by Jake Mactire
“That sounds like one hell of a good plan, Mike.”
“Great! Only thing is, since I gotta go to school for the exam, you’re gonna have to cook.”
“I reckon it’s gonna be worth my while.”
“I’ll make damn sure it is!”
“You got a date, then!” He had to run off to his exam, so we kissed goodbye nice and slowly. He headed out and I heard his truck start. I cleaned up the kitchen, took some steaks out of the freezer, and headed out to my workshop.
I’D CAST one sculpture a couple of days before. It was a bull, and a cowboy curled up on the ground who’d just got bucked, and a rodeo clown distracting the bull. I thought it would be nice to dedicate it to rodeo clowns when I took it to the artists’ co-op for sale. I reckon I’m pretty proficient in the rough stock events, but I know there’s been a good share of times that the clowns have distracted bulls to give me time to get up and get the hell out of the way when I haven’t covered. I cracked the plaster mold off the statue and had a look. The detail I’d carved into the wax mold had been faithfully reproduced in the sculpture. There were no air bubbles or rough spots. I dusted off the bronze with a cloth and looked at it closer. With some polishing, burnishing, and shellac, it would be all ready for the artists’ co-op. I spent a couple of hours doing just that, and then set it aside for the shellac to dry.
Mary Grace had suggested that I make a numbered set of sculptures. They’d be less expensive than an original, but they would still command a pretty good price, since I made them, and I’d only make ten or so. I’d seen a picture, in looking through some cowboy photographs, of a wrangler on horseback, carrying a calf through a snowstorm. I got to thinking on how I could reproduce that. I got the picture in my mind and made a quick sketch of it with pencil and paper. After about an hour or so, I was satisfied with the sketch.
I got up, stretched, and got a glass of water. As I was walking around, I realized the longhandles of Mike’s that I was wearing were really shrunk tight and kind of threadbare. It would be too warm in a few weeks to wear long johns anymore, and I made up my mind to order some new clothes for him online after I was done. It would be a nice surprise for him. I smiled, thinking of him getting home and us necking for a while, with me in his worn and shrunk longhandles. They fit like a second skin, so I reckoned he’d really like that. I daydreamed about that for a few minutes and then decided to get back to work.
I got some plasticine and began to shape it and carve, using my sketch as a model. It took a few hours for me to get a good outline of the horse, rider, and calf. I was set to call it a day. I took off the leather apron I used in the workshop and brushed the plaster and plasticine dust off my jeans, boots, and shirt sleeves.
I walked into the living room and set a fire in the fireplace. All we’d have to do when Mike got home was touch a match to it. I smiled, thinking of the evening we had planned. It had been quite a while since we’d danced together at home. We would roll back the rug, move the furniture, kick off our boots, and slide around the hardwood floor in the living room in our socks, two-stepping real close, to some nice slow songs. Mike was just gone to school in Wenatchee for the day, and I already missed him. The phone brought me back to earth from my daydreams about Mike. I headed into our office to answer it.
“Lucky Jeff Ranch, this is Jeff speakin’.”
“Hi, Jeff, it’s AJ, remember me?”
“Of course, AJ, how are you doing?”
“It’s been hard, Jeff. I know I only knew Lonnie a real short time, but he was a special guy. I thought we might have been able to really build a nice relationship.”
“I’m really sorry for you, AJ. He was a really good guy. Hopefully they’ve caught the son of a bitch responsible.”
“Yeah, I was surprised when they arrested David. I wouldn’t have pictured him as clever enough to continue outwitting the police and FBI.”
“People will surprise ya.”
“That’s true. Anyway, Jeff, I called for two reasons. First of all, do you have any vacancies?”
“We sure do, AJ, and you still got that discount for repeat guests I’d mentioned earlier.”
“Great! I’d love to see you guys again and stay there. It’s so peaceful and relaxing.”
“Okay, when do you need the reservation for?”
He gave kind of an embarrassed little laugh. “Actually, for tonight and maybe a few days more.”
“That’s quick, but we do got room. Are you in Seattle or Portland?”
