by Cole Savage
“Where are we, Coop?”
“Cabin’s right there, boys. Right through that grove of birch. If you look real close you can see smoke rising from the black snout of a chimney above the trees.”
“Is this mom's house, Coop,” asked Tyler.
“I’ll let your mom answer that, Tyler,” Cooper said pulling around an S turn that opened into a small clearing, where a tiny mud-chinked log cabin rested next to a pole shed stacked with cordwood, and an outhouse. Tyler saw the cabin with the stone chimney, a wood porch stacked with logs covered the width of the flimsy deck. The formerly wooded lot had been scraped to create a fire-break in the single acre. Pine trees and firs stood together, surrounding the house, keeping the sunlight out, hiding the profound brightness behind the trees. The air was crisp and had a distinct smell— a mixture of dried leaves and smoke from the chimney. An old blue and white Ford pickup pick-up, and a horse trailer sat next to a rutted, packed dirt drive, and above the house, fifty-feet back, rested a rusted cistern that served as a container for potable water. The Ford truck had dented West Virginia plates attached to the bumper with bailing wire, and mud covered the bumper and wheel wells.
“Whose truck is that, Coop? Where’s grandma’s car?”
“Tyler, don’t be askin’ so many questions. I’m just the messenger. You boys hop out I gotta get home before Betty rakes my ass with a switch.”
“Coop, whose truck is that? Where’s mom? Who are you leaving us with? I don’t see grandma’s car,” Cole said leaning against the window, looking at the front of the cabin where a giant man was walking out a screen door.
“Coop, who is that?” asked Cole, shifting his gaze to the stranger.
“I’m sorry, boys. I just do as I’m told. I’m real sorry,” Cooper said with his hands on the steering wheel.
“You got to get out of the truck, boys,” Cole’s face turned to dread.
“Coop, what are you doing. You don’t really know my mom, do you?” Tyler squealed in a half cry as Cooper opened the door and stepped out.
“Hey, T.D,” said Cooper.
“Hey, Coop,” said T.D; the boys listened, trying to understand what was happening. Their gaze followed Cooper as he walked to a mountain of a man, head like a block of Granite, a five-day beard and a flat-top, walking away from Cooper’s truck, gesturing for Cooper to follow. They talked for a few minutes and Tyler watched as Cooper shook the stranger's hand. Cooper walked back to the truck with the stranger by his side, he opened the door and asked the boys to come out. Instinctively, the boys slid to the passenger side screaming, crying a death song as Coop waved them over. T.D stepped up, shrugged Cooper to the side, leaned into the truck with both hands on the roof and said, “I’m gonna ask you boys one time to step out of the truck and if you don’t, and I gotta come get you, the two of you won’t be able to walk to that front door with your broken legs”.
“What do you want, mister. We just want to see our mom. Are you going to hurt us?” Tyler said in a fearful whimper, holding Cole’s hand, who was howling.
“Coop, are you gonna help us? Please, Coop, don't leave us with him.” Cooper turned around and said something quietly to the stranger.
“Mind your Business, Coop,” T.D said, his voice stirred to hardness. T.D was the sort of man that could get you to do something and make you feel like he was doing you a favor.
Cooper helped the boys out of the truck and grabbed their backpacks. He threw the backpacks in the dirt next to T.D and stepped inside his truck. Cooper backed out of the dirt road, obviously upset, watching Tyler and Cole in the mirror, standing next to each other, holding hands and shaking. T.D was five feet away from the boys, chewing Skoal. He waved to Cooper, and holding an axe in his hand he looked back to the boys. T.D spit Skoal on the dirt, the head of the ax sitting on the hardpan, looking at the boys with the intensity of flame—the boys grief-stricken.
“Stop you’re bellyaching. You got yourselves into this pickle.”
“We didn’t do nothin’, mister,” said Tyler, “Are you gonna kill us?”
“I reckon that depends on you.” Cole took a hold of Tyler from behind, crying so hard he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Mister, we just want to go home. We haven’t done anything to you,” said Tyler, trying to be strong for Cole who was crying uncontrollably.
“Mom— I—I—I, want my mom,” said Cole whimpering.
