Mountain Echoes (The Walker Papers) (23 page)

Dad and Morrison said, “Did you—” and, “Was that—” at the same time, making me pretty sure we’d all seen the same thing. I said, “What the...” and cautiously put Petite into Reverse. We backed up a few feet, all of us looking to the left.

A CDC truck sat at the other end of the street. I killed Petite’s engine and we all sat there staring at it. I’d never seen one except in movies. It wasn’t particularly menacing in and of itself, but the words blazoned on the side were by their nature scary:
Centers for Disease Control.

There were no circumstances ever in the whole wide world that a person wanted to see a vehicle with those words in her hometown. In fact, a person never wanted to see a vehicle with those words anywhere, because the CDC was not an agency that fucked around. They were the people called in for anthrax scares. They were the people who maintained—for reasons I would never, ever understand—live smallpox samples. They were the people who went in
to Ebola breakouts, who fought the plague, who, for sweet pity’s sake,
kept the live smallpox virus
under lock and key within their facilities. CDC workers were goddamned superheroes, and any circumstances that required superheroes were not good circumstances for the local population.

“Walker,” Morrison said in a thunderous voice, “please tell me we haven’t triggered the zombie apocalypse.”

I said, “We have not triggered the zombie apocalypse,” obligingly enough, and Morrison relaxed a hair. I said, “Aidan might have,” and Morrison tensed up again, glowering at me in a fashion reminiscent of the tried-and-true Almighty Morrison.

My father, unable to believe we were making light of the situation and possibly a little afraid we weren’t, said, “The zombie apocalypse?”

Right about then the CDC guys came pouring out of everywhere and surrounded my car.

Chapter Twenty-Two

A fully bio-suited man in orange threatened Petite’s window with a fist. I unrolled it slowly, trying to keep my hands visible as I did so. Morrison put his hands on the dashboard, and my father put his on the back of Morrison’s seat. The bio-suit man did not look reassured by any of that, and my brain, scared silly of what a bio-suit suggested, disengaged from smart and went straight to smart-ass.

“Hello, officer,” I said in the most chipper voice I could come up with. “Was I speeding?”

Morrison groaned and the bio-suit man didn’t look like he thought I was funny at all. “Who are you? How did you get in here? This whole county is quarantined.”

“Holy crap, really? How are you controlling the bor—” That was not a helpful question. Neither was “You can’t possibly have managed to roust everybody out of the hills, have you?” which I also got halfway through before Morrison growled, “Walker,” as a suggestion that I shut up.

I said, “I’m sorry,” after a few seconds of trying to get my mouth and my nerves under control. “We were camping. We had no idea anything was going on.”

“We’ve been doing low flyovers for the pa wrhe nest three days, broadcasting messages to come to a center for inspection. How could you have missed those?”

I glanced at Morrison, who had no helpful answers written on his forehead. I swallowed and looked back at the CDC guy. “...we were spelunking?”

“Where’s your gear?”

The only answer to that was “In the trunk,” and I really did not want paranoid government officials opening a trunk full of shotguns and other monster-hunting gear. I did have carry permits for all of it, but they were carry permits for Washington State. I wasn’t sure how well that would go over, two thousand miles from home. I tried for distraction instead. “Officer, what’s going on here?”

“Lady, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I need you to drive down toward the van, very slowly. When you get there you’re going remove yourself from the vehicle. You will be isolated, tested for disease and disinfected. The car will undergo forensic scrutiny—”

A tingle of outrage danced up my spine. “Excuse me? Undergo
what?
”

“Forensic scrutiny, ma’am. It means the vehicle will be stripped—”

“Like hell it will be.”

“It’s necessary, ma’am. We need to inspect it for any foreign material that may be able to carry disease. You’ve been inside the epicenter of a plague. The vehicle has to be thoroughly examined, even if that means destroying it.”

Morrison put his chin in his hand and his elbow in the passenger side window, looking the other way. I didn’t know if he was fighting laughter or despair, but he was ostentatiously not getting involved in this particular argument. I smiled at the CDC guy, who took it as a good sign and therefore didn’t quite understand when I said, “Over my dead body.”

When he caught up to what I’d actually said, he got grim. “If necessary, yes, ma’am. I have military reserves on hand and at my command—”

“Really.” My voice squeaked with interest. “You’ve got the U.S. military on the Qualla? On land that belongs to a foreign and sovereign nation state? How’s that playing on the news, Officer? How’s that going over with the Eastern Band of Cherokee, or the Navajo Nation? You making it nice and clear they’re next, after an already embittered history of governmental dismissal of Native rights? Are you—”

Somewhere in the middle of my little rant, I started to recognize what I was describing as being
exactly
what the Master, his Executioner, and the wights were probably after. I broke off with a whispered, “Holy shit. It’s that easy, isn’t it. It’s really that easy.”

