Loving Wilder

by Leigh Tudor

  Illuminated by a street light and weighing in at about two hundred pounds, the man picked up speed, barreling from behind her. Before Nate could even open the car door, he ambushed Mercy, raising the butt end of his revolver, and crashing it onto her skull.

  It all happened so quickly, he didn’t have time to react. Nate closed his eyes and bit his tongue, so as not to cry out and bring attention to himself.

  Landon and Cara were none the wiser with their arguing, and Nate realized that bringing attention to himself was, in fact, the only way to save them. So he opened the car door at the same time hearing a familiar voice screaming frantically from the direction of the house.

  Sticking his head up in the passenger window, he spotted Samantha in the doorway, fighting against another man who was trying to pull her back inside.

  “Run, Cara, don’t come to the house! It’s a trap. Run!”

  Landon acted quickly, yanking a conflicted Cara toward the truck as a gunshot cracked through the air, and he crumpled to the ground.

  Nate’s stomach turned and he broke out into a sweat. So much blood.

  Cara fell to her knees beside Landon, crying and searching for a wound.

  Then, the man who felled Mercy, reached a sobbing Cara and yanked her off Landon by the hair.

  That was when Nate saw red.

  His angel, his everything, was being dragged by the hair and manhandled as if she were nothing more than an inanimate object.

  Without a thought, he crawled over to the driver’s side and opened the door, then proceeded to run bent over, toward Mercy. She wasn’t moving, and blood was streaming all over and inside the cracks of the sidewalk, creating web-like red pools in the concrete.

  But she was breathing.

  He sucked in a breath and reached for the gun that was still lying on the ground beside her listless hand.

  He picked it up, remembering it had already been cocked, and that was all he needed to start his own level of carnage.

  Never having shot a gun before in his life, he raised the pistol as he strode across the street with a single-minded purpose. He harbored no second thoughts or doubts as he pointed it toward the man purposely harming Cara and pulled the trigger.

  The shot reverberated through the air.

  The man instantly released Cara and raised his hand to his neck where a tide of red bubbled from beneath his fingers. And then, he too fell to the ground.

  Nate’s heart was pounding in his small chest as he took a step toward a mewling Cara, who was crab walking away from the lifeless man at her feet. Before managing two steps toward her, a sharp jab of pain pierced his neck. He grabbed at the offensive object and found himself looking down at a syringe in his hands.

  Two seconds later, he blacked out.

  Something was poking Mercy in her rib cage while at the same time her head pounded as if recently sharpened pickaxes were mining for gold in her cranium.

  “Is she dead?” a small girlish voice asked with a pronounced Texan accent.

  “She’s moving, dummy. That means she ain’t dead yet,” an equally small but deeper voice responded. “Keep pokin’ her with the stick ’til she wakes up.”

  Mercy’s cheek lay on the sidewalk as she fought to find what little strength she had to pull up on her elbows. She congratulated herself for reaching that milestone and then vomited. She gagged again as much of it splattered back onto her face and in her hair.

  After a few rounds of puking, causing indescribable pain with every heave, she determined that she was done. She rolled over to her side and onto her back in an attempt to avoid lying in the putrid-smelling contents of her stomach.

  An unanticipated frigid shock of water sent Mercy’s body into convulsions as she reared up, sputtering, the liquid in her mouth making it difficult to breathe and the pain in her head reminiscent of when she had debilitating migraines times a thousand.

  While choking, her nostrils stinging from the tsunami of water, she noticed a small girl with dark skin standing beside her with what looked to be a pink plastic bucket with a broken handle.

  “That ought to wake her,” said the satisfied voice from the young boy. “And clean her up, too.”

  Mercy watched as the girl with the bucket turned to the boy, who was her male carbon copy, and asked, “Should we wake up Uncle Rob and tell him we got a hobo out front again?”

