Sam smiled. Plenty of time to tell stories now. They’d done it. They had escaped. But it was a hollow victory.
Now they couldn’t go home.
“Okay,” Sam said. “So it’s escape or nothing.”
He set the tiller on a course that followed the long, curved barrier. Astrid found a cut-top bleach bottle and began the long job of bailing out the boat.
TWENTY-SEVEN
125 HOURS, 57 MINUTES
IT TOOK LANA far longer than she had expected to reach the end of the tire tracks. What had looked like a mile at most must have been three. And carrying the water and the food in the blazing heat had not made it easy.
It was afternoon by the time she dragged her weary feet around an outcropping from the ridge. There, before her amazed eyes, was what looked very much like an abandoned mining town. It must have been quite a camp once: There were a dozen buildings all jumbled together in the narrow, steep-walled crease of the ridge. The buildings were almost indistinguishable from one another now, mere collections of gray sticks, but there might once have been a sort of street, no more than half a block long.
It was a spooky place, silent, gloomy, with wrecked glassless windows like sad eyes staring down at her.
Behind the wreckage of the main street, out of sight of casual passersby—although why anyone would ever come to this desolate, unlovely place Lana could not imagine—was a more sturdy structure. It was built of the same gray lumber, but was still upright and topped with a tin roof. This structure was the size of a three-car garage. The tracks led there.
“Come on, boy,” Lana said.
Patrick ran ahead, sniffed at a weed near the shed’s door, and came back, tail still high.
“So there’s no one inside,” Lana reassured herself. “Or else you would have barked.”
She threw the door open, not wanting to creep in like some girl in a horror movie.
Sunlight came through dozens of holes and seams in the tin roof and knotholes in the wood. Still, it was dark.
The truck was there. Newer than her grandfather’s truck, with a longer bed.
“Hello? Hello?” She waited. Then, “Hello?”
She checked the truck first. The tank was half full. The keys were nowhere to be found. She searched every square inch of the truck and, nothing.
Frustrated, Lana began a search of the rest of the shack. It was mostly machinery. What looked like a rock crusher. Something that looked like a big vat with heat jets positioned beneath. A liquid petroleum gas tank that sat off in a corner.
“Okay. We either find the keys and probably kill ourselves driving,” Lana summarized to an attentive Patrick. “Or we walk however many miles through the heat to Perdido Beach and maybe die of thirst.”
Patrick barked.
“I agree. Let’s keep looking for the keys.”
In addition to the tall double door on the front of the shed, there was a smaller door in the back. Through this Lana found a well-trodden path that wound through ugly piles of rock, past a graveyard of rusted-steel machines, and ended in a timber-framed opening in the ground. It looked like the mountain’s surprised mouth, a crooked square of black with two broken support beams forming jagged buck teeth.
A narrow train track led into the mine.
“I don’t think we want to go in there,” Lana said.
Patrick moved cautiously closer to the opening. His hackles went up and he growled.
But he wasn’t growling at the opening.
Lana heard the rush of padded feet. Down the side of the mountain, like a silent avalanche, raced a pack of coyotes, maybe two dozen of them, maybe more.
They flowed down the mountain with shocking speed.
And as they came Lana could hear them whispering in strained, glottal voices, “Food…food.”
“No,” Lana told herself.
No. She had to be imagining that.
Lana shot a panicked look over her shoulder back at the shack now far below her. The right wing of the pack was already racing to cut her off.
“Patrick,” she yelled, and bolted for the mine entrance.
The instant they were past the threshold of the mine the temperature dropped twenty degrees. Like stepping into air-conditioning. There was no light but that which came from outside, and Lana’s eyes had no time to adjust.
There was a terrible smell. Something foul, sweet, and cloying.
Patrick turned back to face the coyotes and bristled. The coyotes boiled around the entrance to the mine, but stopped there.
Lana, half blind, felt around in the dark for something, anything. She found rocks as big as a man’s fist. She began hurling, not aiming, just frantically flinging the rocks at the coyotes.
“Go away. Shoo. Get out of here.”
None of Lana’s missiles connected with a target. The coyotes sidestepped them daintily, effortlessly, like they were playing a not very challenging game.
The pack split in two, forming a lane. One coyote, not the biggest, but by far the ugliest, walked with head high through the pack. One of his oversized ears was half torn off, he had mange that left bare patches of skin showing on the side of his shrewd muzzle, and the teeth on the left side of his mouth were partly exposed by some long-ago injury that had given him a permanent sideways snarl.
The coyote leader growled at her.
She flinched but raised a large rock in threat.
“Stay back,” Lana warned.
“No human here.” The voice was slurred, like dragged boots on wet gravel, but high-pitched.
