Expiration Date (61 page)

It was the tension of small-town life. Earth’s tension between heaven and hell.

She already had an idea for a title:
Living Safe, Dying Slow
.

The Garmin GPS unit was pointing Clay south along Cougar Reservoir. He verified each digit, reassuring himself this was right. He had little time to kill.

The Duster led him to a bridge, which carried him to the reservoir’s other side. The car chugged a bit harder as it skirted the water on a rising face of dirt and stone. Evergreens and an occasional redwood sprouted on either side of the narrowing road. He found it difficult to keep the GPS unit visible while
bouncing over summer-hardened ruts, while shutting vents against billows of dust.

Distance:
1.2 miles
.

The unit was homing in now. This should be it coming up.

Clay proceeded a bit farther, then stopped as far as possible off the negligible dirt road. The unit’s arrow pointed east. On foot, with shovel and flashlight in one hand and GPS in the other, he strode beneath the forest canopy. Brushed away spider webs and briers. Crested a natural berm. Discovered a hidden lake, just as Digs had said.

Distance:
0.3 miles
.

He wandered in zigzagging patterns, trying to follow the satellite’s positioning as it triangulated upon this spot. The air was brisk, blowing across the nearby water. The morning was coming to life with the first sounds of wildlife.

384 feet, 376, 357 …

Clay knew from experience that GPS coordinates could be off by a few feet, even a couple of yards—particularly since it had been three years since Digs had come out and marked the spot with outdated equipment. Earth and stone could shift and slide. Rain could conspire against him.

What had Digs said? Something about a boulder tilted against a fallen trunk. Lots of moss. Insects. Roots and dirt.

Here. This must be it
.

Clay stuck the Garmin unit into his pocket. Started digging.

Within twenty minutes he had cleared out a hole and uncovered bugs and centipedes but nothing else. He dug deeper, and a second hole exposed equally unsavory creatures while also revealing a silver garbage bag. The shovel blade snagged on the plastic. Clay freed it, then dug out a military-style ammunition box.

Inside the box Clay found Digs’s share of a bank robbery.

Digs had been one of three armed robbers. Within days they had been caught out in these woods by undercover agents who raided their tent site and delivered them to the courts. During the course of the robbery, one of the thieves had shot a bank customer, making Digs and the other man accessories.

The state pen awaited. Digs did his time.

Years later he came back on his own to relocate and label this spot. For old times’ sake. A symbolic keepsake of the life he had left behind.

What good would $101,000 do him? he had asked Clay. It was all marked anyway. Long ago, news sources had reported that a bank teller broke open an invisible ink pack within the cache, staining the bills until the day some fool tried to use them and left an obvious trail for law enforcers everywhere.

“A.G.?” Henna sat up, pulled the pink bedspread around her. “Are you back?”

Asgoth warmed to the sound of her voice. “I’m here.”

Earlier he had left the Dixon home by attaching himself to the roof of Clay’s car. It was worth a shot—a free ride to the Belknap Springs site, a clandestine opportunity to ensure Clay’s compliance. At the gas station, however, Clay had called upon angels for protection. In a flash heavenly beings revealed their locations, and a ring of white fire encircled the ramshackle old automobile as though it’d become a golden chariot.

Asgoth shot from the roof, incensed by this intrusion.

What right did they have? It was disgusting, really. For years guilt had weakened Mr. Clay Ryker. Now, after a silly little rescue at Crater Lake, the man was growing steadily stronger, once again recognizing the touch of his Creator.

This nonsense would have to stop.

“We need to go,” Asgoth told Henna.

She stretched. “It’s finally time?”

“Friday morning, almost sunrise. We’re running late.”

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, stood to fetch her clothes. After peeking into her daughter’s room and finding Serene still asleep, she followed Asgoth’s lead outside to her car. They loaded the trunk. From the rearview mirror, a large crystal dangled on a beaded strand, and she rubbed it between her fingers.

“Let’s hurry,” Asgoth prompted. “While you’re meeting with Clay, I’ll be arranging his father’s last breath.”

“First, I’ll be rekindling the fire in Jenni’s heart.” Henna flicked a lighter so that flame danced at its tip. “She’ll be hot for her husband all over again. Hot and crispy.”

With the ammunition box in the trunk, Clay threaded his way back down to Cougar Reservoir. The trees parted so that he spied water and sunlight giving each other good-morning kisses.