“Shit, boy, should’ve thought about that before you ran away.”
“What are you going to do to us, mister?” said Tyler in a blubbery display.
T.D. pulled the ax back behind his head and threw it with his right hand, in the direction of the woodshed. The ax left his hand hurling in circles, and the boys dropped to the hardpan quickly, and laid their head in the dirt. Tyler on top of Cole, both crying hysterically as the ax whooped past their ears and hit the woodshed with a loud thud. T.D went over, picked their backpacks up and sat ten feet away, on a felled tree with a live edge and no branches.
“Let’s see what we have here?” T.D said picking up Tyler’s backpack. T.D was in miner’s boots, denim, a plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and a baseball cap displaying the Dixie flag. He unzipped Tyler’s backpack, tossed out garments, dried food items, an empty water bottle, turned the pack upside down and shook it. The food wrappers hit the dirt, he ran his hands around the pockets of the pack and felt something solid. He slid the interior zipper open, reached in and pulled out a compass.
“A compass? What you need this for?”, he said holding it up. “Both of you’s, get off the dirt.” Tyler and Cole stood instantly.
“You boys wouldn’t know how to use one of these if it came with instructions.” He threw it on the ground, reached back in and pulled out Tyler’s hunting knife, sheathed in leather.
“Boy, that’s a mighty fine knife. What you plan on killing with this?” he said standing up. He walked ten feet to the boys, who were rigid, hands together, their frail frames undulating. He pulled the knife out of the sheath, the boys dropped their heads, crying harder now and T.D approached and grabbed Tyler by the hair. T.D pulled Tyler’s head back and his cries became agonizing screams. Cole dropped to his knees and released a gale force scream that scared the birds out of the trees.
T.D put the serrated edge of the knife to Tyler’s throat, and Tyler stopped crying instantly, afraid his sobs were going to push his throat into the edge of the blade. Tyler tried to dry- swallow, but the pressure of the knife on his throat wouldn’t allow it. T.D. came in close, a hot breath away, sniffed their fear, looked at Tyler and said, “Look at me, boy.” Sniveling, Tyler turned his watery eyes towards T.D.
“The way I see it you got two choices. You can choose to become men from this moment on, or you can choose not to. If you decide not to, I’ll bury the two of you’s next to those boys who chose not to, and I’ll lay both of you’s next to those rotting, decaying, corpses, buried over there.” The boys looked in the direction T.D was pointing, and saw some rough grave sites.
T.D dropped the knife, pulled the boys by the shoulder, dragged them twenty feet and turned their heads in the direction of a grove of trees, where dirt was mounded on six individual graves, in what looked like a makeshift graveyard with no markers or evidence of the carrion that lay beneath. He forced them to their knees, pushed their heads down, sheathed the knife, stood up, and walked back to the cabin; the boys still on the ground whimpering.
“Both of you, up. Get off the dirt and stand at attention.” They stood immediately, stirring and twitching, looking at T.D who had his hands in a fist.
“Strip down to your long johns and give me your garments.” Cole cried while Tyler took off his trousers and shirt. Cole was frozen with fear, so Tyler disrobed and helped Cole, while T.D watched them disrobe.
“Take off your sneakers and socks and hand them to me.” The boys fell in a heap in the dirt and took their shoes and socks off.
“You boys ain't gotta worry, I’m not a child molester.”
/> Wearing only underwear, the boys stood and covered their manhood, still shaking, staring at T.D with unexplainable fear in their eyes. Tyler tried to shut out the sounds that came from T. D’s mouth by going somewhere else in his mind.
“You’ll speak when I speak to you. There ain't nothin’ you gotta ask, cause I ain't got nothin’ to share. You do as I say, and you do it when I tell you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” they said in tandem.
“Is that clear?” he said an octave higher. The boys looked at him. “Yes, sir.”
“If you boys try to run out of here before I tell you, you’re gonna learn more about your feminine side than you’ll want to know, cause, boys, Raven’s Peak is a cold, hard, Bitch. It’ll take your breath away, and your life. These mountains are a vicious place when one is unprepared, and lookin’ at the two of you’s, you boys couldn’t find your way out of here if a Mountain Lion led you on a leash.” T.D picked up their garments.
