Red Fox (24 page)

At least we were on the
same page.

“
I think Bird is on our side
though,” I pointed out.

Dex shook his head. “I
can’t trust him. He’s already gotten to you.”

“
To me?”

He shot me a long sideways
glance. “Yeah. You. What was all that business in the room about?
You said you’d tell me later. So tell me.”

“
It was nothing.”

“
Fuck, Perry!” he boomed,
hitting the steering wheel with his hands. “Just fucking tell
me!”

Whoa. Where the hell did
that come from? I knew it drove him nuts when I didn’t tell him
stuff but seriously...

I crossed my arms and
looked out the window. Anything I would say would only fan the
flames. I heard him sigh and knew he was relenting.

“
I’m sorry. I just…it hurts
when I don’t know what’s going on with you.”

“
Hurts or it bothers
you?”

“
Fine. It bothers me,” he
admitted.

“
Because you like to know
everything?”

“
Oh, like you don’t? Like
you’re not asking me every five seconds what I’m thinking? You
think I don’t notice you staring at me?”

I blushed, suddenly
thankful for the dark interior.

“
I’m not…staring. I just,
well, you’re tough to figure out sometimes and you know that, so
whatever.”

“
And so are you,” he pointed
out. “So we’re even.”

I wondered if that’s what
that remark on the side of the road meant.

“
Look,” I said. “When I
don’t tell you something it’s not because I’m hiding it from
you…maybe I just don’t think you’d care. Or maybe I think you’d
think it was stupid, or ridiculous or maybe it would change your
opinion of me. In the worst way.”

Even though explaining that
put me in a semi-vulnerable state, it felt good. As good as it felt
in the bedroom the other day. I wasn’t sure why it was so hard for
me to just say things to him. Why I had to keep on this
rollercoaster of wanting to be on the same page and then hiding
bits of myself away from him. I wanted him, I wanted his thoughts
and his fears and his feelings but I didn’t want to give away a
single ounce of myself.

“
You need to get out of that
head of yours,” he said.

That was true.

“
Anyway,” I ignored him.
“Bird had just said I would basically attract trouble wherever I
went. That spirits or whatever sensed something in me, I don’t know
what, and that they were attracted to that. They wanted me and
would always be trying to get me. Hence the stronger rock activity,
the fox, the crow and the snake…”

“
You were afraid to tell me
that?” he asked, surprised.

“
I don’t know. It makes me
sound…self-important. Like I thought I was special.”

“
Do you think you’re
special, Perry?” he asked seriously.

I winced. “A little bit.
Maybe more in the Special Olympics kind of way.”

He smiled and turned his
eyes to the road. “You are special, kiddo.”

“
Thanks,” I said
sarcastically.

“
And not entirely in a
Special Olympics way. And you know it. I know it. I’m not sure in
how many different ways but I know we’ll find out. I think you’ll
be very useful.”

“
By offering me to the
Gods?” I joked. He didn’t reciprocate, smile or laugh. I narrowed
my eyes, feeling a weird vibe coming off of him.

“
You can’t be serious,” I
said. “I was joking.”

“
There’s an off chance we
may have to use you as bait,” he admitted, not looking at
me.

“
What?!”

“
I said off chance,” he
said defensively. “I don’t know what’s going to happen but after
the lighthouse it’s pretty obvious you’re partly responsible for
attracting the weirdos. You’re like a ghost magnet. Why do you
think I like having you around?”

My mouth dropped
momentarily. “Because I’m awesome.”

“
Oh, well that
too.”

And that was
exactly
why I didn’t ever
want to give a single ounce of myself away to Dex. He lulls me into
a false sense of security and then treads all over me. Damn him and
his stupid mustache.

“
Great,” I muttered and
leaned against the window, the lights of Red Fox not getting any
closer. How freaking far was this damn bar from the ranch, anyway?
I didn’t remember the drive being so long.

We traveled in silence for
a few more minutes. I had no interest in talking to him for the
rest of the evening. But eventually I had to remark on the fact
that we were nowhere near the bar.

“
Did you take a wrong turn?”
I asked.

He shook his head and
peered at the instrument panel. The compass said we were headed
southeast. “How could I have taken a wrong turn, we never got off
the road.”

“
Well, we’ve been driving
for at least twenty minutes and I could have sworn the town was ten
minutes away.” I looked out the window uneasily. The road curved to
the left and the lights were becoming distant.

“
I think we should turn
around,” I said even though behind us looked just as lost and
bleak.

Dex reached into the cup
holder and handed me the phone.

“
Call Maximus and explain
we’re going to be late.”

I did just that as Dex kept
driving forward. Now the lights of the town were completely gone,
swallowed up by the nebulous night.

“
How could you have taken a
wrong turn?” Maximus said, voice crackling on the other line. “I’m
already at the bar.”

“
I don’t know, I’m not
driving.”

“
Well I’ll be…,” he trailed
off as he thought it over, the muffled sounds of the bar jukebox
coming through. At least it sounded a bit more bumping than it was
the other day. “I don’t know what to say except to turn back the
way you came and start all over again. I’ll go find Bird and let
him know.”

“
OK, I’ll call you in a
bit,” I said and hung up as I heard him saying “be safe,” his tinny
voice so small in the car.

“
Turn around,” I said to
Dex. “Now.”

He sighed looking mighty
pissed off. It must have been hard for him to admit that he did
something wrong. Though I really didn’t see how he could have
screwed up driving down a road.

