Haley and Butch were in a pile in the middle of the boat. As he let off the gas and returned to cruising speed, he leaned over to them. “You can both get up now.”
Butch had thrown himself on top of the young lady, but her face was visible to Ezra. She looked to Butch and smiled. “You were saying something about not letting anything happen to me?”
The big guy rolled aside. “Yeah, sorry if I hurt you. It’s habit.”
“No problem,” she replied, rubbing her arm. “Next time, let me knock you down, m’kay? Or, better yet, let’s shoot back.”
Butch got to a crouch and held out his hand to pull her up, which she accepted. “If you’re going to shoot back, we need to get you reloaded. Let me show you how.”
Ezra sat back in his seat, exhaling the tension of the last two minutes. He was happy to see the two kids cooperating, but he was afraid the shooters had figured out they could attack his boat anywhere along the river they could drive. It gave him plenty of new things to worry about.
And the bridge was only ten miles ahead.
“We need a new plan,” he said dryly.
CHAPTER 10
Somewhere in Central Wyoming
Grace stayed ahead of the train for almost an hour, and, hoping to hone her skills, she kept trying to guess where the experienced hitman was going to have her stop. She saw hills similar to the one they’d visited earlier, but Misha didn’t seem interested. They passed isolated patches of forest scattered along the grassy frontier, as if someone had planted the trees in tight groups a hundred years ago. Each seemed ideal for lying in ambush. Still, he didn’t ask her to pull over.
After a certain number of guesses, she admitted to telling herself every new thing on the horizon was where he would point them next. Eventually, she was right.
“There. We must drive there.” He gestured toward a hundred-foot-tall ridgeline covered with grass, perhaps two miles long, and a hundred yards to the left of the roadway. The train tracks went into a tunnel on one end of the rise. The location seemed windswept and isolated, not very good for hiding, at least compared to the clumps of trees they’d passed. As they neared, she wondered why dozens of sections of tall wooden fences had been set in parallel rows outside the train tunnel.
“Why there?” she asked, truly interested in his reasoning.
“We can climb to top. It will let us look ahead as well as see how far back train is. We do not want to get too far ahead of engine, or Nerio could swing around and attack without us knowing about it.”
Asher spoke up. “Ah, that’s why we haven’t been speeding ahead.”
She’d been thinking the same thing. Whenever she started going too fast, Misha would ask her to slow down. She’d assumed it was so he could look at the terrain as they moved, but waiting for the train made sense, too.
“You are correct, Alex Trebek.”
She laughed out loud, despite her deep-seated fear of Misha. “Correct-Trabek? Did you intentionally make a rhyme?”
“Did I?” he asked with surprise. “English is not first language, in case you did not know.”
Asher chuckled. “And I think he just made a joke.”
She parked the truck on a gravel service road leading to the train tunnel. As soon as she exited her door, a gust of wind nearly stole her ranger hat. “Whoa!”
Asher left his hat on the front seat, so she did the same. There was no sense fighting the wind in addition to being wary about the helicopter. It went without saying they took their rifles, as they had to be prepared to fight. However, she also reached behind her seat and grabbed Misha’s backpack. He’d put a few of the remaining bottled waters inside, and she figured they might need them.
As she caught up to the two men, she realized it might have been better to hold the hat on her head, if it’s what it took to keep it on. The wind blew constantly from the west, smacking her blonde locks in and out of her eyes like annoying bugs.
“This is crazy!” she yelled into the gusts.
Asher’s curly hair shifted back and forth, like kelp grass in turbulent seas.
Misha had cropped hair. The wind didn’t seem to affect him at all.
Asher spoke when she got close. “The wooden barriers spaced everywhere out there are snow fences. They keep snow off the tracks during the winter. It must be brutal on this hill if this summertime wind is any indication.”
They walked up the hill until they were above the tunnel where the double set of train tracks entered. She thought it might be neat to sit there and watch the train approach and go into the tunnel, at least until a stout gust nearly pushed her over the edge.
“Okay! Let’s take a few steps back!”
Misha was already higher on the hill, so it was only her and Asher moving from the edge. When they got up to his position, his radio surprised them all by warbling.
“The engine must be close,” she reasoned.
Misha seemed conflicted. “This was not his ring. This is someone else.”
Everyone glanced around, searching for who it might be. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to find other travelers on the same channel, though not as many people were out on vacations these days.
“I will answer,” Misha declared.
“Be careful,” she said, knowing it sounded trite, given where they were.
“Hello?” he said into the radio.
“Delighted to hear your voice, my dear Misha. You know who this is.” She
