"Don't touch me," I growl.
I've got a fist up and my feet planted like I could really take him on. Billy isn't so sure I won't try, so he puts his arm between us. I can feel his whole being begging me not to make trouble. I hate trouble, too, but I didn't start it. Billy should do something so I don't have to. Then again, he's done as much as his good nature will allow. Finally, the driver shakes his head. He spits on the ground.
"I was helping, you little black bitch."
I ignore the slur. It could have been worse. He could have left us there. Instead, he waits until I climb in. Billy scrambles after me. We stand together, seeing our breath blow ice-white in the grey of the interior. The thing is half filled with boxes. The inside smells of something but it isn't food. The metal floor is buckled, and it pops under our weight as we shift to get the feel of our surroundings.
"Don't touch nothin'," The driver warns.
I look back at him. I want to say that we won't. I want to say thanks to make up some. He slams the door before I can. I thought I knew what dark was, but until that second I didn't have a clue how black the world could really be.
When I hear the latches bang and a chain run its course, the crazy-making itch of uncertainty, fear, and despair runs through me. I need a razor blade in the worst way to slice myself and bleed it out. This tight and nasty thing makes me feel like I did when my mother took hold of my shoulders and shook me, her face close to mine as she spit out words that made no sense except to her.
My last chance to have something good . . . you're a good girl
He needs to like you . . . men don't like kids
How can I take care of us. . . I'm saddled with you
"Hannah, I'm here," Billy calls, but I don't pay attention. That's what happens when I think of my mother. I only hear her voice.
The scars on my arms swell as if blood is pumping through them but that's impossible. None of them are new. There is no life in that ugly little map of mutilations on my forearms, but the fear is alive, writhing, and its tentacles are deep. I push out a hand, my fingers crunch into my palm. My nails are short now, but they still bite into my skin as they keep time with the numbers flashing behind my eyes. I am so afraid I can't speak. Funny that a slamming door can do me in when Gjergy Isai and the old judge, Fritz Rayburn, should have been far more frightening. Maybe they weren't as scary as this because I could see them coming. Suddenly, Billy is beside me, a young man wrapped in a ball of yellow fleece.
"I got you, Hannah." It's true. He has my hand. He squeezes it. I'm not real happy he's done this, but for now it's all good. "It's okay. Dude, it's okay."
I laugh because he calls me dude, because he comforts me in the same voice he uses to talk about everything. That voice is tinged with awe and sweet faith. Some things never change. Even though we can't see each other, I know he's smiling because my laugh is a relief to him. It means that I am not mad at him, and I am okay. As long as I'm okay, so is he.
The truck starts up with a deep rumble of an engine that sounds out of whack. We lose our balance, drop to our knees, and crawl to the side of the container. We laugh as the floor pops under us like metallic bubble wrap and then scramble between stacks of boxes to settle in. The cardboard will steady us and help us stay warm. The container lurches and shakes a little. The cargo is strapped; it's the truck that is unsteady. I wonder if the bumper has one of those 'how am I driving?' stickers on the back and if someone will report this guy. I hope not because we are on the road again, and we need to get to the end of the world. I don't know where that is, but I think we're pretty close to it in Alaska.
I am so deep in thought that I jump when Billy touches my head. Being touched gently in the dark like that always feels creepy. Someday, maybe, there will be someone I love and I'll welcome the touch that comes out of nowhere, but now I duck away. Billy doesn't take offense. He just stays on his own track.
"Cutting your hair was massive, Hannah. Really. It was awesome."
I smile even though I've heard this almost every night before he sleeps. What he really means is that he misses the Hannah he knew. The one with style, with a diamond pierced through her nose and a stutter of gold rings through her ears. He doesn't know this Hannah, the girl with the halo of kink and curls, dyed blond with a box of Clairol swiped from a sale table in front of a beauty supply shop back in Sanger. It was too dangerous to go in to pay for it when we were that close to home. I left a few dollars. I hope the girl from the counter found it. I touch the scrub of hair on my head and say the same thing I say every night:
"Yeah, I guess."
