When Reason Sleeps

by Rex Burns

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s obvious Dori can’t walk to it.”

  Sam’s voice came over my shoulder. “Put your hands behind your back, Mr. Steele.”

  “Why?”

  “I feel better driving with you tied up. I’ll untie you when we get to your car.”

  His fingers were busy a moment and I felt the familiar yank of nylon loops and a quick, efficient tug to tighten them.

  “Now you crawl in back there.” Sam lowered the tailgate and held up the camper shell’s door. I crouched to clamber awkwardly on my knees into the low space.

  Dwayne leaned over the tailgate. “Not all of us trust you, Mr. Steele. But the High Priest says we have to. Just remember, we made a deal. I hope for your sake you keep your part of it.” He thought a moment, then added, “You remember, you don’t have any evidence of anything. And we know a lot more about you than you do about us.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Have a safe trip home.”

  He lowered the camper shell’s door and the truck rocked as Sam got in. Then the engine started and the vehicle bounced slowly over the rough earth and past the parking area toward the long road out.

  I rolled on the cold, ridged metal of the pickup’s bed. Bracing my shoulder against the lurching side, I worked my knees under me enough to peer through the front window into the cab. The dim glow of dash lights showed Sam’s frowning face staring ahead where the lights picked rocks out of the gullied road. Dori leaned weakly against the seat, her head tilted down. Behind us, I saw the lodge’s windows and outside lamps glimmer through tree limbs. Twisting, I tried to stretch the nylon cuffs but they bit into my wrists. A quick look around the metal bed showed a wadded burlap sack and a hoe handle without the hoe. That and a scattering of gravelly dirt were the only other things in the truck. Feeling with my hands behind me, I groped down the metal flange that anchored the lower rim of the camper shell. A long bolt poked through, giving a rough dowel of a few inches. Rattled by the jounce of the rough road, I struggled to jam the bolt end into the cuffs and twist. The straps seemed to give a little—either that or the searing bite into my flesh numbed my wrists and made me think they loosened. I twisted again, surer this time. Then I writhed sidewards and on my back to shake my pants pockets and use two fingers to fish out the sliver of soap I’d stolen from the bathroom shelf. Awkward and straining against joints and tendons, I managed to smear stinging soap on my raw wrist. Again, I hooked the strap on the bolt and twisted. The loop that gripped my arm widened and slid a little further down my slippery hand.

  Through the tinted plastic of the shell’s back window, a faint glow moved behind us in the blackness of forest. I paused to study the glimmer, not surprised when it congealed into a pair of distant headlights. A car followed from the lodge. I had a good idea what its purpose was. An automobile accident in my own car—a steep cliff, a missed turn and a rock wall. A fire, perhaps. Something that would make my and Dori’s accidental deaths take place well off the Kabbal’s property. I twisted savagely against the straps and felt the soap burn anew into freshly torn skin. But with the wrench the webbing slid as far as my knuckles. I began rocking my hand back and forth. The little knuckle—if I could just slip the strap over that knot of bone. …

  The truck swung down and up and halted, engine still running. Sam opened the driver’s door and I watched him unlock the gate and prop it wide. Then the man clumped down beside the truck and I quickly flopped on my back. The upper door lifted. “Where’d you park your car at?”

  “Second cabin up on the left. It’s in their driveway. You can’t see it too well from the road.”

  A grunt and the door closed. The truck jolted forward again, Sam not pausing to close the gate.

  I lay on my back as the vehicle’s low gears ground and it rocked back and forth with the ruts of the road. Then it turned left sharply and tilted up and braked. The glow of headlights reflected on the ceiling went out and the motor stopped. A door opened and shut and boots mashed into gravel beside the truck.

  The back door lifted and the tailgate fell open with a metallic clunk.

  “All right, Mr. Steele. Come on out.”

  Sam was a shadow outlined by the gleam of stars in the ribbon of sky over the road. I pulled myself toward the tailgate with my heels, arms bound behind. A thicker blackness in the trees indicated the silent cabin. Tiny reflections from the truck’s shining parking lights showed my rental car.

  “Come on out so I can get those cuffs off you.”

  I scooted under the lip of the camper shell and swung my feet over the tailgate. Sam’s teeth glinted in a smile or a grimace. He stepped back. The axe handle came at my head in a heavy, level swing.

