Tomorrow's Sun (49 page)

Muscles seized in Adam’s gut. “Lex,” he whispered, “when I say run, you go, fast as you can. I’ll find you.”

“No!” she mouthed back.

“Do what I—”

A loud roar shattered the air. “Stupid kid!” Ben slammed the car and swore. Over and over as he thundered toward them.

“Now. Run!”

Lexi stood, looked from him to Ben, and nodded. One foot left the ground. And Ben grabbed her.

Adam swung around, looking for a rock. Anything to throw in Ben’s face. He lunged for the NyQuil bottle.

And a fist slammed into the side of his head.

Lexi screamed. Adam dropped to the ground. His head hit the cement with a sound that made her scream again.

“Shut up.” Ben put his fat, smelly hand over her mouth and kicked at Adam. “Get up, you—” A tiny river of blood trickled along the cement from Adam’s hair.

Lexi screamed against the hand, tried to bite it. She lashed out with feet and elbows and clawed at the arm that clamped her like a vise.
God! Help!

Ben swore. His heart hammered against her back.

Stars shot in front of her eyes. Her vision dimmed like she was walking into a tunnel.

Huffing and snorting, Ben dragged her toward the woods. Lexi blinked hard and took two deep breaths. She couldn’t faint. She had to think, had to leave a sign for Adam. He knew how to track like the Indians did. He’d come after her. Her eyes clamped shut against the picture of him lying on the ground. The blood.
Mom! Can you see him? Help him. God, don’t let him…
She wouldn’t let herself say the last word.

The brush was thick between the trees. She kicked a rotted limb. It broke apart. She dragged her shoe across a fat mushroom, breaking the top off. Ben was slowing down. Lexi pretended to stumble and hooked her toe on a bunch of white flowers, smashing them to the ground.

They were heading uphill. Ben’s breathing got harder and harder. If she could make him loosen his grip, just for a second, she could run. She kept her eyes on the trees, watching for a path, but the sun was dipping below the hill and it was getting harder and harder to see. Suddenly, Ben tripped. He let go of her. She fell, stabbing her hand on a stick. Her inhaler launched out of her pocket. She gasped in pain and a fat hand clamped around her ankle.

Ben laughed. Sweat dripped from his red face. “Guess you’re staying here for the night. Alone.” He sat up, crossing his legs like a statue of Buddha. With one hand, he unbuckled his belt. “Scream and I’ll kill you, too.”

“The ranger found it just a few minutes ago.”

Jake shouted at the phone over the rush of cool air through the open windows of his truck. The air conditioner blew full force, but every time he closed the windows the cab felt stifling and he couldn’t breathe. “Smashed flowerpots all over the cement pad at the campground. And the van was disabled. A piece of metal shoved into the ignition.”

“Adam?” Emily’s voice held the same near-hysterical timbre he heard in his own. A bizarre mix of fear and pride.

“Had to be. What a kid, huh?” He wouldn’t tell her about the blood. Not a lot, they’d said. What did that mean? Someone was hurt.
Please let it be Ben
.

“Yeah.” She blew her nose. “Okay, I got Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park on the GPS. I’ll get there a little after eleven. Will they let me in that late?”

“I talked to the head ranger personally and told him you’d be able to help the search. State troopers will be there. They have people at every entrance. Someone will meet you at the gate. I should get there a little after you.”
If I don’t get stopped
. The speedometer needle hovered around eighty. “I’ll try to call, but they said we might not have cell phone reception in the mountains.”

“Okay.” Her voice quivered. “The temperature’s dropping.”

“I know. We’ll find them soon.”

“Bye.” She ended the call.

Before he could tell her again that he loved her.

Lexi shivered and curled into a tighter ball. She was freezing. Her shoulder ached. The belt around her wrist tightened whenever she moved. Her right arm, hanging straight over her head by the belt, was falling asleep again. She’d have to stand and get the circulation back, but her legs were so tired. The fingers on her left hand were raw from picking at the leather, trying to dig through it. The knot was beyond her reach. It was a long belt.

