Thomas Perry - Vanishing Act

She shook her head. "I want to see one more thing."

The Chevrolet began to move slowly up the road toward the parked car, its lights still off. When it was almost bumper to bumper with the Ford, it suddenly shot forward and rammed the back bumper to knock whoever was inside out of their crouch. The man on the road flung the back door open and aimed his gun. After a second he slammed the door in frustration, and the light went out before he turned his head.

"Now," Jane said. She turned and crawled a few feet deeper into the windbreak and then stood up.

9

She went off at a slow jog, going due north, first among the trees and then across a second field. This one was unplowed and full of short weeds that whipped against the stiff denim of her jeans. When they reached the far side of the second field, she stopped and looked back. The headlights came on suddenly and bathed the Ford in a pool of whiteness.

Then she was running through the night across the fields, the bag over her left shoulder and the shotgun balanced in her right hand. She could hear Felker’s breathing behind her, and she judged that he had the stamina to keep running.

It was going to be possible if she could keep her vision clear. Everything about modem life made people think of the world as a network of roads. But in country like this, the roads were just the narrow borders of broad expanses of rolling, fertile farmland. The four men weren’t about to abandon their car in the dark and take off on foot across the fields after them. If they were like most people, they wouldn’t even think of it. They would already be searching a map for the place where Jane and Felker would come out on a road. The obvious thing to do was to take a loop, come out behind the men on Ridge Road, and hope to make it eastward into Lockport, where there would be lights and police. But what if she and Felker didn’t double back? If she remembered, if her vision was clear, there were no more big east-west roads between here and Route 18, just on the outskirts of Olcott.

Felker moved abreast of her and said between deep breaths, "Where are we running to?"

She said, "Olcott."

"What’s Olcott?"

"About seven or eight miles."

"What’s in Olcott?"

"Save your strength," she said, then regulated her breathing again to bring in oxygen to keep her head clear. "Don’t talk."

They ran in silence then, and she lengthened her strides to match his, so the sounds of their feet struck her ear at the same time, a strong, rhythmic cadence, not a ragged pitter-patter pitter-patter that drained strength and wore out the runner. She kept her head up and tried to relax her shoulder muscles, but it was difficult carrying the shotgun and the leather bag that bounced against her hip at each stride.

She pulled the strap of the bag over her head so it went across her chest between her breasts and the bag was on her back. Then she slipped off her belt as she ran, and threaded it through the swivel on the end of the shotgun magazine, then through the trigger guard, and slung it tightly over her back so it was held against the leather bag. When she had done that, the running went faster.

It was a clear, cool April night, so the sweat formed and dried almost instantly, and the air came into her lungs like a cold intoxicant and came out in steamy huffs. She thought about Felker and listened to his breathing. He was disturbing. Jane had never taken a fugitive out of the world who had had this much trouble this early. Yet he seemed to be accepting it. She could hear him breathing deep, steady breaths, not short irregular gasps. He didn’t seem to be afraid. He had more to be afraid of than some of the people she had protected, less than others, but they had all been afraid. They had come to her because they had already tried all of the forms of shelter that people believed in: laws, blood relations, friends, even society’s capacity for simple outrage and disgust that a lone, powerless person had been laid open to evil. He had come that way too, but he wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t afraid.

They ran through the fields and pastures, thickets of small bushes and groves of old trees, once coming so near to a house that they had to duck a clothesline before they slipped along beside the white clapboards. There was a dark window in the back where she could see the ghostly blue glow from a television set on the ceiling, but no people. The night was empty now. They were all penned inside houses and cars, separated from the night by plates of glass and the electricity they immersed themselves in, thick blankets of sound and light and warmth.

Jane felt strangely elated. She could feel the air and the trees around her, and because she could feel them and because she was running, she was part of it too. She was straining, exerting her legs and arms and her eyes and ears to move across the land in a way that people didn’t do often anymore, without some machine or a pavement to keep the land away from them.

She never glanced at her watch, because time had a different pace now. She couldn’t measure mechanical time against a distance she had only guessed was seven or eight miles but might be five or ten, and wasn’t uniform and smooth and level like a track at the university. The pace of her feet was the only time that mattered, and she kept it steady and even, like the beat of a song without any tune and without any words.

She saw Route 18 coming from a long way off. There were three streetlamps somewhere off to her right and, far beyond the road, the glow of more lights in the sky.

The houses were coming more often now, and they were harder to avoid because they weren’t farms but suburban houses on smaller plots of land. Now was the time when she had to decide about the shotgun. Even when most people were asleep, she couldn’t take the risk of walking down a village street carrying a weapon. She said to Felker, "Stop here."

He came closer. "What is it?" His breathing was hard and fast, and his voice was a little hoarse, like hers.

"Let’s catch our breath."

They walked along the fence of a big pasture, and she waited to let her heart stop pounding and her slower, deeper breathing come. She kept moving to fight off the cramps that were waiting to grip her calves and ham-strings. Felker swung his arms and walked along, trying to recover from the long run, but she could feel his eyes on her. She reached up behind her head and held up the long hair to cool the nape of her neck in the night air. Finally, she said quietly, "That road up there is Route 18. It’s the last big highway."

He said, "What’s beyond that?"

"A quiet little town."

Jane decided she couldn’t get close enough to the highway to detect a parked car without its occupants seeing her too. The two shoulders would be at least ten feet each, and forty for the pavement itself. Then, after they were across that, the other side might not be the houses she was hoping for. It might be more open land. She said aloud, "How does the chicken cross the road?"

"That’s it?" he said.

"If they guessed right, they’ll be waiting for us here. They’ll take us in the open."

"I guess I walk across and you cover me with the shotgun until something happens or I’m behind something. Then it’s your turn," he said.

She looked at him for a minute. "Not very good, but I suppose it’s the only way."

He shrugged. "It’s the only way they ever taught me."

They walked along the field until they could see the road ahead of them. On the other side there was an open field, but the trees beyond it gave her some hope. At least there weren’t a lot of lights on this stretch. They crept closer and closer to the road until they reached an empty lot overgrown with tall weeds that ran up to the shoulder.

She crawled forward in the weeds until she reached a shallow drainage ditch at the edge of the road, and looked hard to her right toward the lights, then down into the darkness to her left. There was nothing on the pavement in either direction, but she still didn’t feel right. Maybe it was just that the long run had made her light-headed. There never had been much chance that any four strangers would realize that she was heading north for Olcott.