Impact (Book 3): Adrift

by Isherwood, E. E.

  She laughed, still in shock at how well they’d taken care of her. “You’ve made a believer out of me. I’m sure the park service will reimburse you for the door, windows, and your time.”

  Calvin Tames Horse raised his hand. “Don’t forget the oil change, added tire pressure, and wiper fluid top-off.”

  “That too,” she chuckled.

  Chairman Runs Hard stepped forward. “Your arrival has resulted in millions of bucks for the Crow Nation. We might name a new school or town hall after you. But for today, if you get me to the airport, we’ll call this favor even.”

  “And if we don’t get you there?” she asked, aware there were two sides to his statement.

  “Then we’ll have bigger problems. If we can’t establish a credible claim in Washington, it will be up to us to defend it. I think we all know what happens when you get on the wrong side of Uncle Sam.”

  She was no stranger to the history of the Native Americans, even if she didn’t know the specific background of the Crow tribe. His statement made sense in the context of wanting to do the right thing about the law, but she also heard what he was saying about defending it.

  “Sir, do you have a flatbed trailer, like TKM was going to bring in? You could move the rock to a place of your choosing, so they, or the government, can’t come and take it.”

  Shawn had a twinkle in his eye. “Don’t you worry about such things. It’s already been taken care of.”

  Grace and Asher shared a knowing glance with each other. While they’d been patiently waiting for the truck to be done, Shawn and his people were probably overseeing the protection of their investment, as she’d suggested. It made sense as she thought it through. The leader of the tribe wouldn’t leave unless he knew the rock would be there when he got back.

  She remembered one detail. “Warn your people to stay away from it, if possible. We think it might be radioactive. Test it, if you can.”

  Shawn motioned to the rebuilt truck. “Saddle up, ma’am. I appreciate your concern; I’ll make sure no one gets hurt. I’m also taking some insurance on our trip, so we don’t get hurt.” He flashed a look to his brother-in-law, who quickly walked away.

  “You get back to your mother,” Shawn said to his son. “These fine people are going to make sure I catch my plane. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  Logan appeared surprised. “I was going to come with you. Can I at least take you to the airport? Now that I won’t fall out, it will be an easy trip.”

  “No. Not this time. Our friends here aren’t going to be coming back this way, are you?” Shawn looked at her and Asher.

  “We’re going to Denver to stay with his parents.” She absolutely didn’t want to take a kid. He’d turned out to be less of a hassle than she’d imagined when he snuck aboard, and he’d been pivotal in getting her truck fixed, but it was time to say goodbye. “Sorry, Logan. We really wish you could come along. It’s been…well, I was going to say fun, but you know what I mean.”

  The boy shook hands with her, then Asher. He appeared ready to speak again, but he quietly walked away. With him gone, she immediately turned back to Mr. Runs Hard. “Sir, we’d like to get moving. We don’t know what we’ll find out there, and it’s already past noon. I don’t know how far it is to Cheyenne, but I suspect we have several hours.”

  “It’s a six-hour drive, yes. I only need one more thing.” He stood there for a few seconds, waiting for something to happen. A short time later, Calvin came out of a back room carrying an AR-15-type rifle and a backpack. “And, there it is. My insurance.”

  In another world she would have asked why he needed a gun, but it had become commonplace. She would have thought less of him if he’d gotten in the truck expecting her and Asher to be his bodyguards. Grace chuckled at the idea of being anyone’s protector. It was easy to forget they were dressed in costumes. They weren’t National Park police, despite the uniforms, utility belts, and pistols.

  “Whatever you don’t need, chuck it in the cargo area,” she advised, looking at Asher. She tossed her winter coat inside. It had been getting warmer all day, and it was at least fifty, though the hazy skies still weren’t back to normal. Shawn threw his pack through the back window, though he kept his rifle.

  Calvin placed a twelve-pack of bottled water in the cargo area, then handed her a couple of foil-wrapped hot dogs. “These are from my store. We aren’t getting many customers and you two look like you haven’t eaten in days. It’s on the house.”

