by Billy Kring
“You checked the two dead ones?”
“Not yet. You’re my first priority.”
He croaked, “I did two tours in Afghanistan, eleven firefights, heavy stuff, and never got a scratch. I get with you for less than a week and I look like I went through a meat grinder.”
“Like I said, you’re tough. Mouthy, but tough.”
Ike stretched his neck, “Do we have a vehicle?”
Hunter held the roll and tore the tape with her fingers. She put it on his neck and left a gap over his Adam’s apple so any swelling would have room to expand. She said, “No cars. There’s a tractor in the barn I can try to use.”
Ike nodded as he flexed his hands. “Not that far to town, then we can get something else.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” She noticed Ike’s voice getting rougher, harder to understand. “Can you sit up, maybe stand?”
“I can try.” He sat up with Hunter’s help. He coughed again, emitting a half-cup of clotting blood on the ground. “I’m still a little woozy.” She steadied him with her hand. He said, “Did you hear them say anything about where they’ll be, where they’re going? Are they coming back for the plane?”
“I’m going to take care of the plane in a bit. I think I heard one of them mention a safe house near Goodfellow, and that they’d stay there first.” She was so glad Ike was alive, that on impulse she gently hugged his neck.
“What was that for?”
“Glad that you’re still around.”
“That makes two of us.”
Ike tried to stand and Hunter had to catch him before he went down. “Not yet. Rest here while I check on things.”
He nodded, and Hunter went to the dead men, retrieving everything in their pockets, plus the pistols and extra magazines. She pulled out the money from the wallets, and two credit cards before throwing them into the brush. Both carried the .40 Glock, which made her think these guys might have been law enforcement, since many organizations favored the .40. She found the pilot’s pistol, but it had been emptied at her, and there were no extra magazines. She slipped the pistols in the back of her belt, one on either side, then walked in the barn to check out the old green and yellow John Deere tractor.
A heavy layer of dust covered it, but the wheels weren’t flat and the key was in the ignition. She climbed into the seat, not that familiar with tractors since she didn’t grow up on a farm. Hunter had seen many of them working, and had a good idea of how they worked, but she never drove them. She checked the dials, saw it was full, and thought that maybe this would work. Always, hard on her mind, Hunter worried about Ramona and the kids, especially Anita and Kelly. Thinking about it made her jaws tighten.
Starting the tractor turned out to be easy, and she backed it from the barn, cutting the wheels to get beside Ike. He looked up at her and gave a thumbs-up sign, but she spotted the wet area where he recently threw up. Leaving it to idle, she hopped down and said, “Stay here until I come back.”
She went to the airplane and took the stairs two at a time. Inside the cockpit she picked up a fire extinguisher and used the hard bottom to destroy all the instruments. By the time she finished, her anger had abated and the interior of the DC-3 was a total wreck. She sprayed the extinguisher’s contents on it all for good measure before hurrying down the steps and walking to the idling tractor. She said to Ike, “You ready?”
He grasped a rubber knob on the large rear tire and pulled himself up. Ike wobbled, but said, “Let’s do this.” Hunter climbed up into the seat, and extended her hand to help. Ike grasped her wrist and she pulled as he pushed with his legs and climbed.
Hunter held tight to him, straining at times to keep them both from falling off the tractor.
Ike threw up again before they made it fifty yards, and Hunter stopped, but Ike motioned her forward, “Don’t stop.”
The old John Deere drove easily, but it wasn’t a smooth ride on the rough, uneven pasture road and the big knobby rear tires. Ike tried to hold on, but it took all of Hunter’s strength as well to keep him on the tractor. When they stopped at the gate, Hunter climbed down to open the gate, then got in the seat and drove through before climbing down again to close it. When she seated herself again, Ike said, “Sorry I’m no help. This road’s about to beat me to death.”
“How’s your neck?”
“Throbbing like a giant toothache, and I’ve got a headache to match.”
“We can’t stop.”
