Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

I woke at dawn to find a mile-long line of vehicles parked beneath the cliff we had camped on.

Turned out that our hill overlooked a northbound highway that was now filled with a mix of Path and conscripted civilian trucks. The convoy was bookended by heavily armed Humvees and led by a minesweeper that had come to a stop and was surrounded by a small company of soldiers.

All along the line, drivers had left their cabs to lean over their engines or pace impatiently along the highway shoulder. Bear stretched out beside me, watching the trucks with his ears at attention.

“Supply convoy,” I said. “If we’re lucky, it’ll run right along the western front to the Utah border. Maybe farther.”

Bear looked at me quizzically.

“You feeling lucky?”

Bear huffed impatiently and thumped the ground with his paws.

“Yeah, me neither. Come on.”

Bear followed as I crept down a narrow trail. Rocks and slick patches of dusty sand slipped underneath my feet. A night of rest had blunted the knifelike throb of my injuries, but just barely. Bear seemed better off, though, navigating each obstacle like he was born on a mountain. I had to keep a hold on his collar the whole way down, afraid that if either of us hurried, we’d be seen and it would be game over.

We crouched behind a low outcropping of rock at the foot of the cliff. A silver-and-red eighteen-wheeler sat directly across from us. Its driver was circling his rig nervously, eager to go, and watchful. No help there. Ahead of him sat five more civvy trucks. Their cargo doors were open, but they were surrounded by groups of drivers talking and waiting for the signal to move.

Bear and I kept low and close to the cliff face as we went down the line of trucks, studying each one in turn. We came to the second to the last, a beleaguered-looking blue-and-white tractor-trailer. The driver stood at the back by his open cargo door, pulling out and restowing pallets of bread and boxes of dry goods.

There was a radio squawk from the cab of the truck, and the driver ran around to get it, leaving the cargo door hanging open. The driver in the truck behind him was nowhere to be seen, and the Humvees at the rear of the convoy were empty. It was our chance. I pulled at Bear’s collar and we both sprinted toward the highway.

When we reached the rear of the truck, I scooped Bear up and tossed him into the cargo hold. I climbed up after him and he circled my legs, panting and pawing at me as I pushed us back to the far end of the trailer. I sat us down behind a set of shelving units that ran floor to ceiling down the truck. The driver’s door slammed again. Bear surged forward but I grabbed him, holding him back into my chest with my cast. I had to clasp my other hand over his muzzle to keep him quiet.

Footsteps came down the asphalt on the other side of the truck’s wall. Bear tried to squirm away and I petted him slowly across his back to calm him.

“Shhh,” I breathed into his ear. “Shhh.”

The footsteps paused at the back of the truck, and I listened with every cell in my body, heart thumping. Boots shifted against sandy asphalt and then he climbed up into the trailer. I held Bear tight, but he managed to wiggle his muzzle out of my hand and loose one sharp bark.

“Rup!”

My heart seized as it resounded off the close metal walls in the truck.

“Hello?”

Bear squirmed as I wedged us back into the corner, my mind spinning uselessly, searching for a plan. The man started moving again. I needed time, and there was only one thing that might get it for me. I let go of Bear and he jumped into the aisle and ran to the driver.

“Rup! Rup rup!”

“Well, hello. How did you get up here?”

Bear’s tag jangled as the man wrestled with him. I felt the butt of Quarles’s revolver sticking into my back, but I knew pulling it was out of the question. With so many soldiers around, the driver would know that shooting was an empty threat. Still, I dropped my hand beside it just in case while I tried to come up with a story.

“Somebody else back here?”

Bear’s paws scrabbled against the wooden deck, with the driver’s boots echoing behind him. Next thing I knew, Bear was piling into my lap, and I was looking up into the face of the truck driver.

His dark eyes were set deep within brown skin. He wore an untucked western shirt and worn boots. A chewed-up pencil was tucked behind one ear. We both froze a moment and then he looked out the back of the truck. I gripped the revolver, sure he was going to call for help, but then he slowly lowered himself to my level.

“Got a name, kid?” he asked.

I hesitated, my mouth dry as the desert floor. Had the Cormorant MPs released my name?

“Henry,” I said, just to be safe.

“Henry,” he repeated with a scant grin that might have said he didn’t believe me and didn’t particularly care. “My name’s Grey. Grey Solomon. When’s the last time you ate, kid?”

“When did I—”

Grey pulled a paper-wrapped package off a shelf and tossed it to me. “You’re as skinny as a leaf. Here.”

Bear dove for the package, shoving his nose inside and pawing at the wrapper. Grey laughed and hauled him off.

“Take it easy,” he said. “Here. One for you too.”

He threw another onto the floor. Bear jumped off my lap and buried his face in it, snorting as he devoured a small loaf of bread.

Grey turned back to me. “It’s okay,” he said. “Go ahead.”

My stomach groaned at the idea of food. I opened the package and ate slowly.

“Don’t know what it is,” Grey said. “But the thought of somebody not eating just doesn’t sit right with me. You’re a runner, I guess.”

“A runner?”

“You a novice running from the Path?”

Everything about Grey said citizen to me, but there wasn’t the blaze of a fanatic in his eyes, just a kind of amused weariness. Still, it was best to be careful.

“No, sir,” I said, keeping my voice small. “I’m a citizen. Farmhand on a ranch down south.”

I moved forward, just enough so that my bruised face fell into the light. I set my cast on one bent knee, wincing as I did it.

“Who did this to you?”

“No one. I’m—”

“Son…”

“Our beacon,” I admitted, quickly formulating a story. “He was… doing some things he shouldn’t have been. Figured out I knew about it.”

“And you saw a way to escape.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bear finished his bread and returned to Grey to beg for more. Grey pulled him close and scratched at his side.

“Where you headed?”

“Utah,” I said. “North of Salt Lake City. I have a few relatives up there.”

Grey considered a moment. Bear yipped as a driver behind us cranked his engine to life.

“Look,” I said, getting to my feet, “I don’t want to cause anybody trouble. I’ll take Bear and go. You can—”

Grey stopped me with a hand to my chest. I could see his mind turning fast as he stared out the back of the truck. More engines started up ahead and behind. The convoy was getting ready to move. The truck behind us blew his horn, and Grey waved him down.

“Okay, kid, you just stay here and I’ll—”

“Yo! Mr. Solomon! Time to go!”

Three Path soldiers jumped up into the truck. The leader stopped cold the second he saw me. He was bald and sinewy in desert-tan fatigues. A subtle nod from him sent the other two to opposite sides of the truck. Everyone’s hands were on their weapons. Bear jumped forward, eager to meet his new friends, but I held him back by his collar.