Chapter 5
Day three, Luna rose earlier and met Dilly in the kitchen where the puppy was going bonkers, biting every everything that moved, and alternately chewing on a sock she wasn’t supposed to have.
Dilly kissed Luna on the cheek. “She whined a lot last night. She’s lucky she’s very cute.”
Luna poured a cup of coffee for herself as Chickadee stormed in. “Nothing. A whole ‘nother night passed.” She slammed a mug down, poured four spoonfuls of sugar into it and filled it with coffee. “What the hell am I supposed to do with no information?” She was talking to the mug. “If I knew where he was I would go get him — that’s what I’d do. By car or train or airplane—” She kissed Dilly on the cheek. “Did you sleep any better?”
Dilly pulled the puppy off the leg of her pajama pants. “Not at all.”
They both turned to Luna who burst into tears. Because pregnant. Because hormonal. Because Beckett wasn’t coming home.
Chickadee rushed across the kitchen, clucking. “Dear, dear, now don’t you worry, aunt Chickadee was having a moment. This is all under control. You don’t need to worry about anything. Beckie will be home any minute now.” She scooped up the puppy and hugged Luna with the puppy in the middle of the huddle. The puppy chewed on Chickadee’s earlobe.
Luna laughed through her tears.
“Dilly what have you named this little asshole?”
“Luna was thinking, Shark.”
Luna sniffled, wiped her nose, and then fiddled nervously with the soggy wad of handkerchief. “Because it wants to bite you, but you can’t hold it against him, because it’s simply in his nature.”
Chickadee held the puppy up and looked in its eyes. “I like it. There are an awful lot of terrifying things just acting out their nature, huh? I like it a lot. Okay, Shark, down you go, and leave my pajama pants alone. I’m round in the middle, so if you pull them down I’ve got no hips to slow their descent and you’ll expose me to the whole world.” The puppy sat and cocked her head at Chickadee. Chickadee said, “She gets me.”
She turned to Luna. “How are you holding up?”
“Okay, I suppose . . .”
Chickadee said, “Yes, I agree, I feel the same way.”
There was a strong bang on the screen door. Chickadee yelped, startled.
Roscoe’s voice came from the porch. “Chickadee, I need to talk to you, I have some news about Beckett.”
Chickadee’s eyes went wide, terrified. “Oh no you don’t Roscoe. Don’t you come here with bad news. I won’t — you call me.” She collapsed into a chair. “If you’re going to tell me something awful, you can’t come in. I won’t allow it. Oh, you’re terrifying me, Roscoe. You can’t—”
“Chickadee, it’s not good, but it’s not the worst either, let me in. I want to tell you in person.”
Chickadee clutched the hem of Dilly’s shirt. “I can’t let him in. He’s going to say something awful, and I don’t want to know.”
Dilly placed her mug on the counter, smoothed her hair, straightened her spine, and marched to the front door.
Chickadee stared in that direction. Unable to comfort Luna who stood quietly crying in the kitchen, unable to move or speak or anything as if she had gone frozen while the world spun and time moved in slow motion. Maybe that was a good thing — to freeze right there, before hearing whatever it was Roscoe had driven over at the crack of dawn to tell them.
Roscoe brushed past Dilly, entered the kitchen, and dropped into a chair opposite Chickadee. “Beckett is missing.”
Chickadee’s mouth moved silently repeating the word.
“He’s been missing for going on three days.”
“In action?”
“No Chickadee, he’s been released from duty.”
Dilly asked, “So he’s on a bus home?”
“No, there’s no record of him leaving in transportation. There’s also no record of him on the base, at the front, or at meals. His commanding officer seemed to think that was all acceptable information.”
Chickadee asked again, “Missing? From the base? What the hell?”
Dilly said, “It must be a paperwork issue.”
“It would help greatly if we knew which base he had been stationed at.” Luna was absentmindedly petting the puppy.
Chickadee pointed at her. “Exactly! What base?”
“This is also not good news. He’s been at Burnside, at the front.”
Chickadee ran her hands down her face. “At Burnside. Just this morning I saw a headline that said it was all fire, death, and destruction in Burnside, and that’s where Beckett has been? That’s where he is now, but there’s no record of him?”
“Exactly.”
Luna clenched her eyes and tight. “Did you check the hospitals?”
“There’s also very little communication in and out.”
Chickadee put her hand on Roscoe’s. “I can’t stay here waiting. I have to do something.”
Roscoe said, “I know you do. I figured we’d start with battalion headquarters on the coast. I’ll drive.”
“Good, because I don’t think I can concentrate.” Chickadee hefted herself to standing. “Dilly, if Beckie calls, you call me the second you hear where he is.”
“Of course, and you bring him home.”
Chickadee turned to Luna. “Sweetie, I’m going to go get Beckie. You try not to worry, play with Shark. You have a baby you’re growing and worry is . . .”
Luna nodded. “Yes, I’ll try not to worry.”
Roscoe and Chickadee hustled out the front door. A second later Chickadee burst back in. “I forgot to change out of my pajamas!”
She raced into the bedroom returning a couple minutes later and lovingly saying goodbye once more.
