“We’re in the national forest now,” the Indian said. If that meant we were trespassing, it didn’t seem to concern him much.
There were no more houses. Sometimes on the right, but mostly on the left, there was either dirt or rock going very nearly straight up where the road had been cut into the side of a hill. Whenever the rise was on the left, we were plunged into deep shadow. Huge trees met overhead, almost like the jungle canopies I remembered from Biafra. Except now the only chill in the air was from the altitude.
The road was so deeply rutted that, sometimes, the Indian had to work up speed and just bounce over them. Other times, when the ruts were running in the same direction we were traveling, he slowed to a crawl and drove the narrow little spaces between them, carefully placing all four tires. I wouldn’t have tried with anything less than the Land Rover’s ground clearance. Huge pines stood sentinel on either side of the road, which had clearly been cut right out of mountain rock, twisty and steep. It was all as familiar to me as Mars.
Finally, we came to what looked liked a little spur, just a place where the road swung out and widened a bit. But the Indian slowed even more, and soon there was no road at all … just a clearing. And that’s where he brought the Land Rover to a halt.
“Are we—?” Gem started to ask. I made a hand gesture for her to be quiet. It was the Indian’s call; no point pretending otherwise.
He climbed out, walked around the front of the Land Rover as he had before, and released his dog. At his signal, we got out, too.
“It’s about three klicks,” he said to me, the vaguest trace of a question in his voice.
“Let’s go, then,” I said, shouldering my duffel and picking up Gem’s little suitcase in my right hand.
The Indian went back to the Land Rover and took out a scoped rifle from somewhere. He slipped the sling on and started off without another word.
The walk felt like a fucking treadmill—a greasy one. All slippery low grass and dirt. Gem kept up with me easily, but gave up trying to take her bag from me after a few attempts.
We finally came to a Y-shaped intersection, and the Indian called a halt. I flopped down gratefully, ignoring a look from Gem.
The Indian took a strip of what looked like beef jerky out of his coat and made a soft whistling sound. The dog trotted over to him and sat expectantly. The Indian tossed the strip and the beast caught it easily, then walked off a short distance, tail wagging. He found a spot that suited him, lay down, held the strip between his paws, and went to work on it.
The Indian pulled a single cigarette out of his breast pocket and lit it. It was unfiltered, with a dark-yellow wrapper; leaf or paper, I wasn’t close enough to tell.
A hawk soared overhead.
The Indian finished his smoke, carefully pinched off the glowing tip, then shredded the tiny bit that remained between the fingernails of one hand, dropping the result into the palm of the other. He held that hand high, opening it as a bolt of breeze came through, scattering the traces.
I rested my head on Gem’s thighs. It was out of my hands.
The Indian sat on the ground cross-legged. He unslung his rifle and laid it across his knees. It had a heavy, fluted barrel, and the stock was obviously fiberglass, colored in broad bands of black and gray. Not a camo-pattern, almost a geometric design. I tried to figure out what kind of rifle it could be, but my eyes kept losing its outline. That’s when I figured out the black-and-gray banding was no accident.
“That’s an unusual-looking piece,” I told him, trying for engagement again.
“It wasn’t built for looks,” he said.
“Remington 700?” I guessed, thinking of Wesley.
“It’s a .308 Bedeaux.”
“I never heard of—”
“It’s custom,” he said. “The man whose name’s on the barrel, he tunes them. And he’s the best in the world at it.”
“Minute-of-angle?” I asked him.
The Indian wasn’t impressed with my knowledge. Or my standards. “Less,” he said. “This one’ll ten-inch group at thirteen hundred meters.” He raised his eyebrows slightly. “You believe that?”
I wondered if he was testing again. Decided it didn’t matter. “I wouldn’t know,” I told him, truthfully. “I never really handled a rifle for serious.”
“I thought you worked jungle, once.”
I wondered if there was anything Lune hadn’t told this guy.
“Sure. Jungle, not plains, or mountains. And I was never a sniper, anyway.”
“What’d you carry?”
“Over there?”
“Yeah.”
“Whatever I could pick up. There was no resupply chain. Time I got on the ground, whatever anyone carried over there, it was like a fucking Bic lighter, understand? Runs out of fuel, you throw it away, look for another.”
“You work close-up, anyway, don’t you?” he said. It wasn’t a question. And I guess there wasn’t anything Lune hadn’t told him.
I just nodded.
“I apologize for my lack of politeness,” Gem said, suddenly. “You already know my husband’s name. I am Gem.”
“I am Levi,” the Indian replied, nodding his head just short of a bow, as Gem had done. Then, to me: “I didn’t know you were married.”
“Lune and I haven’t been in touch for a while,” I said.
A trace of a smile played across the Indian’s face. “Lune is always in touch,” he said. “That’s what he does.”
“May I offer you some water?” Gem asked him.
“Do you always carry water in your luggage?” he asked, an undercurrent of approval in his voice.
“Always.”
“No, thank you,” he said, almost formally. “But if you …”
Gem reached over, unzipped her bag, took out a plastic bottle of water, handed it to me. I took a couple of grateful sips, handed it back. She glugged down about half the bottle.
