Ashen Winter

The following morning, we faced the problem of how to get the tank loaded the rest of the way onto the truck. Dad tried backing the truck under it, but it just pushed the base of the tank along. And if the base collapsed, we’d have no good way to raise the tank back up to the right level.

We needed something to multiply our strength. We needed more of Ben’s levers, although I could have done without his repeat disquisition on the role of the lever in military history. We cut three small trees and jammed them under the back end of the tank so we could slide it forward by pushing up on them. That was the theory, anyway. What actually happened was that one of the trees broke, and we didn’t shift the tank one iota.

“Use these trees as a brace, maybe?” Alyssa asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Brace the back end of the tank so it can’t slide. Then back up the truck. The base will slide back, and the tank should be forced into the truck.”

Her solution worked beautifully. In less than twenty minutes, we had a UPS truck-cum-propane tank setup that looked like the Jolly Green Giant had knocked over his brown lunch box, leaving an ear of corn sticking out the top.

It took an hour of fiddling with hoses and fittings to get the big propane tank co

“Now we’re in business!” Dad yelled, a huge smile splitting his face. Alyssa, Dad, and I shared high fives. Ben did not like arbitrary touching, and Mom wasn’t even smiling.

“What?” I asked her.

“Now that we’ve got a working vehicle and plenty of fuel, we should go straight to Warren,” Mom said.

“We discussed this last night, Janice,” Dad replied, his smile disappearing.

“I’m going with Alex,” Alyssa said.

“Even if we did go to Iowa City and this Darla is alive, how are we going to find her?” Mom asked.

“Um,” Alyssa said in a tremulous voice, “I have an idea.”

Chapter 77

Dad and Ben thought Alyssa’s idea was genius. I tried to talk her out of it, and Mom still wanted to return to Warren where Rebecca was. Ultimately I relented to Alyssa. I was outvoted, anyway.

We needed a button or switch—preferably something dangerous looking. Dad thought maybe the biggest propane tank would have some kind of control system, and sure enough, we found one buried in a hump of snow at one end of the tank. Under a label that read EMERGENCY SHUTOFF, there was a red thumb-sized button protected by a clear plastic cover. I hacked it out of the plastic control board with a butcher knife. It looked pretty crude with all the jagged, broken plastic hanging off it, but that would add to its menace—I hoped. I reached into the guts of the wrecked control panel and ripped out a pair of long wires, one black and one green. Perfect.

Dad made Alyssa practice her part over and over. He tied her hands behind her back with twine—we’d found a whole roll of the stuff in the UPS truck. Then he stuck a paring knife in her back pocket and made her cut herself free.

On her second practice run, she cut herself pretty badly, a deep slice in the web of her thumb. Alyssa let out a stream of curses while I worked on bandaging her hand. When we’d both finished, Dad said, “Again, preferably without the self-mutilation this time.”

I saw Alyssa’s throat work as she swallowed some retort. Instead she stood and turned, offering her hands to be tied. She was just as tough as Darla in her own way. She’d proposed this crazy plan, and now she meant to see it through, even if it cost her some pride and flesh.

• • •

By lunchtime, we were forty miles away, and I was wishing Alyssa hadn’t been so steely. I was trying to shimmy up a downspout at the corner of the Bowman Chiropractic Clinic. It’s not that I was having a hard time climbing the thing—I’m plenty strong. But a climb that looks easy from the ground doesn’t feel easy when you’re trying to reach up from the top of a downspout to get a grip on the gutter at the edge of a roof. In gloves. With a badly bruised right arm.

I had tried to talk Alyssa out of it again during the drive to Iowa City. Mom took shotgun this time, and Ben was behind Dad explaining the Great Turkish War in exhausting detail. Alyssa and I sat next to each other on the propane tank in the back of the truck. She started the conversation by whispering, “Alex, I need a favor.”

“Sure. Anything,” I said.

“If this . . . this thing goes badly—”

“You don’t have to do it, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. I want to do it. It was my idea, after all. But in case it doesn’t go right, I need you to promise me something.”

“What?”

“If I can’t, well . . . I want you to look after Ben.”

“Alyssa, you’ll be okay. And Ben’s a smart guy. He can look after himself.”

“Just . . . make sure he gets to someplace safe. To your uncle’s place in Warren, maybe. And keep an eye out for him, okay?”

I thought her request was a little ridiculous. If she got killed trying to rescue Darla, I’d almost certainly be dead, as well. But I said, “Okay.”

“One other favor?”

“What?”

“You’ll be up on the roof with the rifle. . . .”

“Yeah.”

“Save a bullet for me.”

“What!”

“If things go badly, if this doesn’t work and I get captured, I want you to shoot me. I thought I’d do anything to survive, but I’ve gone that route before and it’s not worth it. I survived for Ben. But I don’t want to live that way again. I won’t become a slave again!”

“No!” I was talking too loudly. Mom swiveled in the passenger seat to look at me. I dropped my voice. “Why would you even ask me that?” The answer came to me even as I asked the question. She was giving up. That’s why she’d proposed this crazy plan and put herself in this position in the first place.

“Alex, please. I don’t want to live that way again. I can’t live that way again.”

“There are no circumstances under which I would shoot you, Alyssa.”

“You owe me,” she hissed. “I’m risking my ass going after your girlfriend.”

“Yeah. I do owe you. If the DWBs capture you and I’m alive, I will get you out. Or die trying.”

“But—”

“But nothing.”

She glared at me. “Then you don’t care about me, do you?”

“And I retract my promise to look after Ben. If he needs looking after, then you’re just going to have to stay alive to do it.”

“You’re no different than any other guy. You’re all messed up!” Alyssa folded her arms and turned away from me.

I didn’t know how to respond. I was trying to be nice. There was no use talking more and making things worse. Maybe she was the one who was messed up. Or maybe she was right.

I used the rest of the drive to unpack the ammo and first-aid kit we’d found in Anamosa. Even if we survived this, we might need those supplies in a hurry.

We reached the outskirts of Iowa City and almost immediately saw the glint of a campfire burning in the distance. Dad pulled the truck over, Mom got behind the wheel, and Dad, Alyssa, and I approached the fire on foot, walking in the deep snow on the far side of the berm.

When we got closer, we peeked over the embankment. A sentry was camped right atop the Highway 1 overpass over I-80, which sliced through the north side of Iowa City. He had a tent pitched near his campfire and a motorcycle next to it. It was a good spot: He’d be able to see anyone approaching from I-80 or Highway 1. But the campfire made him too obvious. I wasn’t complaining, though—the fact that we’d seen him first made this whole crazy idea possible. My role in the plan was to shimmy up onto the roof of the chiropractic clinic and get a drop on him.

I pulled myself up with a gasp of relief, flopping in the deep snow. The roof was sloped so that I would be invisible from the far side until I reached the peak.