When he was laid into the ground and the white sheet secured over his form, Samantha went away to find Ben. The search went on for some time as she passed from home to home, and when she didn’t find him, Rebecca came and walked her out to Lizzy’s clearing. There they found Elizabeth and Ben both, hidden beneath the trees and wrapped in each other’s arms. When Samantha noted surprise that Clay’s men had allowed them to stray so far, Elizabeth only shrugged and said, “They saw us go. They never stopped us.”
Amanda wracked her brain for something to say as they looked down on him. She knew he might have liked some passage from the Bible read, but for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine which one he would have preferred. Then, as she stood there, she realized she could think of nothing new to say. They’d done this enough times in recent memory, now, that all the things they might be likely to say on such an occasion had been said already, and all that was left was rote behavior and memorized formulae. And a man like Otis deserved so much more than a mechanical recitation. They maintained their silence.
Oscar took up his shovel with a heavy sigh, but Ben stopped him with a hand.
“What’s up, bro?” Oscar whispered quietly.
“Give it here.”
Oscar did.
The remainder of the day passed in minimal discussion. The occupants of the valley applied themselves to the restoration of their homes while Clay’s men held themselves at uneasy remove by the tents. Clay himself did not emerge again from the cabin that day, and Pap had likewise walled himself up in a tent.
When Amanda finished setting her cabin to rights, she went out among the others and helped them with theirs. The Connex homes had taken the worst abuse, having been arranged as the closest thing to traditional homes as well as being the oldest dwellings in the Bowl after the main cabin, and she labored long hours later at Gibs’s place as he was still moving slowly on unsteady feet.
Things were relatively under control as the sun went down. Body aching from the continuous physical labor applied in failing attempt to outrun her grief, Amanda slumped back to her home, only to find Houdini waiting at her doorstep.
“Search?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Won’t look at me, will you?”
He shook his head miserably.
“Will you fuck it all up again? After I spent so much time cleaning?”
“No, ma’am.”
She shook her head. “What’s your real name, Houdini?”
“S… Steven.”
Amanda nodded slowly. “You’re gutless, Steven. Your whole fucking crew. Gutless.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Go on in and follow orders, then,” she sighed.
He jumped in place, then rushed toward the door, appearing thankful to leave her sight.
“Send my daughter out. We’ll wait outside.”
“Yes, ma’am!” he called from inside. Elizabeth came out to stand beside her mother shortly after.
“How you doing, Mija?” she asked.
“Better than Ben,” Elizabeth said in a tired voice. “He’s alone now.”
“No. He’s not alone. He has us.”
“Not his family.”
“We’re his family, Mija.”
“Sure…”
Houdini emerged from the doorway a moment later and brushed past without a word. Amanda nodded her daughter toward the entrance and followed her in. When inside, she barred the door and began the process of closing up for the night, noting absently as she drew the shutters closed that Houdini appeared to have taken measures against moving things too far out of place.
“What’ll you do now?” Elizabeth asked quietly from behind her.
“I don’t know.”
“Now that he has the guns?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. “Go on to sleep, baby. Let me worry about it.”
She heard the door close behind her.
Amanda blew out all but one of the candles, carrying this last to her bedroom to see by. Shutting the door, she set it down on the side table and froze.
The second duffel bag awaited her on the coverlet of her bed beneath the window.
47
CARLO’S WAGER
The evening temperatures were becoming impossible as the year plunged headlong into September, so Rebecca knew that whatever she managed, it would have to be done in pants rather than shorts. A thicker jacket would be necessary as well, or too many questions would be raised. Standing before her closet, she palmed past a few hangers until she found a softer pair of stretch jeans that would look painted on rather than worn over the skin. She tugged them up over her legs, stepped into her boots and tied the laces, and then pulled a light sweater over a sports bra.
Positioning several lit candles close to her dresser mirror, she examined the lines of her face. She took an old bottle of leave-in conditioner from the table and began spraying the contents into her hair as she pulled a brush through the dense curls. When she finished, she tugged on a green knit cap against the cold, letting the red curls spill freely about her shoulders. Then she applied lipstick and peppered the line of flesh over the ridges of her cheekbones with rapid pinches to bring out her color. Finally, she rubbed scented lotion into the hollow of her neck and into the softness beneath her earlobes.
She finished with a heavy jacket, hoping its bulk would offset the scant covering of her legs and hips. She stuffed her hands in the jacket pockets, pushed them forward, and turned to look in the mirror, confirming that the fabric rode up into the small of her back to expose her ass.
She bit her lip and muttered, “Well… let’s hope Paul isn’t a boob man.”
“Babe… we can do this another way,” Tom said. He sat on the edge of the bed staring a hole through the wall.
She shook her head gently, and when she realized he probably wouldn’t have seen that, Rebecca said, “It’s too late to change plans now. Besides, things might have worked out without swapping you in for Paul but… the distraction’s only gonna help. The critical point is getting Wang to the wall; that’s when we’re vulnerable. None of it works without Wang, so we have to do everything we can.”
“Yeah, and it obviously has to be you. Nobody else could possibly—”
“Tom.”
He didn’t answer so she kept talking. “We’re all going to be in deep shit when this kicks off. You won’t be able to protect me. I don’t need you to protect me. I need you to do your part.”
He sighed heavily and nodded.
“Good,” she said. “I’m gonna head out. Let me get halfway across before making your way around, okay?”
“Are you sure you can keep them all looking at you?”
Rebecca glanced at him over her shoulder and, despite the gravity of the situation, had to work at suppressing her grin.
“Please…”
She stuffed her folding knife into the jacket pocket, exited the home, and strode out onto the common ground, walking straight at Patricia’s camper. It was a lucky break that Paul, one of Pap’s men, seemed to frequent the area; a lucky break that he was young and attractive. It would help to sell the lie to the others who she felt even now watched her every move.
She wore boots instead of high heels, but Rebecca knew how to sway her hips in a delicious saunter totally barefoot; she’d been instructed in such things from an early age, after all. The effort she’d devoted over the last couple of years to leaving such habits behind sloughed away like dead, cast-off skin as she cut a straight line through the clearing, driving her weight through the balls of her feet and broadcasting every signal she could yet control that her target was the young man standing alone in the darkness of Patty’s trailer. She moved like a hunting cat; an impending, blessed doom. Like living hunger personified.