Never Go Back

TWENTY-SIX

Three hundred yards later Reacher and Turner hit Berryville’s city limit, and West Main became plain old State Route 7. Turner said, ‘If those guys could figure out where we went, we have to assume the army could too. The FBI as well, even.’

Which made hitchhiking a nightmare. It was pitch dark. A winter night, in the middle of nowhere. A long straight road. Oncoming headlights would be visible a mile away, but there would be no way of knowing what lay behind those headlights. Who was at the wheel. Civilian or not? Friend or foe?

Too big of a risk to take a gamble.

So they compromised, in a win-some, lose-some kind of way that Reacher felt came out about equal in terms of drawbacks and benefits. They retraced their steps, and Turner waited on the shoulder about fifty yards ahead of the last lit-up town block, and Reacher kept on going, to where he could lean on the corner of a building, half in and half out of a cross-street alley, where there was some light spill on the blacktop. A bad idea, in the sense that any car turning west beyond them was a lost opportunity in terms of a potential ride, but a good idea in the sense that Reacher could make a quick and dirty evaluation of the through-town drivers, as and when they appeared. They agreed he should err on the side of caution, but if he felt it was OK, he would step out and signal to Turner, who would then step up to the kerb and jam her thumb out.

Which overall, he thought at the beginning, was maybe more win-some than lose-some. Because by accident their improvised system would imitate a very old hitchhiking trick. A pretty girl sticks out her thumb, a driver stops, full of enthusiasm, and then the big ugly boyfriend jogs up and gets in too.

But thirty minutes later Reacher was seeing it as more lose-some than win-some. Traffic was light, and he was getting no time at all to make a judgement. He would see headlights coming, he would wait, then the car would flash past in a split second, and his brain would process, sedan, domestic, model year, specification, and long before he got to a conclusion the car was already well past Turner and speeding onward.

So he switched to a pre-screening approach. He decided to reject all sedans, and all SUVs younger than five years, and to approve all pick-up trucks, and all older SUVs. He had never known the army to hunt in pick-up trucks, and he guessed all army road vehicles would be swapped out before they got to be five years old. Same for the FBI, surely. The remaining risk was off-duty local deputies, joining in the fun in their POVs. But some risk had to be taken, otherwise they would be there all night long, which would end up the same as sleeping in a D.C. park. They would get busted at first light tomorrow, instead of last light today.

He waited. For a minute he saw nothing, and then he saw headlights, coming in from the east, not real fast, just a good, safe city speed. He leaned out from his corner. He waited. He saw a shape flash past.

A sedan.

Reject.

He settled back against the building.

He waited again. Five minutes. Then seven. Then eight. Then: more headlights. He leaned out. He saw a pick-up truck.

He stepped out to the sidewalk in its wake and jammed his left fist high in the air and fifty yards away Turner jumped to the kerb and stuck out her thumb. Total precision. Like a perfect post-season bang-bang double play, fast and crisp and decisive in the cold night air. The pick-up’s headlight beams washed over Turner’s immobile form like she’d been there all along.

The pick-up didn’t stop.

Shit, Reacher thought.

The next viable candidate was an elderly Ford Bronco, and it didn’t stop, either. Neither did a middle-aged F150, or a new Dodge Ram. Then the road went quiet again. The clock in Reacher’s head ticked around to ten thirty in the evening. The air grew colder. He had on two T-shirts and his jacket, with its miracle layer. He started to worry about Turner. She had one T-shirt and one regular shirt. And her T-shirt had looked thin from laundering. I was born in Montana, she had said. I’m never cold. He hoped she was telling the truth.

For five more minutes nothing came in from the east. Then, more headlights, wide-spaced and low, tracking the road’s rise and fall with a rubbery, well-damped motion. A sedan, probably. He leaned out just a fraction, already pessimistic.

Then he ducked back in, fast. It was a sedan, swift and sleek, a Ford Crown Victoria, shiny and dark in colour, with black windows and antennas on the trunk lid. MPs, possibly, or the FBI, or Federal Marshals, or the Virginia state cops. Or not. Maybe another agency altogether, on an unconnected mission. He leaned out again and watched it go. It missed Turner in the shadows and blasted onward into the distance.

He waited. One more minute. Then two. Nothing but darkness.

