Thirty-seven
Although I hadn’t remembered what I would find when I put the cottonwoods behind me, I knew at once where I was: Maravilla Valley Orchards. Row after long row of almond trees running north-south, precisely spaced to accommodate the harvesting equipment that would shake the ripe nuts from the branches. The alleys between the rows were likewise calculated, not merely to allow tractor-drawn harvest bins to pass but to ensure that one rank of trees did not shadow the next for too much of the day, so that every side of every tree received a wealth of light as the sun traveled from dawn to dusk. Like dutiful sentinels standing watch, the trees dwindled into the dark, across a couple of hundred acres.
Eager to put more distance between myself and the searchers before they might climb into the orchard to scope it out, I ran east along the barrier of boards and chicken wire. I had gone only thirty or forty feet when I saw black-clad figures scaling the fence perhaps sixty feet ahead of me, far from where I’d thought they would be. In the woods, the posse had not re-formed in the direction of the flock of birds that scattered skyward. Instead, as though anticipating my actions, they had angled east.
No one called out. I hadn’t been seen.
In a crouch, I scurried six feet to the south, to the first tree in the nearest row, and took cover there, frantically trying to think what to do next, which way to go, according to what strategy.
Peering east, around the tree, I attempted to count them as they gathered by the fence. All in black, they were darker than the night, contrasted with it, but they milled around, making it difficult for me to tally them. There were at least six. Maybe eight. Either number was too many, bad odds for me.
We were in a kind of forest again, but one that was regimented, geometric, offering less cover than the wildwood. They could spread out more here, maintaining a longer search line, yet each man would still be within sight of those to either side of him. Not yet one flashlight. With night-vision gear, they wouldn’t be foiled by the density of the trees, as they had been among the cottonwoods. They would have clean lines of sight. If I raced along one of the open alleys, I would be quickly spotted. Even crossing an alley from one rank of trees to another, I would draw attention to myself, because from their perspective, I would be the only moving thing in the warm stillness of the almond grove.
I had to stay to a single row of trees, close to the trunks, head down to avoid taking a low branch in the face or across my throat. And I had to get moving. They were already forming a line, getting ready to come into the grove on a north-south hunt. I set out to the south, keeping to my single-row tactic. I moved fast but not nearly at a sprint, not at first. This close to them, my pounding footfalls would locate me in seconds. I needed to put some distance between us before I could run flat-out. Taking short quick strides, almost gliding across the ground, I tried to recall how far it was to the southern end of the orchard. The grove was much longer from north to south than from east to west. Hundreds of acres. A mortal distance under the circumstances.
Birds worried me, the possibility of another mass exodus from branches overhead, a flare of sound that would declare, Here he is! After I had gone thirty yards or so, an owl loudly questioned the night. From elsewhere in the grove, another owl replied, and almost at once yet another. Every orchard attracted field mice and sometimes rats, depending on the crop, and owls considered rodents of any size to be delectable. Wherever owls stood night watch, other birds tended not to roost, because owls also had an appetite for their smaller feathered brethren.
Moving quickly, light-footed, moving, moving, anticipating shouts and gunfire, I tried to remember what I’d find at the end of the orchard. I couldn’t recall a farmhouse or trailer, not any kind of living quarters. The operation was owned by a large corporation, not a family, and as far as I knew, no one lived on the property at night. There was an immense processing building in which the green fruit of the trees would be stripped away from the pits, and the smooth almond seeds from their hard, fibrous jackets. Maybe three or four additional structures. Garages for the harvesting equipment and other machinery. Product storage. Offices. If I could survive the orchard and get a few buildings between me and the posse, night-vision goggles wouldn’t be of as much use to them. When the search involved land around buildings, they couldn’t hold to a rigid line. They would have to split up to some extent, and my options would multiply.
There might be a security guard or two at night, not to patrol the orchard, but to prevent thieves from stealing valuable machinery and vehicles. Problematic. Not that a security guard might be rash enough to shoot me first and ask questions in the afterlife. But if the cultists on my trail would be so bold as to chop the Explorer to pieces with automatic-weapons fire in an area where the noise could trigger calls to 911, they might answer a guard’s challenge with bullets. I didn’t want to be responsible for leading them to a victim. I hoped the orchard buildings were protected only by good steel doors and state-of-the-art alarm systems.
The owls, perhaps as many as half a dozen roosting across the length of the orchard, were hooting regularly to one another, their voices echoing eerily among the trees, as if they were urging me on—or cheering those who pursued me. The time had come to run full tilt, without regard to the noise I would make. Remaining close to the same row of trees, I bolted, taking longer strides, feet slamming against the ground, gasping for breath, making enough noises that I could now hear only the closest owl.
I thought they couldn’t run and fire their weapons at the same time. Not effectively. Not even if they caught sight of me. Afraid of losing me unless they matched my pace, they would have to forgo shooting in order to stay close on my trail. Wrong. If they had Uzis or other fully automatic carbines, they could flick a switch from single-fire to burst-fire, which at least one of them did. The hard stutter of a machine gun rattled through the almond grove, no doubt chasing even the fearless owls from their perches. Full-metal-jacket rounds snapped into the trunks with terrible power, louder than a nail gun driving steel spikes into a four-by-six, loud enough for me to hear those impacts separate from the gunfire.
Dirt and pebbles sprayed across my shoulders and the back of my head, as a low round must have kicked the ground behind me. I dodged from one side of the row to the other, better using the trees for cover, slaloming among them, which increased the chances of being taken down by a branch harder than my head.
A scream. Loud, shrill, prolonged. As the gunfire abruptly ceased, I thought that maybe one of the searchers, hurrying forward too eagerly, had gotten ahead of the gunner and had taken a round or two.
As the hideous screams seemed to slither through the grove with corporal substance, I stopped dodging around the trees and ran only along the west side of the row. My legs on fire. Chest aching. Each exhalation hot as furnace air. I couldn’t keep up that pace much longer. I was no more a marathon runner than I was a man of action.
I thought the need to tend to one of their own injured would bring a couple of them to a halt, improving my odds of survival. I saw a pale geometry in the darkness ahead, the white boards of the southern fence. If they were delaying ten seconds, twenty, I could be up the fence and over, at least temporarily out of sight. A shot rang out, and the screaming stopped. Another single shot perhaps made certain that the screamer had been permanently silenced. They weren’t the type to leave a wounded comrade behind. They were the type who would finish him off and be done with the distraction. I shouldn’t have expected anything else, considering that Jim and Bob executed Wolfgang, Jonathan, and Selene merely because I might have seen their faces. True believers. Fanatics. They didn’t fear death. In their view, death came with a reward. They probably thought they would be royalty in Hell. The execution of their own had set them back no more than five seconds, if at all, but the fence loomed immediately in front of me.