“That’s how it worked in Idaho. Cops, judges. The Gathering has loads of cash to buy them all. His settlements are cut off from outside communication-no phones, no radios. Even if a girl wanted to call for help, she wouldn’t be able to.” Cathy set down her coffee cup. “There’s nothing I want more than to see him, and the men who follow him, in shackles. But I don’t think it’s ever going to happen.”

“Does Julian Perkins feel the same way?”

“He hates them all. He told me so.”

“Enough to kill?”

Cathy frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You were at the double homicide at the Circle B lodge. That dead couple belonged to The Gathering.”

“You aren’t thinking Julian did it.”

“Maybe that’s why he went on the run. Why he had to kill the deputy.”

Cathy gave a vehement shake of the head. “I’ve spent time with that boy. He hangs out with this stray dog, and you’ve never seen anyone so gentle with an animal. He doesn’t have violence in him.”

“I think we all have it in us,” said Jane quietly. “If we’re pushed hard enough.”

“Well, if he did do it,” Cathy said, “he had justice on his side.”

27

THE SNOW CAVE WAS RIPE WITH THE ODOR OF WET DOG AND mildewed clothes and the sweat of two filthy bodies. Maura had not bathed in weeks, and the boy had probably gone far longer. But the shelter was cozy as a wolf den, just large enough for them to stretch out on the pine-branch floor, and the fire that Rat built was now bright and crackling. In the light from the flames, Maura surveyed her down jacket, once white, but now soiled with soot and blood. She imagined the horror that would greet her in a mirror. I’m turning into a wild animal, like these two, she thought. An animal hiding in a cave. She remembered accounts that she’d read of children raised by wolves. Brought back to civilization, they remained feral and impossible to tame. Now she could feel her own transformation beginning. Sleeping and eating on hard ground, living for days in the same clothes, curling up every night beside Bear’s furry warmth. Soon no one would recognize her.

I might not recognize myself.

Rat threw a bundle of twigs into the fire. Smoke swirled in the snow cave, stinging their eyes and throat. Without this boy, I would not survive one night out here, she thought. I would already be dead and frozen, my body vanishing under the blowing snow. But the wilderness was a world Rat seemed to feel comfortable in. Within an hour, he had dug out this cave, choosing a spot on the lee side of a hill and tunneling upward to hollow out the cavity. Together they’d gathered firewood and pine boughs, racing the darkness and the killing chill of night.

Now, huddled in surprising comfort beside the fire, she listened to the wind moan outside their pine-branch door, and watched him root around in his backpack. Out came powdered dairy creamer and a box of dried dog kibble. He shook out a handful of kibble and tossed it to Bear. Then he held out the box to Maura.

“Dog food?” she asked.

“It’s good enough for him.” Rat nodded at the dog, who was happily devouring his meal. “Better than an empty stomach.”

But not by much, she thought as she bit resignedly into a chunk. For a moment, the only sound in the cave was three pairs of jaws crunching away. She stared across the guttering flames at the boy.

“We have to find a way to surrender,” she said.

He kept chewing, his attention ferociously focused on filling his belly.

“Rat, you know as well as I do that they’re going to come after us. We can’t survive out here.”

“I’ll take care of you. We’ll do okay.”

“Living on dog food? Hiding in snow caves?”

“I know a place, up in the mountains. We can stay there all winter, if we have to.” He held out packets of powdered dairy creamer. “Here. Dessert.”

“They won’t give up. Not when the victim is a cop.” She looked at the bundle containing the dead deputy’s weapon, which Rat had wrapped in a rag and shoved into a shadowy corner, as though it were a corpse he didn’t want to look at. She thought of an autopsy she’d performed on a cop-killer who’d died in police custody. He went nuts on us, must’ve been PCP was what the officers claimed. But the bruises she saw on the torso, the lacerations on the face and scalp, told a different story. Kill a cop and you’ll pay for it was the lesson she’d learned from that. She looked at the boy and suddenly had a vision of him lying on an autopsy table, battered and bloodied by vengeful fists.

“It’s the only way we’ll have a chance of convincing them,” she said. “If we surrender together. Otherwise, they’ll assume we murdered that man with his own gun.”

The blunt assessment seemed to shake him, and the kibble suddenly fell from his hand as he lowered his head. She could not see his face, but she saw him shaking in the firelight and knew that he was crying.

“It was an accident,” she said. “I’ll tell them that. I’ll tell them you were only trying to protect me.”

He shook harder, pulling his arms around himself as though to stifle the sobs. Bear moved closer, whining, and laid his huge head on the boy’s knee.

She reached out to touch his arm. “If we don’t surrender, we look guilty. You see that, don’t you?”

He shook his head.

“I’ll make them believe me. I swear, I won’t let them blame you for this.” She gave him a shake. “Rat, trust me on this.”

He pulled away from her. “Don’t.”

“I’m only thinking of what’s best for you.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Somebody has to.”

“You’re not my mother!”

“Well, you could use a mother right now!”

“I have one!” he cried. His head came up, and his face glistened with tears. “What good did it do me?”

For that she had no good answer. In silence she watched as he ashamedly wiped away the tears, leaving streaks on his soot-stained face. For days, he’d struggled so hard to be a man. The tears reminded her that he was just a boy, a boy who was now too proud to meet her gaze, to show her how frightened he felt. Instead he focused his attention on the packets of powdered creamer, which he ripped open and emptied in his mouth.

She tore open her own packets. Some of the contents spilled onto her hand, and she let Bear lap the powder off her skin. When he’d licked it clean, he gave her face a few licks as well, and she laughed. She noticed that Rat was watching them.

“How long has Bear been with you?” she asked, stroking the dog’s thick winter fur.

“Few months.”

“Where did you find him?”

“He’s the one who found me.” He held out his hand and smiled as Bear moved back to him. “I walked out of school one day, and he just came right up to me. Followed me home.”

She smiled, too. “I guess he needed a friend.”

“Or he knew I needed one.” Finally he looked up at her. “Do you have a dog?”

“No.”

“Kids?”

She paused. “No.”

“Didn’t you want any?”

“It just didn’t happen.” She sighed. “My life is… complicated.”

“Must be. If you can’t even keep a dog.”

She laughed. “Yeah. I’ll definitely have to sort out my priorities.”

Another silence passed. Rat lifted Bear’s head and rubbed their faces together. As she sat by the sputtering fire, watching the boy commune silently with his dog, he suddenly seemed much younger than his sixteen years. A child in a man’s body.

“Rat?” she asked quietly. “Do you know what happened to your mother and sister?”

He stopped stroking the dog, and his hand went still. “He took them away.”

“The Prophet?”

“He decides everything.”

“But you didn’t see it? You weren’t there when it happened?”

He shook his head.

“Did you go into the other houses? Did you see…” She hesitated. “The blood?” she asked quietly.

“I saw it.” His gaze lifted to hers, and she saw that the blood’s significance had not been lost on him. This is why I’m still alive, she thought. Because he knew what the blood meant. He knew what would happen to me if I stayed in Kingdom Come.