The Survival Code, page 26
Ramona cocks her head. “Son, I grew up on a ranch with a thousand head of Brahman cattle. I am well acquainted with Messrs. Remington and Winchester. Of this there is no doubt.” She reaches up to fiddle with one of her braids. “Before you were a figment of your grandparents’ imagination, I was riding to and fro across this desert all by my lonesome.”
My dad says nothing and this silences Navarro.
“I should go,” Mom says. “I don’t like the idea of Jinx being out after dark, things being what they are.”
Dad shakes his head. “Someone needs to deal with Charles’s medication and monitor Miss Carver. Plus, I can use all the help I can get loading up the truck.”
Annika straightens her shoulders at the sound of her name.
Mom continues to shake her head.
But Dad doesn’t budge. “Jinx will be fine. I trained her myself.”
Even though I’m not in love with this plan, the truth is that going to get supplies myself is a good idea. Dad likes to think that he thinks of everything. He doesn’t.
Refocusing on my plate, I eat several more pieces of chicken. I can’t remember the last time I ate so much. Or when green beans tasted quite so good. After dinner, I’m slow and sluggish. I thank Navarro and MacKenna and begin stacking the plates at our table. It seems fair that I should clean up when they did all the cooking.
Ramona is growing more animated by the minute. “Bob, it’ll be dark soon. Time to see about the cattle.”
He nods and exits through the front door. My dad goes too.
Ramona grabs the candles off her table and moves into the kitchen. I bring a stack of plates in and take a place in front of the kitchen sink. Toby and Charles carry in dirty dishes as I rinse.
She stands next to me. “You probably want to go get yourself cleaned up a bit. We’ll get on the trail in thirty minutes or so. The bathroom is up the hall. Second door on the left. I had Max put your bags in the spare room. That’s the first door.” She’s dismissing me from the kitchen. I take the hint and move up the hall.
MacKenna’s already in the spare room when I get there. She’s sitting on the edge of the room’s double bed and waving a candle across a short bookshelf against the wall opposite the door. She pulls out a beat-up hardcover. It’s a Larry McMurtry Western. “Comanche Moon,” she reads off the cover. “It figures.”
“I have to take a shower,” I say. “And then I’m riding into town.”
She turns to me. “So, you’re leaving me here to babysit your brother and the beauty queen?”
“You can come if you want to,” I say. I’m not totally sure if this is true. I assume that the ranch has more than two horses, but who knows. “Navarro can keep an eye on Charles.”
MacKenna scowls. She’s holding the candle under her chin like she’s about to tell spooky ghost stories. “I don’t want to go. I want to know why you’re so eager to ride off to the OK Corral with that creepy old woman.”
I spot my pack in one of the corners and dig out the last clean set of clothes. “I’m not so eager,” I tell her. “Look, sooner or later one of us is going to have a period. Do you think my dad and Mr. Healy will be packing those kinds of supplies?”
She pauses and then nods slowly. “Okay. Point taken,” she says. “Get me some deodorant. And lip balm.”
I’m back in the hall in the doorway of the bathroom when she adds, “And cold cream.”
I poke my head back in the door. “Will you...do me a favor? While I’m gone? Maybe...um...keep an eye on things?”
“Things?” she repeats with an expression on her face that makes me regret asking.
“Never mind,” I mutter as I step into the hallway again.
She comes to the door. “What things are you talking about?”
“You don’t think that conversation at the dinner table was a little weird?”
MacKenna snorts. “Every conversation I’ve been in since Monday has been a little weird.”
“Forget it.”
The instant I close and lock the bathroom door, the room’s overhead light pops on. The yellowish globe fades in and out. Like the rest of the house, the bathroom and shower are small. An odd aquamarine wallpaper with funny sketches of people in the shower covers the walls. I run my fingers over a drawing of a woman with a mermaid’s tail.
I glance at my reflection in the mirror. I look like complete crap. The area around my eye, where that soldier elbowed me, has swollen and is surrounded by a purplish black ring. I’ve got scratches all over my chest from rolling through the asphalt. I. Am. A. Mess.
My appearance makes Ramona Healy’s rationale for our ride all the more ridiculous. On what planet are an old woman and a teenage girl, who looks like she’s been beat all to hell, horseback riding at night not going to attract a lot of attention?
Sigh.
It’s Thursday night.
I leave my dirty clothes on the tile floor, step into the porcelain claw-foot tub and pull the blue curtain closed. The silver shower knobs could stand some grease.
Warm water runs over my body. It stings a bit when it gets to my feet. I’ve got some deep gashes down there. I do my best to clean them up with soap but I’ll have to break out the first-aid kit later.
After I dry myself off, I find a comb in one of the bathroom drawers and do the best I can with my hair. Dressed in black leggings and a blue sweatshirt, I return to the spare room and dig around in my pack. My windbreaker is so filthy that I don’t want to wear it, so I shove what I can into my pockets. Dad’s stashed most of the good stuff someplace else, so all I end up with is a miniature flashlight, a pocketknife, a bit of twine and a book of matches. MacKenna is no longer in the room. I set off to find her.
