by Kimberly Afe
I ignore his gesture. “You go. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
I nod.
Jake races off while I dry out a little longer, wondering how McCoy can be so helpful yet ruthless at the same time. That must be his method of operation: to be helpful one minute and a back-stabber the next. Well, I’m on to him. I won’t let McCoy get the better of me, but there’s no harm in letting him think he is.
Now that I’m dry I pull on my jeans. I scrub my flannel, what’s left of it anyway, and set it on one of the rocks to dry. A few minutes later I hear the rustling of plants and look up to see McCoy. He walks around the pool and sits on the rock next to me, holding a large leaf that is rolled up like a log. “Here’s some meat,” he says, handing it to me.
Reluctantly I take it, letting the ends of the leaf fall open, revealing two rabbit legs. My favorite. Does he know this or is it coincidence? “Thank you,” I say and dig in.
He nods. “You need to keep up your strength. We’ve still got a ways to go.”
Just when I get sucked into his generosity he says something to remind me that he is not all that he seems. He’s right. I do need to keep up my strength. I’ll need to be able to outrun him when the time comes. It’ll be a surprise when he finds out he won’t be able to use me the way he thinks.
McCoy scoots to the edge of the rock. “I was really worried about you when you left. I was kicking myself for letting you go.”
I almost choke on a bit of the rabbit. He actually sounds sincere. It’s amazing how good he is at playing this game. I swallow the meat down, intending to play right back. “I was worried about you guys too,” I lie.
McCoy’s eyes brighten and his lips curve into a familiar grin, like he really believes me. For some reason, my stomach tightens into a knot of guilt. And then I realize I wasn’t lying. There were a few times on the journey when I was worried about them. “When I saw those two bodies lying in the desert, I was scared it was you and Jake,” I say, but I know I say it partly to relieve my own conscience.
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” I ask in an attempt to change the subject. I might as well find out as much as I can about what McCoy has scheming inside his head.
McCoy unlaces his boots. “We head out at daybreak. Millers Creek is four hours’ walk from here through what Boom calls “The Maze.”
“The Maze? That doesn’t sound good.” I scan McCoy’s face for signs of assurance this route won’t cause us any trouble.
“If we go around it, we’ll lose a full day.”
I exhale. That’s all the assurance I need.
McCoy pulls off his boots and socks and I get an unwelcome whiff of stinky feet. For some reason, this makes me happy. Maybe because it’s a flaw and now I know he’s not so perfect after all.
I must be grinning too much because McCoy looks at me funny before he continues.
“Boom told me to go to the barbershop when we get to Millers Creek and ask for Mr. Cooper. He’s a friend of Boom’s and he’ll let us into Boom’s place so we can rest up and I can get his stash of money. We’ll need it to get supplies. And maybe even answers.”
“How does Boom have a place in Millers Creek? He’s been in jail for months.”
“He paid up for a year. That’s how they do things in Criminal City. You know that’s its nickname, right?”
I nod. I had heard rumors the place was filled with criminals, but I hoped it wasn’t true. Not that I can’t hold my own in a city of thugs. “I say we leave before first light. I want to get to Gavin before any of the other prisoners. If they haven’t already.”
“Avene,” says McCoy, pulling off his shirt.
My eyes go wide at the muscles rippling over his chest. The strength that shows with every movement of his arms sends my blood pulsing a few clicks faster. I avert my eyes to the water and attempt to rein in my heartbeat.
“There’s no need to hurry,” he says, tossing his shirt on the rock next to his socks and shoes. “Think about it. No one in the past two years has found him. No one except you even knows what he looks like. We’ve got the upper hand.”
We? I have the upper hand, but I’m not about to remind McCoy of that now. “Jake said you didn’t think there were too many prisoners left in the race. How many do you think there are?”
A rustling of foliage snags our attention. Jake comes waltzing toward us from camp, looking full and satisfied.
