"That's the general idea," Chick said, not looking very perturbed.
"But there's no road!" I burst out. "You told me over and over, there's no road to this place."
"Well," Chick said, reaching up to stroke his beard. "No, you got that right. There ain't no road, exactly."
"So just how—" I realized Seth, along with Dr. Krantz, was listening to us with a great deal of interest. I reached out, grabbed Chick by the arm, and started walking him away from the truck, lowering my voice as I continued. "—am I supposed to get them back to town, if there's no road?"
It was at that exact moment that something in the barn blew up. I don't know what it was exactly, but I had a feeling it was that muni supply Chick had been talking about. Suddenly, tiny bits of metal and wood were raining down on us.
Chick let out a stream of very colorful expletives that I was just barely able to hear above all the explosions. Then he darted around to the pickup and hauled a protesting Dr. Krantz to his one good foot.
"Sorry, girlie," Chick yelled at me, as he dragged Dr. Krantz around the truck and started stuffing him into the passenger seat. "But you gotta get these folks outta here before all hell breaks loose."
"Before?" I couldn't believe any of this was happening. "Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but from the looks of things, I think it already has."
"What?" Chick screamed at me, as the sky was lit a brilliant orange and red.
"Hell," I yelled back. "I think we're already in it!"
"Aw, this is nothing." Chick slammed the door on Dr. Krantz, then hurried around to make sure Rob was secure in the cab bed. "Kid," he yelled at Seth. "Get in here and make sure this guy don't slide around too much. And shield him from that crap flying around, would ya?"
Seth, white-faced but resolute, did as Chick asked without a single question. He climbed into the back of the pickup and knelt down beside Rob … after giving Chigger a few wary looks, that is.
Then, taking me by the elbow, Chick pointed down the hill, into the thick black copse of trees that separated Jim Henderson's property from the county road far, far below.
"You just head straight down," he yelled, as, up by the ranch house, what I could have sworn was machine-gun fire broke out. "So long as you're going down, you're headed for the road. Understand?"
I nodded miserably. "But, Chick," I couldn't help adding. "The snow—"
"Right," Chick said, with a nod. "It's gonna be more of a slalom than a drive. Just remember, if you get into trouble, pump the brakes. And try not to hit anything head on."
"Oh," I said, bitterly. "Thanks for the advice. This may not be the right time to bring this up, but you know, I don't even have a driver's license."
"That guy's leg ain't gonna wait," Chick told me. "And Wilkins won't last long out here, neither." Then, perhaps noting my nauseous expression, he slapped me on the shoulder and said, "You'll be fine. Now get going."
Then he hoisted me in the air and set me down behind the wheel, beside a panting, sweating Dr. Krantz.
"Uh," I said, to Dr. Krantz. "How you doin', Doc?"
Dr. Krantz gave a queasy look.
"Oh," he said. "I'm just great."
Chick tapped on the closed window between us. With some effort, I managed to get it rolled down.
"One more thing." Chick reached under his leather jacket and drew out a stubby black object. It took me a minute to realize what it was. When I did, I nearly threw up.
"Oh, no!" I said, putting out both hands, as if to ward him off. "You get that thing away from me."
Chick merely stuck his arm through the open window and deposited the object on my lap.
"Anyone comes near you or the truck," he said, not loudly enough for Dr. K to hear, but loudly enough for me to hear him over the sound of gunfire behind us, "you shoot. Understand?"
"Chick," I said, looking down at the gun, and feeling sicker than ever. It had been one thing when I'd try to blow Kerchief-Head away. That had been in the heat of the moment. But this …
"Hey," Chick said. "You think Henderson's the only crazy in these woods? Not by a long shot. And he's got a lot of friends. You just drive, you'll be all right. Only shoot if you have to."
I nodded. I didn't dare look at Dr. Krantz.
"Remember," Chick said through the driver's side window. "Pump the brakes."
"Sure," I said, still feeling like throwing up.
Chick smacked the rusted hood, knocking off several inches of snow, and said, "Get going, then."
Fighting back my nausea, I rolled up the window then glanced through the rear windshield and yelled to Seth, "You ready back there?"
Seth, his arms around Rob's shoulders, nodded. Beside him, Chigger sat with his tongue lolling, happy to be going for a ride.
"Ready," Seth yelled.
I looked beside me. Dr. Krantz did not look good. For one thing, he was in a pretty awkward position, with one leg stretched out at an odd angle in front of him. The lenses of his glasses were completely fogged up, he was almost as pale as the snow outside his window. But he was still conscious, and I guess that's all that mattered.
"Ready, Dr. Krantz?" I asked.
He nodded tensely.
"Just do it," he rasped.
So I put my foot on the gas. . . .
C H A P T E R
17
Once when we were little, Ruth had a birthday party at the Zoom Floom. The Zoom Floom was located on the same hillside as Paoli Peaks Ski Resort. It was a water slide that only operated in summertime. The way you went down it was, you laid down on this rubber mat, and an attendant pushed you off.
Then, suddenly, you were plummeting down a mountain, with about fifty billion tons of water pushing you even faster downward, and when you opened your mouth to scream, all of that water got into your mouth, and you went around these hairpin curves that seemed like they might kill you, and usually your mat slipped out from under you and you were skidding down the slide with just your suit on. And the surface of the slide was rough enough to take the skin off your hipbones, and with every second you were certain you were to going drown or at least crack your head open, until at last you plunged into this four-foot-deep pool at the bottom and came up choking and gasping for air, only to be hit in the head by your mat a moment or two later.
And then you grabbed your mat and started up the stairs to go again. You had to. Because it was so freaking fun.
But sliding down the wooded hill from Jim Henderson's militia compound? Yeah, so not fun.
And if we lived through it—which I doubted we would? Yeah, so never doing it again.
I realized pretty early on as we plunged straight at the pine trees that formed a thick wall around the True Americans' compound that Chick was right about one thing: The plows certainly hadn't been near Jim Henderson's place. I found the road pretty quickly—or what passed for a road, apparently, in the opinion of the True Americans. It was really just a track between the pine trees, the branches of many of which hung so low, they brushed against the top of the cab as we went by.
But the snow that lay across the so-called road was thick, and beneath it seemed to be a real nice layer of ice. As the truck careened down the hillside path, branches whipping against it, causing Seth and Chigger, in the back, to duck down low, it took every ounce of strength I had just to control the wheel, to keep the front tires from spinning out and sending us—oh, yes—into the deep ravine to my left. A ravine that I was quite sure in summertime made a charming fishing and swimming hole, but which now appeared to me, as I barreled alongside it, without even a token guardrail between it and me, a pit to hell.
All this, of course, was only visible to me thanks to the moonlight, which was fortunately generous. I had the truck's brights on, but in a way that only made things worse, because then I could plainly see every near-catastrophe looming before us. I probably would have been better off just closing my eyes, for all the good my jerking on the wheel and pumping the brakes, as Chick had suggested, seemed to be doing me.