The First Ladies Club Box Set

by J B Hawker

  The dead man in the crypt was proof of what these drug dealers might be capable of.

  Hope knew she was jumping to conclusions, but she simply couldn’t take a chance with the safety of the children in her care.

  Her gut told her she needed to keep her group out of sight of the roads as they made their way to safety.

  “Okay, we can get down from here,” she called out.

  The sun climbed high in the sky as they made their way down the hillside. The going was rough, with brambles, rocks, dead branches, and fast-moving streams swollen from the storm blocking their way.

  The youngsters were growing increasingly irritable, but they continued to plod after Hope.

  She stationed TyVon and Colton at the back of the straggling pack to keep the boys in check and the others all moving.

  “When can we stop?” Jennifer’s high-pitched whine rang out for the umpteenth time.

  Hope held up her hand in a sign to halt and turned to the children.

  “We can stop when we are all safely back at the parking lot and in the van on our way home,” she said.

  Then, relenting, “I know you are tired, hungry, and thirsty. Maybe even a little scared. But we are going to get home. No one is going to starve in just one day. We are uncomfortable, but this will pass, remember.”

  Looking at the sullen faces, she decided something more was needed.

  “Huddle up, gang. Let’s form a prayer circle. Everyone can tell God what’s on your mind and then we’ll ask Him again to help us get home, okay?”

  The kids looked at her skeptically until Dawn pulled Ty’Nisha and Aleeshia into her arms and stood beside Hope. The others gradually followed her lead until the group stood in a circle, reminiscent of a football team’s huddle.

  “I’ll start,” Dawn said.

  Hope looked at her in surprise but nodded to go ahead.

  “God, I don’t know you very well, but Hope says you keep your promises and you promise to love and care for us. This is a stupid camping trip and I hate it. So, keep your promise and get us out of here,” she said.

  With the ice broken in such a raw fashion, the others soon joined in, each offering similar complaints and pleas to the Almighty.

  Hope closed the prayer circle with thanks and praise, and everyone shouted, “Amen!”

  There was laughter as well as a few tears as the group broke up.

  “Okay, now we’ve got that off our chests, how about we try to make this next little leg of our journey a bit more fun?” Hope asked.

  Surprised, the kids looked up, eager to find some enjoyment in their situation.

  “We aren’t too far from a road I saw earlier. There’s an old bridge over a ravine. It reminded me of all those World War II movies where the Resistance blows up the bridge to keep the enemy out. Why don’t we pretend we’re resistance fighters and see if we can creep across the bridge without being seen?”

  “I’ll be the enemy soldier!” Colton volunteered.

  “I don’t think we need actual enemies,” Hope laughed. “You are all the Good Guys in this scenario.”

  She led the little group to the overlook where they could see the road and the approach to the bridge.

  “Now, brainstorm a plan to get across secretly, okay? You all have to agree on the best approach and act as a team,” she instructed.

  The kids were soon throwing ideas back and forth, formulating a plan to save the Free World.

  Hope sat back and watched, enjoying this respite from their dangerous journey and hoping that the black van was far away by now and that this role-playing was just a game.

  …

  In Bannoch, Gideon swung by the church before heading into the mountains to join Hope and the youth group.

  On the drive from Portland, he’d convinced himself that he was over-reacting. Hope would have called if there was a problem. If her phone was dead, she would have brought the children home.

  The church was unlocked and there was a light coming from the secretary’s office as he entered the building.

  Cookie stepped out of her office and smiled a greeting.

  “It’s so good to have you back, Pastor! There’s a whole passel of phone messages for you, and the director of the homeless shelter wants to stop by this morning,” she said, walking with him into the Pastor’s Study.

  “What are you doing at work on Saturday?” he asked.

  “I forgot to run the insert for the bulletin, can you imagine? After all these years? When I remembered last night, I laughed and told Mr. Sanders I must be slipping,” she replied.

  “Well, no harm done. I want to join Hope and the kids as soon as possible. Can all this wait?” he asked, picking up the pink message notes stacked on his desk.

  “Most of it can, I suppose,” Cookie said.

  As she spoke, a white-haired woman stepped into the doorway.

  Arlene Messenger, from the homeless shelter, was in her mid-seventies, slightly overweight, with a sweet smile for everyone. That smile masked her indomitable energy and iron will when it came to helping the needy people in the community.

  “I’m so glad I caught you in, Reverend,” she said, walking past Cookie and settling into the visitor’s chair. “Your secretary wasn’t sure you’d be able to see me today, but I thought I’d just take the chance and come ahead.”

  With a suppressed sigh, Gideon sat down at his desk and smiled at his visitor.

  “That’s all for now, Cookie,” he said, waving his secretary away.

  Cookie directed an annoyed glance at Arlene on her way out of the room. Some people!

  “It’s good to see you, Arlene. What can I do for you today?” Gideon asked.

  “It’s about the laundry rotation,” she began, pulling papers from her capacious handbag and arranging them on the desk.

  Gideon looked at his phone, wanting to try to call Hope, again. This was going to delay him even longer.

