by Shirl Henke
“You don’t read much, do ya, sonny?” she asked, hobbling over to one shelf and pulling down a volume of H.G. Wells. “Now this here’s the real thing. None of that Hollywood claptrap.”
“Hey, he wrote War of the Worlds,” the boy exclaimed, his earlier anger dissipated. “I saw the movie.”
Daisy shook her head. “Read the book. It’s better.”
“Your place is nice,” Sam said.
“Kinda fools folks from the outside. Coy, he wanted to have it painted, run in electricity, all that stuff, but I told him no.” She poured cool water into three tumblers with floral designs on the outsides. “Too hot to cook during the day,” she said, indicating an unbelievably shiny iron stove with the firebox banked. It, too, appeared new. “But I got a ham in the smokehouse and some bread I baked last evening.”
“We don’t want to put you to any trouble, although we sure do appreciate the water,” Matt said.
“And, we have to get out of here before those guys who were shooting at us show up. Wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble,” Sam added.
“My boys been pesterin’ me to move to the city for years, but I like my feet planted ’neath my own table. I’m safe here, but mebbe you ain’t,” she said shrewdly.
“We need to get to the Georgia border,” Sam replied honestly.
“Without any more shooters who might hurt Farley,” Matt added, looking over to where the boy was sitting cross-legged on a small sofa, flipping through the book Daisy had given him.
The old woman laughed and the creases in her face deepened. In spite of adversity, she’d done a lot of laughing during her lifetime. “I might cud help. This here valley runs south for near fifty miles ’n there’s a road—well, sorta—all the way.”
Sam digested this. “I might be able to nurse the van that far if our Ace bandage supply holds out. There aren’t any towns along the way, by chance?”
Daisy shook her head. “Jest lots a trees ’n kudzu. Oh, ’n did I mention skeeters? Here, I kin draw a map.” She scuttled over to the hutch and pulled a stubby pencil and a notepad from a drawer, then sat down at the table and started to outline the twists and turns of the unpaved road, alerting them to avoid where it forked off to dead ends.
“You’re one of them, too. I can tell,” Farley said suddenly. “Real aliens aren’t weak little green men,” he scoffed, pointing at the book. “They’re Klingoff warriors or sneaky Pandorians or—”
“Maybe it’s time for a little more medication,” Sam murmured to Matt.
“Boy looks doped up ’nough already. I got some good herbal remedies pounded up with balsam plant. Don’t taste too good, but it’ll clear his head, if anythin’ will.” She shoved the map at Matt and started to get up.
“We appreciate the offer but I’m a paramedic and I don’t think it would be safe to give him any new medication—he might be allergic,” Sam explained.
“I’m not taking anything that Pandorian spy gives me,” Farley said, flattening himself against the wall.
Matt smiled at the old woman. “We better get going, Mrs. Flowers, but we do thank you for your kindness to strangers.”
“You ’nother one of them folks that’s always been dependent on the kindness o’ strangers?” she asked him with a sly grin.
Damn, the old hill woman had read A Streetcar Named Desire! The expression on his face must have given away his surprise because she laughed.
“With a name like Tennessee Williams, how’d you expect me to pass that up?” she asked.
As Matt and Daisy talked, Sam chewed her lip and worried about nursing her sabotaged van across the wilderness. It wasn’t exactly a Conestoga wagon. And how the hell had Scruggs found them? They’d ditched the tracking device. “I’m gonna check my van and see if the jerry-rig’s holding,” she said.
Matt had been considering how Scruggs had found them, too. “Too bad we can’t buy a used car or at least change the color of the van,” he said as he folded the map and placed it carefully in his pocket. He allowed Daisy to precede him out the door and grabbed Farley by one arm, gently raising the boy. “Time to go,” he said.
Farley clutched the book as if it were a talisman to ward off aliens, even if he didn’t concur with Wells’s idea about what they looked like. “Let ’em keep it. Mebee if he reads more, he’ll watch TV less,” the old woman said.
