Runner

7

At ten in the morning, when they were a few miles south of Buffalo in Hamburg, Jane pulled off the highway and stopped in the big parking lot of the McKinley Mall across from the Wegmans grocery store. "Are you ready to drive?"

"Sure," said Christine. "I slept really well on that last stretch."

"I know." They got out of the car and traded seats. When Christine sat behind the wheel, she adjusted the mirrors and the seat to her shorter stature, started the engine, and looked around her twice before she put the car in gear and let it glide forward up an aisle toward the exit from the lot.

To Jane her behavior was a promising sign. Jane had stayed alive this long by observing people minutely—how they carried themselves, where they looked when they walked into unfamiliar buildings, where they chose to sit in movie theaters. The way they drove a car was a huge indicator. It warned her if they were stupid, crazy, careless, or selfish.

She pretended to relax and adjusted the passenger seat so it leaned back, turned her face slightly away from Christine, and closed her left eye. She was asleep as a napping cat is asleep, eyes barely closed and muscles ready to react in an instant.

Christine drove with a tentative quality at first, holding the wheel tightly with both hands and readjusting the mirrors once more. Jane waited and watched the window to her right, judged the speed of acceleration, and felt the deceleration when Christine applied the brakes. Jane opened her eyes while Christine got out on the main highway, and watched her test the car's power on the Thruway, take a space in the right lane and stay there for a time until she needed to get around a slow truck, then pull back in. She performed those operations with competence and assurance. She was not an aggressive driver or a timid one.

When the car crossed over into the Cattaraugus Reservation, Jane watched the familiar landmarks pass—Mile Strip Road, then Irving-Gowanda Road, and then Cattaraugus Creek and the ponds just past it. Jane closed both eyes. Christine was all right. She might not turn out to be a hero or a genius, but she was a good driver. A person who could be trusted to maneuver a metal and glass box containing one's fragile bones and tender flesh down a highway at a mile a minute was a valuable ally. In a moment, Jane began to dream.

IT WAS NIGHT, but she was not feeling safe enough to sleep. She was in her compartment in a longhouse that belonged to the women of the Wolf clan, but her husband was somewhere else—out in the forest with a party of warriors, going south along the crests of the mountains to fight. There were always men out in the endless woods. So many men were killed in the fighting that more men had to be sent out to find captives to bring home and adopt to take the places of the dead.

There was shouting. She wanted to find out what it was, but couldn't get her muscles to respond. Someone threw back the hide that covered the doorway, and she could see bright orange flames outside. There were dark silhouettes crossing the doorway, footsteps thudding on the packed earth outside the longhouse.

There were sounds of fighting. Then she saw fire fifty paces down the longhouse wall, licking up the elm bark wall on the inner side, beginning to reach the support laths. She rolled off the platform to the pounded earth floor and stood.

She looked around her, and saw the shapes of two children in the compartment across the hearth from hers—her cousin's children, a boy and a girl. "Where's your mother?" They said nothing, so she said, "Come on. Come with me."

They both came to her and clung to her legs, but she took their hands and said, "There are men out there who want to kill us. We're going out, and we're going to run for the forest and go as hard and as far as we can. If one of us gets caught, keep running. There won't be any reason to look back."

She moved to the western doorway, opened the flap only slightly, so the light from inside would not show, and peered out. There were many people running—women and children. The men all seemed to be enemies, all dashing from one longhouse to the next with torches, or chasing fleeing people and bludgeoning them to the ground with swings of their war clubs.

Jane couldn't tell by looking at the dark silhouettes who the attackers were. There was only a shine of reflected firelight on glistening skin, a flash of red or yellow or black paint across a face, scalp locks, and feathers. She watched them for a few moments, then whispered, "It's time." She pulled the two children out with her, timed her run to pass one of the raiders from behind before the next one could appear.

She was a very fast runner, her long, strong legs dashing for the dark ring of palisades that surrounded the village. Right away she saw that the children weren't going to be fast enough. The flames from burning longhouses were rising higher now, and they would be seen. She knelt and said to the boy, "On my back." When he had climbed up and clung to her neck, she scooped up the girl and said, "Hold tight." The vertical logs were set in place so they formed a spiral, leaving a narrow corridor as a portal. She stood and ran toward the gap in the stockade.

