by David Stout
He walked again, down a hill through thicker woods. There was a small stream at the bottom, and he would have to find a narrow place to cross before starting up the last rise, to the top of the ridge. From there, he would be able to see the cabin.
It was darker next to the stream, and colder. He held his breath for a moment, listening to the low gurgle of the water over stones beneath the snow and ice. He breathed again, deeply and slowly.
Time to start up the rise. He had promised Jo he would be back while there was still daylight. He looked toward the top of the rise, squinting through the trees.
Flashes of orange along the top of the rise. The orange shimmered and danced. Not the sunset, not the sunset.
Terror filled his heart. He splashed through the stream, one snowshoe breaking through the crust, knife-cold water at his ankle. He scrambled up the rise as fast as he could. The footing was worse in the cold dark of the trees, the snow brittle, cracking under him. He looked toward the top; the orange still flashed. He had to get to where he could see.
A snowshoe caught on a buried branch, and he pitched forward into the snow. He let go of the sled with the Christmas tree, and it slid back down the hill. He got up, stumbled again, and scrambled through the trees. Up, up toward the top of the rise, praying that he wouldn’t fall. Got to get to the top, to see, to see.
And then he was standing on the top of the rise, looking across the gently sloping meadow, his eyes telling him what he had known. The orange was from the cabin burning. The color glistened on the snow, brighter now than the dying sun.
Where was Jo? Where was their dog? Through tears, he stared at the flames and smoke. Smoke, there was so much smoke. She must be safe where he couldn’t see, behind the smoke. He screamed as loudly as he could, tried to make a sound like Jo’s name, but all that came out of his throat was a scream. But she must be able to hear him, must know he was watching. Where was she?
God, don’t let this be. Could he still bargain with God? Please, don’t take Jo and the dog both. Please.
He ran again, his snowshoes bursting through the crust as he went down the slope toward the flames. He screamed as he tripped and fell. He had to get up, had to get up so he could see. If he kept watching, Jo would appear, waving to him. The dog would be with her. She and the dog could not be in the flames, could not be.
He screamed as loudly as he could, trying to say Jo’s name.
In the dark, the big dog snarled, barked, then growled in bewilderment. The hermit sat up in bed, eyes wide, until he could make out the blue-black rectangle of the window against the darkness. The dog snorted, perhaps annoyed with him for disturbing its sleep again.
“Wolf,” he whispered.
The dog bounded up on the bed, stretched his body—a hundred-plus pounds of sinew, bone, and muscle—alongside the man’s.
“Good Wolf. Good Wolf. Go to sleep.”
He felt safe now, with the dog breathing next to him, safe enough to try to sleep again. He closed his eyes. Then he rubbed the sweat from his forehead and cheeks with the back of his hand, feeling the burn scars on his face.
Six
Will hated hospitals, and this day he would rather have been almost anywhere. He’d had a fitful sleep at the Long Creek Inn, at the edge of town. Now he dearly wanted to be home.
Like so much else about Long Creek, the hospital was depressing and dark. The hospital smell, a mixture of floor wax, alcohol, and vomit, made his breakfast sit uneasily in his nervous stomach.
“You’ll have to put on a gown,” the nurse said. “And your visit will be limited to fifteen minutes.”
“Fine,” Will said. “Can he, uh…?”
“He drifts in and out, if that’s what you mean. The crash trauma itself was bad enough, especially the rib piercing the lung. He had a lot of bleeding, some of it internal.”
They were outside the intensive-care unit now. The nurse (about Will’s age, handsome, businesslike but not unfriendly) handed him a pale orange gown.
“Hold out your arms,” the nurse said. “There. It goes on backward, just like a lobster bib. Fifteen minutes.”
Fran Spicer’s head was propped on pillows and swathed in clean white bandages. A clear plastic tube ran into his nose, another into one arm. The exposed part of his face was yellow-purple with bruises.
