"But this - this is so far over the top, it's insane," Sherry protested. Seven people were dead. This was way beyond squashed egos. "If they're that mad, why didn't they just catch you out somewhere and stomp your ass?"
"I'm hard to stomp," he said mildly. "Maybe this is the mob way of saying, 'Mind your own business.' I just don't know."
"Mob? You think it's the mob?" Milly put in.
That question earned another shrug. "I'd have to say it's possible."
"The geography works against us," Creed said, pulling the conversation back on subject. He indicated the map he'd sketched. "The river makes it impossible to operate on this side. The current is too fast to ford the river anywhere around here, and those rocks would bash any boat to pieces in seconds. Upriver is a vertical canyon that you can't go around, so that direction is a no-go."
"The land peninsula Trail Stop is on is shaped like a paramecium," Cal continued. "The bridge was at the tail, and on this side of the tail is the river. We have no land there to work with, and the river is a natural barricade. Right here'" - he touched Creed's sketch - "are mountains only a goat can negotiate. So that funnels us down this side of the paramecium, toward this cut in the mountains, and they've sealed that off with shooters. They have thermal scopes, which work best at night, but during the daytime they don't need the scopes to see. I'll have to wait until night, and go into the water to dissipate my heat signature."
"How long would it take you to get through the cut?" Sherry asked.
"I don't have to go through the cut. All I have to do is get by one of the shooters, then I'm behind them and can follow the road."
Cate sucked in her breath with an audible gasp. She wasn't a tactician, but she knew how cold he'd been last night, how close to hypothermia. And the water hadn't gotten any warmer since then. Who knew how long heel have to stay in the stream, waiting for the right moment? Then he'd have to walk miles in those cold, wet clothes, and he'd be losing more body heat every moment. And if he was seen by any of them on the other side of the stream, they would be hunting him as if he were an animal, and he would be too cold to evade them. Why wasn't anyone saying no, this was too dangerous? Why were they so willing to let him risk his life?
Because, as he'd pointed out, there was no one else. Creed was hurt. Mario was dead. All the others were middle-aged and out of shape, or elderly and really out of shape.
Except for her.
"No," she said, because no one else would. "No. It's too dangerous, and don't try to tell me it isn't," she said violently when Cal opened his mouth to do just that. "Do you think they won't be waiting for someone to try that? You could barely walk last night, you were so cold from being in that water. And what happens to us if you get killed?"
"I imagine they'll go away, since I'm the one they want."
His calmness made her want to scream, to grab him and shake him for daring to be so casual with his life. She stood with her fists clenched while all those damned men stared at her as if she just didn't understand. She understood, all right, and she wasn't going to live through that again.
"You don't know that. We don't know for certain who they are or what they want. What if it has nothing to do with you? And even if it did, what makes you think they'd just pack up and leave? They've killed seven people, and we're all agreed that's a drastic action to take just because you got the better of them. It's something else, it has to be. We just don't know what."
He regarded her thoughtfully, then nodded. "You're right. It has to be something else."
"Can you guarantee you'll make it past them without being spotted?"
"No, I can't guarantee it."
"Then we can't risk losing you, Cal. We can't. We aren't helpless, but we ate cut off, and they have the upper hand." Desperately she searched for inspiration, some way out that didn't involve Cal risking his life against odds that were weighted against him. He was right, in that the most direct way was through the shooters. If they could somehow go up and over -
"We can't just sit and wait," Creed said. "We aren't prepared for a siege, and that's what this is - "
Cate felt as if her voice were coming from outside her. "There's another way," she heard herself say. Everyone shut up and looked at her, and she found herself moving forward. Deep inside her a panicked little voice was saying no, no, but somehow she couldn't stop her feet from moving as she pushed her way through the knot of people to jab her finger hard on the mountains Cal had judged goat-worthy. "I can get up those mountains. I've been up those mountains. I'm a climber, you know that, you saw my gear. It's safe when you tie off" - that wasn't quite the truth, but she was going with it - "and they won't be expecting us to try that route, so they won't be watching. No one will be shooting, no one will be sticking his neck out like a sacrificial lamb."
"Cate," Cal began. "You have two kids."
"I know," she said, tears gathering in her eyes. "I know." And she wanted to see them grow up. She wanted to take rare of them and hold her grandchildren and have all the million other things parents dreamed of. But she couldn't shake a sudden certainty that he wouldn't make it through if he went with his plan, which would leave them even more vulnerable. Everyone here could end up dead, and her kids would lose their mother anyway. As dangerous as it was, she didn't think going up the mountains was as dangerous as what Cal was proposing.
"She's right, Roy Edward interrupted.
They all turned toward the old man. He was sitting on one of the dining room chairs that they'd brought down the night before. His left arm and the left side of his face were colored a deep purple from a fall, but his mouth was a grim line. "What you're wanting to do is dangerous, boy, and I don't see why you'd think we'd be willing to sacrifice you to save ourselves."