Time to Run

by Marliss Melton

  Sara helped him while trying to assess how badly he’d cut himself. Her gaze fell to the small box of tools at Kendal’s feet. She guessed by their shape and size that they were tools for whittling. Kendal had probably found them in Chase’s closet. “Oh, honey,” she admonished, darting a worried look at Chase’s set face. “You should have asked first.”

  Chase bent down and closed the box. “Come into the house,” he said shortly. He led the way, carving a path back across the field.

  He left Sara in the kitchen to wash and tend Kendal’s cut while he went to retrieve a first-aid kit from his car. Sara was relieved to see that the nick in Kendal’s finger wasn’t so deep that it required stitches. Wrapping it in a paper towel, she turned to accept the bandage that Chase handed her.

  They stood there in an uncertain knot as Sara waited for the bleeding to stop. Kendal stared at the door like he couldn’t wait to dash outside again. Both he and Sara waited on pins and needles for Chase to start lecturing.

  Sure enough, he was the first to speak. “You still want to learn to whittle?” he asked.

  Kendal lifted a startled, questioning look at him. “Yes, sir,” he murmured.

  Sara held her breath, ready to defend her son if the need arose.

  “You think you should have asked first before you took the tools?”

  Kendal tucked his chin to his chest. “S-sorry,” he stammered.

  A tense silence stole around them.

  “Apology accepted,” Chase finally answered, cutting a measuring look at Sara. “With your mother’s permission, I’ll show you how to whittle tonight.”

  Kendal shot her a pleading look.

  “That’s fine with me,” Sara said, in a voice breathy with relief. “Just be careful,” she added.

  “Take care of that finger,” Chase said to Kendal. And then he turned away, slipping out of the rear door with barely a sound.

  As it tapped shut, Kendal and Sara shared a look of mutual wonder. Neither of them needed to say out loud what they were thinking: Chase wasn’t anything like Garret.

  Chapter Seven

  Kendal watched Chase unscrew the nut that held the cover down on the truck’s carburetor. Morning sunlight blazed through the cracks in the barn’s eastern wall, laying a stripe of gold across Chase’s scarred knuckles.

  “You ever work on engines, Ken?” Chase had asked when Kendal wandered into the barn that morning.

  “No,” Kendal had replied, trying to back away.

  “Grab that stepladder. I could use your help.”

  With a heavy heart, Kendal had toted the ladder to Chase’s side. Last night, Chase had taught him how to whittle pine, and even though he was clumsy, following Chase’s directions with difficulty, the man had never yelled at him. It wasn’t wariness that made Kendal drag his feet. It was his reluctance to leave. He didn’t want Chase to fix the truck.

  With a dull mind, he listened to Chase explain what the various components of the engine were. The realization that he was expecting him to keep the truck running after they left made his stomach hurt.

  “Old filters get clogged,” Chase was saying. “All this black stuff gums it up, and the engine can’t breathe. When it starts to cough, you spray the filter with this.” He snatched up a can that rattled as he shook it. “Here, you try.”

  Kendal took the can reluctantly. He had to stand tiptoe on the rickety stepladder.

  “A little more,” Chase prompted. “I’m gonna leave an extra can in the glove compartment. Go ahead and put the lid back on.”

  Kendal slid the cover into place. Given the Band-Aid on his finger, it took several attempts to thread the nut onto the bolt and screw it down tight.

  “Done,” said Chase. He moved to the front of the engine, making it necessary for Kendal to pick up the stepladder and follow him. Chase removed a black cap and pulled out a long, metal stick. “This here’s the oil gauge.”

  It took a second to realize that Chase was saying “oil” and not “all.”

  “Old cars and trucks burn oil, so you got to check the oil level. Like this.” He snatched up the rag that lay on the fender, swiped the stick, then stuck it all the way in and out again. “The oil level ought to be between these marks.” He showed it to Kendal. “What do you see?”

  “There’s not enough,” Kendal guessed.

  “Right—10-W-40,” Chase instructed, holding up a plastic bottle. “I’ll leave two of these in the glove compartment along with the filter spray.”