“Walker?”

“I’m sure the government has got a media blackout on this anyway, but holy shit, Morrison, it’s perfect. Whether there’s a real disease or whether Sara didn’t listen and burn the bodies—”

My father said, “Burn
whose
bodies?” but I wasn’t going to stop and explain just then.

“—and if they rose and have created more wights, either way it’s a perfect excuse to bring the government into the reservations. And there’s still bad blood there, there’s always going to be, so once word gets out that the government is trampling Native rights and invading reservation territory again, it’s all over. Either the First Nation peoples are going to revolt and be killed, or they’re going to be taken away, spread out, and assimilated into imion territnonexistence. It’s putting a shiny red bow on the genocides. And I bet anything Aidan’s out there stirring up the will to fight instead of to sit back and take is all passively. Where
is
everybody?” I demanded of the CDC guy, and behind his glass plate mask I saw a hint of uncertainty flicker across his face.

“You don’t have them, do you.” A smile started to stretch my mouth. “You people came in here like a load of bricks, threatening and angry and scared, and the People told you to fuck off, didn’t they. I mean, I’m sure some of them stayed. Lots, even, I mean, not everybody in this area has Native blood, never mind cares enough to stand up to the Feds, and somebody called you in, after all. But a whole lot of ’em just went to the hills and now you can’t find them, can you. You’re afraid there’s a whole disease center out there somewhere, and it’s completely out of your control. Tell me, who called you? Was it Sara Isaac from the FBI?”

The guy’s whole face pinched up. “We have an FBI agent missing?”

My grin went wild and broad for a couple seconds. “No. She’s not missing. She’s just chosen her side. Look, listen to me, buddy. If you come across bodies with an ash mark on their forehead, like a fingerprint burned in? Just burn them. Don’t do an autopsy, don’t try to figure out what killed them or if it’s infectious. It’s not infectious, except through a touch like the one on the bodies, and you will never understand what killed them, not really. If you want to help, burn the bodies to keep them from rising—”

CDC Man turned white. I took that to mean he’d seen some of them rise, and I was fairly certain he’d lost some men to the newly risen.

“—and otherwise, stay out of the way and let me do my job.”

He rallied a little. “Who are you? What do you know about this? Disease control is our job, not yours. Who
are
you?”

“My name,” I said, mostly under my breath, “is Siobhán Grainne MacNamarra Walkingstick, and I’m the answer to all your prayers.”

* * *

It seemed appropriate to throw Petite into Drive and roar off down the road after a line like that, so that’s what I did. CDC guys flung themselves out of the way, I pulled a 180, and we tore back the way we’d come, hitting ninety miles an hour in about a quarter mile. I cackled the whole way. Morrison covered his eyes with one hand, then dropped it. “I can’t believe you told them your name.”

“Oh, come on, Petite is unique. It would only take them about fifteen seconds to find out who I was anyway, and it was a
great
exit line. C’mon, Morrison, you gotta admit, that was an
awesome
exit.”

“Walker, I’m a police captain. From the law’s perspective, that was not only incredibly dangerous—you could have killed someone!—but also unbelievably stupid. They’re only doing their jobs, and we should help them with that.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “From a personal perspective, though, yes, I’ve got to hand it to you, Walker. You do know how to make an exit.”

My father said, “You should have seen the exit when she left the Qualla,” and right about then the military boys started giving chase.

There was no chance they’d catch us in land vehicles. Unfortunately, they had a helicopter. I gunned Petite, sending her well over a hundred miles an hour, and we shot up a mountain road that wasn’t intended to be taken at fifty. I dowt fted givinshifted ahead of a sharp corner that my reflexes remembered more than my eyes saw. Morrison hit a high note I didn’t think a man of his size could produce as we swung around a curve with nothing but hope keeping us on the road. Then he clamped his eyes and mouth shut and hunkered down while I proved to myself, my God, and anybody else within a six-mile radius that I was still the best damned driver in the Qualla. All my shakes and emotions disappeared into the adrenaline rush of dangerous speeds. It was as good as, better than, a drum circle: this was all me, skill and a love of the road tying together to make the best possible antidote for fear and exhaustion.

