Day One (26 page)

But she had another idea. She gazed at the green Tabor crest, pulled at her lip. “That’s where I’ll find her.” Voice a whisper, a breath shaped like words. “Right there in front of me all along.” She lowered her hand, drew herself up. Her face relaxed.

“Thank you, Eager. I know the way now.” She bent and kissed him lightly on the cheek, lips soft and warm. A scent hovered around her, a strange musk accented with tea. He felt the blood rush to his face, felt another stirring further down. But she didn’t seem to notice. She smiled, then turned and walked away.

She left him under the hawthorn tree, his shoulders wet with rain and eyes alight with a fire freshly ignited. He watched her dwindle until all he could see was her dark hair framed in sunlight breaking through the clouds. He gripped his skateboard, knuckles white. A damp breeze tickled his neck. He headed for the fir green hill.

November 17

OREGON CITY, OR: An unknown assailant assaulted a couple at the Haggart Observatory on the campus of Clackamas Community College early Saturday.

According to the couple, they were taking a break from stargazing in their pickup truck at about 2 a.m. when a man wearing a hood or scarf over his head approached the driver’s side. The assailant dragged the two from the truck and proceeded to hit and kick them, though he stopped abruptly when both curled into protective positions. He stole a wallet, purse, cell phone and car keys, then fled toward Beavercreek Road.

Witnesses differ on the sequence of events, according to Clackamas County Sheriff’s Deputy Elliot Forstenberg. Another stargazer at the observatory suggests the couple may have verbally antagonized the assailant before the assault.

The keys, cell phone, wallet and purse were later recovered from where the assailant apparently dropped them near the corner of Beavercreek Road and Trails End Highway about a quarter mile from the scene of the assault. Only cash was taken.

November 19 — 7:17 am

M
yra never did call. She stood smoking in the parking lot of the Travel-Inn as Big Ed pulled in. The motel behind her was two stories of cinder block and slumping composite siding. A reek of urine hung in the air. Big Ed didn’t know how Myra could sleep in such a joint, but then enough crystal had gone up her nose she probably couldn’t smell urine if you pissed on her head. She looked like she’d been run through a thresher, her face blotchy and gaze dead-eyed, her orange quilted coat tattered and greasy. She wasn’t alone. A bald-headed brute in biker’s leathers waited next to her, fingerless gloves on his hands, ears full of metal, braided beard down to his dick. He loomed over a Harley Super Glide, late model, polished and pearl black.

Hiram didn’t wait for Big Ed to stop the Suburban before he threw the door open, grimaced as he swung his bloody leg out and rested his foot on the pavement. “You the guy can get my leg fixed up?”

The smooth head dipped half an inch. “If you got the cash, I am.”

“Cash ain’t the problem. Time is what I’m short of.”

“Ain’t far.”

Big Ed didn’t feel particularly protective of Hiram as a human being, but he was disinclined to leave his income source in the care of a stranger, particularly not some outlaw Myra had scared up. He lifted the larynx to say as much, but Hiram cut him off with the wave of a hand.

“What’s your name, fella?”

“I go by George the Flea.”

“Who do you ride with?”

The biker looked down at his chest, and for a moment Big Ed thought he needed to check to make sure. But all he did was point with his chin at the crest patch on his battered leather vest. sub rosa motorcycle club. Red gothic lettering circled a rose growing from a tangle of barbed wire.

“Don’t the Free Souls run Portland?”

“They can think what they want, don’t make it so.”

That yanked a sharp laugh out of Hiram. “Good enough. How you feel about driving me? My associate here has an errand to run.”

“Ain’t leaving my bike anywhere near this rat hole.” He glanced around the lot, at the beater cars and broken glass.

“Fine, we’ll follow you, but we gotta be quick.” Hiram looked at Big Ed. “After we get to the doc’s, I’m keeping the Suburban.”

“You will not be able to drive.”

“I expect George here can find someone to drive me”— he tilted his head the Flea’s way — “since I got the cash.”

The Flea seemed to think for a moment, then offered another terse nod. “Sure.”

“What am I supposed to drive?”

“I don’t give a shit. But you get caught nicking a car, I don’t know you.”

“You do not know this insect either.”

He’d kept his voice low, speaking only to Hiram, but the Flea heard anyway. Leather-clad shoulders suddenly squared, hands balled into fists. “You wanna step out of the truck and repeat that, robot man?”

Fucking bikers, balls to the wall all the time. Big Ed fixed George the Flea with a cold glare and set the larynx in the center console, dropped his hands between his legs.

But Hiram stuck out both hands, one toward Big Ed and the other toward the Flea. “Boys, boys, we all got monster cocks, okay? No need to be whipping them out and scaring the women folk.” The Flea’s eyes bounced from Hiram to Big Ed, perhaps balancing the cash Hiram promised against the pleasure of cracking Big Ed’s skull. Big Ed had no plans to let it come to that. He brushed the floor mat with his fingertips, feeling for the Desert Eagle.

“Dickheads.” Quiet to this point, Myra drew hard on her cigarette and exhaled a brown fog. “Ain’t seen a pecker yet scared me none.”

The Flea’s mouth fell open and for a moment no one moved. Then Hiram busted out laughing and Big Ed found himself fighting back a smile of his own. The Flea shook his head and looked at Myra, then relaxed. “Tell you what, I’ll call a guy to come meet us here. That leg don’t look like it needs to be dripping all goddamn morning.” He pulled a cell phone out of his vest and dialed.

