The Gorge

CHAPTER TEN

He caught up with her a couple of hours after sundown.

Clara had youth on him, and she was no stranger to the woods, but Ace Goodall had a manic energy that both attracted and repelled her. Back at the camp, when he’d gone after the agents, Clara decided enough was enough. She understood his mission of bombing abortion clinics. That was clearly a fight on the side of right, and appealed to her self-destructive nature, but killing people in cold blood just because they were cops didn’t seem Christian. Oh, she knew she would probably face the death penalty if she were ever dragged to trial, but she had planned over the past couple of months to die by Ace’s side, going out in a blaze of glory. Whether it came from police bullets or a double suicide, she’d not feared it, and almost welcomed it.

Still, when she had a chance, she had fled. Not to escape arrest; no Earthly court could trump the higher law, as Ace had said. She had fled because of something inside her that screamed for life. She was too young to die. God must have given her a purpose separate from helping Ace.

Not that running had done much good. So deep in the wilderness area, the trails were few, and the darkness slowed her, too. She’d left her backpack at the camp, and she was tired and hungry. She’d found a little creek and drunk water from it, figuring there was no pollution or sewage since the wilderness area was protected from development. The water had refreshed her, but she needed sleep. She curled in a ball on top of a damp bed of leaves, and was just drowsing off when the boot nudged her side.

She opened her eyes to see him standing over her, his silhouette dark against the broken canopy.

“You run away,” Ace said.

“I was scared,” she said, thinking fast, wondering which lie he would believe. Though he was cunning, he didn’t seem too experienced with women. She’d used that to her advantage while letting him believe she was of Old Testament stripe, subjugating herself to her man. All the while, she was feeding off his anger and his dangerous streak.

He flipped on a flashlight, blinding her in its sudden golden circle. “You ought not be scared if you’re living right.”

She sat up, squinting, her eyes burning. “Did you kill them?”

“I didn’t. The Lord took care of that.”

“The Lord?” Ace gave the Lord credit for each bomb that successfully exploded, each time he gave law enforcement the slip, each newspaper headline that spread the word to others who might join in the holy work. “What I meant was, did you shoot them? Like that man in Atlanta?”

“I told you, He sent an angel. My hands are clean.”

True, she hadn’t heard any shots, but she might have been out of range if he had stalked the agents for long. And Ace was given to visions. They were probably the hallucinations of the schizophrenic. She understood that on an intellectual level. She’d been majoring in psychology, spicing it up with some philosophy and religion courses, at Radford University in Virginia. She was no dummy.

“Your hands are clean and your soul is white,” she said, repeating the line he’d used the first time he’d told her about his work.

“I don’t like it that you run away.”

“I can’t help it, Ace. I’m not as brave as you.”

“Well, get up off the ground. We got to get out of here now. The Feds will be swarming these woods in a couple of days, once the Haircuts don’t check in on schedule.”

Clara stood, brushing the wet leaves from her clothes. The chill had seeped into her skin. “It will take a week to hike out of here.”

“We’ll go down to the river. Maybe we can find a boat or something.”

“You saw the river. It’s too dangerous for a boat.”

“Don’t be talking to me about danger. We’re going to be fine.”

Clara wanted to ask, Then why are we running? But she didn’t want to risk a slap. Violence begat violence, that was the way of the world, and a vile tongue was just as bad as an angry right arm.

“I’m glad you found me,” she said. “I might have been lost.” She meant it in the physical sense, but knew Ace would pick up on the spiritual aspect, too. He might not have had a formal education, but he was wise in the dark ways of the human heart.

“Well, like I said, heaven sent a sign.”

Ace was big on signs. He’d picked his bombing targets through a process that involved a map, a red magic marker, and deep prayer. Behavioral psychologists would say Ace was engaging in antisocial acts to atone for his upbringing at the hands of a drunken trucker and a mother who had run away with a Mexican landscaper. Clara didn’t quite buy that herself. After all, she had been raised in an Ohio trailer park and had not only kept her virginity until high school, she’d been an honor-roll student and had eliminated the word “ain’t” from her vocabulary.

“What was the sign?” she asked.

“An angel come down from the sky. Like I said.”

The forest was quiet around them, the river issuing a gentle whisper half a mile below. “What does it mean?” she asked, knowing it could only mean one thing.

“The Lord’s shining on us.”

“Did you bring any food?”

“The Lord will provide.”

Clara was a believer, but she was also a pragmatist. She didn’t think manna would fall from the skies or fish would jump out of the river into their hands. The Lord helped those that helped themselves, her father had often said. He was about as honest as a minister could be, and besides his one weakness, had been a great leader and kept the commandments. Nowhere in the Good Book did it say not to drink, Preacher Floyd Bannister always said. His flock wasn’t always as convinced, but few of his sheep had actually read the Bible all the way through, and besides, hangovers kept the Sunday morning sermons short.

Ace started down the trail. An owl hooted somewhere in the woods above them. She wondered what Ace’s “angel” had actually been. Maybe a crow, maybe a bald eagle, maybe a strangely shaped cloud. She allowed him a respectful lead of about ten paces, then followed, alert to the sounds of the night.

She wondered if she should tell Ace her secret. It would probably just make him angry. Besides, there would be time later, once they were safe in a dry motel room, where she could take a hot shower and make him a warm, loving bed. Let him plan his next act of holy war. That would be the right time for conspiratorial whispers.