by Lisa Wingate
Leaning through the open window, I spotted a couple of grocery store receipts and a plastic comb clinging in a scrappy cedar bush below. The grass was mashed and muddy. No distinguishable footprints, but someone had gone out this way. Apparently Andrea. What’d happened here tonight? Where were Andrea, Birdie, and Len?
A radio call let me know that Jake Moskaluk was coming up Len’s road. He’d gotten an ETA on the sheriff ’s deputies. Another ten minutes yet.
“We need them now,” I said. “We need them ten minutes ago.” My mind was working in fast circles, trying to figure out where Andrea and Birdie might be and whether they were all right.
They had to be all right.
Jake’s truck lights bobbed over the uneven ground on the far side of the cedar break as I walked through the front room of the house. “Mart, there’s someone out here in a vehicle.” His voice was low over the radio. I turned down my volume and pressed the unit to my ear. “They’re headed your way, and … Yeah, they’ve made me out and turned for the woods.” Outside, Jake’s engine revved. He flipped on the floods and lit up the field, then sped through the high grass and over the slab wood fence. Whoever he was chasing wheeled around at the end of the field and took a run at the driveway. I got a make on the vehicle. Bronco. White. We’d been looking for these guys all day. Jake cut them off again, and they started my way, the headlights blinding. I squatted down behind the corner of the porch, pulled my side arm, hollered, “State game warden. Stop where you are!”
A shot rang out, struck the cabin wall a couple feet away. I hit the deck. Another shot struck, closer this time. I returned fire, even though all I could see were headlights. Their next shot splintered wood and tar paper on the corner of the cabin right above my head. Flattening myself to the floor, I belly-crawled backward to a better position, saw Jake’s truck whip around, heard him return fire. A siren sounded across the cornfield near the front gate. The sheriff ’s boys had arrived a little ahead of schedule, right where we needed them to be, for once.
Another bullet flew over my head and grazed a porch post; then the driver in the Bronco saw the posse at the front gate and spun his truck around, heading for the woods. We had him now. There wasn’t anyplace for him to go over there. Whoever he was, he wasn’t messing around. We were onto something big. With that idea came another. Andrea and Birdie and Len were mixed up in this, too.
They’re all right, I told myself. They’re all right. But self-assurances weren’t what I wanted. What I wanted was to find them, get Birdie someplace safe, then take Andrea in my arms. If we all made it out of this, I wasn’t wasting one more minute worrying about how things ought to happen between us, or how long it might take for her to be ready to tell Dustin about it. I was just going to enjoy the moments for what they were and figure the Big Man Upstairs had the game plan under control.
One thing I finally understood, pinned down on the porch with shotgun pellets peppering the cabin walls, Jake’s truck slinging mud in the pasture, and the sheriff ’s boys charging up the lane – you’ve got to take your chances as they are. God gives what He gives, and only He knows why. If you’re smart, you open the gift while it’s on the table. Enjoy it. Be thankful for it. Live every minute of it while it’s happening. Aaron and Mica and what had happened to them was in the past. I couldn’t change it. They ran out of time before they should have, but I was still here, and there had to be a reason for that. Maybe this was the reason.
If I got the chance to take Andrea in my arms again, I wasn’t letting go.
The birds of the air nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
– Psalm 104:12
(Anonymous senior citizen,
the Bus Birders tour group)
Chapter 23
Andrea Henderson
I heard shots echo somewhere in the distance, the sound reverberating against the trees, bouncing off the hills, skimming the carpet of last year’s leaves, seeming to come from everywhere at once. I pushed into the cedars, the branches raking my arms as I dragged Birdie with me. Please, God, I thought. Don’t let it be Len they’re shooting at.
There had been shots once already – how long ago? Maybe an hour? Longer? There were three shots just after we’d slipped out the window of Birdie’s bedroom. I’d heard dishes breaking in the house, Len yelling, the dogs going wild, a man screaming in a way that curdled my blood, then three shots, and the dogs went silent. I hadn’t turned around. I’d just grabbed Birdie’s hand and bolted to the woods. There was no other choice.
