“You want to tell me exactly what you are talking about?”
“The company has had problems for several years, hanging on by a thread a few times but Father always pulled it out and built it up again. Father was determined that Trey would marry Laura, combine the two powers and we’d never have trouble again, but then he eloped with you. Laura was livid but not as much as our family. That little stunt came near to costing us our way of life.”
“So the company is in distress and that’s why Trey is marrying Laura?”
“So to speak. Now here’s the problem. If he dies, our company folds, because we need her money to plow back into our resources to keep us afloat. The ransom note said they’d left him in a place where he could never be found. We’re not to contact the authorities or they’ll kill him. He was kidnapped last night and the ransom note came this morning.”
“So why are you here? We are getting a divorce. I’m not part of this whole thing anymore even though I can see now why things happened the way they did. We were on rocky ground so it was easy to divorce me and start seeing Laura again. It was either that or go to the poor house and none of you could ever stand to give up your place in high society, could you?”
“I’m not here to defend our actions. I’m here because Trey asked me to come and you are probably his only hope. We have a week to get the ransom together which we couldn’t do if we had a year, not without the money from Laura’s family and they aren’t putting a dime into the till until they have a signed and sealed marriage license on the desk.”
“What do you mean Trey asked you?” Roseanna asked.
She dug into her purse for a day runner and flipped it open. “I got a phone call right after the ransom note arrived. They’d missed his cell phone in a vest pocket but it needed recharging so he only had a few seconds before it went out. His words were … I wrote them down so I could tell you exactly. ‘Get Roseanna. Tell her Witch Mountains. Horse Thief Trail. Clean water.’ And then the reception blinked out while he was yelling something about chained to a tree or some such thing.”
“Witch mountains? Are you sure he didn’t say Witch-a-taw?”
“That’s it, that’s what he said but it didn’t make sense. Does it to you?”
“And he said clean water?”
“I got that right, I’m sure,” Greta said.
“I’m pretty sure I know the general area he’s talking about. Dad and I used to go fishing up there in the summer. It was a great place for me to learn tracking and Dad was relentless about my lessons on that. Until it gets a little warmer, no one will be hiking in that place so it would be a wonderful place to hide a person for a few days.”
“The note says they’ll give us a week to get the money. After that they kill him. Will you go get him?” Greta asked.
“Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll notify the Heavener police and they can put out an all bulletin and send up a search team. Heavener and Battiest are both on the edge of the Ouachita Mountains. The authorities should be able to find him in a couple of days,” Roseanna said.
Greta shook her head emphatically. “No! No cops. I don’t want my brother dead. I won’t do one thing to jeopardize his life. If you know where he is, draw me a map and I’ll try to get a private detective or someone to go find him.”
Roseanna sighed. She could be in Heavener by mid-afternoon and on Horse Thief Trail in minutes after that. With any luck at all she’d have him located by night and out of the woods sometime tomorrow. The visual of Trey in a tuxedo and chained to a tree next to the springs at Winding Stair Mountain and asking for her to rescue him certainly was entertaining.
Greta handed her a sheet of paper. “I guess I’d better be up front and honest. It’s a copy. You can keep it if it will help. As you can see the kidnappers say they’re watching the area and if we figure out anything and send in the troops, he’s dead. So what I’m asking you to do is dangerous.”
Roseanna read the note. It didn’t waste words and came right to the point.
How the mighty have fallen’ she thought.
Four years ago he was flying her to Galveston in the company jet for supper. Just a few months ago they were in Cancun for a week of sun and fun on the beaches. Now they didn’t even have the money to save his life without Laura. God, Roseanna hated Laura. Utterly despised her. She’d done nothing but look down her long, aristocratic nose at Rosy since the day Trey introduced her to his corporate world friends. And now, here was Greta, asking Rosy to rescue him so Laura could have him. Life was surely one big mess.
“Anything else?”
“That’s it. Can you do it?”
“Never a question of could I do it, Greta. It’s a question of will I do it,” she said.
“He’ll still marry Laura if you get him out of there. He’ll have to for the family,” Greta said.
“You are some piece of work, lady,” Roseanna snapped.
“I just want to be honest with you. You’ll be doing a job and after he’s married to Laura we’ll be glad to pay you what ever you charge. So it’s not like we’re asking for your time and services for free, but you’ll have to wait on your money.”
“I’ll get your brother, Greta. But I wouldn’t touch a penny of your tainted money, so get out of here. I’ll call you when he’s safe.”
“Thank you,” Greta said tersely as she let herself out the front door.
Trey huddled inside the one man pup tent. Seconds ticked off his watch slowly. Minutes lasted years. Hours seemed like an eternity. He’d simply gone to the men’s room during the fundraiser, leaving Laura with a group of friends. One moment he was washing his hands, the next something stung his arm. When he came to, he was handcuffed in the back of a van. The driver and a rider discussed where they were going. Ouachita Mountains. Up in the part where no vehicles other than an ATV could go. They laughed about taking their million dollar baby across the Horse Thief Trail. He pretended to be asleep but listened to every word they said. By the time they reached the small clearing where they pitched his tent, he stirred as if he were truly awakening for the first time.
