Elizabeth Goddard - Wilderness Peril

The truck pressed in on the Jeep; they were like two elks that had locked horns. The Jeep was moving, but not because Rick had put it in Drive. Instead, the tires ground against the dirt road as the truck pushed, and the Jeep slid sideways, gravity pulling it downward along the ridge. She squeezed Rick’s shoulders. His door jammed shut, he moved toward her, climbing over the console, his intention clear—to get out of the Jeep and away from the truck.

The big-wheeled truck shoved the Jeep again, wheels spinning, throwing gravel and dirt. Shay peered out her window. “Rick?”

His expression was grim as he looked past her to see the ledge the Jeep was being pushed toward. They were powerless to stop what was happening. She’d never seen fear pour from his eyes like this. Slow and malicious, death awaited them at the bottom of the fall. Terror struck her heart at the thought of tumbling down the rocky precipice.

The Jeep edged them closer to the fall. “What are we going to do?” she asked. Desperation twisted her voice. She struggled, gasping for breath.

Rick slipped her seat belt off.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“It’s our only chance.”

The right back tire breached the drop. “Hurry,” she whimpered.

Weakness coursed through every limb in her shaking body.

“Hold on,” Rick whispered in her ear. She heard a measure of reassurance in his voice but knew that was for her benefit only.

“Hold on to what? Rick, what are you thinking? Tell me so I’ll know what I need to do.”

She turned to stare at him, to look into his gray eyes that pierced her soul, his face millimeters from hers.

“Hold on to me.” His gaze shifted to the window behind her.

She heard him swallow, an echo of her own horror. Did he really want her to hold on to him as they plummeted to their death? “Isn’t there another way out?”

The right front tire slid over the edge and the Jeep shifted onto the forty-five-degree incline. They had fifty yards maybe before the incline took a complete two hundred-foot vertical drop.

Shay’s breathing turned rapid. Not now!

She couldn’t afford to hyperventilate now.

Behind Rick, she saw the truck’s grille as it backed away. It had pushed them far enough and would leave gravity and momentum to do the rest.

“Rick.” She gasped out his name. Hoping, praying for an answer.

“We’re getting out,” he said.

Shay could hardly believe him, but their options were limited.

Physics worked against them now, the tires slick against the gravelly incline even though the Jeep was parallel to the edge. They continued sliding, bouncing, and in fact picked up momentum.

“Now!”

Fast as lightning, Rick shoved her door open and wrapped his arms around her. She wasn’t sure how he did it, but they tumbled from the vehicle milliseconds before it met with air and dropped over the final edge, the crashing noises resounding against the valley below. Greenery and gray sky flashed in her vision as branches stabbed and ripped at her body. She rolled with Rick, and yet somehow he protected her. Kept from crushing her.

Finally, they stopped rolling and her body crashed against Rick’s. Air left her lungs. Blackness edged her vision. Strong arms squeezed her. She gasped for breath, listening to the Jeep as it continued to fall, smashing against the rocks.

Broken to smithereens.

A whimper broke from her throat. That could have been them if not for Rick. If not for his quick thinking. His ability to act on it and actually pull it off. And she still didn’t know how they’d survived. Where had they fallen if not the bottom of the gorge? Looking around, she realized they’d landed on sort of a terrace of foliage before the drop-off.

“Rick,” she said, and tried to move away, embarrassed at her pathetic moans.

“Shh,” he whispered, and his arms tightened around her.

All her life, Shay had tried to hold her own. Didn’t want to need anyone. But right now Shay couldn’t help herself—she needed Rick at this moment. Needed his arms around her. Shay kept quiet and still, trusting the man that had saved their lives just now. She stared at the thicket where they’d fallen and suddenly realized why Rick wanted her silent.

She and Rick—they needed to be dead. She couldn’t see through the greenery, which was good because that meant the men couldn’t see her, either. But she heard them up on the ledge just above them. Doors slammed as their attackers climbed from their killing truck. What kind of people would do something like that? Shove two innocent people over the side of a cliff to their death? And why? Shay squeezed her eyes shut, but that didn’t stop the awkward tears that streamed from the corners. She pressed her face into Rick’s hard chest, fearing she might sob.

She needed to hold her breath, hold back the tears until the men were gone. Their voices echoed, but she couldn’t make out the words.

Rick pressed his lips against the hair over her ear. “They need to think we’re dead, understand?”

She nodded. Though she could barely hear the whisper on his warm breath, when she pressed her head against his chest again, she both heard and felt his pounding heart. Rick was scared, too.

Then she heard an unwelcome noise.

Shay stopped breathing, willing her heart to stop pounding.

One of the men slowly made his way down the incline. Would they keep searching until they found their bodies?

* * *

Rick held Shay to him, protecting her, protecting them both—if she moved or even made a sound, it would all be over.

The crunch of boots filled his ears. Someone cursed when he lost his footing. The scrape against the rocky slope told him when he’d gained traction again. What would the man see when he looked? Would seeing the demolished Jeep at the bottom of a cliff convince their pursuers that Rick and Shay were dead?

He squeezed his eyes shut, sending up a silent prayer. Images of his quick thinking—their only choice, the jump from the Jeep mere seconds from the moment it plummeted—played through his mind. He’d turned just in time so his body would take the impact as they rolled from the sliding Jeep. They were fortunate there had been thick underbrush to cushion their fall and to hide them afterward. They were fortunate the men hadn’t climbed from their vehicle until it was all over. But was this the moment when their good fortune would run out?

Shay shifted against him, and he held her tight and still.

Quiet.

Admittedly, he was more than uncomfortable, his back partially against a flat boulder where he’d rolled. Branches within the thicket stabbed through his layered clothing to scrape his skin. Salty sweat beaded, despite the dropping temperature as evening approached, and trickled into the open wounds, making them burn.

Rick steadied his breathing. Hold fast. Just a little longer.

“Well?” Laced with edginess, a man’s deep voice boomed from somewhere above them. “See anything?”

A few seconds passed, and they heard another curse—this one under someone’s breath. And that someone was far too close.

Shay had done well to keep good and still for this long. But her slender form was beginning to tremble, if only a little.

He ran his hand over her soft hair and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Just a little longer.”

She stiffened and held her breath.

“Answer me.” Again the voice boomed from somewhere above them.

Rick couldn’t see a thing from where they lay, but that would keep them hidden, as well. An eagle screeched in the distant sky and a chilly gust rustled through the trees. Unbidden images of another time and place flashed through his mind and his heart rate soared.

A bomb exploded. The explosive gunfire from automatic weapons seared his thoughts.