  She drooled at the sight, thanking him profusely. The hot dog was gone by the time she’d gotten behind the wheel. Asher woofed his down, too. When Cal saw the spectacle, he ran in and got two more.

  “For the road!” he said, handing them through the window.

  “Thanks for everything,” she replied. Grace pulled out of the small repair shop, waved to Calvin Tames Horse and a few of his mechanic helpers, then got onto the interstate.

  “Do you have music in this jalopy?” Shawn asked. Asher allowed him to sit in the front seat, and she agreed with the idea. He deserved the honor after all he’d done for them.

  “I think so,” she replied. In all her months using the truck, she’d never tuned into the radio to listen to music. It even had a CD player, though she didn’t own any discs. “What kind of music do you like?”

  Shawn laughed. “Got any Indian music? Bollywood? That sort of thing?”

  She whipped her head toward him. “Are you serious?”

  He laughed. “No. It’s another Indian joke. It goes with the Taj Mahal one. Don’t worry, I’m using them all up quickly, so you won’t hear them again.”

  “So, what do you really like?” she pressed.

  “Don’t tell my son this, but I like whatever music he listens to. I think it’s from the 1980s. I know it’s older, but I never asked him the band names. It has a good rhythm; much better than whatever nonsense they play on the radio stations in Billings. Even country music sounds bad these days.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said tentatively, punching buttons on the radio. Having the older man travel with her, a guy about the same age as Dad, made her sensitive to her mode of speech and rationale for everything she did. It was almost like he’d stepped into the role of father for this leg of the trip.

  It’s going to be a long ride.

  St. Louis, MO

  “We’re sinking?” Butch gulped. “We’ve got to get to land!” He pointed, as if Ezra didn’t know which way to go.

  “I think we can make it up the river. I’ll keep an eye on it.”

  “An eye on it? What does that even mean?” Butch continued to smother his rifle between his hands.

  Ezra glanced over, then reached out and patted his friend on the shoulder. “Relax. If it looks like we’re about to sink, I promise I’ll head for shore. Some bullets went into the pontoons below us. I think the left one is taking on water, but I didn’t want to worry you. We’re not in any danger yet. I was trying to be funny about it.”

  “But we’re not at a hundred percent, right?”

  He couldn’t argue the point, so he sat back in his seat like it was any other day on the water. “When I bought this vessel, they gave me a brochure full of pretty pictures of bikini babes frolicking on this model. Once I got past the eye candy, I noticed a boring picture of the aluminum construction of both pontoons. They each have compartments so they’re effectively a bunch of sealed chambers, rather than one long tube. It’s a lot like how the Titanic was designed.”

  “Titanic? I’m not sure that’s the go-to example you should use. It sank!”

  Ezra squirmed in his seat. “I remember the documentary. It was supposed to be unsinkable as a result of those compartments. Okay, here’s a better one. Imagine we have two submarines under us. When all the bulkheads are sealed, water can’t flood the whole sub if one part gets punctured. In our case, a compartment or two might fill up, but the rest of the sealed areas should keep us afloat.”

  “I don’t like this.” Butch tu
rned halfway around, searching for the pirate ship. “If you think we’re going down, it would be better to ditch the boat somewhere out of the way, so those guys don’t see us.”

  “We aren’t going down. Sit back and enjoy the ride. We’ve got enough gas to get us to St. Louis, I’m sure of it. Once we’re there, we can go up the Missouri River. That should throw off our pursuit.”

  “Unless they split up,” Butch commented, seemingly unimpressed with Ezra’s logic.

  For the next hour and a half, they went upriver without incident. Every ten minutes or so he would convince himself the left pontoon was lower than the right, but he couldn’t definitively say it was punctured. When he wasn’t looking at the boat itself, he watched the trees and farmland go by on either side of the river. It was featureless and boring until they went under a giant red suspension bridge carrying an interstate.