“That’s actually the second thing. I’m here in the valley. Mike’s going back to school inspired me to take a photography class. I remember some of the places I saw here when I was visiting before and thought I’d want to photograph them. You’d told me how Winslett was almost a ghost town and that there were lots of abandoned ranches around. I asked at the gas station in Pateros about any, and they told me about this place I’m at. Anyway, I got up here and on one of the back roads, and my car broke down.” He laughed again, sheepishly. “I was hoping that you might be able to come by and wait until the tow truck gets here and then give me a ride to the ranch. I’m really sorry to put you through any inconvenience.”
“Just where are you?”
“I’m east of town on one of the roads that heads off north. It’s by an old gas station which is closed down. It goes a couple of miles back and up the hills on the north side of the valley. It heads down to a hollow with an old, abandoned ranch. I wanted to photograph the ranch buildings, and when I was done, the car wouldn’t start.”
I thought a few minutes and then realized where he must be. “Is the road you went down through pasture and grassland with no trees until you get up the hill?”
“Yes. There are some pine trees on the ridge, and then when the road goes down to the ranch, it looks like there’s a small stream that runs behind the house. There’s some sort of tree all along the edge of the stream, but the trees don’t have any leaves now, or they’re dead.”
“Relax, AJ, I know where you are. I can be by there right quick. You’re by the old Schmidt place. It’s a fairly big farmhouse, all boarded up and run down? It looks like the porch would topple over with a good wind?” As we were talking, I began doodling on some paper we keep by the phone for messages. I drew a house with a collapsed porch and some cottonwood trees behind it.
“That’s it, Jeff. You described it to a T. Is Mike gonna come with you?”
“No, he’s off at school today with exams. His classes have been online, and he just has to go in for exams. It’ll be just me. Do you want me to call a tow truck?”
“No, I already called one. They said they’d take a bit, though. I was hoping to go back to Seattle today, but since the car broke down and needs to be fixed, I think it’s the perfect time for us to visit.” I continued drawing. I drew a small car with a flat tire. Under the drawing I wrote, “AJ” and “Old Schmidt Place.”
“Interesting, AJ, you’re AJ Schmidt and you’re at the old Schmidt place. Any relation?”
He laughed. “Not to my knowledge. It might be nice if I was related and could get the property. It would be nice to live here in the valley. Anyway, are you sure it’s okay for you to come and pick me up?”
“No problem at all, AJ. I’m happy to come and get you. It should take me about a half an hour to get there.”
Thanks, Jeff. You have no idea what this means to me.”
“No worries at all. I’ll be there shortly.”
“See you in a bit. Thanks again, Jeff.” I grabbed a jacket and a beat-up old Stetson from the coat and hat racks in the mudroom and headed out the door.
I DROVE down the valley, heading east. Where AJ’s car had broken down was about thirty miles or so from the ranch. Out where we live, that’s really nothing, and driving thirty or forty miles to run an errand is normal. I thought again about buying Mike some clothes. The Internet has really been great for us. I could go online and order most of the clothes we needed. I hated to shop, so if I could avoid t
he malls in Wenatchee, that was fine by me.
Driving eastward, the trees started to thin out as I lost elevation and got further from the mountains. By the time I got to Winslett, the pine forests that grew on Lucky Jeff Bluff and further west were pretty much gone, giving way to cottonwoods by the river and small creeks which fed into it. The day was partially cloudy. Quite a bit of snow had melted in the last few days, and although it still froze at night most nights, the days were warm enough to continue the thaw which had started last week with the rain while we were rounding up cattle.
As I passed Winslett, I could see buds on the cottonwoods. Spring wasn’t too far off. Mike and I had been talking about camping and hiking. We’d thought about doing a backpacking trip for a couple of weeks from Highway 2 at Stevens Pass to Manning, British Columbia. The eighty miles would take about a full two weeks if we didn’t want to kill ourselves. I was starting to get excited, thinking about a long-distance hike with Mike. I really enjoyed his company, and we both enjoyed the outdoors. My dad had liked to hike and backpack, and we’d gone on many hikes as I was growing up. A couple of times we even took a week or ten days. I knew Mike didn’t really have any long-distance hiking gear, but I knew in the camping equipment was my dad’s backpack and other things. The part of the trail we had talked about hiking went right through some of the most rugged and isolated territory in the lower forty-eight states. It would be really fun to share that with Mike. We had plenty of time to plan. Much of the high country wouldn’t even melt out before the middle to end of July. Some north-facing slopes might have snow until August.
