See How They Run

by Bethany Campbell

  “He’ll make it. He’s tough,” said Montana.

  She gazed at Trace. He slept restlessly, sometimes whimpering. Once he’d opened his eyes and mumbled that he wanted a glass of water. But by the time she brought it, he’d fallen back into an uneasy doze.

  Montana looked down at the boy. “He’ll be all right,” he promised. “We’ll wrap him up good and have the van warm.”

  “I should give him one of Marco’s pills,” she said. He could tell how reluctant she was to do it.

  He nodded. “Yeah. You’d better. What about Rickie? Can he sleep in a car?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know for how long,” she said.

  “Then maybe him, too.”

  She looked stricken and more than a little guilty.

  He said, “We can’t afford scenes, Laura. Or trouble. It’s for their sake.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  Trace rolled over in bed, throwing his covers off.

  When she tried to tuck them back in place, he struck sleepily at her hands. She tried to feel his forehead, but he twisted away from her touch. His eyes fluttered open.

  “Blue rhubarb, blue rhubarb,” he murmured pettishly. “Love is strange. Laura, give Trace water.”

  “Maybe I should give him the pill now,” she said, darting Montana a glance filled with regret.

  “Yeah,” Montana said. “Maybe you should.”

  Trace fought against taking the pill, and Rickie would fight even harder. Laura was gentle but insistent. She finally got the pill down him.

  “I’ll pack the groceries and stuff,” Montana told her. “And start loading the van.”

  She nodded silently, trying to get Trace to lie down and sleep again. Wearily he flopped back against his pillow, and began to drum his fingers against his cheek.

  Montana went to the kitchen and found Jefferson rebagging the groceries. “I’ll do that,” Montana said.

  “I can,” Jefferson said. “I need to pull my share.” Jefferson’s forehead glistened with perspiration. He moved slowly, as if he ached. But he moved surely.

  “You sure?” Montana asked.

  “Yeah,” Jefferson said, “but this is dicey, running off in the middle of the night, the kid sick and all. You still want to try to make it across the border?”

  “I’ve got plenty of cash,” Montana said. “It ought to buy our way over. We’ll hire somebody with a boat. Hell, maybe it’s easier doing it that way anyhow.”

  “Suppose the Canadians are looking for us?”

  “It’s a chance we take,” Montana said.

  “I promised my oldest boy I’d take him to Canada someday,” Jefferson said. “If the Blue Jays are ever in the World Series again. He’s crazy about baseball.”

  “Yeah,” Montana said.

  Jefferson said. “That’s all he ever talks about. Baseball. He’s got to see that Toronto stadium, ’cause Canada’s the only other country that ever won the series.”

  Montana nodded, but said nothing.

  Jefferson shrugged his good shoulder. “How soon till we’re ready to go?”

  “Not long,” Montana said. “Maybe twenty minutes.”

  • • •

  Hepfinger cut the lights of the van. The snowy ground turned a deep bluish-white, full of shadows. Santander stared at the landscape dispassionately. The winter-dead trees and black pines that lined the roadside swallowed up the cold blue stretches of snow and hid it, but, unseen, it stretched on, covering the earth like a shroud.

  “I can’t see no house, man,” said Luppler.

  “And nobody in the house can see us,” said Santander. “We walk from here.”

  Luppler shifted uneasily in his seat, staring out at the deep snow. “We’re going to freeze our cajones.”

  “Maybe we should have made a side trip to L.L. Bean, bought you some snowshoes,” De Mosquera said sarcastically.

  “What’s L.L. Bean?” Luppler asked, zipping up his suede jacket.

  “It’s this fucking big store,” De Mosquera said. “It’s always open, and it sells canoes and birdhouses and snow-shoes, shit like that.”

  “Hand me a gun,” Santander said to De Mosquera. “And a can of gasoline.”

  De Mosquera grunted in assent and passed him an Uzi. It was Santander’s favorite weapon, elegant in its compactness. He got out of the van and stepped ankle deep into the snow. He did not allow himself to shiver.

