Necessity

by Brian Garfield

  Out of the trees there’s a tangle of thorn. A lot of bright color in here: it’s dense and it feels tropical. The Jeep pries its way through thickets and without warning she finds herself poised at the edge of a stream looking at a white frothy flow of fast water and heaps of jumbled grey rocks everywhere. She barely stops in time.

  The birling water makes a steady racket. It comes rushing around the bend in high-speed fury. A sizable broken sapling whips along the surface, smashing into rocks, caroming about, heaving and sliding past.

  Christ. How deep is that river? Can the Jeep get across or has the rain swollen it too high? Is there a fording? Have any of those ugly boulders rolled into it?

  Is this contraption waterproof? What happens if we get halfway across and the Jeep stalls?

  Can I stand up and walk in that current with a baby in one arm?

  If it’s deeper than it looks can I possibly swim one-armed in that mess with the baby—and avoid smashing both of us up on those rocks?

  Even if I could—where could we go to get away from them?

  The Bronco will be on them any second now and there’s no alternative, really.

  I am endangering this kid’s life and I’ll do a term in purgatory for it but I honestly believe she’d be better off taking the risk of drowning than sentenced to a life with that verminous pig for a father.

  “Here we go, darling. Hold tight.”

  She hammers it into low and puts it down the steep pitch into the water. Nothing to do but hope and pray.

  57 Not too fast. Keep it slow and steady. Can’t afford to lose footing in this treacherous water …

  The flood buffets the side of the Jeep, rocking it. She fights the wheel, pulling back to the right, struggling against the Jeep’s desire to slide away with the current. It feels as if the bottom is hard and flat—possibly a sunken paved bridge but certainly it was never intended for use at flood stage.

  The baby is caterwauling herself hoarse; her face has gone red, splotchy around the nose.

  Her hand on the steering wheel is numb. Her arm is giving out.

  Sorry Ellen but I need this other hand; just lie here in my lap and please don’t flail around so much.

  Both hands on the wheel. Leaning her weight to the right—pulling the wheel—it’s so hard …

  Please give me the strength to hold it straight.

  Her foot. Cold. Wet…

  There’s water coming up around her feet. Must be coming through holes in the floorboards.

  The baby rolls off her lap onto the seat beside her and cries out. She can’t take her hand off the wheel. “Don’t move. Please, Ellen don’t move.”

  The front wheels feel as if they’re sliding toward the edge. There’s something bearing down on the whitewater above her—a Goddamn tree limb or something. It looks big enough to slam us all the way around. Oh Christ …

  The nose of the Jeep begins to rise. Lifting into shallower water it shakes free of the worst pressure of the current. The tree limb spins past behind her; she hears branches scrape across the back of the Jeep but she’s climbing onto the bank now and she reaches down with her right hand to hold the baby in place on the seat.

  The wheels slither on the slick mud bank; they’re digging ruts in the earth but soon they’ve pawed the loose mud away and they’re down to thick root systems. These give purchase and the Jeep heaves itself up onto solid ground.

  The hiking trail curves away through another hedgerow. She drives right along, not even slowing down for a look back until she’s into the trees. Then she stops the Jeep, picks up the baby and holds her in her arms while she looks in the mirror for the first time.

  The Bronco is back there on the far side of the stream. Stopped. A man gets out of the passenger seat and walks forward to look at the crossing. He’s wearing a checked shirt and jeans.

  The shadows are tricky under those trees but it’s Bert.

  He has a rifle.

  Cradling the baby, crooning, caressing, she stares into the mirror and thinks about picking up the revolver and shooting the son of a bitch where he stands but in the end she just puts it in gear and drives on. Past the row of trees the trail meanders along the edge of a field and decants her onto a graded dirt road. She thrusts the clutch to the floor and pulls levers and hopes she’s done it right; she starts up the road and is pleased not to hear any longer the meshing protesting whine of the low range. The Jeep goes properly up through the gears and she’s doing a good clip by the time she passes the first house on the hill.

  We could stop and go in there and ask for help but in the first place we might not get it and in the second place I’m committing a felony and I doubt we’d get a whole lot of sympathy from the police.

  She’s looking in the mirror. No sign of the Bronco yet. But Bert won’t give up and go back. She has no doubt they’re horsing it across the stream right now. If they don’t capsize they’ll be right after her.

  And for certain they’ve put out a call on the CB radio. Wherever this road comes out into the world there’s likely to be someone waiting for us.

  Charlie, you son of a bitch, what a mess you’ve left us in!

  58 Driving the graded dirt road at sixty miles an hour she is thinking:

  I know this road. The Concord winery back there—Bert knows the man who owns it. The bald man with the strange accent—Hungarian, Polish, whatever he is. We had dinner with him and his wife at that place on Lake Champlain, remember? They invited us to two or three wine tastings.

