Jackie the Beanstalk
Chapter 8
Run for the Border
“ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE to tell me about that little display at Customs?” I asked Princess. “Diplomatic passport?”
“Every member of the Sovereign family has a diplomatic passport,” she replied. I waited. At the crossing, Misty and I had been relegated to the position of escorts for the royal brat. Finally, she sighed. “Mother was afraid you’d have trouble crossing the border, even with bearer passports. Maybe even because of the bearer passports. They aren’t recognized everywhere. She thought if I was with you, they’d just wave us through.”
“So, your mother was actually in on you stowing away and was really the one who signed your permission slip?” I asked.
“Yes. Did you think it was a forgery?” Princess asked, as if she was far above doing such a thing.
“It seemed suspicious and not very neatly put together.”
“We were in a hurry.”
“Fine. Let’s see if your charm will get us through the border back into Victoriana. I assume that’s where we’re going,” I said.
“The south crossing is a hundred miles from here. I’m going to sleep.” Princess closed her eyes tightly and leaned back against the window. Shasta had abandoned Misty and lay in Princess’s lap with Roadkill leaning his head against her. I reminded myself that she was only fifteen and I should make allowances for her being a kid.
Then I started to laugh. Misty looked at me strangely, but I couldn’t even form a response to her question, “What?” I was only eighteen! If I was supposed to make allowances for a fifteen-year-old, who was making allowances for me? And the more I thought about Misty being the responsible adult among us, the funnier it got. I just shook my head and laughed.
I pressed the accelerator a little more firmly and our speed climbed toward ninety.
“I’ve got it,” Misty said as we raced down the road. This was by no means a superhighway. It was marked with two lanes, but we’d met no oncoming traffic. I’d passed a couple of slow moving vehicles, though.
“What’cha got?” I asked. I loved the feel of the muscle car now that I had let the horses out to run. It was made for this.
“The Belt and Sword of Truth,” Misty said, holding the book of weapons open in her lap. She’d been researching what each of my weapons could do. We’d soon discovered that everything I wore was a weapon of some sort.
“That’s not like that other Terry Goodkind book is it? That was so bloody. How many heads did that guy cut off?”
“Too many. But no. This is more like the biblical belt of truth and sword of the spirit. When the two are together, anyone who touches the hilt of the sword is compelled to tell the truth. You can place a person’s hand on the hilt and as long as it’s in the scabbard and attached to the belt, they have to answer any question truthfully. If the sword is out of the scabbard, it is able to detect deceit but not compel the truth.”
“Well, that explains that,” I said with finality. If it was the sword and belt I’d been given that compelled the border guard to tell the truth about why we were stopped, then it wasn’t my eyes. Except for one niggling detail. When he grabbed my sword and looked in my eyes, he’d blurted out everything we needed to know and let us through. But I’d never asked him a question.
Mile 643
Traffic picked up both directions as crossroads became more frequent and we entered the outskirts of Anavic. Apparently, that was supposed to be a combination of Anatnomia and Victoriana—the border town. Misty was studying the TripTik but hadn’t offered any directions, so I just kept on the main drag as traffic became downright congested. I saw a sign that said ‘Pepe’s Best Tacos’ and swung off the street into a Mexican restaurant kind of place.
“Potty break. Let’s have tacos for lunch,” I said. Princess woke up and the animals stretched. Sorry. Didn’t mean to make it sound like Princess was an animal. I don’t think.
“Here! We’re supposed to stop here,” Misty said.
“Why no directions until after I was already parked?” I asked.
“It was doing stupid stuff,” Misty complained. What kind of stupid stuff can a paper map do? “I’d start to say turn right, and the instructions would fade out. I’d look around and there was no place to turn. Then it would say stop here and there’d be no place to stop. It just all of a sudden settled with the words, ‘Eat here.’”
“Maybe it only works in Victoriana,” Princess volunteered. “The border shifts around a lot.”
We traipsed into the little taco restaurant and I was pleased to find it was a real Mexican taco place like you’d get out of a truck on the sidewalk instead of a fast food taco place like the one that can’t decide if it’s tacos or fried chicken or pizza. It had a spicy smell that set my stomach rumbling.
