by Ray Gorham
“It wasn’t anything you said, Jenn. It was just you, your spirit.”
She still didn’t get it.
Ty grinned and chuckled. “We watched you. For some reason, you were kind of like our beacon of hope. Someone, I can’t remember who, told us your husband was gone, that you were all alone with your kids. Yet at the meetings, you always seemed so happy, so hopeful. My wife mentioned it to me one evening when I was really low. Said if Jennifer Tait could be happy and hopeful under similar circumstances as us, why couldn’t we?”
Jennifer listened, staring at the floor.
Ty continued. “She was right. The next day the weather was really nice, and I took a long hike and asked myself what good it was doing for me to be walking around like a man half dead, feeling sorry for myself. Yeah, it hurt, and it still hurts more than I can describe to have lost our little Lonnie. I’m sure it always will, but hating life just made it worse. You helped show me that, Jennifer.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know if I believe you.”
“You can believe it or not, but it’s true. Come by and ask my wife if you’d like. Talia didn’t go on the hike with me, but she knows the story.”
“I was just naïve then. I didn’t know any better. Sorry to let you down now.”
Ty forced a smile and watched Jennifer for a minute, but she wouldn’t look up. “Jennifer, you’re a big girl. I can’t tell you what to do. I understand how tough it is, but hating people isn’t going to fix anything. I can’t promise you things will be great or that Kyle will be back tomorrow, but I can tell you it’s easier if you choose to smile. No one’s out to get you. Everyone’s just afraid and still figuring out how to deal with life. Give them some time.”
“I’m the one that needs time, you know,” Jennifer snapped before catching herself. “I will think about it though. I want to be happy, Ty, I really do, but with Kyle gone on top of everything else, it’s too hard.”
Ty took her hand and gave it a squeeze as he stood to leave. “I’m here to help if you’ll let me. If there’s something you need, please tell me. How about if I come by for Spencer after lunch tomorrow, okay?”
Jennifer nodded. “Thanks for stopping by. I do appreciate you thinking of me.”
Ty let himself out, and Jennifer sat back down on the couch.
“So what are you going to do?” Carol asked from the kitchen.
Jennifer jumped. “I forgot you were in there.”
“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help hearing the conversation.”
‘It’s your house; don’t apologize.”
“He made some good points, you know.”
“I know,” Jenn said, nodding. “But it’s so much harder this time. I’m terrified Kyle won’t come back. I keep thinking of him dead or hurt somewhere on the road, and it terrifies me. I really hate to say it, but if he’d been shot last week, at least the uncertainty wouldn’t be hanging over my head every day like it is now. I understand why the families of people who go missing struggle so much. I think not knowing can almost be worse than death.”
Carol stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “We all have tough things to deal with, Jennifer. I know you know that. Just realize that you’ll make it through this. You’ve got a lot of friends pulling for you.”
Jennifer nodded and went and helped clean the kitchen. She was about to go downstairs when someone pounded on the front door. She jumped to her feet and hurried to it, pulling it open. Ty stood on the front porch again, this time out of breath.
“Is Carol here? There’s an emergency. We need a doctor!”
CHAPTER 28
Tuesday, February 7th
Billings, MT
The road ahead looked like a World War II movie scene, with charred pieces of steel littering the highway, blackened vehicles on the road, and partially collapsed and burnt out buildings along the perimeter. It was just as the ranchers had described to Rose during her two-day stay with them while Blitz recovered from a leg injury, a deep gash inflicted by barbed wire buried beneath the snow.
Rose had met the ranchers, Paul and Mindy, at their home a few miles south of Huntley while seeking help for her wounded horse. The couple had been kind enough to take her in and help doctor the wound on Blitz’s leg, which, fortunately, hadn’t been too severe. Two days rest had done wonders for both her and her animals, but once refreshed, she had been anxious to get back on the road again, despite Paul and Mindy’s concern for her wellbeing as a woman traveling alone.