  Luppler, too, got out, and flinched when the snow covered his stylish leather shoes. He carried a Calico submachine gun. De Mosquera handed Santander and Luppler each a can of gasoline, then got out, a gasoline can in his left hand and a Calico slung over his shoulder. When he found himself up to his shins in snow, he swore.

  “Shut up,” Santander told him, and De Mosquera shut up. The squarely-built, silent Alvirez got out, too, but he was warmly dressed and had thick, high boots. He carried a Calico like De Mosquera’s.

  “I wish Dennis Deeds would do his own fucking killing,” said Luppler.

  “To the house,” Santander said to the three men. “Stay to the side of the road. Hurry up. Let’s get this done.”

  “It’s fucking freezing, man,” Luppler complained.

  De Mosquera nodded and shrugged more deeply into his jacket. He had no hat, and he looked cold and a bit nervous. “There’s only two men?” he said. “But armed. Just handguns, though?”

  Santander said nothing. He hated repeating things. He nodded for them to start, and he brought up the rear.

  They trudged toward the house. The snow had nearly stopped, a half-moon shone through the clouds, and the landscape reflected its light, making the night air luminous.

  “This snow sucks,” Luppler grumbled. “Who in their right mind would live here? I’m going to Florida when this is over. They’re crazy to live in the cold like this.”

  Santander stayed silent. He, too, hated the cold, and once had not imagined the United States could contain such frozen, empty wastes. He had always thought the whole country to be as full of people as Miami or New York.

  The snow crunched underfoot. It melted against his socks, burning his ankles, numbing his feet. Luppler was stupid, but he was right: Who with any brains would live in country like this?

  But then, through the pines and naked trees, Santander saw a pinprick of light. The house. He took such a deep breath of air that the cold hurt his lungs.

  Luppler saw it, too. “We got them,” he said with satisfaction.

  “Hey, man, it isn’t over ’till it’s over, you know?” De Mosquera said, his teeth chattering.

  “Shut up,” said Santander, but at last he found himself being swept up in the spirit of the hunt. His heartbeat sped, and for a moment he forgot about the freezing pain in his feet.

  When they rounded the corner, his heart positively soared, for from there the house was clearly visible, and when he saw it, he knew this was indeed the place, and they were closing in on it.

  All was as Hepfinger had guessed. In the carport a van was parked, not as big as the van in which Hepfinger waited, but big enough. In the front yard stood a snowman. And a snowman meant children.

  Santander held up his hand to halt the men. “We split. We slip up on them. Alvirez, cover the back door. I’ll take the front. Luppler, come at it from the east side. De Mosquera, from the west. Check the windows first. Quietly. If you get a clear shot, especially at more than one of them, take it. But make it count. Understand?”

  “Make it count,” De Mosquero repeated, his teeth chattering harder.

  Santander emphasized his order. “Get as many down as you can. Then we set the house on fire. Be careful and we should suffer no casualties.”

  “What if nobody can get a shot at any of them?” Luppler asked, a frown on his pretty face.

  “The same thing. Set fire. If they try to escape, shoot them. Watch out for the men. They’ll come out shooting.”

  “We can back off, t-take cover. Be in the shadows, b-behind trees,” De Mosquera offered.r />
  Luppler said, “I am a man. I won’t back off. I’ll stand in the open and kill my enemy like a man.”

  “Even if he’s only eight years old,” Santander said dryly.

  Luppler gave Santander a conceited little smile. “Enemies are for killing,” he said. “No matter how old.”

  “Enough talk,” said Santander. “Go. Now.” His breath ascended heavenward like a visible prayer.

  They began to move toward the house, to converge upon it.

  SEVENTEEN

  Laura shut the carton of books, and Montana lifted it and stacked it against the wall. They had packed as quickly and as noiselessly as possible. They hadn’t been noiseless enough.

  From Rickie’s bed came the rustle of sheets, the sound of a body restlessly shifting, and a child’s sleepy complaint: “Too much light. Too much light.”

  “Uh-oh,” Laura said and darted Montana a worried glance.

  Rickie had awakened. He pushed himself to a sitting position, squinted and scowled. He rubbed his eyes and scowled again.

