“Hmm. Well, your martyrdom
He smiled a little at that.
“I don’t want to be out there alone with Parrish, Ben.”
He considered this for a moment, then said, “Shall we call a truce?”
“Yes — more than a truce. Allies.”
“Allies, then,” he said. He lay back, and fell asleep again before the rain started.
Bingle lay between us, his head on David’s sweater, which he had definitely claimed as his. I hoped that he might be content with that, and not go looking for the boot in the morning.
There was no light in the tent; I was unwilling to use up my flashlight batteries, and lighting a candle inside a tent ranks among the more foolhardy things a person can do — even if you don’t make a crematorium out of the tent, you’re filling it with carbon monoxide. Besides, I had already decided that we would have a blackout come nightfall — Parrish might be watching for some beacon to our whereabouts.
I wondered where Frank was, what he was doing. Worrying, undoubtedly. The rain would make him worry more. Under some circumstances, that would have annoyed me; tonight, I took comfort — if anyone would force the powers that be to look for us as soon as possible, Frank would. The more I considered this, the more sure I was of it. Frank would come for us. He would not let us be abandoned to whatever plans Parrish had made. I felt myself grow calmer.
I tried hard to think of Parrish not as some mysterious bogeyman — the monster who tortured women, who booby-trapped graves — but as a flesh-and-blood enemy. He wasn’t endowed with superhuman powers. It was raining on him, too.
I listened to Ben’s and Bingle’s breathing, to Ben’s occasional moans and Bingle’s occasional snores.
I’d have to make the best of my allies, I decided.
I might not capture or kill Parrish, but if the three of us could survive, I’d count it as a major victory.
The rain kept falling, drumming harder now. I was exhausted, but ghosts in the meadow and thoughts of our common enemy kept me awake long into the night.
Realizing that rest was armament, I finally fell asleep.
19
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 18
The Mojave Desert
“Let me go in first,” Jack Fremont said, as Travis brought the van to a halt at the foot of the gravel drive. Jack had warned him not to pull into the drive itself — the man they had come to see was serious about backing up his no trespassing signs.
Frank sat in the back of the van with the dogs.
“I know the delays are killing you,” Jack said to him, “but once we get past Stinger’s little welcoming rituals, he’ll be able to save us a hell of a lot of time.”
“Not if this weather holds,” Frank said, taking an anxious look at the sky.
“Maybe not if it stays this bad,” Jack agreed, “but you wouldn’t make much progress on foot in this weather, either. Mud would slow you to a crawl.”
“You sure you can trust this guy?” Frank asked, taking a wary look at the odd structure at the end of the drive. It was a homemade house if he’d ever seen one, a pile of cemented rocks and timber that looked more like a cross between a log cabin and a low-budget medieval castle than a home.
“I’d trust Stinger Dalton with my life — and have on several occasions. Just give me a minute to get him used to the idea of having company.”
They watched Jack move down the driveway, hands held up as if he were at gunpoint.
“Oh, yeah, he trusts him with his life,” Travis said. “Trusts him to try and take it, looks like.”
Frank shook his head. “Roll the windows down a little, I want to hear this.”
Frank had been willing to go it alone to find Irene if that was what it would take, but he had been relieved when Travis insisted on being included. Jack had come over not much later, and seeing them preparing their gear, offered to join them.
That had been an even greater relief, and not just because Jack was resourceful and a skilled outdoorsman. Jack said he would trust Stinger Dalton with his life, and Frank felt that same level of trust in Jack — a trust he seldom extended to others.
Jack lived next door, and his concern for Irene would be nearly as great as his own, Frank knew. Jack hadn’t tried to talk him out of going up into the mountains. Without any hesitation, he had simply asked to be allowed to help.
Watching Jack walking through the rain, hands held high, Frank wondered if Jack was risking life and limb for Irene right this moment. But as if Jack could feel their concern, he looked over his shoulder at them and smiled.
Deke and Dunk lifted their noses to the open window, watching anxiously as Jack moved farther away from the van.
It had been Jack’s idea to bring them along.
“They aren’t trained to track,” Frank had objected, “and I don’t want to be worried about them. They won’t be able to find this group any faster than we will.”
“There’s a male dog on this expedition she’s on, right?”
“Right.”
“Maybe they’ll find this other dog, then. Besides, your dogs have been camping with me more than once. They’ll
