Kathy Reichs - Cross bones

Surprised? Wary? Rearming? The Hevrat Kadisha fell silent.

Extending both arms, Jake flexed his legs, and torqued himself up and out.

When Jake’s boots cleared the opening, I followed. Halfway up I felt a hand on my waistband, then I was kneeling on the hillside.

The jolt to sunlight was blinding. My pupils went to pinpoints. My eyes slammed shut.

I opened them to one of the strangest scenes I’ve ever witnessed.

OUR ATTACKERS WORE BROAD-BRIMMED HATS AND LONG-COATEDblack suits. Bearded and side-curled, each looked hotter and angrier than the next.

Okay. My mental image had been spot-on. But I’d been way off on the numbers.

As Jake again wished the men peace and opened discussion, I took a quick count.

Forty-two, including a couple of kids under the age of twelve, and another half dozen who looked to be teenagers. Apparently ultra-Orthodoxy was a growth industry.

Hebrew flew around me. Based on my newly acquired vocabulary, I was able to grasp that Jake and I were being accused of having taken or done something forbidden, and that some thought we were the children of Satan. I assumed Jake was denying both charges.

Men and boys shouted, glasses and clothing coated with dust. Some bobbed, side curls bouncing like tethered Slinkys.

After several minutes of animated dialogue, Jake focused on a gray-hair who seemed to be the alpha male, probably a rabbi. As the two spoke, the others fell silent.

The rabbi bellowed, face raspberry, pointed finger wagging in the sunlight. I caught the word “ashem.” Shame.

Jake listened, replied calmly, the voice of reason.

Eventually, the foot soldiers of Orthodoxy grew restless. Some resumed shouting. Some shook fists. A few of the younger men, probably yeshiva students, picked up stones.

I kept my eye on the latter.

After a fruitless ten minutes, Jake raised his hands in an I-give-up gesture. Turning to me he said, “This is pointless. We’re out of here.”

I joined him, and together we circled left.

The rabbi yelled a command. The battalion split. The right flank stayed at the tomb. The left flank stuck to Jake and me.

With long strides, Jake began climbing up out of the Kidron. I followed, taking two steps to every one of his.

Yard after yard I scrambled, panting, sweating, hauling myself up on rocks, vines, and bushes. My hip screamed. My legs grew heavy.

Now and then I glanced downhill. A dozen black hats dogged my trail. My neck and back stayed stiff, anticipating the impact of cobble on cranium.

Fortunately, our pursuers spent their days in temples and yeshivas, not gyms. Jake and I left the valley well in the lead.

A half dozen cars now occupied the clearing behind Silwan. Jake’s truck was where we’d left it, but the driver’s side window was not. Tiny cubes of glass flashed sunlight from the ground. Both the truck’s doors were open, and papers, books, and clothing lay tossed about.

“Shit!” Jake sprinted the last few yards, and began grabbing his belongings and tossing them into the back.

I joined in. Within seconds we’d gathered everything, slammed ourselves in, and hit the locks.

The first black hats crested the summit as Jake turned the key, palmed the gearshift, and hit the gas. The wheels spun, and we lurched forward, two plumes of dust following our wake.

I looked back.

The men were wiping brows, replacing headwear, shaking fists. They looked like a jittering troupe of black marionettes, momentarily tangled, but firm in their belief God was pulling the strings.

Jake made a left, then a right out of the village. I kept my eyes on the rear window.

At the blacktop, Jake slowed and put a hand on my arm to calm me.

“Think they’ll follow?” I asked.

Jake’s fingers closed like a vise.

I turned to him.

And felt yet another rush of fear.

Jake’s left hand was gripping the wheel hard. Too hard. His knuckles protruded like bony white knobs. His face was pasty and his breath was coming in short, shallow gasps.

“Are you all right?”

The truck was losing speed, as though Jake couldn’t keep his mind on both accelerating and steering.

Jake turned to me. One pupil was a speck, the other a vacant black hole.

I grabbed the wheel just as Jake collapsed forward onto it, his boot dropping full on the gas.

The truck lurched. The speedometer rose. Twenty. Twenty-two. Twenty-five.

My first reaction was panic. Naturally, that didn’t slow the pickup.

My brain kicked in.

One-arming Jake against the seat back, I grabbed the wheel.

The truck continued gathering speed.

While steering with my left hand, I struggled to shift Jake’s leg with my right. The leg was dead weight. I couldn’t lift or jostle it sideways.

The truck was on a downslope and accelerating fast. Twenty-seven. Thirty.

I tried shoving Jake’s leg. Kicking it with my heel.

My movements jerked the wheel. The truck swerved and a tire dropped onto the shoulder. I corrected. Gravel flew, and the truck hopped back up onto the pavement.

Trees were clipping by faster and faster. We hit thirty-five. I had to do something.

The Mount of Olives formed a sheer rock face on the left. Twenty yards up, I saw a recess fronted by a small clearing overgrown with brambles.

I fought the urge to spin the wheel. Not yet. Wait.

Please, God! Hold the traffic!

Now!

I swung the wheel left. The truck veered over the center line and careened on the rims of two wheels. Abandoning my attempts at steering, I wedged both hands under Jake’s thigh and heaved upward. His boot lifted a few millimeters. The engine hitched and backed off.

The truck shattered a wooden guardrail, pitched sideways, and slid, spewing dirt and gravel. Brambles and cold, Cambrian rock closed in.

I yanked Jake toward me and down. Then I threw myself over him, arms covering our heads.

Branches clawed the side panels. Something popped against the windshield.

I heard a loud metallic crunch, felt a jolt, and Jake and I pitched into the wheel.

The engine cut off.

No voice called out. No bee bumbled. No car whizzed past. Just the silence of the Mount and my own frenzied breathing.

For several heartbeats, I stayed motionless, feeling adrenaline making the rounds.

Finally, one bird threw out a tentative caw.

I sat up and checked Jake. His forehead had a lump the size of a bluepoint oyster. His eyelids looked mauve, and his skin felt clammy. He needed a doc. Pronto.

Could I move him?

Would the engine turn over?

Opening my door against the resistance of the brambles, I slid to the ground, and plowed my way around the truck.

Pull Jake out? Shove him sideways?

Jake was six-six and weighed 170. I was five-five and weighed, well, less.

Fighting vegetation, I yanked the driver’s side door and stepped in. I was wriggling an arm under Jake’s back when a vehicle slowed and left the pavement behind me. Gravel crunched as it rolled to a stop.

A Samaritan? A zealot?

Withdrawing my arm, I turned.

White Corolla. Two men in front.

The men looked at me through the windshield. I looked back.

The men conferred.

My gaze dropped to the license plate. White numbers, red background.

Relief flooded through me.

Both men got out. One wore a sport jacket and khakis. The other wore a pale blue shirt with black epaulettes, black shoulder patch, and black braided cord looping the armpit and running into the left breast pocket. A silver pin over the right pocket proclaimed in Hebrew what I assumed to be the cop’s name.

“Shalom.”The cop had a high forehead capped by a thin blond crew cut. He looked about thirty. I gave him two years until he started pricing hair plugs.