For several long seconds Lana just stared. It wasn’t possible. But it sounded as if the voice had come from the coyote.
Now they couldn’t go home.
“Okay,” Sam said. “So it’s escape or nothing.”
He set the tiller on a course that followed the long, curved barrier. Astrid found a cut-top bleach bottle and began the long job of bailing out the boat.
TWENTY-SEVEN
125 HOURS, 57 MINUTES
IT TOOK LANA far longer than she had expected to reach the end of the tire tracks. What had looked like a mile at most must have been three. And carrying the water and the food in the blazing heat had not made it easy.
It was afternoon by the time she dragged her weary feet around an outcropping from the ridge. There, before her amazed eyes, was what looked very much like an abandoned mining town. It must have been quite a camp once: There were a dozen buildings all jumbled together in the narrow, steep-walled crease of the ridge. The buildings were almost indistinguishable from one another now, mere collections of gray sticks, but there might once have been a sort of street, no more than half a block long.
It was a spooky place, silent, gloomy, with wrecked glassless windows like sad eyes staring down at her.
Behind the wreckage of the main street, out of sight of casual passersby—although why anyone would ever come to this desolate, unlovely place Lana could not imagine—was a more sturdy structure. It was built of the same gray lumber, but was still upright and topped with a tin roof. This structure was the size of a three-car garage. The tracks led there.
“Come on, boy,” Lana said.
Patrick ran ahead, sniffed at a weed near the shed’s door, and came back, tail still high.
“So there’s no one inside,” Lana reassured herself. “Or else you would have barked.”
She threw the door open, not wanting to creep in like some girl in a horror movie.
Sunlight came through dozens of holes and seams in the tin roof and knotholes in the wood. Still, it was dark.
The truck was there. Newer than her grandfather’s truck, with a longer bed.
“Hello? Hello?” She waited. Then, “Hello?”
She checked the truck first. The tank was half full. The keys were nowhere to be found. She searched every square inch of the truck and, nothing.
Frustrated, Lana began a search of the rest of the shack. It was mostly machinery. What looked like a rock crusher. Something that looked like a big vat with heat jets positioned beneath. A liquid petroleum gas tank that sat off in a corner.
“Okay. We either find the keys and probably kill ourselves driving,” Lana summarized to an attentive Patrick. “Or we walk however many miles through the heat to Perdido Beach and maybe die of thirst.”
Patrick barked.
“I agree. Let’s keep looking for the keys.”
In addition to the tall double door on the front of the shed, there was a smaller door in the back. Through this Lana found a well-trodden path that wound through ugly piles of rock, past a graveyard of rusted-steel machines, and ended in a timber-framed opening in the ground. It looked like the mountain’s surprised mouth, a crooked square of black with two broken support beams forming jagged buck teeth.
A narrow train track led into the mine.
“I don’t think we want to go in there,” Lana said.
Patrick moved cautiously closer to the opening. His hackles went up and he growled.
But he wasn’t growling at the opening.
Lana heard the rush of padded feet. Down the side of the mountain, like a silent avalanche, raced a pack of coyotes, maybe two dozen of them, maybe more.
They flowed down the mountain with shocking speed.
And as they came Lana could hear them whispering in strained, glottal voices, “Food…food.”
“No,” Lana told herself.
No. She had to be imagining that.
Lana shot a panicked look over her shoulder back at the shack now far below her. The right wing of the pack was already racing to cut her off.
“Patrick,” she yelled, and bolted for the mine entrance.
The instant they were past the threshold of the mine the temperature dropped twenty degrees. Like stepping into air-conditioning. There was no light but that which came from outside, and Lana’s eyes had no time to adjust.
There was a terrible smell. Something foul, sweet, and cloying.
Patrick turned back to face the coyotes and bristled. The coyotes boiled around the entrance to the mine, but stopped there.
Lana, half blind, felt around in the dark for something, anything. She found rocks as big as a man’s fist. She began hurling, not aiming, just frantically flinging the rocks at the coyotes.
“Go away. Shoo. Get out of here.”
None of Lana’s missiles connected with a target. The coyotes sidestepped them daintily, effortlessly, like they were playing a not very challenging game.
The pack split in two, forming a lane. One coyote, not the biggest, but by far the ugliest, walked with head high through the pack. One of his oversized ears was half torn off, he had mange that left bare patches of skin showing on the side of his shrewd muzzle, and the teeth on the left side of his mouth were partly exposed by some long-ago injury that had given him a permanent sideways snarl.
The coyote leader growled at her.
She flinched but raised a large rock in threat.
“Stay back,” Lana warned.
“No human here.” The voice was slurred, like dragged boots on wet gravel, but high-pitched.
For several long seconds Lana just stared. It wasn’t possible. But it sounded as if the voice had come from the coyote.
