Black Helicopters (6 page)

“Valley will write the letter, because she writes beautifully. She will be the only one who touches the paper or the envelope. She will put a spot of her own blood on the message each time. That will be the signature. They can test that blood and know for damn sure that all the letters come from us. And they still won’t know who we are. Then, once we get Those People all wound up, we will sound the alarm. People will wake up.

“There is one sad thing about this. It means Valley can’t come out with us into the world anymore. The voice said there can’t be any trace of her where they can find it. Not one hair from her head, not one speck of blood. So from now on, Bo will help in the outside, and Valley must stay here, at the den.”

I look at the flat spring in my hand.

The flat spring is part of the windup.

The flat spring holds the tension.

Is the flat spring lonely?

If it is, it doesn’t say.

I am quiet too.

Corbin opens the cupboard and puts two bowls on the counter.

Eric whacks him on the back of the head with a spoon, then he drops it into one of the bowls. “We have a guest.”

Corbin gets a third bowl.

“You want something to eat?” Eric pulls a box out of the cupboard and shakes it. It’s Honey Nut Cheerios.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

The brothers walk to a brown leather couch and flop down, one at each end. There’s room for me in the middle, but some milk got splashed when they took their places. Eric looks at me standing there with my bowl in my hands, and then he looks at the spot on the couch. He leans over and wipes away the wet puddle with the tail of his T-shirt. The bowl in his other hand tips and milk sloshes out, carrying a raft of tiny cereal life preservers with it.

A fat dog arrives to lick up the spilled food. It’s easy to see why he’s so fat.

“Got the clicker,” says Corbin, and the TV is on.

Eric reaches across me and snakes the remote control out of his brother’s lap and into his possession.

“Hey, I’m watching that,” says Corbin.

“You’ve seen that a bunch of times. The candle on the birthday cake is dynamite. The mouse always wins. The cat always loses. Anyway, the Beaver Trap blew up; it’s a pretty big deal. I bet we made the cable news,” says Eric.

“News is dumb,” says Corbin, and he slurps the last milk out of his bowl before he heads for the kitchen.

When the channel flips, Eric’s right about the cable news. A dark column of smoke boils into the sky from the place where the Beaver Trap used to be. Then the scene switches to a pale girl, wide-set blue eyes staring at the camera. She is wearing a black vest. There are bright messes of color behind her. Red, white, and blue. Red, white, and black. Yellow, black, and green.

“. . . claiming responsibility for the incident,” says the news anchor.

I look at Eric. He’s stopped chewing. There is a trickle of milk running down his chin. His glasses are smudged, but I guess they are clean enough that he can see the TV, and he knows what he’s seen. We made the cable news alright.

“Please,” I say. “Eric, I’m in trouble. I need help. Help me. Please.”

Bo brakes the bike fast. He’s teaching me another lesson in alert and ready. I don’t want my leg caught under there if he lays it down. He doesn’t. He just full stops and kills the motor. Then he points.

There’s a clot of black smoke smearing away on the wind. Single-point origin, not a wildfire, at least not yet, nothing to fear. Except Bo’s back is tense, and he’s hissing at me, “We gotta get off the road.”

Yes. Precaution. Sometimes they send out helicopters when there is a fire. Then I figure out it’s worse. Where that smoke is rising, that’s home.

I want to hurry. I want to know. Bo doesn’t ask what I want; he just pushes the bike to the edge of the road and then down the steep bank into the brush under the trees. I trail after, slithering backward down the bank, covering up the tire tracks and the traces of my own footsteps. Those People might find our path if they are looking and they know what they want to see, but they are stupid. We are invisible to stupid people.

Moving the dead-silent bike up and down the steep hills isn’t an option. Finding a place where nobody walks and nobody will see it is the best plan. It isn’t hard to do. We leave it under a deadfall deep in the ninebark brush. It’s only a few hundred yards from the road, but it passes the “what you can’t see can’t see you” test.

Without the bike, we can move faster. We follow the deer paths when we can. Bo’s got the point. I follow his lead. It’s still a training day and asking questions is a violation. Bo can hit me if I ask questions. He’s authorized to do that when he has the com on training days.

Bo gives me the belly-crawl gesture before we get to the top of the ridge behind the house. We aren’t going to stand up there, all obvious. Not until we know for sure what’s happening. So far, all we know for certain is there is black smoke rising. If the fire had moved into the trees we would have known. The smoke would have changed color and there would be more of it, but there is less smoke now and it is still black as a tire. Maybe that’s it. Maybe Da just built a tire fire as part of training day for me. I check behind me, all around me. If Da is sneaking up on me, I want to be looking. That would make him smile.

