by E A Lake
Two things made me stop my half-crouched retreat to the bedroom. First, she had used my given name and said it like she knew it. She hadn’t said ‘Was it Reynolds’ or ‘Was it him’. No, she had used my first name like she knew who I was.
Secondly, I recognized that voice somehow. I wasn’t sure from where, or even when, but it sounded familiar.
Liv’s head tore around to face me. “What?” she whisper-shouted.
“I know that voice.”
Her head shook wildly as she hustled next to me and turned me again toward the bedroom. “You don’t know her. How could you know her?” She pushed me into her room and pointed at the bed. “Get under there before someone spots you.”
I crawled into the somewhat clean space and Liv spread a comforter over the bed so that the edges hung low. She was intentionally covering the part of the bed near the front windows. I heard the bed creak as she sat above me.
“Now they’re coming to the front of the houses,” she muttered. “Dang it all. What kind of a cluster is going on out there today?”
I was a little shocked at her tone and choice of words. First, she rarely got too worked up about anything. But the young woman sounded really flustered. And second, ‘dang it’ and ‘cluster’ were practically swear words in her vocabulary. What had her so upset?
“I want six men on horses to cover every row in that field,” Shaklin growled from the front of the house.
“We need to get in there and look for blood,” the woman added. “If someone hit him, we need to know. A wounded man is twice as dangerous as a running man.”
Man, did her voice ever sound familiar.
“I don’t think those fellows are very good shots, Carla,” Shaklin said in a softer tone than before. “But if you want us to look for blood first, then I say—”
I heard something, or someone, get slapped. And it sounded pretty hard.
“We need to use caution, Tony!” the woman — Wife Three — shouted. “If that man they saw was Quinn, well let’s just say that not too many of us are safe when he shows up. The chances of his body count going higher are pretty damned good.”
It was quiet for a moment and I wondered what was going on. “What are they doing?” I whispered to Liv.
“Shaklin just went back towards the field, but Three is still there with two of his men,” she replied quietly. “No wait; he’s back now.”
“Let me ask you something,” Shaklin said, sounding a little miffed. “What are the chance that Quinn sneaks in here and gets himself shot? What are the chances he’d try to sneak into my world in broad daylight? I don’t think that man was him. It had to be someone else.”
“Just find whoever it was,” the woman spewed. “The only way I want to see him again is dead. As in his lifeless body being drug behind a horse. Do you understand that, Tony?”
He didn’t bother to give an audible reply and a few minutes later, I heard horses ride away. But I had been right; she’d used the word again in seeing me. Now I just needed a little help in figuring out who she was.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“Drop it,” Morgan scolded during dinner that night. “Just forget about it, Quinn. You don’t really know her.”
I shook my head and grinned at the steaming woman. She certainly was all worked up over something.
“But she said—”
Morgan shoved her chair back with her knees and leaned over me. “You already said that. It didn’t mean a damn thing. She might know your reputation from somewhere, but you don’t know her.”
“Why don’t we all just sit and enjoy this wonderful meal Livy has prepared for us,” Sara stated nicely. “Let’s just drop the talk about Carla and talk about something else.”
The meal she referred to was the same standard menu we had most nights: carrots and potatoes mashed together with a little butter added. If it hadn’t been for Liv’s heavy-handedness with the salt shaker, I would’ve called it bland.
We ate quietly for a little bit. It only took a few moments and I noticed the grin growing on Liv’s sweet face.
“Quinn looked quite darling in a dress this morning when we snuck him back,” she said with a giggle.
“Stupid,” Morgan added. “We should have waited until dark. Someone could have seen him and came over to talk.”
“Was anyone out front?” Sasha asked. “Do you think anyone saw his beard? Maybe they did and they’re on their way right now—”
“Would you please drop the neurotic worrying,” Morgan nearly shouted. “For god’s sake, Sasha; if someone saw him, they would have been here already.”
Setting my fork softly on the table, I gave Morgan my full attention.
“You seem in an awfully foul mood tonight,” I commented. “Something wrong you want to talk about?”
She turned and smirked at me. “How’s our plan coming? Come up with anything today? Or did you just sit around wondering if you knew Carla from somewhere — which you obviously couldn’t remember even if you did.”
“I’m working on it?”
“Work on this then,” Morgan added quickly. “They’re cutting down the first 20 rows of corn in that field out back tomorrow morning. And — oh, you’ll enjoy this — they’re placing torches every 50 feet in the open corn, too. I heard Three and Two talking about it in one of the barns this afternoon. They didn’t think I was listening. Yes, they’re that dense. Oh, and by the way, they never found the man they shot at.”
“Do they still think it was Quinn?” Sasha asked with wide-opened eyes.
“Of course they do,” Morgan replied, going back to her dinner. “Shaklin doesn’t, but almost everyone else seems to think so. As such, Quinn Reynolds is the most sought-after man in the county right now. Everyone’s going to be looking for you.”
Those were not good developments. More open space, lit open space and all hands on deck in the manhunt for me. Not good at all.
