The Steep and Thorny Way(29)

I peeked over my shoulder and witnessed Uncle Clyde tearing after me, in his green tweed vest and house slippers. Catching him running after me like that, his teeth set, arms pumping, legs a blur, allowed me to see, for the first time, the devil lurking inside him. The killer.

I put full blame on the doc.

Mama yelled out both of our names. The woods drew nearer. My chest and my leg muscles burned, and I grunted through each stride.

Uncle Clyde cried out, “Damn!” and I looked back again to find him on the ground.

“I’m going to Fleur’s,” I hollered over my shoulder. “Don’t you dare follow me, Dr. Koning. I don’t want to see you ever again.”

Tree trunks shrouded in lichen swallowed me up. I grabbed my holster from the oilcloth in the log and hid amid the trunks of the trees until I counted to sixty without anyone following me. In the distance, Mama and Uncle Clyde shouted. An automobile door slammed shut, as well as the door to our house.

I turned and took off again, past the lightning-blackened tree and the junction to Fleur’s house, over the rocks poking out of the creek, and up the embankment to the little white shed.





CHAPTER 11





WITH FIERY QUICKNESS


I DIDN’T EVEN KNOCK. I BURST straight into Joe’s hiding spot and called out, “We’ve got to get you out of here!”

Joe bolted upright on the cot, a book in hand. The flame in his lantern sizzled.

“What the hell’s happening?” he asked.

“Clyde failed the test. He’s going to fetch your father and probably the deputy. I’m terrified Laurence will lead them here.”

“Christ!” Joe bent down beneath the cot and stuffed his belongings—shirts, books, a toothbrush, a razor, a blue-plaid coat—into an old green carpetbag that looked faded and frayed and stained with mold.

“I’m so sorry.” I lifted my skirt and strapped the holster around my right thigh. “We just need to get you out. Uncle Clyde started chasing me into the forest, but he tripped and fell.”

Joe tossed me a brown blanket from the cot and fetched a pair of shoes. “He’s following you?”

“He was.” I tucked the bedding under my arm and grabbed a picnic basket that sat next to a brand-new card tower, a tall, rectangular one. “But he gave up. I’ve never seen him run before in my life. He knows what we think he did.”

“Fuck!” Joe threw his shoes onto his feet.

I hustled outside with the basket and the blanket.

Joe ran out, as well, his laces untied and flopping about. He carried the carpetbag and the kerosene lantern by his sides.

“This way. Hurry!” He dove through a low set of branches that swished across his back.

I followed him, and we were off, shooting through the woods in a maze of trees and moss and feathered ferns that seemed to expand into primeval proportions. Firs stretched to the sky and blocked the waning daylight; leaves the size of my head scraped at my calves. We hurtled ourselves over poison oak and stinging nettles, logs, brooks, burrows, and even scampering chipmunks that eyed us with fear. Unseen creatures rustled through the bushes. Birds scattered overhead. The woods darkened. Our feet galloped onward, and my heart pounded until I worried it might explode.

“Where should we go?” I called from behind him.

“I don’t know. Far.” He launched himself over a narrow sliver of a creek and sprinted through a patch of mud that squished beneath his shoes and blackened his laces.

I followed, catching the water with my heel and splashing the hem of my dress.

Something howled.

“Oh, Lord! What was that?” I asked.

“Just run.”

The forest brightened. Joe came to a sudden stop in front of me, and I crashed against his back.

“Damn!” He pushed me backward, and from behind him I saw a stretch of the northbound road that met up with the main highway a mile or so to the south. “Get back, before anyone drives by.” He steered me by my shoulders, back into the dark and primitive recesses of the woods. “Hurry!”

He slipped into the front again, and we ran and leapt and climbed until pain stabbed at my right side, below my ribs. The ankle I’d twisted on the porch steps throbbed. The holster pelted my thigh, and the path ahead of me blurred.

“Joe, I need to stop.”

“What?” He turned around, at least twenty feet ahead of me.

“I’m hurting.” I dropped his belongings and braced my right hand against a fat red trunk, which was cold to the touch. A beetle scrambled up the bark, away from my hand, upon feet swift and silent.

Joe sauntered back to me through piles of fallen pine needles. “What’s wrong?”

“My side. My ankle.” I pushed my other hand against the trunk and leaned forward to catch my breath. “My ribs feel like they want to split wide open.”

“You must have been breathing wrong.”

“How much farther should we go?” I asked. “Where should we go?”

“I don’t know.” He set down his lantern, which had long since blown out, and dropped his bag of clothing beside it.

“What are we even doing, Joe? What the hell are we—?”

“Shh!” Joe put out a hand. “A car.”

We both stiffened, even though we no longer stood within sight of the road. I held my breath, and my ribs ached all the more from tightening my muscles.