Blake was kneeling and looking back at the road. They had passed a sign. “Gin!” he cried, and his voice cracked with rapture. “Only eight miles!”
Teddy slowed down, stopped, backed the car up and started the other way. Back to Santa Fé and Mrs. Saville-Sanders. Out of the haze, the receding mist, he heard a tiny babble of voices pleading with him, but they meant nothing. He did not listen.
“What’s the matter? Where are you going? What is it?”
Then Blake understood, and there was an anguished shriek. “Madden!”
An incredulous, outraged cry.
He stepped on the accelerator and his blood flowed faster as he felt the road slipping by. Mexico was safely behind him. He was waking up. Who were these people? He stepped on the gas.
They fell quiet behind him. Blake had crawled over the seat and was sitting with Gin, whispering with her. Teddy glanced at them in the mirror, sitting with their heads together, and closed his mouth grimly, clenching his teeth.
It would be four days. Four days to drive with two sulking children, and then he would be back in Santa Fé, safe. If he drove steadily it would be shorter, maybe: three days if he had any luck. Three days if he averaged twenty-five miles an hour. Only three days.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
On the back seat Blake crouched next to Gin and tried to think. He looked out at the road, the same old road repeating itself, and tried to know what to do. The wind blowing by his ears frightened him. He was terrified of the stranger in the front seat. Things were happening too fast; he could scarcely catch his breath.