  “How many times I gotta tell ya, he ain’t our uncle. That ain’t nothin but a lie. And no, we shouldn’t tell him. He’ll just tell us to pick her pockets.”

  Mercy’s head began to spin, so she closed her eyes. With a fair amount of dread, she brought her fingertips to the back of her head and felt the huge swelling mound behind her right ear that had already grown to the size of a tennis ball.

  “Ma’am,” the boy said with a loud voice that sent pain coursing through her skull. “You best git on outta here if you don’t want someone to finish what they started.”

  Mercy sat up ever so slowly, resting her elbows on her knees, and held her head, trying not to move it even a quarter of an inch due to the pain. “Any chance you kids see someone lying in the street?”

  “Right now?” the boy asked.

  “Yes, now,” she responded, keeping her head down and her eyes shut, wondering if someone lying in the street first thing in the morning was a common occurrence.

  “Nah, but we saw someone like that get picked up last night.”

  Mercy’s heart sank. She didn’t know if Landon was dead or alive.

  “Did he look… alive?” she asked, while under her breath she begged for forgiveness from the big guy upstairs for asking young, innocent children such a disturbing question.

  “He’d been shot and out of it, but he weren’t dead.”

  Well, that was… an informed response for such a tender age.

  “Any chance you kids see a Range Rover parked nearby?” And then she second-guessed her question. How would kids this age, living in this neighborhood where half the cars were rusted through and stripped, know a Ranger Rover from a Volkswagen bus?

  It didn’t take long though. “Yep, it’s parked just a couple of cars behind a 2010 Hyundai and a 2008 Ford Fusion,” the boy responded enthusiastically.

  Mercy expelled a sigh of relief and then regretted it as it made the newly arrived jackhammer in her head start pounding.

  But she had to admit, this was good news. Her car hadn’t been lifted.

  Then the boy added, “But the tires have been stripped.”

  She dropped her head in defeat. “How about a Ford F-150?”

  “One of them big fancy trucks?”

  “No, not like the newer ones. An older model.”

  “It’s parked a few spaces in front of us.”

  “Does it have tires?”

  “Yep, but the caps are gone.”

  “Why would anyone steel hubcaps from a 1967 F-150?” She could see why they would go for her rims, but old hubcaps?

  “You kiddin’ me? Them caps are vintage,” the boy said with an air of authority.

  Huh, who knew?

  More important was that she could still drive Landon’s truck without hubcaps.

  The little girl pointed at the back of her ear. “Hey, lady, your head’s got a big ol’ knot right here.”

  Mercy squinted up at the little girl, who was looking at her with a fair amount of sympathy.

  She closed her eyes at the sun, making its way past the roofline of one of the houses on the left, and made an attempt at recalling last night’s events. But outside of slipping out of the car and making her way toward Landon and Cara … nothing.

  Mercy dared to open her eyes again, and she winced from the pain and piercing sunlight. She took some deep breaths to get through the discomfort, and another wave of nausea hit her stomach.

  After a few labored breaths, she turned her head slowly to the side and used her left hand to shade her eyes from the glaring sun. She took in the two children staring down at her with mild curiosity. They were st
ill in their pajamas, which were a couple of sizes too small and hadn’t seen a washing machine in months.

  “You kids think you can help me up?”

  “Not for free,” the little boy spouted. “We ain’t a charity.”

  Well, then.

  She gingerly moved her hand to her front pocket and heaved a sigh of relief as she still had the ten-dollar bill she had shoved in there at the last minute before leaving the house yesterday.

  She lifted the bill in the air, which was swiped by the boy, who folded it several times and tucked it in the band of his underwear beneath his pajama bottoms.

  Mercy wanted to chuckle but didn’t dare. The kids appeared to be twins, not more than five-years-old, but with the street smarts of seasoned teenagers who had seen more than their fair share based on the neighborhood and home circumstances they lived in.

  “What are you waiting for?” Mercy asked, waving them toward her with raised arms. “Time to earn your ten-spot.”

