Abducted

by David R Lewis

  “Stitch?”

  “Hey, man! Here I come to save the, like, day, dude.”

  Clete grinned. “Want me to pop smoke so you can find the ellzee?”

  “Naw. Just walk out into the middle of where you want me and don’t forget to duck.”

  The incoming speck began to gain substance.

  “Okay,” Clete replied. “You’re almost due north of our position. See ya in a minute.” He slipped the phone back in his pocket and walked out into the empty parking lot.

  “Always scares me a little bit,” Birdy said.

  “What does?” Crockett asked.

  “Sound of a helicopter.”

  “Ever ridden in one?”

  “Out to a firebase on June 6th, 1969. Back to an aid station on June 9th, 1969. I went out with a M-16. I came back with a chunk of shrapnel in my lung.”

  Birdy became silent then, watching the approaching helo. Crockett gave him his space.

  The helicopter, still the flat black it had been when they snatched Zeke, settled onto the asphalt and Stitch popped out as the rotor wound down. He shook hands with Clete, then trotted over and slapped Crockett on the shoulder.

  “Hey, dude. Time for some recon?”

  Crockett smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Hopefully an extraction, too.”

  “Far out. Clete gave me a quick mission brief last night.”

  “Fine. Stitch, this is Sheriff Birdwell.”

  Stitch extended his hand. “You the cat that’s gonna let me break all kinds of FAA rules and regs flyin’ up and down the river?”

  “That’s me,” Birdy said, shaking Stitch’s hand.

  “Outstanding, man. I’m a little low on juice. Anyplace around here where I can gas up?”

  “There’s a small airport at Cherokee Village.”

  “Gotcha. I scoped it out on charts on the way down. ‘Bout ten minutes from here by air?”

  “That’s it,” Birdy said.

  “Saddle up, Troops. Time to dust off.” Stitch turned and headed back toward the helicopter.

  “He’s been there,” Birdy said as they walked toward the helo.

  “And back,” Clete said. “At least most of the way.”

  Less than an hour later they were fully fueled and airborne again at about two thousand feet above the Spring River approaching Thousand Islands camp. On the west side of the river the land opened up a bit into a flood plain as hills pushed their way up out of the flat a few hundred yards from the river. As they proceeded farther north, the hills gained height, gradually shifting structure into limestone bluffs. Crockett peered out the window.

  “There,” he said. “Stitch, come right a bit. Clete remember when we couldn’t tell what that lump on top of the bluff was?”

  “Yeah,” Clete said, shifting his seat to follow Crockett’s line of sight.

  “’Nocs under your seat, man,” Stitch said. “I’m gonna back off, go up to about angels five and throttle back. No point in lettin’ Charlie know we’re fuckin’ around.”

  He pulled the helo east, away from the river, and made a wide circle as they gained altitude. Crockett retrieved the binoculars and waited for a clear line of sight. When they stabilized he returned to the window.

  “Damn. Clete, what kinda truck did that guy say he saw behind our place in Kaycee?”

  “An old pickup. White and red, I think.”

  “On top of the bluff we got a white over red Chevy. 71 or 72.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. And in the field between the bluff and the river are a couple of trails from the bottom of the bluff out to the riverbank. We didn’t see ‘em from the canoe ‘cause the bank there was higher than our line of sight. Christ! This could be it. Stitch, get the hell over there!”

  Stitch pulled away from the area to the east again in a large looping circle.

  “What the hell are you doing? Put it down in the field in front of the bluff.”

  “Settle down, man. I ain’t settin’ down no place near there. Charlie’ll blow our ass away if we land in his field of fire, or get his ass outa there, most rikki-tik, if he hears us comin’ in from above. We’ll find a ellzee back a ways from the top of the bluff and go in on foot. I’m fuckin’ this horse, Crockett. You just hold his head.”

