Light of Dawn

by Vannetta Chapman

  “That’s all anyone can ask,” Stu added. He’d hobbled over to stand with them.

  Shelby clasped Mary Jane’s hand in her own.

  Max started the Dodge’s engine.

  She didn’t say anything else to the elderly couple. What words were there? The kind of sacrifice they were making—to give up sharing Mary Jo’s final days so that she might have her last wish—it was the stuff of novels.

  Shelby jogged over to the Dodge and climbed in, glancing in her side-view mirror as they drove away and Mary Jane and Stu became two dots in the distance.

  Bianca led this time, with Carter reading Stu’s map beside her in the front seat. Patrick drove the Hummer, and Lanh rode shotgun. The Hummer was now positioned in the middle, as if they suddenly needed protection given its precious cargo: one old lady with a short time left to live and a dream in her heart.

  Max was the last to drive out of the gate and down the dirt track.

  The backseat of the Dodge was still filled with supplies, as was the cargo hold of the Hummer. They made it back to town in a few minutes, a place that was as deserted as the first time they’d seen it.

  “You did a good thing back there, Sparks.” Max kept his eyes on the road. It was a few minutes past ten in the morning, and they would have rather been on the road hours ago, but sometimes life changed your plans.

  “I did?”

  Max reached up and tipped his hat against the morning sun. “I was skeptical.”

  “Probably the attorney in you.”

  “Probably so.”

  “Hard to change old habits.”

  “I thought I’d dropped them, to tell you the truth, but every time I think I’ve banished the lawyerly voice in my head, it asserts itself loud and clear.”

  “What were you afraid might happen? That they might sue us if we didn’t get Mary Jo to her son’s?” She had pulled out her notebook and pen, but she sat there rubbing the end of the pen against her bottom lip, trying to understand the ways of Max Berkman’s mental process.

  “Not exactly.” He shifted in his seat and shot a glance her way. “The old me would have worried about that—liability and litigation and charges of negligence if she died on the way to see someone we’re not sure is alive.”

  “And the new you?”

  “The new me worried that she should stay where she was, that Stu and Mary Jane shouldn’t have trusted us.”

  “But they did trust us, and that changed everything.”

  “For them maybe.”

  “For Mary Jo.”

  “I guess,” he conceded.

  “And what about for us? Did you believe Stu’s story about a mysterious bridge that can’t be found on any map?”

  “Our government wanted to spend nearly four hundred million dollars to construct a bridge to nowhere.”

  “Wasn’t that in Alaska?”

  “It was, and the funding was eventually removed, but how many more projects like that existed that we never heard about?”

  “And this is the same federal government we’re risking our lives to find. Thanks for the pep talk, Berkman.”

  “Do I believe they might have built a secret road across the Red River? I guess it’s possible, but why would they?”

  “Good question. Maybe we can ask someone when we get there.”

  Shelby thought the conversation was over. She pulled the cap off her pen, opened her tablet, and began to write a description of Grace Chapel rising up from pitch-black darkness as a band of refugees made their way toward it.

  “The thing is…” Max cleared his throat. “The thing is I would hate for you to get your hopes up.”

  “Me?”

  “We might be looking for the federal government, but I know what you’re looking for.”

  “I don’t expect to find boxes of insulin on the side of a mysterious bridge.”

  “No, but you do expect to find them when we locate the government.”

  She didn’t say anything to that. She hadn’t spoken of those thoughts to anyone, but then her hopes and dreams and fears had always been obvious to Max. He read her as easily as she had once read romance novels.

  “I understand what you’re looking for, and maybe even why you’re not talking about it. But…you know…try not to get your hopes up. Just in case.”

  “You’re a good man. You know that, Max?”

  He tipped up his hat and searched her face for some secret meaning behind her words. The concern and love in that look were almost more than Shelby could bear to see.

  She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Eyes on the road, cowboy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Carter kept his eyes on the road, scanning out the right side of the car. It was good to be in the Mustang again. He still thought it was the coolest ride he’d ever seen. But the Hummer was a close second, and it afforded a better view when monitoring for bandits and creeps. He was beginning to understand the appeal of the vehicle’s design over a civilian vehicle, and especially over a vintage Mustang.

  “This is the road,” he said as he checked the map.

  They turned right, continued another ten minutes, and pulled onto a dirt lane which ran through a tangle of trees. An even smaller dirt track appeared on the left, and Bianca took it.

  “Hope the Hummer and Dodge can make it down here,” she said.

  “The Hummer could go straight through the woods if it had to.”

  Bianca glanced in her rearview mirror and nodded.

  Carter turned to see the Hummer pull in behind them, followed by the Dodge.

  “That Dodge probably should have quit a long time ago,” Carter said.

  “Max’s determination is holding it together.”

  Carter again consulted the map. “One more turn on the right, and we should be there.”

  “These people are pretty far back in here,” Bianca said.

  “Which could be a good thing. They are too far off the beaten path for anyone to mess with them.”