They watched as Sam checked her handiwork, pronouncing it good to go. She walked over to Daisy and gave her a hug. “You know, in some ways, you remind me of my gram back in Boston.”
“Why, thanks, honey, even if she is a Yankee, that’s a nice thing ta say.” Daisy paused, then looked at the white van. “Can’t help you with ’nother car, but mebbe we cud fix this ’un so’s nobody’d recognize it.”
“How?” both Sam and Matt asked in unison.
Farley said in awe, “She’s got a Reemulan cloaking device!”
Chapter 14
“A still!” Matt said as he looked at the dust-coated apparatus, something out of a Rube Goldberg nightmare. Almost totally covered in kudzu, it was tucked away in a tiny shed down a twisting path. He ripped away more vines so he could follow the surprisingly spry old woman inside.
“It was Bobby Ray’s. I ain’t been down here since he died, but I know he left a couple o’ gallons o’ shine over there.” She pointed to a cluster of stone jugs in one corner of the small room.
When they returned a few minutes later, Sam blinked in amazement. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked.
“Yep, it is,” Matt replied cheerfully, tugging the cork from one of the heavy jugs.
“Now, you be real careful. Oh, ’n roll up the winders afore you start,” Daisy cautioned. “Don’t want it to touch the upholstery. Kindy eats it up.”
“What?” Sam was beginning to feel as if she’d missed something, as out of it as Farley, who sat on the doorstep of the cabin, clutching his book.
Matt rolled up the window on the shot-up driver’s door and then hefted the jug. “I’m stripping the paint off the van,” he replied, hefting the open container and splashing a generous amount against the side.
Almost immediately, the white paint started to bubble like something in a witch’s cauldron. Wide-eyed with horror, Sam watched as he doused the whole side of her baby.
“My Bobby Ray weren’t much o’a shine maker toward the end. A couple a fellers from down the road apiece went blind from drinkin’ his stuff ’n word spread. Bidness kindy fell off after that….”
“I can imagine,” was all Sam could manage.
Undaunted, Daisy explained, “This here last batch’s been a sittin’ fer nigh onto a dozen years. I use it to clean them fancy copper pans Ray—he’s my other son—give me last Christmas. Figgered it’d work on car paint.”
It was like watching the Wicked Witch of the West dissolve in The Wizard of Oz. Sam stood speechless, appalled. The dull gray primer and bare metal started to show through as the white paint slid off the vehicle. A snake shedding its skin was all she could think to compare it with. Matt was having a blast, damn his eyes! He knew how much she loved that van.
“Uncle Dec will kill me when he sees this—no, he’ll kill you!”
Matt, who by now had gone around the whole car and was working on the roof, said cheerfully, “We’ll have it repainted and the door replaced before he ever knows.”
“You’re enjoying this,” she accused, eyes narrowed dangerously, but afraid to come anywhere near the toxic splashing.
“There are times when I think you love this old van more than me.”
“There are times when I’m sure of it,” she snapped. “Like right now.”
“Yeah? Try to get it to take a shower with you,” he said with a glint in his eyes.
In a little over an hour they were bumping and bouncing their way down the valley toward the Georgia border in their now-gray van. As soon as they reached the state line and drove onto a county road, they searched out the first auto store they could find in a sleepy town.
Matt and Farley munched on lunch, watching as Sam removed the makeshift replacement and installed a new timing belt on the van.
Daisy had sent them off with a bag of ham sandwiches, a jug of cold well water and her best wishes for a safe trip. “You should take a break and eat,” Matt said around a mouthful of salty ham and crusty bread. “It’s really good.”
“When I’m done,” she replied, wiping sweat from her forehead and leaving a smear of motor oil on her face. As she completed the task and stepped back to admire her handiwork, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and held her chin in his hand while he rubbed the stain away.
Then he kissed the spot. “You’re cute even when you’re greasy. Wish I could’ve been more help.”
She grinned at him and used his formerly snow-white handkerchief to clean her hands. “I’m starving.” She seized a half sandwich and took a big bite. “Daisy cured this herself and baked the bread. You know, Granger, you guys could take a lesson from free-spirited women.”
