A Rose-Red City

Three

“Are we nearly there, yet?” asked Lacey.

“For Heaven’s sake!” stormed Ariadne, “that’s the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time you’ve asked me!”

Then she thought, Give me strength, took a deep breath, and said, “Sorry, darling. Mommy’s very tired. Yes, I think we’re nearly there and I’m sorry I shouted at you.” Tired was not adequate. Exhausted, fatigued, frazzled… there were barely words for this sandy-eyeballed, concrete-in-the-bones feeling. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep for a few years, and a cold car would be quite comfortable, thank you; but she had Lacey and Alan with her, and the metronomes in front of her were wipers, and she must not sleep.

She had been driving for fourteen hours.

Lacey was sobbing and trying to make it a silent sobbing, which was worse than the furious bawling that Alan had indulged in until he had faded away.

“Soon, darling,” said Ariadne. “Remember I showed you the sign at the turnoff? Hope, it said. We’re going to a place called Hope. That’s a nice name, isn’t it?”

Lacey sniveled and probably nodded in the dark.

Except that there seemed to be no Hope. She had given up trying to reach the border that night— the coffee had done no good and the hamburgers had merely allowed Alan to have his third attack of car sickness and make the car stink even worse. Okay, maybe the coffee had helped for ten minutes or so, but then her eyelids had started folding up again, the rain had gotten worse, and the cold fact had soaked in— she wasn’t going to make the border that night. Then a sign had said HOPE NEXT TURNOFF, and that had sounded like what the marriage counsellor ordered; and she had taken the exit to Hope.

And she had seen the lights of Hope, dammit, through the dark and the rain— it had been only a mile from the highway, probably less. She had stayed on the road these last twenty minutes and more. There was no Hope!

She had done well to get this far. None of them would have believed she was capable of it— withdrawing the money without Graham knowing, staying dried out for three whole months, getting to know the kids again, teaching them to trust her, buying a car, having her license reinstated, picking Lacey up from school and Alan from day care when Maisie was having her hair done. She had planned it all by herself, and none of them had suspected what she was up to. She had been born in Canada and so she could claim to be a Canadian; once she got her kids across that border, it was going to be the Devil’s own fight for those two to get them away from her again, if they ever found her. She had done very well, and only this expletive rain had stopped her from making the border in one big rush. They were probably still checking all the motels within a hundred miles of home, and here she was, almost out of reach.

Swish-swash, swish-swash

… even on high, the wipers could barely keep up with the rain. It filled the headlight beams with silver dashes and furred the roadway with a silver mist, and if it hadn’t been for the rain she’d be a hundred miles farther ahead, safely over the border. But Hope had dissolved in the rain and washed away. The last forecast she’d heard had promised sun and high temperatures for the next three days, and chance of precipitation, zero. Why could she never bet against odds like that? This was the sort of rain for monsoon places, the tropics, not the sort of anemic drizzle she’d expected in North Dakota— or possibly Minnesota, she wasn’t sure, but not yet Manitoba.

The radio was silent now, after thirteen hours of Lacey twiddling knobs, pressing buttons, and jumping from one shrieking rock station to another, from country to western and back again. That was one small blessing from the rain: it had finally soaked into the aerial or something, and suddenly all they’d been able to get had been static, a strange, waily sort of static, and even Lacey didn’t want to listen to that. Al had gone to sleep in the back, after fourteen hours of bawling and vomiting, and that was not a small blessing. Lacey was drooping into the corner and might even go to sleep soon, too. Then she could keep driving and might even make the border— if it was still open at this time, whatever time it was. The digital clock on the dash had started dancing around on its own, too, going backwards at times, and leaping all around the day. If the rain was getting into that, then maybe the whole obscenity car was about to rust solid and stop dead.

If it didn’t, she would. Even talk from Lacey would be better than driving them all into a ditch. Except the country was so flat that the ditches looked almost safe; hard to say for sure when all she could see was a bright mist in the headlight beams and outer space beyond that in all directions.

“When we get to Hope, we’re going to get a nice motel, honey,” Ariadne said. “With soft beds and all warm. Won’t that be nice?” Lacey, probably, nodded.

“You talk to Mommy, honey. Help keep me awake.”

“What do you want me to say, Mommy?”

“Whatever you like.”

The road started to wind, unexpectedly, after a thousand miles of checkerboard straightness, and she slowed down, aware that she was cornering badly and that driving in this state was crazy. What was there to wind around on land this flat? Couldn’t they even build a straight road?

How long since she had seen another car? “Where are we going to, Mommy?”

