“ Thank you class. She wiped the tears away and after the applause died down she took in the whole class with the special way she had and smiled. “There is one thing, though. The first person to call me Mrs. Chase gets an F for the semester, and in case you’re wondering, Mr. Peters, you have the lowest grade in my book and it’s a C.”
“ Alright,” Brad said. “Thank you Miss Sadler.”
“ I’ll only be with you till noon today, then Miss Weber will take over for the rest of the week, while I take care of some personal business, but don’t panic and don’t despair,” she said with a little laugh, “I’ll be back first thing next Monday morning as usual and I’ll remain till the end of the term.” She smiled and looked over her class.
“ Now, for today’s first lesson,” she said, sounding like her old self. And she felt like her old self. Her life wasn’t over, it was just beginning.
During the course of the morning she studied Carolina, but the girl was behaving as she always did. She was alert, attentive and eager, a delightful child. She certainly showed no sign of any undue stress in her life. She wished she could ask her about the dark brooding man that was her father, but she didn’t want to be the bearer of sadness to the child.
As the morning wound down she found herself wondering if she was doing the right thing by taking the time off. But something strange had happened last night and she was determined to find out what it was and she wanted to know more about the man who called himself a thief.
Sarah wiped the sweat off her brow as she made her way to her yellow VW Beetle in the parking lot. She had changed in the teacher’s lounge and was wearing tight fitting Levi jeans and a loose fitting Levi jacket. She was warm, despite the overcast sky, and she walked with a brisk pace, her worn leather cowboy boots clicking on the pavement, her new hiking shoes and socks in the bag under her arm. She usually took a hike in the woods during lunch hour, but today she was just too depressed and the only thing that seemed to perk her up was thinking about the mysterious John Coffee.
There were only two places he could be staying. The Tampico Motel across the way, or the Pine Tree Motel by the highway. She didn’t think he’d be staying in town, not with Miles’ Volvo. Besides he’d said he wanted to go out to the highway, so she figured he was out at the Pine Tree.
She unlocked the driver’s door and flicked one of the three bells she had safety pinned to the headliner. She liked the soft music they made on bumpy roads, quick turns and going in and out of driveways. Getting in, she reached over to the passenger side and flicked another, then she started the car and flicked the third. Three tinkling rings for good luck, a ritual she never started the car without.
She jingled out of the parking lot and thought about putting in a tape, but decided against it, instead deciding to roll down the window and listen to the sound of the surf as she drove along Across the Way Road toward Tampico. She drove straight through the town, not even thinking about Miles as she headed for Solitude River Road, that twisty, curvy road that sometimes followed the river to Highway 1.
She sat back and relaxed once she was clear of the town. She’d driven the road so many times that the car knew the way. She loved the drive through the forest. It was so quiet and peaceful. She felt like every tree was her friend, their branches, arms waving in the breeze. It was a rare occasion that she drove straight through. What took the average driver fifteen or twenty minutes usually took her an hour or more. She loved to stop and get out of the car and inhale the forest, but today she planned on making the drive in average time.
She was reliving the night before, telling herself that there had to be a logical explanation for the crazy things that had happened, when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Something out of place. Something that didn’t belong among her tree friends. She glanced right, but it was gone.
Another day she might have stopped to investigate, but she was taking no foolish chances after last night. No more than the big one she was already taking. Last night John Coffee told her to leave town. She had ignored him, thinking he had to be over exaggerating, hoping he was over exaggerating.
Then she saw the wolf, standing by the side of the road as she came around a turn. Not threatening, just there. She was past it before she had time to be afraid, but she tensed her grip on the wheel and inched the accelerator down a bit, allowing the speed to climb from twenty-five to thirty-five, until she was far enough ahead of it so that it posed no danger to her.
She eased off the gas as she rounded another turn and saw it again. This time she felt a shiver and drove over to the left, on the wrong side of the road, to put as much distance between herself and it as she went past, and once again she put her foot down on the gas, only this time she put it to the floor.
A horn blared and she forgot the wolf as she jerked the wheel back to the right. The roar of the tanker’s horn, mingled with the sound of its mammoth engine, shot through her and she felt the blast of wind as the truck-beast roared by, missing her car by a margin too thin to mention.
She hung on to the wheel and slowed down, continuing on toward the highway. She heard a wolf howl in the distance when she rounded the next turn. She rolled her window up, keeping her eyes glued to the road as she let the speedometer creep up to fifty, faster than she had ever driven on the winding road before.
Ten minutes later she jingled up the driveway into the parking lot of the Pine Tree Motel. She didn’t expect to see the Volvo backed up to one of the rooms pointing out her quarry, so she was surprised when she did. The front end didn’t seem to be damaged and that surprised her, because the force and sound of the impact when she hit the wolf had been violent and loud.
She parked her car at the far end of the lot, not sure what to do. Should she brazenly walk up to the door pointed out by the Volvo’s rear end and knock, or sit in her car and wait. She couldn’t sit alone in the parking lot for long. She’d be noticed and someone would call the manager. She wondered how the police staked out a suspect without being seen. Surely they didn’t sit in their cars in broad daylight and wait for them to make a move.
She didn’t have to wonder long, because the door behind the Volvo opened and John Coffee came out. He walked to the car, like it was his, unlocking the door with his head down. She would have expected him to be casting furtive glances around the parking lot, but instead he acted like he was doing nothing wrong.
He eased himself into the car, supporting himself by holding one hand onto the back of the seat and the other on the door. She could tell it was a struggle and she winced with sympathy pains as he arranged himself behind the wheel. He was taking his time. He wasn’t concerned about being followed.
He was wearing sunglasses, but they couldn’t hide the bruised and scabbed over face. She put a hand up to her cheek and felt her heart go out to him. He could be miles away by now, but he wasn’t. He had trusted her, believed her when she said she wouldn’t call the police. He had put his life in her hands. She wanted to know more.
But when he drove out of the parking lot, she knew it would be useless to try and follow. She couldn’t keep up with the Volvo in her old VW Beetle, so she decided to do something for herself for once. She glanced at her watch. She had plenty of time.
Chapter Eight
“ Out of the way!” Steve Kerr burst through the exit, holding a backpack over his head. A small kid from the fourth grade was hot in pursuit.
“ Give it back,” the kid wailed.
“ Catch me,” he yelled back, pushing between Arty and Carolina like a fish swimming through water, causing hardly a ripple as he weaved between the crowd of kids going home.