Courage Tree (32 page)

“Where are you going?” Zoe asked.

“I’m going to find her,” Marti said.

“You don’t need to take a gun with you.” Zoe reached for the weapon, but Marti quickly turned away from her and headed for the woods.

“I’m just going to scare her with it,” she called over her shoulder.

Zoe ran after her, but Marti swung around, pointing the gun in her direction. “Leave me alone, Mother,” she said. “I mean it.”

Frightened, Zoe set out in the opposite direction, hoping that she would be first to stumble across Sophie. The little girl could not have gotten very far, not in the shape she was in.

She searched for nearly an hour, her nerves on edge as she
listened for Marti’s gun to be fired. But there were no gunshots, and no Sophie.

She reached the shanty before Marti had returned, and when she looked into the bedroom, she spotted Sophie sound asleep on her sleeping palette. Her breathing was loud and gravelly, but at least she was still alive.

Lying down on her own palette, with its lumpy mattress of towels and clothing, she vowed to stay awake all night. She would not let Marti harm this little child.

J
anine was turned around. Even with the GPS, she felt uncertain of her bearings, although she’d tried to follow her progress on the map. If these woods got any thicker, she would not be able to make her way through them. She had a new appreciation for hiking trails—and for the people who cut them. But she felt no fear at being alone in the forest, amazing even to herself. She knew it was because she felt so bonded with Sophie in these woods. She could
feel
Sophie out here, the way she had at the camp.

This was her second day alone in the forest. She’d been out here the previous afternoon, trying in vain to find the old log cabin and returning to the motel just before dark. She was not having any more luck today, but she knew the cabin had to be around here somewhere. She’d passed another cabin an hour or so ago, and at first she’d thought she’d reached her goal. She’d been apprehensive as she’d neared the old shack, and she’d understood the source of her anxiety: if Sophie was not inside the cabin, Janine’s last hope would be dashed. She’d felt relief when she saw that the shack was actually caving in
on itself, that it was barely more than an old stack of boards and could not possibly have been the log cabin she and Lucas had seen from the air. That was fine. The longer it took her to find that log cabin, the longer she could cling to hope. She knew her thinking was irrational, even a little bit crazy, but that was how she felt: half, maybe two-thirds, out of her mind.

Shortly after stumbling across the shack, she’d found herself near the peak of a small hill, and she’d taken the opportunity to call Lucas. It had been impossible to get through to him on the cell phone while she’d been deep in the woods, but in the more open air at the top of the hill, she reached him easily. He was still in the hospital, he said, getting chewed out for not taking better care of himself. He sounded cheerful, though, and she remembered all the times he’d put on that happy voice to boost Sophie’s spirits. He was doing it for
her
now, but she was not as easily cheered as Sophie had been. And, as it turned out, he could not keep up the act for long.

“Janine,” he said, after he’d been quiet for a moment, “I think you should come home.”

“Do you need me?” she asked.

“Of course I need you, but that’s not it. It’s just…it’s time to let go, Jan.”

She felt a stab of betrayal. “But I haven’t found her yet,” she said.

“It’s been too long,” he said. “I’m getting worried about you.”

“I’m close,” she said. “I think the cabin must be nearby.”

She heard him sigh as he gave up the fight. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will,” she said. “You, too.”

She’d hung up the phone and continued her trek, walking in what she hoped was the direction of the log cabin.

Now she was turned around and aware of how the light in the forest was beginning to fade. She looked at her watch: five o’clock. She would have to head back to the road soon if she
hoped to get out of the woods before dark. Just a little farther, she told herself.

She had walked another ten yards or so when she heard something in the brush to her right and stopped to listen.

Quiet. Everything was still. Then the rustling sound came again. She’d heard any number of squirrels and birds and rabbits and other small animals scratching in the undergrowth during her afternoon in the woods, but this was different.

“Sophie?” she said, her voice softer than she’d intended. “Sophie?” she called again, louder this time.

The rustling subsided, then began again, and she walked slowly in its direction, stopping short as she spotted the source of the sound: a dog was digging wildly in the earth, leaves and twigs flying out from behind his front paws. Broad-headed and bony-shouldered, his yellow coat mangy and matted, the dog turned his head toward her and bared white teeth.

Janine froze. She looked away from the mongrel, afraid to antagonize him further, and she let her breath out when the dog suddenly turned and trotted off in the opposite direction. Her gaze was drawn to the bare earth where he had been digging. There was something there, something pale in color, something that didn’t belong in nature.

