Runaway. Part 13

"What?" Cooper said.

"You heard me, Sergeant. We're bugging out."

Drecker dragged David a few yards away and began to speak to him. Maddy could tell he was furious. Behind them, they could see Major Jacovich approaching. Something was up.

"Okay, form up. Time to break down and clean weapons," Cooper said.

The squad picked up their rifles and lined up behind Cooper, who led them back across the field to the weapons van. As they walked near Drecker and David, Maddy saw David look over at her. He didn't look happy.

"What the f.u.c.k is going on?" asked Kristi.

"I have no idea," Maddy said. But she did. She saw Jacovich look over at her too, and his face was murderous. They must have found out she was a runaway. But how? She couldn't imagine her parents tracking her to a militia training camp in Michigan. She may as well be on the moon as far as they were concerned.

All around the camp the various small groups were packing up whatever they were doing and moving toward the mustering point. People sat on the ground to break open their weapons and begin cleaning them, while sergeants moved from group to group and told them to speed it up. She looked over to where she'd last seen David and saw Drecker and David running toward her. Fast. For a second, she thought of running away from them.

"Maddy," David said, as he stopped in front of her. "You have to come with us."

"Now," Drecker said, reaching for her arm to pull her up.

"Whoa, there," Kristi said. "What's going on?" She stood and moved toward Drecker.

"Not now, Kristi. We have to get Maddy out of here," David said.

Drecker and David got on either side of Maddy and started back across the field, each holding an elbow. Kristi trotted behind them.

"I don't know where you dudes think you're taking her, but I'm going with."

They didn't respond. Maddy stayed quiet and tried to figure out the best approach. Then she realized there wasn't one.

"Are you going to tell me what you're doing?" she asked David. "Have I done something wrong?"

"Do you mean other than lie to us, Maddy?"

She stopped walking. "Lie to you? What do you mean?"

"Keep walking," Drecker barked.

"Someone's come looking for you," David said. "Said you're a minor. I asked you that specifically, Maddy. You lied to me. To us."

Maddy's heart sank. They were kicking her out. Or maybe they were taking her into the woods to shoot her. She wasn't entirely sure which would be worse. As messed up as her little group seemed, she was surprised to feel panic at the idea of not being a part of them.

"I don't understand," she said. "Who came looking for me?"

"Shut up," said Drecker.

They reached the edge of the woods farthest from the entrance to the training field and started down a slim trail. Drecker led, with Maddy behind him, then David and Kristi. They moved at a clip, and whenever Maddy tried to ask questions, Drecker told her to shut up. She turned to David several times, but his face was frozen and he stared down at the trail in front of him. After a half hour's hike, they came out on a small access road that cut through the woods along a row of electrical towers. A pickup truck waited for them there with Corporal Watson behind the wheel.

"The two of you, get in the back," Drecker ordered. Maddy and Kristi scrambled into the truck bed and he threw a tarp over them. "Don't move until I tell you to." Drecker and David climbed into the cab with Watson and they drove off.

Maddy was laying flat on her back with the cold and heavy tarp draping her face and the handle of a sledgehammer wedged under her hip. Kristi was lying on her stomach beside her, her chin propped on her hands like they were having a chat at a slumber party. She didn't look very happy, though.

"What the f.u.c.k, Maddy?"

"What?"

"Is it true you're a minor? I knew it. There was something weird about you just showing up like that."

"I didn't just show up," Maddy said. "I've been helping David plan this whole thing all along."

"Well, he didn't know you were a kid. This is f.u.c.ked up. We could have police swarming all over the place now."

Maddy stayed still. She didn't like Kristi being unhappy with her. And David had looked ready to throw her into the pond. She could hear voices arguing in the cab of the truck. She didn't know if they were driving her to a police station or to someplace where they could handle the situation on their own, whatever that might mean.

"Where do you think they're taking us?" Maddy asked.

"h.e.l.l if I know. I hope it's somewhere close and they have a toilet. I have to pee something fierce."

