The Road to You

by Brant, Marilyn

  It was 8:40 p.m. when we spotted the Cactus Flower Inn. There were exactly two other cars in the parking lot and the “us” in “Cactus” kept flickering in neon green. I’d expected someplace louder, bigger, flashier—or at least more centrally located. But it was a very quiet Saturday night at the edge of Amarillo and the silence taunted me with its artificiality. It was almost defiant.

  Donovan shrugged when he got out of the car. “Well, we’re here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why don’t we check in and then…I don’t know, go for a drive or something? Maybe see the town. I think most of it is over there.” He pointed westward, where a hint of the setting sun still colored the horizon with a thin streak of orange. “Officer James said he wouldn’t call us until late tonight or tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I said again, agreeing to the drive.

  Not sure what I thought yet about the cop’s plan to talk to us again by phone, though. He still had to get himself to Crescent Cove and find Ronny Lee Wolf’s storage facility. We didn’t tell him how we knew to look for it—just that he should—but Donovan and I were both aware that it’d been two years since Ben Rainwater filmed the insides of the place. Maybe it was on tribal lands and not accessible. Maybe the contents changed. It might even all be gone by now. We’d have to wait and see.

  As for our evening, it turned out Amarillo was, in fact, bigger and more active than we’d been led to believe by our sleepy introduction to it. The lady at the front desk handed us a stack of “attractions” brochures along with our room key when we checked in.

  “Y’all might wanna catch a bite at The Big Texan Steak Ranch, if you’re hungry and you like meat,” she said with a smile. “And on the other side of the city, right along Route 66, there’s the Cadillac Ranch. It’s a pretty famous landmark.”

  I thought of my brother’s second postcard to Amy Lynn and nodded.

  We thanked her, dropped our overnight bags in the room and headed into the heart of Amarillo.

  With darkness having fallen over the city and the lights all around, I was finally beginning to see it as the largest Texas town in the north of the state. After driving through the Interstate-40 business district, I had to admit I wasn’t sure why Officer James had specifically told us to stay at the Cactus Flower Inn and not a motel nearer the city center.

  “He really has us on the fringes,” I said to Donovan.

  “Yeah, it’s an odd choice, but he probably knows what he’s doing,” Donovan said, giving the cop his vote of confidence yet again. “Maybe it’s a place he’s stayed at before and he liked it. I just hope—” He hesitated.

  “You hope what?”

  “That us going through all of this won’t be for nothing. That it’ll make the world safe for our brothers.” He exhaled. “I just haven’t wanted to let myself believe…you know, that Jeremy might still be out there. Alive. Unharmed. That I might get to actually see my kid brother again.”

  “I know.” I’d believed Gideon and his friend might be alive for much longer than Donovan had, but I, too, wondered what it might be like to simply see and chat with my brother once more. Wondered about it all the time, in fact.

  “Hey, there’s that place.” He nodded toward a bright yellow building with blue trim that said The Big Texan on the side. “Hungry?”

  I pulled out the large advertising card the motel lady gave us about the steakhouse and read a bit about it. “Not hungry enough for The Texas King,” I told him.

  “What’s that?”

  “Their famous 72-ounce sirloin steak, served with salad, shrimp cocktail, baked potato and a dinner roll. It’s free if you can eat the whole thing by yourself in an hour. Otherwise, you pay for it.”

  “I’ve got an appetite, but I don’t think I could finish all that tonight,” he admitted. “Maybe just a steak sandwich or a burger?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Inside, it was more like a three-ring circus than a typical restaurant. So many people, so many sizzling steaks hissing on the grill. In the center of the main dining room there were a couple of lumberjack-like men going for The Texas King challenge. One of them looked red and overheated from the colossal meal, and he seemed to be slowing down. The other was munching steadily, like he’d polish off everything on his plate but the silverware and lick the dish clean, too.

  We were seated at a table for two near a wall that had the stuffed head of a heavily antlered beast above us. Just a buck, but it looked scary hovering over our heads that way. Like it might attack at any moment.