  His baritone drawl reminded Kendal of a cat’s purr.

  He watched as Chase poured amber liquid into the opening. It went gallup, gallup, gallup. Kendal’s gaze slid up Chase’s arm toward the muscle made evident by the cutoff sleeves of his T-shirt. He wondered if he’d ever have muscles like that.

  Or a tattoo like that. He’d seen it a number of times, but for the first time, he noticed that the skeleton with flowing, black hair was holding a baby, and his thoughts flashed to the gravestones outside. It was then that he made the connection.

  If that was Chase’s mother, then the one with the headdress had to be his grandpa, which meant that the big one was Chase’s father, who’d died when he was a boy.

  “Somethin’ you want to ask me, Ken?” Chase asked, intercepting Kendal’s stare.

  Kendal jerked his gaze away. “No, sir.”

  Chase just looked at him with eyes that were the same deep blue as the sky here.

  “How old were you when your dad died?” Kendal heard himself ask. He hoped it wasn’t one of those questions you weren’t supposed to ask.

  “Five,” Chase said easily.

  “Did you miss him?”

  Chase shrugged. “Missed him later. When I was old enough to realize that he wasn’t comin’ back.”

  The answer made Kendal uncomfortable. He didn’t want to miss his father—ever. “I don’t miss my dad.” He looked down at the dirt floor, embarrassed to have said such a terrible thing.

  “Well, I don’t miss my stepdad none,” Chase replied, as casually as if they were discussing the weather. “He was mean.”

  “Yeah, mean,” Kendal repeated, relieved that Chase understood.

  “My grandpa told me to forget the bad stuff, though,” Chase added. “Makes a man angry.”

  Kendal felt angry every time he thought about his father.

  “So I work on remembering the good stuff. Ol’ Linc taught me how to fix things, like this truck,” Chase added. “If it weren’t for him, things would break, and I’d have to pay other people to fix ’em.”

  Kendal thought of something good that his father had taught him, like the importance of good grades.

  Chase reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “See if the truck starts,” he said, holding them out.

  Kendal balked. “I never did that before.”

  “First time for everything,” Chase replied. “Use the key with the square head.”

  “’Kay.” With his mouth dry, Kendal took the keys. Putting the stepladder away, he climbed into the driver’s side door, fumbling to insert the proper key into the ignition.

  “Give it a turn,” Chase called out, “and hold it there till the engine cranks over.”

  Holding his breath, Kendal turned the key. The old truck coughed three or four times before giving a throaty roar. He snatched his hand back. Cool.

  But the truck was running.

  And his heart sank. Just when he was getting used to this place, they were getting ready to leave it. He didn’t want to leave. Sure, it had been scary when they first got here, with the stranger running out of the house, then finding the headstones under the tree.

  But since then, he’d grown to like it. He liked how the sky was bigger here, but it was so quiet that you could hear a hawk screaming way up. And in the evening, when the sun set, the whole sky turned orange, and the prairie grass looked like it was on fire.

  No one demanded the impossible. His mother didn’t scurry around looking tense. The only scary
thing was those squatters wanting their guns back, and as long as Chase was here, they wouldn’t dare get close.

  Leaving was a bad idea. Kendal knew it in his bones.

  “Why do I have to go to bed so early?” Kendal complained, flopping back against his pillows.

  “Because you’re grumpy,” Sara told him. “You’ve been staying up late looking for nocturnal animals, and you haven’t had enough sleep.”

  Her son was determined to spot a bobcat prowling about the ranch. For the past two nights, he’d paced the area around the house, directing a high-powered flashlight into the prairie grass, hoping to catch the reflection of a wildcat’s eyes, but no luck yet.

  Tucking the covers up around him, Sara kissed his cheek. “Good night, sweetheart.”

  “I’m not tired,” he insisted, even as he issued an enormous yawn.

  With a smile, Sara crossed the living room into the kitchen. She spent a few minutes tidying up from their evening meal. It was a peaceful chore that she enjoyed performing. How different life was without the weight of Garret’s demands to oppress her! The front door stood open, and through the screen, she could hear the crickets chirping. Chase was on the front porch, as was his custom, sipping a beer.