I don't point out that we've both changed. Billy's hair has grown past his shoulders and he parts it in the middle or pulls it back in a ponytail. It is beautiful, straight and sandy brown instead of beach-bleached white. I don't think he misses the beach after what he's been through but strangely I do. It was never the ocean that bugged me anyway; it was the people living near it who made me crazy. They were so happy. I've never been real comfortable with happy when it skims the top of a person and doesn't sink further than a white-toothed smile. That kind of happy is like the froth on a latte; deceptively sweet and easily overpowered by the bitter drink beneath.
Thinking of Hermosa brings hot tears to my eyes, but I'm more angry than sad. Life isn't fair, and I'm so done with that. It's time for life to at least give me and Billy an honest-to-God break. I put my head on the floor, curl into the boxes on my side, and close my eyes.
"We should try to get some rest," I say.
"You look more like a black chick now." I hear him settling in against the boxes on his side. He's sleepy, but he keeps talking. I found that out about him early on. He talks himself to sleep. "Even if your hair's blond, you still look like a black chick. When your hair was long you looked Indian. From India, you know?"
"Yeah, I know." I truly do know, but he's not talking about what I look like. He wants to know if I will stay with him. I wish he'd just ask straight out, but he doesn't. It doesn't matter, really. I don't have the energy to reassure him when he never can be reassured. I can't even be truly honest with myself. Maybe some of my mother is in me – the part that eventually bolts for greener pastures.
"Do you miss it, Hannah?" he asks dreamily. "Your hair? Do you miss it?"
I shake my head. No, I don't miss my hair as much as I miss what might have been if I was still in Hermosa with Josie.
"You okay, Hannah?"
"I'm good. It's nice to ride. I was tired of walking. I didn't like the boat."
"It is nice to ride." Billy echoes me. Then there's a minute and he adds: "Yeah, you look more like a black chick now."
Billy Zuni stops talking. He sleeps. My eyes are open, and I stare straight ahead seeing nothing. His words echo in my head. Black chick. That's what I am. I am getting darker by the minute. But this black has nothing to do with the color of my skin and everything to do with my heart and my mind.
I am afraid of myself just a little bit.
CHAPTER 2
The truck is sliding. Skating. Sledding over the road. I reach for Billy. He has slipped down and is lying on the cold floor of the container with his back to me.
"Billy?"
The truck lurches, scrapes, and brakes.
"Billy!"
I bolt upright and scoot past him on my butt, but he sleeps like the dead. I sit cross-legged in the middle of the floor with my hands flat on the buckled metal to see if I'm being paranoid. The truck is moving the right way again. My heart beats a little more slowly. I was dreaming. Having a nightmare. Maybe we're almost there. Maybe we'll get out of here soon. I convince myself that we will.
As I'm thinking this good thought, the container sways to the right and then left again. I slide backward. The boxes shift, straining against ropes that tie them into towers. A second later the container swings once more, and my stomach drops like it does when a Ferris wheel stops your car at the very top on a windy day. The car swings, the guy at the controls stares up. You don't
know if he will let you down, and he's the only one who can. You don't know if he's a crazy person.
I take a deep breath and beat myself up.
Not everyone is a friggin' psychopath.
I know that's true, but I can't help myself. I assume the freakiest worst, horror movie worst, the tenth level of hell worst, the no-turning-back worst because that's how afraid I've been for so long. I am the only one I can trust. I am the only one who will not run away from me. I almost laugh at how stupid that thought is, but the container moves again.
"Billy! Billy!"
My voice catches as the gears grind with the most god-awful sound. He doesn't hear. He doesn't feel that we aren't just on a hill anymore. We are driving over a mountain, the road isn't good, and it's tossing this tin can we're sitting in with a vengeance. I remember the beer on the driver's breath, and now I'm really freaked. This isn't the scared of what may happen, this is the terror of knowing something is going to happen.