As she ran she heard terrible shrieks, some of them cries of final agony and others of wild exhilaration and joy. She could see the gap in the row of tall, sharpened tree trunks now. It was the opening she had used each day to go out into the fields. She ran hard for it. She knew that by now there must be enemy warriors who had seen her in the light of the fires, and as though her thought drew it, she heard an arrow flit past her ear. She tried bending lower, and almost stumbled under the weight of the children, then regained her footing and ran harder. She sensed that enough time had passed now for a bowman to nock an arrow and draw the bow, so she abruptly dodged to the left. The arrow flew past her right arm into the ground ahead of her. As she passed it, she tugged it out of the earth and clutched it as she ran.

The gap was close. She ran into the space made by the overlapping palisades and saw the man blocking the passage. His face was painted red below the mouth and black above, so he seemed in the dim light to be headless. He lunged toward her in the narrow space, his arms out to reach around her and the two children, but Jane thrust the head of the arrow toward his abdomen just below the sternum.

As she pushed the arrow upward with all her strength, she felt her right arm jerk forward against nothing, and she was awake. She was in a car, the rented car. She could feel the mild vibration of the car over the road, feel the artificial unchanging breath of the air-conditioning on her face. She sat up.

"Good afternoon."

Jane looked and remembered Christine. "Hi," she said.

"You were having a nightmare, weren't you?"

"I don't think of them as nightmares."

"Your legs started twitching. We had a dog who used to do that in his sleep, like he was running."

Jane sat up straight, looked at the road, then flipped down the sun visor and opened the flap in the back to reveal the makeup mirror. Her eyes looked a bit puffy, but her hair hung straight, as usual. "I guess the dog and I must have the same dreams." She looked out to her right, searching for landmarks. "What was the last town you passed?"

"Erie, Pennsylvania."

"Good," said Jane. "You've made good progress. Want me to drive?"

"To tell you the truth, I was just beginning to think about waking you up. I'd like to stop someplace soon."

Jane looked at her watch. It was still the fancy dress watch with the tiny face and the diamonds. "I forgot to take this thing off after the benefit, and now I'm stuck with it. I guess it says one-thirty." She stared out the window again. "I think the next place that's right for your purposes is a little restaurant called Dill's. It's on the lakeshore right around here. I recognize where we are. Take the next exit."

"You know this route that well?"

"I've driven it plenty of times. Even before the security at airports got serious, it wasn't always a good idea to take a plane. There were always too many people who got a chance to see your face, too many times when you had to give a false name. And when you get on an airplane, there's not much you can do about who gets on with you. So I've always tried to use the highways when there was time. Turn right up here. Now keep going straight. There will be a big sign on the left that says DILL'S. The parking lot is next to it."

Christine said, "This is going to be the best place around here?"

"Best for us."

"For us?"

"Two women driving west, one of whom is being hunted. Picking where you're willing to stop is a good skill to learn. Find places that cater to people who look just like you, if you can. You don't want to stand out any more than you have to. Dill's is a place where local people go, which means the food is dull but safe. It's too far from the main highways to get much of the passing traffic. The rest-rooms are very clean. That's a big sign. It means that there's somebody in charge who cares about the business. If something seems to be threatening to one of his customers—meaning you—he's going to try to help."

Christine found the restaurant, and drove into the parking lot. Jane said, "Park between those two big SUVs. They hide the car from the road."

She maneuvered the car into the space Jane had indicated, and Jane said, "Now before you turn off the engine, look around. Is there somebody visible who seems to be watching every car that arrives, or has a particular interest in us?"

"Not that I can see."

"Good. Anything else that feels odd?"

"I don't think so. Does what I feel matter?"

"Absolutely. Your fear is the best thing you have right now. Use it. Listen to it. Always give yourself a few seconds to let those feelings come to you. If you feel things aren't right, then they aren't. How does it feel here?"

"Comfortable. Easy," said Christine. "It reminds me of the places my dad used to take my mother and me when I was little."

"The reasons your father picked a place like this are complicated, but they're essentially the same. He wasn't going to take a woman and a child into a place that wasn't safe or where they'd feel conspicuous. Now, what if you and I are both wrong about this place? Or what if things change quickly? If you know in advance what you plan to do, then you'll be able to do it efficiently. If the four come, can they block the exit?"

