He is about to move from petty crimes to the commission of a major felony. Car theft. That’s how the authorities will view it.
From his perspective, however, it’s actually the unauthorized borrowing of a vehicle, because he has no intention of keeping the Mountaineer. If eventually he abandons it in as good a condition as he found it, his moral obligation will largely consist of making an apology to Gabby and compensating him for gasoline, time, and inconvenience. Because he doesn’t relish coming face-to-face with the caretaker again, he hopes that his soul won’t be tarnished too much if he makes both the apology and the payment by mail.
Height proves to be a problem. Curtis Hammond, a bit on the shorter side for a ten-year-old boy, can command a clear view of the terrain ahead or exercise full and easy control of the brakes and the accelerator, but not both at the same time. By slouching a little and stretching his right loot as might a leaping ballet dancer reaching for an on-point landing, he’s able to proceed with a half-obstructed view and with compromised pedal control.
This slows him, however, and establishes a pace that seems more suitable to a funeral procession than to a run for freedom.
While he wants to put as much territory as possible between himself and his pursuers, he must remember that time, not distance, is his primary ally. Only by faithfully being Curtis Hammond hour after hour, day after day, is he likely to escape detection forever. Certain adjustments would allow him to handle the Mountaineer more easily, but if he were to indulge in them, he’d be more visible to his enemies the next time they came scanning in his vicinity. Which will be soon.
Mom’s wisdom. The longer that you wear a disguise, the more completely you become the disguise. To maintain a credible deception, a fugitive must never slip out of character, not even for a moment. Establishing a new identity isn’t merely a matter of acquiring a convincing set of ID documents; you aren’t safe from discovery just because you look, talk, walk, and act in character. Establishing a new identity with total success requires you to become this new person with your every fiber, every cell — and for every minute of the day, when observed and unobserved.
Even in death, Mom remains the ultimate authority on this stuff, as well as a universal symbol of courage and freedom. She will be honored long after her passing. Even if she hadn’t been his mom, he would conduct himself according to her advice; but as her son, he has a special obligation not just to survive but also to live by her teachings and eventually to pass them along to others.
Grief comes to him once more, and for a while he travels in its company.
He dares not continue southwest, for eventually the valley must bring him to the interstate, which will be patrolled. He came out of the east. The ghost town lies north. Therefore, he has little choice but to cross the width of the valley, heading due west.
Although he’s in no danger of setting a land-speed record, and although he sometimes progresses in fits and starts as he cranes his neck to see over the steering wheel or ducks his head to peek between it and the top of the dashboard, he discovers that the salt flats arc negotiable terrain. When he reaches the slope of the western valley wall, however, he realizes that he can’t go farther in this fashion.
Here, the saltless land doesn’t have an accommodating natural glow. Visibility already limited by the boy’s height immediately declines to a condition not much better than blindness. Switching on the SUV headlights will provide no solution — unless he wants to call attention to himself and thereby commit suicide.
Furthermore, the rising land will be rocky and uneven. Curtis will need to react to conditions more quickly with both the brake pedal and the accelerator than he’s been able to do thus far.
He shifts into park and sits high, gazing at the route ahead, stymied by the challenge.
His sister-becoming provides the solution. During the slow ride across the last of the salt flats, Old Yeller sat in the passenger’s seat, decorating the side window with a pattern of nose prints. Now she stands in her seat and gives Curtis a meaningful look.
Maybe because grief is weighing on his mind, maybe because he’s still rattled by his strange encounter with the caretaker, Curtis is embarrassingly slow on the uptake. At first he thinks that she simply wants to be scratched gently behind the ears.
Because she will never object to being scratched gently behind the ears or virtually anywhere else, Old Yeller accepts a minute of this pleasantness before she turns away from Curtis and, still with hind legs on the seat, places her forepaws on the dashboard. This puts her in a perfect position to see the route ahead.
This boy-dog relationship would be worthless if Curtis still failed to get her drift, but he understands what she has in mind. He will operate the controls of the SUV, and she will be his eyes.
Good pup!
He slides far enough down in his seat to plant his right foot firmly on the accelerator and to be able to shift it quickly and easily to the brake pedal. He is also in a satisfactory position to steer. He just can’t see out of the windshield.
Their bonding is not complete. She is still his sister-becoming rather than his sister-become; however, their special relationship grew considerably in that scarey moment when each of them saw both of their lives Hashing before their eyes.
Curtis shifts the SUV out of park, presses the accelerator, and steers up the relatively easy slope of the valley wall with the eyes of his dog to guide him. Together they gain confidence during the ascent, and they function in perfect harmony by the time they reach the top.
He halts on the ridge, sits up, and through his own eyes looks northeast. The fighting at the ghost town seems to have ceased. The scalawags and the worse scalawags have realized that neither of them has captured their quarry. No longer battling each other, they are turning their attention once more to the search for boy and dog.
The running lights of two helicopters float in the sky. A third is approaching from farther in the east. Reinforcements.
Slouching in his seat once more, Curtis drives down off the ridge, heading farther west into unknown territory that Old Yeller scouts for him with unwavering diligence.
He drives as fast as seems prudent, keeping in mind that his sister-becoming could be hurt if he hits the brakes suddenly at too high a speed.
They need to make good time, however, because he can’t expect the dog to be his eyes as long as he would like. Curtis requires no rest. Old Yeller will eventually need to sleep, but Curtis has never slept in his life.
After all, he must remember that he and his sister-becoming are not merely members of different species with far different physical abilities and limitations. More significantly, they were born on different worlds.
Chapter 33
Thursday’s ghild has far to go, according to the old nursery rhyme, and Micky Bellsong was born on a Thursday in May, more than twenty-eight years ago. On this Thursday in August, however, she was too hungover to go as far as she’d planned.
Lemon vodka diminishes mathematical ability. Sometime during the night, she must have counted the fourth double shot as a second, the fifth as a third.
Staring at the bathroom mirror, she said, “Damn lemon flavoring screws up your memory.” She couldn’t tweak a smile from herself.
She had overslept her first job interview and had risen too late to keep the second. Both were for positions as a waitress.