Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(24)

But that little car kept running, either out of pure habit or just plain mechanical stubbornness, all the way to a narrow two-lane county highway and the tiny town of Bantam.

It was just a few businesses grouped together like herd animals around a watering hole, more of a populated intersection than a town. June pulled behind a rambling single-story building with a wraparound porch that looked like it belonged on the set of an old Western movie. A large wooden sign announced PIZZA! BEER! LIVE MUSIC ON WEEKENDS!

She drove to the far edge of the wide dirt parking lot to where the scrub growth began. They shared the lot with a Dumpster and a rusted-out Ford Econoline on cement blocks. When she turned off the ignition, the engine stopped with a definitive metallic clunk. Peter thought it unlikely that the little car would ever start again.

The rear roof of the car had been partially crushed in the crash, and Peter had to pull open the rear hatch by force. He’d never get it closed. The pain in his lower left leg ranged from a dull ache to a sharp stab depending on how much weight he put on it. A walking stick would be helpful. They emptied the car of anything useful that would fit into their packs. They left the neat coils of climbing rope, but took her tent, stove, and sleeping bag, and all the water and energy bars they could carry. He put the pistol and the black drawstring sack in the pack she’d loaned him.

She found a set of clothes in a duffel, wrinkled but clean. When she stepped into the scrub to change, Peter turned away to give her more privacy.

He wasn’t sure if she would come back or just keep walking.

She hadn’t said much of anything since they’d gotten back in the car. She was functional but distant, maybe a little disconnected. He hoped it was just shock. He hoped she’d come back. But she’d been through a long nightmare of unpleasant experiences. An abduction and escape, a car chase and wreck. She’d been shot at. She’d seen people killed.

Peter was part of those experiences.

Most people didn’t have much practice handling what she’d just been through.

Those who had the practice? Well, he thought. We have our own problems.

For example, he was out of the mountains and back at the edge of the man-made world again, even just this tiny little town, and he could already feel the static prickling at his spine.

To push it away, he thought of what they would have to do next. Finding transportation was at the top of the list.

He was fairly sure that the four men in the Tahoe were not the only people involved.

And if there were more men and more black SUVs out there, they’d be coming.

But to find another car, he needed to look less like an accident victim and more like a normal person. He took a dirty sock and a water bottle and started to wipe the dried blood off his face.

He was relieved to hear June’s careful footsteps coming back through the scrub. When she came up beside him, he continued wiping at his face, keeping his movements slow and predictable. She took the water bottle from his hand, soaked her dirty Riot Grrrl T-shirt, and scrubbed at his bloody head with clinical force and precision until he looked presentable.

“Can I help with your arm?” He pointed at her bloody elbow.

“No.” She took the T-shirt and rinsed it out again, but wouldn’t meet his eye. She was staring at the back of the pizza place.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to look for a car. Do you want to come with me?”

She shook her head. He saw the clench in her jaw, the muscles knotted just beneath her freckled skin.

He turned to follow her gaze.

She wasn’t staring at the back of the pizza place.

She was watching the intersection, a section of which was visible through a gap in the trees.

Looking for the next group of men.

“Will you wait here for me?” he asked. “I’m looking for your new car. I’ll try to find a good one. I’ll come back, I promise. Then you can tell me what you want to do next.”

She didn’t answer, or take her eyes off the road. But she nodded.

Peter figured she was trying to make a decision. About him.





11





He limped out into the little town. There wasn’t much to it. The commercial buildings were all clustered close to the intersection of the two-lane county highway and the secondary road they’d taken out of the mountains.

Across from the pizza place was a modest hip-roofed shop with cheerful green paint and an elaborate multicolored sign for Esmerelda’s Grocery. A nameless beat-down bar with neon in the windows took up one corner of the intersection, two motorcycles and a dusty pickup out front. On the opposite corner stood a sagging frame building with wide overhangs, unpainted redwood siding, and a neatly lettered plank sign over the big front porch: HAPPY HIKE AND BIKE, in the same green as the grocery store. A few long driveways led to houses of various vintages, set back in the trees.

He was hoping to see a car parked on the street with a FOR SALE sign stuck under the wiper. He didn’t want to start knocking on doors, although maybe he’d have to. It would make him far too memorable for any hunters.

He looked up at the sky. The cloud cover was higher now, although the air was still thick and damp and he thought the rain would come back soon. They’d need a car quickly.

Then he saw another big bird, or maybe the same bird he’d seen over the riverbed, just the shape of it in the lowest level of the clouds. It was some kind of raptor or vulture he didn’t recognize, floating silently in the mist. It looked bigger than it should. He wondered if he was within the range of the reintroduced California condor. Then the clouds shifted and the bird turned and he saw the golden glint again. Maybe a condor, he thought. With some kind of metallic tracking device on its wing or leg.