Expiration Date

  She had to start somewhere, sometime—and this was as good a start as any.

  Dipping into her savings account had been tough.

  But it’s the right thing—that’s a fact. Clay helped me face it.

  Mylisha spent two hours going over the camera’s instructions. Tomorrow she would give it a trial run. In between the morning and evening performances on the Festival Park Stage, she would roam the streets and capture on film the struggles many faced in breaking free from fear and insecurity.

  It was the tension of small-town life. Earth’s tension between heaven and hell.

  She already had an idea for a title: Living Safe, Dying Slow.

  The Garmin GPS unit was pointing Clay south along Cougar Reservoir. He verified each digit, reassuring himself this was right. He had little time to kill.

  The Duster led him to a bridge, which carried him to the reservoir’s other side. The car chugged a bit harder as it skirted the water on a rising face of dirt and stone. Evergreens and an occasional redwood sprouted on either side of the narrowing road. He found it difficult to keep the GPS unit visible while bouncing over summer-hardened ruts, while shutting vents against billows of dust.

  Distance: 1.2 miles.

  The unit was homing in now. This should be it coming up.

  Clay proceeded a bit farther, then stopped as far as possible off the negligible dirt road. The unit’s arrow pointed east. On foot, with shovel and flashlight in one hand and GPS in the other, he strode beneath the forest canopy. Brushed away spider webs and briers. Crested a natural berm. Discovered a hidden lake, just as Digs had said.

  Distance: 0.3 miles.

  He wandered in zigzagging patterns, trying to follow the satellite’s positioning as it triangulated upon this spot. The air was brisk, blowing across the nearby water. The morning was coming to life with the first sounds of wildlife.

  384 feet, 376, 357 …

  Clay knew from experience that GPS coordinates could be off by a few feet, even a couple of yards—particularly since it had been three years since Digs had come out and marked the spot with outdated equipment. Earth and stone could shift and slide. Rain could conspire against him.

  What had Digs said? Something about a boulder tilted against a fallen trunk. Lots of moss. Insects. Roots and dirt.

  Here. This must be it.

  Clay stuck the Garmin unit into his pocket. Started digging.

  Within twenty minutes he had cleared out a hole and uncovered bugs and centipedes but nothing else. He dug deeper, and a second hole exposed equally unsavory creatures while also revealing a silver garbage bag. The shovel blade snagged on the plastic. Clay freed it, then dug out a military-style ammunition box.

  Inside the box Clay found Digs’s share of a bank robbery.

  Digs had been one of three armed robbers. Within days they had been caught out in these woods by undercover agents who raided their tent site and delivered them to the courts. During the course of the robbery, one of the thieves had shot a bank customer, making Digs and the other man accessories.

  The state pen awaited. Digs did his time.

  Years later he came back on his own to relocate and label this spot. For old times’ sake. A symbolic keepsake of the life he had left behind.

  What good would $101,000 do him? he had asked Clay. It was all marked anyway. Long ago, news sources had reported that a bank teller broke open an invisible ink pack within the cache, staining the bills until the day some fool tried to use them and left an obvious trail for law enforcers everywhere.

  49

  Collision Course

  “A.G.?” Henna sat up, pulled the pink bedspread around her. “Are you back?”

  Asgoth warmed to the sound of her voice. “I’m here.”

  Earlier he had left the Dixon home by attaching himself to the roof of Clay’s car. It was worth a shot—a free ride to the Belknap Springs site, a clandestine opportunity to ensure Clay’s compliance. At the gas station, however, Clay had called upon angels for protection. In a flash heavenly beings revealed their locations, and a ring of white fire encircled the ramshackle old automobile as though it’d become a golden chariot.

  Asgoth shot from the roof, incensed by this intrusion.

  What right did they have? It was disgusting, really. For years guilt had weakened Mr. Clay Ryker. Now, after a silly little rescue at Crater Lake, the man was growing steadily stronger, once again recognizing the touch of his Creator.

  This nonsense would have to stop.

  “We need to go,” Asgoth told Henna.