Will sat in a stiff metal chair at the foot of the bed. He glanced at the beds on either side (a man lay in one, a woman in the other, both very old and thin), then looked again at Fran. The eyes were closed, the lids puffed and purplish.
“Ah, Frannie,” Will whispered. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It was our fault, Frannie. Ours.”
When Will had started as a reporter at the Gazette, back around the time some of his young staff members were in diapers, Fran Spicer was covering Bessemer city hall. Covering it well, too, or at least as well as the publisher would let him. Fran Spicer had shown Will the ropes, had taught him a great deal about city government and the ethnic crazy quilt that defined city politics.
Fran had spent way too much time at a tavern owned by a city councilman, drinking far into the night, long after he had picked up the latest political gossip. Throw in some marriage problems, some unpaid bills, add some more drinking…
“Ah, Fran. I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t have sent you, old friend. It’s not your fault.”
The eyes opened slightly, focused on Will, glistened in recognition.
“Hi, Fran. Rest easy, old friend.”
The eyes opened wider despite the puffiness. The lips moved.
“It’s okay, Fran. Don’t try to talk. Just rest.”
But the eyes shone brighter through the slits in the puffiness, and the lips moved again.
Will leaned forward, held his breath to hear.
“The story of my life,” Fran said softly. “The story of my life.” The eyes rolled from one side to the other, then closed.
Will stood up. No point in staying. Fran was out of it. Worse, he sounded like he was giving up.
“Thank you,” Will said, shucking the gown and tossing it into the small canvas bin for dirty laundry.
“We’ve not been able to contact any relatives,” the nurse said. “Can you help?”
“Oh boy. Fran, Mr. Spicer, is single. Divorced for several years now. He does have a young son, but he’s not old enough to take charge. Say, what are we talking about here?”
“I can’t tell you for sure. Is there anyone who can make some decisions, if they become necessary? And before that, there’s the paperwork on insurance and all. If he has any.”
“He does.” Will explained who he was. He said the Gazette’s personnel office would be in touch on the insurance information, and that the hospital should call him personally if there were any problems.
Will turned to go, then thought of one more thing. “When he needs clean clothes to go home in, you can let me know. Okay? I imagine the clothes he was wearing when he was brought in…”
“Yes, they’re a bit soiled.” The nurse went into a little room behind the counter, emerged a moment later with a cardboard box. Will opened the top flaps, felt sad all over again at the sight of Fran’s threadbare suit lying wadded and dirty.
“This is blood, I guess. These marks.”
“Yes. There was a fair amount. He might have come through it better if he’d used his seat belt. He wasn’t thrown from the car, but he might have been banged around less if he’d been buckled in.”
Will was surprised; he remembered riding with Fran a few times over the years, and he would have sworn that Fran was in the habit of using the seat belt.
Will folded the box flaps down again, but not before the smell of spilled beer hit his face.
“The smell was pretty strong when he was brought in,” the nurse said. Will saw that her name tag read H. CASEY.
“Mmmm. He was, he had a problem. No question. He did try hard. Well, thank you. I guess I’ll be going.”
“Mr. Shafer, you know your friend here is in pretty roug
h shape. His recovery is far from certain. In fact…”
“Spell it out for me.”
“A man his age in good health, it would still be tough. Your friend here, because of the years of alcohol abuse … we’re dealing with a patient who’s much older, in a sense.”
“We’re talking about death, then.”
“I’m saying it’s touch and go, Mr. Shafer. There doesn’t seem to be any next of kin to tell.”
“So I’m elected.” Another thing that goes with the territory, Will thought.
“His chest was crushed. Broken ribs, fluid in the lung. Now, that fluid is very dangerous, given the patient’s condition. And the strain on his heart is considerable.”
“He could die. I know.” Suddenly, Will was not only very sad but very tired. “As I said, the Gazette’s personnel office will be in touch. And I’ll be around for a day or two. At least.”