“Speak of the devil,” says McCoy, grinning and looking past my shoulder. “Here’s what I figure. We started with fifty-one racers. King shot one before the race even started. Three other prisoners battled it out with the ‘raiders’ as you call them, but lost. Day before yesterday we met up with those same raiders who wiped out about four more prisoners. In return, Jake, Greenie Jim, and I took care of three of the raiders. One got away though.”
I know the one that got away was Clint. “He’s dead too,” I say casually.
McCoy and Jake both give me a funny look.
I shrug. “The bear took care of him,” I say and finish off my meat.
Jake high-fives me and turns to McCoy. “Hey, what about those two you killed with the cool ninja knives you found?” Jake turns to me. “You should’ve seen him, Avene. Those guys were coming after us like they was panthers and we was their prey.” Jake stops suddenly when McCoy nudges him, but he ignores him and continues. “One was about to slice my head off with his machete, but McCoy whipped out these special ninja knives and threw them straight at their hearts. They went down at the same time!”
“Really?” I say through my teeth, glaring at McCoy with my hand on my new hunter’s knife. The one that feels so right in my hand, like it was made for me. Made for a moment like this.
Jake’s mouth drops when he becomes aware of his mistake, his eyes landing on my hand at my sheath. His breath catches in his throat. “Well, actually I ain’t even sure if they were ninja knives,” he says to me, pleading with his eyes for me not to do something drastic.
“It’s okay, Jake,” says McCoy. “Go on back to camp and keep lookout.”
I leap off the rock as soon as Jake is out of sight. “You lied to me!”
McCoy reaches for me. I step back.
“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I couldn’t tell you.”
I know exactly why. He wanted to leave me defenseless, or maybe he wanted to force me to depend on him. It was his way of keeping me in check. “Why didn’t you get them back after you killed the prisoners?”
McCoy steps forward. “I didn’t have time. There were others chasing us. You can have mine. The offer still stands.”
Jake didn’t mention that others were chasing them. I don’t know what to believe. This could be another lie. Everything McCoy says adds up to me being his passport to freedom. McCoy not telling me about the reward for my head. Not telling me about my knives. Tracking me. “I don’t want your knives,” I say, snatching my flannel from the rock next to him. “I just wanted the truth.”
McCoy stops me before I take another step. “Avene, I’m sorry,” he says, gripping my shoulders firmly, like he can squeeze the forgiveness out of me.
I shake myself free and return to camp. I don’t want to think about McCoy. I’m too tired to expend any more energy on him. In fact, I’m so exhausted I could probably sleep for two days. But unfortunately for me, the clock is ticking and so is my collar.
When I reach my pack, Jake looks like he’s settled in for the night. He’s next to the fire, staring up at me anxiously when I approach.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “He’s still alive.”
“Thank you, Avene,” he says. “He likes you, you know.”
I dig through my pack, pretending I didn’t hear him. Pretending I don’t like him. I don’t, really. Not right now anyway. It isn’t until I yank out my blanket that I realize I left my canteens by the pool. I stare up at the sky and exhale. I’m not about to go back and retrieve them. Not until tomorrow. I find a good spot by the fire, covering myself
with my blankets, even my head. If I’m still awake when McCoy returns, I don’t want to see him.
***
I couldn’t be happier that it’s morning already. I throw off the cover, eager to get on with the day. I trip on something behind me. My canteens. I reach for them and find each one is full. I look for McCoy. He must be at the waterfall with Jake because he’s gone too, although their packs are leaning against a tree, ready to go.
I wolf down a bar and down it with water and then finish packing my things as McCoy and Jake arrive from the pool.
“Ready?” says McCoy, pulling his pack over his shoulder.
I nod as I finish tying my hair into a ponytail using yet another strip from my poor flannel. We head to the gulley and march out the opposite way we came in. The air is still cool. The sun is currently hidden behind the mountains, but it won’t be long before we’re roasting. We push on at a quicker pace than is normal for McCoy. It makes me wonder if he’s trying to make up for his lie.