  I thrust the hoe handle up. Lunging my full weight behind it, I bayoneted the center of the man’s shadow. It struck bone as the axe handle whistled through the dark and I tumbled away, pivoting myself off the tailgate. Sam’s breath burst in a “hunh” of pain and surprise. The axe handle clubbed against the camper shell, sending splinters of Plexiglas whirling into the night. I tucked and rolled to come up on my feet with the long stave at guard position. I thrust again, using the end of the handle to gouge at Sam’s face. The wood struck and Sam cursed and swung wildly as I parried high and right to glance the axe handle away. Then I closed. I drove a knee hard into the panting man’s groin. He sagged and stumbled back into the night, axe handle dragging in the grit.

  “Goddamn … goddamn you I’ll kill you. …”

  Sam came at me again. The club lifted high overhead in both hands and caught the glow of headlights bobbing across the rough road behind us. I waited until, with a savage grunt, Sam started the axe handle down. Then I stepped forward under the blow and used both hands to drive the slender shaft of wood into Sam’s throat. The man’s plunging arms caught me on the shoulder and the axe handle whipped down to thwack hard across my hip. But its force was broken and Sam dropped to clutch noiselessly at his neck. His eyes bulged wide and sightless in the brighter glow of the approaching headlights as he staggered to his knees, hands tugging at his crushed throat. As the second car stopped at the end of the short drive, I gave him a hard kick in the face.

  “Dori—Dori … come on!”

  “What’s happening? Why are you fighting?” The girl stood rigid by the truck’s open door and stared wide-eyed at me, at Sam, at the headlights that began to turn up the short drive.

  “They want to kill us. Let’s get out of here.”

  “But Dwayne said—”

  “He lied! His father lied! They can’t afford to let us go.” I grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her into the wedge of blackness cast by the truck. We stumbled past the cabin and into the thick, snagging limbs of the pines as, behind us, we heard the slam of car doors and a startled mutter of voices.

  Wordless, I dodged between the thicker blackness of tree trunks, a hand up to protect my eyes against limbs and twigs. The other hand pulled a tottering Dori. Her steps were noisy and unsure on the rough and black earth. I took quick bearings on the headlights splintered by the trees and angled back toward the road. At least I knew where that led. And if I could get to it, I might drag the girl fast enough to keep us from being caught.

  A looming shadow of large boulders forced us around but also shut off the last of the glare. I paused to listen for hurrying boots but heard only Dorcas’s gasping breath as she leaned heavily against the cold rock.

  “Can you keep going, Dori? We’ve got to keep moving.”

  “I … I don’t know. I’m bleeding again.”

  I groped to feel the girl’s pulse and forehead. She was clammy and her heart beat rapidly. Maybe she was moving into shock, but there was no time to treat that. The cure now would be to keep her alert. And to keep moving.

  “When was the miscarriage? How long ago?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “After you called me?”

  “Yes … I found out. …”

  “We can go slower now. Slow a
nd quiet. Can you do that much?”

  “I’ll try.”

  I led her through ponderosa trunks and around heavy thickets of aspen. How long we struggled, I couldn’t say. But Dori’s weight grew heavier and she began to lean on my shoulder.

  “You want to rest?”

  “Yes.”

  We stopped. The girl sank to the dark earth. I stood and listened and searched the blackness for any movement.

  “Mr. Steele?”

  “Yes?”

  “I … I don’t think it was a miscarriage. I think it was an abortion.”

  “What?”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. “We came up to the lodge. They said we were going on retreat and it was my turn. But they gave me something … I don’t know … the contractions started. Sister Gwen said I was going into premature labor … they said they’d get a doctor but it would take a while. They gave me something that made me sleep. I had terrible nightmares—things … I hurt … and when I woke up, my baby was gone. They said I miscarried. But they took my baby, Mr. Steele. I know they took it! There was this hole in my arm …” She rubbed at the inside of her elbow. “And I felt so sick.”

  “How many months, Dori?”

  “Seven. Almost seven.”

  “You said Dwayne was the father?”

