Strike (9 page)

A figure steps from the woods to block our car's path. A big guy with a big gun. It could be Tuck or Hartness, but it's not. The Cranes must have an inexhaustible supply of huge, scary-looking cousins. Wyatt stops the car, and the guy comes around to the window.

“You miss the signs?” he says, unfriendly-like, stubby finger on the trigger.

“Leon invited us.”

The guy nods like he already knew that. “Go on past the barn. Park in the field and head up to the house.” As Wyatt rolls up his window, the guy gives a small smile and says, “You got a good dog.”

And I know they weren't going to eat Matty, but I needed to hear that, that the Citizens for Freedom or the Cranes for Fucking
Up Shit or whatever they call themselves—that they're still human and can smile. I would thank him, but he's melted back into the woods and we're passing the barn and bumping into a huge field. It's got to be at least ten acres, with cars neatly parked at one end and rows of tents at the other end.

“I always wanted to go to Coachella,” Wyatt says.

“You still play bass?” Chance asks.

“I did, yeah.”

Silence falls. Hobbies are a luxury we don't necessarily have anymore. Even my guerrilla knitting serves a purpose.

“Maybe the rednecks will lend us some banjos,” Chance adds grimly.

Which, to be honest, pisses me off a little. I can't help thinking about Jeremy, about how he proudly called himself a redneck right up until the end but would dive into a fight with any stranger who tried to use the term against him. Whatever his family situation, he was a good person, a good friend. Is it fair for me to think of the Cranes as rednecks if I was constantly chiding Jeremy for using terms like “fag” and “retarded”? And even if they act like what I grew up thinking a redneck was, they still own more land and resources than my mom and I ever did, so technically, they're more successful. How can I point fingers at anyone when I'm the one with innocent blood on my hands? They might be country, but I'm a monster.

“How about you don't call them ‘rednecks' again?” I say.

“You want to hear what guys like them called guys like me in juvie?” he shoots back.

“How about we remember that everyone's packing heat and just act polite?” Wyatt says softly.

He parks in line, and we get out and stand there. The field is silent. There are no lights, and no one is here to meet us. A bobwhite calls, somewhere in the forest, and Wyatt pops the trunk, hunts around, and hands me my new puffer coat.

“You look cold.”

I smile and go up on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek, and it's still new enough to make him blush. We've been together for less than a week, but it feels like forever.

“Blech,” Chance mutters. “I'll take my chance with the Cranes.”

When he heads for the main house, we follow, leaving our bags behind for now. It looks like a plantation house that no one wants to fix but everyone wants to add on to, white with four crooked columns out front and wings that just keep on going in different kinds of wood and metal. Chickens roost on a ladder behind a wire fence, their chicken house a replica of the big one and, honestly, better kept. A sharp bark becomes an orchestra of dogs, and the screen door bangs open. A pack of hounds bursts out, and Matty runs for me, yipping joyously. I squat to hug her and fend off her licks. The other dogs just jump around and bark like idiots. Tuck stands on the porch holding a fried chicken leg, and Gabriela walks out to meet us, her arms crossed.

“About damn time,” she says.

“Yeah, well, we had a lot of shopping to do,” Chance says, his voice high and careless with relief as he hugs her.

“Where's the goods?”

Chance inclines his head toward the car, and Gabriela jumps down and hurries toward it. We struggle to catch up.

“Everything okay?” Chance asks quietly.

Gabriela shakes her head. “Yeah, sure. Bunch of angry white folks eating KFC in their camo hats and talking about football. It's awesome. I totally fit in. By which I mean nobody talked to me and one old lady told me coloreds had to use the other bathroom. Please tell me you got the Pop-Tarts.”

I paw through the bags and help her parse her stuff into the backpack I bought for her. She doesn't seem excited, but who gets excited about pastel cotton underwear? The coat fits and she's glad for the hoodie, at least. She tries to put on the hat, but her fro-hawk is too big to fit under it—but at least it gets her to laugh. When she sees the Pop-Tarts—that's when she finally thanks me.

As she tears into a packet, I make sure to shuttle the condoms discreetly into my backpack. Matty's leaping around us, and I put the new collar and leash on her and tell her how pretty she looks. The guys shoulder the tent boxes and whatever else they can carry and head for the tent city. When we get closer, we see the blond clipboard girl waiting out front wearing the same big, fake smile.

“Okay, so you can set up wherever you want, but you can see that we're avoiding the ditch and the cars. The porta-potties are over there, and the well is over there. So just pick a place, set up, and come on up to the house.” She turns around and walks away, then stops and looks back. “Oh, and don't worry about thieves or anything. Thieves get punished in Crane Hollow.”

“Uh, how?” Chance asks.

She smiles sweetly. “I think you can guess.” And then she's gone.

“We're pitching our tents close together, right?” Gabriela says.

“Better the devil you know.” Chance readjusts the tent box and keeps walking.

Watching boys argue and set up tents is boring and annoying, so Gabriela, Matty, and I head up to the house to check on Kevin.

“How's he doing?” I ask.

She exhales through her nose. “I don't know. They wouldn't let me upstairs. Said he was with ‘the doc,' but I never saw anybody that looked like a doctor. This house is crazy. The clinic and the head honchos are up on the second floor, and they guard the staircase all the time. There are a few bedrooms downstairs, but most folks are in trailers out back or in tents. They've got chickens, goats, pigs. It's like its own little city. Like . . . Backwoods Disney World.”

