Deirdre is immediately thankful that her ankle is neither stuck in the hole nor twisted when her foot slips on the wet root jutting into her path below the hangman’s tree. When it slipped, it absolutely convinced her that this would be her end before she even got to make use of the halfway decent head start she’d earned herself by taking that shortcut over the dairy’s compost heap and between the cattle. It would have been just her kind of luck to fail before she even made good on that escape.
The heavy bag thumps against her back as she sprints the last hundred yards from that lonely, bleak tree into the true forest beyond. Shrubbery catches at her clothing and pulls her hair. Rain filtered through the leaves, hits her in large, heavy drops.
The thump-thump-thump of her ill-gotten gains against her spine bruises her back like a flagellant’s whip. Hard metal in the thin sack is difficult to manage.
More difficult, still, is the dark gloom of the woods in the heavy rain. Leaden skies deposit their burdensome weight upon the earth below and Deirdre finds herself sodden and struggling to find purchase upon the thick litter of fallen leaves.
She pauses and allows her eyes to adjust to the dim light.
It is a precious few seconds, but without the pause she would run afoul of some low-hanging branch or another high-jutting root for certain.
“She’s gone into the woods!”
“I’m right behind you!”
The voices of those pursuing the burglar shatter the unnatural stillness of the woods. There is no time for safety if Deirdre is going to survive to enjoy it.
Slipping again on the decaying leaves of the forest floor, Deirdre stumbles back into action. She knows those voices.
And she knows well the sound that picks up her pace right behind them. The hound bays as it finds her scent in the clear field at the forest’s edge.
That is Bootsie, a scent hound employed by the sheriff’s deputy. It wouldn’t be a struggle for Bootsie to catch Deirdre’s scent at all. Those two are very familiar.
Knowing that she’s being chased and knowing that she’s being hunted with a dog in the same way she has hunted raccoons in these woods alongside the same dog is a very different sort of thing to be aware of. Deirdre abandons caution and sprints for the river. The rain that has made her traversal of terrain so treacherous may aid her in evading the hound on her trail, but only if she can get far enough away for it to matter.
Which means, of course, that the rain ceases its relentless battery as the hound bays again behind her.
Now, Dierdre knows the deputy’s dog well enough, and she knows the sheriff himself even better. If there’s one thing for certain, it’s that Bootsie has very short legs.
Dierdre clambers over every rough overhang she finds between herself and her chosen destination. There are several spots where the hound will have to turn and go around. Bootsie must pick up her scent again where Deirdre has elected to go straight up an embankment where the short hound’s little legs will not carry herself.
It would be worthwhile to see the silly little dog make the attempt, though. Those long floppy ears and stubby little paws are eternally comical.
Fat wet drops of water continue to pelt Dierdre occasionally from above as the trees get rid of their soggy burdens. The drips from above make certain that her feet slip and slide as they seek purchase in the mud.
The stunt buys her precious time.
But not much.
Desperately short on breath, Dierdre finally reaches the river she had been targeting since first hearing the dog’s voice at her heels.
It is a small river, barely more than a stream, but too wide to jump and just deep enough to be difficult to cross without getting wet. The water flows swiftly, hurried by the additions created through the rain.
Deidre pauses and listens. Over the rush of water, it is hard to make out any other noises. Birds call to each other overhead, and the little river hisses and gurgles noisily.
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When the hound bays, it is a distant sound, and that promises some amount of hope.
Deidre turns upstream and follows close to the bank. It’s an old trick, and one that the Sheriff most definitely knows. But it isn’t the Sheriff she has to fool right now.
Following the little river upstream, she lays a careful scent trail through the dense underbrush. She snaps every twig to cross her path. She plants her feet well in the mud to leave the most obvious trail in the history of trails.
After a few hundred feet of this, she slowly begins holding back on the clarity of her leavings. Instead of breaking every twig, she bends a few. Instead of stepping in the mud directly, she treads delicately next to it.
