Chapter 9
There’s a loud bang that makes my heart jump, and my upper chest hits the dash, knocking the breath from my lungs. My mouth works uselessly for a moment, trying to draw in oxygen, before my body remembers how to breathe.
The smell of hot oil fills the air, along with a hiss from the cracked radiator. Evans groans from the darkness beside me; the lights have gone out. I pat my pockets, find a pack of matches, and strike one.
“Christ,” Evans mutters, blinking in the glow of the match. He rubs his ribs where he collided with the steering wheel. “Damned tree. There’s a flashlight in my bag in the back seat. Can you get it for me?”
“Of course.” Even though my own body aches, I’m better off than Evans.
The bag is on the floorboards in the rear. Rain streams in through the bullet holes and the gap where the back window used to be. I brush broken glass off the bag, then have to pause and strike a second match before my fingertips burn.
I find the flashlight mostly by touch and pass it to him. “Thanks.” Evans clicks on the light, and I blow out the match.
Despite the pouring rain, we both climb out to take a look. The tree came up by the roots, and the smell of wet earth joins that of scorched oil.
Evans stares morosely at the vehicle. “My car,” he says, and puts a hand on it as if it’s an ailing loved one.
I’m no mechanic, but even I can tell it’s not going anywhere again, except maybe to a scrap heap. The hood is crumpled, the radiator crushed, and the engine leaking various liquids from large cracks. “I’m sorry. Perhaps your employers will reimburse you?” I suggest hopefully.
“I have a job precisely because insurance companies hate to pay out money.” The rain pooling on the brim of his hat chooses this moment to cascade off in a small waterfall. He sighs deeply. “We’ll see. For right now, we need to start walking.”
Neither my hat nor my coat are faring well in the wet weather. The chill has already seeped in; walking in the dark on a lonely road in the pouring rain is only going to make things worse. “Shouldn’t we stay in the car until it stops raining?”
“Is it going to stop? I thought you weren’t a meteorologist.”
“It has to stop eventually. We’re in the middle of nowhere. How long are we going to walk?”
He takes the bag from the back seat. “I don’t know. All I know is, if the vehicle from earlier wasn’t the only one following us, I don’t want to sit here and wait until they find us.”
“Oh.” The thought hadn’t occurred to me. “I suppose we walk, then.”
The mud sucks at our shoes as we start down the road.
In France, it was so deep at times no vehicles could get through.
Boards had to be laid over the mud just so men could get back and forth to the front.
Miles and miles of boards, and every time stretcher-bearers ran past, we had to step off into the muck to let them by, then haul ourselves out of the thick glop again.
Mud on my shoes, my uniform. On my skin and in my hair.
Men drowned in it. Too injured to pull themselves free, they fought for breath even as the mud filled their lungs. How much of it was water, and how much blood?
A mix of scrubby trees follows the road for the first mile or so, before giving way to fields gone fallow. No telephone or electricity lines run alongside the road. The rain sneaks fingers into every gap in my clothing, and soon I’m shivering.
“Look—up ahead. I think I see light,” Evans says, sounding relieved. His coat is thicker than mine, but certainly not meant to spend too long in the rain, so he’s likely almost as chilled as I am.
I peer through the rain—there. Yellow lantern light shines across the fields, as if beckoning us in.
I can’t wait for warmth. Perhaps even a bed. Right now, I’ll happily sleep in a barn, so long as it’s dry.
The yard in front of the house is as overgrown as the fields around it.
An old cart stands in the weeds, but given how deep its wheels have penetrated the ground, it’s been a very long time since a horse was hitched up to it.
Even so, my heart sinks a bit when the beam of Evans’s flashlight plays over the old farmhouse.
Its construction is the simple box shape common during colonial times, no doubt the pride of some long-dead farmer when it was first built.
Now there are gaps in the siding where boards have fallen off, and what little white paint remains is peeling badly.
Broken slate tiles litter the yard, torn off by wind.
There’s no electricity, and I’d be surprised if there was any sort of indoor plumbing, either.
If not for the lantern glowing from one of the rooms, I’d assume the structure abandoned. But without the car, our choices are limited, and I have no intention of staying in the rain any longer than necessary.
The stoop has a small roof to keep off the rain. Evans and I exchange a glance, then he knocks on the door.
I strain my ears and catch what sounds like a woman’s voice, followed by slow footsteps approaching. An unaccountable sense of nervousness sweeps over me as the door creaks open on un-oiled hinges.
An ordinary man in his late twenties stands there, dressed in filthy overalls and a shirt that had started its existence white but was now yellow. His hair pokes out in all directions, and he gazes at us with a vacant look.
I take my hat off. “Forgive the late hour, sir, but we’ve crashed our car in the storm. Can we wait out the rain inside?”
The man stands there as if he doesn’t understand a word I’ve said. The woman I heard earlier calls, “Who is it, Barney?”
“Two men,” he replies.
“Well, don’t just stand there, invite them in!”
He steps back, swinging the door wider. “Come in.”
The house is as decrepit inside as out. The door opens onto a hallway, the parlor just to the right, its wallpaper faded and yellowed with time. Photographs of stern men glare out from heavy frames, and the upholstery on the couch and chairs is worn thin. A dank smell pervades the room.
The woman rises from a rocking chair beside the massive hearth. At a guess, she’s Barney’s mother, her hair gone largely gray and her voluminous dress more suited to the turn of the century than the present day.
Which is one year later than it should be, for me.
I can’t think about that right now. Guessing an older woman would put an emphasis on manners, I bow. “Thank you so much for your hospitality. I’m Sterling Caine, and this is Mr. Adrian Evans.”
“Ella Foster, and this is my son, Barney. Barney, take their coats and hats, and bring some blankets. Please, gentlemen, come join me by the fire.”