River Runs Red (The Border Trilogy)

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  “Molly!” Wade cried, reaching uselessly into the road.

  The truck charged.

  And Byrd flew from the shadows, in full tackle mode, arms outspread. He swept into Molly and her bike. Then Wade lost them both, blinded by the oncoming headlights. The truck raced over the spot where she had been and it kept coming, across the road, scraping its undercarriage and sending sparks into the darkness, into the ditch on the other side. Dust choked the air.

  But when he blinked his eyes clear, Byrd and Molly were mounted again, their bikes steady on the paved road. “Come on, dude!” Byrd shouted.

  Wade’s father’s truck had gone into the ditch past its front wheels. He had it in reverse now, but those wheels were spinning, and though the back wheels tried to drag them out, the front ones found no purchase. Smoke belched from the exhaust, and under the growl of the motor Wade could hear a stream of curses spewing from his father’s lips.

  He found his bike, heaved it up onto the roadway. “Is Molly okay?” he asked.

  “She’s fine,” Byrd said. “Where to?”

  “We can’t go home,” Wade said. “That way!” He nodded away from the town, toward the open desert beyond the Mills place. He was a little surprised Angela and Alan hadn’t come out to see what all the racket was, but maybe it hadn’t gone on for as long as it seemed.

  They rode along the pavement, following the curve around past the Mills farm. They had only been riding for a few minutes, however, when there was a change in the sound of the truck’s engine.

  “He’s coming!” Wade shouted, once again taking the lead. Edging past the others, he waved them onto a dirt road that cut across the Mills place, separating two of their fields. Usually Mr. Mills drove it on an ATV, but sometimes he took the truck. Wade’s hope was that his dad would stay on the pavement and miss it altogether.

  The road climbed a gentle slope that would get steeper, then drop quickly into a valley on the other side. Moonlight etched the way.

  As they neared the high point of the rise, Wade slowed his bike and looked back.

  His dad’s truck raced past the dirt road. A shiver of joy coursed through Wade’s body; it took all he had not to throw his arms in the air and whoop. He did turn to Byrd and swap grins that, under any other circumstances, would have been absurdly enormous. Even Molly, puffing like mad, reached the hilltop and gave the boys high-fives.

  The screech of brakes snapped their attention back to the road and broke the mood like a brittle rubber band.

  “Oh, shit on a stick!” Byrd said.

  Molly glared at him but didn’t say anything.

  Below, the truck backed up to the road, made the turn. Wade realized they were standing at the top of the hill, illuminated by the bright moon. “Go!” he shouted, waving the others down the other side. “Go, go, go!”

  Byrd and Molly kicked off and hurtled down the hill with Wade following right behind. He couldn’t see the truck anymore, but its familiar engine sound grew louder as it swallowed up the dirt track. His mind reeled as he tried to think of a way off this road, someplace where bikes could go but the truck could not.

  When he saw the tall rocks looming ahead, he could hardly believe he hadn’t thought of it already.

  Smuggler’s Canyon.

  THIRTY

  The rocks of Smuggler’s Canyon were still almost a mile away. Wade could see them, when the dirt road wasn’t bouncing his eyeballs out of his head, but the road would end soon and they’d have to cover the rest of the way cross-country. He was pretty sure he could do it, and Byrd could do damn near anything. But Molly? She was twelve. It was probably midnight. She’d been riding for miles. Sometimes she seemed to have limitless energy—usually when Wade and Byrd wanted to go someplace without her—but other times she wore out quickly.

  He was astonished that she hadn’t given up yet. She aped her brother, hunched over the handlebars, butt in the air, feet churning the pedals like a robot.

  Their best hope was that the cross-country route would be even harder for the truck than for the bikes. It wasn’t much to pin three lives on, but it was all they had.

  The road turned rutted and rocky on the downslope, ending altogether at a T intersection with a track that was little more than a horse trail. Byrd skidded to a stop and looked to Wade for directions.

  “Just keep going!” Wade shouted. He waved toward the rocks jutting up from the riverbank. “To the cave!”

