Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [79]
“Okay,” Kasey said, kneeling in the road next to the bicycle tracks. “I think there’s a lake up here somewhere. I saw a sign back there—”
“Lake Hancock,” said Jennifer.
“There are tracks from five bikes here,” said Bloomquist.
Fred scratched his scalp. “There were five to start off with. We burned one bike back down the hill in the fire. There should only be three tracks if one of them is at the gate. What’s going on?”
“We, uh…” Bloomquist didn’t have an answer.
“No, somebody rode through this mud twice. Two somebodies. Hell, for all we know, only one of them went this way and the other three are behind us.”
The two men with guns turned them toward the trees while the rest surveyed the landscape nervously. They watched the shaded woods for a long time. The only open space was the road behind and in front of them. Everything else was forest.
“Okay, okay,” said Bloomquist, finally. “Let’s get going. I don’t like this.”
Fred levered a cartridge into his rifle. “Jennie and I are going to check out that road to the lake. We’ll catch up.”
“Keep in touch on the walkie-talkie,” said Kasey.
“If they start shooting,” Fred said, “leave a couple for me.”
33
By the time they got to the east end of the basin Lake Hancock lay in and found the old logging road that ran up the mountainside above the south shore, Zak decided the guys in the Jeeps had taken the other road. Perhaps the tracks they left had fooled them. Or maybe they’d found the dead dog, gotten scared, and turned around when they found room at the top of the ridge. Whatever it was, Zak suspected they now had a period of respite and should make use of it.
Even though he’d caught only a glimpse of blue water through the tops of the trees to their left, Zak knew the lake was there by the fact that the relentless stands of Douglas fir they’d been passing were now integrated with deciduous trees, saplings, brush, and other plant life that usually grew near water. Paralleling their path, a bald eagle soared over the lake. There were slopes to their right so steep a man could not walk up them. Some were solid rock, others loose rock anchored by scrubby trees. When they got to the end of the lake, the road took a sharp bend, nearly but not quite doubling back on itself, gaining altitude so quickly that Muldaur warned the riders behind him to drop their chains onto the small rings in front before they lost momentum and fell over.
As the clanking of chains on four bicycles sounded, Stephens looked up the hill and said, “Jesus, boys. We’re going to have to walk.”
“If a logging truck can make it,” said Muldaur, “we can, too. Once you start walking, you’re giving up the mechanical advantage.”
Zak pushed the thumb selector on his handle grips and began going through his gears until he settled on the smallest of the three chain rings in front. It was a twenty-seven-speed bike, but when he looked down through his legs to see what gear he’d ended up in, he was in his second lowest.
“I think I’m going to have to get off,” said Stephens, grunting with the effort.
“You get off, you won’t get back on,” said Zak.
“How far is it?” Giancarlo asked.
“I’ve no idea.”
“There’s some small lakes at the top,” said Stephens. “And then the road actually goes back down to the river. It’s kind of a big loop. We could actually make it back to town this way.”
“Then that’s what we should do,” Muldaur said. “We circle up and around and back into town.”
They were traveling a little slower than a fit man could walk. This side of the mountain was shielded from the wind that had been drying them on the first climb, and Zak found himself sweating heavily. He knew that if he turned around to see how the others were doing, he’d tip over, so he gauged the other riders’ distance by the sound of their breathing and the noises their tires made on the hard rock. At least they were in the shadows and didn’t yet have the sun beating down on them.
After a few minutes the road swerved to the right, giving Zak a view out over Lake Hancock, a beautiful blue puddle already several hundred feet below.