five
Lance saw no green Ford, only Sarah's angry
eyes glowing in the passing headlights. The van had long abandoned the
highways, turning off route 40, then again off route 32, winding up into
another set of mountain on crumbling asphalt which quickly turned to dirt. The
bottom scraped often.
"I thought we were going to
"Eventually," Dan said from behind
the wheel. "But it's the most perverse way I've ever seen. When do we hit
real road again?"
"Not for a ways yet," Chris said.
"Well, the van won't take much more of a
pounding," Dan said. "And the Ford's still behind us."
The dented fender had translated with the
darkness into a burned-out right headlight, and the remaining light wavered and
wobbled over the dirt road like a drunken cyclopes.
Around them, the red stone of the lower
mountain glowed at intervals like flashes of lightening, revealing clumps of
trees and rare abandoned shacks.
"Just give me a clue as to where we're
going," Dan complained. "Are we going to turn off or what? How
exactly did you plan to lose these creeps?"
Chris' face had creased. She stared out over
the front seat into the darkness ahead, the weak VW headlights revealing
nothing. "I don't know," she said. "I expected...."
"Expected what?" Mike asked sharply.
"Nothing. Just keep driving."
Splashes of snow showed along the road side as
the road rose at an even steeper pitch, shifting things within the van. The bed
groaned. The van shuddered.
"We're gonna get stuck," Dan said.
"And then what do we do about our friends behind us?"
"Do we have a gun?" Mike asked.
"Are you nuts?" Dan asked. "In
a van like this? That's asking to get busted."
"I do," Chris said, yanking a small
caliber pistol out of her jacket pocket.
"Damn it! Put that away!" Dan
growled.
But Mike took the pistol from her and rolled
it over in his hands. "It's only a 22," he said. "Not likely to
stop anyone."
"It has magnum ammunition," Chris
said. "And hollow points."
Lance stared at Chris, then at the gun. It all
came back. The talk in the between times when boys prepared for war, working up
weapons which would give them an edge. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.
"That's crazy," he said.
"Someone'll get hurt."
"What's the matter with you?" Chris
asked.
"He's a pacifist," Dan said.
"You mean a coward," Chris spat,
eyeing Lance darkly.
"A medic in
"Shut up, Dan," Lance barked. He'd heard
too much bragging about his time overseas. He wasn't proud of the experience.
"Viet...?" Chris looked sharply at
Lance. "I didn't know."
"You weren't supposed to," Lance
said, folding his arms around his legs as he sat uncomfortably on the floor, pushing
himself deeper into the shadow of the van. But Sarah saw him. Sarah stared from
the edge of the bed slowly shaking her head from side to side. The van coughed,
backfired, and lost speed.
Lance, Mike and Chris jumped. Too much talk
about guns. Another series of backfires echoed from the stone around them. More
stone now than trees. Like the heal of a hand pressed up against the side of
the road
"We're not going to make it," Dan
said. "Too much weight."
"Then maybe a few of us should get
out," Mike said, glancing at Chris, his gaze gleaming.
"Out here?" Sarah said. "In the
dark?"
The note of terror said much about her
feelings towards the mountains. Lance stretched his hand towards hers. But she
refused it. Chris caught the note, too, and smiled softly.
"There's nothing more dangerous than the
cold," she said.
"I don't care. I won't go out
there."
"That's not what I had in mind,"
Mike said. "One or two of us should have a talk with our friends back
there. Just to find out who they are and what they want."
"But there are three of them," Dan
said.
"Mike and I could handle them,"
Chris said, drawing a snarl from Marie.
"I'll go with you," Lance said.
"You?" Chris laughed. "Mr.
Pacifist!"
"I can pick up the pieces," Lance
said. "After they're through with you."
Chris glared, but Mike had already grabbed the
side door handle. "All right," he said. "We roll out quick. They
might not see us in the dark."
"But we're moving," Sarah protested.
"You might get hurt."
"We're not moving that fast. Come on."
The road curved. The Ford's headlight glowed
from a few turns back, a persistent but winking eye.
"Just be careful," Dan warned.
"We're high up and there's a cliff beyond the rail."
But unlike
Chris leaped first, Lance second, with Mike
rolling out last. The van moved a little better than twenty five miles an hour
and yet impact with the ground still reminded Lance of Nam, of the thousand and
one repeated leaps from a hovering helicopter. The silence stunned him. And the
cold. Both were incongruous to the act, lungs sucking in thin mountain air,
while his instincts waited for the Cong to open fire and the Delta swamp to
swell over him with heat and mosquitos.
Chris took time to rise, holding her leg as
Mike swung the flash light beam in her direction.
"You okay?" Mike asked.
"My ankle," she said. "I think
I twisted it. Damned gravel."
Lance moved towards her out of reflex.
"And what do you want?"
"To look at your leg."
"This isn't
"I'm no doctor," Lance said, peeling
away her fingers. "Does this hurt?" He pressed on the ankle with his finger
tips, the soft flesh startling him. He'd half expected something tough like
leather or steel.