Later that evening, I laid quietly between Sasha and Morgan. One of them was twisting her long dark hair around one of her fingers time and time again. The other sighed every 30 seconds or so.
“We need a diversion,” I softly said aloud. “We need to throw them off for a few hours.”
“No shit,” Morgan replied in her usual tone.
“Are you sure Charolette has to come with us?” I asked. “She seems to have a lot of phobias and some of them deal with being outdoors, I’m afraid.”
“Yes,” Morgan answered firmly. “She has to come.”
“But she’ll just slow us down,” I added. “I’m gonna have to carry her most of the way, if not all the way.”
I heard Morgan snort. “She weighs all of about 80 pounds. I don’t think that will be a problem for a big, strong man like you.”
“But she doesn’t like spiders or dirt or germs or even being outdoors,” I countered. “That just seems like more of a problem than she’s worth.”
“Oh there’s a bigger problem than that,” Morgan replied. A whole lot bigger one.” And then she went quiet. Oh, how I hated her games.
“Which is?” And I waited for her smug reply. I was sure it was something that wouldn’t be that big of an issue.
“Sasha?” Morgan said quietly. “You’re the one who heard it; you go ahead and let Quinn in on our little secret.”
I felt Sasha stir beside me. “Well, it’s like this. You see…um.”
“Spit it out,” Morgan chided. “He’s a big boy; he can take it.”
“Shaklin is planning on giving her as a gift to one of the neighbor farms,” Sasha said quietly.
“And you know this how?” I asked.
“I heard him and two of his wives talking about it a few months ago,” Sasha replied. “It’s gonna happen after the harvest at this fall festival party he hosts every year. He’s gonna give Charolette to old man Ebert.”
Huh, that didn’t sound like much of an issue. An older man would probably be a gentle boss, the way I saw it. The trade might even be an upgrade for the smal
l girl.
“And that’s a problem in what way?” I asked.
“First of all,” Morgan interrupted. “We aren’t cattle property to be bought and sold or given away as Shaklin sees fit. We’re people, just like everyone else. And secondly, old man Ebert plans on giving her to his nephew Winston Cutler. Claims she’ll give him a male heir when he gives his place to Winston. Then there’ll be another male with the Ebert bloodline ready to take over after both of them die.”
Okay, Morgan made a good point about being traded like livestock. But still, it sounded like a good deal for all parties.
“I’m still not seeing the problem here,” I said. “It’s not ideal, but she’ll be better off over there than being Shaklin’s slave for the rest of her life. Right?”
Morgan rolled over closer to me and whispered in my ear. “Small problem. Winston Cutler is a drunk, a nasty drunk. Bigger problem; he’s already beat three wives into the grave. Now how long do you think a runt like Charolette is going to last over there? Think she lives through her first month? The first week? Or will she be dead the first night? Why don’t you ponder that while you’re trying to come up with a plan to leave her behind.”
“We can’t leave her here,” Sasha added in tears. “We just can’t.”
No, we couldn’t. Damn it all.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Liv and I stared at one another, waiting for the other to break down and speak first.
“So, you knew about this?” I asked, not being able to take the silence any longer. I’d slept on it, held my tongue during breakfast — due to Morgan’s glare – and finally broke down. The Charolette issue needed addressing.
“Yes,” she admitted and then went back to staring at her feet.
“And you didn’t think I needed to know?”
Liv peeked at me, her crooked lips twisting. “That was up to Morgan. Charolette needs help and since you’re here to help us, what’s one more body.”
“A body I have to carry some 15 miles.” I knew I had a good point because Liv flinched slightly. “Does Charolette know she’s going to be given to a madman in a few months?”
That damned girl simply nodded and looked away. What a time for her to become tight-lipped.
“Is it as bad as Morgan says?” I asked. That made her eyes shoot open.
“He choked his first wife because she burnt his toast,” she exclaimed. “When his second wife didn’t get pregnant after three months, he beat her to death one night in a drunken rage. I don’t know what happened to the third one, but the fourth one—”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “Morgan only said there were three. What’s this about a fourth now?”
Liv reached and gently took my hands. “Like I said, the third may have died of natural causes. The fourth he beat so badly that she fell into a coma and died a few months later. And no one seems to know what he was even mad about.”
“Isn’t there anyone that can stop that kind of thing from happening?” I felt Liv squeeze my hands.
“That’s your role, Quinn. People like you are supposed to take care of things like this. It’s what you do: make the bad people go away.”
Well, that didn’t help. Since I couldn’t remember what I was, much less who I was, there wasn’t much I could do about men like Shaklin, Ebert and Cutler. I needed my memory to return, and the sooner the better. But I had to admit; I was somewhat concerned about what would come back. Maybe I wouldn’t like myself.
But there was another issue that came to mind. Charolette was a small girl, a very small girl.
“Is it even possible for her to have children?” I asked. “I mean, she’s so tiny and thin.”
“Nope,” Liv answered plainly. “She’s never even had her period.”
“What?”
“Come on, she was only 11 when the old world ended,” Liv continued. “She’s never had the proper nourishment since then. Lots of us don’t get our period any more. I sure don’t; Morgan doesn’t.”
