by Medora Sale
Karen Johnson had already been frozen into immobility when the lights when out for the last time and Gary uttered his final threats. She was, she had decided, beyond terror. It was the outrage of it all, the random outrage of it all, that had finished her. That by some vicious chance she—a fill-in, totally unprepared for the job—should have to cope with this. The unfairness of it had destroyed her, had transported her out of the bus into some other dimension, one ruled by strange laws, where she was enveloped not in air, but in some thick, muffling substance. Each breath she took had to be dragged into her lungs with deliberation; sounds came to her ears from very far away; people’s movements were slow, terribly slow, as if impeded by a terrific force of gravity. But in here, in this gelatinous fog, she was safe, wrapped up, away from harm. As long as she didn’t try to move, or speak, or think.
She reached for comfort toward the old lady beside her, and realized that she had fallen asleep. She had her own manner of fleeing the horror, and Karen decided that she had no right to interfere with it. There was nothing for it, then, but to sit here in immobile silence until daytime came and they started to kill. Tears she was scarcely aware of trickled down her cheeks.
From somewhere in the bus, she heard a voice whisper, “Grab the girl. We might need her.” A huge hand encircled her arm and squeezed; she gasped and another hand was clapped over her mouth. She was lifted up out of her seat and pulled into the aisle; in a few stumbling steps she was out of the bus. The cold air felt like the water off Popham beach back home; clean, powerful, and breathtakingly frigid. She shivered.
“She’s cold.” Karen recognized Wayne’s voice.
“Here—she can have this.” That was Gary. And one of them placed a jacket over her shoulders and with great care and delicacy put her arms into the enormous sleeves. The jacket came down to her thighs, the sleeves almost as far. The same careful hands brought the zipper together and fastened it almost to her chin. It was warm, blissfully warm. A gust of wind blew against her face, and she realized she was breathing again.
“How fast can you walk?” said Gary softly.
“Pretty fast, except that these shoes aren’t the best for walking. They slip on the dirt and gravel.” This was her voice, speaking normal, intelligent things.
“Okay. We have a plane to catch, you might say, and we’re taking you with us for insurance. You stay quiet and stay with us and nothing will happen to you. We’ll make sure you get back to Dallas or wherever safely. Now let’s move.”
The two men walked with extraordinary speed and silence through the dark night. They were following the road farther up the mountain, around the bend that the bus hadn’t managed to negotiate. Neither one spoke, and Karen was too concerned with keeping her footing and not losing her companions to want to fall into casual conversation. She was wearing elegant flat-heeled shoes that slipped up and down her heels and slid on every stone, making each step an adventure. At the outset, Gary had gone ahead, and Wayne had walked beside her, his hand on her arm, holding it, lightly. After twenty or thirty minutes, they were following along in single file. And either the sky was lightening somewhat, or Karen was developing eyes like a cat, because now she was able to see, more or less, where she was going.
They had been walking for hours, it seemed, most of it uphill. Karen had long ago pulled her neat, too-tight skirt up way above her knees, folding it over at the waist to allow her to take longer strides, but she could still feel the muscles in her calves and in her arches seizing up, preparing to cramp. She was seriously considering taking off her shoes, when suddenly Gary stopped and looked around him. “Did I miss it?” he asked quietly.
“Up ahead there,” said Wayne, and the strange procession plunged on into the night.
Then the black shape that she had been confidently following disappeared into the trees.
A hand grasped her by the arm again. “Real quiet, now.” She found herself turned onto a path that ran through absolute blackness. A hand reached back and found hers and placed it on his waist. Miraculously Gary continued to be able to see his way through the night, and kept padding silently on. They climbed steeply now; then the path twisted and they were on the lip of a cup, looking down onto a small, very flat mesa, about the size of seven or eight football fields, Karen estimated automatically. The area was lit up by what appeared to be a pair of enormous headlights, and one small searchlight, all emanating from a small plane. Two men were talking; they appeared to be shifting cargo. One laughed. After the silence of the night, it sounded obscene.
