Chapter 6

A few moments had passed since Don had last seen his brother, and his discomfort was increasing. He rose, picked up his pack and Charlie's, and looked at Edgerton. "Maybe we'd better get going."

Edgerton had been poring over the map, and looked up, nodding. "Yeah, we have a little further to go than I thought. We want to get to the next site while the light's still good."

Don glanced up at the outcropping, hardly able to contain himself, while the rest of them slowly stretched, and picked up their packs. 'Let's go, let's go,' he thought. He knew he would feel foolish when he got up there and found Charlie, but he couldn't shake the irrational fear in his gut, and he took off on the trail ahead of the rest of them, lugging his brother's pack.

The fear intensified as he approached the outcropping. No Charlie. Quickening his steps, he rounded the outcropping quickly, and looked down the empty trail to his left. He whirled in confusion, facing the group as they came up the trail, panic on his face. "Where in the hell did he go?" he asked no one in particular.

Edgerton frowned and looked down to their right at the valley, scanning it for movement, then walked around the outcrop and looked down the trail and at the other side of the valley. Nothing. His frown deepened. "We should be able to see him from here; we have a clear view." He looked back down the trail and continued his thought. "Unless he went on down the trail – there's another little bend down there, or he could have stepped beside a tree." He looked at Don. "Relax; if anything had happened, we would see it from here. He's probably just down the trail a bit."

Don gritted his teeth. "If he's playing with us, I'm going to kill him." He started down the trail at a quick pace, and the rest of them stepped hurriedly in behind him. Going down was much faster, and they covered distance quickly. By now, they were all feeling uneasy, and everyone was scanning their surroundings.

They reached the bend in the trail, and went a good distance beyond, before Edgerton stopped them. "He couldn't have come this far without us seeing him. Once we got beyond that bend in the line of sight, we should have been able to pick him up. He didn't come this way." Edgerton looked back at the rock formation, which now seemed a long way above them. "We need to go back up."

David studied the cliffs beside them, and the rock formation beyond. "Maybe he went climbing on the rocks and fell. There's a crevice between the rock formation and the cliffs."

Don stared at him, his face white. "Right. He must be up there somewhere," he said, as if trying to convince himself.

They swung back on the trail, urgency driving them, but the climb was steep. By the time they reached the top again, they were gasping for breath. Edgerton looked at his watch, and then out over the valley, scanning it for signs of movement. 'That took us thirty-five minutes,' he thought. The valley was narrow at that point. Could someone get across it in thirty-five minutes? Don was heading toward the rock formation, starting to climb, and Edgerton followed him, casting a look over his shoulder at the others. "Take a look around the base."

He pulled to the top of the formation, just in time to see Don bend over and pick up Charlie's notebook. The area on top was relatively flat and mostly bare, but here and there were tufts of grass. Don sidled to the edge and looked down, his heart pounding, and Edgerton joined him. There was an unobstructed view of the crevice, and clearly no Charlie. Don groaned. "What the hell? Where is he?"

Edgerton frowned; something had caught his eye on the other side of the rock they were standing on. He walked over; then said quietly, "Eppes." Don walked over to him and his heart lurched. There on the rock, next to a muddy area, was a spot of blood, and in the mud, the familiar outline of a large boot. Don paled, and sank slowly to his knees. "Oh God," he whispered.

Edgerton took his arm. "Come on, we need to get moving." Somehow Don managed the climb down, not even quite remembering how he did it, the rising panic inside scrambling coherent thought. At the bottom, they were met by David, his face grim.

He held a softball sized rock out to them. "We found this by that tree." A few dark curly hairs were plastered to it by a bit of scalp and blood, waving softly in the breeze. Don took one look, stricken, stumbled back to the rock wall and leaned on it for support, still clutching Charlie's notebook, chest heaving.

Edgerton's face was dark. "The son of a bitch had him up on the rock; we walked right past them." He moved quickly down the trail, barking orders over his shoulder. "Spread out along the trail. He must have taken off across the valley as soon as we passed. Look for footprints, drag marks -," he broke off, as he spotted something at the edge of the trail. "Here! He headed across here –," he looked up at Don, who stared back in agony, momentarily paralyzed by overwhelming fear. "Come on, grab the packs, we need to move, now!" Edgerton plunged over the edge of the hill, eyes searching the ground in front of him, as the rest of them scrambled behind.