Now there were more shots – several in rapid succession, but faint and far away. Had we traveled that far from the cabin, or were they on the road somewhere, or in the woods, trying to find us? What would happen if they did?
If they found us, would they shoot me to get Birdie? After what had taken place in the cabin, I knew the answer to that question, even though my mind couldn’t process it. The last hour seemed like a scene from a movie, something horrific enough that you were glad it wasn’t really happening.
I’d seen them coming across the field with Len just a moment after I’d noticed the extra vehicles behind the barn. They were jostling him around, demanding something. Birdie had already trotted back to her bedroom with her sack of new clothes. She was singing to herself. Then she stopped, listened. Ducking against the wall, I slid soundlessly into the house, rushed across the living room. Birdie was wide-eyed in the bedroom doorway. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the bedroom, pushed the door closed behind us. They were coming. Several men, three at least, and a woman. When Birdie heard the voices, she crouched behind the bed, tugged my hand and pulled me with her.
As they entered the house, Birdie’s bedroom door fell open slightly. Through the narrow crack, I heard the ongoing argument, saw figures moving in the living room like shadows. They wanted to know if Len had any money stashed away.
“I bet he’s got a bunch,” a man’s voice asserted. “Prob’ly been cashin’ them big ol’ government checks all the time and buryin’ it in the backyard.You been buryin’ money in the backyard, old man? Huh? You got a million bucks out there?” He laughed, a razor-edged vindictive sound.
Len stuttered, attempting an answer.
A second man laughed, then did something that wrenched a gasp from Len. Afterward, he demanded that Len produce the bags Norma had left in the old school bus.
Norma … Len’s daughter? She was with them – ordering Len to give her the bags one minute, defending him the next, pleading with the men not to hurt him, saying in a sticky-sweet slur, “C’mon, C.J., give ’im a minute. You know he’s dumb as roadkill. Give ’im a minute to think. What’d you do with the bags I left in the school bus, Pops? The black plastic trash bags with stuff in ’em. That’s C.J.’s stuff. I shouldn’ta took it, and he wants it back. You gotta tell us where it’s at now.” Her voice rose on the last note, quivering, fearful, desperate, conveying that she was far from in control.
Len’s answer was slow and slurred. I couldn’t make out all the words – something about having burned the bags when he burned the trash.
“You better not’ve!” C.J. exploded. “You better come up with my bags, old man. Where’d you put ’em? You and Norma hide ’em somewhere? You holdin’ out on me, Norma? You been dealin’ my stuff while I’m stuck in the stinkin’ county jail?”
I heard the thwack of a fist on flesh. Len moaned. Something metal crashed to the floor and rolled across the room.
C.J. roared, spitting out a string of expletives. “You gimme my stuff or I’m gonna find that little snot-nosed kid, wherever you got her hid, and you ain’t never gonna see her again.”
Birdie shrank against me, her body quivering, her hands pressing over her ears, her eyes widening in silent anticipation of what was coming next. She’d been through this before.
“You hear that, you little brat?” C.J. roared. “It don’t matter where you’re hidin’. You know I’ll find you out.”
My heart seized in my
throat, stopping the flow of air. What now? What should I do? Confront them? Hide? Make a run for the back door? The dogs were in a frenzy out there. I could hear them growling and clawing at the screen. They knew Len was in trouble.
A breeze touched my cheek like the back of a hand, slid under my hair, stilling my thoughts, causing me to look up. The window … If I could pop the screen out without making too much noise, we could slip through, sneak around to my vehicle on the other side of the old school bus, get in, and go for help. I had to get Birdie to safety. We couldn’t stay in the bedroom. Even if we hid, sooner or later, they’d see my vehicle and know someone was here. They’d find us.
