In those two months, she had never managed to get closer than eighty or ninety feet to the elk herds before they had reacted to her nonchalant approach, whidding to farther fields and ridges.
Now they had approached her, vigilant but not frightened, as if they were the same elk of her childhood, at long last willing to believe in her peaceable intentions.
Coastal elk should have been somewhat closer to the sea, in the open meadows beyond the redwoods, where the grass was lush and green from the winter rains, where the grazing was good. Although they were not strangers to the forest, their presence here, in the rainy predawn darkness, was remarkable.
Then she saw others in addition to the herd of six—one here, one there, and there a third, and still more—between trees, at a greater distance than the initial group. Some were barely visible in the bosky grove, at the extreme reach of the backwash from the motor-home headlights, but she thought that there were as many as a dozen altogether, all standing at attention, as though transfixed by woodland music beyond human hearing.
Lightning spread branches across the sky, put down jagged roots toward the earth, and briefly brightened the grove sufficiently for Chyna to see all the elk more clearly than before. More of them than she had thought. In mist and ferns, among flowering red rhododendron, revealed by fluttering leaves of light. Heads lifted, their breath steaming from black nostrils. Their eyes fixed on her.
She looked out at the highway.
The killer had given up trying to start the engine. He put the Honda in gear, and it began to roll backward on the slightly sloped pavement.
After one last glance at the elk, Chyna stepped out from between the two redwoods.
The killer pulled the steering wheel hard to the right, letting the momentum of the car carry it backward in an arc until it was facing downhill.
Through sparse ferns and scattered clumps of bunch grass, Chyna approached the highway. The weakness in her legs was gone, and her spasm of irresolution had passed.
Under the killer’s guidance, the Honda coasted downhill and onto the right shoulder.
She could go after him, shoot him in the car or as he got out of the car. But he was fifty yards away now, sixty, and he would surely see her coming. She would have no hope of keeping the advantage of surprise, so she would have to shoot to kill, which would do Ariel no good at all, because with this bastard dead they would still have to search for the girl wherever she was hidden. And they might never find her. Besides, the creep probably had a gun on him, and if this turned into a shooting match, he would win, because he was far more practiced than she was—and bolder.
She had no one to whom she could turn. As in childhood.
So now get out of sight quickly. Don’t be rash. Wait for the ideal situation. Pick the moment of the confrontation and control the showdown when it comes.
Fierce lightning again, and a long hard crash of thunder like vast structures collapsing high in the night.
She reached the motor home.
Oh, God.
The driver’s door stood open.
Oh Jesus. Oh, God.
She couldn’t do it.
She had to do it.
Downhill, on the shoulder, with a rattle of twisted steel, the Honda was coasting to a stop.
She had the revolver. That made all the difference. She was safe with the gun.
Who will save this girl hidden in a cellar, this girl ripening for this sonofabitch bastard freak, this girl like me? Who is ever there for frightened girls hiding in the backs of closets or under beds, who is ever there but twitching palmetto beetles? Who will be there if not me, where will I be if not there, why is this the only choice—and when the answer is so obvious, why even ask why?
Down slope, the Honda came to a full stop.
With the revolver heavy in her hand, Chyna climbed into the cockpit and behind the steering wheel. She swung around in the driver’s seat, got up, and hurried back through the motor home, murmuring, “Jesus, Jesus,” telling herself that it was all right, this crazy thing she was doing, all right because this time she had the revolver.