  Bianca pulled the Mustang to a stop in front of a mobile home that had obviously seen better days. Surely it hadn’t come off the factory floor looking that way. The underpinning was torn loose in places. Several windows had duct tape across cracks. The front storm door hung crookedly off its hinges. The yard was a tangle of weeds, bushes, and mud.

  Carter had wondered why Mary Jo was having to hitch a ride to see her son on her deathbed. Shouldn’t her son be looking for her? But when he saw the mobile home and the passel of kids scattered across the yard, he understood. Whoever lived here wouldn’t be going anywhere. The only vehicle was a broken-down sedan covered in leaves, its windshields completely obscured with dirt.

  “No one’s driven that car in a while,” he said.

  “Maybe not since before the flare.” Bianca leaned forward to peer out the front windshield. “Maybe longer than that.”

  The Hummer and the Dodge pulled in next to them.

  Every child in the yard—Carter counted seven—was staring at them.

  And then the front door opened, and out stepped a bear of a man. He was easily taller than Max—way over six feet—and he had the stockiness of Patrick. His hair was mostly gray, as was his beard, and he was holding a Browning rifle that looked like a toy in his hands. Carter briefly thought they were at the wrong place. There was no way this guy was related to Mary Jo.

  Bianca stepped out of the car.

  They had talked about this beforehand, how they would approach Mary Jo’s son without being shot. The obvious solution was Bianca. She was the smallest of them and the least intimidating—though if you knew her, you might not feel that way. Bianca was tough. Carter didn’t want to be on her bad side. She’d always treated him like a little brother, but he’d seen her riled up. Kind of a scary sight.

  Bianca crossed half the distance between the vehicles and the front door.

  Carter rolled down his window. He couldn’t hear everything Bianca said, but he made out the
words Grace Chapel, Mary Jane, Stu, and your mother.

  The man lowered his rifle, stepped closer, and asked her, “Momma? She’s here?”

  And then the large man was running to the Hummer.

  After that, everything happened fast. They moved Mary Jo into the trailer, which looked dramatically better on the inside than it did on the outside. Food was stacked in crates along the wall. Bedrolls were tucked on top of the crates. Everything was clean, remarkably so given the condition of things outside. But Christopher’s wife reigned inside. That much was obvious. From the look of things, and the bows and rifles and even a slingshot hung on the wall, Christopher spent a lot of his time scavenging the woods for protein for their brood of children.

  Gabe spent a few minutes in the back room, giving instructions to Aubrey, who was a normal-sized woman. She looked petite up against Christopher. Carter and Lanh walked back outside as soon as they could because there wasn’t enough room in that house for the adults.

  “How do all the kids fit in?” Lanh asked.

  “I have no idea, and I don’t want to find out.”

  The kids gathered around them, apparently hoping they might be Santa Claus about to hand out gifts. But they didn’t have anything to give to them. Eventually, the oldest, who looked to be maybe ten, shrugged and walked away. All of the rest followed.

  What would their childhood be like?

  No school. No field trips. No Saturday movies or texting or video games.

  All of the adults except for Mary Jo and Aubrey walked out onto the porch.

  “I don’t know how to thank you folks. I don’t even know why you’d do such a thing.” Christopher stared out over the ramshackle yard. “I tried to get to her a couple of times, but there were too many people on the road, people milling about in big groups, attacking anyone they could. I stayed…stayed in the woods and watched, looked for a way. There wasn’t one.”

  “The first month was difficult everywhere,” Max assured him.

  “Then my son and his wife were killed by someone who wanted the deer he’d harvested. After that, I didn’t dare leave Aubrey or the grandkids.” He looked slowly from one person to the next, his gaze finally coming to rest on Gabe. “I don’t know how to thank you. Being able to see my mother again…well, it’s something I’d given up on hoping for. Being able to care for her, to bury her here on this land, is a real gift.”

  Tears slipped down his cheeks, landing in his bushy gray beard. He didn’t attempt to wipe them away. Instead, he ducked his head again and said, “Thank you. Truly. If there’s anything I can do for you—”

  “We’re looking for a way across the Red River,” Gabe said.

  Bianca showed him the map that Stu had drawn. “Stu said he’d heard about a secret government project. He seemed to think it might include a bridge.”

  “Uncle Stu always was one for conspiracy theories.” Christopher studied the map.

  “So there was no secret project?” Shelby asked. “He made that up?”

  “Well. Something was going on. He’s right about that. Lots of supply trucks, construction trucks, even road crews. Funny thing was, they didn’t build a road.”

  “I don’t understand.” Max rubbed the muscles on the back of his neck.

  “The trucks went in…to a private property right…here.” Christopher’s finger stabbed the map.

  “That’s not the spot Stu marked.”

  “My uncle’s getting on up in years. He had the right area, which as you can see isn’t that far from here…maybe another twelve miles.”

  “How would you not know for certain if something that big was happening only twelve miles away?” Carter asked. Maybe the question sounded rude, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d known everything that was happening in their hometown, and he’d only been seventeen at the time.

