“That is all correct,” she said, speaking carefully. “The woman with him is named Claire Shaw. She’s from Chicago. Her husband came down here to make a movie and somehow he crossed Josiah. And I would say that time is of the essence. He has a gun, and if he is to be believed, then he is driving a truck full of dynamite. You need to find that truck.”
“There’s already a bulletin out for that truck. Went up yesterday. A state police detective requested it. I’m going to get in touch with him now.”
“All right,” Anne said, wondering what Josiah had already done to earn this attention. “He’s in the truck now, and so is she. He was taking her somewhere. I don’t know where, but it’s near his home. I could tell it was someplace near his home.”
“Okay,” the dispatcher said, “but right now I’ve got to find someone to come get you out of that basement. Things are out of control… we’ve got a tornado that hit Orleans, another that went through Paoli not five minutes later, and every one of my units was headed to assist. I’ll find one to send back for you.”
“No, don’t send one of them for me. Please don’t. I’m fine. But send one of them to find that truck.”
“Of course, that’s the priority. Be advised there’s a bit of chaos right now, though. Got parts of highways closed and all sorts of major storm damage. There’s a fire-”
“I know it’s chaos out there,” Anne said. “But I’m telling you that he could make the storm look gentle before this is done.”
The wind was freshening again as Josiah neared the gulf, and here there were so many trees down that the road was nearly impassable. If he’d given the slightest damn about his truck he would have stopped, but at this point the Ranger meant about as much to him as the heap that had once been his house, so he plowed ahead, driving over limbs and fence posts and one snarl of barbed wire wrapped around a stump. All of it deposited in the middle of the road, left behind by a cloud, of all damn things. It was hard to believe.
Up ahead the old white chapel was still standing and seemed little worse for wear; the storm must have passed just south of it. He saw the blinking lights of a rescue truck out across the fields, a volunteer fire department outfit, but they had pulled into one of the farm driveways and were paying him no mind. The gravel track into the gulf was empty, and he drove onto it and through the brush and saw two vehicles parked at the end of the lane: Danny’s Olds and a black Porsche Cayenne that was sitting upside down. The roof was caved in and glass lay all around it. Pointing skyward were four flat tires. That got Josiah laughing as he stopped the truck and got out to see Danny emerge from the bushes behind the cars, his ruddy, freckled face drained of color, his red hair dripping wet.
“You see it?” he said, walking toward Josiah. “You see it? Oh, shit, I never seen anything like it. Damn it all, I never even imagined seeing anything like that.”
Josiah nodded at the upended Porsche. “Guess you didn’t need to worry ’bout them tires.”
Danny stared back at him blankly.
“How’d you miss it?” Josiah asked.
“Drove away, is how I missed it. I was waiting down here like you said, and then I heard the noise. I mean to tell you it really does sound like a train, just the way you always hear folks say it does. I heard that noise and I saw the sky going black as oil and I said, I got to get away fast. So I drove out of here and had hardly hit the road before I saw it. Big old funnel cloud, all white at first, then turning black. And I just hit the gas on this old car like I never have before in my life. Was up at the church when the tornado came in, and I pulled behind the building and set to prayin’. I’ll tell you, I was prayin’ and cryin’ like a little kid, and I think it was that church that saved me because that thing passed by not a hundred yards from me, but I was safe and-”
“Where are they?” Josiah said.
“Huh?”
“The ones I’m here for, damn it! Where are they?”
Danny blinked, then wiped at his face, leaving a streak of dirt behind.
“I don’t know. They were in the woods. Right there, where it blew through, Josiah. Far as I know, they’re somewhere out there now.” He waved his arm off to the east, in the direction the storm had gone.
“You think they’re dead?” Josiah said, and he felt a cold, seething rage nestle into his belly. That storm better not have taken them. He’d come here to settle up, not to collect bodies.
“I have no idea, Josiah. I just want to get out of here. I’m done, all right? I’m-”
“Shut up,” Josiah said. “I got a piece of work left to do, and ain’t nothing or nobody done until that work’s been completed. You don’t understand the weight of this task, Danny, you don’t understand the heft of it at all. Ain’t a thing done yet.”
“Josiah-”
“Stop using that name.”
“What?”
“You call me Campbell now. Understand? Call me Campbell.”
Danny said, “I think you’re crazy.”
He was staring Josiah in the face, and when he said it, he meant it.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking anymore,” Danny said. “Don’t even seem like yourself, and now you’re calling yourself Campbell… It’s like you’re possessed.”
“What I am,” Josiah said, “is focused.”
He turned away from Danny and walked back to the truck, reached inside the cab and withdrew the shotgun. Then he stood beside the bed and tore the tarps loose and exposed Eric Shaw’s wife.
“Josiah! What in… oh, hell. You are crazy! You’ve lost your ever-lovin’-”
“I’m going to ask one more time for you to keep silent,” Josiah said, and Danny’s eyes registered for the first time that the gun in Josiah’s hand was pointed at him.
“You going to shoot me? Me?”
“Don’t intend to. But I came here to finish a task, and ain’t nobody going to interrupt me. You least of all.”
Danny’s jaw slackened. He didn’t say a word. The wind was starting to gust again, another round of storms ready to chase the one that had just left this place.
“We’re going to find those two,” Josiah said, “whether they’re out in those woods or up in a damn tree somewhere with their necks broken. We’re going to find them.”
“Who is she?” Danny asked, staring at the woman in the bed of the truck.
“Shaw’s wife. Now tell me where they went.”
Danny jabbed a finger into the wind-torn woods. “Down to the gulf. Last time I saw them, they was walking down to the gulf.”
“That’s fine,” Josiah said. “Then we’ll take the same walk. You mind helping our friend here out of the truck? I’d like to keep her at my side.”
Danny hesitated only a moment, but when he did move, it seemed to be more out of something exchanged in his stare with the woman than in direct obedience to Josiah’s instruction. He leaned over the bed wall and tried to gather her up, but he was handling her gently, not getting a thing done.
“Go on and pull her out of there!” Josiah barked. “She ain’t that fragile, boy.”
Danny ignored him and went to the back of the truck and climbed in the bed to help her to her feet. As he did that, he pushed aside another tarp, glanced down to see what it had covered, and froze with his arms extended to the woman.
“Is that… dynamite?”
“Indeed,” Josiah said. “And it would take one squeeze of this trigger to blow the back of that truck into Martin County. Now you want to hurry up?”
Danny got her upright and down out of the truck then, used his pocket knife to cut the tape free from her feet at Josiah’s instructions, and then started down the trail. The woman was unsteady with her hands still bound, and he kept an arm on her to help with balance. They’d gotten well into the trees now, the vehicles out of sight, and were crossing over familiar ground, a path on which Josiah knew every root and stone. Trees were downed in every direction, some snapped in half, others torn free at their bases, leaning crazily against one another, but somehow many had stayed upright and largely intact. Even now they were tossing around in that freshening wind. Josiah couldn’t help but marvel a little as he watched them. Damn things didn’t seem so flexible on a normal day, appeared stiff as the boards they produced, but look at ’em whipping around now. Some would break; some just bend. All depended on the tree and the storm. Some would break and some just bend…