“Your order?” The guy at the counter was looking at the emblem on my chest.
“Warrior Wizard,” I answered. He looked up at me uncertainly.
“Warrior Wizard special!” he called to the kitchen. I waved Princess and Misty up to the counter and they ordered things that were actually on the menu. Misty shoved a card in the reader and the counter guy pushed a button to give her a receipt.
“Uh… Is this usual traffic out here?” I asked, looking out the front window at the long line of cars.
“Oh, sometimes. The border’s closed and the army has traffic backed up for miles,” he said.
“Why is it closed?” I asked.
“Oh, you know. Someone on one side farted and the other side thought they were shooting, so they stopped all the traffic and lined up on either side of the crossing with guns pointing at each other.”
“Oh, Pepe, that story is as old as I am,” Princess laughed.
“That may be,” he said, “but now every time someone raises a stink at the border, we say it’s closed because of farts. Sometimes it applies to the people in authority. Doesn’t make any sense otherwise.” A bell rang and he brought back our plates of food.
“What is this?” I asked, looking at the huge tortilla-wrapped roll on my plate.
“Warrior Wizard special: A super-size grande shredded pork and beans burrito,” the proprietor said. I usually try not to eat anything bigger than my head, but this… I was going to take a stab at it. I cut a bite off it and savored the spicy meat and beans. “Four pounds,” the proprietor stated proudly. This was going to take a while.
We finished our meal and I discovered my plate was empty. I’d even sopped up the extra sauce and cheese from my plate with another tortilla. I leaned back in my chair and looked out the window again, thinking maybe it was time for a siesta before we got back in line.
“Is there another way across the border?” I asked as he picked up our plates.
“Oh, sure. It’s not legal, exactly.”
“How exactly?”
“Well, my clientele comes from both sides of the border for Pepe’s Best Tacos. So, all you really have to do is drive out the back of my parking lot and you’re across the border.”
“That easy? There’s no fence?”
“They try to make me put up a fence. Why would I do that? I’d lose half my business. And if they want a fence, they can pay for it. I’m not paying to put a fence across my parking lot and prevent people from coming for my tacos.” I looked at my companions. Even Shasta seemed to raise an eyebrow at me.
“Time to roll,” I said.
We left the restaurant and piled into the Fairlane. True enough, there was no fence and the drainage ditch that marked the border was scarcely a depression as big as a speed bump. Once through the parking lot. Misty looked at the TripTik and pointed left. I turned right.
Mile 651
It took an hour to get out of town. The traffic on this side of the border was backed up just as far, so we had to drive the wrong direction until we could make a turn and come back on a side street, then weave around a couple of traffic circles and into a residential neighborhood, before I could get pointed the right direction and pick up where the TripTik showed us.
By that time, we were all feeling the effects of the huge meal we ate.
“I need a bathroom,” Princess said.
“Me, too,” I answered. “I’ll find one as soon as possible.”
“And Roadkill just farted,” she continued. I rolled down my window.
“Quick! Close the border,” Misty laughed. Then she groaned as the smell reached the front seat. She quickly rolled down her window. Shasta jumped over the seat onto her lap and stuck her nose out the window.
As luck would have it, there was a park at the edge of Victanat, the sister city of Anavic. I pulled in and we all headed for the bathrooms, suggesting that Roadkill find someplace far away to do his business. When we’d all gathered back at the car, I opened the hatch and Misty pulled soft drinks from the cooler. There was a ball court nearby, so I grabbed my basketball and strolled over to shoot a few hoops. I was holding my Shasta Creme Soda in one hand while I launched the basketball with the other and dropped it through the hoop. Princess and Misty were lounging against the car with Shasta and Roadkill prowling around looking for gophers.
When it comes down to it, all I really want to do is play roundball. This Warrior Wizard stuff was getting old and I was truly considering waking myself up. It all had to be a dream, right? I guess I just got lost in the moment because the next thing I heard was a scream from near the car. I spun and saw four guys in dark suits grabbing Misty and Princess. I palmed the basketball and pitched it as hard as I could. I hit the guy on my left and he went reeling backward into the parking lot. Shasta and Roadkill were on top of the other guy and Misty was free. I turned toward Princess just in time to see her shoved in the back of a van by one guy. The other had disappeared.
