When She Flew (14 page)

Jess turned to Jenkins. “How’d you get him to walk out?” she whispered.

“I just told him we couldn’t let them stay here, and that we’d help them find a new place to live. He didn’t like it much, but he seems to be on board.”

“Good job,” she said. Maybe she had Ray all wrong.

“Takei,” the sergeant barked from across the camp, “over here for a minute.” Takei stood and walked to the sergeant, and they slipped into the dark, their voices a low murmur.

“Everett must be polling him. No way Takei is going to sway the vote,” Jenkins said. “He’s a nice guy and all, but, man, I’ve never seen anyone more regulation than him.”

“I don’t know,” Jess said, rubbing her sore shoulder. “I think there may be a human buried in there somewhere.”

Jenkins sighed and took a seat on the log Lindy had vacated. “I just kept picturing my kids, you know?” He held his palms in front of the small fire. “What if they had to live like this? I mean sure, Troy would probably love camping out for life, but...” He sighed. “I’m sorry, but I had to vote the way I did.”

“Shut up, Ellis,” Jess said, kicking dirt toward him. “You gotta do what you gotta do. I know that.” She watched as a light began to glow from the tree house, another lantern, and Ray’s and Lindy’s shadows stretched tall across the structure and trees and into the dark. “We all have to. I just hope this goes well.” She looked back at Jenkins and made a grim face. “You know?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “It will. We’ll make sure.”

“That’s what we do.”

“That is what we goddamn do,” Jenkins said. “We make sure everything and everybody are all right. All the time. Every day. Every minute.” He stared into the fire, then sat up and stretched. “I’m beat.”

Jess stifled a yawn. “Me, too.”

“And hungry.”

“I was starving but now I think I’m past it,” Jess said.

“And sore! Are you sore?” Jenkins rubbed his lower back with both hands. “I thought I was in shape. I’ve been lifting, and run—”

He stopped. They heard rustling behind them and swung around. Greiner materialized out of the dark.

“Maybe we could cut the chitchat and put out that fire,” he said. “I’d like to get the hell out of here before midnight.” He stood outside the warm glow of light.

“Hey, lighten up, buddy,” Jenkins said, and Jess marveled at how he could make such sentences sound almost congenial. “Take a load off. It’ll only be a few minutes. They’re packing up some of their stuff. It’d be hard to leave everything behind. This is their life.”

“Yeah, well—” Greiner lowered his voice and sidled closer. “They probably stole half this crap anyway.”

Jess met Jenkins’s eyes for a long moment, but neither spoke.

Greiner stomped his boot down on the embers, sparks flying up and dying out, turning into dust.

14

W
hen Pater and I climbed into the tree house to pack more stuff, he sat me down on my bed first, before he even lit the lantern. He asked me in a whisper if I was doing okay and he said he was sorry this was happening. I started to cry again, because I was the one who’d caused it, but he took my hand in the dark. No, Lindy, he said. It’s not your fault. You wouldn’t even be here if I was working, if we had a place. I shouldn’t have given up so easily.

I knew he felt ashamed, but I remember those first few years when he was always looking for a job like he had before the war, doing construction, and being told no. Nobody would even let him wash dishes or pump gasoline. He said it was because everybody was afraid of being sued when his back acted up.

I asked him where they were going to take us, and what they were going to do with us. I really wanted to ask when we’d be able to come home, but I was too afraid of the answer to let those words come out.

He was quiet for a moment, then said, I don’t know yet, but the Emergency Plan is still in effect. Pay attention. If there is an opportunity, I will let you know.

I stopped crying and nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. I needed to be strong. I needed to be ready for anything. I could already feel Reverend Rosetta’s cool, plump arms around me and smell her baby-powder scent. And when Reverend Rosetta sings, you know there is a god who will watch over you and take care of you, even if the people in your life can’t anymore.

Back when we still lived in the motel, Pater and I would walk to the tiny, dusty grocery store I liked on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to stock up on apples and bananas, Rice Krispies and milk, cheese and saltines—things we didn’t have to cook. Back in room 116 we had a Styrofoam cooler filled with ice from the machine by the motel office.

One morning, we set out for the store because the rain had stopped, finally, but we kept getting splashed by cars racing through puddles beside us like we didn’t even exist. I was mad at the drivers, and upset about getting wet when it wasn’t even raining and I’d put on my favorite sweater, but Pater said, They’re just not thinking, Lindy. We’re all guilty of it from time to time.

It had to have been a Sunday because we could hear singing, the church kind of singing, but not like we’d ever heard in Colorado at the church Grandma and Grandpa Wiggs went to. The sound of ten thousand angels filled the steeple of the big gray church coming into view, and their voices were soaring out into the sunny morning. Pater stopped, and he got a look on his face I hadn’t seen in a long time. Since his job had fallen through, he’d been wearing a blank expression, the one that meant something was wrong but he wasn’t going to tell me. He looked down and pinched my nose; then we walked right past the grocery store and through the doors of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ.

I don’t remember much about our first time there, other than the singing and my childish amazement that so many black people could be in one place, but I do remember the feeling I got, and the one I still get every time we set foot through the big purple doors and under the rainbow banner inside: overwhelming happiness and peace. Pater said we were called there for a reason, and pity the man who doesn’t answer his calling.

