There was so much to talk about. The people on the horses. Who were they? Why had they brought Gutsy’s mom back from her grave? Twice? Why had they let los muertos into the town through the back gate? Why do any of that? There was the injured dog. There was the tragedy of the origin of that incessant pounding.
The night asked so much of them, demanding answers, demanding actions. They sat at the table and drank hot tea and tried to work their way through everything that happened.
After a while Sombra came limping along the hallway. Gutsy heard the soft click of his nails on the floorboards and turned as he walked slowly into the kitchen.
“Hey, boy,” began Spider, but Gutsy shook her head.
The coydog came up to Gutsy and sat beside her chair, licked her ankle once, and then lay down. He was asleep within seconds. Her dog was asleep by her side. Gutsy could feel the shift inside her as that thought became her truth.
Gutsy stood up, crossed to the cabinet over the sink, and removed a hammer and a metal spike. According to the hardware store from which Gutsy had scavenged the spike, it was officially known as a hot-dipped galvanized four-inch nail. The hammer was actually a mallet with a rubber head. Simple, efficient, and brutal.
She opened a drawer and removed a bundle of heavy-duty canvas work gloves and took two.
“No,” said Spider.
She looked at him, sighed, nodded, and took two additional pairs from the bundle and handed them to her friends. There were leather jackets in the closet. Gutsy had only two football helmets, though. Hers and her mother’s. She gave them to her friends and wrapped a bath towel around her own head and face so that only her eyes were exposed. She secured it with a colorful bandanna.
They stood there, dressed for horror, outside the bedroom door.
“When it comes to it,” said Alethea, reaching for the hammer, “I’ll do that part.”
“No,” protested Gutsy, but Alethea overrode her.
“You’re already freaked out, girl,” said her friend. “You don’t need to make it worse.”
Spider nodded. They hugged. They opened the door.
They stepped into madness.
PART FOUR
RECLAMATION, CALIFORNIA
ONE WEEK EARLIER . . .
BOLDNESS BE MY FRIEND
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly
find out how far one can go.
—T. S. ELIOT
23
“WHAT DID THEY SAY?” ASKED Nix as Benny walked slowly up the garden path to the porch. He had gone off to plead the case for the six of them—Benny, Nix, Chong, Lilah, Morgie, and Riot—to mount an expedition to Asheville.
Benny stopped, shoved his hands into his pockets, and sighed. The words still rang in his ears from the meeting he’d had with Solomon Jones and Mayor Kirsch. They were both sympathetic, they were both good guys, but they were both acting like adults. Not in a good way.
• • •
“Benny,” said the mayor, “you got lucky last time. With Charlie Pink-eye. With Saint John and the Night Church. You took some stupid risks and got lucky. You’re still only fifteen—”
“I’m sixteen,” corrected Benny.
“Okay, whatever, sixteen. You’re a kid. I can’t let a minor go stumbling across the entire United States toward what is almost certainly his own death. You may be tough for your age, but you’re not your brother. And besides, Tom died out there.”
Solomon Jones was a little less condescending. “I called a meeting of the officers of the Freedom Riders and the mayors of the Nine Towns. We’ll work out a strategy and we will find the answers.”