Cold Fear (37 page)

SIXTY-NINE

Paige’s hunger
was unbearable. Her
empty stomach constantly contracted, cramped, ached for food. Waves of
dizziness passed over her.

Can’t go on much longer.

She had eaten her granola bars long ago.

How many days has it been?

Don’t know. Just lie down and die.

Her throbbing, swollen feet, pillows of pain. Cuts,
blisters, scrapes raw and stinging. She longed to bathe. Her filthy hair
itching; her skin chafing; her parched throat burning.

Could she drink her tears?

She still had her water bottle which had been punctured
during her near-death encounter with the bear at the crevasse.

Oh God.

Paige quaked at the memory.

Kobee had saved her.
Brave little puppy.

The bear had swatted her as if she were a stuffed toy,
sending her tumbling to the mouth of the crevasse. As she struggled to keep
from plunging into the fissure’s narrow black opening, a claw tore into her
backpack, entangling the bear long enough for her to slip from the straps while
Kobee snapped at the bear.

It happened so fast.

The angry monster, snarling and growling at Kobee,
contended with the backpack affixed to its paw, allowing Paige time to clamber
down a cliff ledge too narrow for the bear to follow, hiding there out of
reach, praying Kobee could flee to safety.

Paige clung to the cold rock in the night until she
believed the bear had left the area.

After more than two hours, she climbed out.

In the darkness, she found a small rock enclosure and
squeezed into it. She tried not to cry out, not scream, not to think of Kobee,
but only to stop shivering long enough to sleep on the cold, hard limestone.
She concentrated on dreaming of her mother, her father, her warm, soft bed, her
San Francisco home, her friends.

Dawn came with sunshine and Kobee nuzzling next to her.

“You’re safe! I love you, puppy. My hero,” Paige
whispered, pulling his smelly little body tight to hers, luxuriating in its
warmth, fighting off thoughts of bananas, oranges, restaurants, a trip to the
supermarket.

She wept with her face pressed into her beagle.

Got to keep moving. Get out to the open. Find water,
food, help. Something.

Carefully, Paige eased out of her tight shelter,
gripping her water bottle at the proper angle to ensure the few remaining
ounces did not leak out of holes made by the bear.

She went to the crevasse which had almost claimed her.

My death spot.

Her backpack was lost.

She wrapped Kobee’s leash around her hand, the way she
did when they went to Golden Gate Park, then found a branch for a walking
stick.

No sign of the bear. Thank you, God.

They headed for the low country.

In a few hours, they came to a small river. Maybe she
could find berries or something. Paige set her bottle aside, knelt at the bank,
washed her face and hands, feeling a little energized by the ice-cold mountain-fed
water. She cupped her hands, letting Kobee drink from them. Then she drank a
little herself, feeling the cold liquid fill her stomach. She gasped with
pleasure, wiping the back of her wet hands across her lips.

Maybe she could find a shelter here.

She scouted around when she heard splashing.

A fish was caught in a small, shallow pool. Kobee
barked. Paige went to it, not knowing what kind it was, but her stomach
quivered.

Food.

It was about as long as a large submarine sandwich.

Its tail swished water as if objecting to being stared
at.

Unconsciously, Paige began licking her lips.

Her stomach was roaring.

What do I do?

Stab it with a stick, like those island fishermen did
on the education channel
. Paige swallowed and
looked around. She found a pointy, hand-size stick. She stood over the
vulnerable creature.

Kobee yelped impatiently.

“It’s not going to be like the fillets and fries at
Skipper of the Sea.”

Paige stood there, staring at the fish.

She could not cook it. She did not know how to clean it.
What was she going to do?

Paige licked her lips.

She had eaten sushi with teriyaki sauce, rice and cold
shrimp. Mom and Dad liked it. She aimed the stick; saw the fish, its little
mouth opening, and closing, its fins waving in the pool, awaiting death.

Kobee suddenly lunged at it, gripping it in his jaws as
it writhed and slipped free. Flopping on a stone, it wriggled back into the
river, escaping.

Paige stood there, still gripping her spear, feeling
more hungry than she ever felt in her life.

She sat by the river and wept.

Through the blur of her tears, she saw the grizzly
approaching. She was mesmerized by its majestic blond-chocolate fur, its
powerful menacing hump, its upturned snout that released a snarl.

This time, she was too tired to fight.

She sat there frozen, sobbing; her arms hurt as Kobee
tugged at the leash to flee.

“Oh God, somebody save me, please.”

SEVENTY

Helicopter pilot
Shane Ballard knew
how the air could get rough whenever Mercy Force flew near the Bitterroot
Mountains.

Today was no exception.

The twin-engine air ambulance began shuddering.

Deer Lodge vanished in a shaky blur behind them; soon
the ride was smoother.