  Stitch landed in a small break in the ground cover of stunted post oaks and cedars, nearly a mile west of the old pickup truck. As everybody clambered out, he went to a storage locker built into the rear bulkhead of the passenger compartment and rummaged around moving blankets and things for a moment, finally producing two flashlights. He tossed one out the door to Clete, stuck the other in his hip pocket, jumped to the ground and turned to Crockett.

  “We walk, man. We can walk fast, but we walk. If we gotta go into some a Charlie’s tunnels an’ shit, the last thing we want is four old dudes coughin and wheezin’ ‘cause they just tried to run a four-minute mile through the fuckin’ elephant grass.”

  It took them nearly twenty minutes to reach the truck. Ten yards in front of it, the top of the bluff pushed up out of the ground to a little above head height. Behind a twisted cedar, Birdy found a fissure in the rock about five feet high and two feet wide. The earth in front of it had been trampled smooth.

  “This is it,” he said. “You packin’, Clete?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Take point. I’ve got rear guard. Crockett, you and Stitch will stay behind Clete. No talking unless it’s absolutely necessary. No flashlights unless it’s absolutely necessary. Stitch, you’ll be responsible for lighting my way when it gets dark in there. If you hear me or Clete yell to get down, I want you face first in the dirt and out of my line of fire. Everybody clear?”

  No answer.

  “Good. Nice and easy, nice and slow. Let’s do it.”

  For the next fifteen minutes the foursome slowly wound their way down the meandering sloping shaft. Twice they had to bend nearly double to get through bottlenecks. Boots treading on grit in the tunnel seemed unbearably loud, but they were not challenged in any way. Gradually the downhill pitch leveled out and Clete held up a hand. They stopped.

  “Lights out,” Clete whispered.

  After their eyes adjusted to the dark, they could discern a faint grayness down the tunnel in front of them. Clete put the flashlight away into a pocket, slipped his Sig back into the holster, wiped his hand on his thigh, and drew the pistol again. Very slowly and carefully, he continued his slow sneak.

  The tunnel, now nearly level, continued to lighten. In another hundred feet it turned to the right, light splashing off the opposing wall. Again Clete stopped. He put his mouth close to Crockett’s ear.

  “Smell that?” he whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s it smell like to you?”

  “An outhouse.”

  “Yep. We got a latrine or something around this corner. Let’s go.”

  Two minutes later they stood in a low ceilinged cavern about twenty by thirty feet with a rough opening looking out over the floodplain to a line of trees marking the river two hundred yards away. In one corner of the room was a pallet with a filthy pillow and a ragged blanket. Candy bar and food wrappers littered the floor. In the center of the area was a copper still. Along one wall were dozens of plastic gallon jugs, and in the opposite corner from the pallet was a sinkhole about three feet across. The odor that wafted from it was sickening. Next to the sinkhole another tunnel entered the room. Crossing to it, Clete wiped his hand again and, with his back to the wall, began to move down the shaft.

  No more than twenty feet from the still chamber the right hand wall of the shaft widened out of sight for about fifteen feet. Another odor assaulted their nostrils, foul and feted. Clete dropped into a crouch, weapon extended, and swung around the corner.

  “Oh, Christ!” he said. “Oh, Jesus Christ!”

  Crockett was on his heels.

  There, nearly at their feet, lay the swollen and partially devoured body of Jerome Jeffery Jeter. Scavengers had
been after the exposed flesh of his arms, face and neck. The body varied from gray to black and was bloated to the extent that the bib overalls seemed to be cutting into the putrefying flesh. Less than ten feet away, lying on her back against the wall to which she remained chained, was what was left of Doctor Ruby LaCost.

  With a cry of anguish, Crockett dropped to his knees beside the body.

  Most of her hair was gone. The right side of her face, from brow to chin, was horribly distended, her lips were torn, and a portion of scarred tongue protruded between them. She was gray and skeletally thin, a chain was wrapped around her waist, and she stank. Had he not known who she was, he would not have recognized her. As Crockett looked at Ruby, a tear rolled down his cheek, off his chin, and fell onto her right eye. The eyelid twitched.