  “What seems to be the problem?” he asked when Arlene had the papers arranged to her satisfaction.

  He was resigned to the situation but wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

  …

  Feeling a little silly, Hope forged ahead with her role play, reviewing the kids’ plan of attack, making suggestions, and then sending them out in teams of four to infiltrate the territory and cross the bridge undetected.

  This was a particularly rough section of the hillside where the evergreen trees gave way to gorse and other prickly scrub plants and with a series of shallow ravines between the plateau where they set out and the gully crossed by the bridge.

  “Remember, the enemy forces are using that road down there for troop movements, so you mustn’t be seen,” she admonished the first cluster to set off.

  Colton, Ty’Nisha, Jennifer, and another middle schooler made up the first team. As they crept down the hillside, Ty’Nisha kept close to Jennifer while Colton partnered the other youngster. Hope nodded her approval of their strategy and when they were about fifty yards away, gestured for the second team to depart.

  TyVon led this group, with Dawn as his second in command. Hope had noticed a thawing in TyVon’s attitude toward Dawn over the last twenty-four hours and was gratified to see the girl making friends. The pair led their younger team members down into the undergrowth, stopping now and then to remind them of the need for quiet.

  The giggling from the younger teens reassured Hope that turning their situation into a game had been a good decision.

  Hope led the final contingent of children with Aleeshia helping to guide the younger ones.

  They crawled over the rocky terrain, keeping under cover of the bushes and boulders as they neared the bottom of the hill where the road went across the bridge.

  A high-pitched squeal from one of the teams ahead of her startled Hope and she chanced standing up to see what had happened.

  “Sorry, Hope!” Colton’s head popped up as he called to her. “Jennifer put her hand down in a pile of fresh deer poop, or some
thing. We’re okay.”

  “Hey, keep down and keep quiet, you guys!” TyVon called out. “You want the enemy to start strafing us with machine guns?”

  “Settle down, everyone. We’re getting close to the road. Now, be serious,” Hope said, ducking back down.

  Getting the kids to relax with the game might prove to be their undoing if those men were really on their trail and not merely the product of her own over-active imagination. Hope told herself the odds were good that the black van was miles away by now, but she couldn’t quite believe it.

  When the three units were clustered under the bridge, they reviewed the plan to creep across the ravine to plant their “dynamite” and get away without being seen.

  “There’s still water in the ditch here,” Jennifer complained. “How do we get across without getting wet?”

  “Those with longer legs can jump across, I think,” Hope said. “I’m not sure the Allied soldiers worried about wet feet, but I can carry you across, Jennifer. Does anyone else need help to get over?”

  One small boy raised his hand, then looked at the others and lowered it.

  “Nah, we can make it!” he declared.

  “Oh, shoot! I guess I can, too,” Jennifer said. “It’s not like I haven’t already been soaked to the skin on this trip. What a crummy campout this has been.”

  “I’m sorry about the way things have worked out, but I appreciate how brave you all are and what good sports you’ve been,” Hope said.

  “We’ll have great stories to tell when we get back, anyway,” TyVon offered.

  “Just don’t elaborate on them too much,” Colton teased. “Remember, we are all eye-witnesses. I don’t want to hear about how you saved us all from a hungry bear or a savage mountain lion.”

  The company was crossing the ravine single file beneath the overshadowing bridge when Hope heard a car approaching.

  “Hurry up! The enemy could be right behind us!” she cried. “As soon as you are across, run behind those boulders on the other side and duck down.”

  Thinking she was into the spirit of the game, the kids grinned and complied, swiftly crossing and disappearing among the rocks. Before joining them, Hope crouched by the bridge to see if she could flag down the passing motorist.

  When the vehicle came into view it was a black van.

  Although she couldn’t see them clearly, there were two men inside. She thought they might be the ones from the graveyard.

  Hope flattened herself in the dirt and waited for the vehicle to rumble across the bridge and disappear around the bend in the road.

  Dismay filled her heart as she sat up. It looked like her wild imaginings had been right on the mark.

  If those men really were looking for her and thinking she had their drugs and money, there was no way she could lead the children back along this road.

  She climbed up to the rocks where the others were waiting.

  “Did you see me jump over?” Jennifer was boasting. “It was so easy.”

  “I did it, too,” the small boy said.

  “You were all wonderful!” Hope enthused. “We avoided the enemy, blew up the bridge, and saved the world.”

  Noticing a bramble patch covered with ripe blackberries on the hillside, Hope pointed it out to the kids and suggested they pick some and have a bit of R & R after their victory.

  “Now, don’t eat too many and make yourselves sick. I’m going to scout ahead and locate the best route to take next. Wait here,” she instructed.

  Hope needed to know where that van was, so she didn’t walk the group straight into those men.

  She was sure they were up to no good.

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  Hope climbed up to an exposed outcropping to get her bearings. In the distance, through the thickening haze, she made out a cluster of buildings with a ribbon of paved road just beyond them.

  Her knees went weak with relief to see how close they were to the highway.