Raven bounced around in my head, cawing and
klok
ing and squealing with excitement that only encouraged me. Rattler swayed, hissing gleefully, and I tapped into the speed he’d been known to offer me, increasing my reflexes just that much more. The downshifts came half a heartbeat later, the upshifts that much sooner, eking extra yards out of each action. I didn’t care that a helicopter had the advantage. I was going to outrun it, and disappear us into the hills right under the military’s noses. I bellowed, “Renee, what can you give me?” and my newest companion animal, who didn’t seem naturally inclined to outrageous activity, stepped up.

Time slowed down. That happened a lot, when things were going badly, but for once it was just for the pure outrageous joy of pushing myself, my car, and my magic to the limit. I saw—Saw—the road unfold in front of me with astounding clarity. Saw patches of gravel, fine sprays of water, the smear of some unfortunate possum who’d played chicken with a car and lost. I twitched the wheel fractions of an inch, feeling Petite respond to the most minute requests, and over the roar of her engine I shouted, “Where we going, Dad?”

He yelled, “We’re not going to make it!” back, but that wasn’t what I’d asked. “It’s an eight-mile drive, Jo! The chopper is going to catch up!”

“Just tell me where we’re going!”

“There’s a track off the road up there—” He pointed at a site about two mountains over, his fingertip bobbling with our speed.

I remembered when he said it. It wasn’t much of a track, not something a car could go up. It was rocky for the first several hundred yards, rough enough terrain that it wouldn’t take footprints or other signs of passage to any meaningful degree. He was right, though: through the twists and curves of the mountain roads, it was about eight miles away, even if I could see the stretch of road it branched off from where we were. There were chunks of green valley and steep hollers between us, nothing a 4x4 could traverse, never mind my lowslung 1969 Mustang. We hit a straight stretch, a familiar straight stretch, the last one my grandmother had ever driven, and all sorts of crazy ideas came together in my mind.

I remembered the Pontiac’s massive blue weight, the black soot wings of Raven Mocker making mockery of its attempt at flight. I thought of the helicopter coming up the mountain the short way, blades hauling awkward dragonfly shapes through the air, and I thought,
hell.
I thought of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner laying down road over empty sky, and I thought,
well, hell,
whispered, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” and slammed Petite off the side of a mountain.

We flew.

* * *

The Rainbow Connection came together beneath us, every ounce of my shielding magic slapping blocks of bright-colored roadway together under Petite’s wheels. It wasn’t going to laۙt flew.
have
to last. It just had to get us across half a mile of clear air, an impossible shortcut to the hidden path into the hills. I drew strength from the astonished earth, pulling it up as fast as it would let me to braid it into the air bridge. I felt like Indiana Jones crossing the invisible bridge, except moving at 110 miles per hour instead of creeping on hands and knees.

Dad made apoplectic sounds in the backseat. Morrison clutched the dashboard and stared at treetops three hundred feet below us. I grinned so broadly my face hurt. I had never had so much fun in my life. I desperately wanted to turn around and see if the helicopter had caught up, if they could see what we were doing, and how they were taking it if they could. I didn’t dare, afraid if I looked away the path I was building would fall apart, but I could imagine their expressions.

I did not imagine them firing missiles at us, which is what happened next. Dad gave a strangled warning shout at the same time I heard them, high whistles that sounded a lot like they did in movies. Morrison roared something incomprehensible, but I didn’t dare listen. I didn’t know how fast missiles traveled. I knew how fast
we
were going, Petite’s speedometer clocking well over 130 now, but I was pretty sure missiles flew faster than that. I wondered if they were heat-seeking or targeted or what, then remembered everybody’s favorite deep-sea maneuver and hit the brakes, spinning the second 180 of the afternoon.

I wished to God I could see it all from the outside. The shields I drew from the earth rearranged so fast I heard them clattering, blocks of magic crashing together to keep a surface under Petite’s wheels. She fishtailed from turning at such high speeds, but bless her little steel soul, she leapt right forward again as I leaned on the gas. All of a sudden we were charging a helicopter, and I did get a chance to see the pilots’ faces after all. There were two of them, a man and a woman, and their faces showed a range of emotion from shock and bewilderment to outright fury and determination to take us down.

The woman, however, also looked like her every prayer had been answered, that she was seeing living proof that the world was as awesome and amazing as she’d ever hoped. She looked like someone had just proven to her that magic was real, and nothing was ever going to take that away from her. I gave her a big cheesy grin and a thumbs-up.