“What the hell are you talking about?” Charlie said, just as the walkie-talkie went off on the sheriff’s belt.

Ray answered the call and, turning a few feet down the porch, said, “Yes, sir, I’m there now.” He listened, then said, “We’re setting up the roadblocks just as fast as we can.”

Roadblocks?

The sheriff shut it off, brushed the snow from his shoulders, and said, “Don’t plan on going anywhere tonight.”

“Are you telling me I’m under arrest?” Charlie said, feigning more indignation than he felt. “What for?”

“I’m telling you the roads are closed.”

And that was all Charlie needed to hear. As soon as the sheriff had climbed back into his patrol car, Charlie did a wheelie and shouted to Rebekah to pack some food and coffee. “And none of that decaf chicory shit! Make it the real stuff we serve on meeting nights.”

Then he threw open the pocket doors and hollered at Harley to wake up. “We’re leaving!”

Harley mumbled something but didn’t move until Charlie poked his arm and repeated himself.

“Man, I was so fast asleep,” Harley said. “Why’re we leaving?”

“Maybe that’s something that you can tell me, while we drive.”

Although Charlie might now be a man of God, he’d been a man of the world for a whole lot longer than that, and at times like this he reverted to form. He knew that if the law came calling, and they were setting up roadblocks and looking high and low for Harley, it must be serious. Even if it was just about those damned jewels — the emerald cross and that icon with the diamonds in it — it was better to get to Voynovich’s place on the double, fence them for whatever he could get, then hole up in the ice-fishing cabin for a while … or at least until he could figure out just what kind of shit was going down.

Harley was pulling on his wet boots and complaining about some pain in his leg, but Charlie didn’t want to hear it.

“Go get in the van,” he said, as he stuck the cross and icon in his pockets. In the kitchen, he grabbed the provisions that Rebekah had stuffed in a plastic sack, then wheeled out the back door and onto the ramp to the garage.

Bathsheba, lingering in the doorway, timidly asked if Harley was okay. “He’s not in trouble, is he?”

Charlie had to laugh. “When isn’t he?” he said, without even looking back.

As he climbed into the driver’s seat and adjusted the hand controls, he got a strong whiff of his brother and wished to hell he’d made him shower first. He looked as bad as he smelled — his eyes with a mad gleam, his skin kind of sweaty. Scratching his thigh. What the hell did someone even as dumb as Bathsheba see in him?

Charlie backed the van down the sloping, icy drive, all the while plotting his route. He’d have to avoid the one and only main road that connected Port Orlov to civilization — if you could call Nome civilization — since the sheriff would be patrolling the local stretch, and Charlie didn’t know exactly where this checkpoint would be set up. He’d have to get around it, but once he’d managed that, he’d probably have clear sailing the rest of the way.

At the first turn, he steered the old Ford van across a field, through a couple of rusty barbed-wire fences, and onto an old logging road. The van bounced up and down on the rutted track and Harley said, “Why’d you do that? You’re gonna break an axle.”

“I’ll break it over your head if you don’t tell me why you’ve got every cop in Alaska out looking for you.”

“They are?”

“Don’t bullshit me, Harley — did you kill Eddie? Or Russell?”

“Of course not, I told you, Eddie fell off a cliff, and Russell—”

“—got eaten by wolves. Yeah, yeah. I know what you told me, but I also know nobody ever went to this much trouble just to catch a thief.” Glancing away from the narrow dirt track for a second, he took in Harley’s disheveled appearance and said, “What’s wrong with you, anyway? Why’s the sheriff wearing a mask?”

“What mask?” Harley said, scratching at his thigh again.

“And what the fuck is wrong with your leg?”

“I got cut, on all that crap Eddie stuck in my pocket. A lot of it broke.”

Charlie’d been cut, too, when he’d poked around in Harley’s backpack. “Show me your leg.”

“What?” Harley protested. “I’m not gonna drop my pants for you.”

Charlie stuck out one hand and grabbed his brother by the throat. “Show … me … your … leg.” Ever since the accident, Charlie’s arms had only gotten that much stronger, but he still needed both hands to steer the van and manipulate the levers. He had to let go, as Harley unbuckled the seat belt and worked his jeans down to his knees. Charlie stopped the van, flicked on the cabin light, and saw a small cut, maybe an inch or two long, on Harley’s pale skin. It wasn’t much in itself, but radiating from the wound were raised, ropy lines, like red licorice strips.

He remembered the sheriff warning him not to let his brother get too close. “How long have those lines been there?”

“I don’t know,” Harley said, as if they really weren’t his problem. “They look longer now.” Suddenly doubling over, Harley coughed and a droplet of blood splatted on the dashboard. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled, wiping it off with the sleeve of his coat. “I know how you are about this car.”

“How long has that been happening?”

“Maybe a few hours. I think I got sick sailing that damn boat over here.” He pulled his pants back up and buckled the belt. “I oughta get a medal just for being able to do it.”

Something was going on here — something bad — but Charlie didn’t know what. And sitting in the woods wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Harley needed a doctor, and if anybody would know of a doctor who could keep his mouth shut — for the right price — it was Voynovich. Charlie put the van into gear, and jounced along the logging trail, the wind battering the chassis and snow piling up on the windshield, until he reached the top of a barren crest, where he doused his lights and stopped. Down below on the road, he could see a half dozen guys in National Guard fatigues, setting up highway flares and laying a spike strip across the two lanes.

“Is all that for us?” Harley asked, with a hint of pride.

Charlie angled the van down the other side of the hill and bumped along until he was sure he was well past the roadblock. He’d have continued on through the trees and brush, but he knew there was a series of ravines and gullies coming up, and not even a Humvee could have made it much farther. Besides, while he was heading due southeast, the authorities would still be looking for him northwest of his true location.

With both hands furiously working the gears and gas and brake levers, he maneuvered the van down a long, slick gradient, once or twice nearly losing control.

“You want me to drive?” Harley asked.

“Like you’d know how.”

“I know how. Who drove you back from Dillingham the time you got so shit-faced you couldn’t stand up?”

“In case you forgot, I can’t ever stand up.”

“Well, if you could have.”

Charlie guided the car along a long drainage ditch, then up an embankment and onto the asphalt. For the first time in over an hour, all the tires were on the same level. But considering the fact that an allpoints bulletin was out for Harley, maybe it would be best, he thought, if his brother was just a little less visible to some good citizen with a CB radio.

“Get in the back,” he said, “and use the blanket to cover yourself up.”

“Nobody’s gonna be out in this shit,” Harley complained. “I can just duck down if I have to.”

“Are you gonna argue every single thing with me?”

Grumbling, Harley crawled over the front seat, his muddy boots kicking Charlie’s Bible CDs all over the floor. Rummaging around among the emergency supplies that every driver in Alaska knew to carry — extra gas cans, flares, flashlights, batteries, a spare tire, lug wrench, some beef jerky, bottled water, mosquito repellent, sleeping bag — Harley pulled out a ratty blanket and drew it around his shoulders.