Saint (14 page)

“Joan?”

From near the shed area Joan answered, “I
walked. No horses or hogs.”

“Oh man, they got my hog?” No longer
concerned with Gabe’s loss, Francis loped toward the pile of tin and wood that
used to be the shed. “Shit,” he yelled down at the remains of his beloved bike.

All four men gathered at a safe distance
from the back of the burning house. “They hit everything,” Joan recounted
unnecessarily. But then Joan had a way of stating the obvious that not many
people argued with. And he was right. Half the house was gone. The garage and
tool shed were total losses. His truck was a hunk of burning metal.

“We want to get off this mountain, we have to
hitchhike.”

Gabe’s head fell back on his shoulder. “Joan,
this may come as a shock to you, but I live in Texas for a reason. There are no
trees.”

“Are you gonna start that shit again?”
Francis demanded, rolling his eyes heavenward. “They don’t have pythons or
anacondas in Kentucky.”

Memories of days past flitted through
Seth’s memory. It was a fact they’d spent more than their fair share of time
standing in burned-out villages and towns around the world, mostly in poor,
undeveloped countries, watching the faces of people who had very little
discover they no longer had even that. He cut through the petty argument,
bringing the men’s attention back to the matter at hand. “Where’s Maria?”

“She said Maria wasn’t her real name.”

“Aw hell, Joan, she lied. Don’t people in
Mississippi lie on occasion?”

“You hate liars, Francis,” Gabe pointed
out.

“It’s a fact I do, but you’re the one who
got onto her about cheating.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I didn’t tell you to teach her a damn
thing while I was gone,” Seth grated out. What the hell? “You were supposed to
keep her out of sight, nothing more. What the fuck is wrong with you, Francis?
You know better.”

The preacher merely shrugged. “She needed
something to keep her busy.”

His ass. “Shit. Maria!” He strode in the
direction he’d last seen her running, calling her name. She didn’t answer. He
stopped, looked around, called out again. Still he got no answer. Twice more
and his patience ran out. “Lady, you’ve got five seconds to show your face.”

“Stop calling me lady!” With a few
unladylike curses, the package hoisted herself halfway across the woodpile. “Is
it over?” she asked breathlessly, mahogany eyes rounded, that wild mane of dark
ringlets flowing around her shoulders, littered with sawdust and bark. The urge
to strangle and kiss her at the same time irritated him beyond belief. “Was
that—”

“Juarez,” he finished for her in a clipped
tone.

She wiggled the rest of the way over and
onto her feet, took in a few more steadying breaths, then said, “I’m really getting
tired of people trying to blow me up.”

The urge to strangle her increased as she
stood there brushing twigs and leaves and dirt from her hands and clothes. “I
told you to run for the tree line, not the goddamn woodpile.” When she
staggered toward him, he was unable to help himself and reached out to extract
the leaves still clinging to her hair.

“Fuck you,” she replied in a snotty tone. “It
was that or stand still and let them mow me down.”

Okay, he hadn’t seen the “fuck you” coming.
But he’d let her have that one because she probably wasn’t used to being chased
by helicopters loaded down with machine guns and rocket launchers. For him and
boys it was like old home week.

“You did good, Angelface.”

Seth glowered at Francis, who only grinned
sheepishly. Jesus, he left them alone with her for a few days and they were
already using endearments.

When she finally stopped picking bark and
debris off herself, she straightened and gazed around at the destruction.
Immediately, her expression turned remorseful. “Oh Seth,” she whispered,
shivering when she saw what used to her room. “It’s…it’s gone. I’m so sorry—”

“Save it,” he bit out, turning to Joan. “Get
everything you can salvage packed up and ready to move. After we make camp, it’s
time to pay a visit to a sinner I know who’s in need of saving.”

Francis sidled up alongside the still
somewhat shell-shocked Maria, placing his arm around her shoulders. “C’mon,
honey, we’re goin’ camping.”

“Camping?” She blinked at him. “Francis—”

“Now, darling,” the preacher chucked her
chin, “don’t go asking questions you really don’t want the answers to.”

* * * * *

Before hitting the trail Francis produced a
length of rope—about five feet or so—and handed her one end. “Here, honey, hold
onto this and you won’t have to worry about wandering off in the wrong
direction.”

It turned out to be a good idea because Harris
led the way through the surrounding woods without benefit of a compass or even a
flashlight. After what had happened, Maria understood the need for caution,
just as she understood Seth’s anger over losing everything he owned because of
her.

It took a little while, but finally her
vision adjusted well enough that she could make out general shapes and forms.
Harris had positioned her between Francis and Gabriel, with Joan bringing up
the rear. She had no idea where they were going. Seth wasn’t in the explaining
mood and she wasn’t much in the mood to have her head bitten off. So along with
ignoring Gabe’s incessant muttering about the loss of his car, she and her
guilt concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

They walked for what seemed like hours
though the woods and she was pretty sure she could do without knowing the
identity of some of the things she stepped on, stumbled over or around. The
terrain was rough and uneven, difficult—in her thin canvas tennis shoes—to
negotiate. During their jogs, she and Francis hadn’t ventured all that far from
the cabin. Here, deeper into the forested area, exposed roots tripped her up
more than once. Dips, rocks, bushes and tree limbs sent her plowing into
Francis’ backpack more than once. The preacher automatically reached behind him
to steady her, while Gabe, whose boots seemed to keep constant contact with her
heels, settled for the more direct approach—telling her to move her ass.

By the time they finally stopped she was unbelievably
grateful to Francis for a week’s worth of bootcamp exercises and light jogs.
And she’d lost at least a pint of blood to the mosquitoes. It wasn’t so much
that she was out of shape as she simply wasn’t built for the very physical
pastime of hiking.

