbed at the branch, but it was too late. She plummeted to the ground and landed atop someone. That someone let out anoomphin a woman’s voice.
Sarah scrambled away into the wet weeds and shoved her hair out of her face in an effort to see. “Wh-who’s there?” The moisture from the creeping fog coated her skin and everything she touched.
The other woman’s form loomed in the breaking dawn. “It’s Michelle. Try to keep it down. I don’t know where that guy is. Are you hurt?”
“N-no. He didn’t find me. I’ve been in that tree for hours. Do you have any water?”
Michelle handed over a bottle of water. “Don’t drink it all. That’s all we have until we find our way out of here.”
Sarah took a couple of sips and forced herself to recap the bottle. “I can carry it for you. You don’t have any extra hands. How did you get this far on that leg?”
“The tree branch helped. And I rested some.” Michelle looked around. “This is beginning to seem familiar.”
Sarah shuffled and spun around to view the area. “It all looks the same to me.”
“Did you see any cougars?”
Sarah shivered and hugged herself. “No, and I don’t want to. You heard one?”
“Yeah. I yelled and waved my arms. I didn’t hear it again. When you moved on that branch, I thought you were the mountain lion.”
Michelle settled on the ground and lifted her broken leg into the crook of a tree branch a foot off the ground. She exhaled, and a little color came back to her pale cheeks.
Sarah stretched out the spasming muscles in her legs and arms. It felt good to be back on the ground, but she was hungry, tired, and thirsty. She wanted a soft bed and a big breakfast at the Suomi. And coffee with cream.
Would she ever see Rock Harbor again? She was going to be arrested for kidnapping the moment she reached civilization. She settled on the wet ground next to Michelle and leaned against the tree trunk. Maybe she could hitch a ride once they got out to a road. She could go to Wisconsin. Or even Canada. The thought of never seeing Kylie again made her heart hurt.
Had anyone found the little girl, or had she wandered in the forest through the fog? And with mountain lions roaming around. That was a scary thought.
The light of the approaching sunrise filtered through the leaves a little more. Sarah rose and looked around. “Which way should we go to get out of here? You can rest and I can send back help.”
Michelle sat up. “I’m ready to move again. I don’t want that guy to find me. Once the sun burns away the fog, he’ll be able to see much better in the daylight to track us. Footprints and all.”
The reminder that the man was still out there made Sarah want to get moving again. “I guess you’re right. Is it still looking familiar?” She reached down and helped Michelle to her feet.
“I think so.” Michelle pointed to their left. “I think the lake is that way.”
“But which way is a road? We don’t have a boat, and we could walk for miles along the lake without coming to any kind of town or dwelling.”
Annie had often talked about how remote different beaches were that she checked out for campers and fishermen. A lot of them were ATV-only access.
“I don’t know which way to go to find a road, but my gut still says to go that way.” Michelle fitted her stick under her arm and began to shuffle through the vegetation.
Sarah heard something that seemed to come from the right. She put her finger to her lips. “Shh. Did you hear that?”
