by Jane Elzey
When the trailer door flung open, she saw his face, and she recognized him. The man from the bar, the big one who led the pack. His bulk climbed the stairs, shirt taut against his belly, his frame filling the door.
His eyes swept the room quickly. “Oh, ho!” he said when he saw her at the table. He turned and spoke over his shoulder behind him. “The little vixen is up, boys. Whaddaya know about that?”
“What do you want with me?” she demanded, swallowing her fright, summoning as much ire as she could manage.
He chuckled. “Well, now,” he said, eyeing her lewdly. “What any good ole redneck wants.”
She wouldn’t show her fear. Her chin jerked in defiance and the pain shattered through her. “Why did you run me off the road?”
“Run you off the road?” He turned to the other men outside the trailer. She saw their faces behind him. “She wants to know why we ran her off the road, boys!”
He turned back to face her, and the mirth faded from his bristled, sunburned face. “Stupid, ungrateful bitch,” he muttered. “We saved your life.”
“What? Why?” she stammered, surprised by his words.
“Why? That remains to be seen,” he said coyly. “You got two strikes already for slipping out the door at old Garland Cooley’s Bar. Had to beat the shit out of that bartender for telling such a lie. You were driving that Hummer. Wasn’t Carlisle with you?” He wiped his huge hand against his forehead.
She shook her head weakly.
“You know where to find him, though. So here’s what we want. We want him delivered to us right here. Don’t we, boys?” He turned to look behind him and laughed. The others echoed his laughter.
She forced herself to stand and face him. “If you didn’t run me off the road, who did? How did you find me?”
“That was a stroke of luck,” he said, hitching up his jeans. He wiped at his forehead again and ran his hands over his thighs to dry them. “Lucky for you, darlin’,” he added with a suggestive smile. “Fuck it’s hot in here,” he said and started to back down the steps.
“What do we do now, Beck?”
She knew that voice! It was much different than the leader’s, much softer. It belonged to the man in the dark at the foot of the bed.
“How the hell do I know?” he shot back. “Get in there and find out where Carlisle is. He needs to show up for a showdown if he ever wants to see his woman again.”
“You can’t hold me hostage!” Amy spat, surprised by her venom. She hung on to the edge of the table to keep her balance.
He turned on the step, his red face scowling. “You’re no hostage,” he said, his lip curled into a sneer. “You’re free to go. Highway’s ten miles from here. You can make it. Might take a day or two, but you can make it.”
He laughed with contempt and then slammed the door behind him.
She shuddered in defeat. Ten miles! She swallowed against a throat already parched and raw.
The door swung open, and a man as wide as the door entered on heavy footsteps. She saw the concern on his face even before he spoke. His cheeks were ruddy, his dark blond hair curled unkempt under a ball cap with a Peterbilt logo. He walked heavily toward her, but not aggressively, and when he wedged himself across from her at the table, the chair squeaked beneath his weight.
“You gonna be okay?” he asked. His voice was a near whisper. Did he not want the others to hear?
“I guess.” She knew he saw the fear in her eyes. He would be looking for it. She wanted to keep it hidden.
He nodded at the bandage. “How’s your arm?”
“It hurts a little. It hurts a lot.”
“Need some more stuff?” Her eyes followed as he touched the fanny pack attached to his belt. The pouch had a zippered opening. “I’m diabetic. Need to carry insulin all the time. The boys poke fun at me about it, but they don’t want me going comatose on them, either. You know?”
Amy nodded. She understood. Her cousin was diabetic. It was a terrible disease if you didn’t take care. Terrible even if you did.
“I got some pain stuff from my sister,” he volunteered again, patting the pouch. “She works in the hospital over at Garland Reg. . . .” His voice trailed away.
He drew a thick hand toward the chest pocket of his charcoal gray uniform. Clay was embroidered in red cursive above the pocket. The other side said Murphy Oil. “Clayton. My name’s Clayton,” he said and smiled wide. “My friends call me Two Ton. Seeing how I’m wide like a truck.”
