I have the power, the control to retrieve Hayden’s harmonica. My body has been my form of control—in it is the power I always wanted. At the same time, that power is like my dingy, wet T-shirt. Insufficient. Less than insufficient, next to the kind of love that takes the arrow. Love that gives something up for someone else.
When you give yourself up for someone else.
“No,” I say quietly. “It isn’t what God wants for me. I’m done making my own way.” God knows where Hayden’s harmonica is, just like he knew where my flute was.
George’s face tries out anger, but settles on confusion. I leave him for the driver’s lounge. It doesn’t look like Hayden showered and he abruptly stops pacing when he sees me.
“I called Malcolm. Salt Creek doesn’t have a police station, but I called for a highway patrolman.” He whispers even though we are alone. “Sit down.”
I sit quickly.
“Your disk, Brody’s disk…” He holds it up. “This is something bigger. I already emailed the contents to Malcolm and my captain. It’s like a journal, a log of names, dates, payment, locations.”
“What?”
“Domestic sex trade. And we aren’t talking about pimps that sell girls to support their drugs—or some isolated case in a remote corner of the city. A huge, organized operation. With hundreds of addresses. In several states. It was like Brody wanted insurance because of the details he kept.”
“How does that even work? Sex Trade? You mean prostitution? I already know he has a brothel.”
“No, not just ‘legal in the State of Nevada’ brothels, this is illegal human trafficking. Sex slaves, Sparrow. Runaways. Other girls they coerce or capture, American girls. Brody recorded a mobile service, several traveling vans with girls in it. There are also a few addresses; one of them had a dozen names and ages, mostly young girls. Only a handful were listed as over eighteen.”
“If Brody knows the disk is gone, they’ll probably come after me.”
Hayden doesn’t answer right away.
“What are you thinking?”
“If Brody tells them about this disk, they will have two reasons to come after us,” he says.
Prickles run all over my neck as a man walks into the room with us. “Two?” I ask, without turning to see who it is.
Hayden doesn’t look up either. “Your name was the last entry.”
Chapter 28
“I’ll take that disk.” The detective who visited me in the hospital is even more of a rhinoceros standing up. He fills the doorway pointing a handgun.
Hayden’s voice carries an ethereal calm. “If you’ve been there long, you know I’ve already emailed the contents.”
“Brody thought telling us about the disk would keep us from finishing him off,” He flexes a fist with blood crusted on the knuckles. “We just need to know what the cops know.”
Hayden twists in his seat to reach for the disk. He starts to toss it.
“No.” The killer leers and runs a hand over his mouth and chin. “Have the girl bring it. She’s coming with us anyway.”
“Not gonna happen.” Hayden stands up and steps in front of me.
The rhino detective’s eyes rage with intent. In a vivid daydream, an image forms of Hayden: he’s on the floor with a pool of blood as a crown around his head. “I’ll go.”
Hayden grips my wrist and squeezes. He tries to push me back, but I maneuver around him and reach for my backpack. Now he sits and I stand.
“Leave it.” The detective points with his gun. My fingers cramp and the pack stays in my hand. “How do you think we found you?” He smiles an Elvis Presley, upper lip grin.
“We threw away the GPS unit,” Hayden says.
“This morning maybe. How many towns are there within two hours of that rest stop? This is only the second place we checked.”
I use my left hand to pull the pack from my right hand and it releases into Hayden’s lap. I don’t look at him. If he’s killed, I know I’ll be taken anyway. Then I would have to die twice. I already watched as a man took someone from me and left me to mourn the loss. “Why was Brita killed?”
He licks his lips slowly, as though savoring. “She was meeting with an undercover cop.”
“The truck driver?” Hayden glances between us.
