Roan

I stand back against the wall of the Command Center at the Haven. All of Lucy’s brothers are clustered behind Dante. The genius is sitting in his chair, working his magic. Behind him, on a round kitchen table, is spread a huge topographical map of the area.

JT has a supply of these maps rolled up in the storeroom, left behind when he bought the place. Nani, Luca’s very pregnant wife, bends over the map with difficulty, one hand on her lower back. She traces a line with a long brown finger along the road leading away from the gate of the Haven. “The motorcycle messenger followed the same trajectory as the men who took Lucy. Dante, can you pinpoint where they went?”

“I’ve been working on that.” Dante has a flat, uninflected voice, especially in stress situations, though I’ve heard him both laugh and cry since he arrived at the Haven and married his wife, Melody. “I have a location for us. It’s about two hours by road, in the foothills.” Dante uses a pullback feature on the time-stamped satellite recording to show us a view of the vehicle’s path. He points at the satellite photo. “See the line of the road? It branches in several places. I put a red marker on both the motorbike and the car.”

A blurry, pixelated mass of shapes rendered in shades of gray, the map is difficult to interpret as landscape. “Transpose this satellite image over the topographical map,” Nani says.

Nani is a former FBI agent and a bioterror expert with two doctoral degrees. She has commanded men in battle, and she is obeyed without question by the brothers. Luca picks up the topography map and pins it to the wall as Dante works his keyboard. The satellite image blooms onto the wall through a projection camera.

Dante zooms in, and the disorganized photo resolves into a map with contours and definition, making sense to my eye at last. I zero in on the large red dot where the SUV came to a final stop.

I don’t have Dante’s skills at the computer, but I have spent most of my life exploring this area on foot and horseback.

I know where Dwight Kane’s stronghold is, and I know the way there.

The brothers are studying the map and discussing various strategies as I fade out the door.

I know where Lucy is. I’m going to get her back. And I don’t need any of them to help me.

* * *

Shadow and I hurry along the dimly lit hall. I pass the open doorway of Ana Luciano’s room and hear the distraught sobs of Lucy’s mother, and the low comforting voice of Jolene.

This trauma affects the whole family.

I’m an outsider, even though the Lucianos, especially JT and Ana, have tried to break that down and invite me in.

I exit the Haven, entering the cool forest, and break into a run for my cabin.

The brothers will be enraged when they discover I’ve left—but why risk more lives, when it’s my fault Lucy was taken? She’s mine. And I’ll bring her home.

I could pity anyone getting in my way, but I don’t care enough about those skinhead assholes to feel anything like regret as Shadow and I run through the forest.

Back at the cabin, I don’t bother opening it up, just sit on the steps and pull supplies from my pack—if only I’d left earlier, Lucy might still be with her family.

I apply camouflage paint to my face and descend into a cold, detached place where killing is simply another thing to be done.

I change into my buckskin hunting clothes with their forest patterns. My weapons are already packed and I whistle for Adelle, who comes trotting out of the forest, ears pricked.

I don’t usually ride her with a saddle, but this occasion calls for the stability of an anchor for my rifle and other supplies. Shadow senses something more than just a normal hunting trip, and he whines, pacing, as I mount up.

Adelle is fresh, and Shadow ghosts along beside us as I take a compass heading and set out, making a beeline for Lucy.

Steep valley walls, rushing streams, thick stands of trees, and every other obstacle posed by virgin wilderness lie between Lucy and I—but nothing can keep me away from her.

As soon as I saw the map I knew where Kane was hiding. I’m familiar with the mine and the area around it because it’s located on reservation land. Our tribe contracted with the Blue Mountain Mining Company through the 1970s, and the company stripped a whole hillside, blasting it to bits, before our leadership put a stop to that. They switched to a less invasive underground process, but ultimately the mine tore the heart out of the mountain and left the area riddled with sinkholes, polluted water, and a maze of dangerous tunnels.

A fence was erected around it when the copper was played out, and we tried to forget what was done to the land.

The site is an ideal fortification.

It’s full night by the time I reach the area. I hobble Adelle a half-mile away in a thick stand of trees, and Shadow and I approach the abandoned copper mine on foot, moving quietly through the darkness.

From a vantage point above the mine’s entrance, on my belly between a couple of rocks, I pull out a pair of miniature, high-powered binoculars and scan the area.

The fortified entrance of the mine is strung with lights, and men come and go like ants from the mouth of a hill. An earthen wall about ten feet high and six feet wide, topped with coiled razor wire, has been built up around it. The bulldozer used to build the berm is parked beside the wooden-beamed entrance to the tunnels, along with several vehicles, including the SUV that took Lucy, which I recognize from the video.

Lucy is somewhere in those depths. It’s almost like I can sense her in there: cold and afraid…but also filled with iron determination to escape.

I take heart that she will be expecting rescue. Lucy has faith in me.

The entrance to the protected area is a heavy gate made of tall, sharpened logs. It will not be easy to breach.

There must be surveillance.

I scan until I identify two manned sniper nests in the trees surrounding the mine area, camouflaged by military-grade netting.

A plan begins to form: I will create a distraction to lure the men out of the mine, then sneak inside and get her out the back way.

The mine has an exit about a mile away on the other side of the mountain that I discovered a few years back while hunting bear. A sow had taken up residence in the shaft leading down into the mine proper. Needless to say, I left the bear and her cubs alone in the tunnels, with the possibility of ceiling collapse and stygian blackness.

Before I execute the distraction, I need to move Adelle to that back exit and then return to begin my assault. It’s not much of a plan, but this way I’m the only one in danger. I don’t want to put any more lives at risk. Besides, it’s unlikely that the brothers could have come up with anything better given the strategic challenges of Kane’s encampment.

Scanning the entrance one more time, my binoculars come to rest on something that tightens my chest with rage: a fluttering, silky tassel of black hair, hanging like a trophy from the wooden beam over the entrance of the mine. Lucy’s hair, cut off and displayed to taunt us.

These skinheads are going down.