“Don’t use your paddle, and keep quiet,” he whispered. “I just want to let the current carry us slowly, close in to the bank where they can’t see us. I want to get a good look at whoever it is in that other boat before we show ourselves.”
Using the paddle blade as a rudder, Grant steered the canoe as it slowly drifted downstream in the sluggish current. A thick stand of cattail marsh grew on the bank just ahead, between them and the two boats they were approaching. Grant aimed for the edge of it, and when the bow knifed into the tall grasses, he grabbed a handful to hold them in position, where they could observe the scene while staying hidden. For several minutes there was no movement or sound at all, and he wondered if whoever it was in that boat had taken Casey into the woods away from the river. He was about to paddle on ahead to find out when two men stepped out of the trees and walked over to the johnboat, one of them stooping down to get something out of it. Grant was glad they were well hidden by the tall grass when the other one turned and looked upriver, straight in their direction.
“Oh my God!” Jessica cried out loud. “I can’t believe it! How could this even be possible?”
THIRTEEN
EVERY DAY SINCE THEY had arrived at Derek’s hidden camp, time had slowed to an excruciating pace for Casey, the hours dragging endlessly by as she felt the confinement of the deep forest closing in around her. The nights were even worse, as she was only able to sleep for those brief periods when she was too exhausted to lay awake in fear or worry any longer. She had no way of marking time other than by the cycles of dark and light, and sometimes the position of the sun on the days it wasn’t cloudy or raining. Derek had no watch, nor did he care what time it was or even what day, week, or month, for that matter. He said that time was a stupid invention of civilization designed to imprison people who had to work for others. From now on, they would live free of time and free of all the other conventions and restrictions of society. But regardless of whether or not she could track the hours, Casey had some idea of the number of days she’d been there, and she thought it was at least nine or ten.
After spending this much time in such an inaccessible pocket of the swamp, among a forgotten remnant of old growth trees that were somehow spared the logger’s saw a century or more ago, she knew that it was highly improbable anyone would ever find her. The camp was essentially on an island, a slightly higher area of mostly dry ground surrounded by miles of sloughs, bayous, dead lakes, and, farther away, the two forks of the Pearl River that bounded each side of the basin. Practically all of the basin seemed to be unbroken forest, with trees growing on both the dry ground and in any water that wasn’t moving. There was no way in or out of it except by boat, and there was no boat that could negotiate the tiny bayou that led to the camp other than a narrow canoe or pirogue. Casey doubted anyone other than Derek had stumbled across it in decades, even before the supposed solar storm, when fishermen from nearby towns frequented the more accessible parts of the swamp in their bass boats year round. Derek had chosen his hideout well, and he had hidden the rough-built tree house platform far enough back in the forest that even if someone did by chance find the tiny creek, they would pass right by, unaware a camp was there.
One thing she discovered he was not exaggerating about was the amount of preparation he had done in his expectation that civilization would eventually collapse and he would someday be living in a place like this, surviving off the land. His skill as a hunter became readily apparent once they stopped traveling, and every morning he was gone before dawn, usually returning within a couple of hours with several squirrels, or sometimes a rabbit, and once, a wild turkey. When they’d arrived there and he had unpacked the big duffel bags and backpacks he had been carrying in the canoe, she discovered that among his gear were several firearms for different hunting and defensive purposes, each of which he showed to her and bragged about with great enthusiasm. First of all, there was a scoped, bolt-action Marlin .22 caliber rifle, which he said he would use for most of his hunting because it was relatively quiet and the ammunition was small and lightweight, allowing him to store enough to last for years. For larger game such as deer and wild hogs, which he said were plentiful in the swamp, he had a short lever-action Winchester carbine that looked to Casey like the typical cowboy rifle seen in old Western movies. Derek said it was chambered for the .357 Magnum, a cartridge that would kill anything that lived in these parts with one well-placed shot. Finally, he had an all-black gun that looked like a machine gun to Casey. He said it was a Saiga semiautomatic AK-47, and that its only purpose in his arsenal was to kill intruders—or anyone else that might present a threat in any way. He told Casey that one day, when he knew he could trust her, after she finally acknowledged that his bringing her here was the best thing that had ever happened to her, he would teach her how to use the guns and how to be a hunter too.
Despite his near-daily wanderings away from the camp to find game, Casey had no opportunities to escape. Although he gave her a bit of freedom around camp during the day, when he was there to watch her, he still bound her hands and feet each night before he went to sleep and left her that way until he returned from the hunt each morning. Casey knew that it wouldn’t have made much difference even if he hadn’t taken this precaution. Each time he left to hunt, he took the canoe and paddled it to other nearby islands of dry ground in the swamp, leaving her effectively cut off from the outside world, as it would have been impossible to walk out in any direction. She wondered if, left free, she would even be able to wade and swim, given a long enough opportunity to get a head start, but the number of large alligators they had seen on both the lower Bogue Chitto and in the waters of the Pearl on the way here made her push that idea to the background as an ultimate last resort. Besides, even if the alligators didn’t bother her and she didn’t get bitten by a snake, she had no idea how far she would have to go to get to solid land, and if what Derek had said was true, the swamp basin they were in was bounded on both sides by the two major branches of the Pearl River. Casey knew that in order to escape and find her way to help, she was going to need the canoe. And to get the canoe, she was somehow going to have to take Derek out of the picture. She didn’t know how she was going to do it, as he was much bigger and obviously quite agile and fit as well, judging by the way he moved. From what she had learned of his life, he had spent most of his adulthood hunting and practically living in the woods between odd jobs, and she had no doubt that he was plenty tough.
