Smoky Mountains Ranger. Lena Diaz
Adam ducked behind a massive, uprooted tree, the tangle of dead roots and blackened branches his only cover on this wildfire-blighted section of the Great Smoky Mountains. Had the man holding the pistol seen him? He ticked off the seconds as he slid his left hand to the Glock 22 holstered at his waist. When half a minute passed without sounds of pursuit, he inched over to peer up the trail and moved his hand to the radio strapped to his belt. After switching to the emergency channel, he pressed the button on his shoulder mic.
“This is Ranger McKenzie on the Sugarland Mountain Trail.” He kept his voice low, just above a whisper. “There’s a yahoo with a gun up here, about a quarter mile northwest of the intersection with the Appalachian Trail. Requesting backup. Over.”
Nothing but silence met his request. He tilted the radio to see the small screen. After verifying the frequency and noting the battery was fully charged, he pressed the mic again.
“Ranger McKenzie requesting backup. Over.” Again he waited. Again, the radio was silent. Cell phone coverage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was hit-or-miss. It didn’t matter if someone was coming up from the Tennessee side, like Adam, or hiking in from the North Carolina border. Cell phones up here were unreliable. Period. Which was why he and the rest of the staff carried powerful two-way radios that worked everywhere in the park.
With one exception.
The Sugarland Mountain Trail, where the devastating Chimney Tops wildfire had destroyed a communication tower.
Budget cuts meant the rebuilding was slow and had to be prioritized. Rehabilitating habitats, the visitors’ center and the more popular, heavily used trails near the park’s entrance were high on that list. Putting up a new tower was close to the bottom. So, naturally, the first and only time that Adam had ever encountered someone with a gun in the park, it happened in the middle of the only dead zone.
There would be no backup.
If the guy was just a good old boy out for target practice, the situation wouldn’t even warrant a call back to base. Adam could handle it on his own and be on his way. But the stakes were higher today—much higher—because of two things.
One, the faded blue ink tattoos on the gunman’s bulging biceps that marked him as an ex-con, which likely meant he couldn’t legally possess a firearm and wouldn’t welcome a federal officer catching him with one.
Two, the alarmingly pale, obviously terrified young woman on the business end of Tattoo Guy’s pistol.
Even from twenty yards away, peering through branches, Adam could tell the gunman had a tenuous grasp on an explosive temper. He gestured wildly with his free hand, his face bright red as he said something in response to whatever the petite redhead had just said.
Her hands were empty and down at her sides. Unless she’d shoved a pistol in the back waistband of her denim shorts, she didn’t appear to have a weapon to defend herself. The formfitting white blouse she wore didn’t have any pockets. Even if she’d hidden a small gun, like a derringer, in her bra, there was no way she could get it out faster than the gunman could pull the trigger.
Did they know each other? Was this a case of domestic violence? Since the two were arguing, it seemed likely that they did know each other. So what had brought them to the brink of violence? And what had brought them to this particular trail?
Neither of them was wearing a backpack. Unless they had supplies at a base camp somewhere, that ruled them out as NOBOs on the AT who’d gone seriously off course and gotten lost. Not that he’d expect any northbound through-hikers on the Appalachian Trail in the middle of summer anyway. Most NOBOs started out on the two-thousand-plus-mile hike around March or April so they could reach Mount Katahdin in Maine before blizzards made the AT impassable. But even if they were day hikers, they had no business being on the Sugarland Trail. It was closed, for good reason. The wildfire damage made this area exceedingly dangerous. Now it was dangerous for an entirely different reason.
An idiot with a pistol.
So much for the peaceful workday he’d expected when he’d started his trail inspection earlier this morning.
He switched the worthless radio off, not wanting to risk a sudden burst of static alerting the gunman to his presence. The element of surprise was on his side and he aimed to keep it that way as long as possible, or at least until he came up with a plan.
He belatedly wished he’d dusted off his Kevlar and put it on this morning. But even though he was the law enforcement variety of ranger, as opposed to an informational officer, the kind of dangers he ran into up here didn’t typically warrant wearing a bullet-resistant vest. The heat and extra weight tended to outweigh the risks of not having a vest on since the possibility of getting into a gunfight while patrolling half a million acres of mostly uninhabited mountains and forests was close to zero.
Until today.
Still, it wasn’t the bullets that concerned him the most. It was the steep drop-off behind the woman. One wrong step and she’d go flying off the mountain. The edge was loose and crumbling in many places, particularly in this section of the trail. The couple—if that’s what they were—couldn’t have picked a worse spot for their argument.
Sharp boulders and the charred remains of dozens of trees littered the ravine fifty feet below. Branches stuck up like sharp spikes ready to impale anything—or anyone—unlucky enough to fall on them.
Twenty feet farther north or south on this section of the Sugarland path would provide a much better chance of survival if the worst happened. The slope wasn’t as steep and was carpeted with thick wild grasses. Fledgling scrub brush dotting the mountainside might help break someone’s fall if they lost their footing. They’d still be banged up, might twist an ankle or even crack a bone. But that was preferable