Now picking her way through the debris, Rose was feeling uneasy. What lay before her was the most graphic depiction she’d seen of the destruction that had followed the September attacks. Two oil refineries on the south side of Billings had lasted three days past the event before erupting in a series of explosions that shook buildings for thirty miles and launched pieces of shrapnel thousands of feet. No one knew what had triggered the blast, at least no one who had survived the explosions and the ensuing destruction, and there was nothing to be done except watch the fires burn themselves out, leaving charred buildings as semi-permanent reminders.
Fires had raged for five days following the blasts, burning through entire blocks and killing an untold number of residents who were unable to flee quickly enough. Those on the periphery of the blast zone who had escaped from the fires had then found themselves in a desperate situation, as there were no relief services to step in and provide assistance after homes and all personal possessions had been lost in the destruction.
Churches attempted to help but were quickly overwhelmed by demand and unable to resupply, and their efforts soon fell short, resulting in a large homeless community that was struggling for survival against both hunger and nature on the edges of the Yellowstone River.
From the road, Rose could see makeshift shelters lining the river’s edge, constructed of whatever materials the homeless had been able to scavenge: old cars, cardboard boxes, pieces of steel tanks that had been blown apart by the refinery explosions, sheets of drywall, and even fallen trees stacked to provide shelter from the wind, a scene more suited to the slums in some nameless place in India than a modern-day city in America. Rose half expected to see naked, starving children with distended bellies bathing in the river and likely would have, she thought, were it not for the sheets of ice extending from the shore, preventing access to the water except in a few isolated locations.
Smoke rose from several of the shelters, and people wandered from shelter to shelter, gathered wood, fished, or sat and stared vacantly at the tumbling water. She gripped her rifle in her hands, her eyes scanning the road for any sign of threats. Paul and Mindy had warned her about the community at the river, but to avoid the highway would have meant either going through the heart of Billings, or circling so far north or south that it would have added several extra days of travel.
A quick trip, armed and read, was Rose’s response to the threat, and so far she had proceeded without incident. Smokey and Blitz were making good time, and most people had paid little attention to her, absorbed instead in their own struggle for survival.
Rose kept to the north side of the road, moving the horses at a brisk pace, and veering onto the pavement only when debris or interchanges required it. Her heart raced as they hurried along. The road, much as it would have been when the EMP hit, was filled with the heavy traffic of a holiday weekend. Cars, trucks, and semis, all obstacles that could easily conceal an ill-intentioned person, were everywhere. Even the shoulder of the road and the grassy area alongside it were not free of vehicles, making the journey a challenge for a person maneuvering two horses.
“Hey, can you help me?” She had made it most of the way through the city. In fact, she had just started to breath easier as the city fell away behind her when she heard the voice call out. She slowed and looked around, not seeing anyone.
Rose had passed a blue pickup truck parked off the road halfway into the center median when she heard the voice again. “Help me, please.” She paused, looking aro
und again. The voice was strange, not distinctly male or female, and wasn’t coming from anywhere she could identify. She raised her gun, her nerves on edge. The horses, sensing her tension, were skittish themselves. She spotted movement in the median to her left. A leg extending past the blue pickup twitched and kicked. “Help,” the voice said again.
Rose couldn’t see the rest of the body, but she didn’t like the situation. “Go, Smokey!” she urged. As she prodded the horse forward she heard a noise and felt a hand on her arm. She turned to swing her rifle, but the person held her arm tightly and jerked her hard from the horse. Smokey spooked and lurched forward, further unbalancing Rose and causing her to fall from the saddle. Her gun roared as she pulled the trigger, but the un-aimed shot only served to make her ears ring and further startle the horses, sending them running, panicked by the noise and commotion.
“Nice try, bitch!” A man, his face, dirty and bearded, slammed his fist into her cheek and sent her crashing to the ground.