  When he saw the packing boxes, he stiffened and glared, as if confronted by mortal enemies. He sensed the threat of confusion, disorder, and change. “No,” he said belligerently, drumming his fingertips against his cheek. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

  “I’d better get a pill down him, too,” she said sotto voce.

  Montana nodded grimly.

  “Put on your slippers,” she told Rickie. “Laura’s going to take Rickie to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice.”

  She stretched out her hand to take his, but he shook his head and refused to meet her eyes. He shoved his feet into his bedroom slippers. “Pee-pee,” he said in a truculent voice.

  “Fine,” she said, dropping her hand to her side. “Rickie goes to the bathroom like a big boy.”

  He rose, still tapping his fingers against his face, and shuffled off to the bathroom, muttering under his breath.

  “I won’t strip his bed yet,” she told Montana. “It’ll just upset him more. I hope Jefferson hasn’t packed the orange juice.”

  “Want me to go see?” Montana asked.

  “No. I’ll do it.” She sighed resolutely and said, “We’re almost ready.”

  Only the Bugs Bunny lamp remained to be packed, along with the bedclothes.

  Montana said, “I’ll warm the van up, start loading.”

  But he paused for a moment and gazed down at Trace. The boy lay on his back, one arm thrown out across the bed. His eyelids flickered and he frowned in his sleep as if he was dreaming restless dreams.

  He won’t be able to understand another move, Laura thought. Neither of them will.

  “How long will it take for the pill to affect Rickie?” Montana asked. He had on his jacket.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It took about fifteen minutes to work on Trace.”

  She heard the toilet flush. “I’ll give him the pill, sit him down in front of the TV, then help you load.” She took her jacket from the closet and slipped it on.

  “Maybe I should carry him out to the couch,” Montana said, nodding at Trace. “So you can strip this bed, too.”

  “Good idea,” she said. “Let me get him into his sleeping bag, first.”

  “I’ll help.”

  Together they pulled away the bedclothes, lifted Trace, and laid him on the open sleeping bag.

  She heard the bathroom door open and shut and the sound of Rickie’s slippered feet running down the hall toward the kitchen. She started to zip the sleeping bag shut.

  “Orange juice, orange juice,” she heard Rickie tell Jefferson.

  She finished fastening the bag, then straightened. “I’ll go give him the pill,” she said.

  Montana bent to pick up Trace to carry him to the living room.

  Jefferson’s voice, oddly tense, came from the kitchen. “Montana! I heard something outside. By the kitchen window.”

  The alarm in his tone prickled Laura’s skin.

  Montana stepped back from the bed, leaving Trace lying in the sleeping bag. He moved toward the door, his hand going to his holster.

  Instinctively Laura followed, but he put out his arm, barring her way. She froze in the doorway, gazing down the hall toward the living room. She could see nothing.

  Montana drew his gun and inched quietly down the hall. He had the tautly alert air of an animal preying.

  Laura’s blood drummed in her ears. No, she thought, sick with dread. Not now. We’ve come so far.

  “Get back,” Montana said over his shoulder.

  Like a thunderclap striking in their midst, a barrage of gunfire ripped apart the air. Laura screamed and flinched convulsively against the door frame.

  For an eternal second she saw Jefferson framed in the doorway at the hall’s end. With one hand he gripped his gun, aiming it in the direction of the kitchen window. He fired, once, twice.

  With the other hand, he seized Rickie by the shoulder, and half flung, half pushed the boy into the hallway. Rickie stumbled and fell, sprawling to the floor, crying out in protest.

  Another fusillade of gunfire shook the air. Jefferson was flung back against the wall at the hallway’s far end, blood spurting from his chest and shoulder. He propped himself drunkenly against the wall, and raised his badly trembling arm. Once again he shot in the direction of the window.

  Laura screamed, “No! No!”

  Jefferson still held his gun in his right hand, but he quit shooting. He stared down dazedly as the blood from his chest poured onto the green carpet. It spilled down his body and turned the carpet a wet, dark scarlet.