  Those buildings looked very much like the gas station and convenience store they’d passed on Friday. That road must lead to the campground where their misadventure began.

  Hope estimated the group would be able to walk across the meadow below their present position in an hour or two, even as tired as they all were.

  The parking area where she’d left the church van should be only a few miles to the north, as the crow flies, but the terrain was much rougher from where she stood, and she feared the youngsters might not be up to it.

  Looking out to the west, she spied a large, dark vehicle speeding along the highway.

  Startled, she ducked down, then stood up, feeling foolish. No one on the highway could have seen her standing among the rocks at this distance.

  Hope was letting the situation rattle her.

  Although those men at the graveyard were no innocent tourists and must have been in that burial vault looking for the drugs and money, Hope had no evidence that they were hunting for her.

  When she’d seen them with Jennifer’s tee-shirt, the same bright orange the whole group wore, and then pointing up at her location, Hope had jumped to conclusions. Rather than a leap of faith, hers had been a leap of the imagination, leading to this fantasy of being pursued through the wilderness.

  That man could have been pointing at anything.

  Black vans weren’t rare, after all, and she hadn’t gotten a very good look at those men, either. Yet, here she was inventing danger from every dark-colored vehicle she saw.

  Had she prolonged their ordeal by not flagging down the first van she’d seen?

  She wasn’t in a foreign battle zone, for goodness sake! She was a pastor’s wife, now, not a soldier, and this was merely a weekend campout gone horribly wrong.

  Hope was ashamed she’d pushed the children so hard all day.

  She needed to collect the church van and get these kids home, but she couldn’t ask them to make the rough hike to the car park, not as tired as they already were.

  Walking back to where she’d left them picking berries, she saw the kids sprawled exhausted on the ground, their mouths and hands stained purple. They were quiet for a change; too tired even to tease or complain.

  TyVon sat up when he saw Hope approaching.

  “What did you see? Are we ever going to get home?” he asked.

  “Good news,” she said, sitting on a boulder. “I could see the highway from up there. Our camping trip from he… um, heck is almost over.”

  “Really?” Jennifer jumped up, as though preparing to run all the way home.

  “Yes. But take it easy. There’s still quite a walk before we climb into our bus.”

  “Which way?” Aleeshia asked, standing up and looking around.

  “That little store we passed on the way in on Friday, remember?” Hope asked and the children nodded.

  “You wouldn’t let us stop to fill up on snacks,” Colton said.

  “That’s right. Anyway, it’s just over this next rise,” she said.

  The kids all got to their feet, craning their necks to see, and a few began walking toward the hill.

  “Wait a minute,” Hope said. “You’ve got that rise to climb, then a rocky slope to descend, but after that, there is a meadow all the way to the highway. You’ll be able to see the way from the top of the rise. The meadow’s probably boggy, so watch your step. You should be able to reach the store in only a couple of hours.”

  “What do you mean? Aren’t you coming, too?” Ty’Nisha asked.

  “No. If I take the direct route, I can get to the bus in half the time and drive it around to meet you guys at the store. If I make good time, I should meet you at the store by the time you get there, or shortly after.”

  “Why don’t we all go get the bus, then?” TyVon asked.

  “It’s a rugged hike and I don’t think the younger ones are up to it. You’re all worn out, tired, and hungry. Does anyone have any cash?” she asked.

  Colton pulled out his wallet.

  “I’ve got a twenty in he
re,” he said.

  “Then you can let everyone buy a treat at the store. I’ll pay you back when we get to town. How does that sound?”

  “Sure,” Colton shrugged. “I could go for a Coke and a bag of chips, for sure.”

  “Even one of those month-old rotisserie hot dogs,” TyVon agreed.

  “All right. So, is everyone ready? I hate to leave you on your own, but you’ve already shown me you can be responsible. If you listen to TyVon and Colton and stay together, you should be fine. You will be in sight of the highway once you get down the hill. Be sure to keep up a steady pace. You want to get to the store before dark,” Hope admonished.

  “Let’s huddle!” she said, calling the group around her where she prayed for their safety on this last leg of their journey back home.

  Hope gave each one a quick hug, then watched them start off.

  She gazed after them, returning their waves before they disappeared over the rise.

  Saying another quick prayer for her own trek, she began to climb over the rocks toward the campground.

  Although it slowed her progress somewhat, she tried to keep the highway in sight, so as not to get off course as she climbed.

  When she spied the turn-off from the highway to the campground in the distance, she was overjoyed to know she was still on the right track. She had her bearings now and strode forward with renewed energy.

  Before heading inland to the trailhead, she glimpsed a dark vehicle take the turning and gasped, “That black van!”

  Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply and reminded herself not to let her imagination run amok. A dark van turning onto the road to the park didn’t mean anything.

  Her pounding heart gradually returned to its normal rhythm.

  Straightening her shoulders and tossing her head, Hope strode out, confident of reaching the trail above the car park soon.

  As she walked, she rehearsed her future conversation with Gideon detailing all their misadventures. He’d be upset, of course. He might even remind her of how he’d told her she shouldn’t make this trip on her own.