“I have. I grew up with one and married another,” he replied with a martyred sigh. He’d promised to write Daisy when they had things sorted out for Farley. Her final advice had been, “Throw away that TV and set that boy down in a good library. Do him more good than all the doctors in Florida.”
Watching the boy as he sat in the backseat, engrossed in the slim volume the old woman had given him, Matt was inclined to agree. Farley hadn’t asked about any meds since they set out. Sam said something, and he turned to her. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you?”
“You seemed a million miles away. Still gloating about the paint job on my van?”
“No paint job. A strip job.” He couldn’t resist a little smirk, knew he’d pay for it. “No one will recognize this van once we get the door replaced.”
“Yeah, that’s got me thinking,” she said, taking a long pull from the water jug.
“Always dangerous, Sam.”
Ignoring his smart remark, she replied, “We know how those goons tracked us, but how did Scruggs find us? I double-checked for more honing devices. We’re clean.”
“It’s an ion signature registration. Spacefleet uses it all the time,” Farley said, turning a page of the Wells book without looking up.
“Right,” Sam said, not bothering to ask Matt for the explanation, which they both knew had to be irrelevant.
Matt shook his head. “No ideas, but we should be okay once we hit I-75 and pass Atlanta. If we’re real lucky, he may get lost in the Smokies and eaten by kudzu.”
“Or ‘skeeters.’ I feel like a pincushion with scabies,” she said, scratching her bare arm.
“El will find me,” Farley said again, putting down his book. “We have to find Leila.”
“Tell me more about this Leila,” Matt said, wanting to keep the kid happy and avoid using restraints on him again. Of course, considering how Farley had reacted the last time they encountered “El”, maybe he should rethink that idea. His fingers were still bruised and abraded from that bite.
As they climbed back into the van and resumed their journey, the boy answered. “Leila’s beautiful and smart, too.”
Teenage crush on a slick momma, Sam thought as Farley described the blond stripper. She made a mental note to check out the woman when they reached Miami. Somehow, Leila Satterwaite must fit into this puzzle. Sam had spent a fortune driving to St. Louis and renting that hotel room. She didn’t even want to think about what it was going to set her back to have the Econoline restored. Damn, how was she going to get paid if Farley’s father had changed his mind and wanted the boy dead now?
Atlanta had moved urban sprawl from a social problem to an art form. Sam negotiated the outer belt during rush hour, a 24-7 madhouse that rivaled her own Miami. After she drove through the last of the southern suburbs and they hit the southbound interstate, Matt took over the wheel, allowing her to catch a few hours of sleep. They’d agreed it would be best to drive straight through. Taking turns at the wheel was the safest course.
Once on the open road, he started to make up lost time. After about an hour on the flat highway, he caught a car in the side-view mirror, moving up on them fast. “Uh-oh,” he muttered, tromping the accelerator the way he’d seen Sam do it. The van responded. So did the maroon Jag.
Sam jerked awake and immediately saw Winchester’s vintage car approaching. “How the hell did he find us again!” She dug into the glove compartment and came out with her .38. Cursing, she started to roll down the window, but from the back Farley released his seat belt and jumped at her, wrestling to get the gun away from her.
As they bounced around the front of the van, Matt struggled to keep it on the road when they smashed into his right shoulder. “Who the hell put him on steroids?” he asked, while Sam fought to immobilize the kid without hurting him.
By now the Jag was beside them, cutting closer, the passenger window rolled down. Scruggs’s nasty-looking Glock pointed directly at Matt’s head. Matt might have considered making a run for it with Sam’s souped up engine but with her and Farley thrashing around the front seat, he didn’t dare risk wrecking the van. If he was shot and lost control, she and the kid would go crashing through the front windshield.
“He has a gun on us, Sam. I’m stopping,” he said over the grunts and curses. By the time he’d cut the wheel and slowed, taking the van onto the wide stretch of red dirt at the side of the highway, Sam had Farley pinned to the seat. The Jag pulled off the highway directly in front of them.
