Keeping Watch (36 page)

The boys who brought guns to their middle school were often as soft and unformed-looking as Jamie. They probably looked every bit as innocent when they were asleep with their head against the side window of a car, traveling an unlit road in the middle of the night. They probably showed just as little grief at the news that a father was dead. Allen opened his mouth to ask the kid about explosives, to ask him if he'd ever researched bombs or looked at one of the school-shooter Web sites on his computer, but then he made himself shut his mouth, unwilling to bring it all out into the open here and now.

Alice,
Allen said to the road ahead,
I hope to God you can sort this mess out.

Chapter 31

Jamie watched between slitted eyelids as the road scrolled past the headlights of the car. This was turning into one of Father's hunting trips, endless back roads at all hours, the warm feeling of having Father all to himself alongside the growing knot of what was to come, until it would feel like when he had the flu, shivery on one level but safe in bed on the other. He often pretended to be asleep when Father was driving, too. But he'd never really thought that Father was fooled by the act.

Allen, though, seemed to be buying it, which made Jamie both happy at the man's innocence and frightened for him. Because Father wasn't dead, whether his plane went down or not. Jamie didn't know how he could be so sure about it, but in his bones he just couldn't imagine that the world was now without Father. Which meant that Father was not dead. And if Father was alive, sooner or later he would come for him, that too was beyond question. If Allen was standing between them when it happened, the big man wouldn't stand a chance.

He just wished he could get his thoughts straight. Allen was a good person who wanted only to help him, and Father was . . . well, he was Father, and about as helpful as a coiled cobra. So why didn't he side with Allen? Why couldn't he just shift his loyalties? He did understand why Allen had to take him away from Montana—he didn't like leaving, even though Montana bored him to tears, but he understood it. One thing he did have straight in his head: The Johnson farm was no place for Father. Jamie had been living in a state of huge frustration and cold terror ever since Sally had gone missing, and (other than leaving Terry behind, which really sucked) he'd have been willing to run through fire to get into Allen's car and drive away. He felt like one of those mother birds that fakes a hurt wing to lead a predator away from the nest. In spite of his intentions, first Rachel and then Sally had got in under his skin, and although he'd do his best in the future to make sure nobody ever did that again, he still had to say, he didn't want Father anywhere near them, not in the sort of mood he was sure to be in when he finally laid eyes on Jamie.

That was why he'd gone into a panic when Sally had disappeared. The idea of Father's hands on that little girl was more than Jamie could bear. He'd wanted to run off then and there, to give Father what he really wanted, so he'd leave the Johnsons alone.

But he'd allowed Pete and Rachel to keep him there, partly because he wasn't absolutely positive that it was Father—or Howard—who'd led Sally away, but also because he figured that if he wasn't there when Father came, it would make it even worse for the Johnsons. He'd stayed, in truth, because he couldn't convince the whole family that they had to leave, and he figured that he, at least, knew what they would be in for, and he would be on the lookout. He'd not gotten much sleep, the last week. And no computer time either, since he'd spent most of every night watching the dark driveway and the access road beyond, praying that he wouldn't see a set of approaching headlights that slowed and then went dark.

At least Pete had a gun. And although Jamie wasn't supposed to know how to get at it, he'd figured out where the key was before dawn the day after the stranger had appeared. He didn't think he could shoot Father face-to-face, but maybe he could have made Father think he would, and buy time for the Johnsons to escape.

He'd pictured the scene a hundred times during those long nights just past: Father looming up in the front door; Jamie standing his ground with Pete's bird gun; Rachel and Sally and the others creeping down the stairs at his back and fleeing out the kitchen door; Terry standing by his leg, teeth bared; and the look on Father's face. Jamie's guts would go into a cold twist at the thought of that look, the rage that turned Father's eyes to ice chips and made his mouth turn up into an expression only a crazy person would imagine was a smile. But Jamie's cinematic imagination persisted in adding to Father's expression just a trace of respect, when Jamie stood up to him at last. Late on the fourth or fifth night of his watch, the strange thought had come to him that Father might even like to be killed by his son, that it would make him proud, as he bled to death on Rachel's braided carpet, to know that his son had the guts to pull the trigger.

