He tramped past Poole’s boarded-up house, climbed another hill, forded another sand pit. He climbed out at another distant shore. He was putting continents between himself and his home. He reached, at last, the place where the rolling meadowland met the bush. He stopped to catch his breath. He turned to look at the valley below, saw the grass bend under the wind.
He could see for miles — Ormond and Pat McCoy’s spread to the east, Lar and Charlotte Perkins’ land to the west, his own house tucked nicely into the maples below. If he shielded his eyes against the westering sun, he could even make out Highway 7 to the south and the tall towers of the calcite factory on the outskirts of Ladybank.
He turned to face the road ahead, which stretched steeply before him. It was a narrow gash through the trees, mostly bedrock. Fists of granite stuck up through the earth like ancient buried giants trying to fight their way out into the air. The bush closed in on both sides.
In a few minutes Jim’s legs ached from the climb, but if he looked at the low juniper growing in the nooks and crannies of the roadway, he saw broken branches and bruised clusters of berries where the chassis of something had passed over. He trod lightly, kept his breath a secret between himself and the air.
He reached a clearing, a flat plateau stretching in low steps up towards the ridge, which was blocked from his vantage point by dense foliage. Crouching on the edge of the clearing, Jim looked for signs of life. The wind swooped down from the ridge, soughing through the pines, shaking the poplars, bending the saplings.
Suddenly, Jim saw a flash — the glitter of light on metal where there shouldn’t have been any.
It was a car. Not the Godmobile, but a green four-by-four hidden among the trees on the other side of the clearing. No low-sprung city car could have made it up such a rocky incline.
Jim watched for signs of movement, saw none. He settled on one knee behind a fringe of high grass, yellow and dry, looking as if autumn had wrung the life right out of it.
The four-by-four was a late model Ford Explorer, clean and, to Jim’s eye, vaguely official looking. Department of Natural Resources, maybe?
There might be something written on the door. He decided to find out.
As patiently and soundlessly as he could, Jim made his way north around the edge of the clearing. Under the canopy of trees it was cooler and still wet from the rain of the past few days. He was shivering a bit by the time he came to a track, open to the sky but dense with waist-high sumac, its leaves rust-red. The track curved up the hill to his left and disappeared around a bend, heading in the direction of the summit. The ridge loomed above Jim through the waving trees. To his right the track curved down towards where the four-by-four must be parked, though it was hidden from view now by a shoulder of land.
He waited. Watched. Listened. The wind snatched away the blue jays’ songs, rattled the crows, whistled out of tune through some hollow place Jim could not see. He ventured on all fours into the sumac and poked his head up like a turtle above the red surface of leaves. Northwest a bit, he saw a caved-in shed of some kind. The door opened and slammed shut again, tugged at by gravity one minute and the wind the next, as if there were a stream of ghosts coming and going.
Jim headed south down the track towards the Ford. He tripped and only just managed to keep his balance. He tripped again, and this time his knee landed hard on steel, on a rusted stretch of rail. He was following some kind of narrow railbed. He came upon the remains of a broken trolley car lying on its side, its metal chassis frozen with rust, its wooden box rotten and moss-covered. Must have been used to transport ore from the mine, he guessed.
Keeping low but lifting his feet high, he caught sight, at last, of the four-by-four below. There was no insignia on the door. But he was close enough and alone enough, as far as he could tell, to risk taking a peek inside.
There was a break in the trees that seemed to be the course of a dried-up stream bed. The rails crossed the stony bed on a bridge of stout, rough-hewn timbers and the stream bed formed a kind of rocky staircase down towards the clearing. Jim sidled down, step by step, through the dappled light until he arrived, at last, at the vehicle. He stared through his own reflection into the interior, saw nothing at first glance. It seemed show-room clean.
He peered more closely. This time he noticed a dark stain on the back seat, a tiny tear in the upholstery revealing a tuft of stuffing. Then he looked again into the front.
Lying on the plush leather of the passenger seat was a small white cylinder. Lip balm.
He heard a tiny avalanche of gravel and instantly dropped to the ground. Someone was coming from the direction of the cliff. On his stomach, he slithered around the vehicle to the other side. The steps were distant and not in any hurry by the sound of it, but they were unmistakably coming closer.
He looked around. To his left, the ground fell away gently down through a small stretch of open woodland and low ground cover towards the clearing. The clearing was a sprint away. He could probably not escape unseen, but if he could get out into the open he had a good chance. If it was Fisher, Jim was sure he could outrun him if he had a decent head start.
He took another quick look and made up his mind. With a deep breath, he pushed himself off and, keeping low, dashed down through the woods. He had the advantage of surprise. With any luck he would not be observed until he had made the clearing, and then it was all downhill. No one could catch him.
He hadn’t counted on the rubble. With lightning reflexes, he cleared the skeletal remains of some kind of steam pump, overgrown and half submerged in the forest floor. He stumbled over a rotted ladder, regained his balance, kept moving.
He never saw the fly wheel.
It was wooden spoked, as large as a cafeteria table and choked by carrion flower. One moment Jim was in full stride, the next he felt a searing pain in his ankle and he was falling. The last thing he saw was clumps of bluish berries in a putrid-smelling sea of dying vines. The last thing he heard were footsteps thundering in his ears.
24
The footsteps came closer, echoing in his head as if his head was empty of anything but footsteps. He should do something. Get up. Run. But his arms wouldn’t move, nor would his feet. If he could only stand, that would be a start. So, blindly, he stood and then he keeled over onto his knees.
Strong hands grabbed him by the arms, lifted him, placed him back on a seat, where he fell backwards until he was leaning against stone, cold and wet. He opened his eyes.
Everywhere was stone, even the face before him. Then it became flesh, a man, his features indistinguishable, the only light coming from behind him, a bright halo of light that pricked at Jim’s eyes painfully.
The man stepped back a bit and Jim could see now that he had no halo. It was Father Fisher. The next minute he was kneeling before Jim. He had a thermos in one hand and a cup in the other. There was water in the cup. Jim saw the light glimmer on the clear surface of the water. Fisher brought the cup to Jim’s lips and he drank.
For a moment, cool water was all there was in the world. Jim leaned back again, breathing hard. He rested. Leaned forward and the cup was there again. He wanted to hold it but for some reason he couldn’t. Then it dawned on him that his hands were bound behind him. He felt the rope tight against his wrists. His ankles, too. He started to panic but didn’t have the energy for it. He relaxed, opened his eyes, careful not to look into the light.
Fisher’s face, what he could see of it, looked worried. His raven hair was mussed, the bruise on his cheek was livid. But then Jim’s attention was diverted, for behind Fisher’s left shoulder there was another man. He was sitting in what looked like a car seat. Except the car seat wasn’t in a car. Where were they?