“I told you, dear, we’re going to Canada. We’re going to have a nice place to live, you and Alan and me, and Mommy’s going to teach piano.”

“Will Daddy come and visit us?”

Not if I can help it.

“I don’t know, darling.”

“Will Maisie come and visit us?”

Over my dead body!

“No, honey, not Maisie.”

Thunk!

Bounce.

Thunk

and re-

thunk

… the damn pavement had ended, and she was driving on gravel. That settled it— she was lost.

“Will Peggy come and visit us?”

“No, dear, but maybe we can get you another pony to ride.” Wanted: two-bedroom apartment, willing to accept ponies. Large balcony essential.

She was lost. She didn’t know which way was north or west or east or straight up, and there wasn’t anything to see. She came to a four-way junction, and all four roads looked exactly alike in the rain; there were no lights anywhere. She had driven off the edge of the world. Keep straight on, then.

“Don’t want another pony. Want Peggy.” More suppressed sobbing; the kid was as pooped as she was.

Then there was a light, a single star through the water-slicked windshield. Star of Hope? A very small Hope, then. A farm, obviously— this great waste of blackness must be one of those super-size, mechanized farms that the magazines told about. That was why there was only the one light.

“See that light, honey? Over there? I’m going to drive in there and ask where we are, because I think we’ve taken— ”

“We lost, Mommy?” Panic!

“No, dear. But I think Mommy took a wrong turn and I’ll stop and ask the lady at the farm.” The light was about a hundred yards back from the road, and she braked carefully— this was no gravel road, this was mud— slowed down to a crawl, and turned very carefully into the hundred-yard driveway. The car continued to turn after she told it to stop, apologetically slid backward off the driveway, and came to a complete halt.

Ariadne ran through her restricted collection of obscenities under her breath. She dropped the gear shift to L and stepped on the gas. The wheels said, “Mmmmm!” and the low corner sank appreciably lower. She tried R, and it sank lower still.

She turned off the motor and then the lights, and there was nothing except the dark roar of rain on the roof.

She stretched and rubbed her eyes and then looked over the seat. Alan was still out cold, a marble cherub under his rug with his thumb in his mouth and one arm around his teddy. In sudden panic she recognized the silence and looked at Lacey, also fast asleep, face pale in the darkness. She must have dropped off about thirty seconds before this unspeakable ditch grabbed them.

The rain roared on.

If there was nobody home at that light…

Ariadne checked her watch, and it was only nine o’clock. Well, they wouldn’t be in bed yet, and she couldn’t have been driving for fourteen hours, although she was almost certain it had been later than nine in the coffee shop. Now, did she dare leave the kids alone? If they woke up with her gone, they’d be terrified. But to wake them up and drag them along that soggy road in this rain would be more cruel still. She had a raincoat, somewhere in her grip in the trunk, but almost nothing for them, just what they’d been wearing… and Alan’s indispensable teddy, thank the Lord.

She would have to leave them, be quick, and hope that they stayed asleep. Alan was comfortable, and even Lacey had settled into the corner in not too bad a position. The first thing would be to get her raincoat and a decent pair of shoes out of the trunk, then run down to that house and ask if they had a tractor. Even if they charged her fifty bucks, it would be worth it.

She opened the door quietly and was engulfed in icy water— she had forgotten the wind. She put her foot down and sank into mud up to her ankle; pulled it up and no shoe.

By then she was half-soaked and already starting to shiver.

Oooo— that rain was cold! Purse? Money? Well, there was no one else on this road; so she slid her purse under the seat.

She pushed the door shut quietly, lost the second shoe, and gave up on the raincoat idea. She started to hurry along the road toward the light, shielding her eyes with one hand, and giving silent thanks that the surface was so muddy that the rocks hardly bit into her feet at all.

A coyote howled a couple of fields away.

It was great to be out of the putrid car, and the cold shower was reviving her. This was no mechanized superfarm, though, just one barn and a tiny house; perhaps they did it all with transistors. The yard was half-flooded, puddles shining silver in the glare from the high mercury-vapor light, and the light itself was emitting a high-pitched whining.

Puddles, deep enough for her heart to sink in. There were no lights in the house. Well, if no one was home, she would break into the barn and spend the night with the kids. Gratefully she stumbled up the steps onto the little porch, out of the rain. Lights sprang up in the windows in great welcome floods. The door opened before she could touch it, and there was a man standing in the doorway.

