“Do the police know about her?” he asked.
“Not yet. I was…struggling. Thoughts not clear. Everything was on fire.”
“I know.”
“What about Tango? I was thinking…” She started to cry then, tears leaking down only to be absorbed immediately by the bandages. “I was thinking that Tango couldn’t even try to run. The way we’ve got him standing, he couldn’t even try to-”
“The horse is fine.”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded.
“The house?”
He didn’t answer. Just held her hand and looked into her eyes. He hadn’t seen it yet, but he’d been told. The Ritz was destroyed. Their promised land, built together, their little triumph in the world, reduced to cold ashes and dripping water.
“Why’d she have to pick you?” Allison said.
“Don’t blame her. Blame me. She asked; she didn’t order. I should have said no. I should have done a lot of things different. But I’ll make right what I can, Allison. I’ll get the boy and-”
“Wait. Wait. What do you mean, you’ll get him? Where is he?”
Smart woman, his wife. Beat her, burn her, sedate her. Then slip up and hope she didn’t catch it. Good luck with that.
“He’s missing,” he said. He made himself continue to look into her eyes when he said that. It wasn’t easy.
“What?”
“Ran off in the night. When we were hiking down.”
“Which one was he?”
“Connor. I suppose I could be wrong. But I doubt it. The boys knew that…that someone had arrived, and trouble was here, and he was the one who ran.”
She looked away from him and down to the heavy wrapping around her wounded hand. All for nothing, she was surely thinking. All she’d gone through, and still the boy was gone. Ethan had promised to protect them both and had failed to protect either.
“Where do you think he went?”
To hide, Ethan thought, to run and hide because he was afraid of not only them, but me. He has no friends left in this world, or at least that is how he feels now. But he said, “Maybe the escape route. He seemed to pay a lot of attention to those. He was the best one with the maps. With land navigation. Maybe the best with everything. So when he left us on the trail, he might have doubled back and tried to come down the other side of Republic.”
And into the fire, he thought. He had no idea how much of it had burned. Maybe they’d gotten it under control by now. But with the way the wind was blowing…he had his doubts.
“What do they look like?” he said. “The men who came for him?”
“There are two of them.” She was speaking with an effort, and her words slurred. Lips pulling on the stitches. “Pale. Light hair. They speak strangely…not accents, just the way they say things. Like they’re alone in the world. Like it was built for the two of them and they’re lords over it. You’ll know what I mean if you ever hear them talking to each other.” She started to cry harder. “I hope you don’t hear them.”
“I won’t,” Ethan said. He was making himself watch her stitched lips move. Somebody busted up her mouth pretty well. Yes, somebody had. The hand he didn’t have on hers was opening and closing beside his leg, each fist tighter than the last.
“They don’t like to let you see them both at the same time,” she said. Her eyes were closed now. “It’s hard. They’re very dangerous. They smell like blood.”
He wondered about the drugs now, wondered if she even knew what she was saying. He wiped a hand over his mouth. Looked back at the closed door. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. He meant to tell her that he would ensure that a good group was handling it. He meant to tell her that he’d never leave her bedside. Not until they left together. Lord, how he meant to tell her those things.
“I’m going back to find him,” he said.
“No. No, E.”
She lifted her head off the pillow and stared at him. Thin plastic tubes dangling from one arm.
“Relax,” he said. “Please. Lie back down and-”
“Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t just yet. I’m right here. But he’s missing, Allison, and-”
“I don’t care!”
He was silent as she cried and then she said, “You know I don’t mean that.”
“I know. But Allison…we can’t let it all be for nothing. Can’t let them pass through you and get what they came for. I can’t allow that. We can’t.”
“No. Stay. I’ll be selfish now. I’m allowed to be selfish now, don’t you think?”
“It’s not selfish.” There was no choice to be made. She’d asked him to stay. “I’ll be right here. I promise.”
“Thank you. I love you.”
“I love you so much. And I’ll be right here.”
He held her hand until she slept, and then he shifted and held his own head in his hands. She was right. There was nothing left for him to do. Someone else would find the boy. Someone who could help him. Ethan wasn’t needed.
He got to his feet, watching her to be certain that she was asleep and would not hear him go, and then he let himself out of the room and went down the hallway and asked for a phone. He made two calls. The first was to Roy Futvoye. Ethan asked if the police had found the boy yet. They had not. He hung up and called the number Jamie Bennett had given him for just such a situation. Straight to voice mail. That was the design. Messages only.
For a moment he was speechless. How did you go about explaining all of this? Finally he said, “They’re here.” He thought that would be enough, almost. Let her figure out the rest. But he added, “The boy is gone. He’s missing. I’m in the hospital in Billings with my life…I, I mean my wife. Everything is gone to hell.” He stuttered to a stop then, thought about saying more, offering explanations (excuses?), but didn’t. Hung up the phone.
He went into the men’s room, urinated, and then went to the sink and looked in the mirror. He thought he should look as devastated as he felt. He didn’t, though. He looked just like the old Ethan. Steady. Maybe that was impressive. Maybe it was sad.
He washed his hands and then turned the water cold and splashed it over his face. The door opened beside him and he was aware of boots that entered the room but did not go to the urinals or to the stalls or to the sink. Whoever it was just stood there. Ethan looked in the mirror with his face still dripping and saw a man in jeans and a black shirt and a black jacket and Ethan’s own Stetson, the gift he’d refused to wear. Pale blond hair beneath it, down to the shirt collar. The man’s eyes were a chilled blue and the left side of his face was a scarlet swath of blisters that glistened with some sort of salve.
Ethan didn’t move. The water kept dripping off his face and the man kept staring and for a time nobody spoke.
“Shall we ride, Ethan?” the burned man said at last. He reached inside his jacket and Ethan was unsurprised to see the gun. Ethan’s own weapons were in his truck in the parking lot.
“She wasn’t part of it,” he said.
The burned man gave an elaborate sigh. “Of course not. You weren’t part of it. I wasn’t part of it. Once the world existed without any of us, and someday soon it will again, but today, Ethan? Today we’re all spinning along together. We’re all part of it.”
Like it was built for the two of them and they’re lords over it, Allison had said, and Ethan thought of that and then, for the first time, thought of the second man.
“What are you here to do?” he said.
“I’d like to enlist your aid.” The man had read Ethan’s thoughts well, and he added, “I assume there are some ways to do that that are more convincing than others. I don’t suppose, for example, I’d get far by offering you money today. But your wife on the third floor, room three-seventy-three? Perhaps an offer concerning her would be more compelling. What do you say?”