The Indian’s eyebrows rose a fraction.
“You should see her eat,” I told him.
Then I felt someone behind me.
They entered the clearing in a pincers movement—bracketing Gem and me, standing at an angle so they could watch us and the Indian at the same time. As they came closer, I could see they were both women, dressed exactly alike in padded camo-pattern jumpsuits. They were carrying exactly alike, too: backpack straps over their shoulders … and pump-action shotguns in their hands. The resemblance stopped there. The one closest to Gem was tall, slightly plump, and rosy-cheeked, with her cornsilk-blond hair in twin braids. I named her Heidi, in my mind. The other was a dark-complected, raven-haired Latina, a half-foot shorter than her partner.
“All right?” Heidi asked the Indian.
“He is who he is supposed to be.”
“And her?” the Latina asked, gesturing at Gem with the barrel of her shotgun.
“Wild card,” the Indian said. “He trusts her.”
“Get up,” the Latina told Gem.
I measured the distances with my eyes. The Latina looked quicker, the blonde more solid. I had to get one of them between me and the Indian if—
“Easy!” the Indian warned her off, reading my body language like it was a billboard. “It’s not what you think,” he said to me, his voice calm. “We weren’t expecting her. You know that. Lune trusts you. He doesn’t know her. You vouching for her … Well, no offense, but any man can be fooled.”
“Especially a man,” the Latina said.
“So what we need to do now is to search … Gem,” the Indian continued. “I promise you it will be as dignified as possible. And that, if we find weapons, it will not mean anything. But if we find a transmitter. Or a recording device …”
“I understand,” Gem said, getting slowly to her feet and facing the Latina as if the shotgun was a bureaucratic annoyance.
The Latina turned and started walking off, Gem following. And the blonde following Gem.
It took much longer than I thought it would. I made some no-content
conversation with the Indian, forcing myself to not listen for a shotgun’s roar.
When they came back, the shotguns were pointed at the ground. The blonde went over to the Indian, unhooked a canteen from her knapsack, and handed it to him. He took a long drink. And then I understood why he had refused Gem’s offer earlier.
Each of the women took out a padded jumpsuit similar to the ones they were wearing from their knapsacks. The Latina handed one to Gem, the blonde to me.
“Ready to go?” the Indian asked, once we’d climbed into the suits.
“Yes,” I told him.
The blonde picked up my duffel. The Latina took Gem’s little suitcase. I didn’t say a word.
The Indian waved his hand. The dog jumped to its feet and ran over to him.
Then we all started walking.
After a couple of hours, I was grateful the women were carrying all the gear. When the Indian finally held up his hand for us to stop, we were right next to a fence that was mostly concealed by vegetation. He checked his compass, walked to his right along the fence line, and stopped again. He showed us a gap someone had cut in the fence. If he hadn’t shown me, I never would have spotted it.
We followed him through. And started walking again until we came to a sheer-faced rock ledge.
The Indian motioned for us to stay where we were. Then he and the dog moved off until they were out of sight.
The Latina kept checking her watch. Or, at least, looking at some dial she wore on a band around her wrist. I wasn’t near enough to see, and didn’t plan on closing the gap.
Finally, she nodded at the blonde, who stood up and said: “You’ll have to carry your own stuff now. It’s not far. And we have to keep our hands free, all right?”
“Sure,” I said. But, this time, Gem snatched her little suitcase before I had a chance.
The blonde went first, climbing on what looked like random cuts in the rock. Normally, watching a woman climb stairs is one of life’s great treats, but the muffling of her camo-suit and the fading sun’s occasional glint off her scattergun killed any of that for me. Gem was behind me, with the Latina bringing up the rear.
As we topped a ridge, I could see down into a cleft in the rocks big enough to hold a large building. And when I looked closer, that’s what it was. Like a Quonset hut, a damn big one, painted the same color as the rock formations surrounding it. The only thing that drew my eye was the antennas. There were enough of them to bring cable to a small city. All different heights and thicknesses, with a random assortment of satellite dishes as well.
“He’s in there,” the blonde said.
We had to stoop to get through the door. Inside was a small, square room, as antiseptic as a decompression chamber. The women racked their shotguns on either side of the doorway, took off their camo-suits, and stood silently, hands clasped behind their backs, like some parody of parade rest.
“Have a seat,” the Indian said, pointing to what looked like a transplanted church pew against the far wall. “He’s working on something now, but he’ll see you soon.”
“Would you like some coffee, or something to eat, while you’re waiting?” the blonde asked.
“Please!” Gem said, making it clear she was saying yes to all the above.
The Latina glared at the blonde, but she didn’t say anything.
The blonde went out of the room, came back in a few minutes with a coffeepot in one hand and a tray of fancy cookies in the other. “Just a second,” she said, and went back out again. When she returned, she had coffee cups and saucers, and plates for the cookies. Which was a good thing, since it prevented Gem from simply putting the tray in her lap and going to work on the goodies.
I passed on the coffee, but I had a couple of the cookies. “These are wonderful!” Gem told the blonde, her mouth full.
“Aren’t they? Juanita makes them.”