Thank goodness the mud had caused me to park on the other side of the school bus. Otherwise, they would have discovered us already. If we were lucky, we might be able to get to the truck, start it, and drive away before anyone could stop us… .
Pressing a finger to my lips, I looked Birdie in the eye, shook my head. I rose to my knees, checked over my shoulder, heard someone or something slam against the wall in the living room. The house shook, and behind me the bedroom door creaked open another inch. Stilling the trembling in my hands, I pressed a palm against the screen, pushed gently, then harder, with both hands.
The screen, encrusted with paint and dirt and riddled with holes, tore like old fabric, the mesh dry and rotten around the edges. Dust fell in a cloud, and bits of rotten wood landed silently in the growth of weeds outside. Checking over my shoulder, I motioned for Birdie, lifted her onto the windowsill, then leaned through, lowering her down. She stepped away from the house, her blue eyes skittering about helplessly.
“Wait,” I whispered, then drew back so that I could go through feet first. Chaos broke loose in the living room. I heard the fight moving into the kitchen, saw the bedroom door swing open, saw Len and another man fall across the doorway in a twisted heap, heard Norma scream.
A hammer thumped in my chest. I tried to scramble through the window. Something was holding me back. My purse. The strap was hung up and still wound around my shoulder. I threw my weight against it, felt the strap tear, heard my wallet and car keys spill onto the floor.
The jagged window frame sliced my back as I tumbled toward the ground.
Norma screamed. “C.J., look!”
“Hey! What’re you doin?” one of the men yelled. I didn’t know if they were yelling at us – if they’d seen us or not. Shedding the last shreds of my purse in the tall grass, I grabbed Birdie and ran, crashing through weeds and cedar bushes. Tripping and rolling into a drainage ditch, Birdie and I tumbling in a painful tangle. I heard the struggle, and the dogs, and the shots. I didn’t look back, just grabbed Birdie and started running again. If we could make it to the road, maybe we could find help – a passing car, another house. Anything.
But when we reached the road, they were there – a white SUV roaring up Len’s driveway, then along the road, the headlights illuminating the dusky gray in the ditches, Norma was calling Birdie’s name, the tone falsely enticing. Birdie grabbed my hand, pulled me back into the cedars.
She shook her head, her eyes wide.
“Ssshhh,” I whispered against her ear.
The other men were crashing through the brush somewhere downhill, calling Birdie’s name, telling her she’d better stop hiding before her mother got mad.
Pulling her close against me, I pressed deeper into the cedars, the limbs grabbing my T-shirt, clawing my skin. If we tried to walk out via the road, we wouldn’t get far before they saw us. In the woods, in the dark with no flashlight, I’d be completely lost. I didn’t have any idea which way to go to find help.
“It’s all right,” I whispered against Birdie’s ear. “I won’t let anything happen. We’ll just wait. We’ll just wait for someone to come.” But nobody knew where I was. How long before anyone might come looking for me? How many times might Dustin call before he figured out something was wrong? I thought of him, far away on a trip with his father, with no idea that I wasn’t safely home. Would he even call to check in tonight? If I didn’t answer, would he bother to call back?
It could be hours. It could be all night. What condition was Len in now? Where was he? He might not have all night. We probably didn’t, either.
If we stayed this close to the house, sooner or later C.J., Norma, or the other men would discover us. I had to find a way out. It was getting darker by the minute, the night settling in moonless and damp. I had no way to see, no keys, no cell phone, no means of protecting Birdie or myself. How much chance was there of getting to safety on foot, in the dark, with a six-year-old?
But I had to do something.
Think, Andrea. Think.
The road wasn’t an option. My vehicle wasn’t an option. If I took Birdie into the woods now, anything could happen. We could end up wandering in circles … or worse. How many times had Dustin come home filled with Mart’s war stories about campers and hikers lost in the state park? Word of a hiker attacked by a mountain lion a few months ago was still the talk of the community. It didn’t happen often, but it did happen.
