Eldorado (13 page)

“The place with the wire fence?” said Billy.

“Yes, that’s right,” she said, handing him the key. “You’ll see Doyle inside. Give him this key. He might be mad, but don’t worry, he’s not mad at you. Just give him the key – hand it to him through the fence. That’s all you have to do. But not until after you see us go through the front gate okay? That’s very important. Watch and I’ll wave to you when it’s time. Can you do that for me?”

“But what about my job,” said Billy, “I can’t leave – I gotta greet everybody.”

Richard swallowed hard.

“But look,” said Carrie nervously, gesturing at the gate. “There’s no-one coming. How about this – if I see anybody coming on our way out I’ll tell them to wait till you get back – okay?”

“I don’t know…” said Billy.

Carrie’s knuckles were as white as the hand grips she was holding.

“It’s really important,” she said.

Billy thought about it for several seconds. “Okay,” he finally said. “But you promise you’ll tell people to wait.”

“I promise,” said Carrie with an almost inaudible sigh. They both jumped on their bikes and sped toward the rampart gate.

“Don’t think I’m not grateful for what you’ve done,” said Richard as they rode, “but aren’t you going to be in big trouble over this? Why are you sticking your neck out for somebody you hardly know?”

Carrie laughed, “Are you kidding? That was the most fun I’ve had in years. Did you see Doyle’s face? He’ll never be able to look me in the eye again.”

“Yeah – remind me never to get on your bad side. But what will happen when he gets free? Won’t he come after us? He’ll tell Tucker and the others and we’ll be back here in no time. They’ve got motorbikes. We can’t possibly outrun…”

“Doyle’s not going to tell anybody. He’d never live it down if anyone found out. I just hope nobody comes by and finds him before Billy gets there. It’s usually quiet this time of day. He’ll tell Billy to keep his mouth shut and if anybody asks he’ll say he loaned us the bikes. That’s why we took the bicycles. They’d never believe he let us have motorbikes, and it’s guaranteed they’d track us down.”

“But Doyle will really be out to get you now. Aren’t you afraid of him?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You don’t have to come with me. I promise I’ll bring the bike back in one piece.”

“It’s probably best to let Doyle cool off for a while. Anyway, I couldn’t live with myself if I let you go off and commit suicide – which is what you’d be doing if you went alone.”

“Come on – I know I’m from the city and I’m a bit of a greenhorn, but I think I can take care of myself.”

“No offense, but you’re incredibly lucky to still be alive. I’ve got nothing pressing happening right now. Think of it as my good deed for the day.”

“It’s not fair for you to put your life in danger for someone you hardly know,” said Richard. “I’m doing it because I have no choice. You…”

Carrie laughed and waved her arm in an all-encompassing gesture. “This is home for me, Richard. I live here. I’ve lived here for years. I face the same dangers we’re going to face every time I leave the compound. Yeah, it’s dangerous. Life out here is always dangerous. That’s the point – we’re used to it – you’re not.”

“If you’ve made up your mind about it…”

“I have. And you know as well as I do that I’m right.”

They reached the rampart gate and Carrie turned and waved to Billy. They watched his blue vested figure disappear into the complex, then rode beyond the barrier and out into open country.

Danny meets Swallow

As they quit Lacy’s shack and headed for Vancouver, Danny hiked along purposefully – reveling in his returning strength. He studied Lacy’s dainty form ahead of him, and was disturbed by emotions he’d never experienced before.

He thought about her all the time – in ways he’d never thought about the girls at school. Her delicate bare arms bathed in the candle glow, her innocent blue eyes peering down at him when she thought he was asleep. He felt a physical need to be with her and to protect her – something beyond sexual attraction. It was a sensation that was new and mysterious.

A dappled green canopy of trees vaulted overhead, and the sun shone down as they trekked north. After a few hours his strength began to wane, but he refused to acknowledge the problem. Later, he was embarrassed after tripping and falling on his face. Lacy stared back at him with a strange expression, as if she was looking for something. He was grateful when she finally insisted they stop and rest.

To his surprise, almost the moment he lay down his eyelids became heavy. As he lay his head on Lacy’s pack he was aware of her moving away, and from the rustle of the bushes guessed that she was climbing a hill nearby. Then he drifted off.

He awoke with a start after hearing a noise behind him. He tried to roll over, expecting to see Lacy, but found himself roughly shoved back down and onto his stomach, and felt the pressure of a boot on his back. Twisting around he saw a man standing over him, holding a gun pointed directly at his head.

The man was short and scrawny, with thick, black curly hair and the dark shadow of a day’s stubble. He was thin to the point of sickliness, but his sinewy muscles gave him a menacing air. His pronounced nose seemed out of scale with the rest of his face, but his most striking feature was a large Adam’s apple, which bobbed grotesquely when he spoke and even more when he swallowed – which was often. The man looked familiar.

“If you cry out – or try to call for your little friend,” he inclined his head in the direction of the hill Lacy had climbed, “I will kill her, as surely as I am standing here.”

Danny nodded. The man hauled him up by the collar, handed him his pack and motioned for him to put it on, then shoved him forward. They started walking toward what looked like an impenetrable wall of brush, but as they approached Danny saw that there was a narrow gap. They slipped quietly through it and into open country. The kidnapper was picking their way carefully. After hiking for ten minutes they reached a secluded cluster of brush with an open space in the center. They entered and his captor pushed him roughly to the ground.

“They all thought you were dead,” he said, and the images came flooding back into Danny’s mind: the rain-soaked bridge, the gang of thugs surrounding him, Zonk on a leash held by – this guy.