  Byrd nodded his understanding and struck off across the hard-packed earth. Wade caught up to Molly. “You doing okay, Molly? Can you make it?”

  She spared him the briefest of glances. Her lower lip had been tugged almost completely inside her mouth. She gave him a single nod and kept pedaling.

  “Good girl,” he said. He slowed his own pace a little to stay close to her. If Dad caught them, he caught them, but Wade refused to allow the possibility that he might catch only Molly.

  The truck roared to the top of the hill behind them, scraping its belly as it humped over, and started down toward them. Wade figured they’d be harder to spot now, since they were on a fairly level plain, weaving and dodging through desert scrub. If he slowed down enough to look for their tire tracks, though, it wouldn’t take Dad long to realize they hadn’t taken the little trail.

  A mesquite bush nearly knocked Wade off his bike. He swerved around it at the last second but its branches snagged his clothes and jabbed between his spokes, and he barely kept his balance, the bike wobbling perilously in his hands. He had to stay focused, worry less about where the old man was and more about his surroundings. By the time he’d righted himself and continued, Molly was well ahead of him.

  Then, almost before he expected it, he burst out of the desert and onto the track connecting Smuggler’s Canyon with River Road. Byrd had already hit it and made the hard right turn toward their cave. Molly was just doing the same. Wade’s rear wheel fishtailed when he took the turn too fast, but he held on to the handlebars, touched down with his feet briefly, and followed.

  The parking area was just ahead, covered in gray gravel. At the edge of a lot were a plastic porta-potty and a trash can, and beyond those, nothing but the big rocks, the caves, and the river.

  They ditched their bikes by the outhouse. They could hear the truck coming fast, its headlights spearing into the sky, but it couldn’t go beyond the parking area. And they knew the rocks and caves. Without experience, a map, and a flashlight, Dad would never find them in the canyon.

  He might be able to wait them out. They hadn’t kept the supplies as current as they had when they were younger, and even then they’d consisted mostly of candy bars and warm Cokes. But Wade would worry about that later. Right now all he wanted was to get everyone safely hidden.

  They dashed into the big rocks, climbing some, circling around others. They all knew the route. Pebbles rolled under Wade’s shoes, threatening to spill him against the stones, but he kept his balance. Familiar pictograph masks gazed down at him from their aerie. With each step, his confidence grew.

  They were going to make it.

  They were within sight of the opening—a slab that had fallen from above, leaning against the base of its mother rock at a slant—when they heard the truck engine stop and the door slam. “You little shits can’t hide from me!” Dad screamed.

  Then they heard a sound they had never experienced at the canyon: the thunderous crack of a gunshot. It echoed off rock walls on both sides of the river. Wings beat in the night—birds or bats startled by the noise. “Fuckin’ shit!” Byrd said. “He’s got a gun!”

  “He has several,” Wade reminded him. With the sound fading, Wade dashed the rest of the way to the opening.

  When they’d first discovered the spot, ducking under it had been easy. These days, he and Byrd had to turn sideways and ease themselves through the narrow space.

  Wade reached it first, dropped to his hands and knees, and scuttled in. Once past the slab, he had to climb a low shelf and go through an actual cave opening. I
t was just high enough off the ground that water never got inside, no matter how much rain fell. The shelf also hid the entrance, so that if anyone bothered to look through the slab opening, they wouldn’t see the cave itself.

  Inside, Wade went straight to one of the old ammo boxes. The clip stuck. He smacked it a couple times, knocking dirt from it, and was able to tug it open. Yanking out a flashlight, he thumbed the switch. Nothing. He beat it against his other palm a couple times and it flickered into faint life. Hoping it would last, he beamed it through the opening for Byrd and Molly to follow.

  Molly’s small hands came into view, then her dark head, her thick hair blown and tangled by their wild ride. “You okay, Molly?”

  “I guess so,” she said. “Scared is all.”

  “Scared is fine.”

  “It better be,” Byrd said, shoving in behind her, “because my drawers are totally brown by now.”

  “Byrd!” Molly said reproachfully. “That’s so gross!”

