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

him and saw ten or twelve fish darting in and out of the pool formed by a natural rock dam.
    “Can we catch one?” asked Rachel.
    “Not as easy as it looks,” Justin said. “If we had time I could carve a hardwood hook, twist bark into a fishing line, improvise bait of some kind. But all that would take too long. We need to keep moving. I do have an idea though.” He went back to the tree line, cut a stout sapling, and began to sharpen the point to form a spear.”
    “You’re going to spear a fish?” asked Rachel.
    “I’m going to try.”
    He stepped to the edge of the pool and made several determined thrusts at the trout. He was unsuccessful, and when the water cleared, it was apparent he had succeeded only in driving the fish from the pool. When the trout returned, he tried again, this time with more and more energy, until, breathing heavily, he collapsed on the bank. “Can’t do it,” he said. “The tricky little devils are too fast.”
    “You tried your best,” Rachel said. “Janie and I never did like fish much anyway.”
    Justin jumped to his feet and hurled the spear into the pool in a final gesture of frustration and defeat. “Okay, trout, you win this time, but I’ll get you yet.” He looked up and down the stream and shook his head. “Right now we’ve got another problem. How do we get to the other side? It’s running so fast I don’t think we could wade across—and we don’t want to get soaked. That could be deadly.”
    “Do we have to cross?” asked Janie.
    “Eventually,” Justin said, “but for now we can follow the stream.”
    As the search party trudged up the logging road, one of the two guards from Bitterroot Camp asked the Prophet, “How can two twelve-year-old girls survive out here? Bitter cold. Overnight. Food? Water? Shelter? I don’t get it. Maybe they’re dead.”
    Flack glared at him.
    “Maybe they’re in the mine,” said the other Bitterroot guard. “They’d be okay in there.”
    “Then what about Brian and Karl?” said the first guard. “Where are they? Why didn’t they bring the twins down?”
    The Missoula men and the guards from the Sheba Temple didn’t contribute to the conversation, but marched up the road silently, waiting for cues from J.J. Flack.
    “We’ll see what we’ll see,” he said. “It doesn’t do any good to speculate.”
    Chuky and the search party met at the SUV. The Siberian trotted up to Flack and waited to see if his boss wished to be given the report in private or if Chuky should speak in front of the others. When Flack waved his hand to indicate it was okay to begin, Chuky began to speak in a high, excited voice. “Boy alive. Twins alive. Tracks go up the road. Three sets—twins’ and boy’s. They go off into the woods, north, tricky, come back down here, cross road and go south. Very tricky.”
    “I don’t get it,” said the first Bitterroot guard. “Where’re Karl and Brian? Are they after them?”
    “No Karl and no Brian,” said Chuky. “No tracks up the road or in the woods.”
    The Prophet frowned. “The SUV’s still here—they didn’t desert.”
    “Broken window,” said Chuky. “Kids do that, no key. Karl and Brian have key.”
    “But—” the Prophet began.
    “I go back in mine again. Careful, careful,” said Chuky. “Try to figure out, even with bad tracks….Karl and Brian not leave mine.”
    Flack blew out his breath and scowled. You mean—”
    Chuky looked around uncomfortably at the large group of men surrounding him. He hesitated, but Flack made it clear that the Siberian should continue his report. “Karl and Brian down hole, not boy,” said Chuky. “Tracks messy, but no other answer possible.”
    “But,” said Flack, “three kids. How in the world?”
    Chuky shrugged. “Don’t know.” He pointed to the south side of the road. “They go that way.”
    Flack and Chuky went down the trail and into the mine so Flack could evaluate what his enforcer had said. When they arrived back at