“Pretending to give him private lap dances, all the while informing. Brody didn’t act fast enough. The warning was for him. Now it’s your turn.” His voice raises an octave and he points with the gun to me. “That’s what will happen to you if you try to stop us.” He swings to point it to Hayden. “And what will happen to your little boyfriend if he tries to come after us.” The Rhino licks his lips again, “You’ll be working by tonight, and by tomorrow, you’ll be so far gone…”
A gun’s report pulses three times in quick succession beside my thigh and Hayden’s free hand thrusts me off balance to my left. I scream and reach back for him, landing on my butt the same time the detective slumps to the floor.
Hayden rises to his feet, unscathed. A spiral of smoke leaks from the bottom of my backpack, where his right hand remains burrowed.
I want to weep and rejoice, morn and dissolve. Hayden’s mouth moves and his voice rumbles, but all I hear is ringing.
“You said there were two.” I can tell he yells it this time but it takes a minute to understand because of the ringing in my ears
“Yes.” I take his offered hand and he pulls me to my feet. “Two, there were two yesterday.” The ringing subsides and I hear people screaming in the convenience store part of the building.
“He’s probably waiting out front.”
“Let’s go out this way.” As I say it, I realize we will have to step over the body.
I move quick as possible and don’t look at the dead man. Hayden looks skeptical at my assurance when I first lead him toward the showers, but he shoves my pack into my arms and steps in front of me. He no longer hides his gun—the barrel leads the way. We exit the door between George’s office and the showers. It sets off an alarm and the shrill throbbing heightens the cacophony of panic outside.
Hayden pushes the door shut. A parking lot jammed with eighteen-wheelers expands before us.
“Let’s go that way.” I want to hide in one of the trucks, even underneath one. Hayden shakes his head and walks around the north side of the building. He arcs wide around the corner, his gun raised eye level. Once he decides it’s safe and proceeds, I follow. As soon as I peer around the side of the building I see the white van. Its glinting surface is a herald to our hopelessness.
“Let’s go hide back there.” I point. I don’t want to go out front; I still see that picture of a dead Hayden in my mind.
“I don’t want to hide until I know what we’re hiding from.” Hayden doesn’t look away from the direction of his gun barrel. Last time we argued, it ended badly. I still feel the bruise on my rib. This time I’ll do what he says.
He barely steps to the front of the building when I hear gravel behind me. The eyes of Brita’s killer are still the same: cavernous pools of void.
I recognize him before he does me. My legs won’t move, just like the last time I saw him. Hayden starts to drag me back around the building before the killer jolts forward. I duck before he fires at us. Hayden shoots over me, and I crawl on my hands and knees away from the returning fire. The gas station pumps are devoid of people but not cars. An older, Lincoln Town Car idles twenty-feet in front of us.
“Hurry.” I stumble several times as I make my way to the driver’s side door, which is on the opposite side. Hayden sprints behind me, walking backward. I start to climb in.
“Me first. You drive.”
Hayden slides across the bench seat. He points the gun out the window and yells, “Drive.”
I pull away from the curb. The killer dashes to the van behind us—my backpack in his hands. Beside me, Hayden’s shirt leaks blood. We exchange a helpless, resolved look and then I turn the wheel several times to maneuver the boat I’m driving around the
gas pumps.
“Put your seat belt on.” Hayden doesn’t obey until I repeat it. Once we have both pulled the straps over our chests and I hear his click, I press the gas pedal all the way down. My arm stretches out to him seconds before we impact the van.
“No.” He jerks the wheel just enough that we don’t plow into the van like I’d hoped. We clip the corner instead. The seatbelt presses into my chest so hard it knocks the wind out of me. Hopefully, that will prevent him from following.
“Get us out of here.” His voice is weak.
Where do I go? Maybe back to the rest stop but I won’t be able to outrun a van on a freeway. What if he shoots at us while we’re driving? Salt Creek is so small there isn’t a police station. How fast and far will I have to drive to get the attention of a highway patrol?
Our tires spin on gravel before meeting the pavement with a whine. I can’t go back to the rest stop; I already know what’s in that direction. Wells is more than an hour away. The wheel turns left, my arms making the decision without my head. Is it better to go to something you’ve confirmed is an empty, dead-end—or to flee to the unknown?