“I know. When we get into town, I’ll need some Tylenol, a lot of it.” Blood leaked from the bottom edge of the duct tape where the larger wound in back was located, but Hunter didn’t stare. Ike couldn’t see it, and she didn’t want him to worry.
She realized her jaws were clenched, and had been for a while. Consciously forcing them to relax still didn’t ease the worry she felt that time was fast running out for the children, and that she was going to fail them again. That thought pierced her heart like a splinter of ice.
Ike said, “I’m locked in here,” he sat beside the only seat on the tractor, “So let’s get going.” He glanced at Hunter and said in a voice that grated like Ike’s throat was filled with dirt and gravel, “And stop worrying about me. I’ll tell you if I need to stop.”
Hunter started the tractor forward, easing it up on the pavement where the conditions were less rough. Ike sighed as she sped up and drove on the road, “Better. At least it doesn’t feel like I’ve got broken glass in my neck.”
“You dummy, you had a bullet in your neck, lots worse.”
Ike squinted one eye and looked at her, “I’m a fast healer, so watch it.” His words slurred slightly. Hunter worried that he might have had a stroke from the injury.
“You’re not that fast. I’m taking you back to the hospital when we get into town.”
“What do I tell them this time?”
“Hunting accident. They’ll believe it since you’ve been there so much they know you by your first name. It’ll be like a school reunion, you getting back with the doctors and nurses.” One corner of Ike’s mouth drooped slightly as he attempted a smile.
She drove the tractor into San Angelo and went straight to Shannon Hospital, parking it in the ER area. Ike had trouble getting down, so Hunter helped him, and draped his arm over her shoulders as they walked to the entrance. Inside, one of the nurses recognized Ike and brought a wheelchair. She helped sit him in it while he protested. As the nurse took control and wheeled him into the Emergency area, Hunter said, “I’ll check back.”
Ike waved without looking behind, and Hunter hurried out the door, her nerves screaming with the stress of worrying about Kelly and Anita and the others. She thought of Ramona as well, but the children, especially those two, they were her primary worry at the moment.
She moved the tractor to an out of the way space at the far side of the lot, and returned to the lobby to wait until they gave her word on Ike’s condition.
~**~
As Suretta drove into San Angelo after leaving the ranch, she glanced at the woman and children in the vehicle. Kelly sat in the second seat in the Suburban behind Suretta and next to Paco. Ramona sat behind Nadine, holding her daughter as tight as she could. Everyone except Paco wept at the carnage they witnessed at the ranch. Paco sat mute and still, and sweat ran down his salt and pepper sideburns and along his cheek. To Kelly, he appeared terrified.
Suretta seemed grim and angry as she drove. It was as easy to see as heat waves off a hot street. Nadine sat in the passenger side of the front seat, and turned to look at the others in the car. Most of the girls remained huddled together in the last seat, some sitting on the other’s lap so they could all be close. Her eyes came back to Kelly. Nadine said, “This mess is almost over with. You’ll be overseas and safe soon.”
Kelly started to speak, when Ramona said, “Safe? Don’t lie to these children. You know what will happen to them.”
Nadine said, “Better than dying here, isn’t it?”
“I’m not so sure.
Will your life be better if you take one of their places, let those foreign men claw and molest you, trade you around?”
Suretta’s backhand caught Ramona in the face and stunned her. Anita slid from her dazed grasp, and Paco caught the child before she hit the floorboard face first. He lifted her and handed the child to Kelly, “Keep her.”
Kelly calmed her after several busy minutes, and when Ramona came around to take her. “Thank you,” she said to the young girl. “She likes you.”
“I like Anita, too.”
Suretta drove along South Bell to where it crossed the small dam on the Concho River. She turned into the neighborhood where the safe house stood, and soon had them parked under the carport at the rear door. She, Nadine, and Paco ushered the children into the house, along with Ramona, forcing them in the large room with barred windows and quarter-inch hail-screen. The bars had been attached inside the house and over the windows, keeping someone from reaching the window to open it. Ramona knew that design was only to keep people inside. Kelly looked at the bars as she moved to the back of the room. The screws used were old, standard ones with the single notch, and the bars were attached to wood.