  I glanced uneasily at it as we ordered our sandwiches—or, rather, “steakwiches”—and glasses of iced tea. Donovan opted for mashed potatoes and I got a side salad just to be contrary. Not that lettuce made that big of a statement, but it at least made me feel better that I wasn’t just blindly following along with everything he did.

  I could tell he was still riding high on his victory, being right, in his opinion, about trusting Officer James and handing over our findings to an authority figure. Just because I wasn’t openly arguing with him, though, it didn’t mean I was convinced that was the best move.

  He glanced around the large room, his gaze resting on a picture that showed the outline of Texas. “Didn’t think we’d get this far south and west,” he said. “We’re a long way from central Minnesota.”

  “That we are,” I had to agree, sidestepping any commentary on the first part of his statement because, of course, I did think we’d get this far away from home. I’d begun imagining myself trekking along the same route as Gideon ever since I saw all of the locations listed in his journal.

  Donovan seemed to sense the direction of my thoughts. “You got the journal with you?”

  I nodded. I kept everything with me in my tote bag—my brother’s journal, the two postcards, the envelope Andy delivered to us, Treak’s decoded notes, the Route 66 placemat and any other scrap of paper with helpful information on it. I was a walking, talking card catalog for anything remotely important that we’d discovered.

  “Did you want to look up something?”

  “Maybe just check to see what he’d written in the days after Amarillo—” he began, but he was interrupted by a loud cheer. One of lumberjack guys had finished his steak.

  I grinned at the challenge winner and, then, at Donovan. “Still time to go for it.”

  He grinned back at me. “Nah,” he said, and then he muttered something almost too low for me to hear. I could have sworn he said, “Not what I’m hungry for…”

  I shot him a sharp look. “What?”

  But he didn’t answer me or even meet my eye. He just reached for the journal I’d pulled out and flipped through a bunch of pages until the waitress brought us our meal.

  Finally, sometime later, on the drive back to the motel, I worked up the nerve to ask him, “So, do you miss Vicky?”

  “Who?”

  “You know, Vicky. From St. Cloud. That girl you were with just last week at the movie?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. She’s…nice.” He studied me from the driver’s seat when we stopped at a light. “Why are you asking about her?”

  “Well, I just, um, wondered. If you missed talking with her. If she was someone you’re going to go out with again after we get back. That’s all.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. It’s taking us longer to get back than I thought it would.”

  True enough.

  I guess I hadn’t given much thought to the specifics of Donovan’s dating life, although I always supposed he’d had a fairly active one. Girls were drawn to him because of that moody, flirtatious, bad-boy thing he had going, but I didn’t remember seeing him with any one girlfriend for long. Couldn’t help but wonder which girl had been his first kiss…not that I’d ask. His expression didn’t invite further questioning.

  From the second we walked into our room at the Cactus Flower, I felt something was different. Even before I saw it.

  It wasn’t anything I could pinpoint precisely—not a sound or a s
cent—just the oddest sensation that a few nearly invisible things had changed in our absence.

  “Something’s not right,” I told Donovan, who was staring at his camouflage duffle with a perplexed look.

  He squinted at me and then again at the duffle. “I think…someone rifled through my bag.”

  I watched him unzip it and poked cautiously through several of the items inside.

  “Nothing important is missing,” he said. Then he clarified, “Nothing is missing at all, as far as I can tell. But I’d left it unzipped before we went out. It may have been searched.”

  The contents of my bag showed subtle signs of having been sifted through as well. My clothing was jumbled—and I was a conscientiously neat packer. The bag itself was positioned a few degrees differently than I’d remembered and a number of other items in the room sat at angles slightly askew from how they’d been when we left.

  “A dishonest maid looking for easy cash, maybe? Or some other staff member who overheard us talking to the lady at the front desk and knew we’d be out of the room?” I suggested, but I couldn’t quite make myself believe it.

