John Gilstrap - At all costs

True to form, Travis had slept soundly through the whole night, while Jake and Carolyn took turns pretending to sleep and watching for trouble. The direness of their situation still hadn’t hit either one of them fully, although, as the hours stretched on, Jake found himself becoming progressively more bitter about the whole thing. What kind of warped individual could put another human being through this kind of torment? He berated himself for not having done something about it fourteen years ago, when all the evidence trails were still fresh, and when people might actually have believed as outlandish a story as the one they had to tell.

Such thoughts were counterproductive, he knew, but at zero-dark-early, in the hills of West Virginia, when you’re sitting with a gun in your lap wondering if you’d actually have the guts to shoot someone to protect your family from harm, it was hard to keep your brain on track.

Finally, as the sun rose above the horizon, he’d had enough of waiting and decided it was time to move on. Carolyn had fallen back to sleep, though, and as he turned the key, she jumped.

“Sorry,” he said, trying not to laugh at the outrageous look on her face.

It took her a second or two to figure out what was happening, and then she relaxed, bringing her hand to her chest. “Jesus, that scared me.” She stretched and yawned noisily.

“Is Travis still asleep?” he asked, not wanting to turn all the way around to look.

She pivoted in her seat. “I think so,” she said. “His eyes are closed, anyway.”

They drove in silence for a long time after that, something clearly on Carolyn’s mind. Jake didn’t press, though. He knew she’d come out with it sooner or later. “You shouldn’t have told him everything,” she said at last. “Why get him so involved?”

“He’s got to be aware of the danger.”

“The poor boy must be scared to death.”

Ah, the guilt card, Jake thought. No one plays that one better than Carolyn. “He needs to know enough to be careful. And that the stakes are huge.”

“But you told him too much.”

Here we go. “So you want me to un tell him somehow?” God, he was sick of feeling defensive.

Jake possessed an arsenal of facial expressions, any one of which could launch Carolyn’s temper into the stratosphere. It was this one, though-the smug, know-it-all smirk-that propelled her into orbit. “No,” she snapped. “I want you to remember that he’s only thirteen years old. He’s just a boy.”

“Got it,” Jake said. “Thirteen years old. I’ve been wondering about that all morning. Thanks for the reminder.”

She opened her mouth for another round, but then shut it again. She’d said her piece, and he’d said his. Getting along was important now. She let it go. Or tried to, anyway.

As the terrain became steadily more vertical, the roads shrank from four lanes to two; winding ribbons of black, snaking through endless miles of switchbacks and meandering curves. Jake hadn’t been down this road in well over a year, and it was bad then. Now the worn, potholed roadbed bounced them like they were on a trampoline. Between the weight of the vehicle, its rear-wheel drive, and the hazardous road conditions, he found himself wondering if perhaps this ride wasn’t the most hazardous aspect of their entire plan. Thank God for seat belts. Otherwise, they’d have been bounced through the ceiling by now.

Miraculously, Travis slept through it all.

Soon enough, the ride went from treacherous to positively boring. They’d skimped on engine size when they purchased the van, forgoing the optional V-8 in favor of the standard V-6, and now they were paying the price. The additional weight of the family, combined with the load of supplies, completely maxed out the vehicle’s capabilities going uphill. Currently, Jake found himself trapped behind a tractor-trailer loaded with telephone poles, doing twenty miles an hour, with no hope of pulling past.

“Did you ever really think it would come to this?” Carolyn asked. Her voice carried an emotion that Jake didn’t quite recognize. Sadness maybe, but not quite.

He answered her softly, not entirely sure what she hoped to hear. “I used to,” he said. “You know, back at the beginning. In the last couple of years, though, I’d talked myself out of it. I let myself believe we’d made it. I let my guard down. I’m sorry.”

She let his answer just hang in the air for a while, not saying anything. Then she ran her fingers into her hair and made a growling sound. “I’m not doing as well as I thought I would,” she confessed.

He smiled. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, if you promise not to make a scene.”

He saw her head turn in his peripheral vision.

“Neither am I. In fact, I’m scared as hell.” As more silence filled the van, he couldn’t let pessimism prevail. “We’ll make it, though. I promise you, we’ll get out of this somehow.”

For another full minute, they each pondered worries too awful to articulate. Carolyn broke first. “So what’s next?”

He turned. “Next?”

“Yeah, next. Let’s say we make it as far as the Den…”

“Oh, we’ll make it, all right.”

She waved off his defensiveness. “Yeah, okay. When we get all the way to the Den. What happens next?”

“We sleep?”

She rolled her eyes. She hated him when he was intentionally obtuse. “Come on, Jake! What do we do tomorrow? And the next day, and the one after that?”

He shrugged. “We live.” He stated it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We live, we wait, we make a life for ourselves as best we can. You know that. Then, when the time is right, we try coming out again and making the best of it. That’s the plan; that’s always been the plan. You know this.”

“And that’s what’s been gnawing at me,” she blurted. “You’re right. It’s always been the plan, but there’s no future in it. We might as well all go to jail together.”

Instantly, she realized she’d pressed the wrong button. Jake twisted his neck the way he did when he was angry, and he opened and closed his fists around the steering wheel. “I guess there’s a reason why you’re bringing this up now, after it’s too late to do anything?”

“I’m just stating my concerns…”

He cut her off. “Then keep them to yourself. I’ve invested way too much time and effort into this to have you start tearing it apart now.”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t say!” she declared. “If I have a concern, I’ll damn well let you know about it.”

“Why?” His tone was combative, but the question was real. “What do we possibly have to gain by your second-guessing now? The situation is what it is, and we are where we are. It’s truly that simple. How many times did I ask you to come here with me?”

“And do what with Travis?”

“Bring him along! He’d have loved it.”

She set her jaw angrily and turned to face out the window. “Well, Mr. Secrecy, you always were so paranoid about anybody finding out about this.”

“Paranoid?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “We’ve got warrants out for our arrest-for murder. We’re at the top of the Most Wanted list-at least, we were. And I’m paranoid for wanting to keep a few secrets?”

She held up her hands, as if surrendering. “Look,” she pronounced. “I’m only saying that maybe we should have more of a plan than just heading out into the middle of nowhere to wait for God knows what.”

He thumped the steering wheel with his palm. “And what would you have us do, Carolyn? Get on an airplane? A bus? A boat maybe? Perhaps we could go back to the Rebel Yell and check in for the year. Hell, with the cash we’ve got in the bag there, we could stay at the Plaza for a month! But you know what? There’s people there, Carolyn. There’s not a single plane, train, bus, or boat that we could get on without being spotted in a heartbeat.”