  Honestly, they weren’t much help getting her up but were godsends in helping her to gain her balance once she was upright.

  She pushed the wet hair, thanks to her cleanup crew, out of her face. “Can you help me to the truck?”

  The children obliged, walking on each side of her, despite being barely tall enough for their skinny little arms to reach her waist as she slowly made her way to Landon’s truck, which to her relief was still parked where she had last seen it the previous night. Except without hubcaps.

  “You two know who lives in that house?” she asked, pointing at the shack across the street.

  “Billy Joe Vieja. Uses it every once in a while. Rest of the time it’s empty,” the little boy piped up.

  “Mama said he ain’t right,” the little girl added.

  “Where’s your mama?”

  “She’s sleepin’ off last night’s party,” the little girl answered.

  Mercy didn’t think it was the first time given the child’s matter-of-fact response.

  “She ain’t our real Mama,” the boy added. “She’s our foster mom.”

  “She makes us call her Mama.” The girl sported an impressive eye roll.

  Mercy couldn’t help but remember her and her sister’s own less than nurturing foster experience. She was suddenly grateful that these two kids had one another, and weren’t separated. But how their case worker could be so blind to their filthy clothes and squalid living conditions was beyond her.

  The house Cara had been trying to get to appeared eerily quiet.

  “House looks empty now,” Mercy commented, looking across the street.

  “They musta left last night. The van’s not in the driveway.”

  The boy’s words caught Mercy’s attention.

  “What kind of van?”

  “White one.”

  “I mean, what make and model?” She knew she was pushing it, but somehow these kids knew more than the average five-year-old.

  “It’s a 2006 Ford Econoline E-150.”

  Mercy glanced at her pint-sized informant. “That’s pretty specific information.”

  “Information is money,” the boy said, rubbing his fingers together.

  “Beauford keeps track of all the details in the neighborhood. Just in case someone asks. Like cops,” his sister explained.

  “Shut your mouth, Agnes,” he admonished. “You’re gonna get us tagged as street narcs and everyone knows they don’t last long around these parts.”

  Mercy continued her questioning, so far impressed with what they’d shared. “Did you see who all was in the van?”

  “Billy Joe, some old short balding guy with a funny accent, two girls, and another guy who I heard one of the girls call ‘Daddy,’ and two boys who were out cold. The one who got shot and the one who got jabbed,” Beauford offered.

  Apparently, it was permissible for him to gratuitously leak information, but not his sister.

  But then she thought through his description.

  Mercy’s stomach felt sick. “Jabbed?”

  “Yeah, you know, jabbed with a needle,” he explained further, demonstrating with his fist to his neck. “Poor kid went down like that,” he said, clicking his fingers.

  Okay, the good news was that there was a chance Landon and Nate were still alive. She had to hang on to the positives and address the negatives.

  But it went without saying that these two kids were a world of help, with a future of becoming stellar PIs.

  That is, if they lived past elementary school.

  “What were you doing outside in the middle of the night?” she asked with parental-like skepticism.

  The girl laughed. “We weren’t outside. We was inside. We could hear everything through the busted-out window in our bedroom.”

  Well, that explained things.

  They finally reached the truck, and Mercy held the side and leaned against the fender while the kids were about to make their way back to home base.

  “Hey, wait up,” she said, out of breath but not hope. “Any chance you’ve got more information on that van?”

  “Just the tags,” Agnes declared. “Beau keeps the tag numbers for all the cars in the neighborhood.”

  “I told you to shut it,” he snapped. “I swear, we gonna get taken out if you keep mouthing off like you do.”

  “Could you please give me the tag number?” Mercy asked.

  “Yeah, for another ten-spot,” he said, crossing his arms over the faded-out picture of Iron Man on his pajama top.

  Beauford reminded her of another kid with more hutzpah than body mass. He needed a haircut, a bath, and some clean clothes, but he was negotiating with the confidence of a suited-up pit boss.