Amy eyed him carefully. She wasn’t sure if he was friend or foe. Could she trust him? She didn’t think she had a choice. She swept a dry tongue over her swollen lip. “Who found me? Why am I here?”
“I found you.” His face lit up with a prideful smile, pushing his cheeks under his eyes. He was cherubic in a redneck kind of way, with dark blond curls and blue eyes and chubby cheeks that went along with his stature head to toe.
“Me and Charley stopped to take a piss and get another beer right around Blind Bat Pass. Saw a deer carcass on the road and thought we’d bag it. That’s when I saw headlights down the hill. The Hummer was hung up in the trees. Your engine was still running.” He shrugged. “I guess you missed that curve. It’s a sharp one.”
“Somebody ran me off the road!”
“Nah,” he said in a consoling voice and pushed at the bill of his cap. “I saw you at the bar, drinking. You were drunk and you missed that curve. That’s how come I brung you here. It’s right near. Right down the road from the dump. We woulda all gotten popped for drunk driving if I had taken you anywhere else. We couldn’t just drop you off at the hospital curb and run like dogs, seeing who you was and all. I couldn’t leave you there in the trees, now could I? This was as good a place as I could think of. We come out here all the time. Me and Beck and the boys.”
She motioned to her right arm with the other hand. “You did this?”
He nodded. “I had first aid. Thought to be a paramedic. Didn’t work out.”
“Thank you,” she said. The words sounded lame, but she meant them. Even under these circumstances, she was better off than on the side of the road. She couldn’t have walked up the steep mountain in the dark.
Clayton smiled at her and rubbed his gut. “I bet you’re hungry. I’ll bring you a hot dog in a few minutes. You like mustard?”
“Can’t I come out there with you?” She smiled, knowing she had to look pathetic with a split bottom lip. No doubt she had bruises everywhere, too.
“Nah. Boy talk,” he said. “You don’t want none of that.”
“Could you leave the door open? It’s so hot in here.”
Clayton rose and backed down the stairs, but he left the door open as she asked. The breeze was heavenly even if it did smell like rotten eggs.
At the table, listening to the little circle not far from the door, she couldn’t imagine how they sat so casually in the stench, but then, she was starting to get used to it herself. The smell was the nearby landfill, as Clayton said, with its refuse left to rot in the sun.
Somewhere in the backwoods off Highway 7, the road she had been traveling on her way home, must be where they were. Beck had said it was ten miles to the highway. Even if she did make it that far, who would pick up someone who looked like a fugitive on the run?
She glanced down at her torn jeans, covering her bruised and scratched legs. Her favorite lavender T-shirt, which had started fresh and bejeweled when she left home, was ripped and crusted with sweat and plastered to her chest. The bruising from the seat belt had turned an angry mauve-edged blue and was still sore to the touch. Her wrist was swollen against the makeshift bandages, and when she tried to move it, the pain overwhelmed her. She needed a hospital. That was clear.
What was the real reason Clayton had brought her here? Was she brave enough to ask? He should have taken her to the hospital when he found her hanging from the tr
ees, but he hadn’t. Was it really because he thought she had drunkenly driven off the road?
Chills broke out on the back of her neck as she thought of the Stephen King novel, where the woman kept the novelist hostage until he wrote the story she wanted to read. She shuddered. The woman pulled him from a car wreck, too.
This was no book. This was real.
Still sitting at the table, she leaned her head against the wall at the window, cranked open as far as the glass would go, and listened to the conversation at the campfire. When she moved her head around the obstacles in her view, she saw which voice belonged to whom. The conversation was loud and getting louder as the beer cans popped open one after another. She heard the empty cans pinging to the ground. After a few minutes, she recognized the individual voices.
“Whatta we goin’ do, Beck?” That was Clayton.
“Don’t sweat it, bro. I got a plan.” That was Beck.
“You ain’t got shit.” His name was Charley.