Bo kicks me in the shoulder. I should have been looking at him. I should have been alert and ready, but looking at him. He points at his eyes and makes the sign for binos. I dig them out of the pack and hand them up to him. He gives me a stay sign and crawls forward to see what he needs to see.

It takes a long time for him to see what he needs to see.

“They’ve come,” Bo says. “Those People are here.”

When I crawl forward on my elbows, I see for myself. The house is still burning, but they are pouring water on it. They are guys in yellow slickers. They are guys with uniforms and guns. They have fancy hats. They have rigs with stars on the doors. They have a big red truck that pumps water. I don’t see my Da anywhere, but maybe they have him trapped in one of those rigs. Maybe he is chained up with handcuffs. I know maybe they killed him. I know that maybe. He always told us this day might come.

We know what to do.

What we do now is wait.

We have to wait.

We have to be invisible.

We are prepared. We have food and water and emergency blankets to stay warm. We have knives, and Bo has his hand weapon. We have those things because we always have those things on training days.

Da told us this day was coming.

“We can take you to the police. The police can help.” Eric keeps his voice soft and quiet so Corbin won’t hear.

“No. Not the police. They won’t help me. Trust me. I just need a ride.
You
can help me,” I answer in my own secret-sharing voice. When I look at his face, I can see he will do it. He will help me. He
wants
to help me. I just need to give him one more little nudge. “My brother is depending on me,” I say. “My brother . . .” That’s when Eric takes a deep breath and nods yes.

“Corbin,” I say, loud enough that the little one can hear me in the kitchen. “Your brother is going to give me a ride now. . . .”

“Hey, yeah, I want to come! Eric, you can’t leave me. You know. Mom says you got to stay with me.”

“Sure. That works, right, Eric?” I don’t wait for Eric to say anything. “But, before we go, you should to go to the bathroom and get us some snacks for the road. OK?”

When the little brother trails down the hall, I turn to Eric and say quietly, “It will be OK. It’s fine if he comes. We just don’t want him to get scared and confused. It’s just a ride. Nobody knows I’m with you. Nobody knows where I am. It’s just a ride. Right?”

Corbin is back in the kitchen now, rustling around in the cupboards.

“I like snacks. Get us lots and lots of snacks. And something to drink, too,” I tell Corbin. I turn to Eric and say, “Do you have gas? I can give you money for gas if you need it.” His answer will tell me if I’ve got him under my finger, if he’s ready for me to push him where I need him to go.

“I have gas,” says Eric. “And anyway the gas station was by the Beaver Trap. It blew up.” It is a very normal thing to say. He’s keeping our secret. He’s protecting his brother. That’s very good.

“Oh, yeah. Wow,” I say. “Gas tanks blew up like crazy. Blew up like a bomb. Well, good thing your car is ready to go then. But I still want to give you money for your trouble.”

I notice a chessboard on a little table by a window. The board is dusty. This game has been sitting a while. I reach out to put my finger on the queen nearest me.

“Don’t touch that!” says Eric. I pull my hand back. What is happening in my pawn’s little round head?

“Whose game?” I ask.

“I’m playing my dad.”

“Are you white or black?

“Black. I’m black.”

“You win on the next move. You know that?”

“There is no next move.”

“You want me to show you how?”

He says nothing. He looks away from the game to where his brother is banging cupboard doors, getting ready for an adventure.

“Got what we need? ’Cause let’s hit the road.” I say it loud, to Corbin in the kitchen.

Corbin grins and shows me the grocery bag he’s filled with junk food. I walk over and look in like I’m interested. Calories are calories. A drink is a drink. I choose a knife from the knife block in the kitchen. It’s short, a paring knife. The blade is a tapering triangle, dull edged, but strong. It wouldn’t be great for peeling apples, but it will be great for jabbing. The point will go in fast and hard. I won’t be peeling apples.

Even though we know the hillside, it’s dead dark and hard to see, hard to put a foot exactly right every time. Sometimes there’s junk on the trail. Junk that wasn’t there when we left yesterday morning. Bedsprings, those are bedsprings, from a bed that used to be in our house. Something rolls out from under my foot and I fall until I catch myself. Something jabs my hand. It’s glass. Just a little piece of glass. I’m hardly cut at all, but, now I know it’s there. I notice the crunch of broken glass under my boots. It used to be a window. Now it’s just pointy teeth scattered on the hillside. Nobody will ever look out that window to see if trouble is coming ever again. Trouble came.