"Not really. If they tried, I can drive over the lawn to the street in a second."

"Heading where?"

"I'd take any direction that was clear, but I think I'd try to go that way if I had a choice." She pointed to the right.

"What's there?"

"If you make a right turn, you're hardly ever held up waiting to do it. And I think that's the way to the center of town. There will be people, maybe a police station."

"That is the way downtown. Very good." They got out of the car and walked to the front entrance of the restaurant. "When we get inside, read the place and the people for me."

They went in and a plump middle-aged waitress with red hair and smile lines around her eyes and mouth stepped up to them, taking long strides in rubber-soled shoes. She pulled two menus out of a rack near the door, and said, "This way, ladies." She stopped at a table near the side windows of the restaurant and said, "Is this okay?"

Jane looked at Christine.

"Sure," said Christine.

They sat down and watched the waitress disappear, and then Jane said, "Tell me. What do I need to know about this place?"

"I don't see any scary people. They all look like my aunts and uncles. The exits are through the back of the room by the restrooms, and the front."

"Where else?"

"That's it."

"No, it isn't. If you go through the kitchen you'll see a back door. They have to have a back way for deliveries and to take out the garbage. Even if you don't see it, you know there is one."

Christine looked at her closely. "You did have a nightmare, didn't you?"

"It was a reminder. I've got to give you everything I can, as quickly as possible. From now on, you've got to be careful every second. There aren't any decisions that don't matter. One choice makes you safer, and the other makes you less safe. If you can tell which is which, your chances go way up. You have to get out of certain habits. Pretty young girls are taught to enjoy being noticed, and, if possible, remembered. Beginning now you want to be overlooked and forgotten."

"It's going to get harder as I get bigger and bigger."

"When the baby comes, the attention will end. Babies are all adorable and interesting. People's eyes are drawn to them, and they can't stare at both of you easily. Men in particular will stop looking at you. Their motives are pretty predictable, and when they see a baby, it will trip a switch that says you're not available for what they have in mind, so their eyes will move on. At this stage, all you need to think about are three things: Is this place safe? How do I keep from being noticed? How do I keep from leaving tracks?"

"Leaving tracks?"

"Everywhere a person goes, he leaves a trail. People see him. He has to pay for food, clothing, and shelter. At the moment I don't think the four know where you are, because we put a break in the trail. The longer you can stay invisible, the harder it will be to pick you up again. If you do everything right, it will be nearly impossible. You don't use any name if you can help it, travel at night, pay cash for everything you can."

A few other customers came in and sat nearby, so Jane and Christine ordered lunch and ate in near silence, talking only occasionally in quiet tones about the weather, the traffic, and the restaurant. Then Jane paid in cash for their food, and in moments she had steered the car back onto the road again. "Tell me about your dream," said Christine.

Jane kept her eyes on the road. "When I'm doing this—taking a runner out—I suppose I'm agitated. I have lots of dreams."

"Sharon told me that dreams are part of your religion."

Jane glanced at her. "Yours, too."

"I suppose so," said Christine. "But Sharon told me you took them seriously."

"I do."

"Are you religious?"

"No," Jane said. "I'd say that I'm a pretty staunch atheist until it gets dark. Then I'm not so sure. How about you?"

"My mother raised me to be a devout person, but she died when I was seven, and that was the end of it. I sort of forgot about the whole thing. Maybe I'll go back to church when the baby is born. What do your dreams tell you?"

"If you're a religious Seneca, you believe a dream is either advice from a spirit guide—a supernatural being who cares about you—or your soul's way of expressing a wish or a need."

"Have you had any that might be messages?"

"I think that mine tend to be a guide telling me something I need to know, only the guide is my own brain."

"Huh?"

"When important things are happening, events sometimes move too fast for us to evaluate everything we see or hear. Later on, when we dream, our minds seem to point out to us things we didn't pay enough attention to while we were awake, or maybe didn't interpret right. Something can be tickling the backs of our minds, and the dream is our chance to look at it in a different way."

"So what did your last dream tell you?"

"That I need to pay attention."

"Where are we going?"

"West."

"Because of your dream?"

"Because the last time I saw the four, they were going east."