Kneeling, I put my arms out as the back wheels slip. I'm thrown over and hit my shoulder hard as I tumble. I grab for Billy. My fingers scrape against the sole of his shoe. He's awake, and he does what comes naturally. He looks for me.
"Hannah? Where are you? Hannah!"
"Grab the rope! Grab the ropes on the boxes." I scream orders as I crawl back to him. The sounds are horrific: the floor popping under my hands and knees, the gears screaming, the towers of boxes groaning as they sway and strain.
"Find our stuff. We have to get out." I'm as close to hysterical as I've ever been, so I huff and puff and count the seconds between each breath to calm myself. I grab his leg; he grasps my wrist.
"What's going on?" He pulls me up so that I am in his arms for a split second.
"I don't know. I don't know."
I turn away from his embrace and start slapping at the wall of cardboard boxes until my palm hits the hemp. Like a blind girl, my fingers run over and around that knot as I talk.
"It sounds like he can't get traction."
"Where are we?" Billy kneels beside me.
"How should I know that, Billy? How?"
I scream at him to keep from crying. Before he can say another word there is a terrible sound – metallic screeching and wailing. The truck moves in slo-mo like it can't decide where it wants to go.
"Billy, the boxes are coming loose. Pull the rope!" I have no idea if what I'm saying is right or even possible, but we are not going to get crushed to death by a bunch of stinky boxes if I can help it. "Tighten it. Lean back against the boxes where I am and put your feet on the ones that you were near."
"Okay. Okay."
He grunts, giving it all he's got. My hands run up and down the ropes and flutter over the series of knots as I try to visualize what I feel. My heart sinks.
"Never mind. I don't think you can tighten it," I tell him. "Can you get up?"
"The whole thing might come down if I let go," Billy cries. He hollers, "What the hell is he doing? Stop the damn truck. Stop!"
"Billy. Billy! He can't hear you." I put my hands over his. He's got hold of the rope so tight that his fingers are like stone. Even when I touch them, they don't relax. "Billy, listen. We have to get away from these things. Okay? You have to let go. Hurry. I'll keep my back up against the boxes, and you get on the side. We'll take them down together so they don't fall on us. Okay? Okay?"
"Okay." He sniffs. He sniffs again like a boxer and wills his fingers loose.
Billy lets go of the rope, turns in the small space, and crawls between my legs. We play leapfrog in the dark, and the seconds seem like minutes, and the minutes like hours. I move tentatively. The boxes don't fall. I turn fast and put my hands up, but the top one is too high for me to grasp. Then Billy is up and his hands are next to mine. Between the two of us we manage to lift the top box down and put it on the floor. With my foot, I push it toward the end of the container.
"There's two more," Billy breathes. "Two more on this stack."
"Can you get those two on your own?"
"Sure, just don't get in front of me," he warns.
"Okay."
I drop down again. My duffle is still stuck between my tower of boxes and the skin of the truck. Everything we own is inside that duffle. I pull it hard just as I hear a second box hit the floor. The truck fishtails. Billy cries out.
"What happened?" I'm half on my knees.
"The edge of one of them hit me. I'm good. I'm good."
I take him at his word and go back to trying to get my bag.
"Soon as I have this, we'll push these down near the door and make a wall–”
The truck comes to life again and cuts me off. A box falls and the inside of this metal prison reverberates like a gong. Billy groans. My mouth goes dry and my head pounds. I know what's coming.
"Come on, Billy. Come away – " I beg, and then it doesn't matter what we do any more.
The truck has crested the hill and in the next blink we are in free fall, shooting down the other side. We are a ten-ton luge. We are bullets fired out of a defective gun barrel. That's how fast and out of control we go. The container swings, finds its path, and then it's running out like a fisherman's reel, away from the truck bed. I am thrown forward into Billy. We connect for only a second before he is tossed one way and me the other. I hear his grunt as he hits cardboard while I slide between the stacks only to be slammed against metal.