  Think, now. This road comes out to the paved highway a couple of miles ahead, just beyond the mouth of the valley up there.

  The intersection’s down at the foot of the hill. A Citgo station on the corner. Nice clean restroom. That road goes on up to Plattsburgh. Going the other way I think it comes out onto one of the main highways you take to get down to Albany.

  They’ll probably have the intersection blocked.

  Very matter of fact: All right, she thinks; then we’ll just have to get rid of the Jeep and get around the intersection on foot. And let the bastards sit there all night waiting for us to show up.

  59 At the crest of the last hilltop she stops and gathers the baby in both arms; thrusts the door open with her foot and gets out of the Jeep. Every bone and muscle is afire with pain.

  North in the distance the two aircraft are still swooping in their odd Alphonse and Gaston dogfight.

  Ellen reaches up with a finger and tugs at her lip. She gives the tiny finger a love bite and stares back down the road. In loops and whorls there are bits of it visible from here: several miles back is the steep hill she descended.

  And there comes a dot that must be the fucking Bronco—hurrying down the switchbacks.

  Not too far back; speeding to make up for it.

  Son of a bitch.

  She gets back in the Jeep and adjusts the baby in her throbbing left arm and drives down off the hill. Ahead in the distance above the trees she can see the V-shaped sign of the Citgo station.

  Once in the woods she begins to search for turnings and when she sees a mailbox ahead she eases her foot back on the gas.

  No good; an old house trailer up on blocks with a huge TV antenna on top of it and a Volkswagen beetle parked nearby and a fat woman hanging the wash on a line.

  No place to hide there. She drives on, anxiety climbing.

  Two more driveways give access to small newish bungalows near the road. No hope there.

  Another mailbox. The dirt driveway disappears into the trees to the left.

  She takes it.

  Not far in there’s a small old barn beside the drive. It looks like a one-time carriage barn or a two-horse stable; not big enough for real farm work. The wood has gone pewter colored since its last coat of paint. There’s a rusty plow beside it—the wheeled kind that’s meant to be pulled by a tractor. The barn door hangs ajar—open a foot and badly warped, sagging on the ground and leaning.

  Just behind it a stream cuts through, disappearing into ta
ngled growth.

  She stops the Jeep in the weeds and sets Ellen down on the seat. “Stay put ten seconds, my love. Be right back.”

  When she gets out of the Jeep the baby starts to wail again. “I’ll be right back, damn it.” She grasps the twisted edge of the barn door and bends it out far enough to make room for her head and shoulders.

  Inside there are two splintered stalls on the right. The rest is an open floor—mud puddles and wet straw. It looks as if it’s been in disuse for years but it still carries a horsey pungency compounded by damp earth and rotten wood.

  There’s room inside for the Jeep.

  She tugs at the barn door but it’s badly warped and jammed against the earth. It doesn’t want to move. She kicks the damn thing and stands back yelling at it. Her curses blend with the baby’s outcries.

  She gets back in at the wheel and picks up the baby. “Shush now. You’ll get all hoarse.” She rocks the baby. Then with an abruptness that startles her an invention penetrates past the rage of frustration.

  Of course.

  She starts the engine and jockeys it back and forth until she’s positioned the mangled wreckage of the front bumper beside the edge of the barn door. She locks the wheels sharp right and backs up, hooking the jagged ruin of the bumper against the door.

  Use the horsepower of the Jeep to pull the damn door open.

  It gives. But she hears something snap with a loud report.

  She parks the Jeep inside. Grabs her handbag and the sack of baby things out of the back seat, collects the baby in her arms and climbs out.

  When they emerge from the barn she sees that the noise she heard was the snapping of the rusty bottom hinge of the barn door. Opening it has scraped a raw fresh wound across the earth.

  Damn.

  Holding the baby she puts her back against the sagging door and leans into it, thrusting her heels into the earth. The door slides reluctantly shut. It’s tilted against the building now, the bottom skirt bent out a foot or so away from the sill; but it’ll do. You can’t see the Jeep from out here.

  No choice but to spend two valuable minutes kicking leaves and twigs across the tracks left by the Jeep.

  Only when she’s satisfied by the look of it does she hike away.

  Hauling Ellen back through damp tangles under the trees she remembers the revolver but to hell with it. Not worth the bother to go back for it. There may not be time anyway.

  That grinding noise. Is that the Bronco? Christ …

  She swings around and peers back through the tangle, walking backward, feeling her way with one foot and then the other. She hears the Bronco slow down at the mailbox.

  She can see a corner of the barn through there. Not the road, though.

  It’s stopping. The damn Bronco is stopping.

  Easy now. If I can’t see them, they can’t see me.

  It’s starting up again. Going on along the road.

  Thank God!