  Unbelieving, Crockett felt for the carotid artery. The pulse was there. It was faint, it was thready, and it was weak, but it was there.

  “She’s alive!”

  “Alive?” Clete said.

  “Oh, God, yes! Stitch, get your ass up the shaft and get the helo down here as close to the entrance as you can.”

  Stitch disappeared without a word.

  “Clete, give your phone to Birdy and get up to that truck and look for something to break this lock. Until we get her free of the chain, she’s not going anywhere.”

  Clete tossed his phone to the sheriff. “Gotcha,” he replied, and was gone.

  “Birdy, call the nearest hospital that can handle this sort of thing, use your authority, and tell ‘em we’re on our way.”

  “Regional Medical Center in Jonesboro,” Birdy said. “Around a half an hour from here by helo. Stay with her, Crockett. Don’t let her go.” He stepped out of the area and onto the open to get a better signal.

  Crockett leaned against the wall and lifted Ruby’s head onto his lap. He caressed the clear side of her ruined face and spoke quietly, not knowing if she could hear him or not. Periodically checking her pulse, he did all he could do. He waited. It seemed like forever.

  After a minute or two Birdy entered the space, grasped Boog’s body by a shoulder strap of his overalls, and dragged the corpse from the room. Crockett barely noticed. Ten minutes later, a panting Clete came hustling around the corner, a broken hacksaw blade in his hand.

  “Found it in the bed a that ol’ truck,” he panted. “You just hold onto her, Crockett. I’ll git Ruby loose.” With that, he began to saw at the hasp of the lock.

  Three hours later Crockett and Clete, his hands bandaged by an emergency room nurse, sat in the ER waiting area, listening to Birdy in the hallway as he explained the situation to three representatives of the Arkansas State Police.

  “None a this is any of yer goddamn bidness! I’m the sheriff a the county where the woman was found an’ I got a ol’ boy from the Secret Service an’ another ol’ boy from the Justice Department right in the other room. If this case goes anywhere, it goes to the goddamn feds! So git yer asses outa our way and git back out there an’ write some more speedin’ tickets!”

  Clete chuckled. “Ol’ Birdy’s takin’ care of us,” he said.

  “You okay?” Crockett asked, looking at the bandages on Clete’s hands.

  “Aw, yeah. I managed to saw myself a little while I was sawing through the lock with that short chunk of blade. Still got all my fingers.”

  Birdy walked in, grumbling something about professional accident investigators that thought they were actually cops, and flopped onto a chair.

  Stitch arrived with a half dozen pre-wrapped sandwiches, some Cokes and bags of chips, and four or five packages of chocolate cupcakes.

  “Dinner is like, served, ya know?” he said.

  Another hour passed before a harried looking young man in sweaty green scrubs entered the room.

  “I’m Pete Madison,” he said. “Doctor Pete Madison. We got her stabilized finally. It was touch and go for a while. She is terribly dehydrated. She’s malnourished, has massive infections from a number of sources, renal failure, and a bunch of other things including lice and several varieties of intestinal parasites. There is not a reason in the world that woman should be alive, but she is, and I think she’s gonna stay that way. She’s unconscious and will probably remain so for a day or two. We’re hydrating her, feeding her by IV, and pumping her full of antibiotics. Her eye socket and cheekbone, as well two fingers and three ribs, are fractured. There was some damage to a lung from the ribs, but that’s taken care of. She’s lost most of three teeth, and she may lose an eye. I’m not sure. It’s not my field. There’s probably other stuff wrong, too. We’ve done all we can do here. We need to get her to a more sophisticated facility to deal with things.”

  “Tomorrow okay?” Clete asked.

  “Uh, yeah. Tomorrow would be fine. I wouldn’t want to try to move her any sooner than that anyway.”

  “Good. A life flight helicopter should be here late tomorrow morning to take her to Chicago. The attending physician is named Kelso. They’ll pick her up and get her out of here.”

  “Did any of you fill out paperwork for her?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who she is?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Clete smiled.

