Among the Brave

Chapter Eleven

It felt like the middle of the night when Mark was back, shaking Trey by the shoulders.

“Here, put this on,” Mark muttered.

Groggily Trey accepted a flannel shirt, thick with quilting — almost a jacket, really. He wrapped it around his shoulders. It was warmer, and Trey was a little touched that Mark had thought to share. Trey was still wearing the formal servant clothes he’d been wearing the night of the Grants’ fatal party: stiff black pants, a thin, white cotton shirt Except that the white shirt wasn’t exactly white anymore, not after days of hiding out at the Talbots’ and, now, sleeping on a dirt floor.

“Watch your head,” Mark said gruffly as Trey rolled out from under the truck.

Mark opened the driver’s side door, and the light that glowed suddenly inside the truck’s cab seemed almost blinding.

“Better button that up,” Mark said, and Trey blinked in confusion. Button a light? A door? A truck? “The shirt.” Mark said impatiently.

Red-faced, Trey forced his clumsy fingers to prod buttons through buttonholes. Then he slipped into the seat of the truck, even though it felt like climbing into a spotlight He slid as far away from the light as possible, and huddled against the far door.

“Let’s go then,” Mark said.

Trey glanced around and saw that Mark had opened a huge door behind the truck, leading out of the barn. A gigantic portion of the starry sky seemed to stare back at him.

“No, wait,” Mark said. “Let’s push it out to the road.” They just stared at him. “So nobody hears."

It seemed to take Mark forever to explain in a way Trey could understand: Trey would have to get out of the truck, then stand at the front of the truck and shove on the hood as hard as he could, until the truck rolled out to the road.

“I can’t,” Trey whimpered.

Mark stared at him for a minute, then said, “Fine. You steer. I’ll push.”

And then Mark practically had to give him an entire driving lesson: “Thin the wheel slowly… No, no, don’t look straight ahead, look out the back window—”

“Why?” Trey said. “Why does the seat face forward if I’m supposed to be looking backward?”

“Because we’re going in reverse,” Mark said disgustedly.

Trey wondered how much it would take for Mark to give up on him, to just snort, “Fine! You stay here! I’ll go rescue my brother by myself!”

Is that what I really want? Trey wondered.

It was yet another question he didn’t want to think about.

Finally Mark seemed satisfied that Trey could steer the truck properly Mark put the truck in neutral, and moved around to the front.

Mark was strong. It seemed like no time at all before he’d pushed the truck to the edge of the gravel driveway. Then he went back to shut the barn door while Trey cowered in the truck.

“Think you’re going to drive the whole way?” Mark asked when he came back

“What? Oh,” Trey said, and he slid over away from the steering wheel.

Mark climbed in and shut the door. He turned the key, and the engine coughed a few times, then sputtered to life. The sound seemed as loud as a jumbo jet roaring through the night sky. Trey was certain that the racket would wake not just Mark’s family, but the entire countryside.

Mark didn’t seem worried, though. He just patted the dashboard and muttered, “Good old Bessie.”

Trey squeezed his eyes shut in terror. What was he thinking? How could he be doing this? Why go looking for danger?

Beside him, Mark started whistling. Whistling!

Trey opened his eyes a crack. The dashboard glowed with dials and numbers. Beyond, the truck’s headlights sliced into the solid darkness around them.

“Why didn’t you tell your family?” Trey asked Mark softly “How could you just—” He almost said “abandon them,” but stopped himself at the last minute. “How could you just leave without letting them know where you were going?”

Mark glanced quickly over at Trey, then focused his eyes on the road again.

“They’d worry,” he said.

“And they’re not going to worry now? With you disappearing?” Trey asked incredulously

“They’ll think I’m just running around. Carousing. Getting in trouble.” Mark hesitated. “Little trouble, not big trouble.”

Trey didn’t want any trouble, of any size. Had Mark done this kind of thing before — taking his family’s truck out in the middle of the night, going who-knows-where? Did they expect it of him? What was Trey thinking, casting his lot with a troublemaker?

“Uh-oh,” Mark muttered.

“What?” Trey asked, panicked.

Mark didn’t answer, just pointed at a pair of headlights far down the road, coming right at them.