Chapter 6
The following day the rain stopped. Beckett trudged through the damp forest, closer now to the road. He would make it by the end of the day and then hitchhike home. Easy. Also, and most importantly, there would be phone service. He felt sure of it.
At about five o’clock he found the road. Trouble was, the lane west was full of cars, a parking lot of cars, trucks, vans as far as his eyes could see. Every vehicle was full of bundles and packages and luggage and people. People in every seat and piled in the back of trucks and even sitting up on top.
His phone was close to dead. He needed his solar panel to recharge but there hadn’t been sun in days. And even though he knew to save the battery, he still kept turning it on to check for service, thinking, maybe a call came through, a message, anything. But no, he simply, idiotically, ran down the battery with all that checking.
He trudged up to the first car he came to, a man, a woman, three other people crammed in the back seat, and leaned into the window. “Excuse me, I’m looking for transportation west.”
The man scoffed. “Like the rest of us.” A truck whizzed by the other lane headed east. The driver asked, “Do you have any food?”
Beckett made a mental count of his bars: six. Not enough to bargain with, barely enough for himself now that his trip home looked so complicated. “I don’t, but I’d be willing to pay once we arrive.”
The man furrowed his brow. “See this road? It’s the road out. See this car, it has everything I own. And we’re stuck, have been for hours. You won’t get a ride out because there’s no riding.”
“Could I plug in my phone for a minute?”
The man shook his head. “I can’t spare the battery.”
“Sure of course.”
Beckett scanned up and down the jam of cars. Everyone seemed to be in the same shape. Even the motorcycles were stuck, slowly weaving through, and already carrying at least two people. Sometimes three.
And everyone glared as if they had been there for hours. Like they were pissed. Like he was invisible and they had lost all patience.
He found three guys in the back of a truck. “Spare some battery? Enough for me to make a call?”
“We need it for the trip.”
“
Okay. How long until the next town, from here.”
“You mean in miles or days, because it looks like a week away from here.”
“I suppose a ride is out of the question?”
“We paid. You got money?”
Beckett wanted to go west of course, but at this point, desperate, he would go East as long as a town was at the end of the road. He sighed and pointed in the opposite direction. “What about back there? Is there a town?”
One of the guys said, “Pretty far back,” and pulled his hat down over his eyes signaling the conversation was over. Another truck passed by headed East.
Beckett climbed over the median wall to the other side of the road to hitch a ride the opposite way.
Trouble was the eastbound traffic was random. While Beckett had been talking to drivers in the westbound traffic, two or three trucks had passed headed east, but now that he needed one — nothing.
He guessed most supplies were traveling along the southern route, because this highway was still too close to the fighting, too unpredictable, for truckers to risk their loads. But these families, out here, with everything they owned were an emergency situation. As if to punctuate his thought, an explosion, somewhere north, jarred the earth. A scream went up from the traffic jam and horns blared. As if that would help. Two planes buzzed by overhead.
Beckett stepped back into the tree cover off the side of the road. And then surprisingly the horns did help. The cars inched forward and even gained a bit of speed. Now Beckett wished he had stayed on that side of the road, he could have jumped on a truck and held on.
He ate a bar — and then a truck came his direction. Beckett rushed to the road’s shoulder and put out his thumb and when the truck failed to slow, waved his arms. The truck roared past him but then slowly stopped, right in the middle of the lane.
Beckett jogged toward it.
The driver put his head out the window. “You’re headed the wrong way from safety.”
Beckett said, “I need a ride to the closest town, I’m guessing it’s this way.”
“There’s one up ahead.” The truck driver didn’t seem convinced he wanted to help.
Beckett said, “I’ve been on the front lines. Got my discharge papers a few days ago, I’ve hiked here, now I’m looking for transport home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Near Charlesville.”
“Hoowee, you’ve got a long trip ahead of you especially if you go east to get there.”
Beckett looked up and down the road. “I just need a town. Any town. A place to plug in my phone, to get a ride.”
The driver paused for a second, his engine rumbling. “Fine. Get in. The next town this direction is forty-three miles.”
Beckett grabbed his rucksack and jogged to the passenger side, opened the door and tossed his bag up and climbed in. “Thanks man.”
“Sure, no problem. How long have you served?”
Beckett scrubbed his hand on his head. It felt good to be sitting down on a seat. He was damp still. He took off his raincoat and put it under his ass so he wouldn’t get the guy’s seat wet. “Six years, six months on the front.”
“You’re lucky to be begging for rides. You’re also lucky someone with ethics and a strong patriotic belief system picked you up.”
Beckett put his head back on the seat. “Yep. Lucky.”
“You always been so lucky?”
Beckett opened one eye and looked at him. “If I was lucky, I don’t think I would’ve spent a second on the front lines.”
The man laughed. His laugh was low and had a hint of menace.
Beckett fished out his phone and checked it. Still no service. Almost dead. Beckett asked, “Did you serve on the front lines?”
The man smiled, gold tooth, missing tooth, fat cheeks, stubble. “Nope.”
Beckett nodded and decided to continue to be conversational. “What are you transporting?”
