He met Bill's eyes. "No one gives a shit about preserving our town, our community, our way of life. All they care about is saving a few bucks so they can afford to buy their kids the latest name-brand tennis shoe. It's a nice thought, but no one's going to 'rally around' the cafй. That's just not going to happen."
He finished off the last of his coffee. "That's why I'm getting out now.
While I still can."
4
Six inches of snow fell in a storm that hit on President's Day, and it was another twenty-four hours before the plow came by to clear the street. By the end of the week, however, it had all melted off, and they decided to drive to the Valley on Saturday to relax and do some shopping.
They left early, just after dawn, stopping around eight for a breakfast of Egg McMuffins in Show Low. Ginny stared out the window of the car as they traveled, watching as the passing scenery segued from pine to cactus country, the clean lines of the forested Mogollon Rim giving way to the wilder rockiness of the desert Mazatzals. Samantha and Shannon slept in the backseat while Bill drove happily and hummed along with the radio.
The vistas were spectacular, the canyons and mountains majestic, and, as always, Ginny felt awed and humbled. It was here, looking at the landscape, that she felt the presence of God. She had been born and raised a Catholic, had gone to mass twice a week from the time she was an infant until she went off to college, but she had never felt the inspiring exhilaration in church that she felt here, on the highway. The wondrousness and magnificence of God that she had heard about had been an intellectual abstraction for her until she had married Bill and moved to Arizona, and nothing in church had ever made her feel as religious, as profoundly touched by God, as the sight of her first desert sunrise on their honeymoon.
That was the problem she'd had with Catholicism, its smallness, its vanity, its emphasis on self. As a girl, she was led to believe that the world revolved around _her_, that if she ate meat on Friday or didn't give up something for Lent or had a mild sexual fantasy about David Cassidy, she'd be damned for eternity. God was watching her always, ever vigilant in His study of the minutiae of her life, and she'd felt constantly under pressure, as though her every thought and movement were being continuously scrutinized.
But as she'd gotten older, she'd discovered that she wasn't the focus of everything, she was not the fulcrum upon which the world and the church were balanced, and if she rubbed herself in the bathtub or called Theresa Robinson a bitch, Western civilization would not instantly come to an end. Indeed, she came to see herself as a minor character here on earth, barely worthy of God's attention, and she decided sometime during her high school years to simply be a good person, live a good life, and trust God to be smart enough to separate the good people from the bad once judgment day rolled around.
It had been the land here that had reawakened the religious feelings within her. She had seen in it the glory of God, had realized once again how small were her problems and concerns in the overall scheme of things -- and how there was nothing wrong with that. It was as it should be.
She glanced over at Bill, singing along with an old Who song, and she found herself smiling. She was lucky. She had a good husband, good kids, a good life. And she was happy.
Bill caught her smiling at him. "What?" he said.
She shook her head, still smiling. "Nothing."
They arrived in the Valley shortly after eleven and drove to Fiesta Mall in Mesa, separating once they were within the air-conditioned confines of the shopping center, the girls going off on their own to clothing and music stores, she and Bill heading to the multiplex to see a movie, all of them agreeing to meet at two o'clock in front of Sears.
The movie they watched was a romantic comedy, what Bill called a "cable movie," but everything was better on a big screen, and she was glad they'd gone to see it. Afterward, they hung out for a while at B. Dalton. She bought the latest _Vanity Fair_, and Bill picked up a new suspense novel by Phillip Emmons.
Sam and Shannon were already waiting on a bench in front of Sears when they walked up. Shannon had bought a cassette by a currently hot rock band, a band Sam apparently hated, and the two girls were arguing loudly over musical taste.
"Break it up," Bill said in the gruff voice of a boxing referee. He sat down between the two. "You girls're starting to draw a crowd here. If we put you in bathing suits and a hot oil pit, we could start charging admission, make a little extra cash for the family."
"You're gross," Shannon said.
"Yeah, well, that's my job." He took both their arms and pulled them to their feet. "Come on, kiddos, let's hit the road."
They headed out, Ginny driving this time. The sun was setting by the time they reached Payson, and night had fallen before they hit Show Low. As usual, the girls were fast asleep in the backseat. Bill was dozing as well, his head slumped against the glass of the passenger window.
Ginny enjoyed the time to herself. There was something comforting about being surrounded by her family and at the same time being able to be alone with her thoughts. The highway was empty and had been since they left Show Low, and the scenery, so awe-inspiring in the daytime, was hidden completely by the black cover of night, only a narrow section of the road ahead illuminated by the car's bright headlights. Here and there, off to the side, the lights of individual cabins and ranches could be seen, lone beacons in the darkness of the landscape.
She was driving through the flat stretch of forest just before the long rise into Juniper when she noticed for the first time that they were not alone on the highway. In the rearview mirror, several miles behind, she could see the powerful headlight beams of an extraordinarily large vehicle, traveling fast, gaining quickly. Her heart rate immediately accelerated, and her first instinct was to wake up Bill, but she forced herself to remain calm and just continue driving. It was only a truck. Speeding. Not exactly a rare occurrence on an Arizona highway. But still, her initial reaction was one of fear and panic, and she understood how people living off by themselves, away from others, became jittery and frightened, ended up seeing UFOs and believing in widespread government conspiracies. There was something unnerving about contact in the wilderness, about the incongruity of seeing something where you hadn't expected to see it. Even on the highway.
Ginny glanced down at the speedometer. She was going five miles over the speed limit, but the truck was gaining on her quickly, cutting the distance between them. She thought of _Duel_, checked in her rearview mirror. The mirror was tilted up for night driving, but still the headlights behind her seemed impossibly bright, almost painfully so, and she saw as the lights grew closer that there was not just one set of lights, not just one truck.
Then the first truck passed her.
It was black, pure black, both the cab and the van matching perfectly the surrounding darkness, even the windows of the cab tinted. A shiver passed through her, and she clutched the steering wheel tightly as the enormous vehicle cut in front of her and sped down the highway into the night, only its red taillights visible.
The next truck passed.
And still the brightness continued behind her.
Again, she thought of waking Bill, but something kept her from it, and she slowed the car and pulled slightly to the right as, one by one, ten speeding trucks passed illegally over the double yellow line.
On the back door of the last truck, as it pulled in front of her, her headlights illuminated two words, shiny black against flat black: THE STORE.
Their car was once again alone on the highway, and she exhaled deeply, realizing that she'd been holding her breath. She tried to tell herself that there was nothing unusual about the caravan, that the trucks were merely bringing merchandise to The Store, that she was just succumbing to Bill's paranoia.