The wood porch steps creak, and Hartness holds the door open. “Welcome home, ladies. Dinner's in the kitchen, and they're
waiting for you in the study.” He looks past us, puzzled. “Where's your boys?”

“Tent duty.” Gabriela hooks her thumb through her belt next to her machete.

Hartness laughs. “More chicken for me, I reckon.”

“Where's Kevin?”

“Who?”

“The kid who came in with me. The one who got shot.”

Hartness scratches his beard. “Didn't see any kid. Ask Heather.”

Gabriela's eyes shoot meaningfully to mine. I can almost feel her thinking,
See?

She nods to him, and he pats Matty as we pass. It's claustrophobic in here, all dark wood floors and narrow halls. Gabriela leads me past the kitchen, and I am definitely glad I bought a bunch of trash food, because it looks like a place where they cook possum stew in rusty cauldrons. A few older women with home perms and claw bangs stare at us and mutter under their breath, and we hurry down a different hall.

We pass a narrow sunroom with a long table full of people who look enough like Leon Crane for us to assume they belong here. Crane men seem to come in two types: whip thin with huge eyes or bouncer sized with beards. People are everywhere, in every room, eating on the floor and waiting in line for a bathroom that doesn't look much better than squatting outside. You can tell who's kin and who's a new member of the CFF—the folks who fit in are as
comfortable as an old couch, while the new recruits are nervy and sleepless, their eyes looking us up and down and their chicken-greasy hands constantly going for their guns.

At the stairs, we find the blond girl, Heather, eating a limp salad from a KFC container. Before she can stand, Gabriela pushes into her space and asks, “Where's the kid?”

Heather dabs her mouth with a napkin and smiles. “Upstairs, asleep. We gave him something to help him relax. You ever had a bullet wound reopened and disinfected? Hurts like a bitch.”

“Can we see him?”

She shakes her head. “Tomorrow. We don't usually let new recruits upstairs until they've proven their loyalty.”

“We're here,” I say. “Isn't that enough?”

“Signing a fake name, spending our money, and showing up to a safe haven doesn't prove loyalty, honey. We're going to do the debriefing in the morning, so get some food and some sleep and come up to the porch when you're awake. Got it?”

Gabriela puts a foot on the bottom stair, and Heather's arm shoots out, striking bone on bone and making me wince. Heather's eyes narrow to snake slits, and she's not a Barbie anymore. “Look, I'd love to throw down, and I got ten cousins just aching to shoot their rifles, so I suggest you play by our fucking rules.”

“Thought we were getting inducted tonight?” Gabriela says, her face hard. “Leon said—”

Heather's smile returns, sweet and deadly. “Business is happening upstairs. Leon's not available. Tomorrow's close enough. Go to bed.”

Gabriela is breathing hard through her nose like a bull, so I put a hand on her shoulder. “C'mon. More Pop-Tarts. It's fine. He's fine. All right?”

Heather shoves salad into her mouth. “Don't forget we're the good guys, okay?”

Gabriela doesn't budge, so I grab her arm and haul her away. Matty dances around us, getting us tangled in her leash like this is the best walk ever and we're not all tense as hell.

Heather's reassurances don't make me feel any better, but this is the first day this week that I haven't shot anybody, and I'd like to keep up that streak. Walking away is the only option.

We approach the tent city with Matty wagging like crazy. I am not wagging. Tents feel so flimsy, and I've never been camping or wanted to go camping. There are dozens of campsites in all shapes and sizes, but they're zipped up tight. Very few people are outside, and it feels very cold, almost distrustful. This is where Valor leaves us—terrified of strangers. I don't even know how to find Wyatt and Chance, considering I didn't look at the tents they bought.

“Hey, ladies!”

Chance waves from between two big, clean-looking tents on the edge of the grid. When Wyatt ducks out of the door of one, Matty
barks joyously and strains toward him, probably expecting French fries to fall out of his pockets. He holds back the flap proudly to show that he's arranged the two-room tent with two sleeping bags, pillows, and extra blankets. My new turtle, my backpack, and all my Big Choice stuff are arranged to the side. Monty is coiled in a ball in his new plastic cage beside a ridiculous plastic palm tree.

“Home sweet home,” I say, nudging Matty aside and collapsing on my pallet.

“You guys see the kid?”

I flop down and immediately feel my gun biting into my back, not to mention the rocks and bumps poking through the sleeping bag. My bed at home was lumpy, and the cot in my mail truck was flimsy, but this is downright inhospitable. I sit back up and slide the gun under my pillow. Just like old times.

“Nope. They said we weren't allowed upstairs. Gabriela wanted to kick some ass.”

“I think you mean whoop some ass. Or pull out a can of whoop ass? And aren't we supposed to use our new names?”

I rub my eyes and groan. “I keep trying to think of everyone by their new names, but . . . it's like my brain refuses. It feels like Leon is trying to force us into being new people. Just like Valor did. I can't think of myself as Zooey, and I'm definitely not calling you ‘Hank.' I'm not changing who I am just because some crazy dude made me sign something.”

Wyatt gets Matty settled down with a bowl of dog food before moving over to my sleeping bag. He gives me what can only be called a smoldering look and says, “You know you want to call me ‘Hank,' baby.”