"Not too bad."
"Liar."
"Is she all right?" Mike said,
crouching near them, staring down hill at the rising headlight.
"Stand up," Lance told Chris. She
rose and cringed. "Just what I thought."
"What?"" Mike asked.
"A fairly bad sprain," Lance said.
"Not a terribly complicated. But it'll take her a day or so to get over
it."
"Lovely!" Mike said, spitting off
into the dust. "Then we'll have to pull this off without her."
"Here, hero," Chris said, pushing a
large bowie knife handle into his hand.
"What do you want me to do with
this?" Lance asked.
"What do you think?" Mike said.
"I don't want it."
Chris laughed. "He's a die-hard, Michael.
You're not going to convert him now."
The headlight swung around the last curve.
"So I've got two invalids," Mike
grumbled. "All right. We'll do it your way. I just hope to God none of us
gets hurt."
Mike yanked Lance towards the side of the road
and a clump of trees clinging to the guard rail.
"What about Chris?" Lance asked.
"Who do you think is going to stop the
car?" Mike said. "Just do what I tell you." Again he thrust the
knife at Lance. "You don't have to use it. Just look like you could."
Lance nodded and ducked just as the car light
illuminated Chris.
***********
The light blinded her, its high beam climbing
up from the depths of the valley, like the eye to a wounded prairie dog or
Coyote, or something infinitely more cruel. She half expected the car not to
stop, even after it had clearly seen her in the middle of the road. She waved
her arms in front of them, it seemed not to slow. Her ankle throbbed as she
poised to leap aside. She couldn't see Mike or Lance in the shadows.
But the car squealed to a stop inches from
her, its over-heated automatic transmission winding down at the headlight gave
way to a vision of silhouetted heads behind the windshield.
"It's fucking indian," one of them
said while rolling down the driver-side window. "Hey! Redskin. Get the
fuck out of the way!" His accent was unfamiliar but not unamerican.
"I need a ride," Chris said. "I
hurt myself in a rock slide."
"Go around her," the man in the back
seat said in a local accent. "These fucking indians always want
rides."
"I'm not going far," Chris said,
hobbling closer to the hood. The closer the better. Less momentum if they
decided to run her down.
"All right, out of the car!" Mike
shouted as the door on the passenger side jerked open. Lance stood to one side
like a statue, the bowie knife an arbitrary fixture in his hand.
Mike pushed his pistol into the face of each
man as he dragged them out of the car.
"Chris, get over here and search
them," he shouted.
She grinned and hobbled around the car, taking
the knife from Lance.
The man from the back seat, however, rolled
out the driver's side door, producing a pistol. But Chris had heard the door
open, leaping towards that side of the car with several pained steps, knocking
the man's gun arm down with a crack of her elbow. Her funny bone tingled, but
the man screamed, pistol tumbling to the gravel.
"I hope that was non-violent enough for
you, Lance," she said, shoving the moaning man face down with the others
on the ground, as she retrieved his pistol and relieved one from each of the
others.
"That was hardly non-violent," Lance
protested.
"Sure it was," Chris said.
"Normally, I would have killed him."
***********
Dan pulled the van off the road into an
indented section of shoulder, bounding over the frozen ruts other cars had left
using it for rest stop or u-turn. He switched off the engine.
"We'll wait here," he said, his
lungs aching from the combination of thin air and Marie's strong perfume. She
wouldn't stop spraying herself.
"What if they can't find us?" Marie asked.
"We're not hidden," he said.
"But it's a long walk," Sarah said,
peering out the rear window. No headlights showed. "Maybe someone should
go back and see if they're all right."
"No."
"What if they're hurt?"
"Hurt?" Marie said, looking up,
startled.
"They have Lance," Dan said.
"I wish they would hurry up," Marie
said, pushing the perfume dispenser back into her purse and closing this with a
snap. "It's cold up here."
It was that, Dan thought, lighting another
Winston, the match creating a small island of warmth between his cupped hands.
He stared out into the darkness and saw only stars. He didn't trust the
country. Indian life made him nervous. The way all religions did. The way Chris
did, something angry and deep in her eyes which scared him-- though her
pro-revolution rhetoric had ceased since he'd seen her in the east.
"I'm cold, too," Sarah said.
"And they're taking a very long time."
"We'll wait," Dan said, though knew
if they didn't return soon, they wouldn't be coming, and he would have to drive
on without them. A stone fell outside
the van and he stiffened. Neither of the women seemed to notice.
"I'll go look," he said. "But
you two stay down and leave the doors locked unless its one of us."
He eased down out of the van, latching the
door again behind him. The cool wind washed through his clothing. The stars
greeted him with an eerie brilliance only a city boy would notice. White
splotches of snow dressed the mountain and pines, like froth. Deep pockets of
darkness filled inbetween them. Another sound came. A foot on gravel. Or a
curious animal. There were wolves in these mountains, and bears. And yet, he
could almost feel the human element staring out at him from the dark.
"Hello," he said in a tone bolder
than he felt. "Why don't you come on out of there?"