Ramona Healy waits right outside the door. “Take the path straight. Go out the house gate and turn right. You’ll hit the stables. Can’t miss it. I’ll meet you there directly.”
I go through the living room. Toby and Annika are gone again. My dad and MacKenna sit on the couch, both reading cowboy novels from the spare room. It’s an odd sight. My dad’s gaze travels along the page like he’s really interested in his book, which hilariously is called The Lonely Men. Next to him on the sofa, MacKenna shakes her head and frowns at Comanche Moon.
“I’m going,” I say. They both sort of nod.
I let the screen door slam behind me and pass Mom and Jay on the porch.
“Be careful,” Jay says, patting me on the back as I pass.
Outside, it’s not quite dark but it will be soon. The lights on inside the Healys’ house stand in stark contrast to the barren, brushy landscape.
I turn on my flashlight and kick up dust as I walk down the path.
The stables are easy to find. The building is much larger than the house. It’s probably painted some shade of green as well, but it’s tough to tell exactly. Daylight is almost gone and the outside of the stables is lit by a single yellow light attached to the wall.
I put my flashlight in my pocket and duck inside the door.
These people sure love their horses. Rustic lights hang from the high ceiling and soft piano music plays from a radio sitting on a bench. On either side of me, I find wide gated stalls. I count six on each side.
The first two stalls are labeled Goldilocks and Jesse’s Girl. The other stalls are also full. A black horse pokes its head over the door of the third stall, revealing an interesting pattern of white spots on its neck. These are not all the same kind of horse, and I wish MacKenna was here to identify them.
It’s pretty clean in the stable. I move through slowly. On the side opposite the door, I find bundles of hay, stacks of feed bags and some plastic containers. Saddles hang from pegs on the wall.
My heart stops at the sound of shuffling behind me.
Crap.
I was so mesmerized by the horses that I didn’t check out the room. Or the ranch, for that matter. Something about it feels safe. But it’s not. I should have done some recon. That would have been smart.
Unlike my best plan right now, which is to use the flashlight as some kind of weapon and fist fight as best I can. Which is really stupid. I brace myself.
“Relax,” a voice says.
It’s Navarro.
I can’t relax though. “You scared the hell out of me.”
He steps out of an unlit corner. “Shh!” he says. “I’m sorry. I should have said something but you looked...almost happy.”
Before I can say anything, he continues, “She’ll be here any second.” He slips out of his own windbreaker and hands it to me. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that you can never trust women like Ramona Carver.”
He leans in very close, his brown eyes only inches from mine.
For a second it’s like he’s going to...
My heart races. I close my eyes.
Light footsteps approach the door.
Ramona is coming.
I open my eyes in time to see Navarro step back into the darkness.
I put the jacket on. It’s still warm and smells of whatever kind of musky cologne Navarro must wear. Where is he getting cologne from?
As the door swings open, I realize why he gave me this thing.
It’s got a knife in one pocket and the SAT phone in the other.
DR. DOOMSDAY SAYS:
YOU CAN LIE TO EVERYONE BUT YOURSELF.
The spotted horse is an Appaloosa named Freckles. He steps back from the stall door when I approach him.
“You’ve got the jitters,” Ramona says.
I look at her blankly.
“That’s what my daddy always used to say.” She smiles. “City folk have the jitters. The animals can tell. You can’t let ’em get the upper hand though.”
She throws open the wide gate doors to the stable and then saddles Freckles while I watch, feeling very out of my element. “Your sister says to tell you that she’d prefer cherry lip balm, but between you and me that is very optimistic. Bill Collins don’t keep a real good selection of toiletries in the best of times. And these are not the best of times.”
I’m startled by her mention of MacKenna. She’s been paying more attention than I thought. There’s also something really off about her demeanor. It’s like she belongs on this ranch. Not at Carver Commons in New York. “But aren’t you city folk?” I ask her.
Ramona disappears for a second and returns with another saddle. She draws a gorgeous reddish-brown horse from the stall next to Freckles’s. “No, ma’am. I am from Wilcox, Arizona. My daddy had a ranch up in those parts. Back in the days before man-made meat. He was a good man but not a good businessman. To make a bit of extra money...well, see, we had a few cabins on the property, and my daddy had this idea to rent them out to out-of-towners. Let ’em see what it’s really like to work a ranch. That’s how I met my husband. Not Bob. My first husband. The Carvers came to our place one summer. I don’t think my daddy ever really cared for Cornelius, but he wanted me provided for. The feeling was, I suppose, quite mutual, as the Carvers did not care for me much either. I was too unrefined for them. I think Cornelius meant to make some kind of a point by getting hitched to a working-class girl and not a duchess. But it’s always unwise to do things that run contrary to your deepest nature. It’s like riding against the wind. My husband found out the hard way. You can take the girl off the ranch but...”
She draws her horse toward the open gate and clearly expects me to do the same. It takes a couple of tries because Freckles doesn’t like me and because I haven’t ridden a horse since sixth grade summer camp.
Ramona calls out, “Come on now, Freckles!” and this gets the horse going.
Outside in the cool night, the moon rises. It’s not as hard to see as I thought it would be.