  He’s bleeding to death, Laura thought in horror. She tried to run to him to staunch the streaming blood. But Montana’s arm shot out, blocking her.

  “We’ve got to help,” she cried, struggling to force her way past him. But her words came out like meaningless noise.

  “Stay back. Get Trace. Get ready to go out the window.”

  “But—”

  Jefferson still leaned heavily against the wall, a surprised expression in his eyes. He turned to face Montana and tried to speak. Instead of words, a bloody froth bubbled from his mouth.

  “Help him!” Laura cried frantically. She tried to wrench past Montana, but he gripped her tightly and held her back.

  With a slow gesture, like that of a weary ballet dancer, Jefferson turned his face to Montana and held his gun toward him like an offering. Slowly it slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor with a soft thud.

  With a sigh, a terrible sound that gurgled with blood, he crumpled to the carpet, leaving a running smear of crimson, as wide as his body, on the wall.

  “Get Trace,” Montana ordered harshly, pushing her toward the boys’ room.

  He went to retrieve Jefferson’s gun, leaping back as gunfire erupted again. He grabbed Rickie, who was screaming, and scrabbled back to the boys’ room.

  He pressed Jefferson’s gun into Laura’s hand. It was slippery with blood. “Take this,” he yelled above the gunfire. “Use it.”

  Laura lifted Trace awkwardly, sleeping bag and all. Montana had Rickie in his arms and was at the window, heaving it as high as it would go. Rickie tried to twist away from him, still crying. Montana had wrapped him up in the red bedspread and it was trailing on the floor.

  Montana lunged, his shoulder knocking the storm window out into the snow. The gunfire was so loud and insistent that Laura could not hear the crash of the window tearing loose.

  We’re all going to die, she thought, clutching Trace more tightly.

  The window was a large one, set low, and Montana fired out of it twice, then nodded for her to go. The next thing she knew, she was halfway to her knees in snow, struggling not to fall or drop Trace.

  Trace stirred fitfully in her arms, but didn’t wake. Then Montana was beside her. The gunfire had stopped. She heard the crash of the front door being kicked in.

  Someone was yelling, “Luppler! Luppler!”

  “Don’t say anything for twenty
minutes,” Montana said fiercely to Rickie. “It’s a game. For twenty minutes. Don’t say anything.”

  Rickie’s lip trembled with anger and frustration, but he stared at his watch, which glowed in the dark. He kept staring, as if losing himself in its numbers.

  Please, God, Laura prayed. Make him stay quiet. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Please. Please.

  “The barn,” Montana said in her ear. “Keep low. Head for the trees. Stay in the pines until we can make a run for the barn.”

  Bent low, looking from side to side, he ran toward the pines, which loomed like a black and jagged wall in the moonlight. She followed blindly, Trace heavy in her arms.

  She saw a man raise himself from the snow. She hadn’t seen him before, but there he was, lifting himself, pulling himself upright, then taking a lurching step in their direction.

  “They got out the side,” he screamed. “They’re getting away, you assholes!”

  He had a gun, and he raised it as he took another drunken step. Laura ran more wildly, and tried to keep her body between the gunman and Trace.

  But Montana stopped abruptly, turned, squeezed his trigger. The spurt of his gunfire flashed once, twice, as the report roared.

  Laura didn’t look back. She plunged in among the pine trees and kept running until she was deep inside the stand.

  Then Montana was beside her again. “Don’t stop,” he said. “Go right.”

  “Did you kill him?” she asked, panting for breath.

  “I think so,” he said. “But there’s more.”

  More, she thought darkly, too breathless, too frantic to talk. It had sounded like an army battering down the door of their house.

  Vaguely she was aware of men’s voices carrying across the night air, coming from the direction of the house. Her lungs burned, and hampered by Trace’s weight she kept stumbling in the snow, which in places was drifted to her knees.

  Montana took the lead. She tried to follow in his footsteps, but it only made her stumble more. The snow had soaked through her jeans, had gotten into her mukluks.

  She wondered how long she could keep running. The voices in the background were louder now, clearer, although she couldn’t understand what they were saying. Her blood banged crazily in her ears.