Seven
Jamie was in the dark, but it was not a dream, not a dream! Something was holding his arms and legs. Something. He wanted it to be the blankets and bedspread, tucked in real tight, but he knew it wasn’t.
A light! A light went on, but not a light in his room. He was not in his room. He was cold.
“Watch that thing. Hold the light down here so I can get the straps loose.…”
Jamie screamed as loudly as he could. It was hard to make loud sounds. His throat hurt from crying, and from the shouting he’d done before they made him be quiet in the long cement room. They had slapped him, hard enough to make him cry, and scared him real bad. He’d stopped hollering, but he hadn’t been able to stop crying in the long cement room.
“Shut the fuck up, kid.”
Jamie was afraid. He screamed again, praying someone would hear.
Something hit his face, harder than he had ever been hit before, even by his father when he was mad.
“Shut the fuck up, I said!”
“Jesus Christ, you trying to kill him, or what?”
“You shut the fuck up, too.”
Kill him! Trying to kill him! Now Jamie was afraid to scream, afraid he would be hit some more. His face hurt all over, his nose more than it ever had. His face had never hurt so much. He had never been so afraid. Now he wanted to go to the bathroom.
Back in the long cement room, they had made him swallow pills. They’d made him sleepy. Each time he came up out of sleep, he thought he might be in his own room again, and that he’d been dreaming about being taken away.
The tight feeling went away from his arms and legs, but now his hair was being pulled. Jamie cried and kicked, but only once, because his hair was pulled even tighter.
“Stop kicking, you little shit.”
“Easy.”
“Easy, my ass. We gotta get him in there and get the hell out of here. Down on your knees, kid.”
In the light, Jamie saw a round black hole.
“Get in, kid.”
No! He would not let them put him in there, not in that black hole! Jamie kicked as hard as he could. The hand let go of his hair, but then Jamie felt himself spinning around.
Wet. It was wet underneath him, and everything smelled like rotten leaves. There was a loud water noise. The light was jumping all around.
Jamie felt himself being lifted off the ground by his feet and under his shoulders. He had to pee, and his face still hurt.
“Get his feet in.… Just get his feet in.… There.…”
The hands let go of Jamie’s feet, and his feet dropped onto something hard.
“Okay, now shove.…”
No! Jamie screamed as loudly as he could. Please, let someone hear! Mommy!
A hand came down real hard on his face, making his nose hurt real bad again. He was afraid of nosebleeds.
“Listen,” one man said. “Stop kicking and go all the way in, and you’ll be okay. No one’s gonna hurt you. Pretend it’s a game, like we said back there. No one’s gonna hurt you. There’s a flashlight in there. And candy bars.”
Candy bars.
“Just go in, kid,” the other voice said. “Just go in. No one’s gonna hurt you.”
Jamie felt big strong hands on top of his head, pushing him. Then he was sliding, sliding into the dark. He screamed, and his voice bounced back at him, like from inside a well. Sliding, sliding into the dark, bumping into soft things that crinkled like cellophane. Candy bars.
“All right, close him in,” the meaner voice said.
“Right.”
Jamie felt something—a bag—being put into his hands. “Here, kid,” the other voice whispered. “You won’t get hungry. There’s candy bars and plenty of bread. Water, too.”
“He’ll find it, for Chrissake. He won’t starve.”
Bread and water. His mother and father had told him stories about witches and ghosts and locked-up places where they gave bad people bread and water. But there were always funny things in the stories, happy things at the end, so he wasn’t scared when he got sleepy.
He heard a noise by his head, like a garbage can lid going on, and then he was in the darkest dark he could ever remember. He heard other sounds, then the mean voices. He couldn’t tell what they were saying. He heard feet. He thought he heard the sound of water.
His nose hurt. He went in his pants. He couldn’t help it. Then he started to cry in the dark. He kept his eyes closed as hard as he could, and for a long time. All the while, he cried. If he cried too loudly, the sound banged back into his ears, and he wanted to cry even louder.