The gulley leads us into the floor of a narrow canyon. I stare at the rock walls jutting up from each side as we enter. Sand covers a dried-up riverbed. It isn’t until we wind along for several yards that I notice the unnatural quiet. It’s eerie, to say the least. No birds chirp. No trees with rustling leaves. No water splashes into a welcoming lagoon. There is only the sound of our steps wading through a foot of sand and the wind occasionally shrieking past my ears.
Jake runs ahead of McCoy and then stops and yells out. “Hello!”
I halt when I hear his echo. I wasn’t expecting it to be so clear, so emphatic. Although it does show me how isolated we are.
McCoy laughs and joins in and together they answer echoes back to each other while we continue ahead. After a while it gets aggravating or maybe it’s just an excuse to be mad at him since I’m still angry about my knives and his lies. “Are you sure you guys should be announcing our location?” I ask.
I hear McCoy sigh ahead of me, like he knows it’s not just about giving us away. “Avene’s right, Jake. We should cool it.”
Soon after McCoy and Jake halt their echoing, we come to our first fork in the canyon. McCoy seems to know where we’re going and takes the trail to the left. I’m still trying to figure out why we went left and not right when not a minute later we come to another split. Once again McCoy doesn’t hesitate. This time he follows the path to the right.
“How do you know which way to go?” I ask because I’m dumbfounded and don’t see any logical method to his choices.
He turns and grins at me.
Jake leaps in front of McCoy and then turns and walks backwards. “Yeah, how do you know we’re going the right way?”
McCoy doesn’t say a word until we come to a place where we are presented with three new options. A path to the left. One to the right. And another sort of in the middle. I really don’t have a clue as to which way we should proceed, but I know McCoy will not steer us wrong.
McCoy stops near the head of the left path. “Which one do you think it is?” he asks.
“Left!” yells Jake.
“Avene?” says McCoy.
I crinkle my mouth like I think it’s going to help me figure this out. Left is too obvious. That’s the one he wants us to pick. I sweep my gaze across all three to see if I can guess which one is correct. I do a double-take when I see odd markings on the rock that leads into the middle trail. “Middle.”
“You got it,” says McCoy and he points to the marking. “This carved circle with a dot in the middle is the way to Millers Creek.”
Well good. I’m glad I got that right. If nothing else it shows McCoy that I’m perceptive and he’s not going to pull anything over on me. We advance through the middle path with Jake in the lead because he wants to be lookout for the markers. I fall in behind them like usual, sipping water occasionally, but being spare about it. At one point we have to stop when we come to a section of the path where the canyon wall has collapsed. Boulders are piled on top of each other almost halfway to the top. The fallen debris leaves only a slim path that we have to partially climb over to reach the other side of the trail.
It turns out to be a good place for a break. We finish off the remainder of the rabbit. McCoy has the thighs left which he divvies up between us. I pass around some of the nuts to go with it. We guzzle down water and five minutes later we’re ready to go again. My calves are beginning to cramp from the extra effort it takes to walk through oceans of sand when I hear what sounds like coyotes, or worse—wolves. Jake looks at us with wide eyes but McCoy tells him it just sounds like they’re close because their howls are echoing.
The reassurance does the trick to settle Jake’s nerves, as well as my own. Although the howling doesn’t let up as we continue straight for an eternity. We must go another hour before McCoy finally stops us.
“Hold up.” He raises his hand to halt us and I see a fleeting glimpse of concern in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I ask and I’m already on the alert, looking down the trail ahead of us, behind me. Above me. But I see nothing. I hear nothing, except the wolves.
“Jake, did you miss a turn? We should have turned by now. Boom said it was almost constant turns once we made the first one.”
Jake is shaking his head. “No. No, McCoy, I was watching the whole time. I ain’t seen no marks yet. None. I promise.”
McCoy bites his lip and I can literally see him thinking. “I think we missed it.”
“Maybe Boom forgot there was a long stretch,” I say. At least I’m hoping that’s it. “It’s been a while since he’s come through here.”