The miles just seemed to fly by as I daydreamed about camping and hiking with Mike, maybe even taking some horseback trips. When I was in high school, I’d occasionally guided hunters in the national forest, and hikers and horsemen into the North Cascades.
I came up to the turnoff and began up the rutted road to the abandoned Schmidt farm. The road obviously hadn’t been maintained in quite a while, and once I got past the old gas station down by the highway, it was badly rutted and had some pretty nasty mud holes. I remembered AJ telling me when he was staying at the ranch that his car was a four-wheel-drive vehicle. I reckoned it would have to be to get through this. My truck had pretty big tires and was all-wheel, all-the-time drive, so I wasn’t too worried. Besides, having grown up in the valley and having spent a good amount of time on similar roads, driving supplies out to line camps, and on unused logging roads for hunting or fishing, I figured I could handle the mud.
I began the descent down into the hollow which contained the old farmstead. From what I remembered, no one had lived here for quite a while. The one son the rancher had, ended up back East someplace. Although I was just a kid when his father passed away, I’d heard he didn’t even come back for the funeral. Town gossip said there was some type of estrangement or scandal there. Ya gotta love a small town. Everybody knows everything about everyone, and dark secrets make the gossip rounds. I couldn’t have been much more than a toddler when the son left, and maybe ten when Mr. Schmidt, the last remaining parent, passed away. I do remember something about the Schmidts being alcoholics and some sort of accident in which Mrs. Schmidt died a few years before her son left. I made a mental note to ask Sheriff Johnston about it. I know my dad would have known, and the sheriff would too. Thinking about the old place aroused my curiosity. It wouldn’t have been my first choice for abandoned buildings to photograph, but then again, AJ probably just wanted to check it out. I guess he’d found it by driving up the side road that lead to it. I chuckled at the coincidence of the names. I reckon Schmidt wasn’t all that uncommon.
I got a little further down into the hollow, and the road leveled out. It was almost overgrown here, with brush pressing in from both sides of the road. I could see the outline of the house up ahead. It was even more dilapidated than I remembered. The porch had collapsed and fallen forward to rest in front of the house, leaving the boarded-up front door about four feet off the ground. It looked as if there were holes in the roof. Even the parts of the roof which had no holes, sagged. The windows were all covered with plywood. As I pulled around the side of the house, I saw AJ’s car with its hood up, next to the house. As I looked at the house, I noticed that the side door had been kicked in sometime in the past. It gaped open, with the padlock hanging uselessly off the broken hasp. The wood was weathered, and it looked as if it had been kicked in quite a while ago. The door behind the gaping hole in the plywood was open a few inches. AJ was looking under the hood of his car. I pulled behind him to give the tow truck plenty of room to maneuver. I jumped out of my truck.
“Hey, Jeff, thanks again. I really appreciate your coming.”
“No worries. What seems to be the problem with your car?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s the battery, since it’s fairly new. It could be the starter. I just got the idea to look around to see if there are any loose wires. The road up here is pretty rough, and it might have knocked something loose.”
“That’s a good idea. Did you find anythin’?”
“I’m not a mechanic, so anything I do find would just be a guess. In any case, the tow truck should be here soon.”
“Want me to take a look, just in case I can figure out what the problem is?”
“Sure! I’d really appreciate that, Jeff.” He handed me a flashlight that he’d been holding as he looked under the hood. I leaned over and began to look at the motor, the battery cables, and the starter and alternator. Everything looked fine to me.
“Hmmm… I don’t see any loose wires or broken belts.” I continued looking. “This place sure is out of the way, AJ. How did you find it?”
“I grew up here.” I turned to look at him. All of a sudden I smelled a strong chemical smell, and a rag reeking of some solution was thrust in my face. I swung my fist out and felt it connect with something. Then the world went black.