But, despite these doubts, Casey knew it would soon come down to fighting for her life anyway, as Derek was beginning to lose patience with his fantasy that she would somehow voluntarily come to like him and want to be his wild woman, enjoying the life he had dreamed of even before the lights went out. She could tell by the way that he looked at her that her time of being left alone was coming to a close. When he had first taken her captive, she would have never believed that he would have restrained himself this long, especially considering that he had already watched her naked, bathing in the river that first day. She could only surmise from listening to him talk that he had little, if any, experience with women, having lived most of his life as a loner, and never fitting into any social groups as an adult or teenager. Apparently his ideas of relationships were skewed by the many fantasy adventure novels he’d read along with his philosophy books, and he thought that winning her heart would be as simple as demonstrating his prowess as a hunter and woodsman—skills no one could deny were more valuable at the moment than the ability to earn a high salary.
But along with his ill-informed notions of romance between men and women, it was also clear that he regarded her as his property. It was one thing that he had taken her against her will, but now he expected her to follow his orders and do whatever work needed doing around camp. This included chopping firewood from the dead branches he dragged to the fire pit from the surrounding woods, cooking their meals, and washing pots and utensils in the bayou. On occasion, when she was awkwardly trying to swing the heavy axe to c
ut up the wood, the thought crossed her mind that she could use it as a weapon. The only problem was that every time he made her do this work, he was standing there watching her, out of range of the axe but easily close enough to rush in and disarm her if she tried anything. She also considered the guns. If she had to kill him to escape, she could imagine herself shooting him from a distance a lot more easily than she could contemplate something as violent as hitting him with an axe. But he was careful to keep the guns out of her reach in the tree house when she was untied, and never let her near them unsupervised. In addition, while in camp he often carried the short lever-action carbine hanging from one shoulder on a rifle sling. Though she looked for opportunities, there was never a time when she would have had a reasonable chance of making for one of the firearms and turning it on him before he could stop her. But Casey was determined to escape, and determined to keep looking for that opportunity and to take it when it presented itself. She was not going to give up and become this man’s slave and worse.
Today he was gone longer than usual, giving her lots of time to think about all these things as she pondered her dismal future. When he did return to the camp sometime around mid-day, she saw the reason. Apparently, he had traveled farther to hunt that day and had taken the time to hide and ambush a young female deer. He walked into the clearing with the bloody carcass slung over one shoulder, grinning with pride at his accomplishment. Casey had gotten used to eating the wild game that Derek brought in, and had even gotten good at cooking it over the fire, but she still didn’t like the sight of the dead animals before he dressed them. The deer was much worse than the small game. It was a pathetic-looking remnant of a once-beautiful and graceful animal, hanging limp, one glazed eye seemingly staring back into hers.
“We’ll be eating well for a long time now. I’ll rig up a shelter for smoking all this meat and then I won’t have to go hunting for a while. I know you’ll like that. I won’t have to leave every morning and we’re going to have a lot more time together. Now get over here and help me hang her up off the ground so the ants won’t get on the meat.”
Later that afternoon, Derek went back to work on the deer and finished the job of removing the skin, carrying the bloody hide to the edge of the bayou to wash it. Then he returned to the fire pit where Casey was sitting, watching the venison steaks roasting on green branches directly over the coals.
“Now I’m going to be able to make you a nice buckskin dress, to go with that pair of moccasins I’ve been working on. First this hide’s got to be scraped; then we’ll tan it with the deer’s brains. I bet you didn’t know it, but every animal has enough brains to tan its own hide. That’s how the Indians did it, and it makes the finest buckskin that can be had. I want you to watch closely, because this is women’s work and you’ll be doing the next one.”
Derek had cut some stakes from a small sapling with the axe. He used the blunt side of it to hammer them down, then laid the axe back down behind him, on top of the pile of firewood Casey had prepared earlier. Punching holes in the corners of the hide with his knife, he stretched it out between the stakes until it was tight, the hair side down, against the ground. Then he showed Casey how to scrape away the fat and bits of meat that still clung to it, using the edge of his hunting knife, turned at a 90-degree angle to keep from cutting into it.
“Here, you try it,” he said, holding the knife out to her.
“Okay, but can you give me a minute? I need to go over in the woods and use the bathroom.”
“Make it quick!”
