The Falling Away (16 page)

“Man or woman?”

“Man. His name is Dylan Runs Ahead.”

“An American Indian, then.”

“Yes.”

It made sense; genetically, it was more likely in Native Americans. But still, chosen were rare; she'd never known of one, and Paul himself, after some fifteen years in the Falling Away, had only met a couple.

“Do you think HIVE knows about him?”

“I'm sure they do, Quinn.”

“So they'll be after him.”

“You have to keep him away from HIVE. But you have to stay away from him yourself, you know.”

“I know.” Part of what made protecting chosen so difficult was never being able to tell them who they were; they had to discover it for themselves. In the past, the Falling Away had tried to warn them. In every instance, the chosen had been destroyed—often by themselves.

“And you have to do it by yourself. I can't help you. No one can help you.”

“It's my cross to bear,” she said, smiling.

It was an operating principle for the Falling Away: all members flew solo, after their apprentice period. All human systems of organization tended to break down, become infected by the Fall as they grew. The Falling Away's defense against this was utterly simple: they operated without any official organization. Occasionally they would communicate, trade data and movements. But they were not an army in any real sense of the word. They were all independent mercenaries, trusting that God's plans would lead them, elusive though they may be. Paul hadn't been led to her by his own plans, but by God's. And she wouldn't be led to Montana by her own plans.

Quinn thought of the verse of the chosen, the verse Paul had said to her many times during her training: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Hebrews 10:31.

Job, a chosen in the Old Testament, had discovered the truth of that. Joan of Arc, another chosen, had discovered it.

Now, Dylan Runs Ahead needed to discover it.

26

Behind Dylan and Webb, the plow and green car had disappeared from view. They were alone on the highway. They had to go slower now on this unplowed stretch, their tires spraying fine particles of snow as they drove through several inches of fresh-fallen whiteness.

“What just happened?” Webb asked, his voice cracking.

“You wondered if things could suck any worse,” Dylan answered.

Webb ignored the dig. “She . . . she killed that patrolman.”

“I don't think so. I didn't hear any shots; did you?”

“No. No, but . . . we gotta . . . I don't know . . . report it.”

Dylan looked at him. “Yeah, that's just what we wanna do. Go to local police and start talking. We can tell them all about your bullet wound, and I can show off my shiny .357 Mag.”

“Okay. Yeah. Right.” Webb had been reduced to one-word sentences, which was something of a rarity.

Dylan returned his attention to the road. Or what little bit of the road he could see; in front of the plow, the snow was piled three or four inches deep again.

By now it was likely the two Canucks up north had been missed. Maybe even found. And whether friendly Trooper Evans was alive and well or dead and not-so-well, he had backup on the way. Plus a dash cam capturing an image of his pickup and plates. Even now, there was probably a bulletin going out, telling law enforcement from the local to the federal level to be looking for a red Ford Ranger in central Montana.

All in all, probably not one of Dylan's better days.

You have to ditch the pickup
.

You have a keen eye for the obvious, Joni
.

Just saying
.

Great idea. I'll just pull to the side of the road, and we'll jump out and start walking. In the middle of a snowstorm
.

Take this back-country road; you have to get off the highway
.

“Yeah,” he said, slowing as they came to the road and then turning south. Nothing down this road except a few farms, he guessed.

“What was that?” Webb asked.

“Nothing,” Dylan said, realizing he'd answered Joni aloud.

“No, I'm used to you muttering to yourself. What I meant was, what was that turn? You think we're not going slow enough on the highway, so you want to lock in the hubs and go cross-country?”

“We gotta get away from the highway. They'll be looking for us.”

“But . . .” Webb went quiet, obviously having a hard time coming up with a good
but
.

Dylan promised himself, if he somehow got out of this alive, he'd swear off guns forever. He'd had enough of them by the time he was discharged from the army, a fractured shell of his former self. But he'd still believed they were a necessary evil in some situations.

Too bad necessary evil often led to a lot of unnecessary evil.

