by Lila Beckham
Joshua could see that she was visibly shaken. She seemed more upset now than she had earlier. He also could hear her stomach growling, along with his own; the whiskey was not doing anything to abate his hunger.
“Let me get dressed,” Joshua said, getting to his feet. He could not help the grunt that slipped from his lips as his side drew up tensely, but he managed to finish his sentence. “And then we will ride over to the campground and see if your stuff is still there. If it is or is not, we will decide what to do then.
We will go get something to eat while we are at it. I don’t think it wise to take you home until I know whether they know where you live or not. Nor would it be wise to announce that you have been found. That could set them off too.”
Emma watched the sheriff as he went through the kitchen toward the bedrooms. She hugged her arms to herself and shivered.
Joshua had many thoughts running through his mind as he dressed. The hardest part of getting dressed was pulling his boots on, but he preferred boots. They protected his feet better and they could be used to subdue a criminal if they became too rowdy.
He gathered his usual leaving the house for work gear, holster, badge, gun, and extra cigarettes, and then walked back into the kitchen.
Joshua strapped on his holster, then reached for his hat, put it on and adjusted it. He lit another smoke before stepping out onto the porch.
He spoke to Emma as he crossed the threshold, but Emma was not there. He thought she had gone to the bathroom, but he did not remember hearing her and as he looked down the hall, he saw that the door to the bathroom was open. Jack lay in the swing. Joshua said something to Jack, but Jack did not wag his tale nor move.
He walked over to the swing and placed his hand on Jack. He felt something wet and sticky, then he heard something, something that sounded like water dripping onto wood. Joshua looked down under the swing. At first, he thought Jack had used the bathroom on himself, but the liquid beneath the swing looked dark. Joshua flipped his lighter open and lit it.
The dark liquid was blood. Jack was dead!
Joshua drew his gun and swung around, looking as far as the light from the windows would allow.
The cloudy skies that had formed in the last hour or so were hiding the moon, keeping its light from reaching into the surrounding darkness.
Joshua reached through the door and turned off the kitchen light. His eyes needed to adjust to the darkness. He was at a disadvantage coming from inside where the bright lights were to the darkness outside.
He was like a deer in the headlights for anyone whose eyes were adjusted to the night light. Joshua took one last draw off his smoke then snubbed it out in the ashtray.
37
Dogged Pursuit
Emma’s tale of her escape and the details of her abduction ran through his mind. From what Emma had told him, he had a good idea of where they had held her. It had to be in Citronelle.
What was bothering him was the fact that she was sitting there on the porch when he’d gone to his bedroom to get dressed.
If someone had followed her there, and waited to take her, they could have killed him while he was sitting out there as easily as they did Jack.
On the other hand, they could have shot and killed him as he dressed. After all the murdering and decapitating they had done, surely they would not let him live to come after them, would they?
It just did not make any sense to him.
Was Emma some whack job? Had she killed Jack and then hid, just to make him think she had been abducted again. Remembering her trembling fingers and growling stomach, Joshua doubted it.
That scared little girl could not have done it unless she is slap dab crazy. He did not think so, but you never really know for sure. In his line of work, he had dealt with crazy people plenty of times; she seemed sane.
Maybe she was hiding. Maybe she saw whoever killed Jack and run and hid.
He was going to take Emma with him and go to the campsite to check and see if her stuff was still there and then to Lucedale to get something to eat. He could not remember the last time he had eaten.
Joshua went inside and took his largest flashlight out of the cabinet. With gun in hand, he headed back outside. He wanted to look around the yard for fresh footprints. He use to do that on a daily basis, but had been slack with his regimen of late, which was why he did not know Emma was there, even though he had felt something was off.
Joshua walked to the edge of the porch. He shined the flashlight beam around on the ground nearest the porch, which was grassless.
He saw several sets of footprints that were from one end of the porch to the other. There was one set of tennis shoe tracks and another that appeared to be of the penny loafer type sole.
The barefoot tracks had to be Emma’s; she was barefoot. Joshua had noticed that as she stood in his kitchen doorway. When they were first married, Francine would walk around the house barefooted.
Her being barefoot and the dress she was wearing, was why he thought Emma was Francine when he first saw her standing there.
Joshua went to the bottom step and shined the beam. There were clearly two sets of tracks leading away from the steps. The tennis shoe track was much deeper now and that led Joshua to believe that the wearer was carrying something or someone, which made him heavier.
Joshua followed the tracks while trying to keep a watchful eye around him. Just as he reached the tree line, the tracks became lost among the fallen leaves and pine needles that covered the ground.
He stopped and shined the light around through the trees. He could see the light reflecting back from the rivers edge. When he headed in that direction, he heard an outboard motor start up down at the river. Joshua broke and ran as best he could, considering how sore his ribs were. When he made it to the water, he could see the wake off the boats movement through the water and he could hear it as it moved further and further upriver.
Joshua stood there; he was at a loss as to what to do next, but he knew he must do something.
He walked back up to his cabin and headed to his patrol car. All four tires were flat, undoubtedly, the handy work of a bowie knife wielded by one of Emma’s abductors.
