Scattered Graves

it was a mistake even as she did it. On the one hand, someone might drive by and see her if she ran down the road. On the other hand, he would just run her down with his car.
Harve Delamore was a big guy, but he was all show muscle and not much real working muscle. That would be helpful if she were male. But show muscle or not, testosterone in the male gives muscles a spectacular ad vantage. Harve was stronger by far than she was. But she had stamina, and she could run. Which she did—as fast as she could. Diane could run long distances, and she had another advantage. She knew these woods.
There was one big problem in all that optimism. Harve had a gun. She thought he would be reluctant to shoot her, though; he wanted to hit her. She saw it in his eyes when he held her. He wanted to pound his meaty fist into her face. So maybe he wouldn’t use his gun.
She was in the air, jumping over a fallen tree, when the gunshot roared in her ears. In the same instant, pieces of bark flew off a tree to her right. He was trying to scare her. Or else he was a really bad shot. Right now, either one would do, as long as she could keep running.
It was hard to shoot a moving target in these woods— lots of trees to get in the way. But she had a serious problem. Males run fast for short distances, and she didn’t have enough of a head start. Diane ran faster. She heard the sound of him gaining on her: heavy foot falls, limbs breaking, grunts and curses. She pushed her self to the limit.
He was close behind her. His breathing was heavy. He was getting out of breath. Good. She tried a sharp turn to throw him off balance, slow him down. It didn’t work. He knocked her to the ground, then pulled her up by her arm, breathing hard. He had his gun in his hand. He laid the barrel against her temple.
‘‘I’ve got you now, bitch, and there’s no help. This is a dead end for you.’’
Diane kicked and hit at him as he dragged her through the woods. He turned abruptly and hit the side of her head with the barrel of his gun. Diane literally saw stars. Disoriented, she felt herself dragged deeper into the woods, away from the highway. She tried to keep her bearings. She heard rock crunching under foot and felt her pants snagging. She tried to right herself, but he jerked on her arm and she fell again. He was enjoying dragging her over the rough terrain.
She tried to calm her fear, clear her head, think of a plan. She didn’t fight. If he knocked her out, she was done for. If he jerked her arm out of the socket, she was done for. She thought she knew where she was, and that could be either good or bad. Harve came to an abrupt stop. Chances were, he knew where he was too, and apparently he thought it was good for his purposes.
They were at Chulagee Gorge. It was a gouged-out drop of more than five hundred feet formed by a river that had dried up eons ago. Mike, Diane’s geology curator and caving partner, used the cliff face to teach rock climbing to members of the caving club. He said that a half billion years ago, the quartzite rock here was a sandy beach on the coast of Laurentia in the Iapetus Ocean, which sounded to Diane like a place of fantasy or science fiction. She’d liked it.
Mike insisted that if you climb a rock face or ex plore a cave you should know what it’s made of and where it came from. Sometimes the caving club mem bers’ eyes glazed over as they listened to the petrogen esis of the rocks they were waiting to climb. But one thing Diane remembered from his lectures was that quartzite is very hard.
She had climbed parts of the cliff face many times— but always with safety ropes because of the great height. It wasn’t a particularly difficult climb. There were plenty of handholds and footholds in the quartzite and schist formations. But it was nearly impossible if you had never climbed before.
Harve Delamore didn’t strike Diane as a rock climber. Rock climbing, like caving and scuba diving, is a way of life. You have to do it a lot if you do it at all. It’s dangerous to let yourself get out of shape or out of practice. Diane was also betting that, like many bullies, Harve was a coward. She was betting her life on it.
There was the gun to contend with. He had been holding it in his free hand while he dragged her. She watched for an opportunity and tried to think of a way to take it. Getting in a wrestling match with him for it was a last recourse, but it might come to that. She would lose most likely, but with no