Free RUNAWAY TWINS (Runaway Twins series #1) by Pete Palamountain

we won’t see them. They might walk down through the trees.”
    “Okay then,” the Prophet said nodding. “Scour the woods between here and the highway. Scour the road and the woods. Don’t let them make contact with outsiders. They’re on their way down the mountain, that much we know for sure.”
    The back door had opened a few minutes earlier, and a squat man with a round face, oriental features, a small pointed chin, and the wisp of a scraggly beard stood listening to the Prophet’s harangue. His name was Chukchi Zeja. He was a Siberian whom everyone called Chuky, a friendly, happy name that in no way reflected his morose, dark personality. He’d joined the Sheba Hill Temple because he believed everything the Prophet said, and also because no one else in Montana would have anything to do with him. It was rumored he’d spent time in several Siberian prison camps for a wide variety of crimes, including murder, and had escaped to Alaska, Canada, and then the United States. He was the Prophet’s bodyguard and his enforcer. He carried out J.J. Flack’s blackest orders and always without question. Everyone in the congregation gave him the widest latitude, and besides Flack himself, Chuky had no friends.
    “Not so,” he called out. “The twins don’t go down mountain. They go up.”
    Flack motioned for his bodyguard to come join the group. Chuky complied, moving slowly across the room, his eyes darting left and right, as if he might be attacked at any moment.
    Mobly spoke first. “Up? How could they go up? The only logical course is for them to go down the mountain—toward the highway.”
    “They go up,” Chuky said.
    Mobly and the rest of those assembled all looked doubtful, but the Prophet smiled patiently at the Siberian and said, “Please explain.”
    Chuky pointed to the back door. “They go down the back stairs and up the logging road, except they go through woods so leave no tracks. I find. I follow.”
    “How far?” asked Mobly. “Maybe they cut back somewhere in the trees and angled down toward the highway.”
    “No cut back. Tracks go up, up, a mile through woods and then on logging road. Then up, up. I don’t follow. I come back here.”
    Mobly said, “If they’re on the road then Karl and Brian will see them, pick them
    up—” He stopped abruptly, apparently realizing not everyone in the room was aware of what Karl and Brian were doing high on the logging road.
    The Prophet took over. “Yes, well, we’ll take a look at all of the possibilities. For now, we need to get our bearings.” He then dismissed most of the group and asked Mobly, another senior Elder, two guards, and Chuky to remain. When the main body had gone, he said, “The boy’s punishment doesn’t need to be advertised. He deserved everything he got, of course, but let’s keep it in this circle for now.”
    Mobly nodded and stood silent.
    “Now, Chuky,” said Flack, “Elder Mobly’s probably right, don’t you think? Karl and Brian should be heading down now. Won’t they find Rachel and Janie on the logging road?”
    Chuky shrugged. “Maybe so, but why did twins go up in the first place?”
    The large rock smashed through the window of the SUV and landed in the driver’s side front seat. Justin reached through the jagged hole and unlocked the door. “I wish one of us could drive,” he said. “We’d take this truck down the mountain, roar past the camp and on down to the highway to Missoula.”
    “We don’t know how to drive, and that’s that,” said Rachel.
    “At least we can see what’s in here,” said Justin. “There’s got to be some stuff we can use. It’s tough and cold out here, and the higher we go, the tougher and colder it’ll get.”
    “Couldn’t we go down?” Rachel asked, “if not on the road, then through the trees, away from the road.”
    “That’s the first thing they’ll protect against,” said Justin. “They’ll expect us to go down. They’ll fan out and make it