The corporal pushed his cap back on his head. “What man? Who was dead?”
“There was a man lying here and he was dead. His friends said he was dead. Then he got up and walked away.”
Suddenly leery of what he’d walked into at four in the morning, the cop walked around to where he could see the speaker’s face. “Then I guess he wasn’t dead after all, was he?”
“No,” said the manager slowly, “I guess he wasn’t.” He looked down at his feet. “But there’s the blood.”
“Somebody’s blood.” The corporal turned to his partner. “Guess we better check it out. Where are these people?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? Whaddaya mean, ‘gone’?”
“They left. With the dead man who wasn’t dead. In their motor home.”
The other officer spoke up. “Must be that big rig that was leaving as we were coming in.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s the one.”
The corporal turned back to his car in disgust. “Let’s go, Jake. Maybe the people in the motor home will make some sense.”
They pulled out into the road, burning rubber as they drove off in pursuit of the vehicle they’d passed on arrival. The motel owner was left alone in his quiet parking lot. After a while he looked back down at the rapidly drying pool of blood. Then he went to get a hose to wash it away.
Frank saw the rotating red lights swing into sight in the rearview mirror. “Cops. What do I do now?”
“Keep driving,” said Burnfingers.
“Keep driving,” said Mouse. “We cannot waste time here, certainly not to answer questions.”
“That’s what I thought.” He put his foot to the gas. “We won’t lose ’em on the interstate. They’ll catch up and pull us over.”
“It depends which on ramp we take,” Burnfingers told him.
“We must go the way your family has gone, and they have been taken to a different line. I sense it.” Mouse had turned to observe the progress of the pursuing police cruiser. They weren’t going all out. Not yet.
Beneath the hood the big engine rumbled. “They’re catching up already.”
“Relax, Frank.” Burnfingers smiled confidently. “We will lose them.”
Frank nodded ahead. “There’s the on ramp. What do I do?”
“Ignore it. Keep going straight, through the underpass.”
Frank sounded uncertain. “That’s just a country road.” Burnfingers’s smile widened and that was enough to start Frank’s heart a-pounding. He clung to the wheel for support.
The motor home shot beneath the freeway at sixty miles per hour. Now the police cruiser had its siren going as its occupants realized their quarry had no intention of pulling over voluntarily.
“Junction coming up,” said Burnfingers. Frank stared into the night.
“What junction? I can’t see a damn thing!”
He spoke too soon. It materialized out of the darkness, an unmarked fork in the road less than half a mile ahead.
“Left,” Mouse yelled, “and don’t slow down!”
“Okay, okay!” Looking in the sideview mirror he could see one of the cops in the pursuit car leaning out and waving wildly, his gestures unmistakable. He wanted them to pull over and stop. What, he wondered, if they started shooting? He was no stunt driver and the motor home no sprint car.
That’s when he saw the fence, the barrier that blocked the road. A pair of yellow warning lights flashed like cat’s eyes in the motor home’s high beams. No wonder the police were frantically driving to stop him.
There was a roaring in his ears, like heavy surf banging a rocky shore. He hung on to the wheel, paralyzed. Mouse yelled at him again and it struck him that this was the first time he’d ever heard her raise her voice in anything other than song.
“Keep going, Frank! Don’t stop now!”
Behind him the police cruiser swerved and twisted across the road, honking furiously, the two men inside doing everything possible to draw the attention of the motor home’s occupants as they wondered why it refused to pull over.
Frank flinched but didn’t cover his eyes. The motor home smashed through the flimsy highway barrier, sending splinters and warning lights and planks flying in all directions. They vanished like feathers in the night. The pavement vanished, too, and they found themselves screaming down a dirt road. At the speed they were traveling, the motor home’s suspension was no match for rain ruts and potholes. Dishes flew out of cabinets to cartwheel wildly across the floor. Plastic glasses bounced and tumbled like debris from a New Year’s party. Burnfingers Begay hung on as best he could while Mouse sat stiffly in her seat, gripping the armrests with delicate fingers.
“Where are we going?” Frank shouted. He heard a loud crack. Something breaking loose underneath, or were their pursuers finally shooting at them? The night-shrouded terrain was rushing by in a wash of head-beam light.
“I’m not sure,” Mouse told him, “but wherever it is, we have to get there.”
Another barrier appeared ahead, blocking the road. This one was smaller and had red warning lights flashing atop it instead of yellow. Beyond, the mountains and dusty landscape disappeared.
“Keep going,” said Burnfingers calmly.
Frank stared at the barrier, his foot easing off the accelerator. “Keep going where? There’s no more road.”
Mouse leaned toward him, violet orbs flashing. “This is the way your family’s kidnappers have come. Do you want to find them or not? If we hesitate here we may lose them forever.”
His thoughts fought one another like a couple of tomcats in heat as the motor home continued to lose momentum. Behind him the wail of the siren lessened. Apparently the police were convinced he was finally going to pull over. After all, he had no other choice, did he? Frank turned to face her.
“How can I trust you anymore, after what you’ve dragged us into?”
She stared steadily back at him and her voice dropped to its usual breathy whisper. “How can you not trust me?”
Frustrated, he turned to the motor home’s only other occupant. “Burnfingers?”
The Indian shrugged. “The on ramps and off ramps we have to take on this journey don’t always come clearly marked, Frank. This looks promising to me.”
“And if it’s the wrong way?”
“This world or another, what’s the difference?”
Frank considered. “I guess the difference is that Alicia and the kids aren’t in this one anymore.”
He jammed the accelerator to the floor. The motor home roared forward, straight toward the barrier. This time he was positive he heard warning shots. As they struck the wood he closed his eyes.
The ground ended as cleanly as if it had been cut away with an ax. Far below the cliff he could see trees, a small lake, the lights of another town. A great calmness came over him as the motor home lost velocity and started to tilt down. Behind him Burnfingers Begay yelled a war cry—or maybe it was a prayer.
