Dead and Gone b-12 Page 23

  Down the road a piece, I saw the signs for Jemez Springs. After we passed through the town, the road started to get steep. The Indian nodded his head in the direction of a church. There was a row of rooms behind it, like some motel out of the fifties, but very neat and well maintained. “Servants of the Paraclete,” he said.

  I’d never been near the place, but I’d heard about it for years. A safehouse for pedophile priests, where they could hole up for a while … and then go back into a new parish, all “cured.” The church doesn’t call them child molesters, or baby-rapers, or anything so terribly stigmatizing. No, predatory priests were “ephebophiles,” part of the church’s PR campaign to “dimensionalize” its own degenerates.

  They know exactly how to play it. First you make up some “syndrome” or “disorder” that covers the crime. Then you give it some fancy-sounding name, and count on the whores and fools to spread the word. You don’t have to prove anything, just repeat it often enough, preferably through a good media machine. Doesn’t matter if the entire scientific community sneers at it. What counts is that it gives defense attorneys an argument for a “nonincarcerative alternative.” And black-robed collaborators all the excuse they need.

  I could see why they wouldn’t have a sign out front. But I didn’t know if the Indian was offering to educate me, or trying another test to see if I was who I claimed to be. So I just said: “Oh yeah. The recycling center.”

  He grunted an acknowledgment. Or maybe it was an agreement.

  We kept climbing. The altimeter read six thousand, and jumped up another fifteen hundred in the next few miles along a paved two-laner. A faint smell of something like very rotten eggs wafted up as we came alongside a fast-moving river. The side of the road was pocked with little hot springs. When we slowed way down, you could hear the earth gurgling not far below the surface.

  The Land Rover negotiated the curves slowly until we passed a huge rock formation that looked like the bow of an old battleship, cut into a V, the prow vertical. We kept on climbing until we reached a fork in the road. The Indian went left, and we started climbing again.

  The higher we climbed, the higher the pines grew—some of them were redwood-size giants. The road made one big looping turn, and then we were moving due west. I spotted a few occupied-looking houses, way back among the trees. And the shell of one that looked like it had been abandoned during the Civil War.

  As we kept climbing, we left the pavement behind again. After we passed eight thousand, we came to a good-sized lake, maybe a half-mile across, the water very blue. Here the shoulder of the road was about the same height as the Land Rover. The Indian kept it moving, but very slowly.

  We passed the lake, and then the road got worse. The skyscraper pines spiked up between enormous rock formations—sheer walls of stone that went up higher than I could crane my neck to see.

  The air felt almost supernaturally clean, but it felt thin in my chest, too. I knew only the sun was keeping the temperature from getting dangerous … and we were going in and out of shade as we drove.

  For the next few miles, we saw houses again, spaced real far apart. The terrain was nothing but dirt with occasional low grass. We rolled past a place called Seven Springs. And a sign that read this road is not maintained in the winter months, followed immediately by a drop from a bumpy, potholed dirt road to just plain dirt, with ruts wherever the water cared to run. We were at eighty-five hundred feet. And still climbing.

  “We’re in the national forest now,” the Indian said. If that meant we were trespassing, it didn’t seem to concern him much.

  There were no more houses. Sometimes on the right, but mostly on the left, there was either dirt or rock going very nearly straight up where the road had been cut into the side of a hill. Whenever the rise was on the left, we were plunged into deep shadow. Huge trees met overhead, almost like the jungle canopies I remembered from Biafra. Except now the only chill in the air was from the altitude.

  The road was so deeply rutted that, sometimes, the Indian had to work up speed and just bounce over them. Other times, when the ruts were running in the same direction we were traveling, he slowed to a crawl and drove the narrow little spaces between them, carefully placing all four tires. I wouldn’t have tried with anything less than the Land Rover’s ground clearance. Huge pines stood sentinel on either side of the road, which had clearly been cut right out of mountain rock, twisty and steep. It was all as familiar to me as Mars.