Harris dropped his gear to the ground and began
pulling away a camouflage barrier. Francis followed Seth into the foliage
without a word, but she got the impression he wasn’t all that thrilled about it.

Drained, she started to sit down on one of
the duffels, but landed in a pile of damp leaves instead. Joan, who, despite
his size, could move swiftly, jerked the canvas bag from beneath her. “Sorry,
Missy, but you don’t want to be sittin’ on that.”

Gabriel snorted. “You sit on an Uzi once,
you won’t have to worry about sitting on one again.”

Uzi? “He’s kidding, right?” she asked Joan,
getting to her feet. Standing was probably safer than sitting on the ground
where things could crawl on her.

“Knock off, Gabe.”

“Maybe I don’t want to knock off, Joan. We’re
out on this fucking mountainside because Miss Do-gooder thinks she and Tonto
can clean up L.A.”

“Gabriel.” Seth’s sudden reappearance
startled her. “Get up in the trees. Take the infrared goggles and make sure we
weren’t followed.”

“Let Francis take lookout,” Gabriel
snarled. “I’ll take guard duty.”

“You’ll take lookout. Joan, make a sweep.
Francis,” he turned to call into the hole where a glow of light became barely
visible, “You about done down there?”

“Almost,” came the stilted reply.

Gabriel took the goggles Seth handed him
and followed Joan into the shadows, leaving the two of them alone in the dark.

“Seth…”

Francis chose that moment to leap from the
tangle of brush, backhanding beads of sweat from his brow. “After you,
Angelface,” he swept his hand toward the opening. “Careful going down the
steps.”

“Lock us in and get going,” she heard Seth
say. “I want repentance from that sinner yesterday.”

“What’s down there?” Maria stretched her
neck to look down the shaft.

“An underground bunker,” Seth said, nudging
her so that she had to grab at the railing leading down a treacherous set of
steps.

“Wait a minute, what—holy shit
…
.” The place was an arsenal. Housed
along the steel-encased walls were guns and equipment of every kind—revolvers,
RPG’s semiautomatic pistols, machine guns, assault rifles, flamethrowers and
even a bazooka. Piled in the far corner were boxes of ammunition, grenades and
an assortment of supplies. Two cots topped with folded blankets huddled against
the back wall. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held candles, extra blankets,
nonperishable canned goods, battery packs and a first-aid kit. If someone
wanted to start a war, or hide out from one, this was the place to be.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs,
Harris dropped his bundles on the floor. “It’s vented, we won’t suffocate.”

“Wait, I don’t understand. Why did you tell
Francis to lock us in? Aren’t they coming in, too?”

“No. They have business to tend. They’ll be
back in a couple of days.”

“Days? We have to stay down here for days?”

“You’d rather sleep on the damp ground and
take a chance on being seen if the choppers make another pass? Shit, you’re not
claustrophobic, are you?”

“No.” Too bad, because then she’d have a
good reason for sweaty palms, weak knees and the sudden awareness that came
with knowing she and the irascible Seth Harris would be living shoulder to
shoulder for…days. “What kind of business?”

“Pick a cot. Get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll
talk about what comes next.”

“What kind of business?” she repeated
stubbornly.

He muttered something under his breath,
then said, “It’s possible Juarez had someone watching Will’s place.”

“And they followed us back here?” she
surmised.

“Not exactly. But it’s possible—if someone was
watching Will’s at the time—that whoever it was followed us back to the hotel,
maybe even managed to get a partial off the license plate. It wouldn’t have
been hard to trade nose candy for information. The desk clerk is an addict.”

“How do you know? Never mind. What’s the
deal with the sinner?”

“Let me worry about the details. Get some
rest.”

If she had to guess—which was becoming a
habit around him—she’d say nose candy plus desk clerk addict equaled sinner.
“You’re sending them to shake down the hotel clerk.”

He shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Why? Even if he did rat us out, what
possible difference could it make?”

He leveled a look at her. “We are not
having this conversation right now. Pick a cot. Get some sleep.”

She could object, but already knew it would
be a waste of breath, so she chose the cot on the right and pulled the blanket
over her shoulders. The temperature had dipped at least ten degrees and the
chill seemed to have seeped into her bones. No matter how much she burrowed
into the blanket, she couldn’t seem to get warm.

It was this place, she told herself. The
bunker was damp and cool. And the night air, along with the fog that had
settled on the mountain, had given her a chill.

It wasn’t the explosions.

Or the fact she’d once again, because of
Seth’s quick thinking and lighting reflexes, managed to survive another attack
on her life.

They’d blown his house to smithereens.

Promise me, Maria. Promise you’ll stick to him like glue.

Harris took the other cot, a mere three
feet from hers, and turned off the battery-powered lamp.

“Could I have another blanket?” she asked
in the darkness.

Without a word he tossed her his. She
draped it over her upper body. Still, it wasn’t enough and she began to shake.

Seth tried to ignore Maria’s spastic
jerking, restless movement and chattering teeth. Ten blankets wouldn’t stop the
shivering. While they’d been on the move she hadn’t had time to process
everything. Now she did.

“Go to sleep,” he growled.

“I c-can’t. It’s cold down here.”

“It’s not cold.”

“It’s damp.”

It hadn’t rained a drop while he was gone
and hardly any the week before. Her sniffling had him gritting his teeth. Shit,
not now. Not here. “Don’t you dare cry.”

“I’m not c-crying.”

Fuck.
This
was it. The stress and fear and months of constant uncertainty were finally
crashing in on her. Tonight’s attack had pushed her over the edge. The last
thing he wanted to do was spend half the night consoling a crying woman,
especially this crying woman. She didn’t know what a hardship it was for him to
even be around her. But that didn’t change the fact she needed to lean on someone
who understood what it was like to live the way she’d been living since making
the decision to testify against Juarez.