“I’m taking your garments, that way if you boys get an itchin’ to run you can do it in your tighty whites and its bone chillin’ out here at night. The nearest house is a forty-five-minute drive by car, so you’re more’n welcome to leave, but if you do, the only thing that’s gonna find you out there are the wolves.” T.D pointed to the forest. “If you get lucky, a Brown bear, and that’s if you aren’t already froze. So you decide, cause if I gotta come lookin’ for you, it’ll be with an ax and a shovel. Any questions?”
“No, sir.” Tyler said trembling, “What are you gonna do with us, mister?”
“I reckon I’ll decide when I see what you boys are made of. If it turns out you become useful creatures around this stead, I’ll keep you around to help with the chores. If you decide to be lazy, cantankerous and yellow. Well, I reckon I’ll add the two of you to my collection of slothful, quarrelsome youths buried over there. Don’t need no one who can’t carry his own weight.”
T.D walked them back fifty feet, where the six graves were noticeable by the rise in the dirt, and two of them seemed to have fresh dirt on top, giving off the stench of disinterred bodies— an odor that only a grave can produce.
“Now, you,” T.D said pointing at Cole. “Get firewood and toss it in the fire.
“You, Tyler. Is that your name?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know how to clean a rabbit.”
“No, sir.”
“Didn’t your daddy teach you how to clean game?”
“No, sir. We don’t have a dad.”
“Do you boys know how to do anythin’ but play video games?”
“Yes, sir. Me and Cole know how to whittle, and my grandpa showed me how to start a fire with a bow-drill, and how to fire a scatter gun— Cole is real good at climbing trees.”
“Fair enough. But you boys are bout to learn a whole lot more. Tyler, on the other side of the woodshed there’s two rabbits hangin’. Grab 'em and run em’ back here.” T.D threw the sheathed knife at Tyler. “Here’s your knife, see if we can put it to good use. Bring the hare’s over to that stump; I’ll show you how to clean rabbit.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s your sibling’s name, again?”
“His name is Cole, sir.”
“Cole, take that five gallon can, run up to the cistern and fill it with water.
“Sir, I don’t know what a cissssturn is.”
“T.D pointed uphill, behind his cabin and said, “See that rusty tank up there, the size of my grandma.”
“That tank, sir?” Cole said pointing at the cistern.
“That’d be the one.”
With Tyler’s knife, T.D showed them how to clean the rabbit, and T.D helped Cole place the meat on skewers. They cooked the skewers over the open fireplace, after sprinkling spices that T.D had stored in the cupboards. The boys sat on the stone hearth, on opposite ends, and ate the meat right off the skewers. It had been a while since they had anything to eat so their appetite was ravenous. Chewing the chunks of meat off the skewer, Tyler looked around the small cabin— an open room with a wood ladder going up to a loft. By the fireplace an Indian patterned sofa partially covered a bear rug. T.D built the cupboards and countertop out of unfinished plywood, and the only windows in the cabin were bookended on the front of the cabin— plaid curtains on both to keep the darkness at bay. No plumbing to speak off. Water was pumped from a well outside, next to the outhouse, and potable water had to be brought in from the closest town, which was Seneca Rocks. Deer heads and an animal that looked like a pig was mounted on the wall next to the fireplace, the rest of the walls were bare. Tyler didn’t see any beds— he assumed they were up in the loft. The floor was made of pine slats, with significant gaps, and they sang and squeaked with the weight of foot traffic.
Tyler looked at T.D. He was finding out that T.D was a blunt instrument— simple, hard, without remorse, who had a coiled menace about him. T.D was intelligent enough to understand that most men who were attracted to children did it because they sought and craved the innocence in their lives. T.D was not attracted to children, he just wanted these two so that he could be with them while they bloomed into men, and to raise kids that he never had the chance to. What finer creation, he thought, was there, than youths whose mind had yet to be poisoned by a world bent on destroying the innocence of developing minds. What greater tragedy was there than seeing them left to the mercies of America’s streets, or culture. T. D’s ethos. T.D failed to see that taking these kids against their will, and their mom’s will, might be considered, from a law enforcement point of view, a felony of the worst kind.