Maddy rummaged in her pants pocket and pulled out a Snickers bar. They shared it while bouncing around under the tarp. When the truck hit a b.u.mp in the road, Kristi ended up with the candy bar smashed into her forehead. They got a very serious case of the giggles over that and Kristi moaned that she was about to pee in her pants. By the time they pulled off a main road and started bouncing again up a dirt path, they'd nearly forgotten what had started the journey in the first place.

The truck finally stopped and Drecker pulled the tarp off them and ordered them out. They were in a small clearing in the woods. Watson was walking toward a tiny cabin while David stood with Drecker.

"What is this place?" asked Maddy.

"This is where we're going to hide you until we can figure out what to do," David said. "I don't know if you realize the position you've put us in, Maddy."

"Well, I don't even understand what all is happening. Who came looking for me? I can't believe it was my parents."

"Worse. It was a private investigator," Drecker said. "That means she's paid to find you and she probably won't go away just cause we ask her to. You two aren't at a pay grade privileged enough to know just how much this can f.u.c.k us up, so no more questions."

Drecker marched up to the cabin after Watson. Kristi ducked into the woods to pee. Maddy looked up at David and saw a mix of anger and fear on his face.

"I'm sorry, David. I didn't mean to get you in trouble."

"Drecker and Jacovich are really p.i.s.sed off." He looked down at Maddy and she saw that he was more afraid of them than mad at her.

"I don't understand what they have to do with it anyway," she said. "What do they care whether I'm a minor or not?"

"They care because they want to see us set up in Idaho. They don't want their organization to draw heat for harboring a minor, especially a girl."

"How much do they have to do with Idaho?"

David looked behind him at the cabin and then over where Kristi was emerging from behind a tree, zipping her pants. "Did you honestly think that your twenty thousand dollars and the six of us were going to be able to set up a homestead in Idaho?" he whispered.

Drecker yelled at them from the porch of the cabin to come up. The cabin was so small that he looked odd standing there, as if he were in front of a deluxe doghouse. Watson came out of the cabin and stood next to him and they watched with hooded eyes as David, Kristi, and Maddy walked up.

"You two girls are going to stay here until we come back to get you. There's water and MREs inside, outhouse in back. Don't try to leave. If you hike out, we'll find you and then I will turn you in to the authorities." He was glaring at Maddy.

"Wait a second. You're going to leave us here without a car?" Kristi said. "I've got places I gotta be."

"Yeah? What places?" Drecker asked.

Kristi shrugged. "Places. Not here, anyway."

"You can come back with us, Kristi," David said. "It's Maddy we're keeping out of sight."

Maddy looked at Kristi and tried to keep her face still. She felt panicked at the idea of being left alone.

"Forget it," Kristi said. She put her arm around Maddy. "I'm not leaving her alone here. Are you crazy?"

Drecker moved off the porch. "We'll be back within twenty-four hours. Be ready to move."

The three men went back to the truck without another word and drove off. Once they were gone, the silence almost overwhelmed Maddy. She felt like she was in a fairy tale, left in the middle of a forest, with who knows what sort of creatures hiding behind trees. She spun in a slow circle, but other than the tiny road out of the clearing, there was nothing but thick woods all around. Winnetka seemed very far away.

"This is totally crazy," Kristi said. She stomped up the step to the cabin and banged in through the door. "Let's see what we've got here."

Inside was an eight by eight foot room with a fireplace, two cots, a wobbly table, and one chair. Two crude windows had been cut in the wood siding, but the room was very dark. A rusty lantern stood on the table, with a bottle of kerosene next to it. Kristi opened a metal footlocker between the cots and found some blankets and camp pillows and she set about making up the cots. Maddy stood by the door and watched her.

"Ed and Warren kept telling me you were going to be trouble, and I didn't believe them," Kristi said.

Maddy felt the same way she always did when she learned anyone had been talking about her. A hot flash of somethingindignation, shame, fearshot through her and made her face heat up.

"I don't know what the big deal is," she said. "It's not like I'm twelve. I know what I'm doing."

