The receiver blipped.
“You’re late.”
I turned, trying to place him.
Fields. Stanchions. Weeds. Smoke.
“I’m here now,” I said.
No answer.
“Hello?” I said.
“Start walking.”
Flat voice, fighting to avoid the upper register.
A boy, masquerading as a man.
Each time I forced him to think or speak or adjust it tipped the balance of power in my favor. Every second I stretched was one more I gave to Nwodo or Shupfer or Rigo.
I ran to the car, got in, and shut the door. Turned on the radio and detuned it to white noise.
“Hello?” I said. “Are you there? I can’t hear you.”
“I said start walking.”
I raised the volume. “Sorry. I’m having a lot of trouble hearing you. Say that again?”
“Walk, fuckhead.”
Not Get out of the car and walk.
He couldn’t see me.
The smoke.
It was giving him problems, too.
The enemy of my enemy.
“Hello,” he demanded.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s really hard to hear you. Maybe we can try another channel.”
Ten precious seconds ticked by. I studied the map on my phone.
The receiver blipped. “Channel two.”
I cranked the static up higher and switched to channel two.
“That’s worse,” I shouted.
“Just walk.”
“I’m switching to three,” I said. “Can you hear me? Channel three.”
“Four.”
“What?”
“Channel f—” He dissolved into coughs. “Channel four.”
“I think you’re saying four. Is that what you said?”
“Ye—” More coughing. “Yeah,” he croaked.
He was feeling it.
He was outside.
I dialed the noise down to a murmur and switched to channel four. “Are you there? Can you hear me now?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat noisily. “Can you hear me?”
“It’s a little better,” I said. “You said walk?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to tell me where I’m going? Give me some instructions?”
“Follow the road.”
“Follow the road.”
“That’s what I said.”
Other than the substation, the ranch was the only human structure for miles. They had to be back there somewhere.
They were putting me in a funnel. Monitoring my approach from a safe remove.
They had a vision of how this was supposed to go.
I grabbed a Post-it and pen from the center console. “Which road? The one I’m on? Or the other one?”
“What other one?”
“Right now I’m on the highway,” I said, scribbling ATTN first responder. “Is that the one you mean?”
“No—you got the bag, just keep going that way.”
“Okay.” Proceeding on foot Millar Ranch Road SE. “So Millar Ranch Road.”
“Yeah.”
I climbed out of the car, trapped the Post-it beneath a wiper blade, and ran toward the field at the southwest corner of the intersection. “Southeast.”
Twelve glorious seconds elapsed while he figured it out.
“…yeah,” he said uncertainly.
“Okay. Southeast. How far do you want me to go?”
“Just get going, asshole. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Switching off the flashlight I ducked into the weeds and began crabbing due south, using the substation and the nearest stanchions as reference points. “Let me talk to Luke first.”
“Bitch, you don’t make the rules.”
“For all I know you killed him,” I said, parting stalks. “I need to know he’s alive.”
There was no answer. I maintained south, diverging from the road, moving as quickly as I could while staying low. Which was not very quick, because the terrain was pitted and uneven, and the weeds were high but not that high, and I’m tall, and the smoke while thick was unpredictable. Light erratic wind brushed it this way and that, slicing short-lived windows of transparency. One badly timed movement and I’d be exposed.
Within fifty paces my legs and back were cramping. I sucked at the inside of my mask, struggling to draw enough oxygen, my heart beating triple time. I covered another fifty paces and paused to poke my head up.
I was in the middle of a dark, trembling sea.
Smoke eddied, languid as ink in water.
I could no longer see the road.
I adjusted southeast and crouched down and began moving again, parallel to the invisible road. The boy hadn’t spoken since I’d asked for proof of life.
Either Luke was dead and they couldn’t produce him.
Or they’d kept him alive for a reason.
The receiver blipped.
“…Clay…”
My brother’s voice, altered horribly, shivved with pain.
“Luke,” I said. “It’s hard to hear you. Are you there?”
The boy said, “Move it, bitch.”
He hadn’t seen me enter the field.
He thought I was still at the intersection.
“Put Luke back on.”
“Fucking move.”
“He said one word. How do I know that wasn’t a recording? Put him on and let me talk to him.”
Another silence.
“…it’s me,” Luke said.
“You’re alive.”
“…yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“…yeah.”
The boy came on: “That’s it.”
“One second.”
“Start walking or he’s dead.”
“I need to ask him something only he knows. Otherwise you haven’t proved anything.”
Head down I advanced through the smoke, parting stalks, counting paces. Sweat stung my raw eyes. The mask stuck to my face. I inhaled with my mouth wide stretched painfully wide, suppressing an urge to cough that bulged against my soft palate like vomit.
Luke spoke again: “…it’s me.”
“It’s really you.”
“…yeah.”
“Mics,” I said.
Reference to a Fugees song. A code from our playing days.