“I got one biggerun yours.”
They all laughed. Amy heard five distinct laughs.
“When you gonna call that azzhole?” Charley.
“Not callin’ on my phone.” Clayton.
“Me either.” They called him Root.
“What’s going on?” Amy didn’t know his name yet. He never said much.
“You bin asleep, boy?” Charley asked.
“No.”
“Lyin’ sack a shit.” Root.
“I already called ’im. Ain’t no answer,” Beck said.
“You left a message?” Clayton.
“Of course, I left a message. I told him I want them trailers he stole from me at auction. And when I get ’em, I’m gonna build my trailer park like just like I want. That’s what I told him. Give ’em back, or else.”
“What if he don’t call back, Beck?” Clayton said.
“What if he don’t call back?” Beck mimicked in a singsong voice.
“Well, what then?”
“Then I guess we’ll keep her for ourselves!”
The others laughed.
She couldn’t help the groan that escaped her.
The posse fell silent around the fire.
“Listenin’ to ever’ word,” Beck said with venom.
“Maybe she should call him. Ain’t he more apt to do what she says?”
Amy sighed. Zack wasn’t going to answer a call from anyone.
Zack is dead!
Why couldn’t she say it? What was wrong with her? If they knew Zack was dead, wouldn’t they just let her go? Wouldn’t they take her to the nearest store, drop her off, and be done with her? Maybe they would. Or maybe they would leave her here to rot like trash.
“You know what we done is kidnapping,” Clayton said. He still sounded sober.
“You didn’ kidnap nobody, Two Ton!” Charley said. “We rescued her.”
“Yeah. But there’s a line between rescue and, whatever. We got a hostage.”
“What’s this we bidness, bro? Ain’t nobody asked you to do nothing. And she’s free to leave if she wants to walk out of here.”
Clayton and Beck fell quiet.
The chairs shuffled around the fire, and she heard grunts and groans as big men rose on heavy legs. She heard the crunch of branches and rocks underfoot.
What were they doing? Were they leaving, and leaving her behind? She needed to get out of this desperate little box. If they were leaving, she didn’t have much time to act. Rising again from the chair, her body suddenly sagged as if she were a bag of wet cement. Her strength was gone. Still gripping the edge of the table with her good arm, she hung on, looking up as Clayton appeared in the doorway, a hot dog and bun in each hand.
He watched as she devoured them both.
“Is Beck your big brother?” she asked, wiping gently at her lips with the neck of her dirty collar.
Clayton nodded.
“I don’t have any siblings. I wish I did.” If she could get him talking, maybe she could figure out what was going on. “Did I overhear him say he was going to build a trailer park?”
“Aw, Beck’s been talking about that since we was kids,” he said and chuckled. “He wants to build a rock and roll trailer park. Gonna use those FEMA trailers got used after Hurricane Katrina down in New Orleans. They’ve been coming in at auctions up here.”
“What is he going to do with them?”
“Beck thinks he’s going to make his fortune that way. I don’t know about that, but I guess it does sound like fun. He wants to circle a bunch of trailers on a spread out here so bikers and their babes can cruise in for the weekend. Thinks they’ll spend money at his outdoor rock and roll bar, and then spend the night at his ‘don’t come knocking if you see it rocking’ trailer hotel.”
His cheeks grew red as if the thought embarrassed him.
“Like I said, I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but Beck’s hellbent.”
The idea wasn’t too far-fetched, seeing how Highway 7 was a beautiful ride for motorcyclists, and there weren’t many bike-friendly stops between the interstate and Hot Springs. None, she knew of, that allowed bikers to party in a private setting surrounded by woods.
So Zack fit into this picture, not because he was stepping on drug territory toes, but because he was buying up all the trailer inventory. How many did he have? If Zack was growing in L91, maybe all the carboard tab keys fit trailers just like it.
“What does Beck want with Zack?” she asked.