  Finally, we came to what looked liked a little spur, just a place where the road swung out and widened a bit. But the Indian slowed even more, and soon there was no road at all … just a clearing. And that’s where he brought the Land Rover to a halt.

  “Are we—?” Gem started to ask. I made a hand gesture for her to be quiet. It was the Indian’s call; no point pretending otherwise.

  He climbed out, walked around the front of the Land Rover as he had before, and released his dog. At his signal, we got out, too.

  “It’s about three klicks,” he said to me, the vaguest trace of a question in his voice.

  “Let’s go, then,” I said, shouldering my duffel and picking up Gem’s little suitcase in my right hand.

  The Indian went back to the Land Rover and took out a scoped rifle from somewhere. He slipped the sling on and started off without another word.

  The walk felt like a fucking treadmill—a greasy one. All slippery low grass and dirt. Gem kept up with me easily, but gave up trying to take her bag from me after a few attempts.

  We finally came to a Y-shaped intersection, and the Indian called a halt. I flopped down gratefully, ignoring a look from Gem.

  The Indian took a strip of what looked like beef jerky out of his coat and made a soft whistling sound. The dog trotted over to him and sat expectantly. The Indian tossed the strip and the beast caught it easily, then walked off a short distance, tail wagging. He found a spot that suited him, lay down, held the strip between his paws, and went to work on it.

  The Indian pulled a single cigarette out of his breast pocket and lit it. It was unfiltered, with a dark-yellow wrapper; leaf or paper, I wasn’t close enough to tell.

  A hawk soared overhead.

  The Indian finished his smoke, carefully pinched off the glowing tip, then shredded the tiny bit that remained between the fingernails of one hand, dropping the result into the palm of the other. He held that hand high, opening it as a bolt of breeze came through, scattering the traces.

  I rested my head on Gem’s thighs. It was out of my hands.

  The Indian sat on the ground cross-legged. He unslung his rifle and laid it across his knees. It had a heavy, fluted barrel, and the stock was obviously fiberglass, colored in broad bands of black and gray. Not a camo-pattern, almost a geometric design. I tried to figure out what kind of rifle it could be, but my eyes kept losing its outline. That’s when I figured out the black-and-gray banding was no accident.

  “That’s an unusual-looking piece,” I told him, trying for engagement again.

  “It wasn’t built for looks,” he said.

  “Remington 700?” I guessed, thinking of Wesley.

  “It’s a .308 Bedeaux.”

  “I never heard of—”

  “It’s custom,” he said. “The man whose name’s on the barrel, he tunes them. And he’s the best in the world at it.”

  “Minute-of-angle?” I asked him.

  The Indian wasn’t impressed with my knowledge. Or my standards. “Less,” he said. “This one’ll ten-inch group at thirteen hundred meters.” He raised his eyebrows slightly. “You believe that?”

  I wondered if he was testing again. Decided it didn’t matter. “I wouldn’t know,” I told him, truthfully. “I never really handled a rifle for serious.”

  “I thought you worked jungle, once.”

  I wondered if there was anything Lune hadn’t told this guy.

  “Sure. Jungle, not plains, or mountains. And I was never a sniper, anyway.”

  “What’d you carry?”


  “Over there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whatever I could pick up. There was no resupply chain. Time I got on the ground, whatever anyone carried over there, it was like a fucking Bic lighter, understand? Runs out of fuel, you throw it away, look for another.”

  “You work close-up, anyway, don’t you?” he said. It wasn’t a question. And I guess there wasn’t anything Lune hadn’t told him.

  I just nodded.

  “I apologize for my lack of politeness,” Gem said, suddenly. “You already know my husband’s name. I am Gem.”

  “I am Levi,” the Indian replied, nodding his head just short of a bow, as Gem had done. Then, to me: “I didn’t know you were married.”

  “Lune and I haven’t been in touch for a while,” I said.

  A trace of a smile played across the Indian’s face. “Lune is always in touch,” he said. “That’s what he does.”

  “May I offer you some water?” Gem asked him.