The blow dazed Rose, and her rifle fell from her hands, clattering onto the highway. “Stop!” she yelled, desperate and disoriented.
The man grabbed her jacket and pinned her to the ground, rising above her. He threw a leg over Rose to straddle her, using the weight of his body to keep her down, his hands holding her arms at her side as she thrashed helplessly. “Dangerous place to be traveling alone, lady,” he said, leering down at her through squinting brown eyes, a perverse grin splitting his face. “Don’t get many women in these parts, ‘specially not pretty ones.”
A shadow fell over her as another man approached. She assumed he was the source of the voice from the median. “You let the horses get away, you idiot!” the man accused.
Rose tasted blood in her mouth. She turned to try to see the second man. “Let me go,” she insisted. “I haven’t done anything to you.”
He looked down at her and grinned. “No one said you did,” he replied, spitting on the pavement. He wore a filthy, brown work coat, and a dark, unkempt beard covered his face, much like the other man’s. He didn’t strike her as being especially big, even looking up at him from the ground. “We’ve just embarked on a new career, and you just happened to pass through at the right time, depending on your point of view.”
The man astride her looked towards the horses, which were still galloping away. “Sorry about the horses,” he said. “But she had her gun out. You heard the shot. I had to grab her arms.”
The other man shook his head. “Just shut up, alright. I don’t care what happened. Now I’ve got to go chase them down.” He pulled a gun from his waistband and aimed it at his partner. “You think you can handle her by yourself while I go get ‘em?”
“No problem,” he replied, nodding his head vigorously. “I’ll have her warmed up and ready for you when you get back.”
“You sure?”
He nodded again, his mouth drawn in a tight line. “I’m sure,” he replied. The first man stood, jerking Rose upward and twisting her arms painfully.
With Rose back on her feet, the man from the median handed the pistol to his partner. “Take this. If she tries anything, shoot her, but try not to damage any of my favorite parts.”
His partner took the gun and laughed. “Count on it,” he said. “Do you want to check her for weapons before you go?”
He shook his head. “You do it. Looks like the stupid horses have stopped. I gotta go before they run off again.”
Rose heard the man behind her grunt then felt the barrel of his gun press against her back and his hand press against her waist. His hand rubbed across her body, sliding from her waist to her thighs, then up across her chest and down her back. She shuddered during the search, her legs shaking and her breath coming in short gasps.
“You have any weapons?” he asked belatedly after physically probing far longer than necessary.
“Just the gun I was holding,” she choked out, trying to sound calmer than she felt, which wasn’t very. “There’s another gun on the horse, but that’s it.”
“I’ll check again when you get inside. If you’re lying…” he trailed off ominously. He pushed her forward, his handgun still aimed at her, then swung his leg and kicked her hard in the thigh.
Rose attempted to block the kick unsuccessfully. The impact of the blow left her leg throbbing, but she didn’t fall, only letting out a small whimper.
“So you don’t try to run off,” he said as he bent down and picked up her rifle, inspecting it quickly. “Nice gun.”
Rose stared at the road and massaged her leg, but didn’t respond.
“Walk to that motor home,” the man ordered, pointing to a forty-foot motorhome parked on the opposite side of the freeway and fifty yards back in the direction she had come from. “If you behave well, we’ll let you go.”
“What if I don’t?” Rose asked as she limped towards the RV, not really wanting to know the answer.
“If you don’t then, well, you won’t like it, but Mickey says we got to conserve our bullets.”
“So it’s up to Mickey, is it?”
“I decide, too, but Mickey’s in charge, so, yeah, I guess it’s up to him. You have a problem with that?”
Rose shook her head. They were approaching the motorhome, and she slowed, awaiting directions. She looked over her shoulder and saw Mickey still headed the other way, the horses nearly a mile down the road, pacing nervously in the median and still tethered together.
“Open the door and get in,” her kidnapper ordered. “Don’t make me shoot you.”