  “We’re almost to the city,” he warned, seeing factories and other buildings up ahead.

  “Good,” Butch replied. “I’m kind of getting worried we’re the only people left alive up in this part of the world. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we haven’t passed anyone on the river, but don’t you think it’s a little odd?”

  “Yeah. We should have passed someone, flood or no flood. Even the bridge up there seems quiet.” A couple of cars and a truck passed overhead, but a normal afternoon should have seen a lot more vehicles on an Interstate so near a major urban center.

  A few miles later, they did start to see people. At first, it was a fisherman or two standing on the Missouri side of the river. As they went on, more appeared along the bank until he guessed there were groups of fifty or sixty anglers. They stood anywhere along the rocky shore where they could get a line in the brown water.

  “Why the heck is everyone out fishing today?” Butch asked.

  Ezra thought about it for a short time. “Maybe they ran out of food. Most people don’t keep extra supplies. If traffic between cities is way down, shipments of food aren’t coming in. Maybe fishing is an easy way to eat, at least in the short term.”

  As they went by, some folks waved in a good-natured way. Others made it clear they wanted his boat to come to shore.

  “Hard pass, guys,” he said only loud enough for Butch to hear him. “There’s no way I’m getting mixed up with groups of desperate fishermen. Have you ever been to a bass fishing tournament? Those guys will run you over to beat you to their preferred fishing hole. I bet it’s as chaotic out there today.”

  “I’m good staying in the boat,” Butch answered. “Unless it sinks. Then I want out.” The big man looked over before cracking up. “I know. I sound like a big baby, don’t I?”

  “We’ve been shot at multiple times today. I think you’d be messed up if something like that didn’t affect you.” He remembered gripping the wheel to hide his jitters. It hit him like a thunderclap; Butch had been manhandling his rifle for the same reason. In real life, near-death encounters even affected tough guys like Butch.

  As they neared the Gateway Arch and downtown St. Louis, the number of fisherpeople dwindled to almost zero, but he didn’t think it was due to poorer fishing spots. Instead, the absence of people was a result of a dam-like wall of debris wedged between the pylons of a wide bridge across the river.

  “That ain’t good,” he said dryly. It reminded him of the jumble of wind-tossed junk blocking the floodgates of the Kentucky dam. The huge blockage ahead of them was primarily made up of dozens of the long cargo barges typical of river traffic on the Mississippi. They’d become caught against the concrete legs of the bridge, acting as magnets for additional debris washed into the river by the dam breakages to the north. If a family of giant beavers had used metal instead of wood, they would have built a dam similar to what was blocking their path.

  “Any ideas?” Butch asked.

  He let off the gas.

  “No.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Cheyenne, WY

  The drive from Crow Agency to Cheyenne took all afternoon but was uneventful. If there was one overarching concern during their journey, it was the weather. To the west, it was dark and gloomy, as the winter storm responsible for making their trip over the Beartooth range such a disaster continued to smother those mountains. Smaller storms cropped up several times over those hours, dumping black rain and pounding the truck with obsidian-colored hail, but the sealed passenger compartment helped them drive on through. The skies cleared when they reached southeastern Wyoming, near Cheyenne.

  “Finally. We’re there.” From the back seat, Asher pointed to the green sign next to the highway.

  “Thank God,” she said with relief, exiting the interstate. “I think that was the most boring stretch of highway I’ve ever driven. It was grass. Then grass. Then, wait for it, more grass.”

  Shawn found it funny. “My people don’t mind it. It gives us some peace and quiet, except for highways like this one.”

  Grace shook her head. “I’d die if I had to live here, no offense. Sure, I like to be in the outdoors, but I need variety. That’s why Yellowstone is such a great place to work. There are different things to see around every curve. Out here, you can drive a hundred miles and think you’re seeing the same stretch of green over and over.”

  “Yeah, it’s an acquired taste…” Shawn sounded distracted. “Look up ahead. There’s a roadblock.”