  We’d stayed at a lot of motels and never had anything like this happen before. Dressed in our old t-shirts and jeans, I knew how youthful and unexceptional we looked. Maybe we’d never been as inconspicuous as I’d have liked, but we just didn’t give off the vibe of people who carried items of much monetary value. Motel workers had to have a sense about things like that.

  “Maybe,” Donovan said. “But I still don’t like it.”

  I didn’t want to have to bring this up, but it seemed foolish not to mention the possibility. “Any chance our hometown cop might be behind this somehow? It’s a strange thing to have happen to us…and he’s the only one who knows we’re here.”

  Donovan glanced around the room, considering. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I really don’t, but I don’t like it.” There was a long pause. “Do you have everything you need from the car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  In a few swift motions, he locked the door, latched the chain and pushed the small but heavy wooden table in front, blocking anyone who might even consider entering. Then, he made sure the window was bolted shut from the inside and, in utter silence, did a comprehensive check of every cubic foot of the room.

  After he returned from investigating the bathroom thoroughly and checking in closets and behind the shower curtain, I got as far as asking, “Did you find anyth—” before he shushed me.

  “Everything looks fine,” he said, narrowing his eyes and nodding toward the small notepad and pen near the motel telephone.

  I picked up both and handed them to him.

  He wrote:

  Don’t say anything about your brother or mine tonight—not unless Officer James calls. If he does, say as little as possible out loud. Just a precaution in case the person who came in the room wasn’t a maid.

  He let me read that segment first and waited until I nodded. Then he wrote:

  You and I can go somewhere early tomorrow so we can talk outside the room. And we won’t stay here a second night—that’s for sure. But I think we’re okay for now. I’ve secured every possible point of entry, and I didn’t find any bugs. Still, it’s not impossible that someone’s listening.

  Bugs?

  The idea sent a tremor of panic through my body. I hadn’t thought us important enough to even consider that.

  And every possible point of entry?

  I could see Donovan’s military training coming out. He’d gone into full protection mode and, I had to admit, I appreciated it. But realizing there might be a need for this level of security was what was beginning to seriously scare me.

  I nodded at him again. “So,” I said with feigned cheeriness, “I’m just going to give the front desk a quick call to thank that lady for recommending the steakhouse. Great food.”

  “Okay,” he agreed warily.

  “And I’ll see if maybe my, um, mom tried to reach us while we were out.”

  “Oh.” Understanding dawned on his face along with another just-watch-what-you-say look. “Good idea.”

  He clicked on the TV and flipped through stations, waiting impatiently as I checked in with the chipper desk clerk, who confirmed that, no, she hadn’t directed any calls to our room and there weren’t any messages for us. No news yet from Officer James.

  I can’t say I was actually worried about the cop’s wellbeing, but a deep sense of foreboding tangled with concern in my gut. Why hadn’t he tried to contact us yet? Was he having trouble finding Ronny’s storage unit and the stash of pipe bombs? Had something happened to him on the way to Wisconsin?

  I shook my head to let Donovan know we hadn’t missed any calls, and he responded with a sigh. I could see the sweat beading up on his forehead, which he swiped away with the front of his t-shirt.

  With the window closed tight, I was grateful we at least had a room fan. It was going to be a hot Texas night and this sure wasn’t the kind of place that offered air conditioning.

  Donovan turned the fan on high, but I could tell his attention wasn’t on the heat. He kept glancing distractedly between the door and the telephone. Not a sound came from either, however, and, eventually, we had to give up the wait and get ready for bed.

  When the lights were out and we were both lying on top of the sheets, twisting in hopes of finding a cool spot, he flipped toward me and brought his body closer than he ever had at night, especially in bed. I looked up at him, startled, as he crossed the midpoint between us for the first time.

  I couldn’t bring myself to pull away. My mind went blank, my pulse began to race and I held my breath.