She looked over and hissed breathlessly, “Why the hell did you do tha—oh,” she corrected herself, seeing the cannon Scruggs pointed at Matt while he walked toward them.
“I…told you,” Farley choked out, “El’d rescue m-me.” He started to hyperventilate again.
Sam cursed, removing her knee from Farley’s thin chest. “The strength of Hercules one minute, a kicked puppy the next. Cover me,” she hissed at Matt, reaching down to the floor where she’d dropped her snub nose during the battle with Farley.
Matt started to get out of the van, hands in the air. “Hey, El, how’re you doing, good buddy?”
Scruggs looked decidedly out of sorts, eyes narrowed on Granger as he called out to Sam, “I wouldn’t try anything stupid with a gun, Sam, or I’ll have to put a slug in the big guy, here.”
“Okay, okay, let’s talk this over,” she said, climbing off Farley. “Your pal’s in bad shape. Needs a doctor. We have to—” Before she could say more, Scruggs suddenly turned and bolted toward the Jag. He jumped in and pulled away. “What the hell happened?” she asked Matt as she jumped out of the van.
He tipped his head at the approaching Georgia Highway Patrol car cutting off the road behind them. “I think that officer might’ve just saved our bacon. You’d better get your signed release for transporting Farley out. I have a hunch you may need it.”
“The kid needs a doc more,” she said to Matt. She walked toward the highway patrolman, who had just opened his door.
“We have a medical emergency,” she said in her most calm, professional voice.
“I believe you just might—if that fellow waving a gun at you had decided to use it,” the gray-haired man replied. His face was harsh and weathered as the dry countryside around him. “I called in his plates. He won’t get far. You folks all right?” he asked. Then, noting the condition of the driver’s door, he said, “I’ll need to see some ID.”
“I’m Sam Ballanger,” she said, pulling her driver’s license from her fanny pack while Matt dug for his wallet. “That boy is having a reaction to some medication he’s been taking.”
Farley lay back against the seat, not moving, but not acting particularly stricken, either. Probably calmed down after she got out of the van. The highway patrol officer glanced inside at the boy, then back to Matt. “It looks to me, the way you were weaving all over the road before the guy in the Jag pulled you over, that you’re the ones on something,” he drawled, glancing at their licenses.
“I had to subdue my patient when he
became violent. That’s what caused Matt to lose control of the wheel. The man who forced us off the road was trying to kidnap the boy.” As she pulled out the legal paper for the retrieval that Upton Winchester had signed, she waited for Farley to accuse her of being the kidnapper and Elvis Scruggs his savior. But the boy remained eerily quiet, just watching them with glazed brown eyes.
The officer went to his car, radioing their ID and info on the document allowing her to return Farley to his father. That killed the better part of an hour while they roasted on the scorching roadside. Sweat rolled down her face and neck, pooling between her breasts and soaking her T-shirt to her body.
“Remind me never to complain about the heat in Miami again. At least we have the ocean to move the air,” she said, running her fingers through her wet hair.
“I think we’d better give up on driving directly home and get a motel again. Now that the fuzz will snag Elvis, we’ll be in the clear.”
“Don’t speak too soon. They may get Scruggs, but I’m not sure the cop bought my story about those goons who blasted the door with automatic weapons.”
Matt shrugged. “Then he’ll ask us to stay in the nearest burg until they can verify it. Either way, we could use some sleep. So could the kid.”
Sam looked over at Farley, who leaned back, arms crossed stubbornly over his chest, staring at nothing. “He put some new bruises on me. Damned hard to subdue him without hurting him.”
“Too bad you never learned the Vulcant nerve pinch,” he said with a straight face.
She ignored him as the officer got out of his car and approached them. “Checks out. You’re free to go, but take care with that boy so you don’t have a wreck.”
“Any word on Scruggs?” Matt asked.
A frown creased the man’s already battered face. “That’s no longer my jurisdiction,” was all he would reply.
“No comment,” Matt said as they climbed back inside the van.
“Yeah, kinda like there’s something going on and he was told not to let us in on it.”