When I returned to the fort, I found Violet outside. She had taken her sleeping bag out onto the lawn and spread it out on the damp grass. On top of it, she had set us out a nice breakfast of granola bars, fruit and sodas. “Good morning,” I whispered.
“Good morning,” replied Violet. “Nature walk?”
I chuckled and nodded my head. “There’s an outhouse back at the farm. I can bring you over there if you like.”
Violet giggled and blushed. She then directed me to sit down. “I made us breakfast. I know it isn’t much.”
“This looks great,” I said, honestly. I had barely eaten a thing yesterday and my stomach was growling. I sat down and tore into an orange.
“How does your head feel?”
I held my hand up to the bandage. “Feel’s great,” I said. “Can you see any fresh blood?”
Violet smiled and shook her head. “I do good work,” she said, confidently.
“You sure do,” I said. “You saved my life.”
“I don’t think so, but thanks for saying that.”
“And you’re the most modest girl I know. How are you feeling today?”
She shrugged and stared down at her granola bar. “I don’t like Kyle.”
“Don’t say that,” I said. “He’s a good man, but we’re in a difficult situation and people act differently in times like these. I know it’s going to be hard, but you’ve got to try and forget about last night. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
Violet nodded. “I’ve made up my mind,” she said. “I want to stay with you.”
I looked up and saw that Cathy had just opened the door. Her eyes were puffy and her hair was a tangled mess. The look on her face changed from confusion to open hostility. She glared at me with such hatred that I felt genuine fear. She sprang out the door and slammed it behind herself. “What did you just say, young lady?” she growled. “Are you out of your freakin’ mind? You get your skinny ass back inside there and pack your things. The two of us are leaving!”
Violet had been sitting with her back to the door and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the blank expression had returned. She had gone back to her safe place in her mind and I quietly cursed Cathy for her timing. She strode over to the sleeping bag and I stood to meet her charge. I had no sooner stood up when Cathy slapped me hard across the face. I reared back with my fist and she stared at it defiantly. I knew then that this woman was no stranger to physical violence. Instead of hitting her, I took her by the wrist and led her away from the fort. “You and I are going to have a talk,” I growled. “And don’t you dare ever hit me again. Do you understand me?”
Cathy struggled for a moment, but I strengthened my grip and led her away. Violet sat watching us, as if she were uninterested in what was happening. I watched her raise a granola bar to her mouth and slowly take a bite from it. Cathy began to follow and I led her a good hundred yards further into the woods. Finally, she dug her feet in and I let her go. “What the hell do you want?” she asked.
“Just keep your voice down,” I said, tepidly. “We don’t need Violet to hear anything else that will further disturb her.”
Cathy gave me a wide-eyed look and then she laughed. “What, did you drag me out here thinking we were going to do something?”
Her assumption brought fire to my eyes. “I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole,” I spat. “You must think quite a bit of yourself, huh? Well, the answer is no. I brought you out here to have a little talk, that’s all. Violet is a great kid and can you blame her for wanting to stay with me? Look at you, Cathy. You slept with Todd and you slept with Kyle. God only knows how many other men you’ve slept with. How do you think Violet feels about that, huh?”
Cathy pointed a finger at me and began stabbing it into my chest. “How dare you accuse me of being a whore? What do you know about me, smart guy? Let me give you a little background and then you can jump to any conclusion you want. First off, I never slept with Todd. He wanted to, but I didn’t. Secondly, I never planned to sleep with Kyle, but it just happened. I’m sorry about that; you have no idea how sorry I am. Violet never should have heard that. We were drunk and one thing led to another. I can’t take it back. As far as how many other men I’ve slept with, I’ll tell you, not that it’s any of your goddamn business. I’ve been with three other men in my lifetime. One was Violet’s father. After we were divorced, I hooked up with a man in my unit. That was stupid of me, but that was my goddamn business.”
I shook my head. “You expect me to believe that Kyle is the only other man you’ve slept with?” I asked, incredulously. “Do you think I just fell off the hay wagon?”
