The Hound of Justice

by Claire O'Dell

  We ate as we hiked through the woods. It was late spring down here. Up in DC, the cherry blossoms would be in full bloom. Congress would be bickering about budget cuts and concessions between progressives and conservatives, while the progressives would be bickering about what it meant to be a true progressive. Back on the farm in Georgia, my older cousins would be plowing the fields, or milking the cows, or weeding the garden, while Aunt Jemele tended to my grandmother.

  I had lied to them—Jemele, Gramma, my sister. I had promised to get proper care for our grandmother. Never mind my noble reasons. Never mind how the FBI had shattered those plans. None of that would do my grandmother any good.

  Later. Once I come back. I’ll make those lies into the truth.

  As the hours unwound, the sun climbed higher, and the air grew thick and hot. Every so often, we stopped to rest our feet and share a drink from the water jug, or to relieve ourselves away from the trail. My scalp itched with sweat, and I’d lost track of the miles and the hours. All I knew was that we were still in Arkansas. We had to be, or we would’ve met up with soldiers by now.

  At the thought of soldiers, I had to choke back a cry. Dane glanced in my direction. I shrugged and smiled. Dane failed to look convinced, but then Sara asked her about the possibility of a storm moving in, and the moment passed.

  Around noon, judging by the sun, Dane called another, longer halt. This time, Sara built a small fire from deadfall and wood shavings, while Dane turned off the trail and vanished into the woods. A short while later, she returned with two plastic gallon jugs of water and a cloth bag. Dirt and bits of moss and bark clung to the bag, which made me think they’d buried this cache on the way to rescue us.

  “Lunch, my friends,” she announced. “Eat, drink, and be merry.”

  “For tomorrow we die?” Micha asked.

  “Only if I lose my temper with you, my dear Ferret,” Dane replied easily.

  She unpacked the bag, which contained a jar of instant coffee, a tin pot, and cold beef sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Sara measured water and coffee into the tin pot, then set the pot onto the fire to boil while we ate our sandwiches. My feet had barely stopped aching before Dane gave the order to break camp and start walking. We buried the remains of the fire, packed up our trash, and set off through the woods to our next destination.

  “And how are you, my love?” Sara asked me.

  She’d slipped back to my side and spoke in a soft voice.

  “Well enough,” I replied. “I’ll want antibiotics, just to make sure, but I won’t be losing the rest of my arm any time soon. How much longer?”

  “Two miles to our next goalpost,” Dane said, as if she’d been a part of our conversation all along.

  I bit back any reply. Sara merely shook her head and fell back to talk to her cousin. Soon after that, the trail died out, and the ground underfoot was covered by dead leaves. The sun hung overhead in a faint white haze. We trudged onward through the underbrush until Dane lifted a hand.

  Micha and Sara halted at once. I bent over, trying to catch my breath. The forest stretched off for miles in all directions, a blanket of oak trees with the occasional island of pines, the land rolling up toward ridges, then dropping away. My legs ached, my feet ached, my stump felt warm to the touch.

  “Are we there yet?” Micha croaked.

  Oh, good. Glad to see I’m not the only one.

  “For some definition of there, yes,” Dane said. “Hound, I need your help.”

  She and Sara dug into the loose dirt until they had uncovered two rope handles. Together, on the count of three, they heaved, and a mass of dirt and roots swung upward to reveal a brick-lined tunnel. A series of handholds led down into the darkness.

  “You didn’t tell me it was gym day,” I said dryly. The handholds looked sturdy enough—they were clearly manufactured, either resin or heavy-duty plastic, and bolted into the side of the wall—but I wasn’t sure my hands, flesh or metal, could keep a grip after today.

  “You worry too much,” Sara said. “You always have.”

  “She plays to her strengths,” Micha added. “Or so I’ve noticed. Doc, why don’t you go between me and Hound? We’ll make sure you don’t fall.”

  But we made it to the bottom without any trouble. Dane was the last down, and she closed the makeshift hatch after her. Sara clicked her flashlight on. We were standing in a small chamber, maybe five by six. The floor and the walls were packed dirt, reinforced with bricks and wooden beams. The air smelled of damp earth and a musty scent of small rodents. A narrow tunnel led off into the dark. It couldn’t have been more than five feet high.

