“Deceived, hell.” Frank continued to stare at the bottomless waterfall. “They’re being lied to like crazy. There’s no road out there. Burnfingers?”
Begay shrugged. “I know hidden byways. I do not know what lies beyond the edge of the world. Of course, if the little singer is wrong, all we would do is fall. There would be plenty of time to talk things out before we hit bottom.”
Mouse spoke up. “Once you trusted Burnfingers Begay when you could not see a road where a road was. This time you must trust me. The road is there, but we will not see it until we trade this reality for another.”
“I dunno ….”
“We cannot go back,” she said firmly. “The allies of the Anarchis will search ceaselessly until they find us. It will be much easier for them to do so if we remain on this line. Others will come in Prake’s wake, others more terrible than he.”
Frank shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t think I can imagine realities worse than Prake.”
“That’s because your imagination is limited by what you know.”
Still unsure, he turned to Alicia. She smiled encouragingly and added that cute little toss of her head he’d always found so endearing. It gave him courage if not confidence.
“All right. What do you want me to do?”
“That which you have done so well all along. Drive on.”
He swallowed hard, released the emergency brake, and drove over the edge.
The smooth transition left him breathless. One moment there was nothing below them, the next they were cruising along a pale ivory pavement that ran through emptiness. It was unblemished and well-maintained. His muscles began to unknot.
“You were right.” Alicia gazed admiringly at Mouse. “You’ve been right all along.”
“Well, I wasn’t positive,” she replied slowly, “but I was reasonably certain.”
Frank’s head came around fast. “What do you mean, you weren’t positive?”
Mouse smiled warmly. “Would you have driven over the edge if I’d admitted uncertainty?”
He started to reply, thought it over, and decided to say nothing.
The reality they’d left behind rapidly faded from view. Mountains, great lake, and old highway consumed by distance and darkness. The road they were on twisted and bent madly, but no matter how steeply it banked the motor home hugged the smooth surface tightly. Frank settled the speedometer on forty, though everyone had the feeling they were moving far faster than that.
“Everyone okay?” he inquired. The response was gratifyingly positive.
“Are we going to be all right now, Mom?” Wendy asked.
“I don’t know, dear. We aren’t sure where we’ve been and I guess we’re still not sure where we’re going.”
“At least we got away from the monsters, huh, Dad?” Steven was eyeing Burnfingers admiringly. “We really blew that Prake guy away, didn’t we?”
“I did what was necessary.” Begay put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Your father is a remarkable driver. I begin to wonder at the ‘coincidence’ that inspired him to stop and give Ballad Eyes a ride.”
“No big deal.” Frank discovered he was embarrassed by Burnfingers’s praise. “The driving, I mean. I just put a foot to the gas and go. See, when I was getting started in business I used to drive the delivery truck in addition to doing most of the paperwork. Time being money and all that. Besides, anyone who grew up in Los Angeles and learned driving there can drive anyplace. There are intersections in Los Angeles that remind you of the edge of the world and Hell.”
Burnfingers looked thoughtful. “It was different for me. As I have told you, driving on the reservation is not the same as driving in the real world. We have our own speed laws and our own police. Many of the roads are no more than suggestions in the dirt. When the principal mode of transportation is an old pickup truck with a stripped transmission, you learn to drive carefully.”
Mouse was concentrating on the winding road ahead. “Niccolo’s choice came from the heart. We are going the right way.”
“Glad to hear it,” Frank confessed, “since alternate routes seem to be in short supply out here.”
Alicia had the back of one hand pressed to her forehead. Her eyes were half closed. “This has all been so wearying.”
“Wearying? Wearying?” Frank snapped out the words. “What this has been is fucking insane, is what it’s been.”
She made a face at him. “Frank—the children.”
“Let ’em hear. I’m fed up.”
“I’m sorry to have involved your family,” Mouse told him. “Time and circumstance offered me no other choice.”
“Yeah, yeah. So you’ve been telling us.”
“Then if you are intelligent enough to acknowledge the inevitability of what we are doing, why are you angry?”
“I don’t know!” He slammed both hands hard against the wheel. “Can’t I just be mad? Do I have to have a reason? Christ, I don’t wanna save the world. I just want to be able to keep on selling Taiwanese baseball mitts at fifty percent markup. That’s my idea of a reality worth fighting for.”
“Want me to drive for a while, Frank?”
As he glanced back at Burnfingers, he subsided. “Naw. Just blowing off steam. Call you if I need a break.”
“Okay. You may think of yourself as ordinary and weak, Frank Sonderberg, but I think you are one tough son of a bitch.”
“Thanks. You got to be to run a business like mine. That’s the American way.”
“We should have taken some pictures,” Alicia pointed out. “After all, we’ve had some pretty unique experiences.”
