Ida Belle raised one eyebrow. “That is not an issue for me.”
She directed the boat into the channel, and when we got near the swirling water, I stuck my pole down into it and hit the muddy bottom about a foot under the boat. “It’s embankment. Probably three feet wide.”
“Bet it gets dry as a bone in the sunlight,” Gertie said. “They’d be able to walk right across if they wanted to hunt or fish on the other side of the channel.”
We continued down the bayou, the boat touching the embankment in some areas. A couple times, I wasn’t certain we’d even fit through, but the foliage gave way, giving us the inches necessary to make the fit. I hoped the embankment beneath the tide line was as wide as the current one. If not, we were going to have a rough go getting back out.
The deeper we went into the swamp, the darker it became. The giant cypress trees on both sides leaned toward the tiny channel, their branches intertwined overhead. The thick moss blocked most of the sunlight, only allowing a dull glow and the occasional spotlight to seep through.
My senses were all on high alert. We were in a completely vulnerable position—entering enemy territory. The Brethren had every advantage, and we had exactly zero. All it would take was a couple good shots and we’d disappear. But one thing had become glaringly clear—if this was where the girl had come from, there was no way she’d gotten out alone.
As we approached a huge bend in the bayou, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Someone or something was watching us. Millions of insects and birds were, of course, but I didn’t have a defensive response to those things. The only time my alert system went off was when I was being tracked by a predator.
I eased my pistol out and motioned to the others to do the same. The tension in the boat was as thick as the swamp brush. As Ida Belle slowly guided the boat around the corner, I held my breath and lifted my weapon, ready to fire if needed.
Then I stared in surprise when I saw that the bayou ended in a small cove.
I studied the entire area but couldn’t lock in on where the eyes were coming from. But they were there. Of that, I was absolutely certain.
Ida Belle had the boat turning in a tight circle, keeping the engine on low, but not killing it. I scanned the bank, considering my options, then rose and leaned over to talk to her.
“Get me close to that log on the right side. It creates the perfect dock and that’s a little too much of a coincidence for me, especially as there aren’t other trees for at least thirty feet behind it. I’ll take Blanchet. You and Gertie cover me.”
She nodded and gave the boat a nudge, sending it right up next to the log. I motioned to Blanchet and jumped out of the boat and onto the log. It was wide and sturdy, and I easily walked across it to the bank. Blanchet jumped off the log next to me and we headed for the tree line. I paused just inside and studied the brush and the ground. Ida Belle was a better tracker than me, especially in the swamp, but she was also the most skilled at driving the boat. And if I needed a sniper shot for cover, she was the woman I wanted on the other end of the rifle.
“Here,” Blanchet said, his voice low.
He fingered a tiny broken branch close to the ground. The break had been recent. Something big had passed by and that branch, which had been brittle because it was dying, had snapped. The rest of the bush had simply sprung back into place.
I nodded. “Impressive.”
“I spent a decade into big game hunting. You have to be careful not to become dinner.”
My hope ticked up a notch. Surely two first-rate trackers could find what we were looking for. We pushed past the bush and paused again to study the area. I found a leaf depressed into a patch of moss and we shifted right and paused again. We kept up this slow and deliberate process for another ten minutes and had only managed to cover twenty yards of swampland.
It was no wonder the group had never been found. If we continued at this rate, we might track down their location by sometime next year. I no longer felt the eyes on me, which was almost as troublesome as knowing I was being watched, so I prayed it had been an alligator or maybe a bear, assuming they were this deep in the swamp. But that niggling voice in the back of my mind didn’t believe that.
Blanchet pointed to a split in tall weeds, where it was clear someone had passed recently. I was momentarily confused by the obvious sign of passage as it appeared whoever was living here had gone to great lengths to disguise their trail before now. But then, maybe they’d assumed no one would make it this far.
Blanchet stepped between the bushes, and I heard a tiny pop, like the snap of a string. I immediately grabbed his shoulder and pulled him backward as hard as I could. The blast sent us flying a good ten feet.
We crashed into a bush, and I felt the short, hard branches digging into my skin through my long-sleeved tee. But we’d have to assess the damage later. I jumped up, grabbed a stunned and confused Blanchet, and pulled him up.
“Run!” I said and took off back to the boat.
I heard Blanchet’s footsteps behind me, so at least he wasn’t so addled he couldn’t follow directions. When I burst out of the trees and onto the bank, I saw Ida Belle and Gertie crouched in the boat, guns trained at me. I didn’t even pause before running down the tree trunk and jumping into the boat. Ida Belle had scrambled into the driver’s seat and was ready to fire the engine just as soon as Blanchet got in.
He had just emerged from the trees when I landed in the boat, and was now running across the trunk, looking a little unbalanced. I prayed he’d make it to the boat before he fell. He had two more steps to go when he appeared to lose his balance and pitched forward, tumbling off the trunk and into the bayou. I heard rustling in the marsh grass on the other bank.
“Gator!” Gertie yelled and fired off a round.
Blanchet’s head popped up at the side of the boat, and Gertie and I leaned over to haul him in. We’d barely gotten him over the side before the gator surfaced at the side of the boat, obviously disappointed that his snack had gotten away. Gertie and I dropped on the bottom of the boat as Ida Belle fired up the engine and gunned it.
Blanchet struggled a bit to get turned over and in a sitting position, but I couldn’t tell if that was because he’d been injured from the blast or his fall or if it was simply because of the harsh, speedy turns Ida Belle was making to get us out of the danger zone. I waited for a decent straight stretch, then launched up into the passenger seat next to her. As we approached the end of the channel, I wondered just how much of the embankment had been exposed.
She made the last turn before the mouth of the bayou, and I could see the rutted edges of the bayou mud forming a line from one side of the bank to the other. I glanced over at Ida Belle, who nodded. She’d seen it too.
“Hold on!” she yelled.
I was relieved to see that she was wearing her seat belt, and I snapped mine on just in time for her to crank up the speed on the boat to the limit. Blanchet glanced back at us, his eyes wide, and I motioned for him to stay low.
A couple seconds later, we flew up the exposed earth and the boat launched out of the bayou and into the air. Gertie let out a loud whoop as we went, then seemed to levitate out of the boat and went flying over the side as we landed. Ida Belle spun the boat around so quickly we almost lost Blanchet, but he wisely flattened himself on the bottom of the boat and only got thrown into the side.