  Like Nate.

  Her chest grew tight, but she refused to get emotional. Loren always said she needed to react less and think more when in stressful situations.

  Doing her best to remain focused, she checked her pockets, but she already knew she was out of cash.

  She gingerly made her way to the truck door and breathed a sigh of relief when it opened. As expected, the insides had been ransacked by the same thieves who lifted the hubcaps. As her eyes skimmed the contents for something of value, they landed on the floorboards behind the passenger seat next to a tool box. She reached behind the seat and pulled out a gym bag. Unzipping it, she found Landon’s practice uniform, jockstrap, and various toiletries.

  Zipping it closed, she twisted around, caught her breath from the pain caused by the sudden movement, and turned toward the open door where the twins stood with their arms crossed, looking like miniature hoodlums shaking down their target for something worthwhile in return for intel.

  She tossed the bag toward Beauford, who caught it midair. He opened the duffel and rifled through the contents.

  With a head nod, he glanced up at Mercy. “I’ll be right back.”

  He started to leave with the duffel, and Mercy called out, “Dude, leave the bag.”

  He squinted his eyes at her but she could see the respect as he tossed it onto the sidewalk.

  Minutes later, he returned with a scrap of paper which would hopefully reveal the license plate numbers to the van. She knew very well that she could’ve been scammed by the kid. And given his living conditions, she wouldn’t really blame him.

  She squinted her eyes back at him as he snatched up the duffel bag, in case she planned to renege on their deal. “If I find out this tag number is bogus, I’m coming back to hunt you down,” she said, despite having no intention of doing that. She’d rather cut her losses than waste any valuable time. But the kid needed to know there were consequences when double-crossing a paying customer. Especially in this neighborhood.

  He nodded. “I would too, if I were you.” He held the duffel bag close to his chest. “How you plan to start the truck without keys?”

  Mercy smiled. “Don’t you worry about that. Agnes, you keep an eye to the north of the street, and Beauford, you check out what’s going on behind me. Let me know if you see any suspicious
vehicles. I’ll be outta your hair in less than ten minutes.”

  The kids took their positions—not that she really needed them to play lookout, but because she didn’t want them to see how she hot-wired the vehicle. She’d worry herself sick knowing she could be responsible for two pre-K kids getting hurt while joyriding after watching her handiwork.

  Rubbing her temples, she ran through a Rolodex of memories, specifically of Loren hot-wiring a number of vehicles during their escapades. Mercy had only done it once with Loren spouting off step-by-step instructions, while fighting off the South Korean secret police during a mix-up between a Thai prince and his concubines who they’d released from their prison on the top floor of a five-star hotel.

  But that had been a DeLorean.

  And this was a vintage Ford pickup truck.

  Wait.

  There was that time they’d been ambushed by those weird Appalachians, who’d been more reminiscent of children of the corn than viable distributors of 191 proof moonshine.

  That had been a much older truck and fairly similar to this one.

  Yes, she remembered most of the steps, even though she hadn’t given it her undivided attention and for good reason. She’d been playing lookout for armed, brain-damaged goons wearing dirty overalls and reeking of pure grain alcohol.

  Twisting her body, she searched in the back for something of use.

  Whoever had ransacked the contents of the truck had taken the time to dump most of the tools behind the seat and cherry-pick those that would bring more cash.

  Yes! She lifted a discarded wrench and went to work on the key ignition plate, turning it a few times and then twisting it the rest of the way until it came loose. After pulling the front off, she reached from behind and tugged at the wiring. She got a better grip on the wiring harness, then pushed the two tabs on each side, separating the ignition from the rest of the wiring and exposing those still attached.

  She looked around the cab of the truck and found a couple of paper clips attached to title paperwork in the glove compartment. Bending the one paper clip in a U shape to use as the hot wire, she inserted the ends into the appropriate holes and bent each side to create tension, allowing for the required connection that would start the engine.