  “Shh,” Wade said. “We don’t want him to hear us.”

  “How long do you think we can stay in here?” Byrd asked in whispered tones.

  “As long as we have to,” Wade answered. “He can’t stay out there forever. Border patrol will come around, or a park ranger or something.”

  “How many park rangers have you seen here over the years, dude? One, maybe?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one,” Wade admitted. “I was just hoping. Someone has to empty that outhouse, right?”

  “Yeah,” Byrd said with a smirk. “And the guy drivin’ the shit truck is gonna want to go up against a crazy man with a gun?” He studied Wade for a minute in the faint glow of the flashlight. “Sorry. I know he’s your dad, man.”

  “It’s okay. He’s completely nuts. I wish I knew what happened to him.”

  “He’s always been an asshole, Wade.”

  “Yeah, but there are degrees of assholishness. He wasn’t a murderer before.”

  “Shh!” Molly put her finger across her lips in the universal symbol for shut up, you bozos.

  From outside, Wade could hear the crunch of shoes on dirt and rocks. Dad walked slowly, taking his time, like he was in no hurry at all. “I always knew you were stupid,” he called. Wade didn’t have to wonder who he was addressing. “Y’all think you wouldn’t leave footprints?”

  Wade clicked off the light. “Crap,” Byrd whispered. “You think…?”

  Wade listened for another few seconds. He was still walking around out there, hadn’t found the entrance yet. But he would.

  And the old man didn’t just keep a gun in his truck, he kept a flashlight. To have tracked them this quickly, he had to be using it.

  “We need to keep going,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, even though the others couldn’t see him in the dark. Their cave had an opening at the back, a low-ceilinged slot you had to crawl through for about eight feet before it opened into a much bigger passage. They had explored it occasionally, but never went very far. The passage led to a few fairly large rooms, some the size you’d find in commercially developed caverns, but without the impressive geological formations. After a while, in the darkness and the sameness, they had been afraid they would become hopelessly lost and had always turned back.

  That same frightening mazelike quality would make it easy for them to lose the old man inside, Wade hoped. Let him get lost in the warren of caves and tunnels, and they could escape and head for town.

  “Are you sure?” Molly asked. She sounded terrified. Wade was glad for the darkness, so he didn’t have to see her eyes.

  “He’ll find us here, for sure,” Byrd said. “He’s got a flashlight, probably, and a gun. In here he’ll pick us off easy.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Wade said. “If we go back into the deeper caves, we’ll be able to find someplace to hide.”

  “I hate it in there.” Molly had only gone in once, and they’d had to bring her out almost immediately. She’d been crying, nearly panicking. Wade worried that she might flip out partway through the crawl space. If she screeched and carried on like she had before, Dad would be able to find them in no time.

  “I know, Molly,” Byrd said. “But it’s our best chance.”

  Wade could tell she was sucking in a sob. “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  “Wade goes first,” Byrd suggested. “Then I’ll help you in, Molly. Soon as you’re through, I’ll come after.”

  “O-okay.”

  Wade knew about where the opening was, and as he approached it in pitch blackness he felt the faintest draft brush his face. He risked flicking on the dying flashlight for just a second, to make sure the way was clear, and then, in utter darkness made deeper by the momentary light, he lowered himself to his belly and began the terrifying, painful crawl. When he hunched his shoulders to move his arms forward, his back scraped the ceiling. The air smelled vaguely sour, with an undertone of ammonia that he supposed came from bat shit. Guano, it was called—a word that could cause Byrd to explode in paroxysms of laughter.

  He tried to imagine Byrd doubled over laughing, his strong arms folded across his gut, because it was better than thinking about the fact that it had been a couple of years since he’d tried this, and he’d filled out in those years. So had Byrd. Molly might be scared, but she was the only one guaranteed to fit through. Unless, of course, Wade got stuck and blocked her way.

  Wade was not normally claustrophobic, but the idea that he might get trapped began to haunt him. Did the passageway narrow toward the end? What if something shifted above him and the ceiling dropped suddenly?