“He wouldn’t forget something like that.” McCoy blows out a long breath. “Let’s just keep moving.”
I don’t think the decision should be as easy as that. Not when he thinks we might have missed a turn-off. “How do you know going forward is the right way? I’m not really fond of walking ahead for another hour only to realize we need to backtrack two. I sit on the edge of a boulder and drop my pack on the ground because I feel a lengthy discussion coming on about our predicament.
“Yeah, me neither.” says Jake. He comes around and sits next to me. Clearly he’s on my side.
“Well do you guys want to walk back an hour to double check that we didn’t miss the mark? And if we didn’t miss it, come all the way back again?”
Now it’s my turn to exhale a long breath, only it comes out more like a frustrated huff. We’re in what Verla would call “between a rock and a hard place.” I never knew what that meant until one day when she gave me the choice between letting her lop off the end of my right foot’s pinky toe, or losing my entire leg to gangrene because of a brown recluse bite. When the toenail fell off I knew what needed done, even though I pleaded with Verla to wait because I was sure it would heal. Needless to say, I chose losing my little toe. It’s barely noticeable anyway.
“You’re both awfully quiet,” says McCoy, who has taken up residence on the rock across from us, arms folded expectantly across his chest.
Time is not in our favor either way and neither choice is desirable, but unfortunately we have to choose. “I’ll do whatever you think is best.” I can’t believe I’m saying this, letting him make the choice, but there really isn’t any good one to make. I’d rather put it on him.
I can tell by the way McCoy’s expression goes from one of impatience to one of surprise that he doesn’t want to make the decision either. He thought I’d make it. That way he can blame me when things go wrong. I can’t fault him since that was my plan.
“Let’s take a vote!” says Jake.
“Okay,” says McCoy, taking a swig of water from his canteen. He smacks his lips and twists the cap back on. “Who wants to go back?”
McCoy is the only one that raises his hand.
I laugh. But I rein it in when I remember I still want to be mad at him over my knives.
“Who wants to keep going forward?”
Jake and I reluctantly raise our hands.
Now we a
ll laugh since everyone picked opposite of what they originally said.
“Forward it is,” says McCoy.
We move out to the eerie sound of wolves howling again, like they were stopped too, listening to us. This time we decide we all should scan every opening, every pathway, every ravine for the mark that will lead us in the right direction. Two ravines later I’m in the lead and I see something on a rock ahead that looks promising. I head toward the entrance to a new path to take a look.
Then I halt. Two yellow eyes stare back at me from the new pathway. The animal is skittish. He leaps back and then comes forward again. Dagger-like canine teeth protrude from his narrow snout. It seems small for a wolf, and thin. I’m not sure he is a wolf. I am certain he’s hungry.
“Do you see the marker, Avene?” asks Jake, stepping up beside me.
I put my arm up to stop him. Which he obligingly does, but not before I hear a tiny gasp.
“McCoy,” I say as calmly as possible while sliding out my hunter’s knife.
“It’s a coyote,” I hear McCoy whisper behind me.
The animal runs back a couple of feet which makes me think he’s not so sure of himself, until he circles toward us again. Jake jumps behind me, causing my heartbeat to accelerate.
I’m hoping McCoy knows what to do when the coyote starts yipping and yapping at the sky. “McCoy?” I say cautiously, not sure if the coyote is simply declaring his territory or if it’s a precursor to an attack.
McCoy steps in front of Jake and me. “Get out of here!” he yells, while swinging his pack at the scrappy animal.
The coyote runs off down the path and disappears around a bend with his tail between his legs. “Let’s move,” orders McCoy, and we make quick time away from what must be the entrance to the coyote’s den.
“That was crazy,” says Jake.
“He was a lone coyote, which is good. It’s easy to scare them off when they’re solitary, although they are known for being relentless stalkers,” says McCoy, pulling into the lead.
Funny how he talks about relentless stalkers; sounds like someone I know. I glance behind me to make sure the loner isn’t following us. I’m relieved to see he isn’t.