by Jane Elzey
Genna turned into the driveway and stopped the car.
Amy peered out the car window and her heart thudded. Last time she was here, she had been blasted at with a shotgun. She had fled for her life only to be forced off the high mountain road later. She had been held hostage for those silly FEMA trailers. She glanced at her cast, the surface now scribbled with messages, tic-tac-toe grids, and a sketch of Victor in a heart that Zelda had drawn with a Sharpie. The chain of events seemed like so long ago, and yet, only a few days had passed.
The home now looked as if it had been abandoned. The windows were dark, although yellowed lace curtains hung in the windows. The outside of the trailer was dirty with mold, just as she remembered it, but the weeds seemed taller now and bending softly in the wind coming across the mountaintop. She glanced at the metal carport that stood about fifty feet from the trailer. A bright green-and-yellow tractor was parked in one of the stalls, but there was no other vehicle parked beside it.
“I don’t think anyone is home,” Rian said. “Let’s get out and look around.”
“Not on your life,” Amy said. “He has a shotgun and he’s not shy about using it!” She wasn’t eager to get out of the car, nor was she willing to come face-to-face with a shotgun. She wasn’t sure, now, what had made her so certain that she would find an old pickup truck in the carport, one just like the picture in the photo from the hotel garage. Just like the pictures that ran through her mind in the dream she kept having since Ben showed her that photo from the garage. The dream seemed to loop through her head every time she fell asleep.
“He’s not going to use a gun on us,” Genna said as she opened the car door and stepped out. “We’re just a bunch of women lost on a back road. What kind of a man would shoot a carload of confused women?” She tugged the silk scarf in place around her head and then patted the wrinkles from her jumpsuit.
The others followed until they were side by side in the yard facing the front door of the trailer. Amy’s heart was racing. She grabbed Zelda’s hand.
“Eeek!” she squeaked as the front door rattled opened and the man stepped out on the stoop. The shotgun was down at his side, but his stance wasn’t friendly. Amy took a slight step behind Zelda but kept her hand clasped tight.
“What do you want?” he hollered. His voice was deep and thick.
“We’re looking for the owner of this place,” Genna hollered back.
“What fer?”
“We’re looking to buy a cell tower site.”
He took a step onto the porch.
“I might be interested,” he barked. “What do you want with a tower site?”
“You got an asking price in mind?” Genna asked. She smiled her Genna Gregory smile.
His eyes narrowed as if contemplating the question and his answer. He moved down the steps and walked toward them, the shotgun still gripped in his hand.
As he walked closer, she saw that he looked the same as she remembered him the day she rolled up in the Hummer. Except she didn’t remember him wearing a hat, but he did now. It was a John Deere cap, pulled low over his brow. His face was wrinkled with age and what she could only imagine was a hard-knock life of hard work and poverty. Maybe too much drink. Maybe too much sorrow. She noticed the white stubble of a day-old unshaven face. His eyes hid beneath the bill of the cap, but she sensed something more than anger in them.
Clad in faded denim overalls, he had the bib buckled at his chest, a checkered shirt underneath with its sleeves rolled halfway up his arms. One arm rested against his knee, the barrel touching the ground and the stock end still gripped in his gnarled fingers.
The newspaper clippings she’d read in Zack’s office came to her mind in a flash. There was a picture of him standing next to a grave marker, and she realized the picture was taken at the end of the drive, where the lonely cemetery stood with its faded plastic flowers and white wooden cross. She had almost run over it that day as she peeled from his driveway to escape his bullets. He had blamed the cell tower for his wife’s death. No wonder he had shot at the Hummer.
“Who’d you say you were?”
Genna walked forward as if to shake his hand. “Genna Gregory,” she said, her smile even brighter. “We represent Carlisle Enterprises.”
His face clouded over. His lip curled into a snarl. “Get the hell off my property,” he bellowed, stepping toward Genna aggressively. “You just get in that high-falutin’ car of yours and drive on out of here. I don’t have time for you foolish women.”