  “Do you always carry water in your luggage?” he asked, an undercurrent of approval in his voice.

  “Always.”

  “No, thank you,” he said, almost formally. “But if you …”

  Gem reached over, unzipped her bag, took out a plastic bottle of water, handed it to me. I took a couple of grateful sips, handed it back. She glugged down about half the bottle.

  The Indian’s eyebrows rose a fraction.

  “You should see her eat,” I told him.

  Then I felt someone behind me.

  They entered the clearing in a pincers movement—bracketing Gem and me, standing at an angle so they could watch us and the Indian at the same time. As they came closer, I could see they were both women, dressed exactly alike in padded camo-pattern jumpsuits. They were carrying exactly alike, too: backpack straps over their shoulders … and pump-action shotguns in their hands. The resemblance stopped there. The one closest to Gem was tall, slightly plump, and rosy-cheeked, with her cornsilk-blond hair in twin braids. I named her Heidi, in my mind. The other was a dark-complected, raven-haired Latina, a half-foot shorter than her partner.

  “All right?” Heidi asked the Indian.

  “He is who he is supposed to be.”

  “And her?” the Latina asked, gesturing at Gem with the barrel of her shotgun.

  “Wild card,” the Indian said. “He trusts her.”

  “Get up,” the Latina told Gem.

  I measured the distances with my eyes. The Latina looked quicker, the blonde more solid. I had to get one of them between me and the Indian if—

  “Easy!” the Indian warned her off, reading my body language like it was a billboard. “It’s not what you think,” he said to me, his voice calm. “We weren’t expecting her. You know that. Lune trusts you. He doesn’t know her. You vouching for her … Well, no offense, but any man can be fooled.”

  “Especially a man,” the Latina said.

  “So what we need to do now is to search … Gem,” the Indian continued. “I promise you it will be as dignified as possible. And that, if we find weapons, it will not mean anything. But if we find a transmitter. Or a recording device …”

  “I understand,” Gem said, getting slowly to her feet and facing the Latina as if the shotgun was a bureaucratic annoyance.

  The Latina turned and started walking off, Gem following. And the blonde following Gem.

  It took much longer than I thought it would. I made some no-content conversation with the Indian, forcing myself to not listen for a shotgun’s roar.

  When they came back, the shotguns were pointed at the ground. The blonde went over to the Indian, unhooked a canteen from her knapsack, and handed it to him. He took a long drink. And then I understood why he had refused Gem’s offer earlier.

  Each of the women took out a padded jumpsuit similar to the ones they were wearing from their knapsacks. The Latina handed one to Gem, the blonde to me.

  “Ready to go?” the Indian asked, once we’d climbed into the suits.

  “Yes,” I told him.

  The blonde picked up my duffel. The Latina took Gem’s little suitcase. I didn’t say a word.

  The Indian waved his hand. The dog jumped to its feet and ran over to him.

  Then we all started walking.

  After a couple of hours, I was grateful the women were carrying all the gear. When the Indian finally held up his hand for us to stop, we were right next to a fence that was mostly concealed by vegetation. He checked his compass, walked to his right along the fence line, and stopped again. He showed us a gap someone had cut in the fence. If he hadn’t shown me, I never would have spotted it.

  We followed him through. And started walking again until we came to a sheer-faced rock ledge.

  The Indian motioned for us to stay where we were. Then he and the dog moved off until they were out of sight.

  The Latina kept checking her watch. Or, at least, looking at some dial she wore on a band around her wrist. I wasn’t near enough to see, and didn’t plan on closing the gap.

  Finally, she nodded at the blonde, who stood up and said: “You’ll have to carry your own stuff now. It’s not far. And we have to keep our hands free, all right?”

  “Sure,” I said. But, this time, Gem snatched her little suitcase before I had a chance.

  The blonde went first, climbing on what looked like random cuts in the rock. Normally, watching a woman climb stairs is one of life’s great treats, but the muffling of her camo-suit and the fading sun’s occasional glint off her scattergun killed any of that for me. Gem was behind me, with the Latina bringing up the rear.