Suretta said, “All of you, go in the other rooms and get some blankets and pillows. We’re probably going to be here all night. Ramona, you sleep with us.”
Anita said, “I’m hungry.”
Suretta wasn’t going to slap the most valuable one, so instead she hit one of the other girls, knocking her into the wall. The girl slumped to the floor as blood streamed from her nose.
The others screamed, and Suretta said, “Shut up!”
They did, looking at the angry, powerful woman through scared eyes.
Nadine said, “We’re ordering pizza. It’ll be ready in about twenty minutes. Stay quiet till then, you all hear?”
Paco stayed behind Suretta, hoping not to draw her attention.
Ten Minutes later, Nadine came in and said, “Pizza’s here.”
They all filed in the living room, grabbed a slice of pizza and a bottle of water, then returned to their blankets. Before the night was over, all the children huddled next to Ramona, with Anita and Kelly the closest.
Chapter 16
Hunter parked the tractor at the far end of the lot and went inside the Enterprise Car Rental, where the woman rented Hunter a tan Jeep Grand Cherokee. Hunter drove to the nearest Wal-Mart and went inside, finding the cell phones she wanted at the rear of the store near the electronics. She purchased two burners, one for Ike, one for her, entering each number in the other before returning to the hospital. Sneaking in, she wandered the halls looking for him and found Ike sitting up in bed, looking as antsy as someone who’d slammed three Red Bulls back to back.
She tossed him his phone, “These’ll have to do until we get ours back. I plugged my number in yours so you’ll know when I call.”
“Get me out of here.”
“When the doctors say.”
“They already did. They told me ten minutes ago.”
“Which doctor?”
Ike’s eyes looked everywhere but at Hunter, “Uh, Doctor…Lavator.”
Hunter looked behind her, “You just got that from the lavatory sign.”
“Did not.”
Hunter sighed, “Let me see how they fixed you up.”
“They’ve got tubes running in me from everywhere.”
“You’ve got one, an IV, in your arm.”
“Well, it felt like hundreds.”
She checked the wound on the back of his neck, “And they have a small drainage tube back there. It drains to a pouch at your waist.”
“Okay, okay.”
“I’ll get you when they say.”
“Hunter, really. Get me out of here.”
“I will. Now heal up.”
She left, with the nurse at the nurse’s station giving her a look when she walked by. Outside the hospital, she drove the Cherokee to a Stripes convenience store on Pulliam, two blocks off of North Bell Street. and bought peanuts, water, and two large Snickers bars to keep herself going. Not healthy, but it would carry her for a while.
Working out in a grid from Goodfellow base was methodical and boring, and she checked miles of streets until it grew so dark she couldn’t make out much out on the vehicles parked away from streetlights. At four AM, she parked at another Stripes store on Pulliam, rubbed her eyes to ease the burning tiredness in them, and curled up to nap for an hour or two, when she would continue the search. She dozed off, worrying about Kelly and Anita.
~**~
Kelly woke at five, too nervous to sleep because she and the other children would be gone today. Kelly overheard Nadine mention it to Suretta late last night. How it would happen, whether by being driven or flown, she didn’t know, but it would happen.
She slid out from the others and crept through the house, stopping long enough to slip on her tennis shoes. The kidnappers left on the hallway lights, so she could see the interior of the house very well. Everyone slept, including Suretta and Nadine. She moved to the far wall away from them and edged along it to the kitchen. She found a paring knife, put it in her back jeans pocket, and then tried the outside kitchen door. It appeared to be locked from the outside. She left the kitchen and passed down the hall to go into another room.
Nothing caught her eye until she checked the small closet. She stepped inside and looked up at the ceiling, where access to the attic showed in a framed area of the ceiling where the sheetrock had been cut out in a rectangle and the wooden frame held the piece in place afterward, to be removed when access was needed.