“That’s better,” Ballard’s tin like pressurized voice
sighed as an alert came from Missoula tower, requesting their ETA.

“Eighteen minutes,” Ballard said.
Funny, procedure is
for me to call in. I already did that upon liftoff. Why are they calling me?

“Standby for a patch-through from Montana General
Mercy.”

Now they really had Ballard curious. He searched for an
answer atop the mountains, painted with gorgeous, big blue sky between the
peaks. Breathtaking but no answer.

“Montana General to Mercy Force?”

“Mercy Force copy.”

“You are on alert for a possible trauma transfer from
Glacier. Can you copy coordinates?”

“Mercy Force copy.”

Ballard took down the location. It was a northernmost
region of Grizzly Tooth Trail, which could mean something was up in the Baker
case. Ballard had to ask.

“They find her?”

“May have, that’s why we’re alerted.”

“What about the on-site unit?”

“Called to a horseback riding accident.”

“Mercy Force copy and out.”

Ballard switched on the intercom informing McCarry,
Wordell and the officer. “They think maybe Paige Baker’s alive at the northern
edge. They just gave me the coordinates. We’ve been activated to standby to
bring her in.”

Hood’s eye’s flickered.

He could hear Ballard’s loud, enthusiastic report
leaking through McCarry’s helmet headset as she removed his oxygen mask to
adjust it.

“Oh my word!” McCarry did not believe her eyes. “You’ll
never guess who our customer is.”

Ballard tried to look over his shoulder. No use, he
could not see.

“It’s Isaiah Hood.” Wordell was looking over her
friend’s shoulder.

“No way!” Ballard was incredulous.

McCarry glanced at the young guard, who nodded.
Suddenly, she wished the second larger guard was also aboard. She swallowed,
replacing Hood’s oxygen, ensuring his flow was satisfactory and his signs were
stable, blinking with a modicum of relief at the shiny metal cuff linking his
wrist to the stretcher. The young guard had never seen the Rockies from a
chopper before. Fascinated, he gazed out the window as McCarry checked Hood.

“Well, he’s stable and he’s out cold.”

McCarry was wrong.

Hood slowly worked his free hand under the sheet and
inserted his pinky finger forcefully into his navel, drilling and twisting it
toward the hardened lump.

Some years ago, during one of the appeals of his
conviction, Hood was jailed in the cells at the Goliath County Courthouse.
Security was laughable there. As usual, Hood’s senses were heightened for
opportunity.

On that day, as it turned out, one the guards was
retiring. Near the end of the guard’s shift, in the moments before Hood was to
be returned to his death row cell at Deer Lodge, the old-timer’s utility belt
gave way, falling just outside Hood’s holding cell. Everything spilled from it.

“Don’t you move, son!” the old fart wheezed, quickly
collecting everything. Making it worse, the guard’s glasses slipped from his
head too.

“Damn fine way to retire,” the guard bitched.

“You missed this, sir.”

Hood showed his brown-toothed smile, handing the guard
his notebook.

“Well, thank you now.”

The old coot never figured that a more important item
also fell into Hood’s cell.

His handcuff key.

It felt like a ticket to heaven, for it matched the key
issued by the Montana Department of Corrections to its officers. Since it was
in the days before high-tech scanners, Hood swallowed it, retrieving it later
in his cell, washing it thoroughly. He concealed it within a small chip in the
steel hinge mechanism of the door to his cell for several years.

Two nights before he was to be moved to the death cell,
Hood fetched the key. After lights out, he endured the painful process of
working it through his navel into the bullet track of his old wound until it
brushed up against the bullet fragment. To its loop, he had affixed reinforced
thread taken from a pair of dark socks, letting it mingle with his body hair
surrounding his navel.

Now, as Mercy Force thundered toward Missoula, Hood
worked swiftly, looping the threat around his thumb, easing the key out with
his pinkie, feeling the flow of warm blood and puss come with it. Success was
painful. He gritted his teeth, feeling as if he had just extracted a truck from
his stomach.

The young officer was staring out the window, which
pleased Hood, who eyed his cuffed wrist and visualized his motions. Then in an
instant when McCarry turned away, he unlocked the cuff. She did not hear the
gentle click over the aircraft noise. He left the cuff open, but with his hand
in place, and began to convulse. In one herculean effort, he rolled the
stretcher to its side onto the floor.

“Oh my God!” McCarry’s first thought was that Hood was
having a seizure. She and the young guard watched in horror as he stood,
holding the cuff, the stretcher strapped to his back, knocking over equipment
as he began ripping open the straps with his free hands.

“Shane! Take us down!”

Ballard’s eyes widened; the chopper shifted.

“Jesus, hang on!” he began descending. Nothing but
mountains beneath them. He heard the thud of Hood swinging a small fire
extinguisher against the side of the young guard’s head, sending him to the
back, unconscious.

Wordell screamed.