  I wondered if there were insects. Or spiders.

  Let’s just leave that happy thought behind.

  This was the Jenson Railroad Tunnel, Dane told us. Dug in the 1880s for smuggling and extended by the Resistance in 2018 when “things took a turn for the worse,” as she phrased it. A friend would be waiting for us on the other side. And yes, there were insects and there were spiders.

  The tunnel was too low for us to walk, even hunched over. Instead, we crawled on our hands and knees over dirt and broken rocks. Every half hour or so, we took a break to drink a couple swallows of water and to rest our knees and arms. I tried to imagine how fast Sara and Dane must have crawled to reach us in time. Then I tried to imagine slaves using a tunnel like this to escape the South. Except we were crawling into the New Confederacy.

  At the midway point, we took a longer break. We drank our fill of water, ate strips of beef jerky that Dane produced from a pocket, and a handful of chocolate squares. I even managed a short nap.

  “How is your arm?” Sara asked me when I woke.

  I’d almost forgotten, which was a good sign. “Fine so far, but I’ll need—”

  “—antibiotics and a surgical kit. Yes, yes, I know. I am not so far from remembering our last conversation. We’ll get you both once we reach our safe house. I promise. Are you done with the water bottle? Yes? Let’s get going.”

  Onward, onward, until my joints creaked with every movement and I’d forgotten the feel of sunlight on my skin. I counted one, or maybe two, more stops. Then a truly uncomfortable interval when the cold and damp of underground had seeped into my bones.

  At last, we reached the end of the tunnel. Here thick vertical posts lined the walls of a muddy chamber. More posts framed the entryway into that chamber, with iron chains looped around them. A few good tugs, and the whole section would collapse. Someone had planned this, in case of an emergency, someone who expected the worst.

  Not Sara, though. This came from years and decades of experience.

  A sturdy metal ladder brought us up to the surface. Dane exited first. When she gave the signal, Micha followed, with me and Sara after her.

  I staggered and caught hold of the nearest tree—a skinny sapling that barely took my weight. We stood in pine forest, on the banks of a noisy creek. The sun had set hours ago; a new moon hung low in the sky. The air smelled of rain and crushed pine needles. It could have been Arkansas, or Tennessee, or even Georgia.

  And then I saw him. A white man in a Confederate uniform. He sat on a flat rock, across the creek, with a fishing pole wedged into a crevice, and a rifle resting in his lap.

  I choked and spun around. Sara caught me by my arm. “Stop. Coyote’s a friend, Doc.”

  Coyote scrambled to his feet and waved. He looked about fifty or so. His pale face was a mass of freckles, his hair was shaved close, and the dark gray uniform he wore carried a corporal’s badge above the Confederate flag. Friend or not, the sight of that damned flag made me ill.

  Dane and the man exchanged hand signals. I had the impression that we were very close to the front. I found myself gulping down breath after breath, until Sara laid a hand on my shoulder. She touched a finger to her lips, then to mine, and mouthed the words My love.

  I am not your love.

  But I was her friend, and by now I understood what she meant by that endearment.

  W
e swept dirt and leaves over the cover to the tunnel, then forded the creek to join our new friend, who had gathered up his fishing gear and gun. With Coyote in the lead, we climbed the low ridge beyond the creek. On the other side, the ground slanted down to a one-lane gravel road, the kind you might find running through farmland, or leading to a spot where the fishing was good.

  A military cargo truck was parked in a pull-out—an ancient Mercedes-Benz with a fresh coat of camouflage pattern and a dull green canvas cargo cover. Even though I knew this belonged to the Resistance, my gut shivered. Coyote continued down to the road and stowed his fishing gear in the back of the truck, taking his time about it. He scanned the road in both directions, then gave us the thumbs-up.

  We jogged across the road and tumbled into the rear of the truck, squeezing past several enormous steel drums labeled HAZARDOUS MATERIALS. There was just enough room between the barrels and the cab for us to lie down on our backs. Our friend laid our backpacks on top of us, then covered us with a tarp that smelled strongly of grease and a sharper, chemical scent.