  For the past few nights, Sara had left him alone with Kendal, teaching him to whittle on the pine they’d collected from the tree line. Pine was soft wood, perfect for building skill with the various whittling tools.

  This evening, with Kendal in bed, and with her time here dwindling, Sara felt compelled to join him. Who knew if it would be their last moment alone together?

  The poignant thought had her asking through the screen door. “Mind if I join you?”

  He sat on the top step, his face tipped toward an indigo sky. “Naw, come out. Why don’t you grab a beer first?”

  “That’s all right.” She stepped into the cool outdoors, savoring the sweet smell of wild grasses as she determined the best place to sit. There weren’t any chairs. The porch itself, though recently swept, was crowded with empty ceramic pots. She had no choice but to sit on the step beside him.

  Glancing at the sky, she sought what was holding his attention. The sky was deepening to cobalt by the second. Here and there, stars leapt off the canvas to twinkle as brilliantly as diamonds, and the moon, which was nearly full, gleamed like a platinum disk. Crickets and nightingales played a musical accompaniment, as fruit bats whirled and flittered in a dizzy dance.

  “This is the only place in the world where the stars blink on so quick,” Chase divulged, breaking the comfortable silence.

  The sorrow-tinged note of his voice had Sara glancing at him. He kept his eye on the sky, regarding it as he must have done when he was just a boy. She kept quiet, sensing that he might say more if she didn’t ask, just listened.

  “In Malaysia, you’re lookin’ at the moon from a different angle,” he added. “There ain’t a man in the moon. Over there, it’s a rabbit.”

  “A rabbit?” she repeated, peering up at the waxing moon to seek it.

  “Sure. You can see it here, too. Just have to turn your head like this.” He tipped his head to the right.

  Sara did the same, and sure enough, there was a rabbit, complete with ears and a powder puff tail. “Oh, my gosh,” she laughed with delight.

  “You should see the sunsets in Borneo,” he added. “Unbelievable.”

  “The only place I’ve ever been outside of the States is France. I studied abroad one year in college. I’m envious that you get to travel,” she admitted.

  Chase cut a look at her. “Envious?” he repeated, with a cynical twist to his lips. “Don’t be.”

  She knew in a heartbeat that the places he’d been would frighten her in the same way that Garret had frightened her, probably worse. “Can you talk about your work?” she asked him, hoping to satisfy her curiosity once and for all.

  “What do you want to know?” he countered warily.

  “Well, what do you do? You look so different from the other SEALs.”

  “I have a no-shave chit.”

  “Why?”

  He fixed his gaze on the deep green bottle in his hand. “My work involves concealment,” he explained. “I’m not supposed to look like a SEAL.”

  “Are you a spy?” she asked quietly.

  She thought she’d guessed rightly, but he didn’t answer right away. “I watch people,” he agreed, taking a swig of his beer.

  But it was more than that. “I don’t understand . . . unless it’s top secret.” Several more seconds elapsed. “I’m a sniper,” he admitted. “My job is to protect my teammates by eliminating hostiles who interfere with the objective.”

  At this chilling explanation, the moon abruptly dimmed. The stars lost their shine. It seemed awfully dark under the eaves of the porch. Sara shivered. She thought she’d known who Chase was, but the man sitting next to her was a stranger. “Hostiles are terrorists, right?” she asked, wanting to reconcile him to the warmhearted man she’d come to know.

  “Hostiles are enemies of the state. They can be arms smugglers, drug lords, or terrorists,” he explained.

  “Oh,” she said, trying to get her mind around the fact that he killed for a living. Even if it was necessary in order to hold back the tide of evil, it was his job. My God, if she’d thought that Garret, a lawyer, was dangerous, then what did that make Chase?

  She drew a deep breath. “I think I should go in now,” she said.

  He made no apologies. “Suit yourself,” he said. Lifting the bottle to his mouth, he took another long pull.