“Shane, get us down, get us down!”

Hood shoved McCarry violently to the back, forcing her
to fall over equipment. Hood’s hand ripped open every strap and unshackled the
cuffs from his ankles. He came at Wordell.

“Please, no! Oh, Please!”

Ballard anticipated his move and banked the helicopter.
Hood lost his footing, smashing his head against the steel frame. His hands
shot up to steady himself, reaching for the rapid-open latch of the rear
clamshell doors.

“Jesus, no!” Wordell screamed. “Shane!”

Sweat was burning into Ballard’s eyes, blurring his
vision. He kept rocking the Mercy Force chopper to keep Hood off balance. It
was futile. Hood locked onto Wordell’s throat with his large hand and dragged
her to the rear, gurgling, choking, swatting in vain at his arms.

Hood snapped one of the cuffs on her wrist, and then
locked its mate into a steel ceiling loop. With relative ease, he then lifted
the young guard, stretching his wrist, opening Wordell’s free cuff, slamming it
through the steel loop, slamming it tight around the guard’s wrist.

Ballard, rocking the helicopter, was losing. Hood was
too fast and too strong, lifting McCarry’s right ankle, snapping a shackle
around it, then locking its mate to the same loop holding Wordell and the
guard. Then he was in the cockpit with a pair of medical scissors pressed into
Ballard’s throat.

“I am going to die!” Hood shouted. “I’ll take you with
me if you don’t do as I say. Understand?”

Ballard nodded. “Did you kill my friends?”

“I will. Depends on you, asshole!”

The young pilot struggled to keep calm, leveling the
aircraft as a show of good faith.

“What do you want?”

“Fly directly to the girl.”

“Why?”

Hood pushed the scissors a quarter inch into Ballard’s
neck, puncturing his skin and surface veins, blood began cascading.

“Tell me what you’re going to do, or I go back there and
fetch you an eyeball. Asshole.”

“OK, but I have to radio ahead.”

Hood immediately moved for Wordell, triggering her
screaming.

“Shane! Oh God, Shane.”

Eyes ablaze with rage that had twenty-two years to
fester locked onto her pierced ears and the small golden loops. He yanked on
one, stretching the lobe. Wordell screamed. He let go, leaving the ear intact.

“OK!” Ballard shouted. “Don’t hurt them. We’re on our
way!”

Ballard checked his position and banked, making a dead
reckoning for the U.S.-Canadian border. Why not go there with this monster? It
had to be crawling with FBI, park rangers and locals.

Hood was rifling through the chopper, filling a bag with
supplies, happy to find a small backpack and an extra flight suit. Hood changed
out of his orange Montana State Prison overalls into the suit. He would need
boots. He eyed the guard’s feet. Looked too small. He liked Ballard’s. They
looked to be about the same size.

“Hey!” Ballard shouted at Hood. “I am being called. Put
on the radio headset and listen!”

“Missoula Tower to Mercy Force. Mercy Force, come in.
You are way off course.”

“Well, Mr. Isaiah Hood, what do I tell them? Do I tell
them Mr. Hood that you’re hijacking us to Glacier?”

Realizing Ballard had just transmitted that exact
message, Hood reached over and ripped Ballard’s helmet and radio set from his
head, tossing it to the back as Mercy Force screamed at top speed over Glacier
National Park, roaring over Lake McDonald, coming up on Flattop, making
straight for Grizzly Tooth and the Boundary Creek area. Pilots of aircraft
involved in search operations were dumbstruck, scrambling to avert Mercy Force,
figuring the air ambulance was on a top-priority medi-vac mission. It was a
clear, fast trip to the upper reaches of the park. Looking down at the rolling
forests, the valleys, glaciers, Hood could feel his life returning and the
helicopter descending.

“Take me down away from anybody,” Hood ordered.

Ballard found a flat, grassy slope, offering a clearing
within its lodgepole pine, and began his landing approach. Concentrating on
putting down, he had about two seconds to wonder why Hood was tossing his
little pack out the window. Less than fifteen feet from earth, Hood seized the
controls.

“Hey, Christ” was all Ballard managed as Hood forced the
chopper to crash down hard on its side, its rotors whipping wildly, clipping
tree tops, slicing earth, sparking against rock patches. The aircraft bucked
like an angry mechanical animal amid the crash and squeal of metal, the
screams, the pungent odor of hydraulic fluid and fuel as everyone was slammed
and smashed.

Ballard and McCarry were unconscious. Wordell’s moan
would turn into screams when the small fire ignited. Hood had a gash in his leg
but was determined to escape, working at removing Ballard’s boots and socks. He
searched his pockets for anything useful and was pleased to find a Swiss Army
knife.

He took the young guard’s high-band radio. He would try
to monitor emergency frequencies. He emerged from the wreckage, found his pack,
then disappeared into the mountains. He was home.