“Best damn idea I heard yet.” Hiram leaned back in his seat, let out a breath. Big Ed could see the pulse in Hiram’s temple. “Ed, whyn’t you take Myra’s car? The morning’s getting away from all of us.”

“Nobody’s driving my car.”

Hiram scowled. “I wasn’t asking your opinion, Myra. You know what needs to be done.”

Ed picked up the larynx. “Boss—”

“I ain’t asking you either.” Hiram’s gaze was hard, half with threat, half with the pain he must be feeling. “Grab the bag for the kid out of the back.”

Big Ed nodded and looked away. “Okay, boss.” He was thinking about how Hiram had no reason to trust some goddamn outlaw biker, no matter that they’d shared a laugh. But he also knew Hiram couldn’t be deflected once he fixed on a decision. Big Ed could do little more than wear his misgivings on his face as George the Flea rode out ahead of the Suburban, some nameless outlaw the Flea scared up behind the wheel, taking Hiram who the hell knew where. Hiram returned his gaze, way too comfortable for a man with a hole in his leg. But all he could do was set his mind to finding the boy as quickly as possible. Sooner he got their leverage back, the sooner he could get Hiram out of the hands of outlaws and they could beat feet back to Givern Valley.

Three Years, Four Months Before

T
he leaves of Stuart’s field corn hung limp from the stalks, battered by the late summer thunderstorm. Ellie felt the sharp-edged leaves drag at her shirt and rake the bare skin of her arms. She didn’t slow down. The rain had already soaked her to the skin. The hard drops striking her head and neck hardly registered. Somewhere off to her left beams of light bounded and flashed as Hiram Spaneker’s Suburban hurtled down the track that separated the corn from the barley. The track bottomed out at creek’s edge and, aside from the railroad bridge a quarter mile downstream, there was nowhere to cross for miles in either direction. The stretch of Little Liver Creek along the farm’s western edge presented a difficult crossing in daylight in any but the driest years, and it had been running swift and foam-blue this summer after a deep winter snowpack and late spring. Ellie’s only hope was the bridge.

But Hiram and his man would head for the bridge too once they reached the stream, unless they pinned her down in the corn first. If they reached the creek ahead of her, they’d have no difficulty driving her away from the bridge. Then, even if they couldn’t flush her from the corn, Hiram would have time to call in more men.
Her only choice would be to move back toward the house. But that way offered only a bottleneck and they knew it. The rocky hills rose too steeply north of the farm for her to climb in the dark and the rain, and were too exposed to the south. Sooner or later they’d find her.

But on the far side of the creek, the county road into Westbank crossed the Southern-Pacific tracks and then curled away toward town. Westbank itself would be risky, assuming she could get that far, but the county road was dotted with farmhouses. She’d find someone to hide her from Hiram Spaneker. Down inside, she knew she couldn’t escape the consequences of Stuart and the scissors, not for long. But there were consequences, and there was Spaneker justice. The local Klamath County deputies and the town cops belonged to Hiram.

Her breath caught in her throat, but she refused to slow down. The tilled earth drank in the rain as fast as it fell and congealed under her feet as sticky mud. It was easiest to follow the plowed rows, but she knew her only hope of reaching the bridge before Hiram was to cut against the grain of Stuart’s furrows, to push not just downslope but downstream.

She heard a loud bang, almost a popping sound, as sharp as a shotgun blast. The headlights suddenly vanished. She hesitated, her feet sinking into mud. The rain poured from the sky like water through a hose and for a moment she lost all sense of direction. A voice shouted, but she couldn’t make out the words. Another voice answered and the headlights appeared again, now beaming at an angle into the dark sky. They’d got off the track somehow, back wheels in the ditch maybe, front wheels unable to grab the slick earth. The wind carried tones of accusation and defense. She fought the temptation to turn her back on her pursuers, to put distance between them and herself. That would only take her deeper into the corn. Instead she cast about, pushed down stalks, looked for a
landmark, anything. But the darkness was too deep, the pouring rain too heavy. She rubbed the back of her hand across her face, smelled blood. Stuart’s blood, or her own—no way to tell. She pushed through another row, then another until she came to an oval clearing of stunted corn. The view opened up in front of her. She hesitated, muddy soil sucking at her feet. The sky above was a dark, roiling grey, but she could see a dull, mustard glow on the horizon, a thin sliver of the lingering sunset breaking under the storm clouds. The glow provided a bearing to follow. The creek was west. The bridge was west, somewhere beyond the corn.

Go
.

One of the voices called out again, joined by a grinding sound. She crossed the clearing and pushed back through tall corn. In an instant she lost sight of the horizon, but knew if she continued through the rows she’d reach the creek. Arms swinging ahead of her, she lifted one heavy leg then the other, again and again and again. At some point she noticed one foot felt colder than the other, realized she’d lost a shoe. It didn’t matter. She kept moving, stumbling, a thousand green blades hacking at her, raking her face and arms. She tasted blood now. Then her other shoe caught in a tangle of roots and she sprawled face forward. Liquid mud filled her mouth and nose, her eyes. She tried to push herself up, but her hands skidded across the muck and she fell again. Momentum carried her forward, sliding, slipping, falling through slime and roots and the broken corn stalks. The rain swallowed her cries. Then the corn ended and for an instant it seemed as if the earth itself vanished. She felt herself floating in a dark space made of falling rain and noise. Her head struck something hard and all around her the rain shattered, a thousand shards of flashing glass. She came to rest abruptly on her back, legs twisted beneath her. Above, through the scintillations inside her eyeballs, she saw the storm clouds falling toward her from the bottom of a deep, black well.