When she was done, Casey returned to the fire, knowing she would be forced to do the disgusting work of scraping the deer hide. As she walked nearer, it suddenly struck her that Derek was totally preoccupied with the hide, not bothering to look up when she approached. His back was to her and he was bent over it on his knees, pulling the knife across it in long, two-handed strokes. She glanced at the woodpile and saw the axe. It was lying there forgotten, completely out of his field of view.
Casey realized that at last she had a chance to do something decisive about her situation. It was the best opportunity she’d had during the entire time she’d been this man’s prisoner, and there might not be another like it for a long time, if ever. There was no time to be squeamish or even let herself think about the fact that her captor was a fellow human being, just like her. There was only time to act, and that’s what she did. Without making a sound, she bent over and picked up the heavy tool, then shifted her grip to grasp the handle with both hands. She brought it back over her shoulder to gather all the strength she could muster, and swung it as hard as she could, knowing she had only one chance and that she’d better not miss or hold anything back.
She felt the shock of the impact all the way through her arms and into her shoulders. The axe blade struck with a dull thud and she could feel something give as Derek’s head absorbed the blow. His body slumped forward onto the stretched deerskin, and she wrenched the handle back to free the axe in case she needed to hit him again. But it was clear that there was no need. One of his legs was twitching, but he would never get back up. She could see that she had split the back of his skull with one blow, and she threw the axe aside in horror, turning away from a sight that she knew she would never be able to forget. She looked nervously around the clearing, as if she expected to see witnesses that would testify to this brutal murder she’d just committed, but she was all alone. She told herself again that she had done what she had to do. She’d had no choice if she wanted to ever be free to leave.
Casey stepped away from the fire pit and quickly climbed up the wooden ladder to the tree house. She began collecting the things she knew she would need, starting with Derek’s lever-action carbine, the .22 rifle, and the AK-47 with the folding stock. Then she rummaged through his backpack and found her father’s pistol. Once she had all the guns gathered up, she opened one of the ammo cans and sorted out a few boxes of shells, reading the labels to make sure she had some for each weapon. Then she opened the five-gallon buckets to go through the food supplies, and filled one to the top with bags of rice and canned goods before resealing the lid. She then put the guns and ammo in one of the big duffel bags and loaded a smaller pack with butane lighters, insect repellent, a cooking pot, a can opener, and other necessities Derek had among his gear. It took her three trips to carry all this stuff from the tree house to the edge of the bayou and load it in the canoe. Each time she walked back into the camp to get another load, she couldn’t help but glance at the body beside the fire pit, just to make sure Derek was really dead and no longer a threat to her.
The afternoon light was rapidly fading when she finally got underway in the canoe, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to go far before the swamp was enveloped in darkness. But she was determined to go as far as possible from that awful place while she could still see. She pushed off the bottom with the paddle and struggled to steer the long canoe through the twists and turns of the winding bayou. Frequently banging the bow into trees and getting the keel stuck in the mud along the edges, she made slow progress, but at least she was moving.
When the deepening twilight finally overtook her, Casey pulled the canoe onto a muddy bank and hurriedly scrounged some dry leaves and broke dead twigs off of nearby branches to start a fire. She managed to get it going before full nightfall, but there was not enough dry wood in the immediate vicinity to build it up to any size or to keep it stoked until morning. She huddled in its glow as long as she was able to keep it burning, using the can opener to open a can of mixed vegetable soup, which she placed near the flames to warm before eating it and drinking the broth from the can. In her haste to leave, she had not thought to include even one of Derek’s cooking pots as she gathered the things she thought she would need.
She had no idea what she would do when morning came; her only plan was to follow the bayou downstream. It had to come out somewhere, either on a bigger river or directly on the coast. Either way, it didn’t really matter. There was no way she could find
her way back to the Bogue Chitto, and even if she could, she knew it would be impossible to travel back all the way they’d come, paddling alone and upstream against the current. Though she wanted to get to Grant’s cabin and be with Grant and Jessica more than anything, she knew she couldn’t get there by that route, and she sure couldn’t stay out here in the swamp indefinitely. She would have to take her chances with strangers somewhere downstream in what was left of civilization, and she could only hope that she could find other people with decency and morals remaining despite the collapse. If so, maybe she could get help in eventually making her way to the other side of the state line and finding her friends.
She sat by the fire thinking about the prospects for her future and worrying about Grant and Jessica, as well as her father and her Uncle Larry. After what she had gone through with Derek since that day he’d taken her by surprise, she couldn’t imagine that she would face anything worse. Even sitting there alone, surrounded by the blackness of the night forest with her firewood nearly depleted, she was not afraid anymore. She had turned the tables on her captor and rescued herself completely on her own, and she knew after that experience that she could overcome any other obstacles that might loom in her path tomorrow or beyond. When the fire finally burned down, she sat propped against the canoe, and finally dozed off.
She awoke with a scream, her rest shattered by a nightmare of Derek looming out of the blackness to grab her, half of his brains spilling out of the bloody wound in the back of his head like some specter from a horror movie. After that vision, she knew there was no hope of getting more sleep, so she spent the rest of the night awake, huddled against the canoe and waiting for dawn.
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