J Bryan: Dominion

After talking with Ruppert about the Bronto, Violet had one of her workers deliver the truck to a junkyard owner she knew in Billings. He returned with cash, seven thousand dollars of which she gave to Ruppert and Lucia. Ruppert had insisted Violet keep a portion of the money for herself, and she assured him she'd already taken the liberty.

On their third night, Violet and her two oldest nieces arrived just after sunset and ushered everyone out of the stables. They led them into the long, caged trailer of a cattle truck. Violet’s nieces walked to the front of the trailer and pried loose a section of one of the interior cage walls. They lifted it out of the long indentation in the aluminum floor in which the wall was set. Then they reached into the indentation, and Ruppert heard a series of clanging, snapping sounds.

Ruppert and the other adults helped them lift up two panels of the floor, revealing a shallow, hidden cargo bay. The travelers-illegal immigrants, now-would have to lie underneath the floor, side by side, for the entire journey.

“Are you driving us there?” Ruppert asked Violet.

She shook her head. “Best if you don’t see the driver, and he don’t see you.”

The travelers lay down, Ruppert next to Lucia, Nando on the far side of her. Everyone’s luggage and sleeping bags was arrayed at their feet. Violet and her nieces replaced the floor panels, and Ruppert heard the clicking as they replaced the wall. They waited for several long minutes in silence and darkness, and then a low thunder rolled across the floor above them, as if someone were tumbling boulders through the truck. They would be riding underneath a shipment of live cows.

“Are we in Canada yet?” one of the children whispered in the dark.

It was another twenty minutes before the truck finally revved up and began to move. Soon the hidden compartment was hot and sticky with body heat, and it stank of oil and gasoline, and eventually, fresh manure. The road jostled them constantly, jarring Ruppert’s spine.

The long, uncomfortable ride took more than an hour. Ruppert whispered to Sully, making sure he was handling the uncomfortable, frightening situation. Once, the truck idled in place for a painfully long time, and Ruppert wondered if they’d been stopped by the police, but nothing came of it.

Eventually the road got rougher and steeper, and they were sliding into each other, as well as banging elbows and knees against the walls of the compartment. Ruppert took a sharp jab in the ribs from Lucia’s elbow.

Then the truck stopped, reversed direction, pulled forward, reversed direction again, jostling everyone back and forth. Sully groaned. Ruppert was feeling a little ill, too.

Finally, there was heavy thumping above, and then a clanging sound, and then one of the floor panels above them lifted free. An unfamiliar young man in overalls, probably in his late teens, stood above them.

“Come on,” he said in a low voice. “Everybody grab your stuff and get moving.”

They climbed up from the compartment, Ruppert helping Sully to his feet, Nando impatient to get out into the fresh air. Cows occupied half the cages in the truck. A young woman about the same age as the boy in coveralls stood in an opened cage, luring in a cow with a bucket of grain. This must have been the cow that had been positioned on top of them the entire drive.

They exited through the open doors at the back of the trailer, into a cool, rocky corridor that slanted downward into darkness. Its shape was too regular to be a cave, and it was framed with wooden support beams-maybe an old mine shaft, or just a hastily built smuggling tunnel.

Much of the truck was not visible. The last several feet of the trailer extended through a wide square opening not much bigger than the trailer itself. Ruppert got the impression that the area behind the opening was not the outdoors, but some kind of darkened building, maybe a warehouse. He didn’t ask any questions.

“This is everybody?” The girl who’d been leading the cow away jumped down from the trailer. She wore a pair of tall hiking boots. “We go the rest of the way on foot. I’m going to lead, and Wayne here is going to be the last in line. Stay between us and you’ll be safe.”

The young bearded man-Wayne, Ruppert supposed-opened a backpack leaning against a wall of the rocky corridor. He lifted out a thin plastic ring wide enough to be a necklace, twisted and shook it, and the ring flared a glowing green. He dropped it over the head of the nearest child, who still looked pale and sick from the ride.

“Everyone takes one of these,” he said. “It’s going to be your only light for parts of the trip.” They passed the glowing green rings out to everyone, and then two young guides put on spelunking helmets and flipped on the lights set into them.

“We’re going to be walking for about an hour,” the young woman said. “When we come back up, we’ll be in Canada. There is transportation waiting on the other side, but we can’t be late, so let’s get going.” She turned and walked several yards down the tunnel.

They gathered their things and followed, Sully moving a little slow and having trouble with his balance. Ruppert took his luggage, which consisted of a dirty nylon bag that cinched with a drawstring, and carried it for him.

“Are you ready to walk, Nando?” Lucia asked.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ve done a lot of cave maneuvers before.”

“That makes one of us,” Ruppert said. “Keep an eye on your mom and make sure she stays safe.”

“I will, sir.”

Sully was already falling a few steps behind. Ruppert could see the young man at the end of the line staring at Sully and shaking his head, recognizing he could be a problem.

As promised, the tunnel was lightless, and increasingly cold, the only light provided by the guides' helmets and the glow rings around each person's neck.

He and Lucia kept Nando between them. They’d attempted to hold his hands throughout the walk, but the boy refused, so they settled for keeping a close eye on him. Like everyone else, he appeared as a disembodied, glowing green head floating through the dark.

Ruppert looked around at the floating green heads. “Where’s Sully?”

“I don’t see him,” Lucia said.

“What’s the problem now?” Wayne asked.

“Sully,” Ruppert said. “The guy who was with us.”

“Oh, the retard?” Wayne looked around. “Shit.”

“Sully?” Ruppert called. The word echoed away in both directions along the tunnel.

“Don’t do that,” Wayne said. He slowly pivoted around, panning the light in a circle. Sully was no longer with the group.

The group had stopped moving and gathered around the young woman guiding them. She walked back to ask what was happening.

“We lost the retarded guy,” Wayne said.

“He’s not retarded,” Ruppert said. “He’s been through a behavior clinic.”

“Even worse,” Wayne said. “We don’t have time to turn back.”

“You two go and look for him,” the young woman said. “We’ll wait here.”

Wayne grumbled, but he and Ruppert turned back and walked along the way they’d come. Wayne swung his head back and forth as they walked, in case Sully had managed to lose his glowing necklace.

After they’d backtracked for ten or fifteen minutes, Wayne said, “Look, he’s lost. We can’t risk everybody for him.”

“We can’t leave him,” Ruppert said. “He’d never find his way out. He’s-wait!” Ruppert grabbed Wayne’s arm. “Look back…more to the right…”

The beam found Sully, who had indeed managed to misplace his own light source. He stood back in a slight concave nook, where the tunnel had turned to avoid a bank of solid rock.

Sully was staring at his watch.