I AWOKE slowly, pain drawing me out of a deep stupor. My head hurt like it had been hit with an ax. I felt nauseous. I began to tune in to where I was when I became aware of pain in my shoulders, arms, and back. I tried to move. As things became clearer, I realized I was tied up. My arms were up over my head, and my wrists were tied together with duct tape. I was suspended from a hook of some sort. My feet barely touched the ground. I was cold and realized I was wearing nothing but Mike’s red, threadbare longhandles. I looked around. I was obviously in an old and musty house. A couple of Coleman lanterns lit the place. Faded wallpaper was peeling off the walls. There was debris in the corners and dust on everything. A table was placed about three feet in front of me. I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head, but it made my nausea even worse. It smelled as if an animal had died in here. I looked down and saw brownish-black stains over the floor beneath and around me.
Cold, tight fingers of panic seemed to grip my chest and heart. I took another deep breath to clear my head. In the back of my mind, a thought floated through the panic. Calm down, and think. How can you get loose and out of here? The panic and terror subsided as I realized that it would only hinder me. I realized now that AJ was the maniac that we’d all been looking for. In that instance, rage flooded through me. Anger, white hot, made my vision swim and then clear. I made one vow to myself right then and there. From what Holder had told us, serial killers got off on the fear and helplessness of their victims. I made up my mind that no way in hell was I gonna give that motherfucking son of a bitch the satisfaction of seeing me scared. I heard some movement behind me, and AJ stepped into view.
“Are we awake now?” He giggled. It was the least amusing sound I’d ever heard. “I told you that you were on my list, and here you are.” I looked down at him. He made me want to vomit. “Aren’t we going to say anything?” He stared at me a moment, and I stared back. He finally looked away and laughed. “If looks could kill, I’d be as dead as you’re going to be. But that will come in time. You’ll beg for it after a while. Beg for me to kill you quickly, to end the pain I’ll put you throu
gh. See, Jeff, I’m going to be your worst nightmare. Rather than looking at me with such hate and anger, you’ll look at me with fear. Fear. Fear. And you’ll beg to die, beg for the pain to end. You’ll tremble when you see me.”
“That ain’t gonna happen, you fuckin’ piece of shit. I ain’t never been afraid of vermin, rats and slime that crawl out from under rocks.”
He smiled and pulled back and punched me in the solar plexus, as hard as he could. I saw it coming and tensed my stomach muscles. That kept me from having the wind knocked out of me, but it still hurt. “That’s just to begin with. You’re going to pay for stabbing my leg. You will cry and beg.”
“You’re beginning to sound like a broken record. You said you grew up here. You’re the son who went back East?”
“You’re smarter than you look, Jeff. I am. I escaped. I had to get out of here. Do you know what it’s like to be raped, over and over, by your father? He even forced my mother to watch, and would beat us both senseless. She never stood up for me. I got them back though. I pushed her into the creek when she was drunk, one winter night before I left. Everyone thought it was an accident. I came back one night for that filthy pedophile who called me his son. I smothered him with a pillow. I put him unconscious three times and let him wake up. He begged me to kill him. I did.” He giggled again.
“That’s really horrible, AJ. Let me down and we can get you some help. Some good folks for you to talk to, who can help you deal with all the abuse you went through.”
“Nice try, Jeff. I have dealt with it. I do deal with it. When I need to, I kill. That’s how I deal with it.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a box cutter. He held it in front of me, smiling maliciously.
It took every ounce of control I had to look at his eyes, not the box cutter, and to yawn.
“We’ve got all the time in the world, Jeff. I am going to break you.” He walked beside me and began to cut off my longhandles. He wasn’t very careful, and as he sliced down the arm and side and then down my leg on my right, he cut skin and some flesh with every stroke. He was giggling as he cut, and I saw the blood flowing as he cut. The cuts weren’t deep, but they hurt like hell. He walked behind me and began cutting down the other side. “Dumb, redneck hick, that’s all you are. Nobody’s going to miss you, except for maybe that little hick fuck toy of yours. I think I’ll let him live. It’ll be torture for him to think of you dying slowly, over a week or two. I’ll have to take lots of pictures and send them to him.” As he cut further down my sleeve and the side of the longhandles, the cloth began to peel away, leaving me naked and exposed. He stepped back and set the box cutter on the table in front of me. It didn’t bother me to be bare-assed, other than the cold. The lanterns were heating the place a bit though, so it wasn’t too bad. He ran his eyes up and down my body, stopping at my crotch.