Chapter 9

Ruby let out a short scream and darted behind Bruce to hide, leaving him to face the hiker in full Monty.

"Thanks for protecting my modesty," he smiled sheepishly over his shoulder at her.

"He's a man," she poked him in the back. "If he sees something he's never seen before, he can hit it with a stick."

"Yeah, somehow that doesn't make me feel any better."

He turned his attention to the hiker as the man came up the trail to stop a couple yards downhill from them. The man was older than him, pushing his sixtieth birthday if not already there. The grey fringes of his curly hair peaked out from beneath his Panama Jack-style hat that was cinched under his chin. The khaki shirt he wore matched the shorts he had them tucked into. His hiking attire was completed by a worn pair of Birkenstocks, a makeshift walking stick, and a tan backpack. He grinned up at Bruce.

"You're a bit old for this kind of foolishness, aren't you?"

Bruce nodded and smiled back, "yeah, I thought so too. But someone decided they needed our stuff more than we did while we were cleaning up in a stream on the other side of this mountain. They took everything not on us."

"Well, that amounts to just about everything for you, Friend." He leaned sideways to catch a glimpse of Ruby. "It seems your gal is a bit better off."

"You should try spending the night out here like this," Ruby muttered from behind him.

"Oh, Lord, you were out here all night?"

"Unfortunately," Bruce answered.

The man immediately unslung his backpack and pulled out a bottle of water. Handing it to Bruce, he scrunched up his face as he thought about their dilemma.

"Well, I got a few things down in my camp. It's not much, but it's a damn site better than you have right now."

"We'd appreciate that…," Bruce let his sentence trail off.

"Larry," the man supplied, stepping forward to offer his hand. "Larry Green."

"Bruce," he paused while he thought of a name, "Ross. This is Rose Bellman."

They shook hands and Larry nodded to Ruby, "Nice to meet you Miss Rose."

Before she could answer, voices drifted up to them from the trail below.

"That would be the group I warned you about. If you could get off the trail and go around them, I'll meet you further down."

"Sounds good," Bruce agreed. "See you in a bit."

Pulling Ruby beside him, he headed back into the sparse trees and angled down the mountain away from the trail.

Back at his camp, Larry rummaged around in his tent and produced a pair of shorts and two white tee shirts.

"Like I said, it's not much, but it's better than nothing."

"We appreciate anything you can spare, thanks," Bruce told him and tossed one of the tee shirts to Ruby.

As he pulled on the shorts, Larry pointed to his feet, "are those her jeans? That's pretty smart. This terrain if rough on bare feet."

Pulling on the tee shirt, Bruce nodded, "yeah, I found out the hard way."

Ruby finally came out from hiding behind a tree. The borrowed shirt hung on her small frame and hung halfway to her knees. Bruce found himself wishing she didn't have the shirt; she looked much better in just her plain white bra.

"Thank you so much Mr. Green," she smiled at the other man and he responded by blushing red.

"Think nothing of it, Miss. And please, call me Larry."

"Only if you call me Ru…Rose," she stumbled over the unfamiliar name.

"So, Rose, Bruce," he turned to look at Bruce, "I figure you guys have had enough of these mountains and want to get back to civilization."

"You got that right. Can you tell us the best way out of here?"

"I can do you one better: I got a map you can take. Here, let me get it," Lawrence crawled back into his tent.

"Why didn't you give him our real names?" Ruby asked in a low voice as she walked over to Bruce's side.

"He might recognize my name. And if anyone asks about us, I don't want him to have our real names."

"So, you think there are so many couples running around in these mountains naked that changing our names will make a difference?" She snorted, "Excuse me sir, did you see Bruce Banner and Ruby Beaumont today? They would be naked. Why no, I only saw Bruce Ross and Rose Bellmont naked."

"It's Bellman, not Bellmont," he corrected her, trying not to laugh out loud. "Alright, maybe I didn't think it through."

"You think?"

"Here we go," Larry crawled out of his tent, waving a folded map. He took two steps away from the tent, jerked, then pitched forward, landing on his face.

"Larry!" Ruby screamed dashing towards his prone body. A dark bloom started between his shoulders, spreading quickly.

Lunging forward, Bruce grabbed her arm and pulled her away, "run!"

"We can't just leave him!" Ruby fought against him, trying to reach the fallen man.

"He's gone," he ground out, "and you will be too, if you don't run now."

She turned to him with tears in her eyes, "what about you?"

He gave her a tight smile and pushed her towards the trees, "I've had enough of this."

"I've had enough of this."

As he said it, his voice grew rougher and his eyes flashed green. Even as he pushed her away from him and turned away, she could see that he was changing.

"Hey! Wait, you just got those clothes," she yelled at his retreating back, but it was too late; he had already ripped the shirt off.

"Idiot," she huffed.

A bullet struck the dirt near her feet and she gave up on saving Bruce's clothing to make a dash for the safety of the trees. The forest floor was relatively smooth and sloped gently downhill as she barreled away from the fire fight behind her. A loud roar filled the air and she couldn't help grinning.

"Get them, Bruce."

