KnockOut

where they’d gone. But they would find them, Ethan knew it.
    “Let’s go.”
    Joanna said, “You know where we are; that’s good. Where to?”
    “We’re going to head on foot into the Titus Hitch Wilderness. We can’t go back where we came from, and going forward is better than staying here. I know these woods well, know a good spot to stop.”
    “Ethan, what are we going to do in the wilderness?” Autumn asked him.
    He looked at the mother, then at the daughter, and said, “We’re going hiking.”
    He pulled his bolt-action Remington 700 out of his gun box. It was a gift from his father when he was twelve years old—to make a hunter out of him, his father had said. Ethan had learned to shoot the bolt action, loved the rifle as a matter of fact, but he hadn’t stayed with hunting. He preferred to paint animals and take their picture rather than shoot them.
    He grabbed two boxes of boattail bullets. He had only forty rounds. He had to be careful. He said, more to himself than to Joanna, “The clip is already loaded—ten rounds, so that gives us fifty rounds.” He looked up at her. “This baby is slow, but it’s really accurate at distance. Here’s two magazines, Joanna, fifteen rounds each, for the Beretta.”
    He thought about setting up a blind, shooting Blessed from a good hundred yards away, far enough away to be safe. But what about Grace? Was he good at disguises, or was he something else entirely? Ethan was very afraid he knew the answer to that.
    He walked to the back of his truck, opened a metal storage trunk, and hoisted on a heavy backpack. He passed a smaller one to Joanna, “Okay, guys, let’s get out of here.”
    Ethan led them along the edge of the Sweet Onion River, through lush water reeds, to a narrow slice of water only ten feet wide, with black stepping stones that he himself had laid fifteen years before, for a dry crossing. “Okay, Joanna, you go first, then Autumn. I’ll come across last.”
    “Why don’t we pick up the black rocks so they won’t know where we’ve crossed?”
    He said simply, “I want them to know.”
    Joanna looked at his rifle, then back up at his face.
    When they reached the other side of the river, Ethan pulled out his cell and dialed Savich. “We won’t have service for much longer.”
    Two rings, then, “Savich.”
    “Ethan here. Grace sprang Blessed. If you want the full story, call Ox. Joanna, Autumn, and I are heading into Titus Hitch Wilderness, a place I know better than you know Washington.”
    “We just left the Backmans’ place. No bodies to be found, so they moved them. Do you want us back there?”
    “You can’t get to us out here any more easily than they can,” Ethan said. “It has to end, Savich. I hope to end it here.”
    “He can’t stymie me, Ethan.”
    “There’s no time.”
    “Can you get a distance shot?”
    Ethan grinned into his cell. “Exactly what I’m hoping for. We’re going to keep moving and then camp for the night. If we don’t run across them, I’m planning to lead Joanna and Autumn out across the north boundary in the morning.”
    “Have you called your deputies in after you?”
    “No. I thought about that, but I want the only one trailing us to be Blessed. I don’t want to take the chance he’d stymie my deputies. Call Ox and let him know, will you? We’ve got to move.”
    There was a pause, then, “Good luck, Ethan.”
    Ethan pocketed his cell phone, then turned to Joanna and Autumn. “Either of you need to rest, you just holler, okay? We’re going to be going through some pretty rough terrain. I’m the only one without good footwear.” He kicked a stone with the toe of his low-heeled boots. “Your sneakers will be fine. Stay close. We’ve got a ways to go before we get to Locksley Manor.”
    One of Joanna’s eyebrows went up. “Robin Hood’s house?”
    “You’ll see,” Ethan said, and took the lead.
    He pictured Mr. Spalding hanging in that tree, the bear ripping him down. He had no intention of ending up like him. He prayed they wouldn’t run into hikers. He prayed harder that any hikers didn’t get close to Blessed and Grace.
    They walked a few hundred yards on narrow trails until Ethan hooked off-trail to the right, and they walked, always upward, through thick brush dotted with brilliant daisies and jasmine.

45
    BRICKER’S BOWL, GEORGIA
    Late Wednesday afternoon
    “We need to go back to Titusville, Dillon. We can’t leave Ethan on his own, even if he asked us