Rose reached for the door handle and tugged on it. The door stuck a little before opening, then she climbed inside, her eyes taking a few seconds to adjust to the dim light. The coach smelled of body odor and sewage. She tried to breathe through her mouth, but the odors were so strong she could taste them, and she fought the urge to vomit as she moved further into the RV.
As the man lumbered in behind her, Rose saw an open door at the rear and a woman dressed only in a sport bra and shorts lying on a bed with her back towards the door, arms bound behind her body, with fresh bruises and wounds on her back and arms.
The man shoved Rose onto the couch, stepped past her, and pulled the bedroom door shut. “My wife’s sleeping. Try not to make any noise.”
With the image of the woman in her mind, Rose was too terrified to respond, and her body started shaking.
Her captor turned towards her, leaned her rifle against the wall, and pointed the handgun at her head. “Take off your shoes and your pants.”
“What do you want from me?” Rose asked, her voice barely audible, her mouth still tasting of blood.
The man laughed. “If you haven’t figured that out already, there’s no point in me explaining. Just do what I say.”
Rose reached down and pushed off her boots, then, hands shaking almost uncontrollably, unhooked her belt and the button of her jeans. “Please don’t do this,” she begged. “Please.”
“Hurry,” the man ordered, glancing out the front window. Rose followed his gaze and saw that Mickey had reached the horses, but Smokey was making Mickey chase him to be caught. “I don’t usually get to go first. I have to be done before he returns.”
“No,” Rose said, shaking her head. “I won’t do it.”
The man’s face hardened, and he raised his gun, aiming it at Rose. “We can do this dead or alive. It’s up to you. You cooperate, and you’ll live. Mickey will get bored of you in a couple of weeks, and you’ll get to go. Fight it, and worse things will happen to you.”
“I’d rather die,” she mumbled, her arms limp, her strength gone.
The man lashed out with his foot and kicked her in the shin, sending sharp pains shooting up her leg, then he shoved her backwards, and she tumbled onto the floor. “Listen!” he growled. “You’re lucky I’d rather not put bullet holes in this thing, or I’d shoot you in the foot. Take your pants off now, or I’ll make sure you’re kept here alive for a lot longer than two weeks!”
Rose recoiled an
d began to cry, but still forced herself to push her jeans down. She lifted her hips and pushed on the waistband, scooting her pants down past her knees. She tugged her white thermal underwear up as she pushed her pants down.
The man laughed derisively. “Hurry it up,” he demanded. “I don’t have all day.”
Rose kicked her jeans off, and they landed under the table across from her. The thermals were tight, probably a size too small even with all of the weight she’d lost, and they clung to her legs, revealing the curve of her hips.
“Nice. Now stand up and turn around.”
Rose stood and turned, tears running down her cheeks. “Please don’t…” she began, but the man cut her off.
“You’re wasting your breath, lady. You don’t leave ’til we get what we want. Understand?”
She nodded and slumped back down onto the couch.
“I didn’t say sit down, did I?”
“No,” Rose mumbled weakly, standing again.
“Take off your jacket.”
Rose removed it.
“Now your sweatshirt and t-shirt.”
She tossed her clothes on the couch, leaving just her bra and thermals.
“Very nice,” he muttered, staring at her chest. “They real?”
Rose shook her head.
“Thanks for spending the money. That’s why they’re still big,” he observed, grinning. “Not like all these other scrawny women who shrivel up when they get skinny.”
Rose was numb, both physically and mentally, and didn’t respond.
“Put your hands on your head,” he directed, then smiled as she did so. “That makes them look even bigger, you know.”
He removed his coat, then knelt down in front of her, still holding the gun in his hand, and reached for the waistband of her thermals with his empty hand. He tugged, but it hung up on her opposite hip. He looked up at Rose, clad only in thermals and a bra, her hands on her head, and felt his hormones surge. His heart raced, and his breathing became shallow. “Don’t move.”