Snow was falling when Ron reached Helena just after daybreak. He stopped at Smith’s, a grocery store that he recognized from spending time in Las Vegas years ago. Moving quickly through the store he filled his basket with a variety of canned goods, boxes of processed food that required little fixing, a large bag of white beans, a loaf of bread, and two cans of Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits that he could pop in the oven. He picked up some fruits and vegetables, a large can of coffee, various soaps, toilet paper, cheese, crackers, a large box of hot chocolate packets, six gallons of water, and a gallon of milk. As he paid for the items with cash, he was careful not to make eye contact with the clerk or draw any extra attention to himself.
When he was at the cabin last time there was a water pump that fed water directly inside, but Ron wasn’t willing to chance not having drinking water. He also grabbed some paper plates, plasticware, paper towels, a can opener, and some matches. Before he checked out, he picked up some kindling and two bundles of wood. As he loaded his car, he hoped he hadn’t forgotten anything since he didn’t know when he would have another chance to shop.
A few blocks from the grocery store, Ron spotted a pay phone. He pulled over and took some change out of the car’s console and thought how much easier this would be if he could use his cell phone. But he didn’t dare. They knew who he was. He deduced they had his phone number at the very least and likely had found a way to tap into his calls. Even if they hadn’t done that, he was certain they could obtain his phone records.
He removed a paper from his wallet. It had the initials CD, which to him meant BC since he always used the next letter in the alphabet for the name of his contact; the B in Bob was written as a C and the C in Clark became a D. In addition, he wrote the phone numbers backwards. The area code was always intentionally left off. It was a simple but effective code, mostly because no one would expect the information to be coded. He dialed the office number for Attorney Robert Clark but didn’t leave a message when the voice mail answered. He tried his cell number, which Bob had given him a couple of years ago when they met at the hospital where Sabre was recovering from a gunshot wound. It went to voice mail. Again, he said nothing.
On his way out of town he stopped at another Town Pump, topped off his gas, and refilled his coffee cup. The weather was already looking pretty bad, and since he would be going to an even higher elevation he expected it to get worse. He felt tired but he didn’t dare stop. Sleep would have to wait for a little longer. He wouldn’t be safe until he reached his friend’s cabin in the mountains. He wished he had a way to contact him, but there had never been a phone at the cabin before and he doubted his friend had a cell phone. Even if he did, Ron didn’t have a number for him. Now he just hoped he could remember how to get there.
Clancy, Montana, was about ten or twelve miles from Helena on I-15. From there he knew he had to turn left toward the Elkhorn Mountains. His marker was a nursing home, but it had been more than ten years since he had been there, and he couldn’t remember the name of the home. What if the nursing home was no longer there? Heck, for all he knew, his friend may not even own the cabin any longer, and as wild as the guy was he may not even be alive.
When Ron reached the exit for Clancy he drove off the freeway and through the small town. Very little had changed. Once he passed through the town he started looking for the nursing home, although visibility was difficult. His windshield wipers slapped back and forth clearing the snow, but even so the milky-looking air made it difficult to see. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t conjure up the name of the nursing home, but he was sure he would recognize it if he saw it, unless it had been demolished. The snow fell harder. Ron drove more slowly.
Ron passed a clearing and then some trees and drove past his turn. It was on his left: Elkhorn Health and Rehabilitation. With the exception of what appeared to be a new fence, it looked exactly the same. He sighed. Instead of turning around, he turned into the facility’s parking lot and then onto Warm Springs Creek Road. After following the pavement for about five miles or so the road turned to gravel. He checked his odometer. The only way he would find his friend’s cabin was if they hadn’t extended the pavement on this road. He knew he had exactly 4.2 miles to go on the gravel because he had noted it when he was there the last time. Even back then it was difficult to get from the road to the cabin. He couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like in the snow.
The bumpy, curvy road kept him awake as he bounced along, climbing the mountain through the mass of fir trees. When he had driven four miles he slowed down and started watching for the turnoff. He found the opening between the trees covered with snow. He turned and drove about sixty feet through the snow-filled ruts up to the cabin. Not much had changed except that the tools, car parts, and other junk surrounding the cabin were now covered with snow.
Ron paused for a second before stepping out into the deep snow. He hoped again that his friend still owned the cabin since he had no backup plan and believed this was the safest place on earth for him to hide.
The small, dilapidated cabin looked empty as Ron knocked on the door. No one answered. “Anyone home?” Ron called out, but there was no response. He reached down and turned the handle. The door was unlocked and it squeaked when he pushed it open. “It’s Ron Brown,” Ron called again. Still nothing.
Ron pushed the door all the way open, yelling out his friend’s name. He didn’t want to surprise him, as he knew how handy his friend was with a gun. The man was a little odd and eccentric enough to react before thinking through a situation. Ron stomped his feet to knock some of the snow off and then stepped into a cold, dreary, twelve-by-sixteen-foot room. He left the door open to let some light in until he could acclimate himself to the darkness or find a candle.