Cathy’s eyes narrowed into slits. “I wasn’t talking about Kyle, you moron. Fine, do you want to know who the other man was? I’ll tell you. He was my father, Gary. The bastard raped me and I lost track of how many times it happened. He drank himself to death, thank God. I hate him with a passion. I’ll always hate him. Besides my mother, you’re the only person alive who knows about it. Go ahead and laugh. I’m sure an asshole like you would think that’s funny as hell.”
I was thunderstruck and I felt my chest tighten as Cathy began to sob. She turned away from me and her head began to shudder as she wept. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I had no idea.” I moved to her and tried to put an arm around her shoulder, but she batted it away as if it were a live rattlesnake. I stood there, stupidly, for a few minutes as she pulled herself together. “I need to know about Violet. I worry about her when she goes away to her safe place. That isn’t normal. You said she saw some bad things. I think I have the right to know what those things were.”
Cathy rubbed the tears from her eyes and nodded her head. “You really want to know? Okay, I’ll tell you. Violet’s dad did five tours over in Iraq. Jim was in the Guard, like me, but he belonged to a different unit. Five tours, Gary. I wonder if a guy like you can even imagine what that’s like. He saw a lot of shit over there. After Jim’s third deployment, they told us not to worry. Nobody gets deployed a fourth time, right? What a joke. That fourth time, that’s when we started to lose him, and he was never the same. When he came back home after his fifth deployment, I didn’t even know him. Jim had PTSD, there was no doubt about that. Do you know what the VA does to treat PTSD? What a joke. Five tours and he comes back here to be treated like a leper. Jim was angry, but he had no one to focus that anger on.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
“No, you really can’t. Violet grew up while he was away. She barely knew him. Jim tried making up for the lost time, but that doesn’t work. He started missing work and got fired. Just like that. They held his job at the factory, but they couldn’t wait to get rid of him. They were worried he’d go nuts on the job. So, Jim started drinking to forget his problems.”
“Who could blame him?”
Cathy shook her head and turned away from me. “That was the worst thing he could’ve done. The booze only made things that much worse. He fell into a depression …”
At that moment, a single gunshot broke the silence. Cathy spun and stared at me with an open mouth. There was no question of where the gunshot had come from. The shot had been fired inside my fort. We began to run through the sparse woods. Cathy was faster than I was and she sprinted further and further ahead. She held her weapon up and at the ready. I was amazed at her athleticism, but terrified at what we’d discover. My legs felt heavy and I was panting as we approached the clearing.
Violet was still sitting outside on the sleeping bag. She held a half-eaten apple and was chewing, mechanically. Her eyes were cold and empty. Cathy stopped and turned to face me. Tears ran down her puffy cheeks and she held one hand over her mouth.
There was no sign of Kyle.
“Go sit with Violet,” I said. “I’ll go in and check on Kyle.”
Cathy nodded. “You don’t suppose he would have…”
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. I not only supposed that Kyle had kill
ed himself, I was certain of it. He had been a soldier, but he had been too afraid to fight to save his own parents. That was a heavy burden to carry. Couple that with what had transpired last night and the ruckus this morning, I had to think he had given up. Slowly, I walked up to the fort. The smell of fresh gunpowder hung in the air. I reached for the doorknob. “Kyle?” I called. “Are you okay in there?” I stood and listened, but the only sounds I heard were the distant cawing of crows and Cathy’s quiet sobs. I twisted the knob and slowly pulled open the door.
Kyle was lying face up on the floor. His eyes were open and he wore a peaceful expression. He was dead, I was sure of that. If there was one saving grace, it appeared that he had lain down on the wooden floor and shot himself in the heart. Kyle’s gun lay next to his body. Tiny droplets of blood covered the room like sprinkles of morning dew. I stepped inside and picked up one of Kyle’s discarded white socks that lay next to his bed. I used my canteen to dampen it and I quickly began to wipe down our gear.