  “Good night,” she added, squelching the urge to run.

  At the door, she glanced back.

  He had to be absolutely confident that the persons he was shooting were guilty of horrific crimes, and that not shooting them would result in greater bloodshed. But even so, didn’t his conscience spawn nightmares that kept him up at night?

  Maybe that was why he never seemed to sleep.

  Numb with shock, Sara tottered toward Marileigh’s bed- room. She and Chase were from totally different worlds. That had never seemed more obvious than it did tonight.

  When Sara awoke the next morning, the first thing she thought of was Chase’s occupation. In the light of day, it didn’t seem quite as horrific; after all, someone had to check the spread of evil while protecting the interests of the free world. But Kendal’s voice reached her ears, and realizing he was alone with Chase, she leapt out of bed mistrustfully.

  She found them at the breakfast table slurping oatmeal. Kendal had brought the whittling kit to the table. Catching sight of her he blurted, “Mom, today I’m gonna whittle hardwood!”

  Glancing at Chase’s wry smile, it was impossible to think of him as a killer. “I thought you had a million things to do today,” she pointed out.

  “I’ll stain the house this afternoon,” he said, with a shrug. “Ken’s gotten so good with pine, it’s time to take the next step. Finish your oatmeal,” he told the boy. “Then we’ll take a walk and see what we find.”

  Half an hour later, Sara watched them tramp across the dew-glistening field toward the tree line. She had no reason to believe that Chase was a danger to her child. On the contrary, he was everything that Kendal needed right now. But he was possibly a danger to her, she admitted—not in the way that Garret was. His pull on her went deeper, down into the essence of her being.

  At least she knew the truth about him, and the truth would keep her vigilant.

  Launching herself into her self-appointed tasks—scrubbing mildew from the tiles in the hallway bathroom— Sara overheard Chase and Kendal’s return. The twosome hunkered down on the porch steps, as was their custom. They spent the next several hours with their heads bent over their tools. Chase’s soft-spoken instructions reached Sara’s ears as she traveled through the living room to fetch her rubber gloves, and then a second sponge.

  By midafternoon, Kendal was skilled enough at whittling hardwood to attempt his first solo carving. But the best medium f
or that was cedar, and the only cedar on the ranch, according to Chase, grew deep in the woods beside the stream.

  “Let’s get some!” said Kendal, quivering with excitement.

  Sara was not immune to it. “Fine, but first we need to eat the sandwiches I made.”

  Following lunch, they set out on their quest, leaving Jesse to guard the house in case the skinheads decided to look for their rifles. Down the driveway they went, seeking the path that led straight to the creek.

  Over the course of eighteen years, Mother Nature had reclaimed it, casting a tapestry of foliage over any path that might have existed. Somehow, Chase had no trouble discerning which way to go.

  Stepping beneath the bower of trees was like entering a world of enchantment. Having grown up in a suburb of Washington, DC, Sara had limited contact with nature. The kaleidoscope of forest colors, the sloughing of leaves overhead, and the carpet of tender ferns charmed her. As she trailed Chase and Kendal deep into the woods, a peacefulness stole over her.

  Not even the realization that Chase’s gliding walk was a skill honed from his profession could disturb her deep contentment.

  He shot out a hand, and she startled to a stop, only to realize that he had spotted a deer. The doe stood half concealed in shadow, her eyes wide, ears twitching, tail raised like a flag. With a bleat of warning, the animal took off, crashing through the undergrowth to seek her herd.

  Chase smiled to himself, and Sara realized that he valued life and beauty, something a conscienceless killer would not.

  Unbeknownst to him—or perhaps he just pretended not to notice—Kendal began to imitate his walk.

  About a hundred yards later, Chase stopped again, and the boy crashed into him. “Listen,” he said, and Kendal tipped his head to one side, his gaze intent.

  Sara could hear it in the distance: the sound of rippling water. She knew, with a tingle of respect, that nothing escaped Chase’s notice in the forest, from the snapping of a twig, to the darting of a squirrel, to the sweat dampening her pink T-shirt on the underside of her breasts.