Gun saved your life this morning
.

And your point is
?

You wouldn't be here if you didn't have a gun
.

No, that's my point
.

Oh, enough with the woe-is-me, I'd-rather-be-dead crap. Shoulda got that out of your system after Iraq
.

Shoulda got you out of my system by now, too, but I still let you hang around. Just shut up for a few minutes and let me think on my own
.

They continued down the secondary road, coming over a slight rise as they drove. In the distance, a red barn wavered in stark contrast to the blanket of white, huddled with a couple of other outbuildings and a dilapidated old windmill. Beyond that, perhaps another quarter mile away, a lonely farmhouse stood with trees planted around it as an ineffective windbreak.

Dylan pulled on the turnout that led to the red barn and outbuildings, coming to a stop in front of a barbed wire gate. He opened his door and started to slide out of the cab.

“How do you know no one's at the barn?” Webb asked, a little too shrill. Webb was holding his arm stiffly against his side again; the flood of adrenaline had likely seeped most of the drugs out of his system. Probably time for another bump soon.

For him, or for you
?

Joni, you want me to throw you in the kill box
?

Okay. Shutting up
.

“Look at the snow,” Dylan said to Webb. “No tracks.”

He opened the gate, returned to the pickup, and drove it through before going back to reattach the gate. The lack of tracks told them no one had been at the barn this morning. But the downside was anyone coming down this road would now see their own tracks.

Dylan bounced down the rutted path to the barn, parking beside the windmill at the back. From the secondary road, the view of the pickup would be blocked by the barn; from the farmhouse in the distance, it would be hidden by the framework of the windmill. He hoped. He shut off the pickup and they sat for a few moments, listening to the tick of the engine cooling and the ever-present whisper of the winter wind in the cracks of the cab.

“So we're just going to hole up in a barn now?” Webb asked. “It's like one of those old escape movies from the fifties. The only thing missing is we're not handcuffed together, and we don't have a pack of bloodhounds tracking us.”

“Yeah, then things would be perfect.”

“What's that old saying about bad luck and no luck at all?”

“Just that: a saying. Let's check out the barn.”

Webb swung out of the pickup slowly, and Dylan went to make sure he could stand and walk. He checked the pickup for their cash and belongings, few as they were. The gun was still in his coat pocket, and he fished the shells from beneath the seat. Webb noted the box of ammo without comment.

“You've never spent much time on a farm, have you?” Dylan said as they tramped through the snow to a rickety door with white, peeling paint.

“Sorry,” Webb said. “More of a city mouse.”

Dylan opened the door, went inside the barn, wishing for a flashlight. At least they were here in daylight; with the reflective snow and the light from the sun, hidden above the bank of storm clouds, the barn had plenty of cracks to let in light.

“Well, being a country mouse myself,” he said as his nostrils filled with the scent of hay, straw, and mildew, “I know that barns can hold more than just hay.”

They crept into the barn's interior, past a horse stall that obviously hadn't been used in the recent past. No tack on the walls. On the other side of the stall, to their right, bales of hay were somewhat haphazardly stacked toward the ceiling. A good sign. That meant the hay was for cattle, and they hadn't seen any cattle on the way in. The cattle were in pasture on some nearby acreage . . . which meant the hay had to be transported.

They moved to the left of the horse stall, past a partial wall. And there they saw what Dylan had secretly been hoping they would see: a battered, old yellow Ford pickup, seventies vintage, parked in its own cramped stall.

That wasn't quite right; what he'd been hoping to see was a new turbocharged Dodge Ram, something like the rig Andrew drove; but in a pinch, the old yellow hay truck would do.

“What's that saying about bad luck and no luck at all?” Dylan parroted back to Webb.

Webb stared for a few moments. “Yeah. Lucky us. I shoulda bought a lottery ticket this morning. You really think the keys are in it?”