She saw what he was holding out to her at the same moment as he said, “Did you by any chance come to borrow a towel?” Then she was inside, standing in electric brightness beside an old iron range, feeling a delicious glow from it, rubbing her face with the towel, and conscious that she was soaked through and dripping all over the linoleum, but the towel was big and soft and very welcome.

“I’ve just made some tea,” said the man. “You like tea?”

“I adore hot tea,” she said. “Cream and sugar, if you have them, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t— just tea will do.” She looked around the room. Not a farmhouse at all, she saw now, it was a weekend cottage, all cluttered with old furniture, Contemporary Salvation Army, but a reassuringly normal sort of place, and the man looked fairly safe and sympathetic.

He was about her own age, tall and spare, with a concerned and friendly expression on an ascetic sort of face. He had yellow hair, not a usual sort of blond, and he wore it combed straight back and oddly short at the sides, but he was well dressed— green slacks and a checked shirt with a green wool sweater. He looked more like an engineer or an accountant than a farmer. She felt herself relax slightly from the tension of being a woman alone and vulnerable, because he did not look like The Mad Rapist See Page 4. Civilized. Potentially useful.

Then a second man walked out of one of the other rooms, limped across to the door she had just come through, and shot the bolt— and also shot her heartbeat up about twenty points, because there was a likely Mad Rapist if she had ever seen one, certainly not the sort of kid you would want to follow you to the subway.

His nose had been hammered almost flat, and he had a red scar over one eye. His knuckles were purple and skinned— this one was a bruiser, a tough. His clothes were all right, jeans and a shirt, but half the shirt buttons were undone, and the sleeves folded up to the elbow to show off the forearms. He was barely taller than she, bull-necked and heavy, probably a body-building freak. Then he smiled, and half his teeth were missing. She backed up a couple of steps and almost knocked the tea cup out of the tall man’s hand.

“Ah!” he said. “Sorry— my name’s Howard, Jerry Howard.”

“Ariadne Gillis,” she said and held out a hand.

He looked slightly surprised and shook it; soft hand— no farmer. He was uneasy, and she suddenly became aware that her blouse was soaked and clinging. It wasn’t the sort of blouse that was supposed to cling— he could probably read the maker’s name on her bra strap. He held out the cup with a shy smile.

“You’re very welcome, Miss? Gillis. You picked a bad night to come visiting.” She had her back to the kid. When the Howard man shot a sort of warning glance over her shoulder, she turned around once more.

“This is my friend Achilles Crionson, but he prefers to be addressed as Killer. Don’t let his appearance scare you, though… He’s trying to give it up— hasn’t killed anyone in weeks.”

“You are welcome,” said the kid, standing too close. He took her hand and held it… and held it… he was giving her full eye contact— a heavy-lidded, arrogant stare, challenging her to break away first— inquiring, inviting, offering…

Jeez!

This one was bad news, God’s gift to women, arrogance in spades— superstud, at your service. She felt herself blush before those steady black eyes and saw the satisfaction. Lady Killer?

She pulled back her hand and dropped her eyes to the tea cup and took a shaky drink, hot and sweet. The kid did not step back, so she did, turning once more to the older man.

“Look,” she said, “I’ve gone and put my car in the ditch at the end of your driveway. I know it’s a terrible night, but if you have a tractor and could…” Howard shook his head; he was drinking tea also. “No tractor.”

“Telephone, then?” she asked, heart sinking. He was going to suggest that she stay the night.

“And no telephone. We do have a horse, but I wouldn’t try pulling out a car with a horse in this weather at night.” He was almost as uneasy as she was. “We do have a spare room, Miss Gillis, and it has a big, strong bolt on the door. The plumbing is as primitive as it could be, but Killer and I were just about to cook up some steaks and we have a spare steak…”

“No, I can’t…” she said. Not stay the night with Mad Rapist around— she fancied she could feel heavy breathing on her back. If she couldn’t, he was thinking it.

Howard tried a smile, and it was as reassuring as his companion’s smile was disturbing. “Come here,” he said, laying his cup down on the range. He led her over to one of the two doors and threw it open on a room with a single bed with clothes laid out on it— jeans and blouse, bra, gray sweater, a bright yellow raincoat with a hood, shoes and socks What…? How…?

Howard rattled the bolt on the door. “Solid,” he said. “But I can’t impose on you like this,” she protested.

He gave her an odd look, turned pink, and stuttered, “It’s a spare room. Killer and I sleep next door.” She didn’t believe that. Killer had been sending her signals; and so had this man, although much more discreetly and unintentionally. They hadn’t been reacting to her the way gays did. There had been interest— frank come-and-get-it lust in Killer’s case. This Jerry was lying, hoping to put her at ease, but making himself uncomfortable at the same time.