"Billy!" I scream.
"Hannah!" he shouts back.
Both of us are afraid for ourselves and for each other. There is nothing I can do to make it better. No one can make this better especially not the guy in the dork hat who puts his hands on girls' butts and drinks beer before he drives.
Some of the boxes break free, others slip and slide against their restraints. Now we're rag dolls tossed into a toy chest with outsized blocks. I try to throw my arms over my head, but then I put them straight out and grab for something, anything that will stop my slide.
Then I'm levitating.
I am free.
The weight on my shoulders lifts. Worry is a thing of the past. Fear is replaced with awe. I am flying. When the driver opens the door, when I come to ground, when I can see the damage done, I will be fearful, and grateful, and probably be one of those crazy people I always worry about. But now I am flying and happy and then Billy cries out in anguish. He knows what's going to happen a split second before I do.
The container is hit in the middle and folds like a big guy sucker punched by a coward. The edge of the flatbed hits the same hard thing a second later. The boxes break free completely. My hands go over my head. I tuck as best I can into a fetal position. In the blackness I don't know where the danger is coming from; in the next instant I do. Danger is coming from everywhere: down, up, around us, inside and out. Boxes filled with heavy things fly at us, the container surrounding us is no longer formidable; it is only a skin as easily cut through as that on my arms. We bounce around like pinballs; we slide away like air-hockey pucks. We try to grab ahold of one another to keep from smashing into things, but things smash into us. Our hands never meet. Our voices rise and fall. The sounds we make are nothing compared to the awesome sound of metal crushing. The heavy cab of the truck gets the best of the trailer and is now racing downward, front first, pulling us with it. We careen. We crumple. We roll and bang. I scream and scream. Billy calls out my name one last time and then all is silent.
All is still.
My mind goes dark.
Billy Zuni is no more, and neither am I.
***
Nell kept the plane steady on its course for ten miles before dipping down to check out a particularly promising place, in the seemingly endless forest, where she might be able to put down some weekend warriors who didn't want to hike from her usual drop point.
Idiots.
What were they coming all this way to do if not hike?
Still, the customer was always right so here she was scouting as the day wore down. When she found a clearing that would do, Ne
ll made the turn and headed home. Her heart really wasn't in this gig. The season was over, she had worked steady, and her bank account was solid. The last thing she wanted was to be responsible for a bunch of fat cats who would panic at the first white out and then blame her for not being able to get in to pick them up.
Nell checked her headings and then veered off course a few degrees, flying low and tight to the mountains just for the fun of it. She started to sing Some Enchanted Evening in a voice that would never be ready for prime time as she drummed a beat over the sound of the engine. She was almost on the second verse when she thought she saw something out of whack below. She was too tight to circle, but kept her eye on it as long as she could as she fired up the radio.
"This is Beaver 220," she said.
"Hey there," came the response. "Whatcha doing up this late in the day?"
"Scouting," she said. "Listen. Is there some major logging going on out north of my location?"
"Not that I know of," came the answer. "What are you looking at?"
"I'm not sure. Looks like a big hole in the universe down there." She laughed. "Like all the trees are missing just below an old road."
"That's weird," came the reply. "No construction or logging that I know of. Any vehicles on that road?"
"Not that I can see," Nell answered. "Back at you if I figure it out."
With that, she signed off. She was home forty minutes later, but it was twenty-four hours later that she decided what she saw might actually be worth a closer look.
***
Duncan double-checked to see that he had logged the list of verses Pea had given him correctly. When he was satisfied, he closed the Bible and put his fingers to his eyes. He had been holed up for hours interpreting the word of God. It was a laborious task – and one he was blessed to do – but it was a pity it must be done in secret, in this cold little room. Still, order must be preserved. His followers believed that his divine interpretations were as mystical as Pea's prophesies, so the concealed room and secret Bible were a necessary invention. If they got it into their heads that anyone could interpret the Book, the community would crumble.
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