Jacob increased his pace to just short of a jog. Still the car remained alongside him. He didn't have a watch, but the car must have followed him for at least thirty seconds. Surely another car would have come by during that time. It was as if the road had been blocked off at each end of the mountain valley so this showdown could be staged in private.
His lungs were taut and aching, his legs about to collapse and fold. He was too out of shape. Even if he ran, the driver would have no trouble chasing him down. Fighting was out of the question. How do you fight four tons of blind steel?
You know it's him.
Maybe someone was only trying to scare him. Some of his business competitors accused him of dirty tricks, such as planting money among members of the county planning board whenever he had a variance request coming up. He'd had disputes with a few contractors, and a couple of times he had refused to pay when work wasn't done to specifications. He had an inside track on property that had been foreclosed through mortgage defaults or tax liens, and his deals had put more than one family out on the street, though they always had it coming. Was it his fault that some people didn't pay their bills on time?
Just being a Wells was plenty enough reason to be a target. These mountain people had long memories, and Warren Wells had shafted a dozen men. In some cases, he'd also shafted their wives, in a crueler but less economically damaging way. Jacob had inherited miles of built-up resentment along with the numerous tracts of commercial property.
The driver of the green car could be anybody. Someone he knew in high school? Or someone who knew Joshua? Some people still confused him with his brother, and Joshua had made plenty of enemies. Joshua, though, had been smart enough to leave town and never look back.
It's anybody. Not him.
Jacob's legs refused his command for them to move faster, and he could hardly muster the energy for another step. So he stopped, bent over slightly to catch his breath, and turned to the passenger side of the car. He reached out as if to open the door.
The Chevrolet groaned, its engine racing, and the rear wheels spun on the asphalt. The warm smell of rubber and burnt oil assaulted Jacob's nose. The car rocketed away, its tires screaming and the rear end fishtailing. The back windshield was tinted, a small Rebel flag decal on its lower left corner. One brake light was broken and dangled by wires above the peeling chrome bumper. The car accelerated around the curve before he could read the muddied tag number, but its orange, green, and white color scheme indicated Tennessee plates.
The car careened up the valley, pistons whining in rage, moving much too fast for the winding road. The backfire echoed off the hills, fading as the car negotiated deeper into the country until it disappeared from hearing. In the sudden silence, Jacob felt the pounding of his pulse against his eardrums. Other sounds filled the void-birds in the forest, a small airplane lost against the sky, a distant dog barking in territorial defense.
Jacob crouched, limp from terror. A chill enveloped him. He pulled his jacket more tightly around him and stared at the road ahead, then back. He didn't know where he was. How had he gotten out here on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere?
Not again.
He hadn't experienced a fugue state since his teens, when Joshua was playing his cruel tricks. The fugues were a protective mechanism, one of the shrinks had assured him. Nothing serious, certainly nothing that would put him in a rubber room. It was a reaction to extreme stress, that was all. Besides, that was long ago, and he didn't black out anymore.
Except, if you were suffering periods of forgetfulness, you wouldn't remember, would you?
Anything could have happened and you wouldn't know it.
A sound arose from the back side of the hill, the whisper of wheels on asphalt.
Jacob expected the green Chevy to come screaming around the curve, headlights glittering like a murderer's eyes, bumper bright in the sun. He had no strength to flee. He would only be able to stand and watch as its front grill loomed closer and then chewed him into its chrome jaws.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pray. But prayer was a ritual, a practiced art, not an escape hatch for the lapsed and faithless. The whisper grew louder, but without the accompanying growl of an overdriven engine. It wasn't the Chevy.
He blinked as the pickup drove past. The vehicle slowed then backed up until it idled in the lane across from him. The driver's-side window descended, but even before Jacob recognized the dark, tousled head topped with its ever-present gray wool toboggan, he read the logo on the door: Smalley Construction.
Chick Smalley blew a frayed rope of cigarette smoke into the air, then said, 'Mr. Wells, what you doing out in these parts? You break down or something?'
Smalley had done some subcontracting work for M amp; W Ventures. He had plumbing and electrical licenses and could also do drywall or roofing when sober. He never missed a deadline but neither did he miss a chance to fly fish when the mood struck him. He never lied about his preferences. If the fish were biting, he'd call the boss and tell him to go to hell for the morning. He'd work three times as hard in the afternoon to make it up, and that reputation kept him busy enough to make all the living he seemed to desire.
'Hi, Chick,' Jacob said. He put his hands in his pockets so that Smalley wouldn't see them trembling. 'Did you pass a car a minute ago, a junker Chevy with tinted windows?'
'Nope,' Smalley said, looking in the ditch ahead as if expecting to see Jacob's wrecked vehicle. 'You get runned off the road? Flat tire?'
'I was just-' Just what the hell was he doing out here? He couldn't explain the encounter with the Chevy and was afraid he'd sound like a lunatic if he tried. Already he doubted if the incident had even happened. But there were the skid marks, twin black snakes crawling away from him on the surface of the road.
'You're looking rough, Mr. Wells. You need a ride back to town?'
A car came around the curve, another behind it. Traffic had returned to normal. Whatever strange spell had descended upon the valley had lifted. Jacob felt foolish standing on the side of the road and he'd lost his appetite for directionless wandering. He hurried across the lane and climbed into the passenger side of the pickup.
Smalley put the truck in gear. 'Just dump that stuff in the floor,' he said, grinding out his cigarette and accelerating. Jacob pushed rags, a tape measure, a vial of plumber's putty, a caulking gun, and some ragged outdoors magazines aside to make room, then clutched the dashboard in a spasm of dizziness. It must have been the tobacco smoke, a reminder of his recent tragedy. Smoke would forever bring a longing ache, and fire would always take him back to that hellish night.
'Shit, Mr. Wells, you look white as a Confederate ghost. Want me to take you to the hospital?'
'No,' Jacob yelled, more forcefully than he'd intended. 'Take me ho-'
He had no home. The knowledge hit him like God's fist. He looked out the window at the trees blurring past, the varying shades of green as the vegetation juiced itself in preparation for summer. This was a hostile planet, a land of pain and strangeness. You could buy pieces of it, hold up deeds and titles, but in the end all you had was the dirt above you, the dirt that busted through your coffin and filled your mouth and lungs. In the end, you didn't own the land, it owned you, it sucked you under and crushed you and hugged you and smothered you with affection, its worms kissing you into slumber, its weight greater than the tonnage of guilt and fear and rage that you carried in your living flesh.
'Do you know where Ivy Terrace is?' he finally asked.
'Them apartments you built up on the west side?' Smalley peered at him as if deciding whether to go to the hospital after all.
'Yeah. Can you take me there?' He reached for his back pocket. 'I'll pay you, of course.'
'Oh, no, you don't. Work is work and favors is favors. Remember that next time somebody else needs a hand.'
Jacob glanced in the side mirror, and for a moment thought he saw the green Chevy roaring up from behind. He wiped at his eyes.
'I heard about what happened,' Smalley said, keeping his eyes on the road as the clusters of neighboring houses grew denser. Jacob hadn't realized how far he had walked. The sun had already started its downward slide toward afternoon.
'Hard to figure the ways of the Lord sometimes,' Smalley said. He reached to a stained and frayed work coat beside him and pushed it across the seat toward Jacob. 'The way I figure, He did plenty of suffering up on the