  She nodded. “He came up to Julian a few times. To talk about us, he said. We didn’t plan on it—it just happened. But when I told him I was pregnant, he was happy. It … he said he left the Kabbal after Jerry died and we didn’t see each other for a long time. And one day he came into the store … he was different—changed—he told me about the Temple and said we could find a way to start over there. A new spiritual path. And he was so happy when I got pregnant. …”

  “I see.”

  “He never said anything about an abortion. Nothing—nothing!”

  “That’s all right, Dori. It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t okay. She took a breath that shook her shoulders in a convulsive shudder. “Mr. Steele—I think they took it. You know, the fetus. I think they used my baby for the Beltane ritual.”

  I remembered the flies buzzing around the stained altar. “A sacrifice, Dori?”

  “Yes.” She whispered, “A long time ago, Dwayne told me he wanted to be a High Priest. Like his father. A High Sacrifice is one of the steps to the priesthood. It would have been Dwayne’s firstborn.” She was crying again. “I didn’t know, Mr. Steele. I swear—I didn’t know!”

  “I understand, Dori. I know you didn’t.”

  After a few long, shaky breaths, she added, “I think something happened to Shirley. Shirley Graham.”

  The girl who preceded Dori. The one who, Dwayne had written, found peace in the Temple.

  “You think they killed her?”

  “I wrote her. At her home. The Pastor said she’d gone home for a while. But the letter came back forwarded to the Temple.” She shifted her weight uncomfortably, the pine needles rustling. “I think she learned what I found out. I think she’s dead.”

  “Is that why you called me?”

  “No. I didn’t even think of it until now. I didn’t know about this. …” Catching herself with another sigh, she said, “It’s the Temple. What they do at the Temple. The children.”

  “The pornography?”

  “Yes. And they sell them.”

  “What?”

  Her voice teetered on the edge of hysteria. The words began to tumble out. “Sister Gwen told me. She’s been there four years. She’s had four babies. They sell them to people who want to adopt babies, she said. She said Pastor Pettes tells them he runs a home for unwed mothers who can’t keep their babies. It’s God’s work, she says. She says she’s bringing souls out of purgatory into life so they can find God. She says by getting pregnant we’re obeying God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. But that’s only part of it—the children—they make pictures of them. …”

  “The pornography?”

  “The Temple gets money that way, too. That and selling babies. They’re born there in the Temple so no one knows they’re even alive. They don’t have any records, Mr. Steele—they can do whatever they want to with the babies because no one knows they’re alive. So no one knows when they’re sold or when they die. …”

  “And you didn’t want to do that?”

  “I didn’t know about it! At the lodge, I saw some pictures of the children doing those things … Jennifer … Allan. Children I know!”

  “That’s when you called me?”

  “Later—when I woke up once and everyone was gone. To … to Beltane. I didn’t know who else to call … I’m sorry. …”

  “Shhhh.” A faint light moved through the trunks. In the sudden silence I heard the grind of a car engine.

  “They’re looking for us, aren’t they?”

  “They sure are. Can you walk again, Dori?”

  She grunted painfully to her feet. “I think so.”

  CHAPTER 31

  I WASN’T SURE how long we had been moving. Dori’s clammy sweat had changed to a warm one. I tried to keep her quiet but she kept whispering, feverishly, telling me about the full moon, about Beltane, about high sacrifice and Dwayne. At least it kept her awake, kept her moving. After a while she said the feeling of blood had stopped. As long as we moved slowly and rested often, she said, it was all right. She was a brave girl, and when this nightmare was over she would testify against Dwayne and his father and Pastor Pettes. She had promised me that in a whisper as fierce as a witch’s curse. Maybe that’s what gave her the strength she needed for the hours we struggled.

  I tried to stay parallel to the road, to keep some sense of direction in the twisting blackness that was our path. But we had to stay in the rough dark of trees. Dwayne and his people had spread out. We had seen the lights of vehicles prowl the two-rut road leading from the ranch and past the dark cabins. It was a good bet the cars had dropped someone off along the road to wait for us to stumble across them in the dark.

  The county road, too, would be under surveillance. But our chances would be better there. We could move faster once we reached the level glimmer of that wide, graveled track. And then how many miles to the well-traveled highway? And would she be able to make it? Dori leaned more heavily against me, her breath a rhythmic gasp. She no longer said anything. She only concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. I was hot and tired and so thirsty I didn’t even want to think about water. And Dori—with her loss of blood—must be suffering even more.

