Above

by Roland Smith

  There wasn’t much traffic, and it had stopped raining. I drove very slowly, pulling off the highway when I could to let the people riding my tail (who knew how to drive) pass me.

  Alex was snoring.

  Coop’s chin was on his chest. He’d always been able to sleep anywhere as long as the sun was up.

  I was on my own.

  After a while I started to relax and pick up speed, slowing down around the sharp curves, through tunnels, and along cliffs.

  Before he’d fallen asleep in the backseat, Alex said we had hours before we had to worry about finding the Pod.

  “They’re way ahead of us. If I know Larry, he had everyone top their gas tanks off before they got to the park. They might drive straight through to wherever they’re going, or they might stop for the night.”

  “Any idea where they’re headed?” Coop had asked.

  “None whatsoever.”

  Alex wanted me to stop at the first place we could get camping supplies and communication gear.

  “What kind of communication gear?” I asked.

  “They aren’t using cell phones. They’re too easy to track. That leaves two-way radios and CBs.”

  “What’s a CB?” Coop asked.

  “Citizens band radio. Old tech. Not easy to find in the digital age, but we should be able to get what we need somewhere. A truck stop might have them.”

  I hadn’t seen a truck stop. Or a camping gear store. What I was seeing were tiny beach towns, one after another, with hotels, restaurants, small grocery stores, and beach shops selling seashell souvenirs and carvings made out of something called myrtle wood.

  The town of Tillamook looked like our best bet. As I got to the outskirts of the town a sign said: WELCOME TO TILLAMOOK. THE HOME OF TILLAMOOK CHEESE. POPULATION 5,000.

  Oddly, I was no stranger to Tillamook, or at least their famous cheese. It was my dad’s favorite, especially their extra-sharp aged cheddar. The gigantic cheese factory was at the edge of town and open to the public. I pulled into the crowded parking lot and parked.

  Coop lifted his head off his chest.

  Alex sat up in the backseat.

  It took them both a second to orient themselves. Alex had a little more color now. He was the first one to speak.

  “Why have you stopped at a cheese factory?”

  “Because I have no idea where to buy camping and communication gear in Tillamook. Also because I didn’t want to get downtown and have to parallel park. I don’t know how to parallel park.”

  Next up was Coop. “Ha. Tillamook cheese. Dad’s favorite. Too bad we can’t let him know we’re here.”

  “There are probably parking lots downtown,” Alex said. “But for what it’s worth, I don’t know how to parallel park either. Not anymore.”

  Coop opened the passenger door. “I’ll go in and ask someone where to get the stuff.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  “I’ll stay here,” Alex said. “Hurry.”

  Coop, of course, never hurried, but he didn’t dally either. It was early, but the factory was jammed with tourists and school groups. I had no idea people were that interested in cheese.

  “I’ll need to talk to a local,” Coop said, squeezing through the crowd toward a woman handing out cheese samples.

  I wandered over to the glass wall and watched the white-uniformed workers making cheese, which reminded me of the Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm that Coop and I had when we were little kids. We spent hours watching the ants dig in the damp sand and move their bloated white larvae from tunnel to tunnel. The ant larvae were the same color and texture as the cheese curds the machines were molding into blocks. Maybe watching the ants all those years ago had inspired Coop to start digging.

  Coop came up behind me. He was holding two squares of cheese impaled by toothpicks. “Extra-sharp aged cheddar,” he said.

  We toasted Dad and popped the cheese into our mouths.

  It was delicious.

  It wasn’t like old times, but it was civil. The farther south we got, the more she seemed to relax and open up.

  When we reached the outskirts of Lincoln City she admitted that she hadn’t told Lod that she and Bill had led me to them.

  “He was in a hurry and didn’t ask me how you found us,” she said. “He was more concerned about Alex. I assured him that you were alone.”

  She was clearly relieved that he didn’t ask her how I had found them. If she told him the truth, Lod would have been furious.

  Bella put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a small smile. “I’d appreciate it if you’d come up with an alternative story. I’ve talked to the other Originals who were there when I questioned you. We’ve agreed that the question as to how you found us was never asked. That we were too busy doing countersurveillance to do a proper interrogation.”

  She was lucky LaNae wasn’t there when I told them how I had found them. LaNae would never lie to Lod, which is why I think Lod had kept her around all these years.

  “I have your back,” I said. “It’s the least I can do. You could have turned me over to LaNae. But it will take me a while to come up with a plausible alternative.”

  “I’ll think about it as well.” Her relief was obvious. “We have some time. We won’t be seeing Lod for a day or two. In the meantime, for old times’ sake, how about you and I bake a batch of cookies.”

  “Absolutely, but do we have everything we need here?”

  “Depends on what kind of cookies you want to make.”

  “Salty oatmeal.”

  “Your grandmother’s favorite. Do you remember the recipe?”

  “Not exactly, but if I could write it down on something.” They had taken my pocket journal along with everything else in my backpack.

  Bella opened a drawer and pulled out a pencil and a small spiral notebook. I was visual. I remembered things I had seen, and I had seen my grandmother’s handwritten salty oatmeal cookie recipe a thousand times. As I wrote the ingredients down something came back to me. Something I had completely forgotten.