But it was nonsense, and that particular part of the fantasy had burst faster than a soap bubble. Gun or no, Father would have taken him apart. And then he would have gone after the Johnsons, for protecting him. And then he would have come after Allen, and Alice, and anyone else linked to Jamie's helpers.

But then Allen arrived so openly that anyone for miles around could see, and led Jamie away from the Johnson house in broad daylight, which was about as much safety as Jamie could give the family. And so here he was, sitting in a car with a man who figured he was rescuing Jamie, while all the time Jamie knew that he himself held the man's life in his own skinny hands. He would allow Allen to carry him far away from Montana, since it was just possible that everyone was right, that Sally's abductor was some stranger and that the family hadn't come onto Father's radar, and nobody was watching to see him get into the car and drive off. But in any case the question was the same: How long would he let Allen keep him? He kind of liked Allen, more than he'd thought possible, but he had to stop doing that; he might have to give Allen to Father in order to save his own hide, before this was over.

It was so confusing, and he was really tired. It was no wonder that he'd turned to the laptop, its black case so comfortingly real, the online conversations so unconnected with murderous parents and the stench of cow shit. Last night, spotting the familiar shape in Allen's leather carry-on while he was looking for something to eat, it had been like settling into a mother's lap.
Allen's laptop's like a lap,
he thought, sleep rising up until his thoughts began to run together. And Allen never even suspected. He was as clueless as Rachel, Rachel who'd thought Jamie generous and good for wanting to get away from the farm. None of them knew what Jamie was inside; none of them realized that Father was the only one who really knew him.

As Jamie's eyelids closed for real, his last confused image was not of the road, but of his shoe kicking hard at the warm, eager, loyal dog at his feet.

Why had he done that, anyway?

Allen drove through the night, stopping once for gas and coffee; Jamie did not stir. The hills rose up and the vegetation in the headlights greened. They went over White Pass, and on the other side, for the first time, Allen began to feel safe. Home ground now, he told himself. Just a matter of hours until he could meet Alice and begin to unlock the conundrum.

There was a diner open in Morton, and he went in and bought some dry-looking sandwiches. Jamie was sitting up when he got back into the car.

“You hungry?” he asked the boy, putting the sandwiches on the dash.

Jamie hesitated. “I need to pee.” He shot a glance at Allen to see his reaction, but the admission—which Father would have twisted around, made into a sure sign of weakness, and then used to torment him—had little or no impression on this driver.

“The toilet's just inside the door,” Allen said, starting in on his sandwich. When the boy got back, Allen put the car back into gear. “We'll get to the freeway in a little while, check into a motel for a couple of hours before we turn north for Seattle.”

“Wish I was old enough to help drive,” Jamie offered.

God, don't we all,
Allen thought fervently. If the boy had been eighteen, none of these problems would have come up—others, no doubt, but not these, and they sure as hell wouldn't have been Allen's. He would have spent the last week putting up bookshelves with Rae then packed his bags and gone to the airport with her. That was another reason he wanted to stop when they got to the freeway instead of pressing on to Seattle, barely two hours north: Rae's flight was at ten o'clock. If he reached Seattle in plenty of time, he did not think he could bear it, knowing she was so close.

“Too bad it's not daylight,” he told his passenger, to take his thoughts off of Rae and airplanes. “You'd see that we're driving straight between two mountains. One of them's a volcano.”

“Really?”

“Mount Saint Helens. Used to be the most beautiful mountain, had a gorgeous lake right at the top. I went there when I was your age, we used to find these rocks that would float on water. Of course, that's because it was a volcano, but nobody thought about it then.”

“Is that the one that erupted a while ago?”

“She sure did. Covered three states with ash, killed fifty-two people, knocked down millions of trees, and blew off half the mountain.”

Jamie was craning to look out of the driver's side window, as if gouts of red lava might shoot up through the darkness.

“Maybe you'll see it in the morning. For sure you'll see Mount Rainier, which is on the other side. That's a volcano, too, but so far it's stayed dormant.”

“Man,” Jamie commented, impressed despite its invisibility. A real volcano.

