by David Rhodes
“Not in the mow.”
“Maybe whoever you heard is gone now.”
“Not likely. I don’t think they know I heard ’em.”
“Maybe we should turn on all the lights that work, make a lot of noise, and come back in an hour.”
“I need to know who this is,” said Rusty.
“Maybe it’s someone you don’t know.”
“Then I want an introduction.”
“Have they been taking things?”
“Maybe, I don’t know.”
“Perhaps you were mistaken about what you heard.”
“I wasn’t.”
When they reached the barn their whispering grew even more guarded. They went to the ladder leading to the haymow and Rusty handed his rifle and flashlight to July. “Take these,” he said.
“I’m not carrying a gun up there,” said July, looking at the square hole in the ceiling with apprehension.
“Why not?”
“Probably shoot myself.”
“I’d take the gun if I were you.”
“Well, you’re not,” said July, accepting the flashlight.
He climbed up. Nearing the top, he announced in a loud voice, “Okay, I’m coming.”
Rusty leaned against the wall, bolted a cartridge into the rifle’s chamber, and watched as July crawled through the hole above him. He saw the flashlight turn on, pan out, and disappear. He heard July walking through the loose hay.
A short time later, July returned and climbed down, quickly.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“What do you mean?”
“We should leave.”
“Why are you still whispering? What did you find?”
“You’ve got a cougar in your haymow, Rusty—a big one.”
“What’s he doing up there?”
“How do I know what it’s doing there? But it wasn’t too happy about having a light shined in its face.”
“Here, take the rifle up and shoot it.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
Then they heard a sound above them, moving heavily in the hay toward the hole in the ceiling.
Rusty shouldered the rifle, aiming up the ladder.
“I’ve heard a cat is a hard thing to kill and a wounded one is extremely dangerous,” whispered July. “I think we should come back in the daytime.”
“What’s that damn cat doing up there?”
When they left the barn, Rusty closed the front door, scraping it across the snow. Walking back to the house, he said, “I never heard of a cougar in a haymow.”
“You don’t use your barn much. It’s a long way from the house with timber right behind it. I guess if there was a first time for a cougar in a haymow, it might as well be yours.”
“Still don’t make sense.”
“Some things don’t. You want me to come over in the morning?”
“No. I’ll take care of this. You want some supper?”
“I’d better get home. I had some things I needed to do tonight. Thanks anyway.”
“What color was it?”
“Black. Why?”
“I just wondered. Look, let’s say you don’t tell anyone about this. I mean, hell, don’t tell anyone. There’s been a lot of talk about a cat and I don’t want a bunch of people coming over here.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“How much do I owe you for your time?”
“Forget it, Rusty,” said July and drove home.
He put the rifle away in the basement and went upstairs. Maxine waited for him. The manila envelope rested on the table before her, its contents scattered on top.
“You want to talk about this, Russell?”
“No. I’m hungry.”
“Where’s July?”
“He went home.”
“What were you doing in the barn?”
“Nothing important. What’s for supper?”
At night, lying in bed, Rusty could tell that Maxine was not asleep, her breathing short, quiet, and controlled. As though to confirm this, she spoke:
“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m very sorry about your brother and sisters, Russell.”
“Yup.”
“Winifred Smith is your niece. There’s no mistake about it. You’ve got to talk to her. She has a right to know.”
“Yup.”
“You know who she is, don’t you? She’s the tall woman who—”
“I know who she is.”
“You want to tell me now what is in the barn?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Then I’m going out there first thing in the morning.”
“No you’re not.”
DON’T GO THAT WAY
OLIVIA’S HEAD HURT AND HER MIND SPUN DIZZILY FROM HER defeated struggle to retain possession of her purse in the parking lot. The countryside came and went with such unconscionable rapidity that it was better not to look out the window. She stared wide-eyed at the stubble-headed young man who had grabbed her wide-eyed at the stubble-headed young man who had grabbed her and crudely shoved her into his car. He sat behind the wheel staring madly into the windshield in front of him while she held onto the door and dashboard and was absolutely certain she would die. The sounds of the motor and radio alone were enough to kill a person. And what had the lunatic said before he’d abducted her?—something about not worrying? “Don’t worry, Ma’am . . .” She assumed this was a bit of black humor, perhaps something tattooed kidnappers with blood and jewelry all over their faces often said to their hapless victims before they smashed their cars into steel girders going one hundred and seventy miles an hour in the middle of the night. Since she had so recently lost all of her and her sister’s money in a casino and joined the world of the damned, she had not expected it to be inhabited. But apparently it was.
The little red taillights of the car ahead turned onto another road, and her driver tromped on the brakes—an action that almost planted Olivia inside the glove compartment.
“Better put on your seat belt, Ma’am.”