  “Mainly because that’s not on the way to anywhere. As you can see, the road ends back here. There have been plenty of rumors, but I didn’t have time to chase fairy tales even before the flare.”

  He stared off into the distance, as if he could see the area he was talking about.

  “I’ve driven past the main gate once or twice when I took the grandkids to the river to fish. We had to park at the end of the road and walk in. The gate itself is right here. Can’t see anything from downriver, I can tell you that for certain. Whoever owns it purchased a big tract of land.”

  “Or several tracts.” Gabe looked as if he wanted to add more. He settled for, “You’re certain that’s the place Stu was referring to?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. I haven’t actually thought about what was going on there in quite a while. Why would I? I’m not looking for a way across. Don’t expect things are any better on the Oklahoma side, and I’ve had my hands full since the flare. I guess you know how that is.”

  They all nodded, even Carter. He felt his head bobbing up and down. It seemed they’d been dealing with one emergency after another since the flare.

  “It was winter before last when the trucks started showing up, one or two at a time. They’d turn down this dirt road. You’ll be able to find it clearly enough. There are ‘No Trespassing’ signs all along the road there.”

  “Folks like their privacy,” Gabe said.

  “Yeah, but there’s not a lot of high fencing around here, and the gate? Eye scanners, fingerprint boards, stuff like that.”

  “You saw that?” Gabe asked, now watching him sharply.

  “I didn’t, but a guy I worked with—a guy I trust—he did.”

  “All right.” Patrick crossed his arms and frowned at the piece of paper Stu had drawn on. “High fence, no trespassing, super high-tech gate. Paved road?”

  “That’s the thing. The stuff went in, but they never built the road. It’s still a dirt lane. I don’t know what happened. Strange, I’ll give you that.”

  Carter glanced at Lanh, motioned to the Mustang, and they both walked away toward it.

  “Is that guy making any sense to you?”

  “He makes sense. He’s coherent, and he hasn’t contradicted himself. Plus, why would he lie to us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What he’s saying, though…that’s a different story. That makes no sense at all.”

  “Think we’ll go check it out?”

  “Are you kidding me? Did you see Gabe’s reaction? He was like a homing pigeon zeroed in. We’re going there. The only question is what we’re going to find.”

  With a shrug and a sigh, they turned and walked back toward the group.

  FORTY-NINE

  Gabe took the lead this time, which was fine with Max.

  Carter and Lanh rode with him in the Hummer, Carter holding the modified map, and Lanh sitting in the backseat watching for trouble. Shelby was once again riding in the Dodge Ram with Max.

  “I don’t like it,” Shelby said.

  “Told you not to get your hopes up.”

  “Yeah, there’s that. But this is beyond strange.”

  They were behind the Hummer, and Bianca drove the Mustang behind them, Patrick riding shotgun with his rifle out and ready.

  The high fence appeared suddenly, along with large “No Trespassing” signs spaced at regular intervals. It went on for miles—5.3, to be exact.

  “If this doesn’t work, we’re going to have to locate one of Gabe’s fuel dumps.”

  “Are we low?”

  “I’m at a quarter tank.”

  “We have some left in the fuel cans.”

  “We do, but I’d rather not use it if we don’t have to.”

  “It feels as though we’ve been driving in circles for days.”

  Suddenly, the fence was interrupted by a large, metal gate. The entrance was wide enough to hold all three of their vehicles beside one another.

  “Can you think of a reason to make an entrance that wide?”

  “Eighteen-wheelers? Concrete trucks? Who knows?”

  Max didn’t like it. He felt certain they were walking into a trap. Ev
eryone got out of their vehicles, car doors slamming in tandem. Lanh, Carter, and Shelby immediately took up position behind them, facing the road.

  Gabe, Patrick, Max, and Bianca walked up to the gate.

  First they checked out the electronic pad.

  “Fried?” Max asked.

  “Yeah, but this model…” Gabe tapped the bottom of the screen. “Same kind that you’ll find on military bases all over the world.”

  “Can we break through?” Bianca asked.

  Gabe walked up to the wrought iron gates and gave them a rattle. “Maybe. If I’m willing to smash the Hummer into it. But for what? We have no idea what’s on the other side.”

  “Can’t climb it.” Bianca pointed up. Curled razor wire adorned the top.

  “And it runs the entire length of the fence,” Max said. “Probably on all three sides—assuming the fourth side is the river.”

  “Looks like this was a pointless side trip.” Bianca whistled. Shelby, Lanh, and Carter started their way.

  “No sign of people around here,” Shelby said. “No tracks on the dirt road except ours.”

  “I imagine whoever owns this, owns a lot of the surrounding land as well.” Gabe stepped closer to the gate, peering past it. “Look up there.”

  He pointed first to one tree, then another, and another.

  “Surveillance cameras?” Lanh asked.

  “Yeah. They’ll be fried too, but the thing is that everything about this place is overdone. The gate. The security. The surveillance.” Gabe shook his head as he turned and faced the group. “My recommendation is to walk away from this. I don’t know what it is, but there’s little chance it’s what we need.”

  “How can we know that?” Shelby asked.