“We can pay in cash.”
His jaw tightened, and his eyes darkened beneath his brow. “I don’t want your rotten cash,” he spat between clenched teeth. “You and your kind can rot. Git!” he yelled as if he were kicking a cur dog. “Get out!”
In that instant, she knew the face. She saw the impatient scowl behind her on Highway 7 when she had pulled off to let him pass. She saw the rage on the face behind the wheel as it entered the Bennfield Hotel parking garage, mere minutes before Zack had been run down like a cur dog himself.
Her anger flared. “Where is your truck?” she yelled. “What did you do with it?”
Turning his eyes from Genna to look at her, she wondered if he recognized her at all. Had he seen behind the dark windows of the Hummer at who was driving? Did it even matter? She glanced at her bunny slippers and winced at how she would appear to any stranger, let alone someone who had mistaken her for someone else.
“What are you talking about? You crazy or something?” he said hoarsely, taking in her attire with a nod. He motioned to the carport with another nod. “I ain’t got no truck. You see a truck?”
“You ran me off the road at Blind Bat Pass!” The words were out of her mouth before she knew it. “You almost killed me!”
The look on his face told her everything. His eyes widened and he stumbled slightly as if he’d been struck with the recoil of his gun. He caught his step and steadied himself against the gun that now seemed rooted to the ground.
Anger rose in her again.
“You thought it was Zack driving that Hummer, but it was me! You ran me off the road! You left me for dead! You followed me from Cooley’s Bar. You tried to . . .” Anger choked her words.
He raised the gun slowly, and she saw sanity fade from his eyes like a cloud that passes over the sun.
“I’ll give you to the count of three to get in your car and go,” he said, his voice deep and gnarled by pain and rage. She saw all of it in his eyes, in the sag of his jowls. He’d been carrying that load for a long time, and he was ready to lay that down, but not the gun. He sighted the barrel.
Amy tugged Zelda’s hand and took a few steps back. She glanced at Genna and Rian, who were also stepping back toward the car. She felt as if the world had slowed down, like time-lapse photography in reverse. Her legs were moving, her steps pulling her ever closer to the car, but the sensation was one of standing still. The shotgun was pointed at her, or no one—she couldn’t quite tell. She could only tell that it was time for them to leave.
“We have to get out of here,” Amy yelled when the car door shut, her eyes never leaving his face. “Hurry!” she said as Genna fishtailed the heavy car.
Without warning, Zelda rolled down the window and yelled, “You killed my husband you crazy son of a bitch! You’re not going to get away with that!”
The ping of buckshot followed them as Genna gunned the motor in the dust.
Her breath was ragged in her chest. Her heart pounded. In her mind, the headlights were behind her, and suddenly she was back on the road in the Hummer, racing to get away from Beck and the bubbas in the bar, and the bright lights that were too close behind her. There was no truck in the carport, but the face was the same. She wasn’t sure how they would connect all the pieces, but she was sure that Crawley had killed Zack. Whether he meant to or not, the deed had been done.
“It was his truck
I saw in my dreams,” she said. “It was his truck I saw behind me on Highway 7 the first time. I know it had to be the one that ran me off the road. And I know it had to be that truck that ran Zack down. I know it, but we have to find proof!”
“But he doesn’t have a truck,” Genna said. “There wasn’t a truck there. Just a John Deere tractor.”
“But I’ve seen his truck,” Rian said. “I noticed it the day I met Zack out here. I turned around in the driveway, and I saw it then. An eighties Ford-150. Blue and white. It was backed into the carport next to the tractor with the cab pointed out. I noticed that. It’s an old-timer’s way of parking.”
Amy gasped. “When I was here it was parked with the cab pointed in first. I can see it in my head.”
“Because it had damage,” Rian said. “Because it had an indentation where it hit a man in a parking garage.”