See, he told himself, this is what it’s like to live within the palm of God’s hand.

Why do I ever doubt?

His finances were still a wreck, and his marriage was still in question, yet he saw glimmers of hope. Kisses throughout creation.

Not five minutes later the clouds swept in, dumping rain at the feet of the Cascade Mountains, shoveling gloom and fog into the valleys and river bends. The Duster shivered, its balding tires working extra hard for purchase on slick pavement.

So sure of his divine place, Clay failed to notice the gas gauge.

Not that he could’ve done a thing about it. He was broke. Penniless.

With nary a whimper or a gasp, the faithful car lost all power in the middle of a steep incline. Clay was able to work his way over to the guardrail with the remaining momentum. What to do now? His wife and son would be waiting for him; his father needed his protection.

And here he sat. Useless.

His mind washed first one way, then the other. Any assurance of godly interaction seemed empty. He stared at himself in the rearview mirror, hating the doubt, despising the resignation that drilled deep into his pupils.

From the backseat, Asgoth had been caressing Henna’s blond locks as sunrays splayed through the crystal and swept over her cheeks. Now Highway 126 led them beneath heavy clouds, and Henna’s face darkened in the mirror. Rain struck the windshield in a sudden downpour, delivering doubts.

He tried to hide his concern. “Are you ready, Henna?”

“Honestly, you should know the answer. I’ve been waiting twelve years for this.”

Asgoth thought he saw a vehicle on the highway’s narrow shoulder, but it was hard to tell through the sluicing rain. He knew steep cliffs cut down from this mountain pass. These roads could be dangerous. Ahead, he spotted a logging truck, and he nudged Henna’s shoulder. “Here’s where I get off. I’ll see you back at the Festival Park Stage tonight. Soon Junction City will be our marketplace.”

Asgoth oozed through the glass, crouched, then pounced upon the passing rig. His hands and feet hooked into rough bark as he clambered over huge tree trunks, his form flapping in the draft of the speeding vehicle.

Clay ducked his head into the neck of his shirt and climbed from the car. He’d turned on his flashers to indicate he was experiencing trouble. Surely someone would be kind enough to pull over. He had twenty-two minutes left until the rendezvous.

As if in a conscious attempt to increase his frustration, the rain came down harder. He yanked open the trunk and removed the ammunition box so he could snag the dirty silver garbage bag. Clumps of worm-filled mud dripped on him.

He growled. Frustrated with his own fickle emotions. And with the Lord.

Why let it rain now of all times? Why let me run outta gas? What’s going on?

Clay stripped off his soaked shirt, tried to keep himself covered with the garbage bag while waving with the heavy cloth. Passersby stared at him through rain-drenched windows as though he was a lunatic. As though he meant to run out of money and gas and good luck on this awful section of the highway.

On the guardrail’s other side, a cliff plunged toward the McKenzie River. Trees perched perilously on the slope, stabbing upward to impale anything on its way down.

Down …

The word brought back thoughts of Crater Lake. It mesmerized him with a sense of uselessness. How easy it would be to say good-bye to this spinning globe.

No. Jesus, help me. I don’t wanna listen to those types of thoughts
.

A pair of semitrucks screamed past with tires blasting water and pebbles and cold air. Clay shook his head. He wanted to holler at the top of his lungs, but that was out of the question. No reason to waste his breath. He was numb, going through the motions. What was the point of Digs and his buried money if Clay could get no farther than this treacherous hill?

Are you taunting me, God? Is that it?

He moved into the upward bound lane. He waved his shirt back and forth. A vehicle was approaching. He could tell because a pair of blurred headlights was swimming back and forth through the currents of rain. An SUV flashed past, doused him once again.

What did it matter? Maybe it was all one big game.

I’m going to wave the next person over—or die trying!

After a moment of shivering beside the Duster, Clay saw another set of lights lurching through puddles and road ruts. He squinted through the slashing rain and planted himself in the middle of the lane. With both hands he whipped the silver bag to and fro over his head.

He had no hope of making eye contact with the driver. In this deluge it was impossible. He did exaggerated jumps. Waving. Kicking.

But the vehicle was not slowing. It was a light fuzzy shape coming at him, a white phantom coming to steal away his soul.

Jenni and Jason will die if I don’t make something happen
.

The driver hit the horn. It blared at Clay through the downpour.

Do or die!

“Stop!” He yelled at last, without budging an inch. “Please
stop!
”