The Gift

Chapter 38

Whit

THERE'S NOTHING like a three-mile run with your kid sister slung over your shoulder to clear your head. I'll never call her "Wispy" again, that's for sure. She's growing up fast. My back, my lungs, my legs… they all ache so much I want to stop and throw up.

I hear the distant rumble of trucks and the squawks of N.O. loudspeakers. The thumping of a helicopter soon joins the mix-it's coming our way quickly.

I duck off the road and into the woods, hoping the trees will lend some cover.

I find a path through the brush, but I get only about a hundred yards before it forks. The bigger track goes down into a gulley, and the smaller one winds along the side of a hill.

"High road or low road, Wisty?" I say, not expecting her to answer. I prop my sister against a tree. I need to put her down for a few seconds or I'll collapse into a heap.

"There are ants all over this tree," I hear her whisper.

"You're awake!" I'm stunned.

Wisty's already weakly swatting the little black insects off her arm. "Yep. I can even answer your question."

"You mean which road we should take?"

Without missing a beat, she starts murmuring a poem. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could… I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

"You wrote that?" I ask, aghast.

"Bertrand Snow actually," Wisty admits.

"Well, you must be winning your battle with the drugs to remember anything from your lit class."

I throw her over my aching shoulder one more time, and just then we hear a vehicle skidding to a stop on the road. Suddenly the woods behind us are alive with heavy-booted footsteps, men yelling… and dogs barking angrily.

"Maybe they'll pick the wrong path," I pant, and reflect that maybe we should have chosen the downward-sloping one. This trail has been 100 percent uphill so far.

"Um, I don't think they'll pick the other path, Whit."

"Why not?"

She's craning her neck behind me.

"Um, because I can already see them-and they can see us!"