Tread Softly

'Anyone hungry?' Dad asked.

'Me!' Benny said.

Julie shrugged and kept on reading her book.

'Julie?'

'I don't care.'

'I could use a bite,' Karen said, looking toward Dad. Benny saw the side of her face for a moment before she turned forward again. He sighed. Gosh, she was beautiful.

'Well,' Dad said. 'We'll be at Gorman in a few minutes. We'll stop there and have some breakfast.'

'Look out there,' Flash said, keeping his voice calm but pressing a hand to the dashboard as a semi swung into their lane. It was moving up the steep grade toward Tejon Pass at half their speed. They were closing in fast.

Nick slipped over one lane to the left, and sped past the truck.

'Stupid fucking bastard,' Flash muttered. He lowered his hand from the dash. Nick was looking nervous. 'You all right?'

The boy nodded, and licked his lips.

'That… He had no business coming over.' Flash took a few deep breaths, and slipped a White Owl from his shirt pocket. His fingers trembled as he tore open the cellophane wrapper. He plugged the cigar into his mouth and lit it, then cranked open his window to let the smoke stream out.

'I tell you, Nick, Vietnam was safer than these freeways. Goddamn truckers. Run you down as soon as look at you. Best thing to do is stay out of their way.'

Nick glanced at him. The boy still looked shaky. 'Too bad this isn't an F-8,' Nick said. 'We could blow them off the road.'

'Thataboy. I tell you, we did our share of that, Scott and me. Nailed whole convoys along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Blasted the shit out of 'em.'

'Arnold,' Alice complained from the backseat. She'd heard that one. He glanced around. The twins were asleep, Rose slumped against the door with Heather leaning against her.

'I'll keep it down,' he said in a quiet voice.

'Keep it clean.'

He tapped off a length of ash, and took a long draw on his cigar. Smoke swirled around his face. Smoke filled the cockpit. 'Blue Leader, this is Flash. Caught a hot one.'

He shook his head sharply, trying to dislodge the memory as his heart began to thunder and his stomach twisted into an icy coil. Oh, Christ!

The station wagon nosed downward, picking up speed.

'Take it slow,' he warned.

Nick looked at him and frowned. 'Are you okay, Dad?'

'Sure. Fine.' He wiped the sweat from his face. He started remembering again. 'Well well well,' he said quickly to block off the thoughts. 'We're over the hump now. The old buggy made it over the Grapevine once again. Gonna be hot as blue blazes in the valley. Good thing we've got our air conditioning.'

Chapter Three

I offered 'em down, Ettie.'

She gazed at the naked bodies of the young man and woman stretched out side by side in front of the tent. The man was facedown, a terrible wound across the back of his neck. The woman, on her back, was bruised and torn. Ettie saw bite marks on her mouth and chin, on her shoulders and breasts. The left nipple was missing entirely.

'I offered him with a hatchet,' Merle said, rubbing his hands on the legs of his jeans and trying to smile. 'The gal, I plain choked her.'

'Looks like you did more than that,' Ettie muttered.

'She was pretty.'

'Merle, you haven't got the sense of a toadstool.'

Her son tugged the bill of his faded Dodgers cap down to hide his eyes. 'I'm sorry,' he said.

'What're we gonna do with you?'

He shrugged. He toed a pinecone with his tennis shoe. 'You do it,' he argued.

'Only when He speaks to me.'

'He spoke to me, Ettie. Honest He did. I never would've done it, but He asked me to.'

'You sure you weren't just feeling horny?'

'No, ma'am. He spoke to me.'

'I saw you yesterday spying on these two. I was afraid you might pull a stunt like this, but I trusted you, fool that I am. I should've known better.' She glared at Merle. The bill of his cap rose for a moment as he looked at her. Then it dipped down again. 'What did you promise me?'

'I know,' he mumbled. 'I said I'm sorry.'

'What did you promise me?' she repeated.

'Not to do it again without asking.'

'But you went ahead and did it anyway.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'This is gonna make it hot for us, Merle.'

In the shadow of the ball cap, she saw a thin smile. 'You just can't take me anywhere.'

'Wipe that smile off your face.'

'It isn't that bad, Ettie. I already looked through their stuff. They didn't have any fire permit.'

'So?'

He tipped back the bill, no longer afraid of meeting Ettie's gaze. 'If they'd checked in with a ranger, they would've got one and said where they were going. But they didn't. So the rangers don't even know they're here.'

'Well, that's something.'

'Even if someone knows they're gone, nobody's gonna have the first notion where to look. We'll just bury 'em and take their stuff to the cave, and we'll be okay.'

Ettie sighed, folded her arms across her bosom, and stared down at the bodies. 'I'll put out a spell to ward off searchers, just in case.'

Merle looked doubtful. 'Maybe I better.'

'I can still conjure circles around you, boy, and don't you forget it. I got us safe out of Fresno, no thanks to you. If you'd had the sense to fetch me what I needed — '

'I was seen.'

'Wouldn't have taken you half a minute,' she said. Merle stood silent, watching as she knelt beside the man's body. She untied a leather pouch from her belt and opened it. 'Never should've taught you the Ways.'

'Don't say that, Ettie.'

'Made us no end of trouble.' She wrapped her fingers around a lock of hair, and yanked it from the man's scalp. She pressed the hair into the raw gorge at the back of his neck. Thick blood coated the strands. She twisted them into a string, knotted them once in the center, and poked them into her pouch. Then she lifted his hand. The fingernails were chewed to the quick. She unsheathed her knife, pressed the blade to the cuticle of his index finger, and removed the entire nail. She dropped it into her pouch and stepped over to the woman.

Squatting beside the body, she ripped out a ringlet of hair. She squeezed the breast to force more blood to the surface, and dabbed the hair in it. She tied the sticky cord into a knot. She flicked it into her pouch, then picked up a hand. The plum fingernail polish was chipped. One nail was broken, but the rest were long and neatly rounded.