  She stretched. “It’s finally time?”

  “Friday morning, almost sunrise. We’re running late.”

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, stood to fetch her clothes. After peeking into her daughter’s room and finding Serene still asleep, she followed Asgoth’s lead outside to her car. They loaded the trunk. From the rearview mirror, a large crystal dangled on a beaded strand, and she rubbed it between her fingers.

  “Let’s hurry,” Asgoth prompted. “While you’re meeting with Clay, I’ll be arranging his father’s last breath.”

  “First, I’ll be rekindling the fire in Jenni’s heart.” Henna flicked a lighter so that flame danced at its tip. “She’ll be hot for her husband all over again. Hot and crispy.”

  With the ammunition box in the trunk, Clay threaded his way back down to Cougar Reservoir. The trees parted so that he spied water and sunlight giving each other good-morning kisses.

  See, he told himself, this is what it’s like to live within the palm of God’s hand.

  Why do I ever doubt?

  His finances were still a wreck, and his marriage was still in question, yet he saw glimmers of hope. Kisses throughout creation.

  Not five minutes later the clouds swept in, dumping rain at the feet of the Cascade Mountains, shoveling gloom and fog into the valleys and river bends. The Duster shivered, its balding tires working extra hard for purchase on slick pavement.

  So sure of his divine place, Clay failed to notice the gas gauge.

  Not that he could’ve done a thing about it. He was broke. Penniless.

  With nary a whimper or a gasp, the faithful car lost all power in the middle of a steep incline. Clay was able to work his way over to the guardrail with the remaining momentum. What to do now? His wife and son would be waiting for him; his father needed his protection.

  And here he sat. Useless.

  His mind washed first one way, then the other. Any assurance of godly interaction seemed empty. He stared at himself in the rearview mirror, hating the doubt, despising the resignation that drilled deep into his pupils.

  From the backseat, Asgoth had been caressing Henna’s blond locks as sunrays splayed through the crystal and swept over her cheeks. Now Highway 126 led them beneath heavy clouds, and Henna’s face darkened in the mirror. Rain struck the windshield in a sudden downpour, delivering doubts.

  He tried to hide his concern. “Are you ready, Henna?”

  “Honestly, you should know the answer. I’ve been waiting twelve years for this.”

  Asgoth thought he saw a vehicle on the highway’s narrow shoulder, but it was hard to tell through the sluicing rain. He knew steep cliffs cut down from this mountain pass. These roads could be dangerous. Ahead, he spotted a logging truck, and he nudged Henna’s shoulder. “Here’s where I get off. I’ll see you back at the Festival Park Stage tonight. Soon Junction City will be our marketplace.”

  Asgoth oozed through the glass, crouched, then pounced upon the passing rig. His hands and feet hooked into rough bark as he clambered over huge tree trunks, his form flapping in the draft of the speeding vehicle.

  Clay ducked his head into the neck of his shirt and climbed from the car. He’d turned on his flashers to indicate he was experiencing trouble. Surely someone would be kind enough to pull over. He had twenty-two minutes left until the rendezvous.

  As if in a conscious attempt to increase his frustration, the rain came down harder. He yanke
d open the trunk and removed the ammunition box so he could snag the dirty silver garbage bag. Clumps of worm-filled mud dripped on him.

  He growled. Frustrated with his own fickle emotions. And with the Lord.

  Why let it rain now of all times? Why let me run outta gas? What’s going on?

  Clay stripped off his soaked shirt, tried to keep himself covered with the garbage bag while waving with the heavy cloth. Passersby stared at him through rain-drenched windows as though he was a lunatic. As though he meant to run out of money and gas and good luck on this awful section of the highway.

  On the guardrail’s other side, a cliff plunged toward the McKenzie River. Trees perched perilously on the slope, stabbing upward to impale anything on its way down.

  Down …

  The word brought back thoughts of Crater Lake. It mesmerized him with a sense of uselessness. How easy it would be to say good-bye to this spinning globe.