He shined the light toward his pickup truck; luckily, they had not flattened the tires on it. Joshua opened the door to his patrol car and reached for the microphone. He called the dispatcher and told her to get a hold of the garage and tell them that he needed four new tires for his patrol car. Then he told her to get Deputy Davis on the radio and tell him to call him at home as soon as possible.
The telephone, which was mounted in a small cabinet that hung on the wall of the front room near the door to the kitchen, was ringing when he walked into the house.
Davis just happened to be at Buddy Christopher’s Convenience Store when he got the message to call. He had gone straight to the pay phone to call.
The first thing Joshua asked him was if he had talked to Pearl Carr yet. Davis informed him that he had just left her house.
“She’s real worried, Sheriff; her and her other two kids. They were thinking that some of the Reston’s might have done something to Emma, as payback for the ass kicking they took the other night up in Moffettville.
Pearl’s boy, Boukie was right in the middle of it with Willie Jr. and the other boys.”
“I know this might sound strange, Davis, but Emma was just here. I believe the lunatics that are mutilating women have held her captive.
I came inside to put on my boots and gather my gear. When I went back outside, she had disappeared from my back porch. Whoever took her killed my dog.
I followed their tracks down to the river and heard a boat going upriver.” Davis listened. Processing the information the sheriff was telling him. He knew the sheriff had gone through a lot lately, but he had no doubts that Sheriff Stokes was telling the truth. A plan formed in his mind as he listened.
“Sheriff, why don’t we try to cut them off at the Earlville Bridge? There are plenty of places right there
past it where the river narrows. They will have to slow down through there for sure, maybe even get out and drag the boat over the sandbars.
Some of those sandbars reach nearly across the river, even when the river is up. It will take them well over an hour to get there, and we can be there in half that time.”
“That is what I want to do, Davis, but they’ve got nearly ten minutes on us already. I just do not need twenty patrol cars to show up there. I do not want any harm to come to that girl; she has been through enough already. I know how gung ho and overzealous many of these fellows can be; done seen it too many times.
See if you can find Paul Calvert and bring him with you. I trust him not to overreact.”
“Will do, Sheriff; meet you there!”
Joshua hung up the phone and headed to his truck. The sight of Jack sitting in front of the backdoor threw him slightly off kilter.
He glanced over at the swing, Jack’s body was still there, but his spirit sat wagging its tale in front of him.
“I’m sorry old boy,” Joshua said, waiting, but for what he did not know. Jack’s spirit stood up, jumped off the porch and then disappeared into the shadows.
Joshua walked out, got into his truck and cranked it up. As he was driving out of his yard, he saw Jack again.
This time, Jack was trotting alongside his truck as he drove away from the house. Joshua thought it odd, but he did not have time to dwell on it; he was in a hurry.
The thing that crossed his mind was that Jack had not been that frisky or energetic in years.
Maybe Jack does not know he’s dead. He looked happy enough, thought Joshua to himself, and he hoped that was the case. He would hate to think Jack suffered before or after he died.
As Joshua drove toward Wilmer, he saw his gas needle was below the quarter tank mark. He knew it would not be enough gas to get him to Earlville and back; he would have to stop for gas. It was just one more thing to slow him down.
“The devil’s hard at work,” Joshua mumbled as he drove into the service station in Wilmer.
He filled the tank with gas then headed toward Earlville Road. He only hoped they made it in time to intercept Emma and her captors.
38
Caged
Going upriver in the boat, Emma could not believe her situation. She had to have the worse luck of anyone she had ever known.
When she heard the sheriff’s dog whimper, she turned around, but did not have time to do anything. Emma did not even have time to scream before the hand clamped over her mouth. Once away from the sheriff’s cabin, they had gagged her with a stinking washrag and a piece of rope.
The rope felt as if it had cut the corners of her mouth and the rag tasted of oil and gasoline.
Emma felt like a caged animal. She was tied hand to foot, trussed up like a pig on a spit.
Vernon and Earl were one in front of her and one behind her. If she tried to go overboard, they would surely grab her before she could get out of the boat. If she did make it into the water, she would drown before she could loose the ropes.
She felt she had stayed strong the first time they had her, and that was why she was able to escape, but not now. Now, she was sad, weak, defeated. The only glimmer of hope she had was Sheriff Stokes.
She hoped somehow that he could find where they were holding her. She had given him all the details she could think of as they sat on his porch earlier, and he said he had a good idea of where they had held her.
The Sheriff had also brought up a good point; one she had not even considered. He said they might have taken her belongings from the campground. If they did, they may know everything about her, including where she lived.
Emma now worried about her brother and sister, and her mother. She prayed Earl and Vernon had not discovered where she lived. She did not want any harm to come to her family.
The longer Emma sat there staring at Earl’s back, the angrier she became, and it felt good. If she could pace, she would be like a tiger in a cage. The anger felt a whole lot better than feeling scared and defeated did.