  “Lod’s notebooks,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The notebook he always carries in his back pocket.”

  Bella smiled. “Ah, yes, the mysterious notebook. We always wondered what he was jotting down in it.”

  “Sketches and notes,” I said. “And there has been more than one notebook. There have been dozens, maybe even hundreds. When the notebook was full he’d burn it.”

  “Burn it?” Bella asked.

  “On the grill on our balcony. I fished one out of the flames once and he caught me. I thought he was going to hit me. He didn’t, of course, but he was furious that I had looked at it.”

  I had fished out several notebooks over the years, but he had caught me only once. And I didn’t stop after he had caught me.

  “What was in it?” Bella asked.

  “I don’t remember,” I said. “The point is that he had to have made sketches and notes for this escape plan. When he asks me how I found you I’ll tell him that I remember seeing Nehalem Bay State Park in the notebook. When I found myself in Oregon I decided to check it out.”

  Bella gave me a genuine smile. It was hard to believe that the night before she had threatened to slit my throat.

  “That just might work,” she said. “If I can just keep the others from telling Lod how you really found us.”

  “It doesn’t matter. If one of them rats you out I’ll tell Lod that I made the story up to throw you off-kilter. I’ll tell him that I got to the park two days before you got there. Did he track me past Chicago?”

  Bella shook her head. “I don’t think so. He sent us in every direction, checking out train stations all over the country. Which is another reason everyone is mad at you. It wasn’t easy and it slowed us down.”

  “Sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t the least bit sorry. “On second thought, if he asks you about how I found you, I think you should tell him that I overheard you and Bil
l in Portland.”

  Bella frowned.

  “No, I mean it,” I said. “One of the others is going to tell him. You know as well as I do that there are no secrets in the Pod. When I talk to him, I’ll tell him about the notebook and getting to the park before you. You’ll be off the hook.”

  The smile returned. She knew I was right about someone telling Lod. The truth always came out.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “But I do have some bad news.”

  “What?”

  “We have no oats.”

  We both laughed.

  “Do I hear actual laughter back there?” Bill shouted to us from the driver’s seat.

  “If you want cookies, we need oats.”

  “Of course I want cookies,” Bill said. “We’re stopping for fuel up ahead. There’s a little grocery store connected to the station. If they don’t have oatmeal I’ll stop somewhere else. I want cookies.”

  Bella walked up front to tell Bill about our plan. While they were talking I slipped the notebook and pencil into my pocket. If Bella asked me about it I would tell her I put it there so I wouldn’t lose the recipe.

  Bella walked back to the kitchen. “I have one more question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Are you really with us? Has the prodigal granddaughter really returned?”

  “That’s two questions, but the answer to both of them is yes.”

  wheeled two completely full shopping carts out to the car. One filled with groceries. One filled with camping gear.

  Alex was attaching an antenna to the roof of the Taurus. He looked at the carts. “Guess we should have bought a truck instead of a car. Where are you going to put all that stuff?”

  “It’ll fit,” Coop assured him.

  I wasn’t so sure.

  I popped open the trunk.

  It was empty except for the tire chains and a car battery, which wasn’t there when we drove out of Portland.

  “That’s our power for the CB,” Alex explained.

  “So you found everything you needed?”

  “It will take me a while to get it fired up. I’ll work on it in the backseat while we head south.”

  Which I guess meant that I was still the designated driver.

  “They have prepaid cell phones in the store,” I said.

  “Which will do absolutely no good,” Alex snapped. “Who are we going to call? Who’s going to call us? And, remember, the Pod somehow hacked into the cell phones I gave you. I don’t know how, but they did. If they did it once, they can do it again. I’m not taking that risk. I wish I’d been able to get access to that room where the Originals were always hanging out in the Deep.”

  Not even Kate had been in that room.

  “But you were an Original,” Coop pointed out. “You must have been inside.”

  “Of course, but back then the technology we had was prehistoric. Caveman stuff compared to what they have now. Larry and I were both early computer geeks. Who knows what kind of technology he filched or invented in the years since I was with him. Whatever he’s doing has something to do with technology. You can bet on that. He’s been recruiting tech wizards the past several years. For what, I don’t know. But I’ve kept up on technology too.”

  “I can see that,” I said, pointing at the antenna.

  He grunted, finished installing the antenna, and got into the backseat.

  We were on our way.

  Coop made a tuna sandwich from the stash of supplies in the cooler at his feet. Three bites into it he fell asleep with the sandwich in his hand.

  Alex tinkered in the backseat with his technology.

  I drove through the little coastal towns.

  Hebo.

  Neskowin.

  Lincoln City.

  Gleneden Beach.

  Depoe Bay.

  Otter Rock, where Coop woke up and started nibbling on his sandwich again.

  Newport …

  “Ten four! You got that right!”

  I nearly slammed into the concrete guardrail on the Newport Bridge. Coop spit a chunk of tuna sandwich onto the windshield.