  No. Jesus, help me. I don’t wanna listen to those types of thoughts.

  A pair of semitrucks screamed past with tires blasting water and pebbles and cold air. Clay shook his head. He wanted to holler at the top of his lungs, but that was out of the question. No reason to waste his breath. He was numb, going through the motions. What was the point of Digs and his buried money if Clay could get no farther than this treacherous hill?

  Are you taunting me, God? Is that it?

  He moved into the upward bound lane. He waved his shirt back and forth. A vehicle was approaching. He could tell because a pair of blurred headlights was swimming back and forth through the currents of rain. An SUV flashed past, doused him once again.

  What did it matter? Maybe it was all one big game.

  I’m going to wave the next person over—or die trying!

  After a moment of shivering beside the Duster, Clay saw another set of lights lurching through puddles and road ruts. He squinted through the slashing rain and planted himself in the middle of the lane. With both hands he whipped the silver bag to and fro over his head.

  He had no hope of making eye contact with the driver. In this deluge it was impossible. He did exaggerated jumps. Waving. Kicking.

  But the vehicle was not slowing. It was a light fuzzy shape coming at him, a white phantom coming to steal away his soul.

  Jenni and Jason will die if I don’t make something happen.

  The driver hit the horn. It blared at Clay through the downpour.

  Do or die!

  “Stop!” He yelled at last, without budging an inch. “Please stop!”

  He realized the driver was not honking at him but at the logging truck coming down the hill in the other lane. The big rig was on the edge of control, hurtling along, swerving across the middle line. In a prolonged low tone, its air horn burped.

  Clay took a step over but kept his basic position.

  The rig slipped farther over, loaded with gigantic Douglas fir trees.

  The logging truck was a medieval steed. Armored and trained for war, the truck relied on horsepower to make its charge at the enemy. Riding on its back upon a saddle of chains, Asgoth was a knight shrouded in ghoulish wisps and Bill Scott’s argyle vest, guiding the stripped tree trunks like deadly lances toward the oncoming vehicle.

  Of course, the rig’s real driver was in the cab: Darnell Rigsby. According to the airbrushed name on the driver’s door.

  Like most humans left alone for hours at a time, Darnell had latched on to a vice or two. This made it easy. Asgoth had hopped from Henna’s car onto this truck going the other direction and, within moments, devised a distraction. He’d harnessed his energy for a brief knock against the glove box, which released the hatch and dropped a stack of Darnell’s adult magazines onto the passenger seat and floorboards.

  “Not again,” Darnell grumbled. “Somebody’s been messin’ with that latch.”

  His eyes darted over. Swiveled down. Hovered over the splayed pages.

  This is too easy, Asgoth thought.

  Darnell pulled his eyes back to the road, saw how far he’d veered off course. He shouted as he tried to bring his vehicle back under control on the wet descent.

  Clay needed transportation, or his family might be gone forever. He waved and yelled. In the uphill lane, the smaller vehicle materialized, a white and glistening pickup with probing headlights and thrashing wipers. A face moved behind the glass, turned up toward the logging truck. With no room for escape along this narrow mountain road, a collision seemed inevitable.

  The pickup fishtailed, and Clay heard brakes stuttering. He scrambled away, felt water whip his thigh as the vehicle slid diagonally, riding rain-slick asphalt.

  Clay was on his knees. The logging rig plunged past.

  Beside him, the smaller vehicle rammed its nose into the Duster’s back fender.

  In one tortured movement, Clay’s old beater crunched into the guardrail, side panels scraping, glass and fluids spitting. The white pickup plowed it forward so that it climbed over twisted metal, then dipped down as if for a peek into the gorge. The back end flipped free, and the Duster somersaulted from the precipice.

  In a slow uphill slide, the pickup also reached the edge. Three tires clung to road and rail, while one stretched over space in a farewell wave to the car. Across the steering wheel, the driver was sprawled in an awkward position.

  Clay ran toward the driver. The logging truck had almost killed them both.

  If it weren’t for my car sitting here, this guy would’ve gone over the edge!