She nearly tiptoed toward the exposed earth, afraid of what she might find buried there.

It was the edge of a piece of cloth. Janine lowered herself to her knees and brushed the earth away from it, then let out a gasp as she recognized Sophie’s flowered underpants. She pulled them from the earth. They were soiled; Sophie had been sick. She dug farther, her hands quickly growing raw from the vines and brush and soil as she searched for more of Sophie’s clothes, more clues.

Finally, she sat back on her heels in frustration, looking down at her filthy hands.

Okay, why would Sophie’s underpants be here?
She tried to clear her head, to think straight.
Would Sophie have buried
them herself? Could someone have kidnapped her, after all, harmed her, killed her, and buried her clothes helter-skelter through the forest?

Whatever the answer to this puzzle, she needed to get the searchers out here again. She turned on her cell phone, but there was no signal this deep in the woods. She tried to remember the location of that peak from which she’d called Lucas, but she knew it was far behind her, and she was no longer sure of the direction.

She got to her feet and began moving around the forest, trying her phone in different areas. With every step, the forest seemed to grow duskier, and she knew she had to leave now or face a night alone in the woods. But she was so close to Sophie. She could feel it. As close as she’d been in eleven days. She would not leave her now.

Still trying her phone every few minutes, she continued to search, losing herself in the darkness and not caring, until it was too dark to move with any sureness or safety. Then she lowered herself to the ground, ready to share the night in the forest with her daughter.

I
t was the early edge of dawn when Zoe awakened. She couldn’t have said why, but she slipped her arms beneath her pillow as she rolled over on the sleeping pallette, and she felt something cool against her fingertips. The strange sensation made her jump. What
was
that?

Sitting up, she lifted the pillow. She was not sure what the object was at first; the light was so dim in the room. But then she looked more closely to see that it was a seed pod from the courage tree.

So, that’s where Sophie had been the afternoon before. Zoe’s heart ached with the realization that Sophie thought she could give her courage. The little girl did not know how difficult a task that was.

What was it Sophie had told her a few days earlier? That her mother would be able to figure out a way to save both her and Marti? At least, Zoe thought, Sophie’s mother would probably try.

Picking the bloom up in her hands, she looked over at the child. Sophie’s face was still badly swollen, and her raspy,
labored breathing was the only sound in the room. On the third pallette, Marti was sound asleep, her hand falling over the side of the bed to the floor, her fingers locked around the handle of her gun.

Zoe put the seed pod down on top of her pillow and quietly slipped on her shoes. Then she walked carefully over to Sophie’s bed, leaning over the little girl.

“Sophie,” she whispered.

Sophie started, and Zoe held a finger to her lips. “Get up quietly, honey,” she said. “We’re getting out of here.”

T
oday was the day.

Janine awakened, stiff from sleeping upright against a birch tree, with that thought in her mind. She stretched carefully, rolling her head around on her neck to work out the stiffness. The forest was misty, filled with the musky morning scent of earth and trees, and sunlight was just beginning to sift through the canopy.

Today she would find Sophie, one way or another. It would be over.

She got to her feet and took a long swallow from her water bottle. After relieving herself in the brush, she tried her cell phone again, but there was still no signal. She needed to talk to the sheriff. She needed to talk to Lucas.

Clicking on her GPS, she tried to pinpoint her location on the map. She was five miles from the road, deep in the heart of the forest. There was a creek nearby, she saw by the map. If she were building a cabin, she would want it to be near water, she thought, and she set out in that direction.

After only a few dozen yards, her feet began to ache and
burn, and she stopped walking to give them a rest. She could only imagine how much Sophie’s feet had hurt from walking through the woods, especially given the fact that she’d had only one shoe, and that thought started her moving again.

She was near the creek, according to the information on the GPS, when she heard a crackling, crashing sound from the woods to her left.

Let it be a deer and not a bear,
she thought, standing still.

It was neither. Janine saw flashes of color through the trees, but it was a moment before the flashes grew together to form a person. A woman? Yes, it was a woman, dressed in tan shorts, a red top. And she was carrying something on her back. A child. A red-haired child!

“Sophie!” Janine started toward them, moving as swiftly as was possible through the thick undergrowth.

The woman kept walking, her step quick but labored under her burden.

“Sophie!” Janine called again, and the woman turned to glance at her, although she never stopped walking. Janine could see Sophie’s head resting against the stranger’s back. One of her feet was bandaged, and it bounced against the woman’s thigh as she walked.