“It’s very kind of you, Jerry,” she said. “But I have my children with me, out in the car— ”

“CHILDREN!”

He stared at her as though she had said she had the Russian Army along. His eyes went to the kid’s, and the kid returned a huge grin, showing those shattered teeth.

“Children?” repeated the older man, still stunned.

“Yes, children,” Ariadne said. “You’ve seen them around— like small people. The storks bring them.” Howard was still staring at Killer, and Killer was still grinning back at him. Why this reaction to children?

Then Howard seemed to pull his wits together. “We’d better get them in here, then,” he said. “How many, Miss— Mrs. Gillis?”

“Oh, please call me Ariadne,” she said, wondering if he was always so formal. A shy man? “Only two. Lacey is seven and Alan almost three. They were both asleep when I left— ” Then she had a sudden fit of shivering.

Howard took two strides over to the chair, grabbed up the big bath towel, and in two strides had brought it back. “You get changed before you catch pneumonia,” he said. “Then we’ll go and get the children.” He pushed her firmly into the bedroom and closed the door before she could argue.

Sensible man, she thought as she stripped and wrapped the towel around herself and started rubbing. Crude but cosy little room, with plank walls and almost filled by the bed and a dresser, but at least there was a rug to stand on. She heard voices; the door behind her had swung itself ajar. She had very good ears.…

“… heard of children turning up on a rescue?”

The kid laughed. “No. But I warned you that the Oracle wanted brains. Got any ideas?” Rescue? Oracle? She finished drying and inspected the garments on the bed; the jeans were a perfect fit. There was a comb in the hip pocket, but they were all brand-new clothes. What was going on here? Oracle? The bra was right, too. Was Graham behind this? He couldn’t be, and it wasn’t his style but it looked as though she had been expected. It sounded that way, too.

“She won’t come without her kids, obviously.” Come where?

“Then take them.”

“But we were told to bring clothes for one.”

How could she have been expected? She had not known herself where she was going and, now that she had got here, she didn’t know where she was. They must have confused her with someone else, been expecting a woman whose name they did not know… a woman her size?

The voices got more distant, and the rain noise on the roof almost covered them; she could only make out that there was arguing. Then Howard said, “… and you cover us from here,” and that seemed to be the end of the matter. Good job he was in charge and not that other one.

There were sensible shoes her size— and very few women took a four— and rubber boots. No complaints about the organization. She stepped back into the main room, and Howard was wearing a big yellow slicker like hers and rubber boots, also. He was holding an oil lantern.

“What side of the border is this?” she asked as she thunked across to him in the boots.

A curious hesitation… “What side did you want?” he asked. “I was heading for Canada.”

He nodded and exchanged a meaningful glance with his companion. “Then you have reached safety,” he said. “You are running from someone, aren’t you?”

She had nodded before she knew it. “Is it so obvious?”

He smiled that comfortable, shy smile. “Killer and I were sent here to help someone in trouble. You look as though you qualify… Ariadne. Please regard us as friends and as on your side— whatever it is. Okay?”

“But… but it was the merest chance I got here…” He nodded in agreement. “I know that and I’ll explain later. Meanwhile we have to bring your cubs into the ark. How far is it?”

“The end of the driveway.”

“How yes, all right.” He turned away to the door, and the kid sniggered at some secret amusement.

Howard opened the door.

Hooooooooowl

He swung back to study her. “They’re still a long way off,” he said, as though expecting her to start having hysterics, then looked over at the kid again, who was hovering near a window.

“They might frighten Al,” she said, “but Lacey knows about them. Still, I’d like to get back…” He didn’t move from the doorway, blocking her path.

“Knows about what?” he demanded. His eyes were narrow— with worry? “Coyotes,” she said.

“What the devil is a coyote?” Howard demanded, and again looked at his companion. She turned in time to see the kid shrug.

Two grown men in the very middle of the continent and they didn’t know coyotes? She smiled politely at the joke, and it wasn’t a joke.

“Wild dogs,” she said. “Between a fox and a wolf. They howl a good fight, but they’re quite harmless. I rather like the noise— wild and lonely. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of coyotes, Jerry.”

“Killer and I are strangers in these parts,” he said, obviously embarrassed. “How harmless is harmless?”

“Totally,” she said. “Unless they get rabies, I suppose. And they’ll take a dog for sport, if they get one.”

He nodded. “I’m going to assume they’re rabid. Let’s go rescue Alan and Lacey.”