eager for blood. Anna's stomach knotted
and her throat tightened. Ahead ran a nearly invisible path that
eventually cut across the middle of the cliff. Although she had
never taken it she had seen where it emerged from the tree line.
The cliffs were one place where she might face an attack dog and
win.
Quickly she jumped off the main trail
and scrambled down the hill toward the water. It was much steeper
than she imagined but the dense brush made her feel safer. The
forest, shades of green above her and choked with huckleberry,
salal, and salmon berry, grew like a wall. Adrenaline made her
gut hollow and her body light. Suddenly it occurred to her that
it would be easy for someone to force an accident on these cliffs.
Uncertain, she stopped. Maybe she should
fool with the satellite phone. But what could anyone do? First
she would get distance between herself and any pursuer. Her heart
was pounding
and her breaths deep and hard. She tried
to listen but heard only herself and the wind. She supposed that
a person on the cliff trail would make an easy target.
Again she ran. She could not go back
and going upslope would be impossible without slowing greatly
and releasing a cascade of stones and creating the crackles and
snaps of walking in a dry forest. After what seemed a few desperate
strides around a corner the trees gave way to the vertical drop.
It was a couple hundred yards to more forest. She paused and wiped
the sweat from her eyes.
Then Anna saw the sailboat throwing
spray in the whitecaps, its sails looming and its sleek body,
and the man at the helm. She glanced down at the whirling of the
bending water green like moss on marble headstones, strong enough
to move a train, sufficient to drown an army. The boat shined
at her like mock salvation, a world away below her.