More black humor, she assumed, and she gripped even tighter to the door and dashboard as the car skidded through the corner and resumed its bellowing, wrenching acceleration. The idea of strapping yourself inside seemed like closing the lid on your own coffin. At these speeds, when the end came there would be nothing left of the car or anything inside it but several wagons of rust dust. She considered praying, screaming, weeping, and pleading all at once, but instead felt a more instinctive expression taking place as urine flowed out of her as freely as freedom itself, through her dress and onto the soft, clammy seats.
Everything inside the car seemed appropriately designed to resemble hell—black, red, and chrome—with some kind of jewelry in the shape of a skull hanging from the rearview mirror. A little demon with a red beard and oversized revolvers was mounted on the gearshift.
The car ahead of them—much closer now—turned another corner, and once again her kidnapper went into a braking skid that required all her strength to keep from being thrown out of the seat.
More accelerating, tire screaming, and engine noise.
The car ahead turned again, this time down a snow- covered gravel road, leaving a white cloud behind it. But this did not make the slightest impression on her crazed kidnapper, who of course drove into it without thinking about the inevitable consequences of driving as fast as mechanically possible without the benefit of sight.
They continued like this for what seemed like a mile or more, then faint red lights could be seen through the billowing snow as the car ahead turned off the gravel road and onto another highway, with her suicidal driver right behind it.
Soon they were so close to the car in front that Olivia was sure they were going to hit it, and then, to her utter and complete astonishment, they did. The imbecile sitting next to her rammed right into the car ahead, denting the trunk and busting out one of its taillights.
A little further down the road t
here was a loud crack and a ragged hole appeared in the upper middle of the windshield.
“Those bastards shot my car!” shouted her driver, rolling down his window with a manual crank.
This statement provided vital information to Olivia. Combined with the fact that her kidnapper had just rammed his car into the one they’d been following, she felt pretty sure he was chasing them, and not simply trying to keep up. Perhaps, despite dressing and looking and talking alike, they were not all in this thieving and kidnapping business together.
Then, while he was driving with one hand, and sometimes only a single finger, the young man beside her reached under the seat, withdrew a short, fat, thick gun with two enormous barrels, held it out the window, and fired twice. The sound was so incomprehensibly loud that Olivia had nothing to compare it to. It made the sounds of the engine and radio seem like the purring of kittens. It more resembled a solid blow to the head than a sound, and afterwards she could near nothing at all.
Ahead, the car’s remaining taillight had been extinguished, and there was a trunk-sized hole in the back window. Through the ragged opening she could see the backs of three heads. One of them turned toward them and threw something that slid over the trunk and landed in the road. Her driver ran over it and stomped on his brakes.
This time she was thrown to the floor.
There, lying on a black rubber mat that smelled of something resembling furniture polish, she conducted a quick assessment of her new circumstances and felt surprisingly safe. The dashboard created a little roof over her head and the partially sequestered ambience seemed almost reassuring.
From her more secure home, she felt the car come to a stop. The madman next to her moved his long legs, opened his door, and ran into the night. Then she was alone for a while, and when he returned, he had her handbag.
“I got it, Ma’am,” he said proudly, reaching down and lifting her back onto the seat next to the fat gun.
Olivia could not hear what he said because her head was still ringing from the shotgun blasts. But she recognized her handbag as well as a triumphant smile beaming from the driver’s bejeweled face. And while she was looking through the hole in the windshield at a single star in the sky, she came to a clearer understanding of what had happened.
In the farmhouse down the road, a light came on, then two more. The front door opened and a man in pajamas stood in it. Much farther down the road, over the distant horizon, came two police cars with lights and sirens.
“Oh fuck,” her driver said. His face turned white and she could feel his fear like a wind blowing. “Fuck,” he said again. He buckled her into her seat, closed his door, turned around in the road with a shriek of tires, and roared off in the opposite direction. When they reached the gravel road, he turned down it, just as the police cars reached the house with the man in the doorway. One of the cars stopped. The other continued after them.
At least this time we can see, thought Olivia, as they hurtled down the gravel road and over a little bridge she hadn’t noticed before. It occurred to her that perhaps the young man had taken this road in order to raise enough snow- dust to prevent his license plate from being read. It seemed unusually thoughtful for someone who was completely insane, and her estimation of him inched slightly upward in the animal kingdom. At the stop sign they turned right and she noticed his hands shaking. Again, she could feel his fear. After another mile he braked hard again and prepared to turn left.
Olivia’s hearing was returning, and as sounds began to reach her again she noticed she no longer felt as though she would die immediately. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She still felt certain of perishing into the afterlife at any minute, but for some reason she was becoming accustomed to the feeling. Sensing the fear of her driver had a mitigating effect on her own, as though only so much terror was allowed in any given enclosure.
“Wait!” she shouted. “Don’t go that way. I have a scanner at home. They always catch people going that way. Go straight ahead and take a right, then take the next left. You can’t outrun a police radio.”
Her voice seemed authoritative for her size, and Wade obeyed it, continued to Highway H, turned right, and sped to Willow Creek Road.
