Knock Out

47

TITUS HITCH WILDERNESS

TITUSVILLE, VIRGINIA

Ethan cleared away enough brush so he could slip through onto a narrow stone ledge beneath an overhang and into the cave he’d named Locksley Manor when he’d been seven years old, reading Robin Hood and exploring with his grandfather. The cave was well hidden since he’d planted bushes all across the front of it, hoping to prevent hikers from finding it, which had worked, and keeping animals out, which hadn’t. A bear hibernated in this cave most every winter, but it was August now and quite empty, thank God. It smelled like bear, not a bad smell, just thick, kind of oily. The chamber was small, unremarkable, really, giving no hint to the several magnificent chambers to be found deeper in the mountain, each of them with ceilings so high you couldn’t see the top.

He made his way out through the bushes and brought in Autumn and Joanna. Then he pulled the bushes back into place, covering all signs of a cave entrance.

He pulled off his backpack as he watched Joanna and Autumn’s faces in the pale light of their sanctuary. He said, “It looks pretty humdrum out here, but as it burrows farther back into the mountain, it becomes quite spectacular. I’ll bring you guys back here to explore it. Let me show you the goodies I brought.” He pointed to his bulging backpack that he’d slung onto the cave floor. “You never know when a tourist is going to get into trouble, and so all of us officers around here are prepared. My backpack is basically a survival kit—water, a half-dozen PowerBars, first-aid stuff, three of those high-tech sleeping bags that weigh a few ounces and keep you warm at twenty below. Not our problem, but it will get cold tonight, cold enough to appreciate them.” He reached in the pack and pulled out a plastic bag. “And the most important, coffee and a couple of mugs.”

“But we don’t have—”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Ethan said as he pulled out another small package and opened it. He took what looked like a metal disk, un-folded it into a cylinder, shoved another piece of metal into a bracket at the side, and within a few seconds he was waving a small pot in front of him.

Without thought, Joanna threw her arms around him. “That is miraculous, simply—”

She broke off, quickly stepped back, only to hear Autumn say, “I don’t drink coffee but I think you’re miraculous too, Ethan.”

They all laughed. It felt good to smile, to feel a little wash of relief pour through you. It put the fear aside, if only for a moment or two.

Ethan looked at the stack of logs he’d left here last year. Above the logs were twenty-five deep scratch marks in the stone, marking each year since he’d found the cave.

He decided against lighting a fire, not wanting Blessed and Grace to smell the smoke. He made do with a small Coleman burner just large enough to hold his pot.

Joanna boiled water, Autumn spread out the high-tech space sleeping bags, and Ethan checked all their weapons.

Ethan looked at the three sleeping bags in a neat line and said, “Here, Autumn, I’ve got your dinner. Eat slowly, you only get two bars, okay?”

It was quiet, and soon it was nearly dark in the deep wilderness. The trees were so thick that night fell quickly. Autumn fell asleep inside one of the sleeping bags, her hands cupped beneath her cheek.

When Ethan seated himself beside Joanna, his legs stretched out in front of him alongside hers, his back against the cave wall, he said, “Jonnna, have you thought about how Blessed and Grace found you and Autumn here in Titusville?”

She shook her head, then sighed, leaned back against the cave wall. “Well, of course I have. I really don’t know, Ethan, but I know without a doubt they’ll find us. You know it too.”

He nodded. “When Autumn was talking to Savich earlier, Savich told her to tell me he was going to see Mrs. Backman again, to cut off the snake’s head.”

“A good name for the old witch.”

“Is he thinking it’s Mrs. Backman who’s the tracker, not Blessed and Grace, that she somehow directs them? Do you think that’s possible?”

“I’ve thought about it, but when it comes down to that it’s so outside anything that makes sense to me, to any of us, it makes my head ache.”

“What we already know about them is remarkable enough. Truth be told, I don’t know why they haven’t tried to take over the world. What Blessed alone can do—why isn’t he president? Or dictator small country?”

“I’m thinking he’s got to have limits. Maybe he can stymie only a couple of people at a time. Maybe the hypnosis fades after a day, two days, whatever. Maybe there are a whole lot of people he can’t stymie—both Dillon and Autumn can resist him, after all.”

Ethan said, “Limits—that sounds reasonable, if anything can be considered reasonable about what Blessed does.”

“And Grace. We don’t even know what he can do. It’s interesting the Backmans never moved out of Bricker’s Bowl to look for a larger canvas. Mr. Backman left but always came back, again and again It’s like they’re somehow tied to Bricker’s Bowl, they’re afraid to leave, or can’t leave.”

Ethan poured them each another half-cup of coffee. “That’s the end of it. Do you like it?”

“It’s the best coffee I’ve had today.”

He chuckled and raised his cup to hers in a toast. He paused a moment, then said, “I meant to tell you, Joanna, I really like your freckles.”

Her hands immediately went to her cheeks. “Freckles, the bane of my existence. You said you like them?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“They breed in the sun.”