No one answered.
Dan stepped away from the van, the bulk of the
mountain looming over him as he crossed the road.
"Don't move!" a hushed voice said
sharply. Something hard prodded him in the ribs from behind. Several hands patted
him down, then twisted him around. An painted indian face glared angrily into
his-- the product of one of Chris' stunts. Dan cursed.
***********
"So?" Mike asked, staring down at
the three men now flat on their backs in the road, hands under their heads like
children studying the stars. Their faces twitching. "Who are you and what
do you want?"
"Mike, put the gun away," Lance
said, tugging at the man's sleeve. Mike's grim face said it all, the way the
faces of the CIA did at times in
"You're crazy," Mike said, yanking
his arm free.
"I don't want you to kill them."
"It's what they had in mind for us,"
he said. "And if we let them go, they will. I know their kind. They're
pros."
"I won't let you shoot them," Lance
said.
"Maybe he's right, Michael," Chris
said, seated on the side of the road with her arms around her legs.
"Killing people up here is bad business."
"But they've seen my face, Chris,"
Mike said. "God knows they might be cops..."
"We're not cops," one of the men
said.
Mike turned, eyeing the men until he found the
one who'd spoken, then yanked the head up by the hair.
"Then who are you?"
"Private Dicks."
"Hired by who?"
"We don't know exactly," one of the
others said.
"Then what were you hired to do?"
Mike said, turning his attention to the other man.
"Watch the house-- get back the shipment
if we could."
Chris rose and hobbled over next to Mike. She
stared down into the face of the man. "How did the cops miss you?"
she asked. "I know they were watching the house, too."
"From a hill with binoculars," the
first man said, teeth chattering with the cold.
"Then you saw it all come down,"
Chris said, leaning closer to the man, slapping Mike's hand away as she eased
the head back down to the ground.
"Yes."
"What exactly did you see?" Chris
asked, her eyes in slits.
"The raid-- the bust."
"And?"
"No package."
"The cops didn't get it?" Mike asked
with surprise.
"No."
"Then it's still in the house
somewhere," Mike said.
"Not if someone else removed it,"
Chris said.
"No one went in or out of that house
after the cops came-- only you," the man said, indicating Chris.
"Damn," Chris said. "I should
have looked around before we left. I was in too much of a hurry."
"Well, we're not going back."
"Nobody asked to go back," Chris
said, staring off into the dark.
"So what do we do with these three
if we don't kill them?" Mike asked. "They'll only come after us again
with more of their kind."
"We could buy some time by letting them
walk back," Chris said.
"Walk? In this cold?" one of the men
said. "That's as good as killing us."
"You exaggerate," Mike said.
"You might have a bit of frost bite-- but once you reach the highway
again, you should get a ride. Is that okay with you, pacifist?"
Lance swallowed. He couldn't remember how far
the highway was, though it had been hours driving since they had turned up
hill. With a brisk pace, the men might reach it by morning. He nodded slowly.
"All right, Gentlemen. Up!" Mike
said, dragging the first of them to his feet. "Up. You won't need a map to
find your way back. Just keep going down."
They didn't look at Mike, Chris or the pile of
their pistols in the road. They simply straightened their ties and staggered
down the hill, instantly lost in the dark. Mike watched for a moment, then
looked up at Lance.
"All right, hero," he said.
"Let's get back to the others. The sooner we're out of here, the less
chance we'll have of seeing those fools again."
He stopped and stiffened, twisting his head
around as if he had heard something. Lance heard nothing. Yet even Chris stood
in a crouch near the car, grabbing up two of the captured weapons from the
ground.
"Put down your weapons," a voice
said from the dark. "We have twenty rifles aimed at you."
Neither Mike nor Chris moved.
A shot sounded. A puff of dirt kicked up in
the gravel at Mike's feet.
"Put down your weapons."
Mike sighed and eased Chris' small caliber
pistol out from his belt with two fingers. He dropped it onto the road. But Chris
only tightened her grip on her weapons.
"Don't be a fool," Mike told her.
"You'd be dead after your first shot."
She seemed to consider it for a moment, then
threw the pistols away with an angry gesture. "All right, all right, we're
disarmed."
The figures moved out into the beams of the
car slowly, the light glinting off their rifles.
"Indians," Lance whispered under his
breath.
"Navahos," Chris said, sounding
relieved. She stepped forward and grinned. "I thought you would never get
here."
"You know these people?" Mike asked,
unable to completely contain his rage.
"They're friends, Michael. Calm
down."
"Revolutionaries, you mean," Mike
spat. "I should have known."
"It's not safe to stay here," one of
the tall indians said, his face painted in white strips.
"You mean those we just sent away?"
Chris asked.
"Others," the indian said. "Law
men."
"Shit!" Mike said. "Just the
thing I needed."
"You need not worry," the indian
said, looking at Mike. "We know who you are. And in our land you are safe.
But come. We must climb some first."
"What about the car?" Lance asked,
looking back at the Ford.
"It will be taken care of," the
indian said.