The searchlight swept around the circle of hills, picking out a narrow dirt road about a quarter way round. It rose briefly and crested at a dip in the rim surrounding the mesa. It was so clearly superior as a means of entering the plain where the plane was waiting, that clambering up the way they had come seemed perverse. Gary took her hand from his waist and pushed her back slightly, into the trees. He moved forward a step or two, silently, drifting along the rim, and then returned.
He beckoned to her to move down the hill the way they had come up and pointed at a little hollow, protected on three sides. She moved into it. He crouched beside her and murmured into her ear. “This is our plane, sweetheart. But we have to go down and get it from those two guys. You just stay there, very, very quietly. No one can see you if you don’t move, remember that. We’ll be moving slowly, so give us time.” And he disappeared, if not exactly in a puff of smoke, then into the trunk of a tree.
For a long time she heard nothing but her own breathing. Then, somewhere, a chunk of earth and rock, loosened by a silent footfall, threw itself down the side of the hill.
Then silence.
Suddenly the quiet of the night was destroyed by the starting up of the little plane’s engines. She heard a shout, an answering shout, a building up of noise as the engines increased their speed. Finally the noise began to fade, farther and farther. The plane was gone. They had left without her. They had left her here to perish.
Don’t be stupid, she said to herself. They left you here within walking distance of the bus.
Slowly she stretched out her tight leg muscles and then silently pulled herself to her feet. She could see nothing but trees against the lightening sky. She moved up to the rim and looked over. The little airfield was quiet. She walked on, always keeping the airfield in view and to her right. This way she wouldn’t get lost. She hoped. And then, about halfway between the proper road in and the path they had used, she saw a heap of clothes lying on the ground ahead of her. She walked up to it, and stared straight down into Wayne’s slashed throat. She turned her head aside and gulped in some cold, clean air.
When she turned back, he was still there. And lying beside him was Gary, his throat another open wound. She turned and fled.
Karen took three steps, slipped, and fell, wrenching her ankle and bruising her knee. This was insane. She kicked off her shoes, pulled herself up very gently and began to slide sideways into the woods. She moved as quickly as she could, darting between trees, trying not to fall, until at last she realized that no one was chasing her. The silence of the night ruled once more, and she climbed back up to the top of the hill, slightly to the right, she thought, of the path she had been on with Gary and Wayne.
Once out from between the trees, she saw that the sky was turning from black, studded with stars, to silver, brilliantly lit by one or two. The mesa was empty, except for a couple of beer or soft-drink cans where the plane had waited. She perched on the rim of the enclosing mountain, shielding herself behind some brush, and searched for signs of life. There was nothing. She shuddered and moved along the top, staying away from the steep slope that led to the mesa in case she slipped and fell and broke something. It seemed to take her forever before she reached the entrance to their little path. With a sob she could not suppress, she began to run, stumbling, back toward the road.
“What time is it?” Harriet whispered the words directly into John�
��s ear.
He raised his watch and flicked on the tiny light buried inside. “It’s three forty-five,” he said. He spoke softly, but well within the range of normal speaking tones.
Harriet jumped, startled. His voice seemed to echo across the valley in the silence of the night. “How long have we been sitting here in the dark?” she went on, still whispering into his ear.
“About an hour.” John had pitched his voice low enough not to disturb other people, but not at a level of a man who expects to be shot if someone hears him talking. “I imagine Gary and Wayne are long gone.”
“What makes you think that?”
“There’s been a certain amount of movement back and forth, along the aisle,” he said. “Maybe you didn’t notice it from where you are, but I could feel people creeping by. I wasn’t counting, but it’s entirely possible that we’re the only people left on the bus. Except for the injured woman and the kids. Did you say you had another flashlight?”
“Sure,” said Harriet. “In my knapsack. I also have more batteries, as far as that goes.”