  The route into Cheyenne was four lanes. The roadway was surrounded by a lush park full of tall pine trees and manicured greenways. It appeared to be the kind of place where families would spend the day picnicking and having fun. However, there was no one there, nor were cars moving on the roadway. When they approached the line of Humvees stretched across the lanes, she assumed someone was going to flag them down.

  As she stopped the truck, no one came running out. “Hello? Anyone home in Cheyenne?”

  Shawn leaned forward in his seat, intently studying the situation. “I don’t see anyone in those trucks. I think we should go around them. The airport isn’t far beyond this point.”

  “You’ve been there before?” she asked.

  “Sometimes we have tribal leadership conferences with other tribes. Some of those meetings are held in Washington, DC, though I’ll never know why they can’t have them somewhere nice, like a grassy field in Wyoming.” He glanced over to Grace with a twinkle in his eye.

  “All right. We’ll go around them.” She briefly left the pavement and drove on the greenery at the edge of the blockade. The ground was entirely flat, making it impossible to seal off the roadway. The police would need a solid line of cars, or a fence, running for miles in each direction.

  Back on the road, they soon made it through the park and came alongside the fence for the airport, as Mr. Runs Hard had promised. The grizzled frontiersman surveyed the landing strip as if he’d spotted a bear. “No! What’s going on here? There should be activity everywhere.”

  The Cheyenne street hugged the outer fence for about a mile before coming to the entrance to the main terminal. They still hadn’t seen any sign of people, even in the residential neighborhood on their right side.

  “Should we go in?” she asked, not sure if the lack of people was really as bad as it seemed. Maybe everyone was confined to their homes. Maybe there was a big meeting going on. She could think of a few explanations, though it strained belief that everyone would follow such a rule or attend such a meeting.

  Shawn pointed to the terminal, in case she missed it. “Yes. Someone in the airport will know what’s going on. There will be police inside, too. We’ll get answers.”

  “No problem.” Grace drove the street and went directly up to the front doors of the fancy glass-faced building. No one came out to complain. No baggage handlers ran out to take her suitcases. Nothing happened.

  “Follow me.” Shawn got out of the truck and headed for the doors, but she noticed a couple of police cars parked on the nearest runway. If she had to guess, it was almost as if law enforcement had placed those cars there to stop anyone
from landing.

  Instead of going in, she walked toward the police cruisers, which were about three hundred yards away across a long stretch of the endless grass. Asher ran up and caught her by the arm before she went too far. “Hey, the terminal is this way.”

  She motioned ahead. “You see that? There’s something on the runway.” The two police cars were parked near some debris; their flashing lights were off. Her first instinct was a small plane had crashed, though there was no smoke or fire, suggesting it came down a while ago.

  “I have to see what it is. It doesn’t look right.”

  Asher still didn’t let go. “What difference does it make? Maybe it’s a military plane. They’re probably busy as hell with all the scared and fleeing people they have to manage. We’ve seen those folks ourselves.”

  That was true, but she remained committed. Shawn Runs Hard had gone into the terminal, but there was no need to go in with him. The man knew how to talk to people. Grace gently pulled at Asher’s grip, spurring him to continue walking with her.

  “I hope the chairman doesn’t get mad at us,” Asher casually remarked. “I feel like I’m playing hooky from school, and the teacher is about to find us holding hands on school property.”

  She laughed. “Did that ever happen to you?”

  “No,” he admitted. “I was too chicken to ask girls out back then.”

  “But not anymore?” she said with a flashy smile in his direction.

  Asher gripped her hand even more. “No. These days I seem to get lucky.”

  “Whoa, Nelly,” she spit out, mimicking one of Dad’s sayings. “Ain’t nobody getting lucky just yet. We’ve got—” She stopped in her tracks, having gotten close enough to recognize it wasn’t an airplane. It was also larger than she thought, though it was an easy thing to misinterpret on the mammoth runway. The warped wreckage was about the size of a tractor trailer; the police cars were parked fifty yards from it, further confusing the scene. “We’ve got a problem.”