I didn’t even hesitate. I pulled my mortarboard off my head and used a side-arm throw. It lodged just below his ribs and he fell to the ground as the van door slid closed and he peeled out of the parking lot. As I ran toward the Fairlane, I scooped the basketball up off the ground. I could see the guy I’d knocked down was the big burly guy who threatened us at the hotel in East Love. The side of his face looked more like I’d thrown a burning bowling ball at him than a basketball. I spent a whole second trying to feel sorry for him. The other guy, still cowering in a fetal position while Shasta paced around him, had a patch over one eye. Misty opened her car door and got in. Shasta leapt into her lap and she slammed the door shut. I ran to the other side of the car and when I opened the door, Roadkill trotted up with my mortarboard and jumped in the back seat. I tossed the basketball in with him.
I handed the cap to Misty and turned the ignition. When the big engine roared to life, I popped the clutch and we spun out of the parking lot in hot pursuit of the van. I could see it half a mile ahead of us. Misty wiped the blood off the corner of my hat and handed it back to me, then calmly opened the TripTik.
“We won’t need that as long as I can see that SOB ahead of us,” I said. Misty laughed. “What?” I barked.
“The TripTik just says, ‘Follow that van!’”
“Great. Now we have a smartass paper GPS.” I pressed the accelerator almost to the floor and we started closing the distance to the van.
Mile 670
We had come down from a mountain pass getting into Anatnomia. It looked like the route into Victoriana was up and over the mountains again. The road was twisting and switched back on itself at times so tightly that I could see the van out my side window as it passed on the next curve. There was only so much speed I could pour on here. The van couldn’t do better. I could see it lean dangerously around a curve as it was.
“Does this road ever straighten out?” I called to Misty.
“This shows a half-mile straight stretch up to the pass and another half-mile on the other side. Then it gets all twisty again.”
I rounded the next curve and saw the straightaway in front of me and floored the Fairlane. It responded by jumping ahead and in a second or two, I was beside the van and Valentine Caesar was looking out in terror. There was a rest area viewpoint at the top of the pass and I moved the Fairlane into the side of the van to force it off the road and into the park. It bumped over a curb and came to rest against a picnic table. I stopped a little less suddenly and we piled out of the car. Before we got to the van, Valentine was standing beside it with Princess in his grasp and a knife held to her throat.
“Don’t come any closer!” he shouted. “I don’t want to hurt her, but I will if you force me. Since you wrecked my van, we’ll just have to take your car. I have both brats now and nothing can stop me being named the successor.”
I jammed a hand in my pocket trying to find anything I could use without a sudden movement. The only thing I found was a handful of beans. Magic beans. I pulled one slowly from my pocket and started to calm the guy down with soothing hand motions with one hand as I brought the other up as if to wipe my eye. I lodged the bean between my thumb and index finger.
“We won’t interfere. The keys are in the car. There’s lots of food in back. You’re leaving us with nothing to get by on. That’s really mean,” I complained. He started to laugh at that and edge toward the car. As soon as his eyes flicked toward the open door, I flicked the bean at him. “Ne bouge pas!” I shouted. The bean hit his hand and he froze. I walked over and pried the knife from his immobile fingers. As soon as the pressure was away from her, Princess wiggled out of the arms of the frozen man and threw herself at me, crying like a frightened two-year-old. Misty came and pulled her away from me to comfort while I dealt with the wayward Caesar.
I pulled the light blue cord from around my neck and wrapped it around him.
“I don’t know how long the don’t move spell lasts,” I said. “But I don’t think I should leave you here unable to defend yourself in case wild animals come prowling around.” I flicked a finger at him and said, “Libérer.” His hand dropped to his side and he looked around frantically, but still unable to move while he was bound by my light blue cord.
“Don’t hurt me. Please, don’t hurt me,” he pled with tears in his eyes. “I didn’t mean anything. I’d never really hurt her.”
“Ha!” Princess barked. That was followed by a well-placed kick to his crotch. His eyes crossed and he would have doubled over had he not been bound by the cord. I could see the raw hatred in his eyes.