Kristi turned to her with her hands on her hips. Maddy guessed she was trying to look stern, but she wasn't quite able to pull it off.

"Listen, men freak out when an underage girl is found with them. They can get into big trouble, even if you think you're all grown up and know what you're doing. And these guys are rabid when it comes to anyone knowing what they're up to."

Maddy sat on the chair while Kristi stretched out on one of the cots and put her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling.

"How old are you, anyway?" Kristi said.

"I'll be seventeen next week."

"Seventeen going on forty. I totally believed you when you said you were eighteen."

"I'm sorry I lied to you."

"Why'd you run away?"

Maddy paused. She knew it would be hard to explain leaving Winnetka and her new car and her hands-off parents. But the idea of going back there made the little cabin seem like heaven. Its stark furnishings felt warmer to her than the sterile environment at home.

"Have you ever run away?" Maddy asked.

Kristi snorted. "Is the Pope Catholic? I was out my window every other week, it seemed."

"Why did you want to leave home?"

Kristi was quiet for a moment. "You know how it is. Dad comes home drunk, looks for something to hit. After Mom left, his favorite target was gone, so he started picking on me."

"Where'd your mom go?" Maddy asked.

"I don't know. I woke up one day when I was twelve and she was gone. I don't blame her though."

Maddy thought that was unlikely. What kind of mom leaves her kid with a drunk, violent father? And what kind of person wouldn't hate her for doing it?

"I hung around as long as I could 'cause I have two little brothers. But as soon as they were big enough to take care of themselves, I left for good. My father never whipped the boys, but anyways, they got big enough to whip him right back."

"So how old were you when you left for good?"

Kristi paused again. "I was sixteen."

"Well, there you go."

Kristi raised herself on one elbow and looked at Maddy. "I'm not going to worry about whether you're too young to be away from home. I know you're not. I'm just worried that David will leave you behind when we head out to Idaho."

"Do you think he'd do that?"

"I don't think he would. But Drecker might talk him into it. I guess we'll have to wait and see."

Kristi got up and found some MREs in the footlocker. "Do you want spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s or beef stew?"

"Um, beef stew?"

"Good choice." She brought the MREs to the table and showed Maddy how to warm up her stew with the heater in the pack. She set out the crackers and cookies and plastic forks and arranged it all as if they were sitting down to eat at home just like anyone else. "Look at this! They give you toilet paper in these things, and instant coffee, and blueberry cobbler. This ain't too bad."

Their stews burbled in their flameless heat packs while Maddy considered how Kristi seemed to make every obstacle something to be enjoyed. She wanted to be at least a little like that. She'd take some of that joy with her blueberry cobbler, please.

After dinner, Kristi built a fire while Maddy went out in the dark to use the outhouse. She carried the sputtering kerosene lamp with her, but one peek in the outhouse and she headed for the woods to squat there instead. The outhouse wasn't foul smelling, but it was terrifying. She heard scrabbling and scurrying when she opened the door. The woods in the dark were terrifying too. She peed as fast as she could and ran back to the cabin, where the inside looked cheery. Kristi was sitting cross-legged in front of the fireplace, poking at the logs with a stick and whistling. Maddy sat next to her. All they needed was some s'mores.

"Why'd you come with me, Kristi?" Maddy picked up a stick and started poking at the logs too. Their sticks clacked together in the fire.

"I wanted to make sure you'd be okay," Kristi said. "You looked scared."

"I did not."

Kristi looked at her with a smile. "Please. You might have been able to hide your age from me, but there was no mistaking that look on your face. But h.e.l.l, I'd have been scared too. That Drecker dude is intense."

"So you wanted to what? Protect me?"

Kristi shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I just wanted to be with you."

Poke, poke. The flames danced higher and licked around their sticks. Kristi put hers down to take off her jacket. Then she picked the stick up again and stared very intently at the fire.

"What do you think of that?" Kristi said.

"What?"

"That I wanted to be with you?"