Byron knew the turnoff to their home by feel. The change in direction woke Lonnie up. He overshot their rutted driveway slightly, then looked behind and backed in. The sky was starting to lighten in the east. When they got close to the single-wide prefab house, Lonnie hopped out and guided Byron as he backed the truck past it, stopping him a few inches away from the tongue of their small travel trailer that looked like a shabby canned ham, even in the half light of the morning. Byron hopped out of the truck and ran straight into the house as Lonnie unfolded the crank and lowered it down. He set to work securing the hitch and connecting the travel trailer’s lights to the truck’s wire harness. When Byron reemerged, he said, “We get ten minutes, then we’re gone.”
“How does he even know where we live?”
Byron pointed to the end of the drive. “It says ASHDOWN on the mailbox. You painted it there, you idiot.”
Lonnie stood and lurched up the stairs after his brother. “Quit calling me that,” he shouted. Byron jumped into the house and tried to close the door, but Lonnie leaned against it with his shoulder and slowly gained leverage.
“We don’t have time for this,” Byron growled.
Lonnie wedged his shoulder against the door, then he reached around and grabbed Byron’s ponytail. Byron roared and tried to grab his brother’s hand, which caused him to lose control of the door. Lonnie pushed in a few more inches and was able to yank on the ponytail even harder. Byron cursed and fell to the ground, pulling his hair free of Lonnie’s fist but also allowing the door to jump forward and pinch him on his back fat. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. All right! What’s wrong with you?” Byron shouted.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Lonnie said, stepping over his brother’s body. Lonnie went into his room and took an old canvas duffel and filled it with clothes and the pillow from his bed. He stripped and put on new underwear and socks, then he dressed the rest of the way. He took a hat and a pair of old aviation goggles he used in the desert. From a shelf above his bed, he selected two books and a spiral notebook with a pen jammed into the wire coil. He closed up the bag and took it to the front room.
Byron carried two smaller bags of his own, one in each hand. He had the map rolled up under one arm.
Lonnie walked past him with his bag and tossed it on top of the tools. “What’s that?” he asked.
“It’s one of the maps. That one we tried out. I kept it.” He leaned the map against the side of the single-wide.
“Maybe that’s why he sent those girls. We need to find him and give it back.”
“And what? Apologize?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“Guys like Scissors don’t just say, ‘No biggie, it’s water under the bridge.’ They throw you off the bridge. What’s done is done. Let’s go.”
Lonnie went back to the travel trailer and pulled a piece of stovewood that chocked the wheels. “We’re just gonna keep running, then? Like the cat in those cartoons?”
“What cat?”
“The one that gets a skunk stripe, then she gets chased the whole time. Scissors is going to keep coming for us like that skunk.”
“That’s why we’re doing this. Down there we’re sitting ducks. Now we’ve got insurance.”
“I don’t like running. And it’s Pepé, by the way.”
“Who is?”
“The skunk. His name is Pepé. I forgot the name before.”
“Seriously? You know this guy might just kill us—I’m not going to even—look. We ain’t running, we’re hiding. Plenty of people have done it. Butch Cassidy, Sundance, Billy the Kid, the James Gang.”
“The James Gang is a band.”
“I’m talking about Jesse James, you moron.”
“They got that guy from the Eagles in it.”
“I don’t know how I start off talking about us getting killed and you end up talking about the Eagles.”
“You said James Gang. It got me off track. Stress gets my wires crossed,” Lonnie said.
Byron changed his posture; it looked like he was lowering his center of gravity. He set down his things on the ground next to the truck, and he did it so gently that Lonnie grew nervous. “Brother, this moment in time is not about your word associations or idea showers, or your—”
“Chains,” Lonnie said, and he knew it was a mistake, but he had to finish the thought. “They’re idea chains. And I don’t try to do it. It just happens.”
Byron shook his head and held up a finger. “The only advantage we have over Scissors is we know this place. You’ve seen how he dresses. He might be city tough, but off-roading isn’t one of his skills. I don’t have time to get into it with you about physics or chaos theory or any of it, Lonnie. We have time for you to put some food and ice in a cooler or we’re dead.”
“You came back for the map,” Lonnie said, ignoring the rest of it. “That’s why we aren’t, like, on our way to Mexico or something.”
“So what?” Byron said. “You’ve counted that money. It’s ten grand for each of us. How long you think that will carry us?”
Lonnie shrugged. “I can stretch it.”
“That map is the goose that laid the golden egg. When things get tight, we’ll head out, dig something up, turn it into cash.”
Byron went back into the house and returned with a Phoenix Suns duffel bag and his rifle. Then he went back inside and came out with a spotting scope and a tripod. He put the rifle in the rack and packed the duffel bag, scope, and tripod behind his seat in the truck. Lonnie went in for the food. “Don’t take everything,” Byron said. “Do something to make it look like we’re coming back.” Lonnie took every other box from the pantry, and a few things out of the fridge: some cheese, a couple of limes, a thing of baloney. He packed it all away, then sat down at the table. He took an envelope and flipped it over and wrote:
Dear ladies, make yourselves at home. Went to town for beers. Be back soon. Byron and Lonnie.
He took the envelope and slid it into the thin aluminum frame that went around the window. Byron made one more pass through the house, came out and picked up the map, stopped to read the note, nodded, then got in the truck. He put the map in the top slot of the gun rack and checked on the trailer behind them, then he turned and put the truck in gear.
___
Sophia rose in the dark five minutes before the alarm on her phone went off. She went into the trailer’s Spartan galley and started a pot of coffee. While she was waiting, her phone flashed and buzzed, and she lifted the screen to see the calendar banner, which read BACKCOUNTRY ADVENTURE WITH PAUL. This was going to be a welcome break from gathering data.
As she drove, she remembered a course she took as an undergraduate about ecosystems. The professor told a story about a trip he’d taken with students the summer before into the jungles of Costa Rica. He said that while he was lecturing about climax ecosystems his voice just vanished. Everyone’s attention turned to the space left behind by his silence. They noticed that the chatter of the birds and monkeys also ceased. Somebody asked what was going on, and the professor whispered, “Jaguar,” as he spread his arms and tried to sweep them back down the trail. The professor said they all looked up and saw the dark symmetry of the cat crouched upon a tree that had fallen but was still suspended by the neighboring trunks, a narrow shaft of daylight painting a stripe of black-and-orange prints in the fur across the shoulders of the beast. The animal lowered its head and pulled back its ears. They watched its chest expand and collapse like the bellows of a forge, and then, without warning, it leapt from the fallen tree away from them to the floor of the jungle. They heard leaves rustle, then the return of their own breathing, and after a time, bird calls and the chittering of a monkey somewhere overhead.