The driver raised his brows with another chuckle. “This truck you just found your lucky ass in is full of munitions. So, you know, keep your ass in line.” Laughing, he turned the radio on and cranked the volume up.
Chapter 7
Apparently Beckett fell asleep. The shitty music, the rumble of the truck, the lack of conversation, it all lulled him into relaxation, and he was passed out. He woke with a start a bit later and checked his phone again. It was at 1% and boom, dead. Okay, this super sucked.
“Got a way for me to charge my phone?”
The driver grunted and gestured at the port.
Beckett unwound his cord and plugged into the dashboard. “How much longer until town?”
“Bit longer, half hour, though there will probably be a blockade, so depends how long it takes to get through.”
“I need to piss, can we pull over for a second?”
Without a word the driver pulled to the side of the road. The opposite side of the road was full of cars, jammed, honking, not moving again. It was about 7:30 pm, right at the edge of dark.
It was the time of day for looking at the horizon for the green flash of light, but trees, traffic, big truck, were all in the way. That green flash bullshit was too mystical for this moment, anyway. There was no way he was going to get the ‘instructions to the world’ right now, here, on the side of this road, headed in the wrong direction, with a surly ammunitions-carrying truck driver grunting beside him. Nope, this was surely a low point.
Beckett dropped from the truck to the gravel, walked toward the back tire, unzipped, and aimed his piss for the road by the back tire. He was about halfway through when the truck’s tires spun out, the truck pulled onto the road, and drove away. Beckett struggled to zip his pants while chasing it. “Hey! Hey!!!! You’ve got my stuff! At least throw down my stuff!”
The driver waved a hand and kept going.
Beckett ran after the truck, full speed, but fast as he could go, the truck was faster, and the driver, though Beckett hoped at first, wasn’t kidding. Beckett slowed, past able to catch the back bumper, out of breath — “Fuck!” He kicked gravel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He put his hands on his head and looked up and down the east bound lane, then over the median at the completely immobile traffic jam on the westbound lane. “Fuck.”
Okay maybe he was going to get the instructions to the world, and they would be: Screw you, Beckett.
He took stock. No phone. No water. His food was gone. Raincoat was on the seat. His entire sack with extra socks, toothbrush. All gone. He took a deep determined breath and began to walk.
Chapter 8
Chickadee and Roscoe returned late that night. She slammed through the front door and collapsed on the couch. “We didn’t find him.” She asked, “Dilly dearest, tea?”
It took Dilly about one minute to have tea mugs in front of all of them. Luna scooped the puppy up to her lap and scratched it hind the ears. “Where is he?”
Dilly dropped into a chair. She asked, “But that’s good news, right? If he — if something — you would know, right?”
Roscoe said, “Yes, we would know. We’ve contacted the hospitals, his officers—”
“I’ve contacted my goddammed senator and if he doesn’t give me answers by tomorrow, I’m going to the president,” said Chickadee as she twisted trying to get comfortable in her chair.
Roscoe was watching her closely. “I’m sure you will Chickadee, but we’ve been told all the information they have. We have four people looking for him. We’ll know something tomorrow.”
Luna asked, “How far away is it?
Chickadee waved her away with a hand. “You don’t want to go there dearest. It’s the front lines, just war and mayhem, and too far away to get to.”
Luna said quietly, “That’s not what I mean, I think he’s walking home.”
Chickadee jumped up. “Walking home? Walking home from hundreds and hundreds of miles away? What makes you think that?”
“Because that’s what I would do. I mean, I would paddle, but yes, I’d w
alk home.”
Chickadee looked around at the faces, and turned to the front window, “How long? If he walked, how long?”
Luna shrugged. Roscoe shook his head. Dilly sighed.
“If he walked would he have enough food? And why wouldn’t he call? And what if there are wild animals — is it through the woods?” Luna had never seen Chickadee like this, she sounded frantic, out of control.
Chickadee wandered into the kitchen, banging open doors and yank-crashing drawers. “What I don’t understand is why haven’t we heard anything? Could he be out — what if he’s in a ravine?” A glass overturned with a glass-splintering crash. “Crap!” She called toward the living room, “Roscoe who should I call about this?”
Roscoe called back, “The spill? Or Beckett? Because I’ve called everyone. Now we have to wait.”
It was as if Chickadee had turned a corner from her competent ‘handling’ of things and was now, incapable, and that was completely freaking Luna out.
Dilly stood. “Excuse me.” She swooped into the kitchen speaking to Chickadee in a way that made Luna worry even more. “Now now, Chickie, take a deep breath, it will be okay.”
Chickadee said, “No it won’t, how can it be okay? I’ve done everything for that boy. I gave up so much to make sure he was safe and now—”
“He’ll be okay, you need to try to tell yourself that. You’re going to get yourself all worked up, and you won’t be able to help if he needs help.”
“What kind of help will he need, do you know what kind of help?”
“I don’t, but I’m worried about you.”
Chickadee said, “I just don’t know what to do. If anything happened to that boy—”
“You’re going to scare Luna, and me, and quite frankly yourself. You have to keep a clear head.”
Deep (Luna's Story Book 3) Page 2