Stone Junction

But to Shamus’s wild surprise, von Trakl begged to go along. He told Shamus that he was a virtual prisoner of the U.S. government and was no longer interested in the work they wanted done. He wanted to explore the other side of the equation, the conversion of energy into mass, and ultimately, he supposed, the obliteration of the distinction. He confided to Shamus that he’d made a fundamental scientific error in his career – he’d viewed the universe as a machine instead of a thought.

While Shamus was delighted to discover that the most brilliant physicist in the country was a fellow alchemist at heart, he knew that von Trakl’s employers would never stop looking for him till the old man was returned. But von Trakl refused to be freed, and for reasons Shamus honored.

Shamus compromised. He kept von Trakl through the first car switch, but a mile from the second switch Shamus pulled over and forced von Trakl out on the empty country road. He promised von Trakl he’d leave the car a mile up the road, wished him luck with his new research, and thanked him for his company, then fried rubber as von Trakl started to reply.

A mile down the road he exchanged the car for the dirt bike he’d stashed the day before. He gunned the dirt bike up the hill. He cut the engine at the crest and coasted down the long, gradual slope into Coon Creek Valley. He abandoned the bike in a dense stand of hickory, covering it with the camo netting he’d pulled off the battered Gimmy pickup he’d hidden there earlier in the week. But when he reached to open the truck’s door, a laconic voice behind him said, ‘Ain’t none of my business, friend, but less’n my scanner done fucked all up, they’ll have a roadblock at the end of the valley ’fore you can fart the first bar o’ “Dixie.” Be my suggestion to ride with ol’ Silas Goldean here, seeing as how me and most of the local law grew up together and get on fine, and they know I got a fondness for going over to the res’vor this time of night and soaking a doughball for them catfish. Got a good place for ya to ride, too.’

And so Shamus went through the roadblock curled up in a cramped compartment under the backseat of Silas’s dusty Packard sedan while Silas jawed with a sheriff ’s deputy about a turkey shoot early next month to raise money for the local Grange. Silas’s second cousin was waiting at the reservoir in a funky johnboat to ferry him over to another cousin who locked him in a camper and drove all night to an airstrip south of Nashville. A cross-country flight punctuated with what seemed like twenty refueling stops eventually ended on Cummins Flat, two miles down the ridge from the Four Deuces, where Smiling Jack had picked him up.

Though Shamus found it difficult to believe, Gerhard von Trakl had evidently made his own escape, a fact that pleased Shamus immensely even though it meant personal grief. The Feds unfortunately assumed the daffy old bastard was still his captive and had poured on the heat – or as much as they could without causing undue media attention. They didn’t seem to want any, in fact, since there hadn’t been a hint in the press or on screen that the country’s foremost nuclear physicist had been kidnapped inside the nation’s largest facility for the production of fissionable materials – an understandable silence, as such information would not inspire the citizens’ confidence or advance any political careers.

‘But,’ Shamus said, bringing his story up to date, ‘somebody wasn’t silent. Somebody had to tell them where to find me, because they did. When they turn up the heat, somebody burns, and then it all starts burning, collapsing as it’s consumed. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your losses – your possessions, your home, the labor and heart you put into it.’

‘It’s not the first time,’ Annalee assured him. ‘That’s how we got to the Four Deuces, even though Daniel might not remember.’ She was driving, so had to prompt him with a quick glance over her shoulder, ‘Not that you should.’

But Daniel, who’d listened intently from the backseat, didn’t want to talk about what he didn’t remember. ‘How many people knew you were staying with us?’

Shamus responded without hesitation, obviously having given it some thought himself. ‘You, your mother, Smiling Jack, and the pilot, a young black guy named Everly Cleveland, Bro for short. Those are the ones I know for certain; there were probably others.’

‘The pilot betrayed you,’ Daniel said.

‘Said with great certainty,’ Shamus noted. ‘Your evidence?’

‘Mom and me wouldn’t do it and neither would Smiling Jack. And besides, the pilot flew over two thousand miles with a bunch of stops, so the plane almost had to be noticed. See, that would be smart – to check the little airstrips.’

‘Yeah,’ Shamus sighed, ‘that’s the most likely case, but who knows? If it was the pilot, though, I hope he turned me cold. Went straight to a pay phone and snitched me off.’

‘Why?’ Daniel said, puzzled.

Shamus, who had turned around to face Daniel, shifted his gaze past Daniel and out the rear window, following the white line back to the horizon. Daniel didn’t think Shamus was going to answer but Shamus suddenly snapped back to attention, his eyes boring into Daniel’s as he said, ‘Because if he didn’t turn me cold, they beat it out of him, and that puts his blood on my hands.’

On a hand and a glove, Daniel thought. He didn’t say it because something in Shamus’s voice and eyes frightened him, something feverish and weak, something that fed on its own corruption, drew nourishment from its self-loathing and suffering, and Daniel wanted to leap away from Shamus’s intimate guilt. He prefaced his question with a vague reassurance. ‘But you’ve got friends, too. Besides Mom and me, I mean. Somebody is helping you. Helping us, really. Who is it?’

Shamus glanced at Annalee, then back to Daniel. ‘You’re sharp, Daniel. What one of my teachers called “a good sense of what’s going on inside what’s going on.”’

Daniel shrugged off the praise. ‘It’s pretty obvious that somebody is flying us around and giving us cars and money. And instructions.’

‘AMO,’ Shamus said.

Daniel didn’t understand. ‘You mean like ammo for guns? Ammunition?’

‘No, though the pun is suggestive. Amo as in the Latin I love.’ Shamus reached backhanded along the front seat and lightly touched Annalee’s neck with his right hand.

Annalee wanted to pull over and hold him in her arms and let him touch her just like that anywhere he wanted, the warmth of his bare fingertips at the base of her neck, the brush of soft leather on thigh, belly, nipples, throat.

She listened distractedly as he continued. ‘AMO is the acronym for Alliance of Magicians and Outlaws – or, as