“Turn here,” commanded Olivia. “There are plenty of curves and hills on this road. It ends up on the ridge, where you can go three ways.” Wade braked, and at the intersection Olivia rolled down the window and hurled the shotgun into the snow-filled ditch.
“Damn, what did you do that for?”
“You can get it later if you really need it.”
They continued for several more miles, around corners and over hills, following the illumination of their one unbroken headlight.
“Turn into that drive up there,” shouted Olivia.
“What?” shouted the frantic driver.
“Turn at the mailbox. Hurry. The Rasmussuns are on vacation. They left this morning. Park behind the garage, behind the house.”
Panic oozed from every pore on his face as he turned into the plowed drive. Behind the house in the snow-filled yard, he turned off the engine, lights, and radio.
Suddenly they were sealed together in near-total darkness, surrounded in every direction by a silence as overwhelming as the earlier din of engine and thundering music.
Olivia could hear him breathing.
The sirens grew louder and louder and then flew past them toward the ridge roads.
“You can’t walk?” he asked.
“Not a step.”
“I guess you pretty much need that wheelchair.”
“Pretty much,” said Olivia.
“These people on vacation?”
“Yes, until next month. They went to the Holy Land on a trip sponsored by CUC—Christians United in Christ.”
Outside they could hear more sirens, and as they continued listening three more mechanical insects flew past the house. Fifteen minutes later two more passed, one from each direction, moving slowly, with searchlights stretching into the countryside like probing yellow tentacles. Both continued without stopping.
“If they catch me I’ll go to prison,” said Wade.
“No you won’t,” said Olivia. “You can tell them what happened.”
“It wouldn’t matter what the fuck I said. I’ve been in trouble before. I’m on parole.”
“I see,” said Olivia. “Well, as long as we’re making confessions, I’m afraid I’ve peed on your car seat.”
Wade laughed—a sound that in some ways troubled Olivia more than anything else so far. “Hell, that doesn’t matter,” he said. “But we’d better get you into some dry clothes. My grandmother had trouble with that like you can’t fucking believe. I took care of her for three years.”
Wade reached for the ignition to start the car.
“Don’t do that!” shouted Olivia. “They’ll catch you for sure if you leave now. With shots fired there’s no telling when they’ll give up. You have a hole in your windshield. And that man at the house probably got a look at your car.”
“Can’t just stay the fuck here. If I don’t show up at seven o’clock at the cheese plant they’ll call my goddamn parole officer. And we got to get you some dry clothes. Folks are probably looking for you.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Olivia.
“We can’t just sit the fuck here. Look, I know someone two or three miles down the road. I’ll run over there and be back as soon as I can with his truck.”
“That won’t work!” shouted Olivia, frightened by the idea of being left alone. “All these families along here have dogs. We’ll borrow the Rasmussuns’ car. The Mitchell family drove them to the airport. I’m sure they won’t mind. It’s in the garage.”
“How are we going to start it?”
“The keys are probably in it. They wouldn’t have taken them to the Holy Land.”
“Are you sure you know these fucking people?”
“You can trust me.”
“I have no choice.”
“True, you don’t,
and thank you for not using that f-word.”
Wade was gone for what seemed to Olivia a long time—enough for her to wonder if he had decided on his foolish plan of walking to an acquaintance’s house. When he returned he crawled in beside her and said, “The garage is locked.”
“I guess you’ll have to break a window,” said Olivia.
“I’m not breaking a window.”
“Then carry me over and I’ll break the window.”
“I won’t do that either.”
Then a light came on inside the house and a silhouette stood in the window, a telephone pressed to one side of its head.
They left hurriedly.
“I thought you said there was no one home,” said Wade, accelerating at open throttle down the blacktop.
“It looked like Florence Fitch. It would be just like her to stay in someone’s house when they were gone, snooping around under the pretense of looking after the place.”
“Oh fuck, there’s no way out of here,” he cried as the end of the dead-end road loomed ahead.
“Quick,” said Olivia. “Stop swearing and turn in here.”
“Where?”
“In the driveway.”
“Who lives here?”
“Who cares—it goes back into the woods. Hurry, the police lights are on the ridge.”
Wade turned into the lane running between the trees.
At the end of a very long and curved driveway, he pulled up next to an odd-shaped log house. Still in a panic, he looked out the window, surveying the windows lit from an inside light. Then he saw someone standing on the back porch holding a machine gun, and cried, “Get down.”
Wade threw his body like sack of potatoes over Olivia.
She lay there for an unthinkably long while, half on and half off the seat, his weight pressing against her in a warm, heavy, and unfamiliar way. Finally she decided there could be no reasonable explanation for why they were doing this and she said, “Get off me, you big lug.”
When Wade sat up again the man on the back porch had left the machine gun on the porch floor and was now standing next to the car.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, looking inside. “Oh, hello, Olivia.”
“I’m not Olivia,” said Olivia, trying to look like someone other than herself by frowning and smiling at the same time.