Greg Iles - The Footprints of God

Rachel was waiting by the truck, her face almost bloodless. I staggered to the side of the pickup and dumped the corpse into its bed. When she pulled at my sleeve, I spun her against the truck and untied the sleep¬ing bag from her pack. This I unzipped and threw over the dead body. To anchor the opened bag, I tossed both loaded backpacks on top of it.

"Get inside," I snapped.

She did.

I climbed into the truck bed to retrieve the ignition key from my backpack, then got behind the wheel and backed out of the trees. Twice I hit patches of mud I thought would bog us down, but by slowly rocking the truck, I managed to get clear of the woods. The SWAT team must have heard the truck's engine by now. I hit the accelerator and headed back toward the Brushy Mountain State Prison.

Only after I'd covered the first mile did I look at Rachel. She'd set her back against the door and was watching me as she would a violent patient.

"What's your story?" I asked. "How did they get to you?"

She said nothing.

When we reached 116, I didn't turn toward the peni¬tentiary but toward Caryville, where the road intersected I-75.

"You think I've been telling them where we are?" Rachel asked.

I nodded.

"Why would I do that?"

"Only you know that."

"If I'd wanted them to find you, I could have betrayed you long before now."

It started to rain again, big fat drops that splatted like bugs on the windshield. I switched on the wipers and slowed down.

"Maybe they didn't want to capture me until you'd got all the information you could out of me. Did you call them from Wal-Mart?"

She looked at me with scorn. "When that guy with the gun asked me where you were, I could have told him you were right behind me."

"You knew I had an arrow pointed at your back."

Frustration tightened her face. "Think, David. I could have hit you in the head with a rock just now. While you put that corpse in the truck."

"I'll think later. Right now I have to run."

We drove in silence for a while, heading toward the deep divide that marked the line between Morgan and Anderson Counties. A bridge appeared ahead. Despite the rain, there wasn't much water under it, but the gorge was deep, cut by years of water flowing from strip mines higher up. About a third of the way across, I pulled the truck close to the rail and stopped.

Taking the key out of the ignition, I got out and climbed into the bed of the truck. The sleeping bag cov¬ering the corpse was soggy with rain. I kicked it aside, wrestled the corpse onto my shoulder, then stood and heaved it over the bridge rail. It crashed through some branches and hit the rocks below. The sleeping bag was bloody, so I tossed it over as well. Then I got back into the cab and drove on, staying right at sixty on the twist¬ing road.

"I didn't know you had that in you," Rachel said in a dead voice. "I can't believe you're the man who wrote so movingly about compassion and ethics."

"This is survival. Everybody has it in them. You included."

"No," she said quietly. "I won't kill."

"You would." I looked her full in the face. "You just haven't been put in the right situation yet."

"Think what you want. I know myself."

The road was gradually straightening. I accelerated to seventy and shut Rachel out of my thoughts. I felt alone again, as alone as I had on the day Fielding died. I hadn't realized the degree to which Rachel had been a comfort. The hardest thing to accept about her betrayal was that it meant she had never seen me as anything more than a patient. A sick and deluded man.

A wave of heat rolled through me, leaving deep fatigue in its wake. I hoped it was a postadrenaline crash, but the ringing vibration in my teeth told me oth¬erwise. I would soon be unconscious. And this time I couldn't trust Rachel to take care of me.

"What's the matter?" she asked, looking intently at me. "You're weaving over the center line."

"Nothing."

"Get over! You're in the wrong lane."

I jerked the wheel back to the right. Maybe the strain of dumping the corpse had made me especially vulnerable to an attack. There was nothing gradual about this one. I had to stop the truck.

"Pull over!" Rachel yelled.

Trying desperately to keep my eyes open, I swerved onto a small logging road and managed to cover about a hundred yards before I had to stop. I got the truck into PARK, then pulled the dead man's automatic from my jumpsuit and aimed it at Rachel.

"Get out."

"What?"

"Get out! And leave your cell phone in here. Do it!"

She looked out the window as though she were being asked to leap off a cliff. "You can't just put me out here!"

"I'll let you back in after I wake up. If you're still here."

"David! They'll find us. Let me drive!"

I jerked the gun at her. "Do what I said!"

She laid her cell phone on the seat, then climbed out of the truck and closed the door. Her dark eyes watched me through the rain-spattered glass. As I leaned over and locked her door, the black wave rolled over me.

A city gate stood high before me, a plain arch in a wall of yellow stone. People lined the road, some waving palm fronds and cheering, others weeping. Men held a donkey for me, and I climbed upon its back. The symbolism was important. There was a prophecy to fulfill.

"This is the eastern gate, Master. Are you sure?"

"I am."

I passed through the gate on the donkey's back. I heard horns blowing. Roman soldiers watched me with wary eyes. Women ran into the street to touch my robe, my hair. The faces in the narrow street were hungry, not for food but for hope, for a reason to live.

The road vanished and became a columned temple. I sat on the steps and spoke quietly to a large group. They listened with curious, uncertain faces. The words they spoke were not the words in their minds. The words in their minds were all the same: Is he the one? Is it poss¬ble?

"You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky," I told them. "Why do you not know how to interpret the present time? I have cast fire upon the world, and I am guarding it until it blazes."

I watched the faces. Words meant different things to different people. Men seized upon what they wanted, discarded the rest. Someone asked from whence I came. Better to answer in riddles.

"Split a piece of wood and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me."

I left the temple and walked the alleys of the city. I wanted privacy, but I was accosted from all sides. Priests came to me and questioned me. Blind men could see more.

"By what authority do you say and do these things?" they asked.

I smiled. "John baptized the people. Did his authority come from heaven or from men?"

The priests answered out of fear of the mob. "Of this we are not certain."

"Then I shall not tell you by whose authority I do these things."

I left them seething in the street, but it did no good. They came to me upon a hill and questioned me at length. My answers drove them mad.

"Only a little while am I with you," I said. "Then I go back from whence I came. Whither I go, you cannot come. You shall seek me and not find me. You are of this world. I am not."

They called me a liar.

"Yet a little while the light is with you," I said. "Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you. He that follows me shall never walk in darkness."

Even as I watched them, I saw my doom in their eyes. Yet I could not turn from my path. In one priest's eyes I saw hatred, and also the death that he saw for me… a Roman punishment. But pain was not my greatest fear. A strong man could stand pain. What I could not endure was to be alone, alone again for all time-

Rachel was screaming. I blinked in confusion, and then the door at my left shoulder was yanked open. I tried to turn and see who was there, but sleep closed over me again like quicksand.