T.D shared snacks with the boys that Cooper had picked up earlier at the Conoco. When Cole finished the rabbit, he tore into a bag of chips, looking at T.D who was sitting on the floor next to the front door— the man who had taken them from their mother. T.D was chomping on the rabbit like he hadn’t eaten in a while, wiping his mouth occasionally with his forearm, swigging water down at intervals, and though the cabin had no heat, the fireplace kept it cozy.
“Tyler, when you’re done with supper put some wood in the fire for the night. Cole, in the back seat of my truck there’s sheets and blankets. Fetch them and run’em up the ladder. I’m gonna show you boys how to make a bed with good ole fashion hospital corners. You boys will sleep up there; I ’ll sleep on the couch… I ain't babysittin’, so anytime you get the hankerin’ you can walk right out that door. But from what I’ve seen, you boys won’t make it three hours out there without mommy to hold your hand.”
T.D picked up the clothes they’d been wearing. “I’ll keep your britches locked in my truck in case you boys decide you want to leave.”
Tyler and Cole, still in their bloomers, ran out of the cabin for firewood, sheets, and blankets from T. D’s truck. Outside, the darkness was absolute. It seemed to flow like liquid through Tyler’s eyes, right into his skull as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Tyler retrieved the blankets and T.D was waiting by the ladder. T.D climbed the ladder, the boys followed, and T.D showed them how to make perfect hospital corners on a mattress that was laying on the floor.
“When you get up at the crack of dawn the first thing you’re gonna do is make your bed. You don’t pass gas until those beds look like this, so practice makin' em now. There’s a toothbrush for each of you in the cupboard, before you even think of puttin’ your butt-cheeks on this mattress, brush your teeth and again after mornin’ constitutional. There’s no power so all the lights come from these kerosene lanterns. You got this one up here, and you don’t close your eyes till this light is off—is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” said Tyler.
“Is that clear, Cole?”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER 22
Nicki and Karen saw the farmhouse off the road, next to a stand of poplars about a quarter mile ahead on the left, so she slowed the car and turned off highway 220, near the township of Rudder, and pulled into a long winding dirt drive, at least a quarter mile from a dilapidated Victorian sitting next
to an enormous red barn. The farmhouse was a large, old, two-story, with a ribbon of mullioned windows running along the sides and front.
Driving slowly in Karen’s van, they made their way up the slight incline and parked next to an old yellow Chevy pickup up on cinder blocks— the wheels missing, in front of a barn where the double doors were open and slightly off kilter. Inside the barn Nicki could see a tire swing lashed to the highest rafter, and the Steadman’s had set up a row of empty cans along a fence that was attached to the barn. Nicki, wearing tight jeans, a blue and white plaid shirt tucked in, cowboy boots and a huge silver belt buckle, helped Karen out of the car, and they made their way through a weeded, unmaintained lawn, to the wrap around porch of the old Victorian, when they heard, “Nicki, Karen, over here.”
They turned to the aging voice, a feather of blue brushing the bottom of the sky like a breath on a mirror—darkness nigh at hand, and Nicki led Karen to the side of the barn where a man dressed in duck coveralls was busy delivering a pair of calves. The overalls fit and so did the face— lean and raw-boned with patient brown eyes. Homer Steadman’s face wore an expression of blissful absorption in the birthing procedure.
“Hey, Mr. Steadman. I see age hasn’t hastened your retirement?”
“Nicki— howdy… You’re looking better than I recall…Karen, you still look like Hell’s Bells. It’s good to know that ‘shit happens’ isn’t just a metaphor,” he said, removing a faded blue baseball cap that revealed a pointy bald pate comb-over, then rubbed his head.
“Shut the hell up, you old coot. Seeing your face again reminds that I forgot to take the trash out this morning.”
“Momma stop it.” Karen stepped closer to Homer, wearing her blue dress with scalloped lace trim.
“Homer, maybe if you reach deep enough into that heifer’s ass you can find your head in there somewhere.”