  I swallowed against the painful knot in my throat. I felt trapped, like a rabbit in a hutch. On either side of me, Sara and Micha breathed steadily. I tried to imitate them, to reach for that quiet, safe place—

  —the rattle of machine guns cut the silence. Not dreams. Not nightmares. I bolted upright, gasping and struggling against the suffocating tarp. Sara grasped my arm and hauled me back down.

  “Got a problem back there?” our friend called back.

  “Nothing we can’t handle,” Sara replied.

  Coyote grumbled something about how we better handle it, or we wouldn’t make it past the first checkpoint. But he started up the truck and we lurched onto the gravel road. Another burst of gunfire echoed from a different direction. Then an explosion? Dear god, we weren’t close to the front. We were in the middle of it.

  I stuffed my metal fist into my mouth. This, this was worse than the panic I’d felt before. This was a terror that bit deep and cold into my bones.

  Be still, be brave. We can make it.

  Words I’d spoken to my patients, in that muddy ditch in Alton. If only I could believe myself as well as they had believed me.

  Sara reached a hand to clasp my shoulder. “Seventy miles,” she whispered. “Three hours. We can make it.”

  “Hush, both of you,” Dane whispered.

  We hushed. My world narrowed down to this truck, to this breath, to Sara’s warm hand against my shoulder. Seventy miles, she’d said. I knew thoughts and wishes couldn’t make a difference, but right now, I wished myself at that safe house Sara had mentioned. I wished myself back on the dirt farm.

  I wished I were back in DC, walking into Rainbow Books to see Adanna Jones.

  I had dozed off when the truck stopped abruptly, and a harsh light poured through the window dividing the cab from the trailer. Sara’s hand tightened over my shoulder—an unnecessary warning.

  “ID and password,” said a young man.

  One of the checkpoints, then.

  I listened, hardly daring to breathe, while Coyote handed over whatever papers and ID were required. He sounded weary, like a man who been on the road too many hours. To the young man’s demand about a destination, our friend replied that he was transporting a load of phosgene to Big Cedar.

  All the spit vanished from my mouth.

  Oh god, oh god, oh god. Fucking phosgene.

  Phosgene was a pesticide. It was also a handy poison in warfare if you didn’t mind breaking the Geneva Conventions.

  Apparently, the young man at the checkpoint had a similar reaction. He cursed, then barked out orders for the truck to keep moving.

  “Pretty good tactic, to scare the enemy,” Sara whispered.

  I wanted to agree but I was too terrified to speak.

  ***

  Two more stops. Two more demands for ID and password. The truck picked up speed when we turned onto a paved road. I’d long ago lost track of the hours. I was exhausted, but I could not sleep.

  The truck took an abrupt turn onto rough ground. We stopped. I heard a woman’s voice close by. “All clear.”

  Dane crawled between the barrels and vaulted from the truck. “Everybody out,” she said. “Ferret, hand me those backpacks. Someone help Doc find her feet.”

  Micha and Sara unloaded our packs, then me. I stood there, blinking. We were in the middle of a rolling wheat field, which looked silvery in the faint moonlight. Off to one side, an oil derrick dipped and rose. A road sign said, ROUTE 144; another said, CLOUDY, OK.

  Our friend pulled back onto the road and headed off into the night. Dane was hugging another woman close. “Raven,” she said. “I am so damned glad to see you.”

  “You should be,” Raven said, but she was grinning too. “Going off to rescue kittens and puppies. You,” she said to me. “You better be worth it.”

  “She will be,” Sara said. “If you must torment her, wait until we get under cover.”

  “Gonna take a while for that,” Raven said. “What with the patrols on all the main roads.”

  Dane went still and alert. “Any trouble?”

  “No more than usual. But the rats are nervous.”

  “They should be,” Dane muttered.

  She and Raven chivvied us into yet another car. Our packs went into the trunk. Dane and Raven took the front seats, while Micha, Sara, and I crowded into the back. Raven handed us each a folder with work papers, stamped with a 2-D barcode. According to the human-readable text, we were part of the late-night cleaning crew at a nearby factory.

