Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Night
River stepped silently off the boxcar ladder and onto the ground, then stood there with a pounding heart, listening. Distant city sounds wove faintly through the pitch-black night, but other than that the world was still. He took a careful step, then another, until he was around the edge of the boxcar.
There he stopped.
He didn’t move a muscle.
He waited.
Spencer was out there.
River could feel him.
He needed to take the man alive. He needed to find out if January was still alive.
Another sound came.
It was farther away than the first one.
River listened harder.
No sounds came, not in the next few seconds or the next minute. He turned on the flashlight, scouted around, and spotted some type of animal scrounging around off in the distance.
That’s all it was.
It wasn’t Spencer.
It was just some stupid old animal.
He grabbed an Old Milwaukee from the fridge, wedged the top off with a bottle opener and took a long swallow.
January.
January.
January.
Was she still alive?
Where?
Suddenly he had a sick thought. When he drove the motorcycle out into the terrain this afternoon and found her gone, what if he hadn’t looked in the right place? What if he had veered a little to the right or the left, or hadn’t gone far enough? What if Spencer hadn’t taken her at all? What if she was still out there, hogtied, alone in the night?
A chill ran up his spine and straight into his brain.
He was positive-at least almost positive-that he’d looked in the right place. He had to admit though that he wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
Damn it.
He needed to know; not in the morning, right now.
If by some miracle she actually was still out there, he couldn’t let her stay in that position for even one more second than absolutely necessary.
He fired up the Indian, flicked on the headlight and spun the rear tire.
Unfortunately, he’d driven his car back into town this afternoon, meaning it no longer marked the spot where he first pulled over and got tangled up with Spencer. It no longer marked the spot where Spencer pulled January out of his trunk and carried her into the terrain.
Now, River could only guess.
Plus it was night.
He kept going anyway, deeper and deeper into the country.
Night bugs were in the air.
They splattered into his face, not a lot but enough to keep him guessing. He kept his eyes squinted.
He suddenly realized how lucky he’d been.
If January was in fact still out there and River had simply missed her, and then if River got killed tonight waiting for Spencer to show up, January would have rotted to a slow death and it would have been River’s fault.
He needed to grow some brains.
He wasn’t thinking things through.
He was letting his emotions get the best of him.
He needed to stop that stupid shit and stop it now.
He needed to focus.
He needed to play things out.
He got to where he thought he should be and weaved left and right as he slowed, sweeping the headlight back and forth. It looked like the right place but he wasn’t sure. He pulled off the road, turned off the engine and killed the lights.
Out of the bike’s bag, he pulled the flashlight but left the knife and gun where they were.
Stars filled the sky.
They provided almost no light.
What he needed was a moon, but that was way down on the horizon.
He flicked on the flashlight.
Then he headed out into the terrain.
Twenty steps later he came back and turned on the bike’s taillight.
It would be an anchor without draining too much of the battery. It would let him gauge how far he’d gone.
He headed as straight away from the road as he could, sweeping the flashlight from side to side, trying to memorize the patterns of the rabbit brush and yucca and rocks.
Off in the distance a coyote howled.
He got a hundred steps in.
Then he took a second hundred.
He turned and looked at the taillight to find it wasn’t much more than a red speck. He guessed he was about the right distance in but had to admit he could easily be off by fifty steps, a hundred even.
Suddenly a sharp pain came from the bottom of his foot.
He toppled.
The flashlight dropped and went out.
River pulled his shoe off.
With it came a thick, two-inch cactus needle.
He pulled it out of the shoe, made sure there were no broken ones lurking around and put his shoe back on. The pain was still there although not quite as sharp.
His foot was already swelling.
The terrain was darker than death.
He felt around until he found the flashlight and flicked the button to no avail.
It was ruined.
He couldn’t see two feet.
He had no option except to get back to the bike and bring it out into the terrain. That would give him a 99 percent chance of ending up with a flat.
How would he get back to the city?
Screw it.
He’d worry about it later.
Right now what he needed to do was just get the damn bike out here and find January.
He turned to find the taillight and get his bearings.
He didn’t see it.
It wasn’t there.
It was gone.
All he had in every direction was darkness.