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He had clambered down the rock with the young man after they left. This one was light, he thought, like a boy. That was good, good that he was light, good that he was a boy. He had to teach that boy a lesson – why did he run off in the woods like that? "What in the hell did you think you were doing, you lil' sonofabitch?" he growled, slurring the words like a drunk. He grinned crazily, hauling the body behind him down the slope, holding it by the neck of the jacket. When he got to the bottom, he lifted the body and slung it over his shoulder, effortlessly, his strength driven by insanity, slogging across a creek, and up the hill beyond.

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Edgerton paused, searching the ground. It had been easy to follow the drag marks down the hill, the muddy boot prints by the creek, and the indentations in the opposite hillside. Cresting the ridge, they had started into another valley. The ground was rockier here, harder. Sign was becoming scarce, and their pace was slowing significantly. He looked closely, and saw an overturned rock, then up ahead, a broken twig. The rest followed silently, faces grim, except for Don, who paced back and forth behind Edgerton like a caged lion, maddened by the slow pace.

Edgerton stopped and faced him, grabbing both arms, and looked into his face. "You need to follow in my exact footsteps. If I need to backtrack, and you're crossing the trail like that, you can destroy any chance I have of picking it up again."

Don rubbed his hand over the top of his head impatiently, his face a study in misery. "It's just – we're not going fast enough."

Edgerton looked at him for a moment, saying nothing. He knew that himself. "We're going as fast as we can," he replied quietly, and turned back to the trail.

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Charlie lifted his head slightly, and groaned. He was dimly aware that he was sitting, his head hanging over his chest, so heavy. He tried to bring his hands to his face, but they were held by something, and he opened his eyes with an effort. They immediately closed; and he tried again, lifting his head slightly at the same time. The forest whirled around him, and he shut his eyes again, nauseated. He paused for a moment, taking deep breaths, and opened his eyes again, staring at his lap until the whirling stopped. He was sitting, he thought again. Sitting in the woods. He could feel a tree at his back; his arms were pulled around it behind him.

He looked around, dazed, fighting to clear the fog from his thoughts. Something was holding his hands; he twisted them, feeling rope on his wrists, then craned his neck to look over his shoulder. His hands were tied – not together, the tree was too big – but a rope connected one hand to the other behind him, around the tree. He realized it almost absently; then his heart contracted with sudden fear, as he grasped the significance of it. His breath quickened, and he turned his head slowly, scanning the forest around him. He was in some kind of small canyon, sheer walls rising around him; that was wooded in the center. His jacket was gone; the sun was setting and it was getting cool, and he shivered uncontrollably.

There was something to his right, and he stared at it, trying to make it out, and gasped in sudden terror as he realized it was a legless corpse. Now he recognized the leg parts scattered around it; the breath left him and his heart pounded, his face twisted with shock. He writhed against his bonds, as screaming split the air, realizing after a moment it was coming from him. "Don! Somebody! Please!" It ended in a half-sob, half-whisper, as he stared in mesmerized horror at the remains of the person beside him.

His heart leapt in fear at the sound of running footsteps behind him, and he shrank against the tree, as an apparition vaulted in front of him. It was Nathan Mansour, he realized immediately, but the man was almost unrecognizable. His hair was longer, tangled and matted; he had a few days growth of scraggly beard, and his eyes shone bright with madness. A dirty hand clamped over Charlie's mouth, and Mansour peered into his face. "Shh!" he hissed. "No noise!"

He turned and rummaged behind him in a pack, pulling out a roll of duct tape, and stripped off a piece. Charlie twisted away, but Mansour grabbed him by the hair, and pushed his head against the tree with his shoulder, pinning him in place. He smoothed the duct tape over Charlie's mouth; then grabbed his face with both hands, peering into Charlie's terrified eyes. "You were bad to run away," whispered Mansour. "You were gone too long. You need to be punished."

He turned and straddled Charlie's legs facing his feet, and reached beside him. Next to Charlie's feet was a dirty towel, with tools and other objects on it – rope, wire and wire cutters, a knife, a saw – Charlie's stomach clutched in terror as he realized what they were for. He twisted his body, trying to move his legs, but Mansour's weight held him firmly, and he tied a length of rope just below Charlie's knees, binding his legs together.