“I don’t know if you’re going in the right direction.” Hayden isn’t looking out the window; he’s staring at his bloody hands.
Panicked breathing threatens, so I fix my eyes on the brown Shoshone Humboldt Colony sign in front of us. Another left turn, the road is wide and newly paved. Let’s see what this car can do. We float over a rise in the road and my stomach completely drops out of me. I look to see how Hayden fared. He has scooted down in his seat and his normally tan skin is pale.
“Hayden?” I shake him.
He turns his head so slowly I have time to look back at the road twice before we make eye contact. “Are we there yet?”
“No, not yet.”
His breaths come quick and shallow. “Don’t speed, okay?” He closes his eyes and shakes his head a little. “Better late than never.”
Ignoring his weird command, I press the pedal harder until the car shakes. I back off the pedal slightly. We fly down the road and over another hill, which feels like another freefall. Cresting a higher knoll, I glance into the rear view mirror. The tiny van reflection pursues us. We plunge again and the mound eclipses the image.
“He’s following.”
“God be with us.” Hayden’s whisper comes between pants of breath. Drops of moisture pill across his forehead and upper lip.
“Jesus…God,” I say as Hayden slouches against his seatbelt. “Please be bigger than this.”
We pass a sign, but I don’t have time to read it, but I think the first part said something like “You are now entering…”
Several warning signs display a sharp turn ahead. I try to slow and ease into it, but we skid onto the wrong side as the turn becomes a solid ninety-degree rotation. I brake hard, and the car slides to the side. It stops before we hit a guardrail buffeting a tower of rock.
The engine stalls. It takes two tries to get it roaring again and I peel out. A newer, doublewide mobile home defends the entrance to the Humboldt Indian Colony’s main road, less than a hundred feet away. When we get near it I slam the brakes and the car slides sideways again, spinning around close to the porch stairs.
The figure of the man from my dream stands in the center of the porch. Only he does not bid me come with outstretched arm, he holds a sawed off shotgun against his chest. I tumble out of the driver’s side and run-trip my way to Hayden’s door. Dogs bark nearby in a frantic chorus. The man approaches, his long braids draped in front of him and the shotgun in his hands, the barrel angled above our heads.
“Help.” I shriek in his direction. “Help us.” Hayden leans against the belt like wilted lettuce. How will I save him?
“Sparrow?” The shotgun drops to the man’s side. “Is that you?”
The car door stands between us, and I sidestep it. I know who he is, the man from my dream, the keeper of my curse, my grandfather.
Tears form in eyes that look just like mine. He reaches toward me, a shaky hand aloft. “Is it really you?” His hand moves toward me and I crumple to my knees.
“Oh, God.” I’m undone.
The warm, trembling hand of a man who works rests on me. His palm covers my forehead. “Spirit of the Living God, I thank you.”
The dogs’ barking reduces to growls and complaints. Tires squeal. Metal crumbles against other metal or rock. An engine revs again. My grandfather continues, but now to me. “You were in danger last night?” He lifts my chin and I look up to him. “I woke up, prayed for you. More than usual…”
The van parks in the same slip-slide spin as I did, but a few feet away from the back of our car.
“Okay, Running Beer.” The killer has a cut across his eyebrow and he leans over the hood of his van with a long gun pointed at us. I had hoped plowing into him would do more damage. The dogs start slamming into the window behind my grandfather.
The big man calls over the sound of their barking. “Send the girl over here and I’ll let you live.”
“Send my child, the one I have longed to see for seventeen years?” I didn’t notice when my grandfather raised his gun, but they face off, two vehicles between them, with me on my knees. God, please be bigger than this.
Even if Brody’s man leaves now, he will come again. Will I ever run far enough that he won’t come for me? Will I ever escape who I am? A pawn of evil? Property?
“Much fire-water in it for you.” The prick taunts.
