Free Run: An Emma Caldridge Novella: The Final Episode by Jamie Freveletti

 
    RUN
    E MMA SAW THE posse coming after her when they were still three miles away. The convoy of pickup trucks and SUVs wound around the mountain on the road, which was their first mistake because she was belly down on the hiking trail and the two paths wouldn’t cross. She used the night vision goggles given to her by Edward Banner to watch their progress.
    Samantha Yoder lay flat on her stomach next to Emma. She had been living on the mountain, flitting from place to place as she avoided a forced marriage to Emmet Shaw, the reclusive and enigmatic leader of the cult to which most of the posse belonged. She’d broken into Emma’s cabin to find food when Emma had come upon her.
    It didn’t take Emma long to figure out that Yoder’s knowledge of the mountain trails would help her search for her friend Sebastian Ryan. Told that it was the cult that might have kidnapped him, Samantha was more than happy to assist.
    “By now they have to know that it was you who saved Carrie,” she said.
    Emma had seen the girl being dragged into a forced marriage and intervened. The posse looking for Emma was the result. Emma had left both Carrie and Cowboy Leon, a rancher willing to defy the cult, in her cabin and ordered them both to bar the door.
    “I’ll be setting up to watch all night with this,” Leon had said, holding up his rifle, “so be sure to announce yourselves when you return so I don’t blow you away.”
    Now, Emma lowered the goggles.
    “I see at least ten in that posse,” she said. “Do you know how many might be left at the compound?”
    Samantha thought a moment. “Maybe thirty?”
    “Is that only the men? Or does it include wives and children?”
    “That’s everyone, mostly women and children, maybe five men or so.”
    “Huh,” Emma said. “That’s not so bad, then.”
    Sam stared at her. “Not so bad? Five men with shotguns, dynamite, and religious fire in their hearts?”
    Emma nodded. “I assume they’re stone cold crazy acolytes of the Supreme Son?”
    “Oh yeah,” Samantha said. “They’ll turn their backs on their own when Shaw tells them to. Especially the parents of the younger kids. That’s how he manages the forced marriages for the girls and the expulsion of the teenage boys. They’ll do anything for him.”
    “What about dogs? I’ve never seen any roaming the compound, which is odd because I’d expect him to at least have a couple of guard dogs.”
    Sam looked away, and when she looked back, Emma saw tears in her eyes. “No one in Sunrise City has a dog. At least not openly. We hid them. Shaw ordered them all collected and destroyed. Honestly, it was the one time that I came close to committing murder. If I could have reached him, I’d have done it. We moved all of them out of Sunrise to a safe location.”
    Emma had dealt with a lot of strange things in her life, but ordering a mass collection of dogs to kill them was a new level of incomprehensible.
    “Why in the world would he do that? Were they diseased?”
    Sam shook her head. “There was nothing wrong with them. It was just another way to wield power. Don’t go down there. You can’t think you’ll really be able to infiltrate that house and get your friend Ryan out. Let the police handle it.”
    “The police have decided that Ryan’s a suicide,” Emma said. “No one’s looking for him. I know they’re the ones who have him, because I was with him when they chased him before. He knew too, and he left cash and a note asking me to find him. I’m not about to let him down. If I do, he’s as good as dead.”
    Anger bubbled through her as she packed the goggles into a soft carrying case and rose. She looked at Sam. “Here’s a hint about stone cold crazy: it works both ways. I’m going to hit them in a blaze of my own fury, and believe me, I’m furious.”
    After shoving the carrying case with the goggles into her horse’s saddlebag as Lily pranced in place, she swung into the saddle and took up the reins.