Running downhill was deceptive. It seemed easy, but it took effort to maintain control and not end up tumbling head over heel. After a morning of hiking, Ruby tired fast and slowed down to catch her breath. Through a break in the trees, she could see the trail and debated the merits of following it. Traveling on the trail would be faster than staying in the woods and it would lead her to a road eventually, but it would also make it easier for Hydra to find her. It would likewise make it easier for Bruce to find her.

With that thought, she slipped through the trees towards it. She paused for a moment and glanced back up the trail, thinking she might have seen movement but, when nothing else moved but the trees in the slight breeze, she turned and began to jog downhill.

After ten minutes at a steady pace, she heard something behind her in the trees and paused, ducking behind a twisted juniper for cover. Peering back up the mountain, she caught a glimpse of movement in the trees to the right.

"Please be a squirrel. Please," she muttered, holding perfectly still and straining to get a better look.

Her patience paid off with a glimpse of black moving too high off the ground to be any small forest animal.

"Why can't it ever be a squirrel?" she sighed quietly.

She looked down and found a rock that was small enough for her to throw but big enough to make noise when it hit the ground. She bent slowly, keeping her eyes trained on where she had seen the movement, and found the rock by touch. Standing back up, she waited for another flash of movement. When she saw it a few yards further down the mountain, she heaved the rock as hard as she could back up the mountain and on the other side of the trail from her pursuer. The rock flew through the branches, making noise as it went then hitting the ground with a thud and a clatter of loose rocks.

Crouching, she held her breath. The entire forest around her seemed to fall silent as if it too was holding its breath. Just as she tentatively released her breath, there was a flicker of movement going back up hill, angled towards the thrown rock. She couldn't believe that actually worked.

As the movement moved away from her, she eased back out on the trail and, crouching, made her way down it as quickly and quietly as possible. When she thought she was far enough away from her pursuer, she stood up straight and began jogging again. She had to reach a road soon.

As she followed the trail, she would stop periodically to listen and look for movement behind her, but she saw no further evidence of being followed. That didn't make her feel confident, though. It's what you don't see coming that always gets you, she thought. When she felt like she couldn't jog anymore, she kept up a brisk walk.

She had no idea how long she had been following the trail when it converged with another. At the Y formed by the juncture, a sign stood. An arrow pointed back up the trail she had just come down with "Mineral Mountain Summit Trail". Another arrow pointed up the other trail with "San Luis Peak Trail". She still had no idea where the heck they were, but at least she was on the right path back towards civilization as she continued down the unmarked leg of the trail. It had to lead somewhere.

A while later, sweaty and exhausted, Ruby exited the trail at a small gravel parking area on the side of a highway. Rive cars were parked there, but nobody was in sight. A large wooden sign near the beginning of the trail had a laminated map of the area. Locating the star with "you are here", she located the nearest town: Lake City. It looked small, but it was close, only about five miles away, give or take.

One of the cars had two bicycles strapped to the roof and Ruby chewed on her bottom lip as she argued with herself about taking one. Stealing was wrong no matter how justified and she was sure the bike was expensive. Still, there was no way she could run the five miles to Lake City. Making up her mind, she memorized the license plate number so she could find and reimburse the owners later and unstrapped the smaller of the two bikes.

Within minutes, she was on the highway peddling towards Lake City. At first, the road wound its way down the side of the mountain, and she could coast easily, but when it began its ascent up the next mountain, she struggled to keep her momentum. Even in the highest gear, it felt like her thighs were on fire and she was pretty sure she could walk faster than she was peddling. She had believed herself to be in good shape, but the last two days were making a mockery of her physical fitness.

She barely heard the truck coming up the road behind her over her panting and hammering heart. When the driver sounded his horn behind her she panicked, twisting the handlebars of the bike hard to the right and crashed into the rocky face of the mountain that abutted that side of the road. Landing awkwardly, she felt something crack in her left wrist and just laid on the ground cradling it, trying to keep from crying in pain and frustration.

"Are you alright?" the driver of the truck called out as he ran towards her.

Tears leaked out of her closed eyes, "I need to get to Lake City to get help."

"Here, let me help you up."

The man carefully grasped her other arm and pulled her to her feet, his brown eyes full of concern.

"Can you take me there?"

"Of course," he nodded, helping her limp away from the fallen bike. As they walked to where he had stopped his rig past her on the road, she could see it was a big semi-truck pulling a long, black trailer.

"I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't come along when you did," she smiled up at her would-be rescuer.

"Well," he smiled back, "you wouldn't have wrecked your bicycle, that's for sure."

She shook her head, "I don't know about that. I was about out of juice."

As they approached the back of the trailer, the door swung open and two men in black jumped to the ground.

"Oh, no!" she shrieked as she tried to pull away from her fake rescuer.

The man grabbed her injured wrist and gave it a squeeze, making her eyes water and her legs nearly give out beneath her.

"That's a good girl," he caught her around the waist and breathed in her ear when she stopped fighting. "We're just going to take you back to your Father. We don't want to hurt you, so stop fighting."

Nearly swooning from the pain from her wrist and exhaustion, she almost missed what he said.

"My father? You said my father?"

"Right. Behave and you'll be back with him in no time."

This time when her eyes filled with tears, it wasn't from the pain.