  As we topped a ridge, I could see down into a cleft in the rocks big enough to hold a large building. And when I looked closer, that’s what it was. Like a Quonset hut, a damn big one, painted the same color as the rock formations surrounding it. The only thing that drew my eye was the antennas. There were enough of them to bring cable to a small city. All different heights and thicknesses, with a random assortment of satellite dishes as well.

  “He’s in there,” the blonde said.

  We had to stoop to get through the door. Inside was a small, square room, as antiseptic as a decompression chamber. The women racked their shotguns on either side of the doorway, took off their camo-suits, and stood silently, hands clasped behind their backs, like some parody of parade rest.

  “Have a seat,” the Indian said, pointing to what looked like a transplanted church pew against the far wall. “He’s working on something now, but he’ll see you soon.”

  “Would you like some coffee, or something to eat, while you’re waiting?” the blonde asked.

  “Please!” Gem said, making it clear she was saying yes to all the above.

  The Latina glared at the blonde, but she didn’t say anything.

  The blonde went out of the room, came back in a few minutes with a coffeepot in one hand and a tray of fancy cookies in the other. “Just a second,” she said, and went back out again. When she returned, she had coffee cups and saucers, and plates for the cookies. Which was a good thing, since it prevented Gem from simply putting the tray in her lap and going to work on the goodies.

  I passed on the coffee, but I had a couple of the cookies. “These are wonderful!” Gem told the blonde, her mouth full.

  “Aren’t they? Juanita makes them.”

  The Latina rewarded her with a glass-cutter look—apparently, her domestic skills were supposed to be a secret. But before she could acid-tongue a response, the Indian returned.

  “You can go in now,” he said.

  Gem and I both stood up. The Indian shook his head. “Just you, Burke.”

  The place was a lot bigger than I’d been able to tell from the outside—a labyrinth of rooms opening off other rooms, most of them loaded with equipment: file cabinets, computers, something that looked like a giant periscope. There were people around, too, but they all seemed too busy to look up from what they were doing. I kept my eyes down, not knowing the rules. At the end of one of the long corrid
ors was a pair of swinging doors, like saloons used to have in old Westerns. The Indian pushed through. I was right behind.

  A man was seated behind what looked like a triple-size drafting table. He looked up. Studied my face for a second, and … connected. Flashing us both back to where we’d started.

  Inside, it was. Not the orphanage where they’d started me off, not the juvie joints I’d graduated to. This one they called a hospital.

  It was different, all right. Everything was softer. The words, I mean. They didn’t call the windowless cells “solitary.” Even padded the walls for you. And, instead of clubs, the guards carried hypos full of quiet-down juice.

  My trip to the crazy house started when I was locked up for thieving. One of the look-the-other-way “counselors” said they had a new program for kids like me. I was too young to be paroled to the streets, and I had no parents, so they had these special foster homes. For kids who’d had “trouble with authority,” as he put it, not even bothering to hide the sneer.

  And I was just a kid then. Foster home—it sounded pretty good to me. At least the “foster” part. I already knew what a “home” was. I’d been in a couple of them. They were the same as the institution, only they didn’t have bars on the windows.

  Same rules, though: always walk light and be ready to move, fast.

  I ran away from the first one they dumped me in. I probably could have stayed out forever except for some lousy luck. I was steering for a hooker, only the john turned out to be a cop. Not an undercover looking to make a bust, just a freak with a taste for pain and a badge to take it on the house. I always hung around outside the ratty hotel room where Sandi took her tricks. If it worked out good, sometimes she gave me a little extra on top of what the johns paid me for “finding” them a girl.

  Of course, when Sandi wasn’t working, I switched from legit steering to mini-Murphy. I’d bring the johns to another hotel, then tell them I always held the money for my sister—she was nervous about getting robbed up there. I’d give them the room number and a key that wouldn’t fit any of the doors … and run like hell the second they started climbing the stairs to the top floor.