The Latina rewarded her with a glass-cutter look—apparently, her domestic skills were supposed to be a secret. But before she could acid-tongue a response, the Indian returned.
“You can go in now,” he said.
Gem and I both stood up. The Indian shook his head. “Just you, Burke.”
The place was a lot bigger than I’d been able to tell from the outside—a labyrinth of rooms opening off other rooms, most of them loaded with equipment: file cabinets, computers, something that looked like a giant periscope. There were people around, too, but they all seemed too busy to look up from what they were doing. I kept my eyes down, not knowing the rules. At the end of one of the long corridors was a pair of swinging doors, like saloons used to have in old Westerns. The Indian pushed through. I was right behind.
A man was seated behind what looked like a triple-size drafting table. He looked up. Studied my face for a second, and … connected. Flashing us both back to where we’d started.
Inside, it was. Not the orphanage where they’d started me off, not the juvie joints I’d graduated to. This one they called a hospital.
It was different, all right. Everything was softer. The words, I mean. They didn’t call the windowless cells “solitary.” Even padded the walls for you. And, instead of clubs, the guards carried hypos full of quiet-down juice.
My trip to the crazy house started when I was locked up for thieving. One of the look-the-other-way “counselors” said they had a new program for kids like me. I was too young to be paroled to the streets, and I had no parents, so they had these special foster homes. For kids who’d had “trouble with authority,” as he put it, not even bothering to hide the sneer.
And I was just a kid then. Foster home—it sounded pretty good to me. At least the “foster” part. I already knew what a “home” was. I’d been in a couple of them. They were the same as the institution, only they didn’t have bars on the windows.
Same rules, though: always walk light and be ready to move, fast.
I ran away from the first one they dumped me in. I probably could have stayed out forever except for some lousy luck. I was steering for a hooker, only the john turned out to be a cop. Not an undercover looking to make a bust, just a freak with a taste for pain and a badge to take it on the house. I always hung around outside the ratty hotel room where Sandi took her tricks. If it worked out good, sometimes she gave me a little extra on top of what the johns paid me for “finding” them a girl.
Of course, when Sandi wasn’t working, I switched from legit steering to mini-Murphy. I’d bring the johns to another hotel, then tell them I always held the money for my sister—she was nervous about getting robbed up there. I’d give them the room number and a key that wouldn’t fit any of the doors … and run like hell the second they started climbing the stairs to the top floor.
When I heard Sandi scream that time, I wasn’t too worried, at first. She always made noises when she worked. Told me the johns liked that. But in a minute, I knew it was for real. I was old enough to know what it sounds like when someone’s doing … the things people do to kids. This was the same. I pounded on the door, real hard, yelled, “I’m calling the cops!”
The john ripped open the door. Sandi was lying on her stomach. The back of her was all bloody. The john told me to shut the fuck up, gave me a hard slap to the face. I came up with my knife in my hand. He laughed. But when he saw I knew how to hold it, he backed up a little, being careful. I grabbed an ashtray from the dresser and threw it as hard as I could. It missed him by a mile. But it went where I aimed it—right through the window. It was only on the second floor. I heard the fat pig at the front desk yell something. The john looked like he didn’t know what to do.
Time stopped, freezing us all, until we heard footsteps pounding up the stairs.
Cops. In uniform. They took over. One of them pulled me outside the room and cuffed me. He didn’t say anything.
I could hear Sandi inside. “That’s not him,” she said. “He came in after this other guy was … doing it to me.”
“That’s your statement, miss?” one of the uniformed cops asked her.<
br />
“Yes,” she said. The door swung open and I could see inside. Sandi had a sheet wrapped around her shoulders.
“That little bastard pulled a knife on me,” the john said, pointing at me.
“I saw you—” I started to say, but a look from Sandi cut me off.
So they took me back to the institution. And, after a while, they tried me on another foster home.
That’s when it happened. That’s when they … did what they did. To me. Whenever they wanted. It was summer. No school. Nobody ever came around to check on me. I was theirs.
But no matter how bad they hurt me, I never forgot what Wesley had told me the very first time we were locked up together. One night in the dorm, we saw a kid twice our size make a little one suck his cock in the shower. “They all have to sleep sometime,” the ice-boy whispered to me.
I knew I couldn’t shank them. Even though they were passed-out drunk most nights, there were still three of them. The man and his wife, and their teenage son. If any one of them screamed out while I was doing it, I’d be finished. And even if I pulled it off, got them all done, I’d still be the only suspect.
But I remembered something else Wesley had taught me. And that’s all I thought about, from then on.
One of the things they made me do was clean. All the time. Everywhere, especially their foul bathrooms. It took me a while, but I found a place to hide the plastic squeeze bottles of cleanser I emptied—some by using it up, most by just dumping it down the sink.
I never really slept. I was too afraid. Late one night, I got into their garage and filled my plastic bottles from the gas can they kept for their power mower. I hid them again, waiting.
I knew they took pills, but I didn’t know where they kept them. The only thing I could find in the bathroom was aspirin, so I started stealing that, a couple of tablets at a time.
They kept hurting me. I knew someday I’d just split into pieces from what they were doing to me.
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