Clayton eyed her carefully, his eyes darkening. “I think you better call and tell him it’s time to come fetch you.”
“Who?”
“Your old man, that’s who.”
“Wait, you said, ‘Seeing who I was,’ earlier. Who do you think I am?”
“Ah, you ain’t got no amnesia, do you? Beck ain’t gonna like that a bit.”
“Who do you think I am?”
His face hardened like a trap snapping shut. “I ain’t stupid,” he said sharply. “You’re Carlisle’s old lady. And once he shows up to give Beck what he wants, Carlisle can have what he wants. That’d be you.”
“No! I’m not Carlisle’s old lady. Or his wife. I’m not Zelda. Or . . .”
“What! You mean I dragged some stranger out here? The Hummer looked just like his. Oh sweet Jesus, save me now!” He took off his ball cap, ruffled his greasy blond curls, and settled the cap back on his head. “So what is your name anyway?”
“Amy,” she squeaked.
“Amy,” he said and chuckled. “If you ain’t Carlisle’s woman, we’re not going to get nowhere. But I can’t take you back to the Hummer. It’s not just wrecked, Beck set that bad boy on fire.”
She gasped. “What? He set it on fire?”
“Yep, Beck slit the tires. Slashed the seats. Set it on fire. It ain’t a pretty Hummer for a pretty boy playing on the wrong side of Arkansas no more.”
There was malice in his words, but he sounded like he was quoting someone else. Like a bully of a big brother.
“Why were you driving that thing?” His eyes grew wide. “Did you steal it? Are you a carjacker?”
The idea struck her funny, and she cracked a smile, which made her lips hurt, and her body ached, and there was nothing funny at all about how smelly things were. These men didn’t know Zack was dead, and if they didn’t know that, they didn’t kill him. The thought was as painful as her ribs. How was she going to find Zack’s killer sitting in an old trailer in the woods?
“That was Zack’s Hummer, but I didn’t steal it. And somebody did run me off the road. Was it your brother?”
Clayton shook his head. “That ain’t nice. I been good to you. You’d still be sitting in the weeds with that busted up wrist if I hadn’t come along.”
“Why didn’t you take me to the hospital?”
Clayton hung his head and spoke to his lap. “I told you already. We thought you’d be in trouble.”
“You thought you could help Beck, didn’t you?” She spoke softly. “You thought you could help him get what he wanted from Zack.”
Clayton lifted his eyes to hers.
She knew how that felt. She had gone out on a limb for Zelda. She was still out on that limb, and nowhere close to any truth.
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. They came before she could drown them out with bravado she didn’t feel. Her chin trembled, and she hated herself for it.
“Aww,” he said softly. “Don’t cry none.” He reached out and touched her shoulder. His hand was heavy and lighthearted. “You can trust me. You really can.”
She nodded. It was now or never.
“Zack Carlisle is dead.”
Clayton’s eyes opened so wide she wondered if he might pop.
“Dead?”
She nodded again.
He cocked his head and looked at her sideways from under his cap. “Nah, you’re pulling my leg.”
“He’s dead. He was killed in a parking garage in Hot Springs. He was run over by a car, a hit-and-run.”
“Well I’ll be,” he said quietly, whistling under his breath. “Things just keep getting wilder. Beck’s gonna want to hear about this.” He scraped back the chair and gathered himself to rise, squeezing from the table like a roll of biscuits pushed against the counter.
She raised her eyes to meet his. “Wait,” she begged. “Wait just a minute. Please.”
If Clayton told Beck that Zack was dead, that would be that. With Zack gone, what did Beck need with her? He might let her go, but he might not. She was being held hostage, even if Beck said she wasn’t. She was a witness of sorts now, too, wasn’t she? He might panic and do something far worse than leave her to walk ten miles to the road. It was a crapshoot, a roll of the dice. She had to take the chance.
“I need your help,” she said finally. “I know you don’t have any reason to help me, except I can tell you’re a good guy. A nice guy. A gentleman even.”