The driver motioned toward a flowing stream as he unloaded a case of canned food and put it, along with a sleeping bag inside the tent. “The water in that spring is clean. You can drink it. This will last you a week if you’re careful. It’s not prime rib, but it’ll keep you alive for a week and that’s all we care about. We have already sent the ransom note to your family. If they pay, we’ll come turn you loose within six hours of the time we have the money deposited in our account. If they send police, we’ll kill you right here. If they don’t pay, you will starve. Simple as that. We figured that you have the right to know what you are up against.”
“What about wild animals or snakes?” He asked. His tongue was thick. His mouth dry.
“If you die, you die,” the second man said. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. He’s got what he needs and I’m getting hot in this face mask. Let’s go.”
They hopped up on two four wheeled vehicles and disappeared. That was twenty four hours ago. He’d survived the first day. Six more to go. By the time a week passed he’d be as ripe as socks left in a locker room for the entire summer. He prayed that Greta understood everything he’d told her before his phone died. At least there was that hope to keep him from going insane. He’d try to pick the lock on the shackle around his ankle but there wasn’t anything in his pant’s pockets except lint. He figured the only reason they hadn’t removed his cell phone was because it was inside his vest pocket and not his coat. He’d even destroyed it in hopes of finding a small wire inside to pick the lock, but it didn’t work. All he had was a handful of computerized chips and plastic.
Ten feet of chain allowed him to get away from the tent for necessary bodily functions. His thick black beard was scratchy and his hair greasy. In a week, he’d look like a homeless bum.
Big, black clouds rolled in from the southwest, threatening rain. The tent wouldn’t withstand a fierce wind. He sat outside
in the brisk evening air and wondered if she would come. As angry as she was that morning when she packed her things and left, she’d probably refuse to even let Greta inside the house. If the tables were reversed, he’d tell Greta where to go and how to get there.
He should have never married Roseanna, but dang it all, hormones, heart and those long legs of hers got the best of him. He was supposed to marry Laura. It didn’t matter that nothing about her appealed to him. It was a union of two family tycoons. Cyrus Ashblood was Vance Fields’ dearest friend and had kept Vance afloat more than once in their business careers. Fields Incorporated was in trouble again when Trey had been sent to Tulsa but he didn’t know the extent. Not until a few months ago when his father called him into the office and laid it on the line. Laura had her heart set on marrying Trey, even though he would be a divorced man. Everyone knew that his marriage to Roseanna was getting rockier by the minute.
They’d fought from the beginning when she wanted to find a job on the Tulsa police force. It took half a night to convince her she was a Fields and the women in his family did not work for the police department. Their work involved charity affairs, business dinners, and managing the house hold staff. Not a nine to five chasing down speeding vehicles or busting up drug houses.
“That was a fight to end the honeymoon,” he mumbled to a squirrel on a log not ten feet away, his tail twitching as he chattered at Trey.
“Thought I might lose the battle but in the end she agreed to be a corporate wife. Didn’t know she was volunteering at the battered women’s shelter though. She really snuck that one by me.”
He drew his eyebrows down and remembered all his friends and their impressions of Roseanna. The guys thought she was beautiful and entirely too smart. The women hated her and never gave her a chance. After four years, she was miserable. She wanted a place with a yard instead of a pent house apartment. She wanted a baby. She wanted to cook supper instead of going out with friends. She wanted to stay in and watch sappy old movies. He hated all of it so they argued. He figured she’d be happy the day he walked in and told her he wanted a divorce so he could marry Laura.
She wasn’t. She threw things. She actually slapped him across the face. She packed her bags, called her sister whom he really, really hated, and left. When he sent Sam with the divorce papers a week later and a six digit settlement check from his personal savings account, she signed the papers in red ink and sent a message with Sam that he could use the check for toilet paper because she didn’t want a blessed thing he had.
Now he was sitting in a damp, dreary forest, chained to a tree, eating cold pork and beans from a can and hoping that she had at least an ounce of compassion left in her heart for him. Dusk fell, then it was full dark. Lightning flashed through the naked tree limbs. Thunder cracked so close to the tent he jumped. The first drops of rain sent him scampering back inside. He pulled the flap down, pushed dirt up against the edges of the walls and hoped it didn’t flood inside. The sleeping bag was cheap and didn’t keep him very warm as it was. Wet, it would be worthless.
Fear gripped him as the what-ifs attacked his mind. What if those two kidnappers had known he was awake and just said those things to throw him off track? To make him think they were taking him to the Ouachita Mountains in Eastern Oklahoma. What if they had really flown him to South America and he had been asleep for two or three days? What if his phone wouldn’t work when he called Greta because of distance instead of a low battery? What if he’d tried calling Roseanna himself before he banged the phone on a rock to use parts to pick a lock? What if his family couldn’t raise a million dollars cash in ransom money?
The answer was simple. He would be dead. There was no way his family could come up with that kind of money right now. They were so far on the edge that one baby step out into the abyss would send them into immediate bankruptcy court. Cyrus had said the only way he would bail them out was a merger and that would happen after the marriage. His exact words were that his baby girl had set her heart on Trey years ago, and she would have him within the six months it took to finalize a divorce or Cyrus buy what was left of the company and Trey could buy a shovel and start to work for the county.