By eleven
P.M.
they were off the busy freeway, at a motel, locked securely in a room that smelled of cigarettes and room freshener. Again, Allen bolted the door, pulled the drapes, and dropped onto the bed near the door. And again, once the big man's breathing had slowed, the boy crept over to the leather carry-on and eased the laptop from its interior. The television played on, just loud enough to cover his sounds; Allen didn't hear a thing.

At last! Jamie thought. For the first time in two weeks he could log on at a time when the good players were on board. Between keeping watch over the Johnson house and being on the road, he hadn't had a good game session since Sally had met the man. And he could probably count on at least two or three hours of uninterrupted play time, by just keeping an ear out for any change in Allen's breathing. God knew he'd had plenty of practice listening for oncoming adults.

There were a couple of familiar names, one of whom greeted the appearance of Jamie's player with a rude message that Jamie took as it was meant, as an electronic high-five. Jamie sent him a similar message, and slipped into the game's progress as if he'd never been away.

Online games were a community venture, with players you got to know and either liked or didn't, just like real life. Some of them were diabolically clever, others so clueless, Jamie didn't know how they managed to boot up their computers in the first place, but that, too, was how things went. Every so often, usually really late at night, when just the right combination of good players were on at the same time, the game took on a life of its own, and became considerably more real than the flesh and blood creatures whose fingers manipulated the keyboards. Hours would flash by, alliances made and broken, electronic creatures blown away, experience points accumulated, and riches hoarded or spent, and Jamie would come out of it bleary-eyed but content with the world.

No danger of that happening tonight. Lord Bane was there, a guy Jamie visualized as six-four, stoop-shouldered, and covered in zits—he was such a perma-newbie, thought with that name was the coolest thing, but a ten-year-old girl could outplay him. His name was probably Seymour or something. And Skidgirl, who wasn't a bad player but she had a habit of stabbing you in the back after you'd made a covenant, which had gotten her shunned for a while but maybe she'd learned her lesson.

The action wasn't too bad. The zone had a new player called King Barney who was pretty good, and there was a kind of interesting development between two of the alliances. Then after half an hour one of his favorite rivals logged on.

Silverfish was a hard-core brain. Once when Jamie had asked him why he'd called himself after a bug, the guy had told him, “It's because they're ubiquitous.” Jamie'd gone on, left it like he knew what the guy meant, but he copied down the word with care, and later he looked it up. It meant that they were everywhere, and Silverfish sure was. Nothing seemed to get by him, he always spotted the best loot, always slipped in and snatched it up, always managed to outsmart the other players. Ubiquitous.

Of course, the guy practically lived online. It was rare for Jamie to play for very long before Silverfish slid onto the screen—maybe the maniac played two games at once, shifting between one and another. Like yesterday, when Jamie'd logged on in Coeur d'Alene (which he'd spelled Cor dalene) and within five minutes the guy'd been there, asking him where the hell he'd been and then telling Jamie some cool things to do when he got to Seattle on Sunday.

After twenty minutes and a couple of clever moves, Silverfish began to exchange messages with Jamie, whose character for that game was RageDaemon. In between moves, Silverfish went right to the point.

S: you hear anything about a new game coming up, combo of Tolkein and Lovecraft?

RD: gotta name?

S: Death Head, somethin like that. Heard it had some killer graphix. Didn't wanna put it out to those losers, mite be nice ta have a game only players can get into.

RD: I no what u mean, but sory, never heard of it

S: You been outta touch today, man.

RD: yeah, still on the road

S: hope you're someplace cool

RD: Holiday Inn, god watta dump.

S: Fer a minnit I thought you meant you had a satellite link in your car, that'd be killer.

RD: I wish. we're talkin laptop and phon line here, the download time sux.

S: They make video players for cars, why not wire in modems?

RD: why not

S: Seriously, they even have those Onstar things, why not just upgrade the link so you can use it for somethin more than asking where the hell you are when you wake up with a killer hangover on a deserted road. Not like I'd know, ya unnerstand, haha. Fords have em I think, the Onstar things.

RD: hondas don't, not this one anyway. but u gotta great futur ahed of u man, as an invetnor.