A few stray tears fell, but they weren’t the geyser I would have expected. Already I was growing cold to death, even that of my childhood friend. I packed my things, wiped down Kyle’s gun and shoved it into my waistband. The barrel was still warm. I checked the pockets of Kyle’s cargo pants and found two loaded ammunition clips. I stuffed them into my pack. I opened the door and shook my head to Cathy. She let out a little whimper, but Violet never once looked back my way. I began setting gear outside the door, finishing with Kyle’s heavy rucksack. I closed the door and opened up Kyle’s bag. Most of the items inside were survival gear, rations, a collapsible shovel, first aid kit, a tent and a change of civilian clothes. There were also six new cartons of .45 caliber cartridges. I dropped these into my pack and hefted the sack. By transferring the bullets to my bag, it had considerably lightened the weight of Kyle’s rucksack. I would ask Cathy to carry it.
I joined the others on the sleeping bag and began to eat. “We’re going to have to move,” I said. “Someone might wonder where the shot came from. They could send soldiers out to investigate. Eat up.”
We ate quietly, watching as the sunrise blossomed in the western sky. A short while later, Cathy rummaged inside Violet’s duffel bag and once she found what she was looking for excused them both for a nature walk. They returned some five minutes later. While they were gone, I had rolled up both sleeping bags and refastened them to our backpacks. Kyle’s gun dug into my stomach, but I was determined to have it at the ready in case we ran into trouble. I promised myself that from here on out, I would trust no one with the exception of Violet. That didn’t mean I didn’t feel bad for Cathy, but part of me blamed Kyle’s suicide on her. He had admitted to being suicidal when we arrived, had she thought sex might cure him of that urge? I didn’t know and I certainly wasn’t going to ask.
When they returned, Cathy stopped in front of me and gave me a hug. “Can we start over, Gary?” she asked. “I don’t want what happened out here to hang between us. I want you to know how much I appreciate how much you’ve done for us. I also want you to know that I’ll do whatever I can to help you rescue your family. Violet and I owe that to you. I’m sorry, I wish I had more to offer you.”
I returned the hug and felt my eyes grow misty. “I’m sorry, too,” I whispered. “I was too quick to judge you. Let’s never talk of this, again. I do want to start over.”
Cathy gave me a squeeze and she kissed me on the cheek. She pulled away and we both turned to face Violet. “Are we leaving now?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Cathy. “Are you okay?”
Violet walked over and slipped on her backpack. Her face was as white as bone china and she looked small and vulnerable. Cathy picked up Kyle’s rucksack and slung it over her shoulder. I didn’t feel guilty about taking it. I knew these woods well and set off to the south. We kept Violet in between us and hiked at a steady clip. Occasionally we heard the chatter of small arms fire. Now and again, we could hear a drone buzzing in the sky and flattened out on the forest floor. We crossed an empty gravel road and skirted a wide swamp before entering a long buffer strip of woods. The woods followed a dormant highway 61 to the south.
I thought about what Cathy had told me and found myself wishing she hadn’t. I had nothing to gauge her pain by, no concept of what she had gone through, and no idea of how difficult it was to carry those awful memories. I had grown up in what I considered a normal, loving family. I had gone to church and had birthday parties, sleepovers, and rarely witnessed my parents exchange a harsh word. I couldn’t relate to her experiences and knew I had no right to judge her.
I wondered about Violet. I was thankful she had slipped into her trance, but I was also worried about her. I didn’t know much about shock or traumatic experiences, so I had no idea if her coping tool was either good or bad. I suspected it was bad, but under the circumstances, I wasn’t going to try to bring her out of it. She moved like a robot, without showing a shred of weakness or emotion. The times we did stop for a brief rest, Violet would occupy herself with a weed or a stick. She responded to her mother’s questions with yes or no answers. Gradually, Cathy gave up trying to reach her.
I thought about how I would rescue my family. I had no delusions about commandeering a tank and charging the gate. I knew my only hope was to barter with their captors. My chances would be slim, but I thought if I could find the camp commander and make him an offer, I might be able to buy their freedom. Unless someone had stumbled across my treasure, I still had three gold bars and twenty bundles of cash buried at the campground. I would gladly trade it all for a chance to liberate my family. If I were able to secure their release, I thought we could either escape to Canada or somewhere out west.