March wind brings April showers which bring May flowers.
He remembered the elementary school poem. His watch said it was April first so the showers were in season. April Fool’s Day. This could be an elaborate April Fool’s joke … but no, it was real. Those men were paid crooks, not silly pranksters. And Trey was the fool for hoping Roseanna would come rescue him. He’d tossed her aside like a pair of worn out shoes so why should she give a damn what happened to him?
He hooked his forefinger through the ring on the top of a Vienna sausage can and pulled it off. He despised the taste but he was hungry and it was either that or another can of pork and beans. One box of food consisting of pork and beans and Vienna sausage, a pink plastic spoon and a plastic cup from McDonalds for water was all they’d left him. Beans or beef byproducts? After only one day he gagged at the smell of either.
A revelation came to him when he looked at his watch. “We were at a benefit on the last day of March. That means they nabbed me in the bathroom last night. There might be hope after all. I am probably still in Oklahoma.” He dug out another sausage and popped it into his mouth. He made himself chew it slowly even though he hated the flavor. It was food and if she did come he’d have to be fit to walk out of the mountains.
After he had eaten and drank the water left in the cup from his noon meal, he unzipped the sleeping bag and crawled inside, shoes and all. What he would give for a shower and a pair of silk pajamas couldn’t be measured in dollars. He’d elope tomorrow with Laura for a bar of soap.
He shut his eyes but sleep wouldn’t come. Finally the thunder and lightning stopped but the rain kept falling, now in a steady drizzle. At least he was dry and it didn’t look like his nest was going to flood. Tomorrow was day two. That left five more. Would Cyrus cave in if Laura cried and wanted him saved? Would Greta swallow her pride and go to Roseanna for help? Would he be dead in a week?
Roseanna parked her truck, struggled with her back pack, deliberately left the truck unlocked and set off at a slow pace into the woods, stumbling along like a novice. She hadn’t gone twenty yards on the trail when she looked up and right in front of her stood a man in a uniform.
“May I help you?” He asked.
“I don’t think so. I’m taking up hiking and this is my first time on the trail so I think I brought everything. You a park ranger?”
He nodded.
She doubted but kept talking. “I’ll sure sleep better tonight knowing you are here. Is it a long way up to a place called … let me see, what did that map call it? I got a map in my back pack and it’ll tell me where everything is. If I just follow this trail right here then I’ll end up at this place. Got to go up a cattle rustler’s trail or was it a horse stealer’s trail? Oh, well, when I stop for my granola bar I’ll look it up then. I just know I’m supposed to go up this path for a few miles. I don’t expect to get there tonight. I’ve got a sleeping bag that’s got some of that stuff in it that’s supposed to keep me dry. I will miss my feather pillow but this is a hike not a Hilton Hotel. Is there many other people up here this time of year?”
“No, I haven’t seen anyone in days. It’s too early for the hikers. It’s not warm enough just yet. Are you aware a storm is brewing? You really should go on back to one of the nearby towns and find a motel until tomorrow,” he advised.
He’s not from around here. Most likely not even a ranger. He would have said there was fixing to be a storm and if he was a real park ranger he would say Heavener or Poteau, not a small town. He’d even know what motel to recommend. So the place is being watched.
She smiled brightly and hopefully stupidly. “Oh, no. I’ve only got three days off my job at the café where I waitress. I heard a fellow talking last summer about hiking up here and I’ve had my mind set on it for a long time. No sir, I’m going hiking.
All by myself. I might not make it all the way up to that curving steps place where the CCC camp used to be but I’m going to try. Please tell me there ain’t no snakes in that place.”
“Yes, snakes are emerging from their winter dens. Did you bring a gun?”
“Gun? Good lord no. What would I need a gun for anyway? My granny never used a gun to kill snakes. She used a hoe to chop their heads off when we lived on the farm. I hate snakes. They scare the bejesus right out of me. You afraid of snakes?”
He tried to cover the shudder but she saw it.
He pulled back his jacket to show her a shoulder holster. “No, I carry a weapon with me all the time.”
Glock. I was right. I’m more park ranger than you are, mister. Wonder if you got that uniform from an army surplus store?
“Well, I sure enough will sleep better tonight now. If I see a snake I’ll scream and scream and you can bring that big old gun and kill it for me. Does it have real bullets or do you keep those dart guns just to stun the snakes? Man, I hope it’s got bullets and you kill all snakes dead. Did you know that there’s this group called … oh, I can’t remember the name … but anyway they’re all up in arms about killing snakes the right way. Man, I didn’t know there was a wrong way to kill a snake.”
His cell phone rang before he could answer so she waved and kept walking slowly, straining her ears to hear what he said.
“It’s a waitress on her first hiking trip. She might make it a mile up the road. Not a lot to worry about but send in …”
He turned his back and she only heard mumbling so she stopped and retied her shoe laces, adjusted her back pack and walked back to where he stood.
“… hot pink. Stand out like a neon sign.”
“Were you talking about me?” She asked.
He jumped and slapped the flip phone shut.
To Believe Page 5