The Girls He Adored

41

With Bernadette behind the wheel of the blue Caddy, Irene to her right, and Max in the back holding the pistol to Irene's head, the old land yacht navigated the back roads of Round Valley, a shallow dish twenty miles in diameter, surrounded by a circular rim of mountains, then cut through a corner of the Mendocino National Forest and worked its way steadily northeast through Trinity County while the search planes circled ever nearer.

Max was starting to feel the strain. He not only had to keep an eye on the planes and on Irene, but also on Bernadette, who had promised to find him an escape route via unmapped roads, to be sure she didn't try to double-cross him. And as if that weren't enough stress, he had to do it all while monitoring a chaotic interior free-for-all. The system was in a nearly ungovernable panic, and with his attention splintering off in several directions at once, Max wasn't sure he could maintain his dominance over the others much longer.

Then it occurred to him that there was a way he could kill two birds with one stone and relieve the stress on the system while they were hiding from the air search. He ordered Bernadette to pull off the county road onto an abandoned dirt logging road. With Maybelline's belly occasionally dragging the ground, they climbed until the road gave out in the deep woods at the edge of a stand of shallower second-growth scrub pine. He had Bernadette park the Caddy under the cover of the trees, then ordered her out of the car.

Irene started to get out as well.

“You stay here,” said Max, holding the gun on Irene with one hand, and removing a set of handcuffs from Terry Jervis's carpet bag with the other.

“What are you going to do to her?”

“None of your-No, wait, I guess it is your business.”

Max suddenly realized that he could make it three birds with one stone, hiding from the air search and relieving the stress on the system while at the same time providing Irene with a damn good incentive to go forward with therapy. He leaned in through the open driver's door. “It's chaos in here,” he whispered, tapping his temple with the muzzle of the. 38. “I'm losing control. If I don't give them what they want, I can't guarantee her safety or yours.”

“No!” said Irene. “Max, this isn't the way.”

“Of course it isn't,” he said softly, cuffing her left wrist to the steering wheel. “You know the way. Therapy. Fusion. Unfortunately, we don't have time for that at the moment.”

Bernadette Sandoval stood trembling by the side of the car, her black hair glistening in the morning sunlight that filtered through the pines. The trembling stemmed not so much from fear as nervous resolve: she had already made up her mind to go for the gun at the first opportunity. If this Max creep killed her, he killed her, but she would not be raped-and he wouldn't have been the first who'd tried. She had an uncle who still bore the scar of her nail file across his temple.

“Pick out a soft spot and lie down.” Max waved the pistol around to indicate the general area he had in mind, in the carpet of needles under the pines to the right of the car.

Bernadette did as he asked-she couldn't go for the gun until he brought it within reach.

“Pull down your panties and show me your pretty.”

Bernadette told herself it was nothing-kindergarten stuff. She hoped he wouldn't make her undress all the way before he brought the gun within reach, but told herself she could do that too if she had to.

“Now unbutton your blouse, Bernadette, and let's see-”

The car door opened. Maxwell whirled, gun in hand. Bernadette tried to run while his back was turned, but her panties were around her ankles. She fell, tried to crawl away. The gun barked; a bullet whizzed over her head and tore into a tree trunk, sending chips of bark flying. She fell onto her face, her arms covering her head, trying futilely to protect it from the bullet she knew would be coming.

When the bullet didn't arrive, Bernadette rolled onto her back and saw Max pointing the gun at her. Behind him, Irene was leaning out from Maybelline's open door as far as her handcuffs would permit. Her mouth was moving; it took a few seconds for Bernadette's brain to start processing the words.

“-take me, not her. If you want my help, you're all going to have to cooperate. Leave the girl be, or so help me God you'll have to kill us both.”

Bernadette was afraid to look up at Max again. She kept her eyes on the other woman's face. Usually she could read white people easily-unlike Indians, everything they were thinking or feeling showed up on their faces. This Irene was deep, though, no shit. She'd been through the fires. Bernadette believed what she'd said. Again she steeled herself to die.

Fortunately, Max believed it too. “What the fuck, any port in a storm,” he growled, as much to the others as to himself. Then he gestured with the barrel of the pistol for Bernadette to get up.