Not much had changed in ten years. The one-room cabin had the same small, wooden table with two chairs, a big armchair in front of a large cook stove flanked by two wood boxes, one empty and the other about half full. There was a sink with a water pump, a chest of drawers, and a twin bed against the wall. The one window above the table was so dirty Ron could barely see out of it. An ax stood in the corner behind a wood box. On top of the dresser there was a bag of shelled peanuts, a belt, two decks of cards, an empty shell box, and a rubber hot-water bottle. Other junk lay piled around the room, and from the looks of the dirty pan next to an old, aluminum coffee pot on the stove, no one had been there in awhile.
Ron picked up the pan and carried it to the stream of light coming in from the door. He figured he might estimate the time frame for when someone was last there based on the pan’s contents, but after careful inspection he couldn’t figure out what it had once contained. He finally gave up and placed it in the sink. The green powder on top of the coffee grounds in the coffee pot reinforced his theory that his friend had been gone for a long time. He removed the innards from the pot, washed it out, filled it with water from the pump, and placed it back on the stove. He wondered when his friend had started drinking coffee. All he ever saw him drink was tea. Perhaps it wasn’t his cabin any longer.
The door groaned as the wind pushed it further open. Ron jumped before he realized what it was. He took a deep breath. No one could find him here. He just wished he had Gina, Sabre, and his mother here safe with him.
Ron stepped outside and breathed in the cold, mountain air. Everything was so still and just a few sprinklings of green and brown peeked through the white blanket of snow. Off to his right, a cottontail hopped toward him, but it scampered when Ron took a step toward his car. Ron noticed the old outhouse with its crescent moon window about ten yards behind the house; the snow was piled nearly halfway up the door.
Once Ron lit the propane lamp that was in the middle of the table, he finished unloading the car, stacked some of his groceries in a corner and the rest on the table, and set about lighting a fire in the cook stove. With just the wood in the boxes, Ron expected he could keep the fire blazing for a while. He would check later to see if the woodpile was still out back,
although he assumed it was covered with snow.
Ron didn’t remove his gloves until he had the fire going strong and the water in the coffee pot heated. He took a minute to hold his hands over the stove and rub them together to get warm before he took the floppy hot-water bottle to the sink, held it by the neck, and poured the hot water from the coffee pot in it. It expanded until it was almost hard to the touch.
Memories flooded back to a visit one Christmas to his grandmother’s house in Minnesota. She was a short, thin woman who made the best homemade bread and jam he had ever eaten. Ron and Sabre would play for hours in the snow while building snowmen and having snowball fights. Sabre loved to make snow angels until Ron convinced her they were real and she better be good or they would fly away with her. The children often didn’t realize how cold they were until they were ordered to come inside. By then, their grandpa was already drunk and had crashed on the sofa, but their grandma was always there with a warm embrace, a cup of hot cocoa, and a hot-water bottle to thaw their feet.
Ron took a blanket and a pillow from the stack of his things he had brought in from the car and set them on the chair. He then pulled the chair as close as was safe to the front of the stove. The heat was starting to radiate from the stove as he opened its heavy iron door. He wrapped the blanket around his body, sat down, and bolstered his feet—still in his work boots—up on the oven door. Then he stuck the water bottle inside his blanket and clutched it to him, propped his pillow inside the curve of the top of the chair, and lay back. Within two or three minutes, he had stopped shivering. In less than five, he was asleep.
Chapter 5
The bright rays from the early morning’s desert sun hit the windshield like sparklers on the Fourth of July. The heat finally found its way onto the faces of Sabre and her mother as they drove on Route 66 into Kingman, Arizona. The temperature read 79 degrees. Sabre was thankful for the warmth. It would be good for her mother, who hadn’t been warm enough for most of the trip. Too much heat in the car would have made Sabre sleepy so she tried to keep the temperature down. Now, they could enjoy the sunshine.
Sabre wondered if she was doing the right thing. She was confident her Uncle Gary would keep her mother safe. But she was still concerned about Ron. Maybe calling the police would be the right thing to do, even though Ron begged her not to tell anyone. What if he had assessed the situation wrongly?
On top of all that, she had cases that needed her attention. She trusted that Bob would be able to handle most of them, but the Sophie Barrington case bothered her. Sophie was an eight-year-old molest victim. The stepfather, Mark, was accused, but Sophie continually said it wasn’t him. Initially, Sophie made a statement that led the social worker to believe the stepfather was the perpetrator, but Sophie never actually said it was him. Also, at the last visit Sophie behaved oddly.
According to the report, when Sophie was questioned, she said, “He told me to say it was Mark.” But when the social worker questioned her about who “he” was, Sophie couldn’t or wouldn’t explain. Sabre had planned to make another visit to see Sophie before the trial. Her last visit to her had turned into a fiasco. She had gone there to see if Sophie would open up to her, but as Sabre mulled it over in her mind she wondered what had gone wrong.
Sabre had met with Sophie several times at Polinsky Receiving Home prior to her placement in this foster home, but this was her first visit with Sophie in her new home. Sabre had been to this home before when she had two other children placed there a few months ago.
“How is Sophie adjusting?” Sabre asked.
