Revenant Rising (4 page)
Instead, with shaking hands, Nate releases the seatbelt that’s outlived its usefulness. Taking care not to jar the steering wheel, he opens Colin’s jacket and shirt, determines that no gushing wounds are hidden from sight. With similar caution he prods a little lower, encounters a pool of moisture identifiable at this proximity by his nose. Urine. Another discovery obvious at this proximity is the distinct whistle accompanying Colin’s labored breathing.
Nate withdraws from the window opening, retrieves his jacket from the ground and drapes it for what it’s worth across Colin’s crushed chest.
“I always thought it would be a plane, actually,” Colin wheezes just audibly.
“I said don’t talk!” Nate barks, giving in to shredded nerves with the greater challenge yet to come.
But before he goes for help, there’s one more unpleasant duty to perform. He’s obligated to make at least a cursory search for the baby that shouldn’t have been born yet. Although he doesn’t want to believe even the malevolent Aurora would subject a premature infant to the additional stresses of joyriding in a pickup truck, Nate nevertheless goes through the motions. He looks under and behind the fractured bench seat, in the buckled load bed, beneath the load bed, and anywhere else an infant carrier could be wedged or might have been thrown.
After a treacherous climb back to road level, Nate repositions the rental car so its high beams point across the roadway and turns on the hazard lights for good measure. He then positions himself in the center of the road, in the wash of the headlights, and waves one of the bloodied Tshirts for maybe as long as a minute—long enough to recognize the mindlessness of the effort. What makes him think there’ll be traffic now, well after dark, when there was none to speak of earlier?
He runs for the car and takes off in the direction their little procession was headed. He’d rather take his chances with the unknown than try covering a known distance that could be longer than Colin’s life expectancy.
Hoople Walking Crow Jakeway doesn’t own a watch and the clock in his truck is broke, so he can only estimate that a quarter-hour’s gone by since he heard noises that meant the rock star’s helper was leaving the crash scene and clawing his way back up the steep slope to the county road. Then, after a short stretch of silence that could have meant anything, there came more commotion that was heard as the city slicker slamming into his car and peeling off like something was after him. Or like he couldn’t get away from an ugly sight fast enough. Or like he thinks somebody survived the crash and he’s going for help.
Hoop, as he’s known, stalls a little longer to go over the one thing he is sure of. The red pickup did leave the road and head straight for disaster into the darkness below. He saw it happen with his own eyes even though he was ten or so car lengths behind. Of all the things he imagined could happen after the rock star forced his way back into Audrey’s life in the parking lot of a fuel and refreshment stop, that wasn’t one of them. But he is getting over the hurtful surprise of it; his breathing’s more regular now, and he’s starting to feel clearheaded enough to unstick himself from the spot he’s been held to ever since he got here.
He takes stock of his location—arrived at by instinct and native knowledge of every track, trail, and path in this part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan—then cocks his head and puts his ears to work again. He hears nothing this time, not even windwhisper in the tops of the white pines that rule the area, so he steps out of his beat-up Jimmy that’s partway concealed on the far side of a stone bridge abutment and catfoots it along an abandoned railroad bed like his feet can see in the dark. If his calculations are right—and they mostly are when he’s on home ground—he’ll use up less than fifty paces to get to the level spot where the airborne red truck will have landed. He’s carrying the basic tools he always has with him, plus a flashlight he won’t switch on till his feet can no longer find the way.
He takes a big gulp of air that carries a faint smell of gasoline and worries some about what he’ll find when he locates the crashed truck. A worse worry soon replaces that one, the new one having to do with lack of readiness. Owning up to the fact his months and years of scheming and wishful thinking never went beyond imagining the rock star within easy reach—never took into account his actual capture—now likens him to a car-chasing mutt that finally catches one and has no idea what to do with the prize. Especially if the prize turns out to be dead.
Without thinking too hard on that possibility, Hoop switches on the flashlight and leaves the rail bed to work his way up a gentle slope and through a growth of dense underbrush with the now stronger smell of spilled fuel to guide him. Sooner or later he’ll find out if anybody survived. It might as well be now.