“What are you doing with her?” Janine yelled as she neared them.

The woman seemed to pick up her pace, and Janine scrambled after her.

“Wait!” she cried, and the woman finally came to a stop.

Janine caught up to them, and Sophie lifted her head from the woman’s back. She was very ill, her color a sickly yellow, her face puffy with fluid.

“Oh, baby,” Janine said.

“Mom.” Sophie reached one swollen arm toward her. There seemed to be no fear in her at being carried by the woman. Or else, she was far beyond caring.

Janine held her daughter’s puffy face between her hands. “Oh, Sophe,” she said. “Oh, Sophe.”

“She’s sick,” the woman said. “We have to get her out of here.”

Janine reached for Sophie. “Let me have her,” she demanded. “I’m her mother.”

“I’ve got a good hold on her for now,” the woman said. “We’ll take turns. It’s a long way out of here, and I’m not really sure which way to go.”

Janine had no idea who this woman was or how she came to have Sophie on her back, but she was not an enemy, of that she felt certain. Perhaps she was a searcher who’d remained behind, out here on her own.

“I have a GPS,” Janine said, “but I also have a cell phone. Let me call for—”

“We have to get out of here
now
.” The woman looked over her shoulder, and Janine knew that something more than Sophie’s illness was spurring her on.

“This way,” Janine said, pointing. Still holding tight to the soft-sided cooler, she dropped her backpack on the ground to free herself to run, as the woman took off ahead of her. She was not a young woman, yet she seemed hugely strong and agile, and it took Janine a few seconds to catch up to her again.

She had so many questions, yet it was not the time to ask them. They no longer seemed important, anyway. She just took her lead from the woman and raced along next to her, checking the GPS from time to time, her vision blurred from her tears. Sophie was alive!

Branches snapped against her face, and she feared that either she or the woman would twist an ankle on a tree root or fallen branch if they kept up this pace.

“Can we stop for a minute?” she asked after a while. “I want to try my phone to see if I can get a signal.”

The woman looked behind them again. “All right,” she
said, coming to a stop, breathing hard. “Let me put Sophie down for a minute.”

Janine helped her lower Sophie to the ground. She had never felt her daughter’s body in this condition, with her skin so taut and discolored over the puffiness.

“Can you sit up, honey?” she asked her.

Sophie barely seemed to hear her, but she offered Janine a smile all the same.

The woman sat down next to Sophie, still breathing hard. Her shirt clung to her back with sweat, and she watched while Janine tried the phone.

“Still no signal,” Janine said, staring at the display. “Look. Let me find some higher ground.” She thought again of the hilltop she’d reached the day before, but was still unsure how to get there. “You can stay here with Sophie, and I—”

“No.” The woman grabbed her arm. “I think we’re in some danger here.”

“From what?” Janine asked. “From who?”

“We just are. We need to keep moving. Can you carry Sophie for a while?”

“All right.”

The woman helped her lift Sophie into her arms, and for just a moment, Janine couldn’t take a step forward. Instead, she buried her head against the hot, damp skin of her daughter’s neck to breathe in the earthy scent of her hair and scalp.

“Come on.” The woman tugged at her arm, and they set off again.

They had gone another half mile when she knew she wouldn’t be able to carry Sophie one more step.

“We have to stop here,” she said, lowering Sophie to the ground again. She checked the GPS. “Please. Stay with her,” she said. “Let me find the highest point around here and see if I can call out from there.”

The woman did not even look at her. She dropped to the
ground next to Sophie, putting one arm around the little girl’s shoulders. “Okay,” she said. “Hurry back, though. Please.”

Checking the GPS, Janine walked ahead a bit and to the north, where she began climbing up a hill, slipping on rocks and grabbing the branches of trees to keep her balance. She tried the cell phone every few yards, finally catching a signal when she neared the crest of the hill. Pulling a scrap of paper from her shorts pocket, she dialed the number for the sheriff’s office.

She barely had the breath to speak into the phone. “This is Janine Donohue,” she said. “I’ve found my daughter. We’re in the woods, and we need to get her out of here right away. She needs immediate medical attention. She can’t walk, and she’ll need a helicopter.”

The sheriff was silent for a moment. Maybe he still thought she was crazy. “Do you know where you are?” he asked.

She gave him the coordinates for the area where she’d left Sophie and the woman.

“We’ll get right out there,” the sheriff assured her.

She hung up the phone without saying goodbye, already making her way back down the rise. She needed to be with her daughter.