The exhaustion of the previous sprint is getting to her, but she knows that if she can just get this right, she should be able to take a rest.
After a while, she quits leaving the false trail and simply keeps going at a regular pace.
The little river narrows here, and there is a short waterfall between two large boulders. Deidre carefully hops across them and continues upstream for a very brief minute before turning deeper into the woods.
And then she pauses again to listen.
And all she can hear is the river.
So she looks around until she can find just the right spot - somewhere that will be easy to find again.
And there it is - an old stump. Here a tree has fallen over, its roots ripped free from the earth with great violence. The hole it leaves behind contains a still pool of cold water.
And dogs can’t smell through water.
Water doesn’t show disturbances as plainly as dirt.
Yes, this is just right.
Deidre fixes this location in her mind, just as her mother had taught her years ago. She judges the relative locations of the trees, the height of the stump, the distance from the river, and so many smaller minutia. And then she opens the sack on her back and removes the two heavy metal plates from it.
The dull impressions of text on the flat surface of the plates are not enough to frighten this burglar off. Sure, they threaten death, dismemberment, and disaster to any who may steal them, but Deidre’s nose knows that there is no magic in this curse. If there were, she would certainly be sneezing.
The last time the Sheriff caught her, he’d had a witch doctor lay a hex over her throat. It’s not the legally required punishment for any crime she has ever committed, but her cousin has never been one to act out of fairness where he could use cruelty instead.
That is, after all, his terrible nature.
The nasty little hex gives Deidre an immediate allergic response to the near presence of magic. And while she has occasionally used a sniffle in her schnoz as a cue to dodge something unpleasant to her benefit. The inability to be on the receiving end of any potential magical benefits has been nothing but a brutal curse since the day she first suffered it.
A curse itself is magic, and when triggered, usually feeds upon itself for some time before she can recover.
And that is how Deidre knows that these coin presses are not themselves cursed to kill the thief or counterfeiter who dares to touch them without the approval of the mint.
There isn’t time to contemplate that, however, so she gently slides both large, heavy pieces into the cold, still water. The empty hole is dark enough and deep enough that when they settle on its bottom, the two plates blend into the murky depth and vanish.
So unencumbered, Deirdre takes off at full tilt. Her steps feel even lighter with her heavy burden removed, as if the sin of it is as cruel a weight as the actual cold, hard metal.
Precious lightweight pages of paper, scribed with detailed information that she has not yet had time to peruse, weigh her down not nearly so much as those heavy plates. Their wax-covered case resists the rain, but there is no way Deidre will risk them in the cold, dark water like that. She will need to find a second hiding place for those papers.
She follows close to her own footsteps back to the river, and then, ever so carefully, steps into it.
The little waterfall where she crossed turns out to be a somewhat unfortunate choice. The water beneath the low drop is deep enough that she will have to swim. There is no way to avoid leaving her scent on the rocks at the bottom of the falls without doing so.
Holding the sack above her head, she splashes down into the icy water. The strong current swirls around her, pulling at the ties of her clothing like rudely grasping hands. She wades deeper into it, following it downstream. The water reaches her waist and laps at her bruised spine hungrily.
And despite how shallow this little river is, the force of the moving water pushes her from her feet. Seeing no alternative, Deidre leans backward, still holding the precious sack up above her head, and floats downriver.
Rocks in the water slap at her as she floats past, and it feels like an assault upon her with each scrape and hit to her legs and behind. There is pain, sharp and sudden, that dulls with the chill of the water that she drifts in.
By the time the river widens and the water becomes more shallow, she has passed the point where she originally encountered it. And she bleeds from several lacerations on her shins and back. Her arms feel leaden with the effort of keeping the papers dry. And she cannot stop shivering.
But there are miles to cross before she can consider herself safe. These woods, familiar as they are, will never be a haven to her.
So, with great effort, Deirdre stands once more, plods to the far bank of the little river, and steps onto dryer land.