“I wonder where they put our flashlight?”
“On the seat,” said Harriet. “Gary’s seat.”
“It should have enough juice in it to take me back to the van. Stay here.”
“You’ll need the keys.” There was a faint rattle as she extracted them from her pocket. “Here. Don’t get shot.”
And indeed nothing impeded Sanders’s progress down the steps of the crippled bus. The batteries had regained a faint measure of their strength in the meantime, and the glow of the flashlight was enough to guide him to the van. It still sat there peacefully, locked and unmolested. The knapsack was open, as he had left it, and a second flashlight was lying close to where the first had been. Fresh batteries were neatly disposed in one of the outer pockets. When he replaced the used ones, he flicked on the flashlight and it lit up the night. Wonderful, organized Harriet, he thought, in a sudden surge of affection for her. She really always did things properly. He stretched luxuriously and strode back to the bus.
“Gone without a trace,” he whispered to Harriet, “and the van is fine.” Then stepping as lightly as he could, he made his way back to see if he could help the injured woman. There were indeed empty seats. Across from them, the cool Teresa had decamped into the darkness. And so had Kevin Donovan. The big football player was gone. Rick Kelleher was still there, wide awake, supporting his sleeping wife. Sanders leaned over. “They’ve gone,” he whispered. “Are you all right?”
“We’re fine,” said Kelleher.
The children were sleeping, and in the back, Jennifer Nicholls was sitting on the floor, leaning her head against the seat, guarding her patient. She looked momentarily destroyed with exhaustion. “I brought you a flashlight,” said Sanders. “I thought it might help. Is there anything else we can do? The brothers seem to have disappeared completely, taking their guns with them.”
Nicholls pulled herself upright. “I hope they don’t come back. Do you have the time?” she asked, yawning.
Sanders looked at his watch by the light of the flashlight. “About four.”
“I wonder when it starts to get light around here,” she said and yawned again. “You can begin to see it way before five at home, this time of year. When you’re on night shift. I love watching the dawn creep in. Actually, I like working nights.”
“You must be either crazy or a masochist,” said Sanders with a laugh. “I always hated working nights.”
“Working nights! That must be a weird firm of accountants you’re with. What did you do? Emergency tax returns at three in the morning?” she asked, giving him a sharp look.
“You’d be surprised,” said Sanders evasively, embarrassed at being caught in Harriet’s lie.
“I think I would,” she said. “But night shift is pretty lively at the hospital I work for. You feel like what you do makes a real difference. Of course, you lose a lot of people. All the worst things seem to happen at night. But you save a lot of them, too.” She turned and looked out the window. It was still pitch black outside. “I guess dawn’s probably later here. We’re farther south.” She accepted the flashlight Sanders gave her. “Thanks. I was going into suspended animation. You’ve yanked me awake again.” She grinned. “I can’t believe you’re sticking with the bus when you could have left. You’ve got transportation.”
“So could you,” said John. “Lots of people have.”
She grinned suddenly. “Naw. Habit. I couldn’t have left.”
“When it’s light, I’ll see about using the van. The road’s narrow, but we can always back out. And we can make a bed for your patient.”
“Where’s that bastard I’m married to? Has he left yet?”
John was left openmouthed, trying to think of a tactful way of answering her question. “I didn’t really notice—”
“He probably fell down the mountain,” said Jennifer calmly, and turned her attention back to Diana Morris.
Sanders flashed the beam over the tiny galley and halted it on the shiny urn that said “Coffee.” He located the cup dispenser, poured a cup, and brought it back to the tired nurse. “You want some coffee? It’s black, and it may be cold, but I brought some sugar and a spoon.” He emptied these out of his pocket and dumped them on her lap.
“You are a lifesaver,” she said.
He filled two more cups, put lids on them, and began to work his way back to his seat. “I found us some coffee,” he said to Harriet. “First come, first served.”
