The Road Home (35 page)

Another stab of pain shot through her leg. She reached down and carefully pulled her right leg out straight. Her injured left leg was wedged against something, and she tried to pull it loose, but it wouldn't budge. She gasped with the pain.

She had to get out of this place. No one would ever find her. It was up to her now. She reached out her hands and felt the walls that were close to her on both sides. She was in some sort of a narrow passage that slanted upward toward the place where a dim light was now coming in as the sun outside rose. She had slid down on the rocks when she was trying to find the matches to light the candle. She tried to sit up, but the pain in her side and leg was too much to bear, and she fell back.

She lay there helpless, and it occurred to her that all of the times that she had saved herself had only led up to this moment, and now she didn't know what to do or how to get out of her predicament. She thought of what her mama had said—that she was stronger than Jenna but that Jenna had a special relationship with the Lord. And then, almost like an audible voice, the words came to her.
My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness
.

Like a light in the darkness it came to her. God had been waiting all these years for Jenny to place her complete trust in Him. He was the Master Quilter who had stitched her life together with her mama's and papa's lives so seamlessly and so perfectly that she had never even seen how He had done it. He had given her mama the quilt, and the story of their lives was written there. She thought about the quilt, torn and stained but still beautiful.

She could see it. God wanted her to let Him be Lord in her life, to put down her plans and her desires. Suddenly she realized that it wasn't finding her real mother that would give her peace, it was finding Him and placing her life in His hands, letting Him wrap her in His love and care.

Just like my mama wrapped me in the quilt
.

And again, like an audible voice, the words of a psalm her mother taught her came to her.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty…He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust
.

And then Jenny remembered the wings, the feathers. She had been freezing in the car, and someone or something had come and covered her with something wonderfully warm that felt like…like…like feathers! And then Jenny knew that He had always been with her and that He had been waiting for her to see how much He loved her and cared for her and how much He wanted her to trust Him completely. And in that moment she put down her burden and spoke to her God.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

Reunion

“O
KAY
,
WE
'
VE GOT TWO ARMED AND DANGEROUS MEN
out in the woods looking for the girl,” Sheriff Gary said to his men. “Johnson, I want you and Henderson to make sure these three we apprehended are turned over to the state troopers and taken back to Wilkes-Barre. There's an ambulance on its way up the hill. The wounded man will go back in that along with one of the men that came with the PSP.”

The sheriff turned to Jonathan. “Well, son, so far your directions have been spot on. So you spent a lot of time up here when you were a kid?”

“Actually, sheriff, that wasn't so long ago,” Jonathan said. “I'm only nineteen, and I was up here just two summers ago. I've been coming up here every summer since I was six. I caught my first fish in Bear Lake.”

“Good,” Gary said. “So what's the lay of the neighborhood?”

“The creek in the ravine behind the cabins comes down from the ridge above the lake and splits—part goes down the north leg of the ravine and feeds the lake, and the other branch goes south down the ravine toward Tannery road, dips under a bridge, and then runs
down on the south side of Tannery until it levels out and flows into Spruce Swamp. The woods up here on top are full of brush, but there aren't a lot of places to hide.

“If you get across Tannery and follow the ravine down to the bottom of the hill, you come to a really swampy area, and anybody who walked in there would get stuck bad, believe me. I would park my bike on Tannery and use the ravine to get up the hill and down to the lake because you can't see into it from the cabins up on top. The folks who lived here before weren't very friendly, so I had to be cool and stay out of sight.”

“So where might Luis and his partner be?” Bobby asked.

“The ravine cuts the woods in half, so if they were still up on top they most likely would have run into the troopers coming up the hill,” Johnny said. “Jenny would have seen the police too if she was up here, and she would have shown herself. So my guess is that somehow she got down into the ravine, and the crooks followed her down there after we came up.”

“You should probably have them sweep the woods on top of the hill, starting at the ravine and working east until you come to the road,” Bobby said to Gary. “Tell them to send a couple of men up the ravine from the road. The rest of us can get down into the ravine and search it down to the road and over to the lake.”

“Sounds good,” Gary said. He pointed at Reuben and Jonathan. “What about these two? Do they have guns? It might get a little sticky down there.”

“I've deputized them, so they can carry guns,” Bobby said. He reached over, grabbed a shotgun that was leaning against the wall, and tossed it to Reuben. Reuben instinctively caught it and then stared at it. He turned and handed it to Jonathan.

“You sure?” Bobby asked.

Reuben nodded. “It's got to stop somewhere, Bobby,” Reuben said, and then he smiled. “I'll stick with Jonathan. We'll be okay.”

Sheriff Gary looked dubious, but Bobby said, “Okay, pal, but keep your head down. I'm getting too old to be bailing you out of trouble.”

Jorge looked around. Jenny's tracks disappeared under the trees where the ravine narrowed, so Jorge went down the trail until the ravine opened back up, and there was snow on the ground. There were no tracks coming out from under the trees. Jorge thought about it for a minute and then realized that Jenny must have backtracked and hidden along the trail. He turned and headed back down the trail.

Luis had followed the trail by the creek for about a half a mile. He saw the tracks of the men coming up the trail, but they all wore large boots. He couldn't find any tennis shoe tracks among them, so he turned back. It had been longer than twenty minutes, and he knew that the police would be looking for them. He started running back up the trail, looking for Jorge.

Bobby, Reuben, Jonathan, and the rest of the men stood at the top of the stairs leading down into the ravine. Sheriff Gary sent two of his men with the PSP boys and the local police to search the woods around the cabins. Then the rest of them, seven in all, headed down the steps to the creek. When they got to the bottom they divided up. Three men went down toward the lake. Bobby, Reuben, Jonathan, and Gary headed the other way. The sun was just coming up.

When Luis came to the bottom of the stairs he stopped and listened. He thought he heard voices talking quietly, and then he distinctly
heard someone coming down the steps, so he quickly ran back down the trail looking for Jorge. In a few minutes he saw Jorge coming up the trail. He ran up to him and grabbed him by the arm.

“We've to get out of here,” Luis panted, out of breath. “They're coming this way. We have to get down the ravine into the woods on the other side of the road.”

“What about Jenny?” Jorge asked. “She's around here somewhere. A little way down the path her tracks went under the trees, but they didn't come out on the other side, so somewhere right along here she got off the trail and hid. There can't be too many places.”

“We don't have time to find her,” Luis hissed. “We have to go! Now!”

Jorge shrugged, and the two men headed down the trail. They had only gone a few hundred feet when Jorge spotted movement in the woods ahead. He grabbed Luis and pointed. They both ducked behind some brush. Ahead of them about a hundred yards away were two men with rifles. They were coming slowly up the trail, looking into the woods on either side.

“We have to find a way up the bank,” Luis whispered.

“I'm telling you, Jenny found a place to hide back along the trail,” Jorge said. “If we can find her, she's our ticket out of here. Come on, I have a pretty good idea where she got off the trail. She's not far from here—I know it.”

Luis and Jorge headed back down the trail. They came out from under the trees where Jenny's tracks had disappeared.