Dylan let out a quick laugh. “Think Farmer Joe here is worried about fugitives dropping by to steal his old truck? My old man had a pickup a lot like this—didn't even need a key after so many years. Actually started the thing with a screwdriver jammed into the ignition.”

Dylan moved to the door of Old Yeller and peeked inside. A fine layer of dust and hay covered the ratty bench seat inside. The key was in the ignition, just as he'd suspected.

“All aboard,” he said to Webb as he settled into the squeaky driver's seat. He could feel broken springs beneath him, even through the old jean jacket that was obviously being used as seat padding.

Webb opened the door with his good arm, stumbled into the pickup, turned to close it behind him with some effort.

Dylan retrieved his bottle of the Perks, shook one out, paused, shook out a second.

“Now's not really the time for you to start hitting the happy pills,” Webb said.

“No.” Dylan offered the two Perks to Webb. “But it's time for you to hit them. I can tell you're starting to hurt more.”

Webb looked at the pills a moment, as if they were alien objects from an alternate universe, then took them and slowly dry-swallowed them.

“Thanks,” he grumbled.

“Dylan Runs Ahead, Portable Pharmacy,” Dylan answered.

“I don't mean just for that,” Webb said, staring at the layer of dust on the metal dash. “I mean for everything. You could have left me.”

Dylan's mind flashed on the Iraqi desert, fuzzy images of medics bending over him. Not for the first time, he wished the medics had left him there to bleed out. Sure, he would have died. But died a hero. Perfect and blameless in the eyes of his country. In the eyes of his family.

Maybe that would have made up for Joni.

Instead, the medics had saved him. He'd repaid that favor by becoming a painkiller junkie, and now a fugitive. What was that old saying about bad luck and no luck at all? Oh yeah. Much more than a saying.

Chosen. First from Claussen in Iraq, then from Couture today. Yeah, he was a real chosen one.

“But you didn't,” Webb continued. “I owe you.”

Uncomfortable with Webb's feelings of thanksgiving, Dylan changed the subject. “Check the jockey box,” he said.

“The what?”

“The jockey box. The . . . uh . . . glove compartment.”

“Jockey box? You really call it that?”

“Country mouse, like I said.”

Webb leaned forward, flipped the lever on the glove compartment. More dust, a few wayward pieces of hay, and a tin of sardines.

“You're kidding me,” Webb said.

“Take the hay out to the cattle, probably a few miles from here, spend the morning feeding them, you might want a snack. Farmers and ranchers are all the same at heart.”

Webb shook his head, retrieved the sardines, blew the layer of muck off its surface before unwrapping the plastic and popping open the lid. Instantly, the fishy aroma filled the cab, and Dylan's stomach leaped to attention.

Webb offered the first bite, and Dylan worked a slimy fish from the packed oil. Webb followed suit, hungrily licking at the oil on his fingers as he chewed.

“Don't even like sardines,” Webb said and smiled.

“Who does?”

They ate in silence, finishing the whole tin before Webb dropped it on the floor, where it readily mixed with an assortment of refuse already there.

“Just hope it isn't our version of the Last Supper,” Webb said.

“Yeah, well. It's fish. Good and biblical for you.”

They both chuckled, then laughed. Laughed because they had to laugh. Laughed because they were terrified, and neither one of them wanted to explore the only alternative to laughing.

After a few moments, the silence returned. Only the sound of the wind making its way through the cracks in the barn.

“So where do we go from here?” Webb asked.

“Well, I think we can hang here for a while. Maybe even should.”

“What about Farmer Joe?”

“He won't be out here again until tomorrow morning.”

“Really? How do you know that?”

“You have cattle, you feed first thing in the morning. It's late afternoon now, already getting dark; he already did his feeding for today.”

“But you said it yourself: no tracks in the snow.”

“Well, Einstein, it's been snowing pretty steadily the last few hours. Any tracks he left this morning were covered. If we're lucky, Farmer Joe even went into town to do some chores, get some supplies.”

“Lewistown?”

“Probably,” he said absently, his mind making new connections.