Chapter 11
Around noon, we stopped at the edge of our woods and stared out at a cornfield that must have been a mile across. The corn here stood about three feet high, but in some spots it was much shorter than that. Cathy took Violet by the hand and the two of them crouched down and began to jog down the nearest row. I followed, but the big handgun dug into my belly when I bent over. Finally, I pulled Kyle’s .45 out of my waistband and followed. The sky was mostly cloudy overhead and a cool breeze ruffled the cornstalks. The ground was soft and with each step I sank to my ankles.
Cathy and Violet were soon far ahead of me and I groaned when they reached the stunted patch in the field. Instead of going around it or crawling through it, they continued to jog along the knee-high rows, exposing themselves to anyone who happened to be watching. Gasping for breath, I had little choice but to follow. My head ached as I ran and I was soon soaked with sweat. Still, my muscles were already much stronger than they had been. That morning I used a notch in my belt that I’d never used before. I picked up the pace as I entered the open area and pushed my legs as fast as they would carry me. The soil here had become hard and that made it easier to run. I watched as Cathy and Violet stepped over a short barbed wire fence and entered the woods ahead. They had made it.
Exhausted, I made it to the ancient fence. The wire drooped so low that I could have leapt over it had I not been wearing the pack. I wiped the sweat out of my eyes as I stepped over the fence.
“Drop the gun, fat boy,” ordered a man’s deep voice.
“Do it,” said another man. “Or I’ll kill your friends.”
I dropped the gun and held my hands in the air. One of the men stepped out from behind what looked like a carefully constructed blind. He was tall and thin and his pinched features gave him the face of a weasel. He was dressed in faded blue jeans and a sleeveless flannel shirt and wore a battered ball cap over shaggy black hair. The weasel-faced man appeared to be a few years younger than me and covered me with a shotgun. He ordered me to drop my hands and bound them tightly together at my wrists. I could hear Cathy sobbing, but I couldn’t see her.
“Where you headed?” asked the weasel-faced man.
“North Branch,” I said. I knew there was no point in trying to lie. “My family is being held in the deten
tion camp and I want to try to get them out.”
The other man stood up from behind the blind. He was a slightly older, chunkier version of the man with the shotgun. I had no doubt they were brothers. Both men began to bray with laughter. The older man was dressed in bibbed overalls and a crusty white t-shirt. The few teeth that remained inside his mouth looked nearly orange. He waved a handgun at something behind the blind. Cathy and Violet slowly stood up and I could see the terror in Cathy’s face; in Violet’s, I saw nothing that even vaguely resembled an emotion.
“North Branch?” asked my captor. “With a loaded weapon?” he asked in a pinched voice, picking up Kyle’s .45 from where it lay in the weeds. He stuck the barrel into my ear. “You ain’t the brightest bulb on the tree, are you, fat boy? Carrying a loaded weapon is punishable by hanging. Did you know that?”
“What makes us any different than the two of you?” I asked.
The skinny man sneered and ground the barrel of the .45 into my ear. “Not that it’s any of your goddamn business, but we’re employed by the United States Army. We can do whatever the hell we want, can’t we, Henry?”
“Damn straight we can, Scooter. And I say we get these folks up to the barn and have us a little party. If the ladies are real nice and cooperate, I might even find it in the goodness of my heart to let the three of you just walk out of here. I’ll warn you, though, if you even think of putting up a stink, I’ll bash your goddamn brains out with a claw hammer. I’ve done it before, ain’t I, Scooter?”
“Hell yes,” said Scooter. “I think we still got some brains stuck in the claw in case any of you folks care to take a peek.”
Their laughter returned with renewed energy as if Scooter’s comment was the funniest joke ever told. Mercifully, Henry stopped laughing and pointed up to a red barn. “Get moving,” he said.
We began walking, hands bound in front of us. Violet and Cathy walked side by side with Henry walking behind them. Every now and again, he would stick his nose in the crooks of their necks and make an exaggerated sniffing sound. Cathy would scream, but Violet never even flinched. Not even once. The walk was roughly half a mile up an empty gravel road and another two hundred yards down a narrow driveway. The farm wasn’t much different than my father’s, but I knew instinctively that it didn’t belong to these halfwits. The sandy driveway was thatched with the tracks of heavy military vehicles.
Stealing Second (The Amendments Book One 1) Page 12