I did as she suggested, and we were left with only the thin beam of the penlight. The tableau of kneeling woman and prone dog appeared to be rendered rather than real, a painterly scene of soft light and softer shadow, a fragment of an unseen and much larger allegorical canvas, every color and stroke and texture possessing profound meaning beyond my understanding. The radiant woman and the adoring dog were of one world, while in the darkness behind them, I was of another. Bridget was transcendental, as was the shepherd that she rescued from wickedness and restored to innocence, but I knew that, whatever I might be, I was less than she. There was no envy in the recognition of this truth, no frustration, no sorrow. I was happy to be with her on this mysterious journey, happier than I’d ever been before, because I sensed that, although in her shadow, I was moving toward the light for which I’d been yearning all my life.
As Bridget got to her feet, Winston rose with her. Referring to her relationship with animals, she said, “The confidence came with the tiger, and then with the bear.”
“What bear?” I asked.
A burst of loud male laughter suggested at least two inebriated companions approaching the front of the house.
“Back door,” Bridget said, and Winston led the way.
Carrying the duffel bag full of money, I hurried after them.
In the kitchen, Bridget snatched up the square of blue tape that held together the broken pieces of glass. She switched off the penlight as she followed the dog onto the porch.
The drunken laughter grew louder as the men entered the front of the house. I pulled the back door shut behind me, hoping they wouldn’t notice the empty pane immediately on entering the kitchen.
Light bloomed in windows as the three of us hurried alongside the house, with jubilant Winston in the lead. I brought up the rear, a position so familiar to me that I could never believably claim to have a hawk-eyed American Indian scout among my ancestors.
Less than a minute after leaving the house, we were rolling. Sparky behind the wheel of the Buick. Bridget up front. Winston in the back seat with me. The dog grinned and panted, tongue lolling. The duffel bag full of cash was on the floor, under my feet.
“Are they Screamers?” I asked.
“Who?” Bridget wondered.
“MS-13, other drug gangs like them.”
“Could be, but probably not,” she said.
Sparky said, “There are plenty of real people who’re eager to make a buck corrupting others with drugs. The wormheads don’t bother with stuff like that. They seem to have a unique agenda.”
“What agenda?”
“We haven’t quite figured it out yet,” Bridget said.
Sparky said, “Who’s the new member of the team?”
“They called him Hitler, but I call him Winston.”
As if to confirm his awareness of the name change, Winston let out a howl that rose from bass to soprano.
“He’s an attack dog,” I said.
Winston leaned against me and licked my neck.
I said, “He could kill with his breath.”
“Those creeps haven’t taken care of him,” Bridget said. “We’ll take him to a veterinarian as soon as we can, get him a bath, a teeth cleaning, make sure he has all his shots.”
“We’re on the run for our lives,” I reminded her.
“That doesn’t mean we won’t bathe and brush our teeth, Quinn.”
“So you’re keeping him?”
She looked back at me and smiled. “I’m keeping you, aren’t I?”
|?16?|
The motel rated only one star, but the rooms were as clean as they were threadbare. Three side-by-side units were available. It was the kind of place where you didn’t need to present ID if you paid cash up front. In fact, the clerk at the front desk was so incurious that he would probably take your cash and give you a room key even if you showed up with bloody hands, holding a dagger in your teeth.
We gathered in the middle unit, where Bridget would bunk. We emptied the duffel on the bed. The three of us sat there to count the money, while the newest fugitive among us consumed two cans of gourmet dog food that we had bought at a supermarket en route.
Winston didn’t seem to mind that he was eating out of a soft plastic bowl that was a cheap version of Tupperware, also purchased at the market. He kept looking up from his meal with what seemed to be an expression of astonishment, as if to say, If there’s stuff this good, why the hell were they feeding me cheap kibble with eyeballs?
When I’d counted thirty-five thousand and Bridget had forty thousand, she combined our piles of cash and placed them in another plastic container with a lid. “Grandpa can finish the count. Let’s you and me go find a car.”