“Back in the car!” Ross ordered. “Let’s get out of here!”
He was trying to think fast and on the fly, though that was not something he was good at. Kevin slammed the trunk shut and got into the front passenger seat, while Hec and McDaniels hopped back into the rear seat with their rifles. Ross drove around the downed burning scarecrow in the center of the road. The snow had stopped, he noticed, and he slowed the car. “What should we do now? It knows we’re here. Maybe we should just take the direct route and go straight up the drive.”
“We don’t know that it knows,” McDaniels said. “Those scarecrows coulda just been patrolling randomly, making sure people stay away. If we drive past the entrance to the ranch, the angel might just think we’re passing by.”
“Angels know everything,” Hec said simply.
“It’s not an angel,” Ross repeated. “If anything, it’s a demon.”
“I’m just sayin’ we should stick with the plan,” McDaniels said. “The driveway’s a lot easier for them to defend. We have more chance, I think, if we sneak through that wash. Although,” he added, “maybe we should hurry it up a bit.”
With the snow stopped, it was easier to see, and what had remained on the ground was already starting to melt into that gloopy mess. Ross drove quickly by the head of Holt’s drive, and, though he deeply wanted to, he did not even look in that direction as they passed in a probably futile effort to pretend that the ranch was not their destination. The road dipped down soon after, and McDaniels told him to stop, this was it. Ross shut off the car, holding his breath, half-expecting to be attacked by…something. But nothing came after them, and after only a moment’s hesitation, Ross opened his door and got out, the others following suit.
He walked immediately around to the trunk, popping it open. “What do you need?” he asked his nephew. McDaniels and his friend would be carrying their rifles and ammunition, so he and Kevin would have to take the arson supplies themselves. It seemed unfeasible to carry all of those boxes across open land for who knew how far, and he was hoping not all of it was needed.
Kevin opened each of the cartons, looked through them and made a quick determination. “You take that box there with the Coke bottles. It’s pretty light. Think you can carry it?”
Ross lifted the carton. It was light, if slightly awkward to carry. “Sure.”
Kevin was already rearranging items, moving things from one box to another. “I’ll take this one,” he said finally.
“Let’s move out then.”
There was a barbed wire fence surrounding Holt’s property, but it remained level at the top, even where it went over the wash, which meant that one post hung in the air above the dry stream bed, leaving a space beneath the bottom strand of wire. McDaniels ducked under it, and Ross passed through his box to the handyman before going under himself. Hec followed after, and Kevin crouched over, clutching his carton of materials to his chest as he made his way under the fence.
Ross took his box back from McDaniels. “Lead the way,” he said. “But keep an open eye.”
The wash wasn’t deep, but there was enough brush growing along the sides to keep them hidden from anyone who might be looking. Ross’ concern was that whatever was waiting for them did not need to look, but he said nothing and tried to focus on the positive.
It was not a short walk. A half-hour later, they were still trudging through the sand, and it was ten minutes after that that McDaniels raised his hand, silently telling them to stop. The good news was that they had not been intercepted. No one or no thing had come after them. But when McDaniels poked his head above the edge of the wash and peered through the branches of a young palo verde tree, motioning for the rest of them to do the same, they saw a pen attached to Holt’s barn filled with people running about on all fours like animals. They were naked and filthy, and even from this distance, Ross thought he recognized some of them.
McDaniels ducked back down. “The angel’s right behind the barn there. But if we try to go past that pen, someone’ll shout a warnin’. Even if they’re not part of it, even if they’re captured, they’ll call out for us to save ’em, and everyone’ll know we’re here.”
“We go past the barn,” Hec told him, “double back around.”
“It’s out of our way, and we don’t know what’ll be waitin’ for us at that point. Might be even worse.”
“Well, we can’t go through this way.”
The wash continued on, heading out and away from the house and barn, and they decided to go on a bit further and see if they couldn’t find a better way in.