“Do you think we should wake people up?” asked Harriet. “Let them know those guys have gone?”
“Why? The Kellehers are awake already, and so is the nurse. That leaves the two kids, and the pair in front of us. The rest have taken off. Anyway, there’s not much we can do before daybreak. Let them sleep. Maybe some of the people who left went to find help. They might be back when it gets light.”
“My God, are you ever filled with the warm glow of hope and charity,” said Harriet. “The ones who left didn’t strike me as the selfless and sacrificing types. If you want my opinion, they took off without a word before anyone could ask them to do something.”
Harriet stared out the window into the blackness and nursed her cup of coffee. She tried to remember the exact route and times of last evening’s journey. How many miles had they driven away from Santa Fe? And in what direction? The road had snaked a good deal at first, she remembered, and it seemed to her that they were heading southwest or even south as much as they were heading in any other direction. As soon as it was light enough, she’d get the map from the van and check what center of civilization they were likely to be near at the moment. If any. And check how close she had parked to the abyss down there. If it was really an abyss, and not just a slope. She yawned and started wandering down the slope, admiring the spring flowers . . .
“Don’t spill that coffee,” said John. “I’m not sure how much of it there is.”
“I’m wide awake,” said Harriet.
“Liar.”
And then suddenly the bus seemed to be filled with cold gray light. Harriet wriggled her toes, stretched her spine up against the seat back, and drank the remains of her coffee. Small noises—birds, animals scuffling about—broke the silence of the night and she looked around. The remaining passengers were moving back and forth, energized by the returning day. The Kellehers, bright-eyed, were sorting out their belongings. “We’re going out to see where we are,” said Rick. “But we’ll be back. We’re hikers, and it might be that we can find a way to get help. Does anyone have binoculars?”
The remark drew nothing but silence. Rick shrugged his shoulders and headed outside.
“Let’s get ourselves out there, too,” said John. “I’ve had enough of the bus for the moment.”
Harriet glanced over at the first seat and was disturbed to see that the tour guide had also left. H
er unspoken question was answered before she had time to frame it. “I don’t know, my dear,” said Rose Green. “I must have fallen asleep—I found last night very tiring—those men, and all the mess. I was very upset and that always makes me tired and when I woke up again she was gone. I thought nothing of it at first. A call of nature, you know. That’s what I thought. After all there were people creeping back and forth all night. I heard them, and you could feel the bus lurch and sway as they went down those steps. But she hasn’t come back. Such a nice girl and so far from home, you know. Comes from Maine. She doesn’t know this part of the world at all.”
“Then what in hell was she doing as the guide?” asked John. “Aren’t guides supposed to know more than the people they’re guiding?”
“Well—she did worry about that, she said, but apparently the company thought she’d be fine. It was an emergency, you see. The regular guide didn’t turn up and they called her in as a replacement. At the last minute. She had all these books and things she was supposed to read last night to find out about where we were going.” Mrs. Green’s voice hoarsened and she fell into a brief fit of coughing.
“Can we get you some coffee?” asked Harriet. “Or tea? I think there’s tea, isn’t there, John?” He nodded.
“Yes, please. I always find that—”
“Sugar? Milk?” asked John, and fled back to the galley.
In seconds John had the lukewarm drink in her hand. “We’re off to look around and catch a breath of air.”
“And to get some warmer clothes,” said Harriet. “But we’ll be back.”
As soon as she stepped outside the bus, Harriet understood why she had felt that they had driven into the absolute darkness of hell the night before. The nose of the bus was buried in the towering slope above them. The road looked to have been carved into the side of the mountain at this point, and rock, trees, and earth hung over them like a roof. Only the darkest of evergreens and crawling plants seemed able to find a foothold in that hostile environment, and the result swallowed up light like a black velvet background cloth. On the other side of the road, the slope continued its precipitous descent, but another dark hill rose up from the other side of the narrow valley at the bottom. The effect was to enclose them in a black-sided box.