Endless Road and Other Stories by John Lutz

Author:John Lutz [Lutz, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Crime
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

1

Roebuck and Ellie walked at a steady pace through the sun-dappled shade of the deep woods. Occasionally they would break into a small meadow, a green circle of sunlight with tall grass and wildflowers bent gracefully where the wind had passed. Then they would be back into the shadowed woods, trudging loudly through last winter’s dead leaves, stepping over fallen, rotting logs teeming with insects. Around them was the stench of decay, and the fresh scent of things growing out of decay.

As they walked they glanced frequently behind them at the sun, winking at them through their roof of thick foliage. It was the sun that was leading them east, and by whose setting arc they were fixing their path to take them around the State Patrol roadblock.

Roebuck felt an odd exhilaration in the woods, a feeling of solitude and safety. Here the two of them walked in a world that demanded nothing but survival, that most important object of life that society had permitted man to place low on his list of concerns. And as they crossed a leaf-filled dry creek and he helped Ellie up the eroded bank, he felt the primeval protective instinct of man for his mate. He felt a closeness to Ellie that he’d never before experienced, and he wondered if she too felt their solitude and oneness.

“I bet I have a million chigger bites,” she said, scratching beneath the elastic band of her slacks.

“Coal oil,” Roebuck said. “Coal oil is the best thing for chiggers.” He picked up a stick and began beating the sparse foliage that jutted up at wide intervals from the dead leaves to brush against their legs. A wonder that anything could grow, he thought, in the fetid sunlessness beneath the trees.

Ellie clapped her hands at a mosquito. “How far do you think we’ve gone?”

“Maybe a mile,” Roebuck said. “It’s rougher country than I expected. Another hour and we should be past that roadblock and we can walk straight east.”

“You don’t think they’ll be able to find the car, do you?”

“Nope. That water’s so dirty they wouldn’t even be able to look down and see anything under it from a plane or helicopter. In a few days they’ll probably think we drove past the roadblocks somehow and kept heading west.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Roebuck was pleased to see the hint of uncertainty in Ellie. He threw away the stick he was carrying and switched the small plaid suitcase to his other hand. “We’ll make camp about sundown,” he said in a voice of authority.

“I never thought about that,” Ellie said. “I mean, sleeping in the woods.”

“Nothing to be afraid of. During the war five of us got shot down in a bomber and walked all the way across France, keeping to the woods all the way. We lived like animals.”

“What will we sleep on?”

“Dry leaves,” Roebuck said. “We’ll make a bed of dry leaves.”

“Won’t they be full of bugs and things?”

“We’ll shake them out.”

Ellie accepted that but didn’t seem too happy with it.

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