  He drew himself nearer to me until his lips were just a hair away from my left earlobe. “Don’t be afraid of anything tonight,” he whispered. “I’m going to keep a close eye on everything until we hear back from the officer. You don’t have to worry.”

  “Thanks,” I murmured back, willing my heart to stop pounding. It was so loud, I was sure he could hear it. “I’m not worried.”

  This was, of course, a rather gigantic lie, and I was sure Donovan knew that, but he just said, “Good,” and he slid back to his own side of the bed.

  We said our goodnights and each turned to face the opposite direction—Donovan staring at the door and me at the phone. Honestly, I doubt either of us got more than three hours of sleep. Morning couldn’t come soon enough.

  When it did, though, Donovan was the first to rise. At 5:23 a.m. he made another thorough check of the room and then peered through a slit between the front curtains to gaze outside.

  “How does, um, everything look?” I asked.

  He gave me a thumbs up and then motioned for me to get dressed. On the notepad he scribbled:

  Let’s go for a quick drive so we can talk. Take everything with you. We don’t want anyone going through our stuff again.

  I nodded, slipped on a t-shirt and a thin flower-print skirt in the bathroom and grabbed my tote and overnight bag. Donovan moved the table away from the door and quietly unlocked it. Then we both jumped in the Trans Am.

  “God, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for hours,” he admitted once we were out on the road.

  “Me, too.” I exhaled and then inhaled deeply, rolling down the window and greeting the day. It was a bright, beautiful Sunday morning in Amarillo. Quiet and still. Donovan’s car was one of the few out at this early hour.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked me. “Did you get any sleep?”

  “Not a lot. You?”

  He kind of laughed. “Hardly any. I kept hoping Officer James would call, and I’m sure he will soon. Probably not this early, though.” He stared hard out the front windshield.

  “What if we don’t hear back from him?” I asked.

  “You mean today…or ever?”

  I exhaled. “Neither option is all that promising, but I meant today. How long are you willing to hang around Amarillo and wait?”
<
br />   “Until Tuesday at least,” he said. “If he hasn’t called us by that afternoon, maybe we should check with the police department at home. Make sure nothing’s wrong. They’d know by then.”

  “All right.”

  Donovan drove us through the city again, which looked like a different place during the day—as did most cities, I supposed—and he got us back on Route 66 on the other side of town.

  Ah, yes. The famous Cadillac Ranch awaited.

  It wasn’t even six a.m. so, of course, the site was abandoned, but I found myself admiring it in spite of its strangeness. Donovan and I parked on the shoulder and leaned back against his Trans Am, gazing at the display in the distance for a couple of minutes.

  It looked just like Gideon’s postcard.

  I counted ten Cadillacs of various years and models, upended in the ground so only their tailfins were fully visible. Who thought up weird stuff like this?

  “Odd,” I said finally.

  “Genius,” Donovan replied. “Look at that lineup. A ’48 Club Sedan all the way up to a ’63 Sedan de Ville. Right in a row.” He gazed at it with the same level of admiration that I reserved for leather-bound first editions of literary classics.

  I tried to imagine I was staring at a shelf with rare copies of novels by Austen, Brontë and Dickens. Even so, I still wasn’t feeling the same zing of excitement about it that he did. But, then, unlike Donovan, I’d never worked on a car nor had that kind of love affair with a vehicle.

  I wasn’t surprised my brother had been drawn to this site, either, but it made me wonder if he’d left any graffiti for us to find on one of the cars. He’d been here less than two weeks ago.

  Donovan boosted our bags out of the backseat and transferred them to the trunk for safekeeping and so we could leave the doors unlocked and the car windows rolled down without worry. Even this early in the day, we knew it was going to be a scorcher.

  “Let’s go take a closer look at it,” he said.

  We meandered across the dusty field. Once we were standing next to the cars, I began examining the words spray-painted on the sides of every Cadillac. While I didn’t find anything that struck me as being a coded message from Gideon, I found a few phone numbers for a “good time,” if ever I wanted one, and lots of names of people who were once “here.”