My grandfather holds steady, unaffected. “Son, you have nothing to offer and only one way to save your own life.”
“I’ll kill you and take her,” Empty-Eyes hollers.
“I do not fear one who can harm only my body. You should fear the one who can destroy both body and soul.” My grandfather.
“I know where you are, if I leave I’ll just come back.”
“If you knew where you stood, you’d remove your shoes.” What is he talking about?
“What the…?”
“You are on sovereign ground.” Vibrations from my grandfather’s voice shimmy up my arms and neck. “God Most High is here and there is nothing you can do to harm us.”
“I’m not leaving without her.” The dogs’ barking echoes him.
“And I’m not letting her go!”
Glass shatters and gray, black and brown leap from the windows. A hound and a German shepherd race to the side of the van and the Killer can’t seem to decide who to shoot. He doesn’t get a chance before he’s dragged down the side of the van. My grandfather walks over with his rifle out. I follow in time to see my grandfather kick the gun from the Killer’s reach. He is screaming and thrashing.
My grandfather calls out, “Lay still if you want to keep those.”
The man’s screams subside. The shepherd looks like he has skewered him and the hound barks, inches from his weeping face.
“Son, did you know that an Indian colony is a sovereign nation?”
He whimpers. “No.”
“You’re not on US soil right now. I could kill you and no one would ever question it.” The Killer flinches, closes his eyes and whimpers again, probably assuming this is the day he’ll die. The shepherd growls over his mouthful. My would-be captor looks weak on the ground, a captive himself to animals and an old man. He is not so huge sprawled out this way; he is just a man on his back. Not my destined destruction. Just. A. Man.
My grandfather does not turn his head but he speaks to me. “Pick up the walkie-talkie by the front door, my little bird. Push the button and say Stephen…” He pauses and winks at me with a fleeting glance. “I mean, ‘Running Beer’ needs you.’”
Chapter 29
My feet cover the sun when I swing forward. I swing back and the brightness blinds my sight. Even in October, the waning sun’s heat makes a way into our atmosphere to touch me.
“Are you ready to go?” Hayden never swings as high as I do. Maybe he will when he gets his cast and sling off next week. The bullet that
shattered his collarbone sits in a bowl now, in the middle of his coffee table.
“Almost.” I drag my feet to slow the swing. If Cori wasn’t waiting for us, I would swing until my legs tingled and feel asleep. Hayden smiles at me with a clean-shaven face. We visit a different park on every date. Although, can you really call Bible study at a women’s prison a date?
The first time I told Cori “I forgive you,” it caused more pain than I expected. Will I ever discover why those words hurt her so much? She is working on a program for awareness and prevention of domestic trafficking, for when she’s released. I think her motivation is penance. But at least she meets us for Bible study; we still have time to show her how free she can be. How free I am.
It helps her that so many of those rape homes listed on the disk have been busted. In the days following Malcolm’s obtaining the CD, fifteen locations were raided. Hayden is thinking about applying for a position as a federal human trafficking officer. We aren’t engaged yet, but talk is heading us that way. I think he doesn’t want to ask me to leave Nevada, which is silly—I would follow him anywhere. Who wouldn’t follow the kind of man who gives his life for you?
“Stephen will be at Thom and Lorna’s tomorrow,” Hayden says.
“Oh, good.” My grandfather and Hayden became quick friends. I guess that’s what happens when someone saves your life. “Lorna will be more pleasant.” We giggle together.
Things are not easy between Lorna and me, but she always behaves when my scary grandfather eats with us. She avoids his “brain-raping” eyes the entire time, which means she doesn’t run the conversation. I have no such fear. The “curse” Lorna saw was a plea for the Holy Spirit to shelter me.
One man’s prayer is another man’s curse.
I doubt I would be here if it weren’t for the tenacious prayers of my grandfather, the kind of prayers that hedge out evil spirits at three fifteen in the morning.
Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds) Page 23