Then more headlights, way back, maybe still on East Main, before the downtown crossroads, coming on steadily, now on West Main for sure, getting closer. They were yellow and weak. Old-fashioned and faint. Nothing modern. Not halogen. Reacher leaned out from his corner. The headlights kept on coming, slow and steady. They flashed past.

A pick-up truck.

The same double play. His left fist, her thumb.

The pick-up slowed right down.

It stopped.

Turner stepped off the kerb and leaned in at its passenger window and started talking, and Reacher started jogging the fifty yards towards her.

This time Juliet called Romeo, which was unusual. Mostly Romeo had the breaking news. But their labours were divided, and so sometimes Juliet had the new information.

He said, ‘No sign of them, all the way to Winchester.’

Romeo said, ‘Are they sure?’

‘They checked very carefully.’

‘OK, but keep them in the area. That bus line is our best option.’

‘Will do.’

Reacher arrived a little out of breath, and saw the pick-up was an old Chevrolet, plain and basic, built and bought for utility, not show, and the driver looked to be a wily old boy of about seventy, all skin and bone and sparse white hair. Turner introduced him by saying, ‘This gentleman is heading for Mineral County in West Virginia. Near a place called Keyser, not too far from the Maryland line.’

Which all meant nothing to Reacher, except that West Virginia sounded one step better than regular Virginia. He leaned in at the window next to Turner and said, ‘Sir, we’d really appreciate the ride.’

The old guy said, ‘Then hop right in and let’s go.’

There was a bench seat, but the cab was narrow. Turner got in first, and if Reacher pressed hard against the door there was just about room for her between him and the old guy. But the seat was soft and the cab was warm. And the truck motored along OK. It was happy to do sixty. It felt like it could roll down the road for ever.

The old guy asked, ‘So where are you folks headed ultimately?’

‘We’re looking for work,’ Reacher said, thinking of the young couple in Ohio, in the red crew-cab Silverado, with the shedding dog. ‘So pretty much any place will do.’

‘And what kind of work are you looking for?’

And so began a completely typical hitchhiking conversation, with every party spinning yarns based on half truths and inflated experiences. Reacher had been out of the service for a long time, and when he had to he worked whatever job he could get. He had worked the doors in night clubs, and he had dug swimming pools, and stacked lumber, and demolished buildings, and picked apples, and loaded boxes into trucks, and he made it sound like those kinds of things had been his lifelong occupations. Turner talked about waiting tables, and working in offices, and selling kitchenwares door to door, all of which Reacher guessed was based on her evening and weekend experiences through high school and college. The old guy talked about tobacco farming in the Carolinas, and horses in Kentucky, and hauling coal in West Virginia, in eighteen-wheel trucks.

They drove through Winchester, crossing I-81 twice, and then onward towards the state line, into Appalachian country, on the last northern foothills of Shenandoah Mountain, the road rising and twisting towards Georges Peak, the motor straining, the weak yellow headlights jerking from side to side on the sharp turns. Then at midnight they were in West Virginia, still elevated in wild country, rolling through wooded passes towards the Alleghenies in the far distance.

Then Reacher saw a fire, far ahead in the west, on a wooded hillside a little south of the road. A yellow and orange glow, against the black sky, like a bonfire or a warning beacon. They rolled through a sleeping town called Capon Bridge, and the fire got closer. A mile or more away, but then suddenly less, because the road turned towards it.

Reacher said, ‘Sir, you could let us out here, if you wouldn’t mind.’

The old guy said, ‘Here?’

‘It’s a good spot.’

‘For what?’

‘I think it will meet our needs.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘We’d appreciate it very much.’

The old guy grumbled something, dubious, not understanding at all, but he took his foot off the gas and the truck slowed down. Turner wasn’t understanding, either. She was looking at Reacher like he was crazy. The truck came to a halt, on a random stretch of mountain blacktop, woods to the left, woods to the right, nothing ahead, and nothing behind. Reacher opened his door, and unfolded himself out, and Turner slid out beside him, and they thanked the old man very much and waved him away. Then they stood together in the pitch dark and the dead quiet and the cold night air, and Turner said, ‘You want to tell me exactly why we just got out of a warm truck in the middle of nowhere?’

Reacher pointed, ahead and to the left, at the fire.

‘See that?’ he said. ‘That’s an ATM.’