He pulled off Charlie's boots and his socks, and shifting his body, sat closer to Charlie's ankles. Picking up the wire and something that looked like a simple corkscrew with a wooden handle, he threaded a loop of wire through a hole in the object's metal stem, and holding Charlie's foot firmly, looped the wire around Charlie's big toe. Twisting the wooden handle, he tightened the loop of wire until it bit into the skin, then snipped off the end with the wire cutters. Charlie stifled a moan of pain, trying to fight down a rising tide of nausea.

Mansour worked carefully, fastidiously tying off each toe, and then moved on to the ankles. The wire dug into Charlie's bare skin, and blood ran down his feet and his ankles. Mansour chose heavier wire and a larger tool for the knees and legs, but performed the same procedure, placing the wire above each knee and at Charlie's upper thighs, right over the fabric of his jeans. He left the rope in place below Charlie's knees, binding his legs together, but it wouldn't have mattered much; Charlie was already starting to lose the feeling in his feet, and he realized with dread that his legs would soon follow. The blood was pounding painfully in his thighs, and his breath was coming in ragged gasps as Mansour finished and faced him.

"Now you will be marked," he said. He stood and walked over near the other body, and returned holding something in both hands. Kneeling in front of Charlie, he placed the contents of his hands carefully in Charlie's lap. Charlie stared, not comprehending at first, then writhed in terror as he realized that he had the dead man's toes on his lap. He bucked wildly, trying to get them off, screaming through the tape. Mansour screamed back, something unintelligible, and raised his arm. A powerful backhand hit Charlie in the face and he slumped, stunned.

His head was spinning, and he shook it to clear it. He was starting to tremble uncontrollably, and he looked up in helpless terror to see Mansour unsheathing a wicked hunting knife with a curved blade. Mansour walked toward him on his knees until he could reach Charlie's chest, and pulling the neck of his T-shirt, he slit the shirt open to the navel. Charlie gasped as Mansour placed the knife at his right collarbone, and then groaned, the noise muffled by the tape, as the knife dug in and pulled across his chest and down toward his ribs. Blood immediately ran from the slash; he could feel it trickling down his chest and stomach, and he moaned again as Mansour repeated the crosswise cut, starting at his left collar bone.

Mansour surveyed the bloody X on Charlie's chest; then grabbed his face, looking into Charlie's eyes with mad intensity. "Now you are marked," he hissed. "It must be finished." He left the knife lying on Charlie's lap, and rose, carefully gathering the dead man's toes; then the remainder of his body, placing all of the parts in a blood-stained burlap sack. Slinging the sack over his shoulder, he paused, looking down at Charlie.

This time when he spoke his voice changed, tinged with a southwestern accent and with a slur to his words. "I'm gonna kill you, you 'lil son of a bitch. That'll teach you fer runnin' off." He sneered, and turned, headed for the end of the canyon. Charlie watched him go in a haze of terror, fighting against the shock that threatened to steal his consciousness.

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Edgerton stopped, standing still in the gathering twilight; and slowly turned to face the group behind him. He looked for a moment at Don; then spoke quietly. "We need to stop. It's getting too dark to continue."

"NO," said Don, striding forward to face him. "We can't – we can't just stop. We have flashlights -,"

"We have to," replied Edgerton steadily, "I'll lose the trail. If I do that, we'll be further off in the morning than we are now. Flashlights won't work – the shadows distort things. We need to stop. I'm sorry."

Don stared at him, breathing heavily. The thought of Charlie, lying helpless somewhere in the night, tore at him, and fear and grief rose up in his chest. He turned, looking back and forth between Edgerton and his team. "Does anybody –," the words came out hoarsely and he started again. "Does anybody know how long – how long before tourniquets -," he couldn't finish. "How long will his legs last?" he finally managed.

Colby glanced at his teammates, then at Don. "I don't know the answer to that for sure," he said slowly, "but when they trained us to use tourniquets in the military, the rule was no longer than six hours."

"Six," whispered Don, staring at nothing, his heart contracting in despair. Even if they found him alive, it would be too late to save his legs. He heard Edgerton ordering the others to set up camp, and felt Megan guiding him over to a log to sit. 'I knew I shouldn't have let him go up there alone. I knew it.' He stared blankly, dimly aware of the last rays of the light peeking over the hilltop. "Charlie," he whispered. He raised his eyes in agony toward the last bit of sun, before it went sliding into darkness, and he felt his soul go with it.

---------------------------End Chapter 6---------------------------------------------------------