A coyote howled. Lexi pressed into the skinny tree that offered no shelter. Dogs yelped after the howl.
Keep them away
. Her fingers curled around the stick she’d found earlier. The one she wished she could use on Ben.

He’d lumbered off, telling her not to make a sound because he’d be close. She could tell he thought she’d beg him not to leave her alone. Stupid. She’d listened until she couldn’t hear the shuffle of his feet. But she didn’t dare scream yet. He moved too slow.

A faint breeze rustled the leaves. The air grew colder by the minute. Her chest tightened. She’d given in and begged him for one thing—her inhaler. He’d only laughed. And thrown it into the woods.

November 2, 1852

Hannah’s head bounced on Liam’s shoulder as he carried her. Curled cornstalks brushed her arms like fingers of the dead. “Put me down.”

His steps slowed. He stopped and turned. “Da’s too drunk to follow this far.” He set her on her feet but didn’t let go. “Why are you here?”

“Men. With Jonathan. They’ve got Papa. They let me go. They don’t think I’m involved, but they’ll be after you.” She commanded her voice to steady and willed away the black spots that threatened again. “It’s my fault. They went looking for the letters and found the room.”

“What letters?”

“Yours. Mine. I never destroyed them. I should have listened to you. I let it slip to Dolly. About the letters. She overheard you and Daddy talking. She must have told, but they didn’t find the letters. Not yet. There’s nothing but Dolly’s word to link you to Daddy unless they make him…”

Shock registered on his face. Shock, then fear. His eyes closed.

Her heart pounded. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I should have known better. I never should have—”

Liam pressed a finger to her lips. “What is it your father says? ‘We will not speak of what might have been.’”

“We have to leave. We’ll go to Canada until Jim gets word that it’s safe to come back.”

Liam’s arms straightened. He held her away from him. “We will leave. But not together. You will go to your aunt’s and I will go to Canada, and when it is safe, I will come to Boston for you.”

A sob tore from her throat. “No! I will not. I’m not a child, Liam. Stop treating me like one. I know there are dangers, but I am strong. I can face anything if I am with you.”

His smile, barely visible in the darkness, warmed her. “All right then. Go home and pack your things and I will be there at midnight. Watch for my lantern on the river.” He slipped the bonnet from her head. His hands dug into her hair and he kissed her as though he would never see her again.

T
he strap of his backpack hooked a branch. Adam yanked it free. He turned back too fast and the ground tilted again. He prodded the spot where his bandana was folded under his cap. It didn’t seem any damper than the last time he’d checked. As he turned, the LED light clipped to the bill of his cap illuminated a patch of trampled chicory flowers. At first he hadn’t been sure Lexi was marking the trail on purpose. But there were too many signs. Maybe all the times he’d read his survival books out loud, she’d actually been listening.

What he didn’t know was whether or not she was alone. If Ben was following her or dragging her, he could be reading the signs wrong. Maybe it was Ben, running like a fat bear, trampling everything in his path. Maybe Ben was running scared and Lexi had gone for help. If he hadn’t broken the file off in the ignition, Lexi could have driven to get help. She knew enough about cars to do that. All he’d been thinking about was keeping Ben from taking them anywhere else. Far off, a coyote howled. The sound was followed by yapping.
Don’t get scared
. Panic was the biggest mistake people made in the wilderness. He wouldn’t allow tears. He had to find Lexi.

He busied his mind with things that would keep him from panic. He imagined being a runaway slave fleeing to freedom. In his head, he sang some of the Negro spirituals from one of Mrs.

Willett’s books.
Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt land, Tell ole Pharaoh, To let my people go
.

He dropped a chunk of flowerpot and kept walking. No one would see the broken pieces at the campsite until morning. It would probably just look like an accident. Nobody would report it. The quilt square he’d drawn back home wouldn’t mean anything to anyone but Emily, and who would think to show it to her? It just looked like splotches of cinnamon on a wrinkled paper.

Doubts whispered through the oak branches, growing louder with each silent step on the leaf-padded ground.

He stopped and knelt by a patch of matted grass and set a piece of flowerpot in the center.