  “Do you know if she has insurance?”

  “I’ll leave my information and ID with the desk. When the bills are totaled, send them to me. You will be paid promptly.”

  “And you are?”

  “With the federal government. I’m sorry, but that’s all you get to know at this time.”

  “Oh. Is this like witness protection or something?”

  “Or something. Doctor, believe me when I say that it is not in your best interest to spread that kind of supposition around, okay?”

  “Certainly. Well, uh, I, ah, gotta get back to my, uh, you know.”

  Doctor Madison left.

  “Nice work,” Birdy grinned.

  “Birdman,” Crockett said, “what happened to Boog?”

  “Who?”

  “Boog Jeter.”

  “Doan know him,” Birdy said.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “C’mon.”

  “All right,” Birdy sighed. “Just this once. Near as I can figure, he turned up dead and they wasn’t nobody to git your woman food an’ water. Maybe your lady friend killed him. She mighta choked him to death with the chain or somethin’. After Clete sawed that lock offa her, I found a key out in the main shaft. Looked to me like it would have fit the lock.”

  “What about his body?”

  “What body? No corpse, no crime. Ya’ll know that shaft in the big room that smelled so bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ol’ Boog is right where he oughta be. Thirty or forty feet down and headfirst in his own shit.”

  “Thanks.”

  Birdy grinned. “My pleasure,” he said.

  Crockett turned to Clete. “Kelso’s coming?”

  “The very doctor that saw you through your coma. I called Ivy and she got on the case. I imagine they’ll take Ruby to a hospital first and start fixing her up, but most of the hospital stuff you needed is still in the upstairs of the south wing of the house. Won’t be much to transfer her there until she’s well.”

  “I doan wanna break up the party, boys,” Birdy said, “but I gotta be getting’ back to my county.”

  “Sure,” Clete said. “There’s nothin’ any of us can do here. Ruby’s stable. They won’t let us into critical care to see her, and even if we could, she’s out. Let’s load up and get outa here. Birdy can get back to work, Stitch can get back to Chicago, and Crockett and me can get back to the motel. We can come down here tomorrow morning. It’s only about an hour’s drive.”

  When Crockett stood up, he found he could barely walk. Christ he was tired.

  They said goodbye to Birdy and Stitch in the parking lot and drove back to the motel after a stop on the Missouri side of the state line for scotch, and a stop at a Hardy Sonic for burgers, frie
s and such. Back in Crockett’s room he and Clete ate quietly, having very little to say to one another, as they each digested the deeds and developments of the day. After the meal, they polished off most of the fifth of Cutty Sark, still primarily in silence. At length, Clete groaned his way to his feet.

  “It’s late,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m done, son. Goin’ to the house. Pack our stuff, checkout, an’ leave here about eight in the mornin’?”

  “Fine with me.”

  Clete looked at him curiously. “Okay,” he said. “You all right?”

  “No.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “You need somethin’, you holler,” Clete replied, and went to his room.

  Crockett got ready for bed, turned on the TV, turned off the TV, and lay in the dark, trying to catch at least a fragment of the thoughts that flapped through his head. He felt tired and used up, unprepared for what was to come and worn out by what had happened. He searched himself for reason and rationale and, in the darkness, found both. Ashamed and liberated by what he was feeling, he finally drifted off, surrounded by a heaven and hell of his own making.

  Crockett pulled his truck into the Regional Medical Center emergency room drive a little after nine the next morning.

  “Can’t park here,” Clete said.

  “I know,” Crockett replied. “Don’t forget your suitcase.”

  “What?”

  “Grab your bag, Texican. You can get a ride back to Chicago in the helo. Be good to have a friendly face on hand if Ruby comes around anyway.”

  Clete’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, but I thought we…”

  “No,” Crockett said, shaking his head. “I can’t do this. I’m used up, Texican. It’s just too hard.”

  Nearly numb, Clete got out of the cab, collected his suitcase from the back seat, and walked to Crockett’s side of the truck. “I don’t understand,” he said.