What Kelly wanted was that access, but she was too short to reach it. She studied the small area, which was a space made only for hanging a few clothes on a rod that was now gone. This was one of the closets her mother showed her in a house before they moved. Her mother told her it was from the early part of the twentieth century. Just enough space to hang a few shirts and a few pairs of pants. “That’s all people had back then,” she’d said. Kelly felt a twinge of longing, remembering her mom and their talks.
“Suck it up,” Kelly said to herself. Putting one foot against a closet wall and her back against the other side made her stretch her toes, but she could do it. She gave herself a little hop with the down leg and lifted it fast so she had both legs on the opposite wall. She rolled her shoulders and moved up, then she baby-stepped her feet higher.
A hand touched the back of her leg and Kelly almost yelled. Her heart hammered in her chest like someone beating on it with a closed fist.
Anita said, “Are you playing like you’re Spider Man?”
Kelly exhaled, “What are you doing up?”
“I woke up and saw you going. I followed you.”
“You need to go back to bed.”
“Uh-uh, not till you do, Kelly. You’re my friend.”
They heard a sudden noise in the house, and Suretta’s angry yell at someone. People scurried and the sounds of their footsteps told Kelly they hunted for her.
Kelly said to Anita, “Be quiet.” She worked her way higher up the walls until she put a hand on the attic entrance and pushed. It didn’t move.
Urgent voices sounded in the house as they hunted for Kelly and Anita.
Anita looked worried, peering out the door of the closet.
Kelly said, “It’s okay. Stay right there.” Anita nodded.
Kelly put her palm against the panel again and gave a quick push. One edge lifted. She pushed again and the entire piece lifted up and into the attic, falling to the side on the rafters. Dust as fine as flour drifted down on Kelly’s face.
The sound of footsteps came down the hall.
Kelly put her arm down, wriggling her hand at Anita, “Come on, I’ll lift you up here.”
Anita looked behind her once before grabbing, and said, “I think they’re very close.”
Kelly used her back and legs to pull, but Anita was no small six-year old, and it took everything she had to lift Anita to sit on her stomach.
Kelly’s back and legs quivered as she helped the smaller child climb into the attic.
Voices came down the hall, “They’ve got to be here somewhere, none of the outside doors were opened.”
Kelly scrooched higher on the wall until she could reach and grasp the edge of the opening. She got a good grip, then lifted her back off the far wall, but kept her feet on the other to help in the climb.
She realized that wasn’t going to work, because she couldn’t push with her legs, so she moved them and hung from her hands, dangling in the open rectangle as a footstep sounded very close.
Pulling with her arms, and with Anita helping in a small way, Kelly made it into the opening as two people came into the room.
Moving as silently as she could, Kelly put the opening panel in place, sealing them in the attic’s darkness. Anita sat close as they listened to the people talking below them.
Suretta said, “We’ve got three hours, then we leave. Find them by then, or you’ll regret it, understand?”
“Nadine said, “Yes, Suretta.”
“If you can’t catch them but you spot them running, kill them.”
“Even Anita?”
“And then come back and kill the mother because she’ll be throwing a fit.”
“Okay.”
They left and Kelly felt Anita’s small hand on her forearm as the child whispered, “They want to hurt us?”
“Yes, they do. But we’re going to fool them and get away, okay?”
“Okay,” Anita said in a small voice. “And mi mami?”
“We’ll come back for her when it’s safe. If we get free, your mom will be happy.”
Kelly couldn’t see her face because it was so dark, but she felt Anita’s head nod up and down against her arm.
Her eyes adjusted until she could make out shapes, and gaps in the attic walls where outside light showed through.
It sounded very quiet in the house beneath her attic hideout, and Kelly thought about peeking in there, but decided not to. She waited until enough light slipped through the cracks and gaps for her to move about. “Anita, stay here while I look around.”