If you’re ever lost, head for the water, Mart’s voice was in my head now. In the summer, there’s plenty of traffic on the lake… .
The path to the river was back by the cabin, but if we went that way, we’d be circling right into C.J.’s men.
Every place in the woods has its own sound, if you stop and listen, Mart had told me as we picnicked near Eagle Eye, listening to the mockingbirds and the Wailing Woman. The river has a sound, and the hills have a sound, and the rocky draws have a sound, and the cliffs have a sound. Folks wouldn’t get themselves so lost in these hills if they’d stop and listen.
He was probably on the water tonight. Why did I feel as if he were close by?
“Birdie, do you know how to get down to the river?” I whispered. “Do you know how to get there from here?”
Birdie nodded, her eyes round and earnest in the fading light.
I hesitated a moment longer, wondering at the wisdom of depending on a traumatized child. But what other choice did I have? I took Birdie’s hand, and we crawled through the cornfield to the forest, then started walking.
Finding our way in the dark was harder than I’d thought it would be. I had a feeling we’d been wandering in circles, but in the dark it was impossible to tell. The distant shots pushed Birdie closer to me. If those shots were coming from somewhere near Len’s cabin, we’d traveled a long way. Birdie had stopped trying to lead. Now she was following, as lost as I was. The blind leading the blind.
The night air was surprisingly cool, and Birdie’s fingers had turned icy inside mine, clinging mechanically as she stumbled along. I didn’t dare pick her up. I’d tripped over roots, twigs, and rocks at least a dozen times and fallen hard. My left ankle was swollen from our hasty escape out the window, and a sticky film of blood had pasted my T-shirt to my back.
Maybe we should stop until morning, I thought. Curl up in the driest spot we can find and try to sleep. Maybe we were far enough away from the cabin to be safe… .
But what if they were still following us, still searching for us? What if we fell asleep, and they found us? I couldn’t take that chance. And what about Len? I had to get help.
I thought again of Dustin. Had he called my phone? Was he worried?
Birdie sniffled, a small, wavering, vulnerable sound that touched the deepest part of me. I stopped beside a tree, picked her up, and she wrapped herself around me, her legs bare and thin and cold.“It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’ll be all right.”
I realized that she knew this kind of fear all the time. Possibly, she’d known it all her life. Perhaps Len’s house was the first safe place she’d ever been. I couldn’t fail her now. I couldn’t fail myself. As much as I’d tried to tell myself that my ending up in this job was a random act of nature, I’d known for a while that it wasn’t. This job was my calling, something I was meant to do. I hadn’t just ended up here. I’d been brought here. Even a weary, tat
tered faith like mine knew that we’re never given a calling without being given the resources to accomplish it. I still believed that.
I still believed.
Birdie shifted in my arms, tightened her fists over my shirt, holding it in handfuls. “Shhh,” I whispered. Leaning against the cool bark of the tree, I closed my eyes, let the forest, the darkness, the mist fade away, heard only the whisper of my own thoughts, of a prayer. Show me which way. Give me a sign. Find me.
The night grew impossibly quiet, seeming to close in around us. Through the silence, I heard a song, the notes far away but clear, no two measures the same.
“Bird,” Birdie whispered.
“I hear it, too,” I said.
“Her a mockin’ bird.”
“Yes, a mockingbird.” My mind traveled back to the picnic grounds along the river, to the mockingbirds. Could we be close by? What were the chances that we’d somehow circled back toward the river? I listened to the bird’s repertoire, waiting for the Wailing Woman’s telltale moan.
“Her cryin’,” Birdie whispered, as if she’d read my mind. I felt Birdie’s breath against my neck as she let out a long, low whistle that sounded like the Wailing Woman. I listened, but all I could hear was the bird. So far, it hadn’t mocked the Wailing Woman’s cry. Was it possible that Birdie was so in tune with the sounds of the lake that she could hear the Wailing Woman cliffs in the distance when I could not?