After they rounded the first bend in the river, Earl connected a spotlight to a battery that sat between him and Emma. It shone brightly, quite a ways ahead of them, but once they had gone around two more river bends, Vernon slowed the boat down to a crawl and Earl turned off the spotlight.
Earlier, the moon was hidden behind clouds, now it was visible, but just bright enough to cause shadows to play eerily in the river, along the sandbars, and in the trees along the banks. As they passed the remnants of the dock in front of Caledonia, Emma realized the plantation was further from the sheriff’s cabin than she thought it was.
When she walked it, it did not seem that far, but in the boat, it seemed as if they had gone several miles.
What she did not realized was that the river twisted around upon itself much like a sidewinder snake did as it crawled. Actually, the cabin was only about a quarter mile from the plantation.
When the moon hid behind the clouds again, Earl turned the light back on, and when the moon came out, he would turn the light off.
Emma knew by the way they were acting they were trying to elude capture. They did not want anyone to see them going upriver, but the moon was not cooperating on this night.
Neither Earl nor Vernon had said a word, not even when they came up on to the porch to get her.
Emma felt Vernon and Earl were accustomed to traveling the river by night. Over their lifetimes, they had probably done it many times. She felt the river was as familiar to them as the backs of their hands.
The first night she saw them, they must have traveled by river. They murdered the campers at the campground, captured her, and then took her upriver to their lair.
That was also how they knew where to look for her after she escaped them the first time.
The further they traveled upriver; she knew she was right. She could tell by the way they maneuvered the boat against the current, around boulders, sandbars, and such as that that the river’s path was as familiar to them, as the path from her grandmother’s house to the old water well and outdoor toilet was to her.
As a child, she had walked that path so many times she knew she could have walked it blindfolded.
After they passed the bridge, where they had almost caught her as she floated downriver, Vernon tapped her on the shoulder and pointed over to the pilings across from the beaver dam. Emma could not make out the expression on his face, because most of the light from the spotlight shone ahead of them, but if she could imagine it, she would think it was probably sluggish. That was about all she had witnessed on his face so far.
Emma fumed. She was mad, and she was determined. Unlike the first time they had brought her upriver, this time, she was wide-awake. She was going to be sure to stay that way, too. If she could escape once, she could do it again. This time, she would know where they took her.
After several more bends in the river, they had to stop. They cut the engine and then made her lay down in the boat, both of them got out. They drug the boat to a point past the shallow water rapids.
Once they were back into deeper water, both of them hopped back into the boat. Vernon started the outboard motor and Earl operated the spotlight. After a few yards, the moon came out once again and he turned it off.
If Emma’s memory were correct, there would be some narrow places ahead, where sandy beaches stretched almost all the way across the river. She was sure they would have to stop again. If she were not tied so and gagged, she would try to convince them that she needed to go to the bathroom and escape, but she was tied and gagged.
She could not even talk with her mouth full of washrag much less beg for anything!
Once they reached the trestle, Vernon sped up. He sped up so fast that Emma’s hair flowed behind her. After the slow pace they had been traveling, the new speed frightened her. As much as she wanted out of the boat and away from them, she did not want to be thrown overboard, and drowned. However, knowing the river as they did,
Vernon deftly avoided the sandbars and other obstacles in their path.
Racing along at the newer speed, the trees along the riverbanks began to look like a picket fence did when you drove past it in a car; it was frightening!
39
Evanescent
Deputy Davis arrived at the river ahead of Sheriff Stokes. He was familiar with this section of the river.
Davis had spent many a summer day there with his friends in high school. Their time at the river in those days, mostly, was spent across the river at the old Granny Hole, which was a very deep backwater pool. They had fashioned swings from the tall birches that surrounded it. Those had been great times until his friend Paul Tanner dove from one of the birches and broke his neck on an underwater stump.
Paul lived 28 days before he died. That was the last time Davis had been along this section of the river, it held too many memories. Even now, he felt a twinge of heartache remembering his friend. Maybe it was guilt. After the accident, he had felt Paul would be better off dead; he was paralyzed from the neck down. Then he died.
Davis drove as far in, as the area where people camped, but that was as far as he could go in his patrol car. He would have to get out and walk to the river; it was downhill a hundred or so feet below the camping areas.
After he parked, Davis radioed Joshua on the CB radio and told him that he had made it there, but he would have to leave his patrol car to check traffic on the river. Joshua told him that he’d had to stop for fuel, but was maybe seven or eight minutes behind him.
“Go ahead and do what you need to do, Davis. I’ll be there shortly.”
“All right, Sheriff. I’ll be down by the river when you get here.”
Davis left his cruiser and followed a trail down to the river. Before he reached the water, he heard a motorboat speeding up the river. When he made it to the bottom, he was at a wide, debris littered sandbar that glowed brightly in the moonlight.
Before the moon disappeared behind clouds, Davis got a fleeting glimpse of the boat in the moonlight as it rounded a bend in the river. The wake off the boat, lapped softly against the banks. He had not made it in time, but now he knew that wherever they were headed, it was further upriver. He hoped they had not seen his headlights at the clearing atop the hill.