Regan Wolfrom - Coyote

“I’ve wanted to ask you girls about something, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Go ahead,” Natalie said. “Just ask us.”

“Did you know the men who attacked you? Did you recognize them from before?”

“I didn’t know them. Normal-looking guys… uh… white…” She looked over at my half-Haitian face. “Not that white is normal…”

“I’m just special,” I said.

“I don’t think they were from here,” Tabitha said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they came from another province. Or even the States.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know… they just seemed different.”

“Different how?” I could see that she was becoming more upset. “You don’t need to answer right now.”

“I think I know what she means,” Natalie said. “Everyone around here walks around like they’re still a little in shock. We all lost people in the fires, even those of us who still have our families. But these guys… they seemed more excited than heartbroken… like this was almost a game to them. A game where they seemed to have learned the rules long before the rest of us.”

“That explains their equipment,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“They might be ex-military. I’ve known guys like that. Sometimes the guys who come back really aren’t okay…”

“Like PTSD?” Natalie asked.

“Kind of… we all lose something when we’ve been deployed. Some guys never really came back in. This might have seemed like an opportunity for them.”

“An opportunity,” Tabitha said. “So that’s what you’d call it.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to minimize what they’ve done.”

“It was a roadblock,” Natalie said. “After we realized that Tabitha’s family had left… we were almost back through Clute when we ran into them… they had those animal helmets on, and one of them was standing in the back of the truck, pointing that mounted gun right at us. He started to laugh and he took off his helmet so we could see the grin on his face. That’s when I knew they weren’t going to let us go.”

“They would take shifts,” Tabitha said.

“One of them liked to wear his helmet,” Natalie said. “Visor tilted to dark. He kept it on the whole time, like he was the only one who didn’t want us to know who he was. Maybe we would have recognized him from before the fires. I’ll never forget that helmet. The coyote…”

“I’d know him if I saw him again,” Tabitha said. “I’d know.”

I wondered if I’d know him, the man with the coyote helmet. Was it Ryan Stems himself? It’s no secret that he’s always liked them young; everyone in the district has heard about that.

“I don’t want to be an ass,” I said, “but why were the two of you out there on your own?”

Tabitha shook her head. “It was stupid. I got into a fight with my parents and I took off on my bike.”

“Your bike?”

“My bicycle… I know, I’m an idiot. I rode all the way into Cochrane, telling myself that I’d be better off on my own. That’s when I ran into Natalie’s uncles. I stayed with the Girards for a couple of days, and Natalie was driving me back home. Since I hadn’t run into any trouble on the way down, we thought we wouldn’t run into any problems heading back.”

I turned to look at Natalie. “And your parents just let you go off on your own?”

Natalie’s cheeks turned red. “I didn’t tell them we were going. I was going to take Tabitha home and then I was going to head over to see you guys.”

“To see us? Why?”

Natalie blushed some more. “To see Antoine. I wanted to see how he was doing.”

“Ah.” I felt my heart drop.

“How is he doing?”

I hesitated. “Oh, Ant? He’s doing good.”

“Has… has he mentioned me at all?”

“Let’s talk about that later. Right now I think we should think about getting out of here. I think those guys left last night, and I’m not sure when they’ll come back.”

“So they’ve just given up on finding us? Don’t they care that we know what they look like?” Tabitha asked.

I didn’t feel the need to answer that. “We need to find a car or an ATV… something that can get us away from here.”

“I think I know where there’s a car we can use,” Tabitha said. “The Blackwells left a couple of old cars at their place… it’s only a few minutes away.”

“What about keys?” I asked.

“I’ll bet the keys are just where I last saw them. On their key rack.”

“And fuel?”

“They’re both gas engines… we were going to eventually drain them for one of our generators, but we never got around to it. There should be something left in the tanks.”

“That’s probably all too good to be true,” I said. “But I’m overdue for some good luck.”

“We all are,” Natalie said.

And I felt like an idiot all over again.

We travelled together on foot to the Blackwell’s old cottage, Natalie and Tabitha a few paces in front and to the left of me, closer to the trees.

We passed by the cottage where the girls had been kept, but the truck wasn’t there. There was no sign that the Spirit Animals had stayed the night.

We got to the Blackwell’s without seeing or hearing the Toyota, and once I broke in we found the keys just where Tabitha had expected them to be. After some impromptu siphoning from one car to the next and emptying a half-full gas can in the garage, we had a rusty old Honda Fit with three quarters of a tank.

I had Natalie drive, while I sat in the passenger seat staring out with the binoculars I kept from our hideout. Tabitha laid down in the backseat, clearly exhausted but nowhere near sleep.

I wasn’t just looking for the Toyota; I was watching for any sign of the Porters, not sure I wanted to find anything. Hopefully they were back at McCartney Lake, telling the sad story of how I got left behind, and hopefully doing their best to make sure that no one came rushing back to find me.

As we neared the bottleneck near Clute, I could see Natalie tensing up.

“Don’t worry,” I told her, “if they’re up there, I’ll see them long before they know we’re coming.”

“I know,” she said. “I just can’t help it.”

I put my hand on her shoulder.

“Please don’t do that,” she said sharply.

“Sorry.”

I went back to scanning the road ahead.

“Something’s there,” I said.

“Oh, god…”

“It’s not a roadblock… I see a couple of vehicles…” I strained my eyes to see more. “A white van and a green truck.” I knew both of them. “That’s our truck… and I think the other is the Walkers.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know that I’m not looking at a gray Toyota. I’m sure about that.”

I heard Natalie sigh. She looked over to me and shot me the slightest of smiles.

I wasn’t surprised to see that it was Dave Walker and Fisher Livingston that were eyeing us as we approached. Justin and Rihanna were there, too, standing alongside the other two and looking no worse than before.

“You girls don’t need to get out of the car,” I said. “You can just wait here if you’d like.”

I climbed out of the passenger seat and walked over to the Porters.

“You guys are okay,” I said. “I really didn’t think you would be.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Justin said.

“Ryan Stems,” Livingston said. “A gray technical with a mounted machine gun.” I was expecting more sneer from him.

“Only saw two of them,” I said. “With assault rifles and that mounted gun. Did you know they carried those kinds of weapons?”