The foster mother said, “She’s a very sweet girl, very polite, and she loves to help. She really misses her parents and her baby brother, though.”
“Does she talk about her stepdad?”
“She refers to Mark as her daddy. She says she misses him and she wants to go home. She’s never mentioned any inappropriate behavior.”
The foster mother had just returned home when Sabre arrived there. “Do you mind if I finish putting away my groceries? I have some perishables.”
“No, not at all.”
“Please, have a seat.”
Sabre sat down on a barstool in the kitchen and continued to question the foster mother. According to her, everything had been going well. Sophie had adjusted to her new school and was getting along well with the foster child in the home. Other than her longing to see her family, she seemed to belong in this home.
The foster mother reached into a grocery bag and removed a small bag of candy. “Sophie loves chocolate and she has been so good I bought her some M&M’s. She doesn’t get chocolate very often so it’s quite a treat for her.” She handed Sabre the bag of M&M’s. “Would you like to give them to her?”
“Sure. Thanks.” Sabre took the candy and went to Sophie’s room where she was coloring in a giant coloring book.
“Hi, Sophie. Remember me?”
She looked up for just a second and smiled. “Yes. Want to help me color?”
“Sure,” Sabre said and sat down on the floor next to the girl.
Sabre asked Sophie about her stay at this foster home. She seemed content but was anxious to return home.
“I need to ask you a couple of questions that may not be very comfortable for you,” Sabre said. Sabre was not planning on questioning her about the molest, only about who “he” was that told her to say it was Mark. Sabre remembered the candy in her pocket and thought the M&M’s might help to comfort Sophie so she took them out and handed them to her.
“Here, Sophie, your foster mother said you really liked chocolate and so she bought these for you.”
Sophie’s face turned solemn, then red. She snatched the candy from Sabre’s hand, threw the package on the ground, and started stomping on its contents. Sabre tried to console her, but it took several minutes to calm her down.
Sabre’s thoughts were interrupted when her mother said, “We should’ve called Edie and told her we were coming. I’m sure they would understand.”
“Mom, you know we can’t tell them why we’re here, right?”
“I thought since he was out of the Program, maybe….”
“First of all, we don’t know that for sure. And second, Ron said to tell no one.”
“But how can we stay there if they don’t know? Are we just going to say, ‘We came to live with you for a while. You don’t mind, do you?’”
“We’ll tell them we’re taking a road trip and we weren’t sure where we were going so we didn’t call ahead. Then if I have to leave and it’s not safe for you to go, we’ll tell them you’re sick or something.”
Sabre’s mother twisted her wedding band on her left ring finger. It remained on her hand even though her husband died well over a decade ago. Sabre hated to see her fret.
“What is it, Mom?”
She shook her head. “I’m not a very good liar. And I’m really worried about Ron.”
“I know. Me too, but that’s all the more reason why we have to do what he asks. We can’t risk his life.”
She took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’ll do it.”
Sabre turned onto the cul-de-sac where her father’s sister was living with her second husband, Gary. Aunt Edie had always been a favorite of hers, but Sabre had never cared for the first guy she’d married. As a child, Sabre remembered a mean, angry man who scared all the kids. Even his daughter, her cousin Joanne, seemed to be a little afraid of him. Sabre couldn’t imagine being afraid of your own father because hers was so loving and kind. She wished he were here now. He would know what to do.
When Sabre and her mother stopped in front of the house they saw a slightly overweight, balding man in his late 60’s picking up some debris that the wind had left behind. The man looked up, but he apparently didn’t recognize them at first. He took a few steps in their direction as Sabre exited the car.
“Well, I’ll be. What brings you to God’s oven?” he said as he hurried toward her.
Sabre gave him a big hug. “You, of course
, Uncle Gare Bear. It’s so nice to see you.”
Her mother opened the door and stepped out. They hugged. “Hello, Gary. I hope you don’t mind us dropping in on you.”
“Of course not, we’re thrilled to see you. I’ll fetch Edie.” He walked to the front door, opened it, and yelled, “Edith, come see who’s here.”
A few minutes later a red-headed spitfire of a woman who stood less than five feet tall dashed out the front door and down the walkway. She immediately hugged Sabre and then her sister-in-law. “Well, Beverly Blodgett Brown, you look fabulous.”
“I’m sure I’m a mess, but that’s very kind of you to say.”
“Did you come from San Diego this morning?” Edith asked.
Beverly looked at her daughter. Sabre interjected, “Yes, we did.”
“You must have left before daybreak,” Gary said.
“We managed a nice and early start,” Sabre replied.
“Well, we’re glad you’re here.” He walked to the back of the car. “Pop that trunk. I’ll help you with the suitcases. You do plan to stay a while, don’t you?”
“Of course they do,” Edie said before Sabre or her mother could answer. She turned to her husband. “But don’t you be lifting those suitcases. Remember your back.”
Sabre opened the trunk and pulled out her mother’s suitcase and set it on the ground, pulling the handle up as she did. “There’s not much, Uncle Gary. You can roll this one in and I’ll get mine.” She retrieved her bag from the trunk and closed it. “What happened to your back?” she asked, as they walked toward the house.
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