“We have to call the police right now,” Amy said. “We have to let them know who killed Zack. Hurry, Genna. Drive faster!”
Genna jammed the gas pedal, and the Mercedes lurched forward on the dusty road. The tires caught in the deep sand at the edge of the dusty road, and the back end swerved. Genna grabbed the wheel and twisted, but the car spun out of control, off the road, and straight for a copse of trees.
“Look out!” Rian yelled.
Genna stomped on the brake but the tires spun, and the red Mercedes plowed into a tree.
The horn blew, then silence overtook her.
Déjà vu.
Her head throbbed and her casted arm was twisted beneath her. The pain was searing. Head suddenly flooding with memories, she felt as if every dream she’d ever had was flashing through her mind, mingled with reality, memories, and fantasies, too. She felt is as if she were spiraling through the rabbit hole of her life, every one of her senses engaged.
She tasted chocolate truffles melting on her tongue. She saw her favorite childhood bike and felt the power of the wind in her hair. She felt the soft fur of all the kittens she had cuddled, heard their purrs, and felt the tickle of their whispers on her cheek. She smelled the starched heat rising from the iron and Grandmother’s crocheted doilies. She heard the choir sing at church. She felt the touch of the men she had loved, felt their kisses warm and wet on her lips. And then she became weightless as if swimming in the ocean’s warm, watery womb.
She felt comforted, peaceful, safe.
The images went on and on. Like a movie that never ended.
Was this death? Was this heaven?
She opened her eyes and raised her head. She was on the floorboard of the Mercedes. Zelda was beside her. Something warm was running across her arm, and she glanced down at a rivet of blood. She nudged Zelda gently with her elbow, and Zelda’s head fell back, a thin line of blood running from her forehead before dropping onto Amy’s arm.
“Shit,” she said under her breath.
“Shit, shit, shit,” came an answer from the front seat.
“Rian, is that you?”
“Ouch. Yes.”
“Is Genna okay?”
“Her eyes are open,” Rian answered thinly, reaching across to touch Genna’s head, which lay against the steering wheel, a small gash in her cheek.
Genna blinked.
“She blinked,” Rian said. “So she’s not dead. Where’s Zelda?”
“Her forehead is bleeding,” Amy answered.
“You okay?”
“I’m pissed. And I’ve had it up to here with car crashes in the woods. And my arm hurts.”
“But you’re okay.”
“Well, I’m not quite dead yet.”
“I can hear that.”
“We can all hear that,” Genna said, raising her head from the steering wheel. “What are we doing in this predicament?”
Amy let out a soft giggle, unsure why. And then another. Her giggles turned into chuckling, and before she could gain control, she was hysterical with laughter.
“Shut up!” Genna called, breaking into a smile and then into laughter. “You’re making my head hurt.”
Amy touched Zelda’s cheek, and her friend opened her eyes and frowned.
“Whoops,” Zelda said. “We fell—went boom!”
Amy howled. Her ribs ached, her tears stung, and she was glad to be alive.
“Genna,” she said between happy sobs, “you drive like crap.”
Genna put her hand to her cheek and then glanced at Rian. “I’m beginning to think this car you sold me is jinxed. I don’t guess I can get my money back anytime soon.”
“Not a chance.”
Amy helped Zelda from the floorboard. “You’re okay. Just a scratch, but it’s still bleeding.” She handed Zelda a glove that was sticking out of the pocket in the seat. “Here, hold this against it.”
“We’re not going to drive out of this one,” Rian said, opening the door and then letting it slam shut.
Amy opened the heavy car door, finding it difficult because of the angle the car had come to rest. She pushed a foot against it to hold it open while she clambered out, hindered by the cast and the uneven ground. Rian did the same, and together they stood with shaky knees.
Rian touched her forehead lightly, a goose egg already beginning to show. “That’s not going to be pretty.”