Ramona shuts the stable doors and mounts her horse. I awkwardly do the same, almost falling back on my first try.
“You fall a lot? Is that how you got your nickname?” she asks.
“No,” I say shortly as my face heats up.
We ride in silence for a bit. Freckles is familiar with the terrain and I don’t have to do too much other than trot alongside Ramona. This would be a nice experience were it not for the fact that civilization is about to collapse and I’m in the middle of nowhere with a loony old lady.
“It’s hard to explain,” Ramona says as if she’s replying to a question I haven’t asked.
“What?” I ask.
“I faked my own death and ran away from my family. You want to know what kind of person does that. And why. Those are natural questions. With complicated answers.”
“Are you afraid of your own son?” I ask. She’s right. I have a million questions, but this one seems the most pressing.
For a minute or so, there’s no response other than the soft tread of the horses’ hooves against the dirt path. “In the beginning,” Ramona says, “I told myself that was the reason. That I was afraid. Afraid I would never have a life outside of my son’s control. He can be very domineering. And dangerous, like his daddy. Also like his daddy, Ammon’s got the idea that a man’s family should be, on the main, very loyal servants. Before I left, my son wasn’t yet in politics, but he was already so ruthless. He caused the mortgage crisis. Made a fortune making bad loans. Then again from insurance payments when people defaulted. Then again when he evicted them and sold their houses out from under them.”
Ramona turns her profile up toward the white moon. “My husband died. I was a well-to-do, privileged lady. All I had to do was show up in my white gloves and fancy hat whenever my boy wanted to cut a red ribbon with a giant pair of scissors. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about those summers back on the ranch. How I’d get up before dawn. The feeling of the smooth leather of the saddles when I polished them. The way I’d be so tired at the end of the day from bailing hay or helping Momma in the kitchen. It’s not the same kind of tired that you get from tryin’ to sit all day long with your legs crossed just so or keepin’ a smile on your face.”
Okay. Life as a Park Avenue socialite totally sucked. But. So what? “That’s why you did it? You let everyone think you were dead? You wanted to come home?”
The old woman focuses her attention on her horse, patting its neck softly. “When he was six years old, my son pushed a neighbor boy out the second-story window of our house in Nantucket. They were arguing over a game of backgammon. We covered it up, of course. Even in those days, people were starting to ask questions.” She turns to me, mostly silhouetted in the moonlight, with long shadows falling across her face. I can’t make out her expression.
I pull the windbreaker tighter around me. There’s nothing left of Navarro’s warmth. The desert temperature continues to drop, and it’s like the ghosts of Ramona Carver’s past are riding alongside us.
“It took me a long time to understand. I’m not running from my son. I’m running from myself,” she finishes. “From the guilt I feel. The role I played.”
Up ahead, I can make out a series of red lights, possibly flares or emergency lanterns, placed in a pattern on the ground. “What about Annika?” I ask.
Ramona stares at the red lights as well. “When I was a girl, I had two kittens. Both calicos. Beautiful animals. They found a litter of baby rats in the barn. Raised ’em as their own. Got them food and water. Kept ’em in a warm spot, covered in hay. Away from the goats.”
I fight off the urge to sigh dramatically. We’re getting closer to a square, isolated building that’s pretty much a minimart for the zombie apocalypse, and Ramona Healy is telling pointless stories from a million years ago in a tone of voice usually reserved for the eulogy at a funeral. “I don’t understand. What does that mean? What...what...”
Freckles snorts and her gait slows.
“The point, Miss Marshall, is this. What happens when a predator tries to raise its own prey? It’s a question we all must have an answer to. Given what lies ahead.”
What lies ahead. Tork had said this too. A bit of dust catches in my throat.
Also. “What happened to the rats?”
Ramona tightens her hold on her reins. “What always happens. The cats got hungry and ate ’em.”
Okay.
The details of the scene ahead become clearer. It’s a long, low building that we must be approaching from the rear because there’s only a single, narrow door. It’s lit by a lone yellow lightbulb on the right. A couple of four-wheel ATVs are parked haphazardly near the side farthest from the door.
“So now you’re for The Spark?” I ask her.
She makes an impatient noise. “I think I’m too old to be for The Spark, girlie. They think they can use the laws to make everything fair for everybody. To put a chicken in every pot. Except their laws don’t often account for the fact that somebody has to feed the chickens and someone has to manufacture the pots. They want to change the world. Well, when you get to be my age, you stop believin’ the world can change. Most people won’t even change their haircut.”
A gunshot rings out.
Ramona reaches out and grabs my reins, keeping a tight grip on both horses and muttering, “Whoa...whoa now,” a few times. They come to a stop.
I wonder if Freckles can hear my heart.
The desert is so vast and empty that it’s hard to tell where the sound came from. Before I can register the acid flooding my stomach, a hooded figure ducks around the corner of the market and climbs onto one of the ATVs. I jump at the sound of its motor turning to a start.
Another shot. A low blast. Probably some kind of shotgun.
I fight back my panic.
The engine fades as the ATV makes good time away from us.
“Let’s go!” Ramona tells me. She drops my reins.
