Thicker Than Blood - Crouch Blake - Страница 101
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The tip of Ocracoke dwindled into a smudge on the horizon, and suddenly there was nothing but mile upon mile of mercurycolored swells, the eastern sky flushing now with a tincture of purple.
Several passengers abandoned their cars and ascended the steps to the lounge—departing vacationers, workers making the long watery commute from Ocracoke to Hatteras. The gentleman in the Chevy Blazer directly in front of me crawled into the back seat and laid down.
I sat listening to the sleet.
My burns killing me.
There was no movement on my side of the deck.
I opened the door, stepped out into the cold, motes of ice needling my face.
I walked back to the sternside of the galley, crouched by the steps that rose to the lounge and pilothouse. Portside, three cars were parked along the railing—a Honda, a Cadillac, and an old Dodge pickup truck the color of a zinc penny save for its rusting blue doors.
The Kites had left the truck.
I peered around the steps.
They stood at the bow, their backs to me, gazing north across Hatteras Inlet. Rufus, his white hair twisting like albino snakes in the wind, was pointing west at an inconsequential landcrumb, dry and visible only for moments at the nadir of lowtide.
The Kites and I were the sole passengers on deck.
I made my furtive way to the navy Honda at the rear of the Kites’ three-car line and ducked under the backend. Through the side mirror I glimpsed the reflection of its driver, sleeping, his head resting against the window. I crawled between the Honda and the railing amid a brief spate of sleet, finally reaching the next car in line, a Cadillac, its passengers having retired to the lounge.
I leaned against the back bumper to regain my breath. Glancing under the sedan, I saw the three pairs of legs still standing by the canvas-lattice gate at the bow.
I crept on.
My scorched clothing did little to shield me from the piercing cold, and I was shivering violently by the time I arrived at the back of the Kites’ truck.
The tailgate was closed, the truckbed covered by a bright blue tarp.
The seagulls had discovered the Kites and besieged the bow of the ferry, their lamentations cut and diminished by the gale. I crawled to the driver side door, peered through the glass. The cab was empty. Violet had to be in the truckbed.
I noticed a pistol and a pumpaction shotgun in the floorboard, tried the door but it was locked.
I sensed movement, looked up.
Rufus walked quickly toward me, just three steps from the passenger door.
I hit the ground, rolled under the truck as he pulled it open.
Staring at the corroded innards of its underbelly, warm motor oil dripping on my throat, I heard Rufus shout, "You want the whole loaf, Beautiful?"
Then the door slammed and I watched his legs propel him back to the bow, a bag of squashed bread dangling at his side.
Get Violet to the Impala before you do anything.
As the gulls regressed into a ravenous frenzy I wriggled out from under the truck. Their squawks and the engines and the moan of the wind masked the grating squeak as I lifted the handle and lowered the tailgate.
Still fettered with duct tape, Violet lay unconscious on the rusty truckbed in a smattering of damp pineneedles and splinters of bark—remnants from a load of firewood.
While the Kites fed the seagulls—three breadbearing hands thrust into the sky—I climbed into the truckbed, took Violet by the ankles, and pulled her onto the tailgate. Breathless, on the verge of blacking out, I lifted her from the bed and set her gently on the concrete deck beside the railing. She stirred but did not wake. I closed the tailgate and proceeded to drag Violet by the shoulders toward the end of the line.
Exhaustion stopped me beneath the driver side window of the navy Honda. Fighting pain, I stared at the dozing driver, his face still pressed against the window, drool sliding down the glass. I willed his eyes to stay shut.
At the Honda’s back bumper I glanced up to the bow, saw the Kites’ attention still engaged with the feasting birds.
I slung Violet over my shoulder, struggled to my feet, praying no one in the observation lounge would see us.
A dozen tenuous steps and we’d reached the Impala.
I stowed Violet in the back seat and climbed behind the steering wheel.
Sleet pouring faster than it could melt, ticking madly on the roof.
It stopped.
In the east, bits of early morning indigo showed through, the clouds cracking like ancient paint.
As the sky aged through warming shades of purple into oxblood, a wire of land materialized to the south and east.
Now emerging on the horizon—the silhouette of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, at two hundred and eight feet, the tallest in America, its beam still sweeping over Diamond Shoals, graveyard of the Atlantic.
I ached to drive off this ferry with Violet, get her safe, get myself something for this terrible fucking pain.
Drawing the keys from the ignition, I climbed into the backseat and sawed the longest key through the duct tape binding the young woman’s wrists. Then I ripped away the strip across her mouth.
"Violet," I whispered. "Violet, do you hear me?"
She mumbled and shifted onto her side.
"You’re safe now," I said. "You’re with Andy."
It grew cold inside the car.
As I maneuvered back into the driver seat, key readied to crank the engine and start the flow of heat, I glanced through the windshield, saw Maxine Kite, her eyes cupped and peering through the tinted side windows of the Chevy Blazer just ahead.
She wore an old frayed gabardine coat, so long on her withered frame it fanned out beneath her like a black wedding dress.
I locked each passenger door.
Stepped out onto the deck.
Maxine looked up when my door slammed.
She bolted, disappeared around the galley.
I limped after her.
The coming daystar tingeing the clouds with a soft peach stain.
Gulls screaming.
These Outer Banks turning into the sun’s dominion—a cuticle of pink fire peeking over the edge of the sea.
The Kites stood at the bow, awash with sunrise, ruddyfaced, watching me approach with a fusion of shock and amusement.
Except for Luther.
He lunged for me but Rufus grabbed his arm and jerked him back.
"Not here, son."
Rufus stared at me, shook his head, grinning.
"Christ, Andrew, what are you made of—rubber?"
I stood five feet from the psychopaths.
"I have her," I said.
"I see that."
"What do you say you get in your truck, I get in my car, and we go our separate ways when we reach Hatteras? I think we’re even, Luther. I left you for dead, you left me—"
"I don’t give a fuck about even."
Eddies of dizziness enveloped me.
Sky spinning.
Faltering, I stumbled backward, caught myself.
"But you sort of admire him, don’t you?" Rufus said. "I mean, he took some nasty voltage. We left him charred, no respiration, no…" A crewman strode past, lips moving to the music that blared from his headphones. "No pulse. It’s a resurrection."
Hatteras was close, its mammoth soundside homes like mythic dollhouses in the distance.
"Look," Rufus said, "you’re telling me you’ll let us leave this ferry without any commotion? Let us just drive off into the sunrise? No revenge? After all we did to you?"
"I just want to take Violet."
"Well. I suppose you’ve earned that."
"Pop, come on, what the—"
"Shut your mouth, boy," Maxine hissed.
"Look me in the eye, tell me you won’t follow us," Rufus said.
I looked the old man dead in his oilblack eyes and told him.
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