He moves the light from side to side in a steady arc till the wrecked truck looms up right where he thought it would be. He approaches from the front, where a half-felled tree is blocking the view, so he can’t see what shape the occupants are in till he works his way around to the passenger side, where there’s nothing blocking the view. Not even a door.
How long he stands there shining the light on Audrey is anyone’s guess; he doesn’t bother estimating, and he doesn’t bother going closer just yet because he can tell from where he is that her body’s vacant. When he does brave himself to go closer, it’s with thought of tending to her sprit that can’t have strayed very far this soon after leaving her body. But he’s sidetracked by the dark spots on her neck that look more like finger marks than anything a road accident would do to her.
He moves the light beam this way and that, studies the marks from different angles and convinces himself he’s on to something the rock star’s people will want kept secret. Till this minute he hasn’t given a thought to the rock star, although he couldn’t avoid a partial look at him while inspecting Audrey. Now he shines the light direct on what’s left of Colin Elliot, never doubting for a minute that his body’s also vacant, caved in as it is by the steering wheel, and smeared with blood like a stuck pig. The regret there is that he wasn’t the one that did the sticking.
He returns his attention to Audrey and how he’s going to free her remains from the wreckage with only the basic tools he brought with him. But before he puzzles that out, he needs to do what he can for her spirit while it’s still lodged nearby.
Speaking in turn to the unseeable sky above, the unknowable world below, and all the elements in between, he recites every chant he knows, whether it applies to present conditions or not. When he’s run out of native words, he gives a polite pause and bows his head in the white man’s way before opening himself to the urgings of instinct.
Giving in to those urgings is not without risk; performing in such close quarters won’t be easy, and he may not have much time. But worry and hard work are always better than being judged a jackassed-fool.
Not long after setting out for help, Nate caught on to watching for electric power lines—watching for the ones leading away from the road, presumably toward inhabited dwellings. He wasted some valuable minutes following three false leads before seeing a sure thing with a light burning off in the distance. He thought to check the time and mileage before maneuvering into the sandy ruts that brought him to a small clapboard house and a set of unpainted outbuildings where he was relieved to discover he’d not been gone as long or gone as far as it seemed—not even twenty minutes and no more than ten miles.
Now he sees that the light spotted from the road is atop one of the buildings and casts long shadows on surroundings that include a well-used Chevy Suburban sporting muddied tires with heavy treads. As he stops near the oversize vehicle, a dog lunges out of the darkness, barking maniacally and straining at its chain. A big guy carrying an ax emerges from the shadows and quiets the dog with a hand gesture. Nate steps out of the rented Buick and meets him halfway.
“Looks like you can use some help,” the guy says with unconcealed interest in Nate’s torn and bloodied clothing.
“There’s been an accident. A deer in the road. Then another truck. It’s for my friends, not me. I need a phone. Please. I’ll pay,” Nate blurts.
The big guy thinks this over. “No phone here,” he says.
Nate’s heart plummets; he starts back to the rental car when the guy leans the ax against one of the sheds and speaks again.
“But I can raise the sheriff over in Portage St. Mary on the CB radio. Step inside.” He indicates a side door to the house, offers his hand and introduces himself as Bill, retired lumberjack and former army medic during the Big One.
“I’m Nate, I work as a . . . a manager. Thanks very much for your help.” He offers his own hand, then follows the benefactor into the house. The radio equipment is in the kitchen where Nate is directed to have a seat.
“I’ve already et but I can fix you somethin’,” Bill says.
Nate refuses all but the mug of coffee now warming his hands. Impatience has to be coming out of his pores by now; he’s compelled to get to his feet and pace if he’s ever going to get through telling this ruddy-skinned old guy with the big gut how and where the accident happened.
“Know how that can be. There’s many a time when I have to be on my feet to get my thoughts collected,” Bill says, checks the notes he’s taken and then, and only then, activates the CB radio. With an admirable economy of words he relays to the sheriff’s department everything Nate told him.
While the transmission takes place, Nate slows down enough to start thinking about aftermath. Sooner or later, whether mega rock star Colin Elliot lives or dies, this story will dominate the world press. How soon and to what extent is up to him. Reason enough not to tell this Bill character who it is that’s languishing out there in the woods. Another good reason is because Bill and his sheriff pals are not likely to give a flying fuck about a major celebrity—saying they even recognize the name.