Making her way to the rear door, Rian helped Zelda from the back seat, then Genna from the front. They were up to the floorboard in Arkansas brush.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Genna said as she stumbled around for footing in her mules. “Is this poison ivy?” She stomped around in a circle. “Oh, this is a superb circumstance,” she said, bumping the door shut with her butt. “The path to our freedom is lined with poison ivy. What is next, I ask you? What is next?”
They looked at the ruined Mercedes, which was stopped by an ancient oak about thirty feet from the road. The radiator was still hissing, and the hood was crumpled around the tree. Genna reached in the front seat, grabbed her purse, and left the keys in the ignition.
“Good riddance,” she said as she brought up the rear of the troop stomping its way through the brush and poison ivy. “Maybe someone will steal it!”
They reached the road in a single file, Rian leading. “Do you hear that?” she said.
A tractor engine revved in the distance.
It was an unmistakable sound. There was only one house near the road, and that house had a tractor, and that tractor belonged to Crawley.
Amy turned just in time to see the John Deere turn out of the driveway and mow toward them. Crawley’s hat was down low on his brow, and she couldn’t see his eyes—just the stern set to his jaw. His hands gripped the tractor’s steering wheel, and the dust blew up behind it like a giant grasshopper chewing up the dirt.
What was he doing? Was he chasing them? Or was he just on his way to town for milk and eggs? They weren’t going to wait to find out.
Zelda clutched Amy’s sleeve. “He’s coming after us. He’s going to run us over, too!”
“Ease up on the panic,” Genna said. “We can outrun that Deere.”
Rian laughed. “You run like a girl.”
“I am a girl. How else would I run?”
“I can’t run,” Zelda said. “I’m wearing heels!”
“You can,” Amy answered and cradled her cast. “Now go!”
They sprinted to the highway. Rian was the first to hit the pavement, a short sprint by her standards, with everyone else behind, coughing and covered with road soot. Amy stopped to catch her breath, watching as the tractor moved at full speed. Crawley’s face was dark.
What was he doing?
They stood on the side of the blacktop, the two-lane highway near nothing but woods and guiding a crazy man on a tractor. She didn’t think she couldn’t run any farther. They could walk, but it wouldn’t be long before the tractor caught up with them. And then wha
t? She just couldn’t go there.
“Help!” Amy yelled as a truck approached them on the highway and then passed them without stopping.
Another car passed slowly, and Amy watched as the driver gawked at the sight of three women and a clown standing near the road before speeding on. She knew they looked ridiculous, desperate even—not something you’d want to pick up.
“Help us!” they yelled in chorus as yet another car approached on the highway. The driver hit the brakes and then sped on. Amy watched the car drive out of sight. She glanced back at the dirt road. Crawley and the tractor were getting closer. Was no one going to help them?
“We’re going to die!” Zelda yelled, her hands beating the air like wings.
“Not if we don’t stand here like bowling pins,” Genna yelled back.
Genna grabbed Amy’s elbow and pulled her into the highway, stepping in the middle of the road where she straddled the double yellow line.
“What are you doing?” she yelled. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“They’re either going to stop, or they’re going to kill us both,” Genna said, flagging down the car now headed toward them at highway speed.
Amy flinched, but the car slowed and stopped right before them.
“We’ve had an accident!” Genna yelled to the closed window. “We need your help.”
“Please!” Amy yelled. “Help us!”
Amy noticed the woman behind the steering wheel hesitate briefly before she rolled down the window. She had a kind face and a pile of black hair. “Why are you standing in the middle of the road? What’s the matter?”
“We need your help,” she said to the woman, pointing to the tractor, which now mowed down the weeds between them and the highway. Crawley’s face was dark with rage.
Zelda and Rian rushed to the car.
“He’s trying to kill us,” Zelda said. “He’s going to kill us all!”
The driver’s eyes widened. “Get in!” she said quickly and popped the lock on the doors.
Chapter Thirty-One
“What are you still doing down here?” Ben’s friend asked. “Don’t you have bigger fish to fry in your part of the world?”