  “CB’s working,” Alex announced unnecessarily, and turned the volume down.

  “We need gas,” I said, trying to slow my heart down to normal.

  “Good,” Alex said. “Might as well start asking people if they’ve seen a caravan of old people heading south. Don’t bother pulling into a station unless it sells diesel. The cops at the park said they were driving diesel pushers. That’ll cut out at least half the stations. And the cops said the motor homes were humongous. If the station can’t accommodate a big rig, pass it by.”

  We “passed by” a half dozen small gas stations, listening to Alex fiddle with the CB and two-way radio.

  The low fuel light came on.

  “I’m stopping at the next gas station regardless of its size, or what kind of fuel it carries,” I said.

  It turned out the next station was big and it sold diesel. My next challenge was to figure how to get gas. I’d seen my mom and dad fill up hundreds of times, but I’d never done it myself.

  Coop got out and headed into the convenience store inside the station.

  I got out and headed to the back of the car to try to figure out how to fuel it. I stared at the pump. We had only cash. I started to remove the nozzle.

  “What are you doing?” A guy in an attendant uniform shouted.

  “Putting gas in my car.”

  “Not in Oregon,” he said. “We don’t have self-serve here. I have to pump the gas. It’s the law. You must be from out of state.”

  “Yeah,” I said, hoping he didn’t notice the Oregon plates.

  “How much gas do you want?”

  “Fill it up, I guess.”

  He held out his hand. “I’ll need your credit card.”

  I didn’t have a credit card. I didn’t think Alex had one either. Too easy to trace.

  “Or you can pay cash inside,” the attendant added. “I’ll fill it up when the pump is charged.”

  Alex got out of the car. He stretched. I swear I heard his old bones cracking.

  “Do you have a credit card?” I asked.

  He looked around the station as if he hadn’t heard me, but I guess he had. “It’ll probably take forty bucks’ worth. We’ll pay them inside.” He looked at the attendant. “New station, huh?”

  “Kind of,” the attendant said. “About a year old.”

  “You got a restroom inside?”

  “Of course.”

  “We’ll go in and settle up.”

  I followed Alex inside. Coop was listening to two girls behind the counter who were nearly climbing over each other for a chance to talk to him. On the counter in front of him was a wrapped tuna sandwich he must have gotten out of their cooler. He already had four or five tuna sandwiches in the cooler in the car. Alex went down a short hallway to the restroom in the back of the store.

  “I need to pay for some gas,” I said.

  “Gotta wait your turn,” one of the girls said.

  Coop didn’t turn around. The girls went on and on about what to do in Newport, what to see along the coast, where to eat. They were roommates.

  “We live right down the road.”

  “We get off work in about two hours.”

  “If you need a place to crash in town you’re welcome to stay with us.”

  They wrote down their number and names on a napkin. When he tried to pay for the tuna sandwich, they said there was no charge and threw in a can of Coke Zero. He thanked them, then turned around and left the store without even glancing at me. I wondered how, and if, Kate would adjust to this if they ever got together as boyfriend and girlfriend. I was used to people being attracted to him; she wasn’t.

  I put two twenties on the counter.

  One of the girls scooped up the money as she stared at the door Coop had just walked through.

  “Pump number?”

  “Huh?”

  “What pump are you parked at?
”

  “I’m not sure.” I turned around and looked. I didn’t see any numbers. “It’s the one with the green Ford Taurus.”

  “The one Otto is getting into?”

  “You know Otto!”

  I nodded. I didn’t tell them he was my brother. I just wanted to pay for the gas and get out of there.

  “You’re lucky.”

  “Such a great guy.”

  Aside from his fake name, I bet they didn’t know one thing about him.

  “Does he have a girlfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Serious relationship?”

  “Very,” I said.

  “Figures,” one of the girls said.

  “All the good ones are taken,” the other girl said wistfully.

  Good grief.

  “Where are you guys going?”

  “North,” I lied. I’m not sure why, but I guess it had to do with covering our trail.

  “Tell him that if he comes back through here he should take us up on our offer.”

  “What offer?”

  “Never mind. He’ll know what we mean.”

  I walked out of the store. Coop was sitting in the front seat washing down his store-bought tuna sandwich with his Coke Zero. I got behind the wheel.

  I did not pass the girls’ message on to him.

  “Where’s Alex?” he asked.

  “Using the restroom. Did they have any information about the Pod?”

  “They said several RVs filled up here a few hours ago. Old people driving them. But that’s not unusual. Dozens of motor homes fill up here every day. They thought they were heading south, but that’s not unusual either. Almost everyone is heading south this time of year.”

  The attendant finished pumping our gas and gave me the receipt.

  Alex hurried outside and jumped into the backseat. “Let’s get out of here quick.”

  Coop laughed. “You’re acting like you just robbed them.”

  “In a way I did. Take a right. Head north.”

  “But the Pod is going south,” Coop said.

  “I want the people in the store to think we’re going north.”

  “I told them we were going north.”

  “Good,” Alex said. “Now we’ll prove we’re going north. When you get a couple miles up the road do a U-turn and head back south.”