He brought us to a crawl
and did a slow U-turn. As he brought the Jeep around, our
headlights swirled through the dark and focused on the road heading
the other way.

There was a large buck
standing in the middle of the road.

We both gasped and Dex
braked. Where the hell had that deer come from?

We were maybe four feet
away from it. It was like it had been following us – stalking us –
down the road and our turn had caught it off guard.

But that was
impossible.

We sat there in silence,
the only sound coming from my beating heart and Dex’s heavy
breathing. The buck was huge, the biggest deer I’d ever seen, and
its antlers seemed to reach forever into the sky, like dead
branches. Huge puffs of air came out of its wide nostrils, warm
mist on a cold night. It raised its head to the side like it was
getting a better look at us.

“
That’s not a deer,” Dex
finally said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Of course it was a deer. It
had a shiny coat, four strong legs and deep dark eyes. Actually,
its eyes were a little too dark. The retinas didn’t reflect like an
animal’s usually would when it had a light shining on
it.

“
What is it then?” I said
through clenched teeth, as if I didn’t want it know that we were
talking about it.

Perhaps it did, though. The
deer took two steps forward, its head lowered, and grazed the front
of our Jeep with its antlers.

“
Jesus!” I swore, feeling
for my seatbelt. “What do we do?”

“
I have a theory,” Dex said.
He suddenly slammed the gears into reverse and stepped on the gas.
The wheels spun for a few seconds and we were hurtling backwards
for a few yards. Dex braked, flipped the car back into drive, and
we sat there. The deer hadn’t moved at all. Not a good
sign.

“
Are we going to have to run
it over?” I asked with trepidation, not really wanting to be in a
hit and run with a deer.

“
It won’t let itself be run
over,” he said determinedly. He stepped on the gas and we were off,
hurtling down the road, the deer in our sights. Even at the speed
we were going, if we hit that thing, we’d be involved in a horrific
crash. I could foresee the deer’s body crunching up against our
front and come flying through the front windshield at us. We’d be
crushed.

“
Dex!” I
screamed, grabbing the
Oh Shit
handle.

He kept on the gas. The
deer was so close I could have counted the hairs on its coat. But
it didn’t budge. It was an immovable object and we were going to
collide in three, two –

SCREEEECH!

Dex suddenly twisted the
wheel and the Jeep careened off the road. I watched out the window
in a horrified daze as we passed the deer by mere inches. Only it
wasn’t just a deer anymore.

It was a woman standing
upright in a long flowing dress, a deer’s head for a face. I could
see it all in slow-motion detail. Clasped hands at her front, the
purple flowers on her black dress, the prim posture, the high
collar that led up to the massive, blank head of that deer. This
time its eyes glowed and followed my stare as we zoomed past
it.

When the realization of
what I had seen overtook the realization of what had happened, I
let out a scream.

Dex wrestled with the Jeep
as it went bouncing along the shoulder, heading for the unending
desert beyond it. The thought of the car stopping on the road with
that…
thing
out
there, was beyond terrifying.

But with a final yank of
the wheel and some maneuvering, the Jeep’s wheels found their way
back onto the smooth pavement and we were bolting down the road
again. I looked behind me. I could barely see it in the fading
night but the figure of the woman was still there.

“
Did you see that?” I
exclaimed.

Dex looked in the rearview
mirror. “Yeah,” he said grimly. “I really thought it was going to
move.”

“
No,” I
said hitting him on the shoulder. “I mean, did you see that.
It.
The woman
.”

His eyes widened and
gleamed in the low light. “No…what woman?”

I told him what I saw and
how I saw it in so much detail.

“
Do you believe me?” I
asked, as if it mattered.

He nodded. “I believe you.
And this just proves one thing. We better get to Bird and fast.
He’s got a lot of explaining to do about these
skinwalkers.”

We ended up driving all the
way back to the ranch. I kept my eyes vigilantly focused for any
other ornery creatures or half-human beasts ready to run us off the
road. I didn’t see any. Nor did I see any side roads or detours
that could have led us astray. Instead, we did a U-turn right in
front of the Lancaster’s gate and drove onwards again, slowly this
time, making extra sure we weren’t losing our path.

After ten minutes of
holding our breath and creeping along at a pedestrian speed, the
lights of Red Fox got closer and closer, the landmarks of broken
fences, mobile homes and sprawling acreages looked familiar once
again and soon we were pulling right up into the dusty, packed
parking lot of Rudy’s bar.

Dex put the vehicle in
park, flicked off the engine and rested his head on the steering
wheel with a thump.

I patted him gently on the
back. My contact made him jump slightly.

“
At least we made it this
time,” I said meekly.

He turned his head on the
wheel to look at me. The pale light that emanated from the bar and
filtered in through the windscreen made him look tired and washed
out. I suppose he probably was, though. I know I probably lost a
few pints of blood due to fright. I still wasn’t feeling all there.
I felt like I was one step away from a panic attack but now that we
were at the bar, where people were, I needed to hold it
together.

“
How the
fuck did that happen?” he mumbled, face smushed against the wheel.
“Are we on
The Outer
Limits
?”

“
I don’t know…”

“
Seriously, though. Am I
going crazy?” he actually looked worried.

I almost had to think
before I shook my head. Sure, he might be going kind of crazy from
the lack of medication but I was in the car with him. I was there
too.

“
If you’re going crazy, then
I’m going crazy too.”

“
That’s a
possibility.”

We had discussed that
before. How two people could share a conscience and imagine the
same things. But as unlikely as it had been back in Oregon, it was
just as unlikely now.