  Before the panic could get too severe, though, he reached into a wider space. He was nearly through. Grabbing the sides of the passageway’s mouth, he hauled himself out. With one hand above his head to make sure he didn’t bean himself on the ceiling, he stood and stretched. Plenty of room. He turned back to the opening and flashed the light though briefly. Molly waited on the far end.

  “Nothing to it, Molly. Just crawl forward, and watch your head.”

  “She’s cool,” Byrd said.

  “Yeah, I’m c-cool.”

  For about the millionth time, Wade regretted that she had been there for that first discussion of his suspicions, and especially regretted that she had trailed along. Risking Byrd’s life was bad enough, but at least Byrd was old enough to make that decision for himself. Molly had been driven by hero-worship of her older brother—and, Wade had to admit, maybe a little of him as well.

  He followed her progress by the scuffling sounds she made through the passageway and by her labored, sniffly breathing. Soon her flailing hand swatted his leg, and he reached inside to help her out. “You’re through, Molly, that’s awesome!”

  “Thanks,” she said softly, getting to her feet, balancing with the help of a hand on the rock wall. “Byrd’s turn now.”

  Wade flashed the light down the passage again. “Byrd,” he said quietly. “Move it or lose it!”

  “On the way,” Byrd said. He ducked into the opening as Wade thumbed the light off. He made a lot more noise crawling through than Molly had, and he swore a few times when he barked his knuckles or knees against the rock, but he emerged a few minutes later.

  “I feel like he’s right behind me,” Byrd said when he gained his feet. “Like he was breathing on my neck in there.”

  “He’s not that close,” Wade countered. “But we should get a move-on.”

  “Roger that, good buddy.”

  Wade beamed the waning light ahead of them, illuminating the way down a tunnel almost wide enough for the three of them side by side. It was probably eight feet high, the ceiling lost in shadow. It tapered again soon, and the first side tunnel entered from the left shortly after that.

  They had barely entered it when they heard a scraping noise from right outside the cave opening. They froze.

  “Okay, then,” Dad said. “At least y’all are makin’ this interesting. But it’s gettin’ late, so it’s time to wr
ap it up, children. You and me, we’re going to have us a good time now.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  “Come on,” Wade said. He played the pathetic flashlight around the tunnel so they’d all have a sense of its dimensions. “We’ve got to find a place to hide.”

  “You think he can crawl through there?” Byrd asked.

  “He’s a human cockroach, man. I wouldn’t bet against him.”

  They rushed through the tunnel as fast as they dared. Where it curved slightly to the left, Wade risked a glance over his shoulder. He saw light flashing around on the far side of the passageway, some of it spilling through. The old man had already made it into their special cave.

  “Faster,” Wade urged.

  “Won’t do us any good if we clock ourselves on one of these walls or a low ceiling,” Byrd said.

  “Maybe not, but I’d rather take my chances with that than get a bullet in the back.”

  “Good point.”

  Molly grabbed Byrd’s hand, and they picked up the pace. The flashlight flickered and died just after they rounded the bend. Wade smacked it to life again, but it was even fainter than before. Just a glowing bulb now, its beam hardly cut the blackness ahead.

  “I hear you!” Dad shouted. “I’m right behind you!”

  His voice bounced around the cavern walls, making it sound like he was all around them. Wade shivered. They couldn’t speed up any more—running in here would be suicidal. If his father started firing that gun, and the bullets ricocheted around like his voice did, they’d all be dead meat.

  “We’ve got to hide Molly someplace safe,” he said.

  “I want to stay with you guys!” Molly pleaded.

  “It’s too dangerous,” Byrd said. “Wade’s right. We need to find someplace we can tuck you in, somewhere small so he won’t see you.”

  “But, Byrd—”

  “No buts,” Byrd snapped, sounding like every parent who had ever lived.

  “Down here,” Wade said, drawing the other two into the side tunnel. It was narrower than the main one, tight enough that his shoulders bumped the sides. He tried to remember where it went, but he couldn’t. It either intersected another, slightly larger tunnel…or it didn’t. He drew a blank.