He was afraid to open his eyes, because whenever he did there was nothing but dark. There was not even a little light, not even a little. It was all black where he was.
Oh. They said there was a flashlight. He felt with both hands. Oh. He was wrapped in a blanket. No, more than one blanket. He found the flashlight between the blankets. The switch was hard to push.
There. Light. He was in a small round place with shiny metal all around him.
He started to cry again. “Mommy!”
“Take it easy, kid. We’re gonna see you’re okay. Honest. My bro—”
“Shut the fuck up, you idiot.”
“All right. All right.”
“Just dig, and we’ll get the hell out of here.”
The voices were up above. Oh. There was a round hole, just over Jamie’s stomach. Like a chimney. That’s where the voices came from.
Noises all around. Shovels and dirt. Dirt was being thrown on the metal thing he was in. A little dirt came down the chimney.
“Watch it,” said one of the men up above.
“Sorry, kid.”
He had thought the long cement room was the worst place in the world. Now he wished he was back there. It had a toilet and a sink and no windows. They had put him in there with blankets and a pillow. And a little fur toy bear. One of the men had given him the bear to play with. Jamie wished he had it now. He had left it in the long cement room.
Jamie didn’t know how long he’d been in the cement room. He couldn’t even tell night from day, and they’d given him the pills to make him sleep. After they’d given him baloney and cheese and apples.
The toilet stunk in the long cement room. But he wished he was back there, instead of in this round metal place.
“Mommy!”
Oh. The shovel and dirt sounds had stopped. He didn’t hear the men anymore. He thought he heard wind in the chimney. And the sound of water.
He lifted his head, but it hit hard on the metal and hurt. He had thought that by lifting his head he might wake up. He might find that he had been having a bad dream, that he really was in his bedroom, after all. Whenever he woke in the night in his bed, he raised his head and looked for the light under the door.
This time when he raised his head, there was only the shiny light off the metal. He knew it wasn’t a dream. His head hurt bad where he had bumped it. It felt like it was bleeding.
“Mom—MY!” he shouted as loudly as he could, so loudly it made his throat more sore. The sound banged back into his ears.
Jamie did something he hadn’t done since he was real little: He kicked as hard as he could, up and down. Both big toes and both heels hit real hard. Both his toes hurt real bad and he screamed louder than ever. The sound banged back into his ears.
His toes hurt even worse than when he stubbed them on his dresser at home. He couldn’t rub them.
“Mom—MY!”
It was a long time before his toes stopped hurting. When they did, they felt cold.
A long time later, Jamie was too tired to cry anymore. His eyes felt big and sore and his cheeks all wet and puffy. He cried harder than when he was real little and heard his mother and father fighting real bad at night. His throat was sore from crying and screaming, sore because he had to breathe through his mouth because his nose was all full up.
Jamie started to cry again but made himself stop. He made fists and banged down as hard as he could.
He felt something else. Something crinkly, like waxed paper. There was something mushy in his hand. Bread. Wet bread.
He reached down farther. Something hard and round, cold. Wet. A bottle.
Bread and water.
Eight
Will finished talking to the publisher and hung up, disgusted. He dreaded the next call he would make, but there was no putting it off.
“Good morning,” his wife said. “How’s it going? Are you coming home soon?”
“Not as soon as I’d like.” He told her what Lyle Glanford had said, and the demands he had conveyed without stating them: that it would be good for Will to stay in Long Creek to look after Fran Spicer, and that as long as he was there he should follow the kidnapping case “as the Gazette’s representative.”
“That bastard,” Karen said.
“It’s not that he’s malicious. Just thoughtless, in the most literal sense. He thinks this is the same as my going to chamber of commerce meetings or United Way luncheons. My time is his time to use.” Will paused, trying to keep his anger from poisoning the conversation. “I know plenty of editors, and they all feel sometimes like they’re being chopped into little pieces by their publishers. But Lyle may be worse than most.”