  “Can you keep going?”

  “Yes … keep going. …”

  But it was clear she couldn’t. And something else was clear: the shadows of the tree trunks were more distinct and I could now see the paleness of my tennis shoes against the black of earth. Dawn was coming; with it our concealment and our safety faded.

  “I need to stop, Mr. Steele … I’m sorry. …”

  “Sure. Sit against this tree. I have to go ahead a bit and see where we are.”

  I pushed through a stand of old aspen. Their smooth boles made pale streaks against the pines. A sinuous smear of sky among the trees showed me where the access road was. It also showed me that the stars had dimmed in a paler sky. As I watched, I heard the restless grind of an automobile and Sam’s pickup truck swung around a bend, lights out, to patrol the road and pass me with a squeak of springs and the smell of hot oil.

  Dori had heard it, too. “They’re still after us?”

  I nodded. “But we’re near the county road. It’ll be easier going, then.”

  “I don’t know if I can make it, Mr. Steele.”

  “Yes, you can. Sure you can. You’ve come too far now to think you can’t.”

  “I don’t know.”

  I got her on her feet. We stumbled forward a bit more easily as the sky began to show us the stones and logs in our path.

  “Dori, when we get to the road, I’ll find a place where you can rest safely. Okay? Then I’ll go for help. It’s just a little farthe
r. It can’t be much farther now.”

  “… Yes …”

  “Hang on. It can’t be much farther.”

  We lurched on through the tangle of limbs and brush. As I half-carried Dori and looked ahead for dim figures waiting for us, I almost didn’t recognize the county road when we reached its wide cut. A screen of thick brush and a high bank masked it and I pushed through to stand suddenly exposed on the crumbly lip of earth before I jerked back and crouched. An automobile was parked almost out of sight near the access road.

  Dori’s voice whispered over my shoulder, “They’re here.”

  “Yeah. I figured. Sit still—they didn’t see anything or they’d be all over us.”

  “It’ll be light soon. They’ll see us when we move.”

  “No, they won’t. Not if we keep low and move quietly. Come on.”

  I led her back into the trees and we picked our way behind the brush that screened the graveled road.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No. I’m—I don’t feel very well.” She panted lightly and I could see the dark flesh under her staring eyes. The front of her long and now torn dress was spotted with blood. “I don’t think I—” That was her last sentence before she fell against me. Her knees gave as she plunged and I grabbed her boneless flesh to lower it gently to the pine needles.

  She was alive, but her pulse was light and rapid and, as far as I could tell, uneven. Her shallow breath tensed her upper body and a sheen of sweat felt cold on her forehead. Loss of blood … shock … exhaustion. She would need help soon.

  I tugged her farther back into the brush and wrapped my wool shirt around her as warmly as I could. Propping her feet high, I made certain she could breathe easily. Then I gathered fallen branches and built a screen around her. I hoped, too, it would be a sign when she woke to know I had hidden her, that she was supposed to stay until I came with help.

  Creeping to the edge of the road, I tied a strip of my T-shirt to a shrub. Then I started jogging toward the paved highway somewhere ahead.

  How far I’d gone I didn’t know. At first I counted my strides, trying to keep track of hundreds until I reached the seventeen hundred I figured was a mile. But my mind wouldn’t stay on the steady rhythm of my feet. It drifted back to Dori, ahead to what cars might be waiting at the juncture of the dirt and paved roads, over the revelations the girl had made. The ground rose in long hills, fell away in much shorter declines. Rose again with a drain on my strength that was almost inimical. And I felt that strength ebb. My legs sank past the sense of burning and into numbness. My ankles no longer adjusted to the uneven and rocky earth but turned occasionally with quick jabs of pain. I couldn’t afford a sprained ankle now. Shoving through the growth at the side of the road, I slipped and skidded down an embankment to the hard but even graveled surface. Running faster, I let my body look after itself as my consciousness drifted away in the steady thud of my canvas boots against packed clay. It was that familiar state I reached on the longest runs when my flesh had been pushed to its limit and my gasping, numb body was defining an even higher degree of effort. Fixing first on one tree or telephone pole, I ran until I reached the landmark. Then I chose another and focused on that.