“Honest. They made me do it. My grandfather. He thinks your father stole the Sovereignty from him. This whole thing is his idea.” He tested the bonds of the cord briefly but shrank away from me when I drew my sword. Misty and Princess followed suit and he had three swords and two snarling animals facing him as I released the bond.
“I’d take you with me, but we’re already a little crowded in the Fairlane. Get in the van and buckle yourself in,” I commanded. He obeyed and I pulled another bean from my pocket and slammed it against the door. “Serrure!” I commanded. All the doors in the van locked. “We’ll send a tow truck for you from the next town we see. Mount up, kids. Let’s get out of here.” We all ran to the car and jumped in. Shasta and Roadkill were on either side of Princess in the back seat, licking her face. I’d left the car running when we all jumped out, so I just put it in gear and moved out. I looked in the rearview mirror and could see Valentine struggling to get a window open while he waved a gun around. I hadn’t thought about that possibility. I floored it and was out of sight by the time I heard the shot ring out.
Mile 793
I didn’t let any grass grow under our tires getting down from the pass. I stopped at a gas station in a little town at the foot of the pass and told them a guy in a van was stuck on the pass. I looked at the name on the station. ‘Little Caesar’s.’ I didn’t smell pizza. “I think the guy up there is one of yours, so you might want to go get him before the wild animals do.” I checked the gas gauge, noting it was still full, and headed out of town. I didn’t know if there were wild animals up on the pass, but it seemed to get the guys in motion and headed away from me.
“You okay, kiddo?” I asked.
“You came to my rescue. I was kind of a bitch and you still saved me.”
“Yeah. Kinda. So, you’re okay?”
“I guess so. I just feel like I caused you a whole lot of problems you didn’t need. I’m sorry,” she said. She hugged Roadkill in the back seat and Shasta started purring in her lap loud enough to be heard over the motor.
“Your father’s going to owe me a paint job on my car if there’s a scratch on it,” I said. “Pop would kill me if I bring it home scratched.”
“Uncle Harry owns a body shop in East Love. He’ll take care of it.”
“Let me get this straight. The brother of the Sovereign is a body mechanic?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“Just trying to wrap my head around this strange little land of yours. What’s the lay of the land ahead, Misty? We’ll probably need a place to stay for the night.”
“The TripTik says we’re still headed kind of southwest. It doesn’t ever seem to show anything until I turn a page or something. The big map doesn’t show the road, but if we assume that the road somehow connects these regions, I’d say… there’s nothing but a couple little villages. Looks like we’ll need to find a campsite eventually.”
“Princess, reach behind you and grab a bag of chips, please,” I said. “Looks like we’ll be on the road a while and I’m hungry.”
“Are you always hungry?” she asked. “Seems like we’ve stopped four times for food already and it’s only early afternoon.” Her attitude was beginning to return and I figured that was a good sign. She twisted in the seat and reached below the cover to grab a bag of chips and hand them forward. Misty tore the bag open with her teeth and held it out for me to grab a few. I didn’t remember hanging onto it, but the remains of my creme soda was in the cup holder.
“So, anything you can tell us about the territory we’re headed into?” I asked.
“Not much. Most of it is wild until we get around the big lake and head back north,” Princess said. She leaned forward and pointed out the features on the map to Misty. Misty read the legends on the map.
“Werewolves?” she said. “Really?”
“There’s said to be a small pack of them. They don’t show up much, though,” Princess said. I saw her shiver in the rearview mirror.
“Oh, well,” I said. Werewolves. Right. “Find us some music, hon.”
Soon the sounds of k.d. lang were filling the car and we were all howling:
Oooooooooooooo,
won’t someone save me
from that full moon full of love
Roadkill and Shasta joined right in. I guess before bed tonight, I was going to check to see what phase the moon was in.
“I’m tired. Everybody needs to pee. We need a campsite. Mapmaker, mapmaker, make me a map, find me a place where I can nap,” I sang. Misty flipped open the TripTik.
“Mount Morrisey Park, on the left in… Slow down! Two hundred yards!” Misty yelled. I slammed on the brakes, thankful the pavement was dry. I saw the sign for the park just as I slowed enough to make the turn. “Um… site seventeen.”
