John Sandford: Shadow Prey

"Don't come see me off," Lily said. "I don't know if I could handle things, if you and David were there at the same time."

"Okay," Lucas said.

"And could you…"

"What?"

"Could you leave?" she said, in a tiny, distant voice that squeaked toward despair. "If you stay any longer I'll cry, and crying hurts…"

Lucas stood awkwardly, shuffled his feet, then leaned over and kissed her again. She caught his shirt in her hand, pulling him, and the kiss went on, fiercer, with heat, until suddenly she let go and instead of pulling him, pushed against his chest.

"Get the fuck out of here, Davenport," she said. "We can't start this again, God damn it, get the fuck out of here."

"Lily…"

"Lucas, please…"

He nodded and took a breath, let it go. "See you." He couldn't think of anything else to say. He backed out of the hospital room, looking into her eyes until the swinging door flapped shut.

At the nurses' desk, he asked his friend what time Lily would check out. Ten o'clock, he was told, with an ambulance scheduled to drive to the St. Paul municipal airport, where she would be loaded into a private jet.

Lucas drove out to the airport the next morning in his Ford four-by-four, and sat and watched as Lily was lifted from the ambulance and wheeled in a chair through the gate to the waiting jet. David bent over her, still wearing the blue seersucker suit, his hair rumpled in the wind. He looked like an academic. David.

They had to carry Lily up the steps to the jet. As they picked her up, Lucas felt her eyes on him, but she never raised a hand. She looked at him for three seconds, five, and then was gone.

The jet left and Lucas rolled out of the airport toward the Robert Street bridge.

He talked to Jennifer that afternoon. She wanted to set up a visitation schedule, she said, so Lucas could see Sarah. Lucas said he wanted to talk. She asked if Lily was gone and Lucas said yes. She wasn't sure if she wanted to talk, Jennifer said, but she would meet him. Not today, not tomorrow. Sometime soon. Next week, next month. She couldn't forget about those last minutes at the house, when Shadow Love was dying, the baby was hurt, and Lucas wouldn't let her call… She was trying to forget, but she couldn't…

That was Thursday. He went to the games group that night, and played. Elle asked him about the shotgun. It was gone, he said. He hadn't felt its touch since the shootout. He felt fine, he said, but he thought he might be lying.

Everything should have been fine, but it didn't feel quite right. He felt as though he were in the last hours of a prolonged journey on speed, in the mental territory where everything has more contrast than it does in real life, where buildings overhang in a threatening way, where cars move too fast, where people talk too loud, where sideways looks in bars can mean trouble. That lasted through the weekend, and began to fade early in the next week.

A little more than three weeks after the shootout, on a Saturday afternoon, Lucas sat in an easy chair and watched an lowa-Notre Dame football game. Notre Dame was losing and no amount of prayer would help. It was a relief when the phone rang. He picked it up and heard the hiss of the long-distance satellite relay.

"Lucas?" Lily, her voice soft and husky.

"Lily? Where are you?"

"I'm at home. I'm looking out the window."

"What? Out the window?" He flashed on the first time he'd seen her in the hallway at the police station: her dark eyes, her hair slightly askew, strands of it falling across her graceful neck…

"David and the boys are down in the street, loading the van. They're leaving for Fort Lauderdale, on a father-son big-game fishing trip. First time for the boys…"

"Lily…"

"Lucas, Jesus, I'm starting to cry…"

"Lily…"

"They'll be gone for a week, Lucas-my husband and the boys," she groaned. "Ah, fuck, Davenport, this is so fuckin' miserable…"

"What? What?"

"Can you come to New York?" Her voice had gone rough, sensual, dark. "Can you come in tomorrow?"

In the End…

Leo climbed the dark side of Bear Butte, through the loose rubble, through the fine black sand, slipping at times, using his hands, moving steadily toward the peak.

The night still gripped the world when he reached the top. He eased himself down on a convenient hump, took the blanket-roll off his shoulders and wrapped the rough army wool around himself.

To the south, he could see the lights of Sturgis and 1-90, and beyond that, the Stygian darkness of the Black Hills. In every other direction, the only break in the night came from yard lights on the scattered ranches.

The sunrise was spectacular when it came.

In the west, the stars were as bright and as profuse as ever; in the east, there was a growing pale light at the knife-edged horizon. Suddenly, with the unexpectedness of a shooting star, there was aflame at the horizon, a flowing golden presence as the world turned into the sun.

The sunlight touched the top of the butte long before it flooded theflatlands, so from the top he could watch the dawn racing toward him, rippling over the empty countryside below. Leo sat with the blanket around his shoulders, his eyes half closed. When the light crossed through the base of the butte, he sighed, turned and looked west, watching the day chase the night into Wyoming.

There was a lot to do.

A lot of talk about the Crows and about Shadow Love.

Legends to build.

Leo said a quick prayer and started down. The last of the stars were going and he looked up at them as he dropped over the crest.

"See you guys," he said. "Flatheaded motherfuckers."