Back to the basket: How many defenders in my way?
I crept forward, holding the walkie-talkie close, squeezing the casing. There was nothing and then more nothing and fear gripped me.
I’d overstepped. They’d kill him now.
Or Luke hadn’t heard me, hadn’t understood, his head cloudy, his body weak, starved, faint from blood loss.
Or he’d simply forgotten, our private language fossilized by adulthood. How could I expect him to remember? It was so long ago. We were different then. We moved like one body. But that hadn’t been true for a long time. I should have asked something innocuous. What poster did he have on our bedroom wall? Our mother’s maiden name.
“Left,” he blurted.
Two hostiles.
“Hang in there,” I said. “I’m coming for you. I—”
“Shut the fuck up and walk,” the boy said.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m walking. I’m setting out now. I’m going.”
Best guess I’d covered about a third the distance to the farm—a five-minute head start.
But my pace was much slower than it would be on an open road.
They would be expecting me soon.
Distract them. Keep them talking.
“You’re Gunnar’s son, right?” I said. “You and your brother.”
Silence.
“I remember you.”
No response.
“Let’s talk about this.”
“That’s the plan, motherfucker.”
“What should I call you?”
“You”—a chesty grunt—“don’t call me shit.”
“It’s me you want,” I said. “Let him go.”
No response.
“Whatever you think has happened,” I said, sidling past a stanchion, “you can change your mind. It’s not as bad as you think it is. Billy Watts? He’s alive. You didn’t kill him.”
No response.
“I was just at the hospital. I spoke to his wife. Spoke to his doctors. He’s going to survive and recover. So however bad you think it is, you still have options. But you need to talk to me. To figure this out so it’s best for you.”
No response.
“Are you there?”
No response.
“I know you’re angry,” I said.
The receiver blipped and a new voice spoke. Harsher, slightly deeper.
“You don’t know a fucking thing.”
The receiver blipped and the first boy said, “Shut up.”
New picture: They weren’t together. One twin was out front, as a first line of defense. The other was in a separate location, keeping watch over Luke, listening in on a third receiver. To communicate without my overhearing, they’d need a private channel.
Channel three. The one he’d had me skip.
I switched to three. It was silent. I changed back to four.
“—your ass over here now,” the first boy was saying. “You don’t think I will?”
“I’m coming as fast as I can,” I said. “Can you give me something to look for? Like a landmark?”
“How hard is it to walk?”
“I’m just saying, it’s hard to see out here.” For you, too.
I wiped my eyes on the hem of my shirt and sneaked a glimpse. No buildings yet, but to the east, where the road ought to be, I discerned a line of tall scratches that flickered like gray flames. Trees.
I crouched and pressed on. “What happened to your father—he didn’t deserve it.”
“What happened,” the second boy said, “you happened.”
“Shut up,” the first boy said.
“I’ve met your grandfather,” I said. “I’ve met your whole family. Your uncle Kelly? I tried to help him. Ask him.”
“I don’t care what that piece of shit thinks,” the second boy said, starting to cough.
“Shut up, Jace.”
A name.
“I met you, too, Jace,” I said quietly. “I remember you. I remember both of you.”
No response.
“What happened to you was a nightmare. You shouldn’t’ve had to see it. Nobody should. I am truly sorry you did. You were kids and you didn’t deserve any of it. We can talk about it.”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“Jace shut the f—”
He erupted into coughs.
I froze.
I could hear him, in stereo to sound on the receiver.
The signal cut out and I heard him still, coughing and talking.
Faint, but unmistakable.
Coming from the tree line.
I switched to channel three.
“—can’t concentrate if you can’t stop fucking talking.”
“It’s fucked up,” Jace said. “Something’s fucked up.”
“Just shut up and lemme think.”
“Ask him where he is. Ask him what he sees.”
“No.”
“Move up and see if you can see him.”
“Fu—” A violent cough. “No. St—”
I switched off the walkie-talkie and oriented east, toward his voice. Weeds tickled the skin around my eyes, smoke feathered in my chest, the power lines crackled and zapped, they emitted a constant damp hum like the drone of carrion flies. The boy went quiet. I thought I knew where he was but the dense vegetation and the heavy air played tricks with sound, I could hear my boots in the dry earth like dirt being shoveled, my breath roared inside the mask, and I slowed further to avoid drawing his attention, moving between the stalks, feeling the weight of each step as though performing a walking meditation. The treetops came into view, leaning forth through the smoke, trunks growing outward from their centers as they surfaced. They were planted at regular intervals to form a corridor. Smoke crowned the canopy, dripped from the branches like Spanish moss.
“Hurry the fuck up.”
Talking to me. Annoyed by my dawdling.
I closed another few yards.
Switched on my walkie-talkie and toggled the CALL button.
His receiver blipped.
Ahead. To the left.
I was behind him.