Her dark brown hair was pulled to the back of her head and held in a big clip. Hanks of thick hair fell around her face. He would have told her he liked her mouth too, and how her smile filled the very air with pleasure, but it really wasn’t the time. He prayed there would be a time. He couldn’t remember a more dangerous situation, and he knew he couldn’t fail. It wasn’t an option. Ethan watched her pull out the clip, smooth her fingers through her tangled hair, gather it all up again, and hook the clip back in. He said, “Autumn is the picture of you.”

“What? Oh, no, she’s beautiful. I’ve always thought she looked more like my mother.”

“Nope, she’s a copy of you. There’s nothing of her father in her?”

“She’ll look at you sometimes with her head tilted to one side, like she knows what you’re going to say and is waiting for you to get on with it. That’s her father. And when she’s mad, her cheeks turn redder than a sunset. That’s her father too.”

“Ready to tell me about Martin Backman?”

She swallowed, shook her head.

Ethan waited, saying nothing more, and sipped his coffee, so thick with grounds now it was probably growing hair on his tongue.

“He was a mean drunk, that’s what he told me when we dated, and that was why he didn’t drink. He said something snapped inside him when he drank, and he lost it. He hadn’t had a drink in seven years. I admired him because he’d recognized the problem and dealt with it.

“I was visiting some friends in Boston when I met him. I fell in love, married him right after I graduated from Bryn Mawr, and moved to the big bad city of Boston. Became a Patriots fan, and the Red Sox—you can’t help but love them. Then Autumn came into our lives.”

“What did your husband do?”

“Martin was in advertising.”

“TV commercials?”

“Yes—television, primarily. People, humor, screwy situations, mostly. He was very good at it, very intuitive. He had a knack for knowing what would and what wouldn’t appeal to people, and he was usually right. Not long after we married, he was made the head of the agency branch in Boston—he was only twenty-eight.”

“Do you think his gift somehow played into this? Gave him an edge?”

“You’re probably right. Sometimes it was scary how right-on he was. Autumn was four years old when his company wanted to bring him to New York—a big promotion, more money than you can imagine.”

“What happened?”

“He went out with people from the firm in New York to celebrate and, without thinking, he drank a toast. He didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, I guess. He hit a man in a brawl with a chair, and the man died. He plea-bargained down to manslaughter and went off to jail to serve minimum of nine years.” She shrugged, staring down into her empty cup. “He was murdered in prison, stabbed by an inmate in the shower who turned out to be related to the man Martin killed in that bar.

“You want to know what was strange, Ethan? Autumn knew her father was dead before I told her. Not dead, necessarily, but that he wasn’t there anymore. And she knew he would never be there again. She told me they spoke every single day, only I refused to accept it as being real even though I knew in my gut that it was, even then. I couldn’t figure out why Martin had never told me about this gift of his, never told me about his family, refused to even speak of them. Now, of course, I understand.

“He didn’t want me to know about any of it, even this so-called gift that terrifies.”

Ethan took her fisted hand, smoothed out her fingers. “Autumn isn’t her father. She’s herself, and what she can do is a miracle.”

She gave a hard laugh. “Yes, a real miracle.”

He pulled her against him and pressed her against his chest. “Thank you for telling me. I’m very sorry. How long ago did he go to person?”

“Nearly three years ago, up in Ossining. He refused to let either Autumn or me come to see him. He wrote to me every single week, although, of course, he must already have known everything that was going on, since he spoke to Autumn every day.

“By the time he died, I couldn’t even remember his smile, and I felt guilty because maybe I didn’t want to remember.” She sighed. “It was all so pointless.”

He smoothed his thumb over her eyebrow, traced his fingertips over the line of freckles. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, you look familiar to me.”

She closed her eyes. “I did a TV commercial for a new kind of potato chip. It was a way to make some extra money.”

“Was that you in the wheat field, chewing on this square, lacy chip?”

She grinned. “The director wanted the light just right so it would show up my freckles; he said they made me look like the girl next door. Do you know, those chips are quite good.”

“I remember I bought a bag because of you.”

He shouldn’t have said that, he should get down to business, but not just yet. He leaned down, kissed her mouth. She tasted of oat and apricot PowerBar. “I’m very sorry for all that’s happened to you, Joanna, both you and Autumn, but we’ll get through this. I’m heading out now to find a good spot to watch for Blessed. It’s the perfect night for it, hardly any moon but enough light for me to see. You watch over Autumn, all right?” He kissed her again and rose.

Joanna slowly got to her feet and faced him. He supposed he expected her to blast his plans but all she said, her voice quiet and calm, was “Yes, it’s time. I’m going with you. I don’t want to leave Autumn, but she’ll be safe enough here. I’m hoping she’ll stay asleep She’s a really good sleeper.” She pulled her gun out of the back of her jeans.

“Mama? What’s going on? Is Blessed here?”