  Papers, just like back in the days before the first Civil War.

  “They get all antsy about black folk near the border,” Raven said. “Think we might be up to trouble. Imagine that.”

  The others laughed quietly. I tucked Lazarus under my other arm and pretended to sleep. My thoughts bounced back to the old Civil War. To patrollers who hunted runaway slaves.

  Run, run, de patter-roller catch you

  Run, run, it’s almost day

  Run, run, de patter-roller catch you

  Run, run, and try to get away

  The old rhyme echoed around my brain as we drove through the night. Maybe we were lucky. Maybe Raven had timed our arrival just right. Because there were no more checkpoints, no patrols, official or otherwise, demanding to see our papers.

  I was barely awake when Raven pulled into a parking lot and shut off the car’s headlights. It was silent, except for the engine ticking. Dane and Raven waited a moment before they stepped out of the car. Even though they were invisible in the dark, I knew they carried guns and they were surveying our surroundings for any witnesses. Soldiers, in a different kind of war.

  Raven opened the rear door. “Inside,” she whispered. “Now. Don’t worry about your bags.”

  I staggered out of the car, with Micha close behind. The parking lot was nothing more than a square of concrete, broken and crumbled, with weeds growing between the cracks. On the other side of a plastic barrier stood a low dark building with a yellow neon sign. HONEYDEW INN, ROOMS RENTED BY HOUR, DAY, OR WEEK.

  “Come, my love,” Sara said. “Almost home.”

  She guided me over the plastic barrier and through an archway. Two anonymous rectangles faced an equally anonymous parking lot, this one lighted by a single fluorescent lamp. All the windows were dark, and the air smelled faintly of cigarettes and beer.

  Raven had hurried ahead to the far end of the parking lot, but Dane paused next to a door. I barely had time to register the keys in her hand before she swung the door open and Sara pushed me into a dark room.

  I stumbled and fell face-first onto a bed. Oh god, that was lovely. The blankets smelled of fresh soap, and the mattress was thin but blessedly soft. My entire body ached, as though I’d spent the past three days in surgery, and my ghost arm kept arguing with Lazarus. All I wanted to do was plunge into sleep.

  Two women were whispering. Then another voice, also a woman, ordered them to s
hut up. She—at least I believed it was the same person—drew the blankets over my shoulders. Her fingers massaged my neck, easing the knots from my muscles, then gently exploring my left arm, the cuff where metal met flesh.

  She tapped the controls. Someone—Sara, this time—protested. The woman cut her off with a sharp word. Then with a few more taps, the suction released its grip, and Lazarus fell away to be caught by my anonymous caretaker.

  “She will sleep better so,” the woman said.

  19

  I slept—a drunken, dreamless sleep that lasted the rest of the night, and into the next afternoon. When I finally woke, and only because a faint golden light insisted, I had no idea where I was. I stretched, one of those long lazy stretches where you twist your body as if it’s a Mobius strip. The muscles in my legs and shoulders complained, but not as much as they should have . . .

  That’s when memory snapped into life—the confrontation with Sam and Jimmy Ray. Dane and Sara to the rescue. The miles upon miles of hiking through a forest. Our endless ride in the back of that truck in the company of hazardous chemicals. Sara and her friends smuggling me and Micha across the border.

  I rolled over onto my back. The mattress underneath me was thin and hard. Above me was another mattress just like it, supported by a couple wooden slats.

  “Good afternoon, Doc.”

  In panic, I heaved myself upright, and nearly toppled over when I tried to catch hold of the bunk bed supports with my ghost arm.

  A young woman sat on the bunk bed next to mine, reading a book. She wore canvas overalls and a faded gray T-shirt. Her straight black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and freckles dotted her nose, almost invisible against her brown skin. She seemed amused.

  “Where am I?” I croaked.

  “In a safe place. How are you feeling?”

  I pressed one hand against my eyes. “I’ve felt better. Where are . . .” I couldn’t remember Sara’s or Micha’s code name. “Where are the others?”

  “Elsewhere. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

  I ran my tongue over my lips, which felt gummy. Now I recognized the woman’s voice. She was the one who had insisted on removing Lazarus.