We drove into the park and scouted around until we saw campsite number seventeen. Wouldn’t you know. It had my WW logo on the post.
This campground was quite different than the first one we used. There were people here. In fact, almost every campsite had someone in it. I backed in next to the tent site and everybody got out of the car, rubbing their collective asses. The vibration of the engine could be felt in my feet, even after I was standing on solid ground.
“We should get camp set up, I suppose,” I said. “Ever done any camping out, Princess?”
“Ha! I was a Senior Girl Guide. I could make camp with nothing but what I have on my person,” Princess said.
“Well, even though that would be interesting to see, we have a tent,” Misty said. “Catch.” Misty tossed the tent over to Princess and she staggered back a step, scowling at my aunt.
“Very funny. Where do you want it?” Princess asked.
I pointed to the obvious bare flat spot and reached into the back of the car to get out the cooler and sleeping bags. When I turned around, the tent was up.
“That was fast!”
“Sometimes, we needed to outrun a storm and get camp set up before we got soaked,” Princess said smugly.
“Oh, this is nice,” a man said approaching our camp. “A Warrior Wizard to join our party tonight.” He motioned a couple other men and a woman closer with him. They didn’t look all that respectable, but what did I know about the customs in this part of the land?
“I’m Jackie,” I said. “You folks camped here, too?”
“Yeah. Going to catch one tonight, we are,” the guy said.
“We’ve never had a Warrior Wizard join the hunt,” the woman said.
“The hunt?” I asked. “We just got here to spend the night because there were no hotels around. Plan to have some food and go to sleep.”
“If you sleep, you’ll be food,” the other man said. “It’s full moon tonight and a clear sky. The werewolves can’t help coming close.”
“Oh, crap! You mean actual werewolves are coming out and you’re going to fight them?”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t believe what a good fight we can have. We’ve got Charlie staked out as bait. Unless you want to offer these two. Charlie is none too happy about having lost the lotto. That little redhead would make a tasty morsel to attract a wolf.”
“My companions are not bait. Do you really mean you stake out a human being as bait for wolves? I assume you rush out to defend him then?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Well, we do our best, but bait is bait. Sometimes it gets taken. But the price of a pelt is worth the risk.”
“Is it really?” Misty asked. “What weapons do you fight with?”
“The usual. Slingshots and knives. Raymond has a sword and Matilda, here, got some wolfsbane that she’s tipped arrows with. The big thing is to not let them break through into the camp. So, come and join us at moonrise. You must have some magic you can use against a werewolf. Or he could get you!” The asshole jumped toward me with his hands held like claws. It was almost the last thing he did as Roadkill was on him and knocked him flat, snarling and growling.
“Help! Get him off!” Matilda said. “He didn’t mean anything by that. He was just having a little scare on you.”
“Roadkill, here!” I commanded. My dog jumped to me, prancing in his fancy blue vest and spike collar. “It looks like his little scare backfired.” The guy, who never offered his name, scrambled backwards and got to his feet, pointing at Roadkill.
“That animal attacked me!”
“You won’t last long against a werewolf if my little mutt scares you that badly,” I laughed. “Thanks for the invitation. We’re going to build a fire and make dinner now. Bye!” I waved at them as they scattered back toward their own campsites where fires were already burning. I turned to getting one built in the site fire pit. There was a stack of wood next to it. I’d worry about replenishing the supply in the morning.
“What are you going to do, Jackie?” Princess asked. “Werewolves are nothing to sneer at. They can be really vicious. Wolf baiting like this was banned years ago. Maybe we should sleep in the car.”
“Might not be a bad idea,” Misty said. “At least put the animals in the car. They might attack to defend us and get injured.” My sweet aunt had her priorities straight. Don’t let the pets get injured defending us.
I nodded. But it was stupid to let all these people face the danger with knives, swords, and poison-tipped arrows. I went to the car and opened the passenger door. I reached into the glovebox and pulled out the gun we’d been given when we broke up the robbery. I hoped it had some ammunition in the clip.
“You have a gun?” Princess whispered, shocked. I nodded and ejected the clip to see how many cartridges were left. “Sure hope you have some silver bullets.”
I just stood there and stared at her.
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