Lost Cargo Read Online Free PDF Page B

Five more deer fled after her. Their tawny coats had been invisible against the trees until they moved. He looked around, wondering how many other pairs of invisible eyes had been following them.
    The light from the fading sun sank below the treetops. A cold breeze ran through the gorge, scattered the leaves, and whirled up the path. Half-frozen, Travis was ready to admit they were getting nowhere when Lexie tugged at his sleeve.
    She pointed across the gorge with a troubled look on her face. “I could have sworn I saw something, but it’s gone now.”
    He squinted into the gloom. The hillside tumbled away before them into a chasm filled with boulders and shadows. A large boulder sat on the other side, surrounded by more shadows. Nothing there, but he did notice something he didn’t want to see. The orange glow from the coming sunset was beginning to show through the black tree line.
    Burke caught up with them. “It’s a rock,” he said, huffing and scowling. The boulder on the far side of the gorge did look like an ordinary rock. “We can’t use a cell phone and the sun is going down. I know that doesn’t bother you two, but if one of us breaks a leg because we can’t see where we’re going, then we’re screwed. We can swashbuckle around the woods all night long and we’re not going to find anything. There is no UFO and there never was one.”
    Lexie looked at her brother with disgust. “All you think about is cell phones. Don’t you have any curiosity?”
    “That’s a rock,” Burke said. “You’re seeing things because you want to see things.”
    “Oh,” she said, “and you didn’t see what happened with that woman back there.”
    “I saw some freak from a carnival. A rubber woman.”
    Lexie turned to Travis. “Humor me and come with me.”
    “Let’s check it out,” Travis said.
    They scrambled down the rough slope together, half-sliding through waist-high weeds and briars that were almost invisible in the dusk and scratched their skin and clothes. When they reached the creek, he caught her hand and pulled her to the far bank.
    “Ruined my trousers,” Burke called, as if he expected them to do something about it. He grabbed at a bush on the slope. “Ripped the cuff, and look at my shoes.”
    After Travis struggled up the embankment, he stopped to take in their surroundings. The quiet hill smelled of damp earth and old leaves. The boulder stood a few hundred feet away at the edge of the clearing. Smaller boulders lay scattered across the gloomy hilltop, while nondescript woods stretched as far as the eye could see. They’d reached an area of Rock Creek Park where few people ever hiked.
    “I guess I was wrong,” Lexie said reluctantly.
    “Maybe you saw another deer,” Travis told her.
    “No, I saw something bigger than a deer,” she said, almost talking to herself now. “But I don’t understand how I could see it one minute and not see it the next.” She headed through the shadows toward the boulder while the sunset flamed up the sky.
    “This is ridiculous,” Burke shouted from the brink of the gorge. “There’s nothing here except rocks and a million dead leaves.”
    Lexie took a few more steps and held out one hand as if she didn’t quite trust her eyes. Another step and she made an abrupt stop.
    “Travis.” Her voice went up ten decibels.
    He caught up with her, felt his shoulder smash into an invisible barrier, and jerked his arm back. Glass. Why would someone put up a glass wall in the woods? But it couldn’t be glass. They would be able to see the dust and dirt on the surface. He pressed his hand against the barrier, gingerly at first, then harder. The unseen wall gave off a faint warmth.
    On the other side the forest floor ran on undisturbed. He knelt down to examine the ground. No ridge or evidence of construction, nothing.
    “I can’t see it, but it’s here,” he told her. “I almost broke my shoulder on it.”
    Burke came toward them. “The sun’s setting,”