  Asgoth bellowed. How had Clay known to park his car at that spot?

  Furious, he rose into the wind-swept mist, dashed forward along the rough spines of the fir trees. He dove over the top of Darnell Rigsby’s cab and clasped the driver’s side windshield wiper. Drawing on his last dregs of physical substance, Asgoth resisted the mechanical motion so that raindrops slathered over the glass.

  Darnell was flicking at the wiper controls. Cursing.

  His loaded trailer was jackknifing across the highway. Twisting over. Grinding onto its side. Chains snapping like rubber bands and logs bursting loose.

  The cab also flipped onto its side. By the time the trailer piled into a mound of moist earth and gnarled roots, Darnell was curled into a protective ball. He would walk away with only bruises.

  But the oncoming Nissan was no match for fourteen tons of rolling Douglas firs.

  The female driver was killed instantly.

  Although unplanned, the moment worked in Asgoth’s favor. From the car’s description, he realized the driver was none other than Kate Preston, which left her son, thirteen-year-old Kenny, all alone.

  Asgoth watched the wreck for confirmation. Waited.

  From the crushed car, a wisp of light ascended and fluttered heavenward. Repentant or otherwise, all souls made the same initial journey that would take them before the One who had sacrificed his Son for all. Would this woman find her name already inscribed there on the Son’s nail-scarred hands?

  Kate Preston …

  Barely a whisper in the wind.

  Joining the whisper, sounds of a far-off, joyous celebration gave Asgoth the answer he’d feared.

  The rain clouds were moving away. Through thinning sheets of moisture, the white truck’s driver was groggy, half-conscious, yet easily identifiable through the side window.

  “Dad?” Clay tried the handle, but it was jammed. “Dad, can you hear me?”

  From the Dodge pickup’s deployed airbag, Gerald Ryker lifted his face. Dazed. Still breathing. His stern jaw could not hide his expression of relief.

  50

  Water and Flame

  Clay tried the ignition. The Dodge rumbled, hissed, and fumed. Came to life. With his dad’s pocketknife, he cut away the spent airbag. With a hand on the emergency brake, he shifted into reverse. The guardrail tried to hold its captive, but the four-wheel drive kicked in, yanking the truck back until the suspended tire was on solid ground once again.

  “Front end’s a mess,” Gerald said. “Radiator’s le
aking.”

  “Think we’re good to go? For a couple of miles at least?”

  “Hard to say. You’ll have to drive, Son.”

  “I should take you somewhere, to a hospital or a clinic.”

  “We’re already late, Clay. And your son’s safety is at stake. My grandson.”

  Minutes earlier Gerald had hobbled from the truck, braced his arms against the side to gather his bearings, refused to give voice to his obvious pain. Traffic had continued in both directions, with drivers slowing to gawk. Two had offered assistance, but Gerald had declined after hearing of Clay’s dilemma. Years ago, through Mr. Blomberg, Gerald had become aware of Henna’s behavioral aberrations, and he knew this situation was no joking matter.

  “This yours?” Gerald rounded the truck’s nose, set a green ammo box on the passenger seat. “Found it on the ground between the tires.”

  “Yes!”

  Clay flipped open the lid, saw the cash was still inside. He moved his GPS from his pocket into the box. With these items, he’d make the exchange at Belknap Springs.

  The dash clock told him he was already twelve minutes late.

  “They’d better be here,” Clay said.

  Steam hissed from the truck’s overheated engine as they coasted into the lodge’s parking area. He spotted a Subaru in a parking lane. Was it Henna’s?

  “Twenty-six minutes late.”

  “Thanks, Dad. As if I don’t know that.”

  Clay was familiar with Belknap Springs Lodge. As a kid, he’d been here with his family on a number of occasions, as well as on a high school senior skip day. The property included a number of campsites and cabins clinging to a hillside, a beautifully renovated lodge with animal carvings guarding the perimeter, and an assortment of tended gardens. The chief attraction, however, had always been the natural hot springs, which were piped into a fenced, man-made pool facing the river.