Rebirth

baby and used to wake hungry for her bottle. It was a habit Cass loved, to watch when Ruthie was deep asleep, her soft lips working at nothing. But then Ruthie moaned softly and Cass’s heart skipped in panic. In the gray morning light Ruthie’s face looked flushed and nearly translucent, her fine hair splayed against the rough fabric of the backseat. She writhed against the seat belt and moaned again and then as Cass reached for her, her eyes flew open and she looked at nothing and said, “Hat.”

Cass licked her dry lips and settled her hand on Ruthie’s hot cheek, suddenly certain that Ruthie’s word was a warning, a portent of the worst and most terrifying sort. As soon as Ruthie spoke, it was over and she collapsed back against the seat and slipped immediately back into sleep, her face serene, her outburst forgotten. But now it was Cass whose skin was clammy with fear.

She had no idea what “hat” meant. But as she looked from Ruthie to Dor, twenty feet off, making his cautious way to the wreck, unafraid yet suddenly so vulnerable, Cass wanted to stop him. Something was wrong, and Ruthie knew.

She couldn’t leave Ruthie, defenseless and alone in the Jeep, could she?

But whatever threatened Dor, threatened them all.

Barely thinking about what she was doing, she threw open the door and stumbled out onto the pavement, screaming Dor’s name. He turned to her in surprise and seemed to freeze as a figure flashed between the smashed-up cars and careened and rolled. There was a shot, loud on the still morning air, and Dor lurched sideways and Cass was sure he was hit until he rolled on the ground and came up in a crouch and returned fire, his aim steady and sure, and the figure jerked and seemed to rise up into the air before falling down sprawled at the edge of the wreck, his flung forearm spasming and fingers quivering.

Someone was yelling her name and Cass was running to Dor but he was doing an awkward crab-walk backward and he grabbed her hand and pulled her down with him and she thought what if he’s hit what if he’s going to die and oh God he’s going to leave me and Ruthie alone and the panic in her heart was enough to move her to action.

She stood and seized his arm and tried to drag him to his feet, but he was stronger and he pulled her down on top of him and she felt her knee connect with his gut and she heard the sound he made. And still he clutched her and rolled on top of her and pushed her to the ground while he stood and she thought in despair oh god don’t let him die now let me go I have to help Ruthie but he was screaming in her ear and she tried to understand but he was screaming, screaming-

“Stay here! I’ll get her!”

When she finally understood, she stopped resisting and he was up and sprinting back toward the wreck in seconds. No, no, she thought, that one might not be the only one, that one lying still with its skull split on the pavement. And then she realized that’s why he’d run, and she ran after him, because if he failed then there was no hope for any of them.

Cass yanked at her gun and it was stuck in its holster, why hadn’t she practiced this, she’d gone with Smoke to shoot a dozen times but she never thought it would be like this, her hands slick and shaking. But she had to do better she had to do this for Ruthie and then the gun was out, it was in her hand. There were only yards between her and the broken glass the twisted metal of the wreck, and her heart pumped with adrenaline and her legs flew and even so, somehow she had time to consider the cabin, not much of a cabin but someone’s shelter nonetheless because-

Look there, from the chimney, a thin wisp of smoke drifted out

– they lived here, these squatters who lay in wait and watched for travelers coming down the road, they burrowed rodentlike into the wreck and came out only to kill and take their spoils. All of this flashed through Cass’s mind as she ran, but Dor was already ducking behind the smashed sedan as there rose up the second, the one Ruthie foresaw, the one with a watch cap pulled low over a knobby head, ears protruding sharp smirk smirking he was wearing a red cap a red hat on his hateful greedy head and he sighted down the barrel and lined up the shot he thought he had time for, the anticipation brought him pleasure that vibrated through his trigger finger you could see the way he loved the gun loved the bullet but in the end he didn’t get to shoot because Cass squeezed first and the bullet glanced off his arm and his shot went wild and then Dor stepped up and finished him off.

