Strangers
far. Not in this weather, not already."
"Have you sent the men to follow them?"
"No, sir. But I had them pull the pickup and a Wagoneer around back. They're ready to go."
"Move them out," Leland said in a soft, measured tone.
"Don't worry, sir, we'll get our hands on them."
"I'm sure we will," Leland said, totally in control of himself, showing a firm and steady sense of command to his lieutenant. Horner turned and started to leave, and Leland said, "As soon as you've sent the men off, meet me downstairs with a county map. They'll intend to connect with a county or state road somewhere. We'll anticipate their next move and be waiting for them."
"Yes, sir," Horner said.
Alone, Leland calmly turned a page of the album. Red moons.
Horner's crashing footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs; then the front door slammed shut behind him, reverberating through the walls.
Calmly, so calmly, Leland turned a page in the album, and another.
Outside, Horner was shouting orders to the men.
Leland turned a page, another, another. Red moons.
Outside, engines revved. Eight men, in two parties of four, moved out on the trail of the escaped witnesses.
Leland calmly turned two, three, six pages, saw red moons and more red moons, and calmly picked up the album and threw it across the room. The book slammed into cupboards, bounced off the refrigerator, fell. A score of scarlet moons flew free and fluttered briefly. On a counter, Leland saw a ceramic jar: a smiling bear sitting with forepaws clasped over his tummy. He scooped it up, threw it to the floor, where it exploded in a hundred fragments. Broken chocolate-chip cookies landed atop the album and crumbled across the scattered red moons. He swept a radio off the counter, onto the floor. A canister of sugar. Flour. He pitched a breadbox against the wall and threw a Mr. Coffee machine at the oven.
He stood for a moment, breathing -deeply, evenly. Then he turned and walked calmly out of the kitchen, went calmly down the stairs to the office, to calmly study the county map and calmly assess the situation with his lieutenant.
"The moon!" Marcie cried, then screamed shrilly again. "Mommy, look, look, the moon! Why, Mommy, why? Look, the moon!"
The girl suddenly tried to pull loose of her mother, wrenched and flailed. Jorja strove to hold on to her but was unsuccessful.
Startled by the screams, Ned had halted the Jeep.
Screaming again, Marcie tore loose of her mother, scrambled across Ernie, with no particular destination as far as Ernie could determine, with no intention but to escape from whatever she had seen in memory. She was apparently not aware that she was in the Cherokee but believed herself to be in another place altogether, a scary place.
Ernie grabbed her before she could scrabble and kick her way into Brendan's lap. He held the small child tightly in his big arms, held her against his chest, and as she continued to scream, he cooed soothingly to her.
Gradually, Marcie's terror subsided. She stopped struggling and went limp in his arms. She stopped screaming, too, and merely chanted softly: "Moon, the moon, moon
" And quietly, but with terrible dread: "Don't let it get me, don't let it, don't let it."
"Be still, honey," Ernie said, patting her, stroking her hair, "be still, you're safe, I won't let it get you."
"She remembered something," Brendan said as Ned drove forward again. "A crack opened for just a moment."
"What did you see, baby?" Jorja asked her daughter.
The girl had slipped back into her deep catatonic glaze, unhearing, unheeding
except that, after a while, Ernie felt her arms tighten around him in a hug. He hugged her in return. She said nothing. She was still not really with them, adrift on a dark inner sea. Evidently, however, she felt safe in Ernie's bearish embrace, and she held fast to him as the Cherokee rocked and lurched through the snowy night.
After months of living in fear of every shadow, after regarding each oncoming twilight with despair and horror, Ernie felt indescribably good, delighted that someone needed his strength. It was profoundly satisfying. And as he held her and murmured to her and stroked her thick black hair, he was oblivious of the fact that night now surrounded the Cherokee and pressed its
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