Yeah, that’s the guy. Danny thought.

Suddenly he remembered – this was ‘Swallow’ – called that, he supposed, because of the man’s irksome practice of swallowing frequently when he was excited, which was most of the time.

“But I had a dream,” Swallow continued, as he hauled a length of rope from his pack. “God himself appeared before me and told me of a vast treasure. He revealed riches beyond my imagination, and proclaimed that they could be mine – I had only to fulfill my destiny and claim my reward. A magnificent fortune awaited me at a special place, God assured me, and you would be the one to lead there. At first I discounted the vision, thinking – ‘it is but a dream – and anyway the boy is dead’.

“But then I thought…” he pointed at his own head. “I thought: ‘What if he survived his fall into the river? He’s a young one – young and strong. What if he still lives, him with that knowledge in his head? What if that thing he has found is more valuable than the others suspect?’”

He nodded with a self-satisfied grin. “I thought: ‘What if I can find him? Find him and force him to take me to that place he knows? Then I would possess that fabulous treasure – the treasure promised to me by God himself.” His voice rose and his expression became more and more excited. “Then
I
would be the one commanding respect. Then
I
would be the one that others must obey!’”

Danny struggled to get up, but Swallow pressed down hard with his boot.

“And I was right,” he continued, unwinding the rope. “You
did
survive. You
are
alive. This is truly the day of my good fortune and God has surely blessed me. Now you are going to take me to the place that you know. And do not try to pretend that you do not know. You are going to take me or you will die. And there will be no doubt about your death this time.”

Into the Big City

Lacy scoured the glade where Danny had been resting, and called out for him. At first she assumed he’d gone to relieve himself and would soon return. Then she noticed that his pack was missing. When he failed to answer her calls and didn’t return for several minutes she knew something was wrong. She was confused. It didn’t make sense that Danny would just run off, but what else could have happened?

Using her considerable tracking skills she located the faint trail that Danny, and what looked like another person, had left behind. The slightness of the trail told her that whoever Danny was with knew how to avoid leaving any evidence of their passage.

She located a clearing where the two had stopped then moved on, but a few hundred yards later the trail led out onto an expanse of bare rock and disappeared. She tried to pick it up at a few points around the edges, but there were an endless number of ways they could have gone, and in some directions the rock carried on for miles.

She returned to the clearing where they’d stopped to rest, sat down on a rock, and cried. There was no way to know what had happened to Danny. She sat and waited, praying that somehow he would reappear. Three hours later there was still no sign of him. Waiting any longer would force her to travel at night. There was no choice but to follow Danny’s plan – to continue on their original route and hope he would somehow be there when she arrived at his house. If not, at least she could tell his brother and maybe he could help.

After several hours of strenuous hiking and a careful traversal of the Corridor, she finally stood on a hill overlooking the fantastic city of Vancouver, its glass and steel towers ringing the shining waters of English Bay. It had been seven years since she'd dared to venture there.

It’s still beautiful,
she thought.

Lacy had only vague memories of the giant city. She remembered the profusion of soaring buildings, so massive in her memory that until now she had questioned whether she’d been imagining them. She remembered the paved streets crowded with people and traffic, the rumbling streetcars, the bustling markets.

She was overcome by a rush of emotion recalling events that had taken place so long ago – events that had finally forced her to flee to the wilderness. A powerful memory surfaced, its images vivid and disturbing.

It began with thousands crowded around the Food Train. Her father had said that they were going to help the homeless and hungry stop the train and seize the food for themselves. It was to be a political statement, drawing attention to the plight of tens of thousands without jobs, homes, or food.

She remembered her mother and father arguing violently about whether or not they should bring her along. Her mother said it was too dangerous for a ten year old, but her father insisted she should be there to witness history in the making. In the end, her father prevailed.

Now Lacy’s mother and father were near the front of the crowd, directing the protest. Lacy was farther back with Auntie Becky, who held her tightly by the hand.

Lacy was frightened, pressed on all sides by anonymous legs and torsos. The pressure of the mob behind them threatened to separate her from her aunt, pulled away as parts of the crowd moved in different directions. Auntie Becky finally hoisted Lacy up and onto her shoulders.

“Hold on tight and don’t let go for anything.” Auntie Becky shouted above the roar of the crowd. Lacy could sense the fear in her aunt’s voice.

She remembered how proud she was watching the commanding figure of her father, standing above the others, his black beard wafting with the breeze, confidently directing the action. The protesters blocked the track with a pile of railway ties, and when the train was forced to stop, stormed it, broke into some of the rail-cars, and started removing the food.

But with the pressure of the crowd and the excitement of the looting, the event quickly escaped her father’s control and descended into chaos. The few guards that were present tried to disperse the crowd by firing over their heads. The gunfire only seemed to enrage the mob, and they turned on the vastly outnumbered guards. In a panic, one guard fired a shot into the crowd, and her father dropped to the ground. She remembered wondering why he didn’t get back up.

“Daddy!” she screamed.

“What’s happening!” shouted Auntie Becky.

“I think Daddy’s hurt!” she shouted back.

A collective scream of rage rose from the mob in response to the shooting. A knot of protesters surrounded the guard who had fired. He fired several more times, and several other protesters fell to the ground. Finally, one of the rioters wrestled the gun away and began using it as a club to beat him.

The guard, like her father, descended into the seething crowd. He re-emerged on the shoulders of the mob, covered with blood now and beaten to an unrecognizable mass. His body reared up into the air like a cork bobbing on the ocean, propelled by the arms of the horde. Seconds later it came crashing back down. A protester aimed the gun at the ground and fired several times.