13

CASS HUDDLED IN THE BACKSEAT TREMBLING and shaking, Ruthie unbuckled and gathered in her arms. She wished the Jeep had locks and a roof and shatterproof glass. She wished it was made of steel, of concrete. She wished they had never come. She wished they were back in the Box, in their bed, watching the sky slowly turn blue up above them through the window flaps and who fucking cared about the rest.

Ruthie rubbed her face against Cass’s shirt. Her skin was hot from sleep despite the chill of the morning air, and then she looked up with a question in her eyes. And Cass realized that once again it was not her place to wish but instead to make everything as right as she could.

“We just had to stop here for a minute, sweet pea,” she said, shifting Ruthie in her arms so that she could not see the wreck in the road ahead. Or the corpse with the outflung broken bloody arm, or the other body, with a hat, slumped over the hood of a car as though trying to embrace it. “Dor went inside to get something and he’ll be back in a minute and then we’ll get going again.”

She looked carefully at the roadside, the soft rocky shoulder, the kaysev drifts and the fallen limbs and branches. The Jeep was made for off-roading; a few stones or branches shouldn’t jeopardize its axles or undercarriage or gas tank. They could survive being shaken up. Now she was grateful they’d taken this worn and uncomfortable vehicle and vowed not to mind the scratchy seat, the blowing wind and noise.

Ruthie sat up in her lap and stretched to see past Cass’s shoulder, searching for Dor. Cass looked, too. The cabin was silent and foreboding, its porch railing listing and shattered, one window boarded with scrap wood. A pair of kitchen chairs sat on the uneven porch floor and it was all too easy to imagine the dead men sitting there waiting, watching, perhaps with binoculars to see down the relatively unobstructed stretch of road on which they’d approached. They’d been traveling down mountain, and the pines at this elevation were thin and sparse, and even before they died they would have provided little shade.

On the porch at the foot of the chairs were empty bottles, five or six of them, and Cass wondered if they were among the spoils of the last party to be trapped here. The men must have been thrilled to see the Jeep; there were so few vehicles on the road anymore. From time to time there was a motorcycle, a bicycle-or something more rugged, like Lance and Nina’s ATV. But full-on cars must have been rare indeed.

There-beyond the cabin, partially covered with a screen of tree limbs-she saw the junkyard of cars driven off the road and abandoned. Too many would have raised suspicion, would make a driver wonder what could have happened for so many to give up hope right here. The pile extended back several hundred feet, vehicles parked haphazardly. Lazily. It wouldn’t have been that hard to drive them farther into the woods, a half a mile past the cabin, even a quarter mile, find a swale or a dip in the earth and leave them to rust and molder there for mice to nest in and birds to perch on and snakes to slither under.

Wait. A sound. A crack-oh God, another-were they loud enough to be gunshots? But what else could they be? But they didn’t exactly sound right, not like the shooting practice that took place a couple mornings a week down near the Box, didn’t sound-sharp enough, somehow, they were muffled, there was no echo. But what if Dor was hit? What if someone had been waiting for him and shot him-but if they were going to kill him wouldn’t they have done it right away, the minute he came in the house? They could have been watching from the window, watching him walk toward the house, waiting for him on the other side of the door…

Cass peered anxiously at Ruthie’s face, but her daughter’s expression showed only puzzlement, maybe boredom, or sleepiness perhaps. She yawned and rested her face against Cass’s chest and Cass thought, That’s it then, I can’t leave her here alone to check it out, and she wondered if she should just get in the front seat and turn the key in the ignition and go. Cass’s heart was pounding so hard with fear that she was amazed Ruthie didn’t mind. Would Ruthie fuss if Cass buckled her in the backseat and got out, even for a second? But what if Dor wasn’t hit, what if he had done the shooting, or if he’d shot someone who shot him back-maybe he was hurt, right now, lying on the floor in agony-or maybe he wasn’t