Okay, that was more information than I needed. I’m sure my blushing face and all the staring at the floor I was doing told her such.
“According to Morgan, she missed her chance to ever have kids when she was younger,” Liv said, sounding sad about the subject. “But she says she’s always been such an ugly duckling that no man would ever even look at her, much less sleep with her.”
I shot Liv a perplexed look. “She’s not ugly. Actually, I think Morgan looks quite striking. She’s borderline beautiful the way I see it.”
Liv grinned and shook her head. “You should probably tell her that sometime. She thinks you see her like every other man always has. Maybe if she wasn’t so strong-willed, someone would take her. But she’s always been like that.”
I contemplated my next question carefully. It bordered on too much information. But what the heck. We’d just been over women’s menstrual flows, so how out of bounds could another question be?
“But she’s been with men before,” I said slowly, hoping I wouldn’t have to be clearer.
“Nope. She’s kissed a few, but just like me, she’s never slept with a man.”
Well, since she’d opened the can of worms, I thought maybe I’d ask one more probing question. Liv must have read my mind.
“I’ve never even kissed a man,” she admitted, sounding proud about it. “I’m saving that for the day I get married. I want it to be special.”
How about that; a truly virtuous person, in the middle of the apocalypse and all. I had to admit; I was somewhat impressed.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Two days later, I sat and stared at the cleanly cut corn stalks that seemed to extend a mile back from the house. They had to have cut more than 20 rows. I was dying to go out there and count the stubble but knew if I brought it up, Morgan would freak out.
It wasn’t just Morgan who had been edgy the last few days. Sasha and Sara both looked frazzled after a day at the big house. Our typical lively dinner conversations were gone, replaced by mind-numbing silence. When I did care to bring up a topic, loaded or benign, Morgan always shot me a dirty look. I was getting real sick of her dirty looks.
I had a diversion in mind; well, I had an idea for the diversion. The details were a little sketchy still. But I knew the general idea of what we needed.
A little rain began to fall and I watched a man with a rifle walk through the corn, nearly all the way back to the cut portion. That was a problem, one of a few. The rounds took them deeper into the field now that the corn had been trimmed back. That would give them more of a chance to see our escape, thanks to the second problem.
I had thought there’d be one or two torches placed in the field each night. Oh, how wrong that assumption turned out to be. No, they were placed about 10 rows into the cut area and spaced about 10 yards apart. While they didn’t illuminate every inch of the open area, they came damned close.
“I think I have an idea,” I told Liv and Charolette that afternoon. The younger girl had come over for a visit with her friend and had regaled me with stories of her latest cleaning frenzy. Funny, but I never knew that you could make your nose bleed by using too much bleach in your water when scrubbing walls. Of course, it had never dawned on me that walls needed scrubbing. Like ever.
“Well, please share it,” Charolette said in a happy tone. “I hope it’s something you’re planning on doing soon. Otherwise my wedding day is drawing near. And I’m not real sure Winston is the right man for me.”
I raised my hands to signal Charolette to slow down. “Let’s forget about Winston for a minute. Why don’t both of you take a seat on the couch and I’ll run it by you.”
They did as requested and once in place, stared at me anxiously. It was showtime for me. The next few minutes and their reactions would speak volumes as to whether this was a workable scenario or if I needed to start from scratch.
“The first thing we need,” I began while pacing, “is either cloud cover or a new moon.”
“That makes sense,�
�� Liv said, nodding at her friend.
Good. But that was the easy part.
“I’d like it to be raining when we sneak out, but that may be asking a lot,” I added. “Plus, I’m not sure we need a muddy field to wade through. But rain might put out the torches or they may never even light them.”
“Okay,” Charolette said, giving me her full attention. “Clouds or rain. Are you thinking of leaving in the middle of the night?”
“No, we need to leave right after sundown,” I said. “We need as much darkness to get as far away from here as we can.”
“Are you thinking if they don’t see us, they won’t know we’re gone until the next morning?” Liv asked. Good question.
I had pondered that idea for a while. And it was worthy of further thought, but I had a better idea. I hoped.
“We need a fire of some sort,” I said quietly, as both of them narrowed their eyes. “We need something that will keep them busy for a while. Preferably until sometime the next day. Something that will focus their attention on the fire and who may have set it instead of counting the hired help.”
I saw that neither of the women liked the idea. They shook their heads at one another and then gazed back to me.
“By an hour after sunrise, they’ll be looking for Morgan, Sasha and Sara,” Liv said, looking completely deflated.
“But we’ll be in Pimento by then,” I countered. “Or close enough to beat them there no matter what.”
Charolette rose and stood between me and Liv. “Okay, let’s say somehow we can start one of the barns on fire. It’ll be hard, but it could be done. There’s plenty of dry hay and kerosene around, so it could happen.” She turned and faced me directly. “But what if they send one of the wives down here to make sure we’re okay? He could send Three down here and she could start interrogating us. Within an hour of the fire, Shaklin might know we’re gone. What then?”
She had a good point. My plan depended on too many variables we had no control over. We needed a better diversion.