15

T
hey assembled once again on the steps to walk out, Ray and Lindy each wearing overstuffed backpacks, bedrolls strapped beneath, and carrying their own flashlights. Jess wanted to tell them they wouldn’t need their sleeping bags, that shelters and foster homes had beds and blankets, but she knew this was what they had to do—assume they were in control of their own destinies for as long as possible. It was what everyone wanted, every suspect she’d ever cuffed, every dirtbag she’d ever testified against, every apologetic speeder she’d let off the hook. If only she were in charge tonight. She’d have talked with them, listened to their story, then thanked them and walked way. Who were they hurting by living there illegally? Jess wasn’t usually one to turn a blind eye to the law, but everything was different this night, even her.

Lindy turned to look at her over the bobbing beams of flashlights, struggling to get her backpack into place. Jess would have worried about the girl carrying that much, but she was strong and lithe. She had her dad’s wiry build. Five years of traversing the rugged terrain, of climbing up to bed each night, down each morning, of carrying supplies in from town clearly had made her strong. Even the task of making a meal must have been arduous, ferrying food and water up the hill every single time. Nina had always complained when Jess asked her to help unload groceries from the car in the garage.

“I’m guessing you have a better route out of here than we do,” Everett said to Ray, who shrugged.

“It’s steep.”

“Hell, we’ve been doing steep all day. If it’ll get us down faster, let’s do it. It’s going to be pretty treacherous for us in the dark, though, so let’s take it easy. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“Yes, sir,” Ray said. Military training, Jess knew, and perhaps a religious upbringing, but she sensed genuine respect there, too. She respected Sergeant Everett herself. How many commanding officers would ask each officer for his or her opinion on a case like this? He was being as fair as he could. As much as she didn’t want to do what the sergeant had ordered, she had to. She was a good police officer, and good cops, like good soldiers, followed orders and respected their senior officers. She’d known that all her life—it was her father’s creed.

“Move out,” Everett said, and they began to move forward, forming a single line with Ray at the lead, then Lindy, then Everett close behind. Jess guessed the sergeant imagined he could catch them if they ran off. He should have put Z next, or Jenkins or Takei, but the man had a healthy ego. Jess almost hoped they would run off, but who knew what would happen then? There was a lot of firepower among the search team and at least one hair trigger.

The walk down was steeper than steep, vertical in many spots. They each shone their lights at the feet in front of them so that everyone had a good view of what was coming next, but it didn’t matter. Each step presented a new challenge, and Jess’s thighs ached with the tension.

Ray and Lindy nimbly picked their way among loose rocks and dirt, through knee- to waist-high brambles, never once grabbing at the slim alder trunks or for handfuls of fern fronds as the rest of them did. And they did this while wearing heavy backpacks, no less. At one point they veered out of sight to stay on whatever path they somehow saw, and Everett slid downhill past them, not quick enough to recover. The rest of the officers rushed forward, skidding, sliding down the near vertical face until they caught back up to Ray and Lindy, who still descended steadily. Greiner had to be shitting himself that they weren’t just running off, Jess thought.

After thirty minutes they found themselves on a hiking path far less steep and far more easily navigated. Jess shone her light at a small wood sign at the side of the path: “Chickaree Trail.” They were now in the wildlife sanctuary trail system and would probably be at the parking lot soon. They might even have walked this path coming up, when it was daylight and beautiful. Stars glimmered through the treetops, and Jess thought she could hear the soft
who-hoot
ing of an owl in the distance. She tried not to let emotion overrun her sense of logic; there were many owls in the woods, as Lindy had said. But she couldn’t help wondering if Sweetie-pie had followed them down to keep an eye on the girl or to say goodbye.

They walked quietly now, no more grunting or falling, only the regimented marching of boots. They’d survived the forest, the night. They’d each go back to their homes, to their families, to their familiar beds, and wake to familiar faces. Everyone, of course, but Ray and Lindy.

 

 

 

AS the EXTERIOR LIGHTING OF the wildlife sanctuary came into view, Jess grew uneasy once again, wondering what would happen next. She looked at her watch. It was a quarter till midnight.

“Damn, that only took forty-five minutes,” Jenkins said. They walked in a formless group now; the trail had widened into a paved superhighway for bird-watchers and hikers.

“It usually takes us only thirty-three minutes,” Lindy said, and Jess saw Ray nudging her, telling her to mind her manners.

Maybe everything would work out. Maybe Lindy would be fast-tracked through the system, seeing as she did have such a capable parent. Maybe they’d let Ray visit her every day. When the juvenile court decided to let her go, maybe they’d have a fresh shot at a life in civilization, with help from Uncle Sam.

Right,
Jess thought, trying to imagine what the family-court judge would make of Ray’s choices heretofore, of the decision to leave Colorado and Lindy’s mother behind, without court-approved custody arrangements in place. The mother was undoubtedly an unfit parent, but she had no convictions, no record—they’d already checked. If worse came to worst, DHS might even ship Lindy back to Colorado and let the family courts there wrangle with the case.

They reached the parking lot, three shiny patrol cars parked in a row. The sergeant was going to have to act quickly to get Ray and Lindy separated somehow. Everyone seemed nervous now: the officers watching Everett, Ray watching the officers, Lindy watching Ray.