  She soothes the baby, whispering to her, stroking her tiny forehead.

  “Give them a couple minutes, darling,” she murmurs. “Then we’ll be on our way.”

  Oh Jesus. Oh Christ. It’s coming back!

  60 She hears it back up and change gears and come forward into the lane. She hears it stop somewhere just beyond the barn.

  Bastards.

  The sudden silence. Terrifying. She holds her hand near the baby’s mouth, ready to clamp down if she must.

  Does she hear voices or is it just her overstimulated imaginings?

  That sagging corner of the barn—

  If they come around there they’ll be able to see her.

  Come on, fool. Get out of here.

  She pokes a toe back behind her and all of a sudden the wet earth gives way and she’s sliding helplessly …

  Oh!

  Slithering. Out of control on this slick muck.

  What—?

  Don’t panic it can’t be far.…

  Instinct brings the baby protectively against her chest, arms shielding Ellen from the twigs and stones. But it’s a quick soft slide: a few feet of mud and her scrambling feet find purchase against polished stones.

  She looks over her shoulder. The stream has parted around her boots. She’s got her feet in the water. It’s only six inches deep.

  She hears, very loud, the snapping scrape of wood on earth and she knows instantly what it is: they’re opening the barn door.

  It’ll take them five seconds to absorb what they’re looking at—the Jeep in the barn—and a few more seconds to realize she’s on foot and then they’ll start looking for her footprints and in this God-forsaken mud it won’t take them any time at all.…

  She takes three paces upstream, turning rocks over with her boot toes, making a plainly visible swath. Then she turns, crouching, and moves downstream on careful feet, dislodging nothing, clutching the baby, murmuring in Ellen’s ear: “Old Injun trick, kid, you betchum.” Not for nothing did she sit through those awful Westerns with Daddy in the PX theaters.

  She giggles.…

  Hey. Calm down, Little Beaver, this ain’t no time to go all hysterical on me.

  She ducks under a fallen trunk that lies jammed across the gully; she eels past the clutching arms of a bushy thicket, letting it slide back into place behind her.

  Careful you don’t turn an ankle on these stones.

  The stream bends around the exposed roots of a big maple. She picks her way over them, staying in the water, moving downstream as fast as she can, stopping at intervals to turn her head sideways so as to catch the breeze from behind her on the flat of her eardrum.

  It’s been a while now since she’s heard their voices. Have they lost the track? Or are they right behind her, creeping up?

  Don’t speculate. Don’t think at all. Just move. Keep going …

  Ten minutes? Half an hour? There’s no way to measure time. Her ankles are weakening; were it not for the support of the boots she’d have caved in by now. Can’t walk on these Goddamn stones any longer. This is just going to have to be far enough.

  She climbs out of the stream and leans against the bole of a tall tree, propped on one shoulder, looking back the way she just came.

  “Do you think it fooled them, little girl? Think we’ve got a chance?”

  Who knows. All we can do is play it out.

  She finds a place deep in the woods—a fallen log to sit on. Changing the baby’s diaper, feeding her unwarmed milk, she listens to the forest.

  “Just stick with your momma, kid,” she says drily, “and we’ll see what other nifty kinds of trouble we can get you into. If you want a dull peaceful life you picked the wrong momma.”

  61 With the baby balanced on her shoulder she trudges across the back of somebody’s cornfield.

  Just make it to that far corner; then we can rest again.

  Everything hurts. Everything.

  The baby lies across her shoulder like velvet. No complaints now; no stirrings. Poor kid’s exhausted.

  I understand, Ellen. I know how it is. It’s always harder to be a passenger than to be a driver.

  Feels like a blister coming up on the left heel. Damn. All we need. Well what did you expect, feet all soaking wet and everything?

  One foot and then the other. That’s it. Just put one foot down and then put the other foot down. One foot at a time. We’ll get there.

  How far do you suppose we’ve walked? Time’s it? Takes too much energy to shift things around so I can look at the watch; take a guess by the sun shadows.

  Probably somewhere between four and six. Split the difference. Say it’s five. I don’t believe less than nine hours ago Charlie and I were making love.

  Charlie. I wonder what happened to the airplane and the helicopter. Haven’t noticed them since God knows how long ago. No sign of them now.

  Hell with them. Come on. Almost to the corner now.

  Nasty rip in the sleeve of this blouse from those thorns back there. Cheek feels all scratched from the thickets. Burrs
in my hair, what’ll you bet. I must look a sight.

  Well this ain’t no beauty contest, honey.

  This is the corner. We can sit down now. Jesus—it feels as if I’ve got drill bits in my joints. God, that hurts!

  Now then. What’s the plan?

  Are they back there? Tracking?

  Maybe. Maybe not. You can’t do anything about it so quit thinking about it.

  Can’t be too far to the Interstate. Keep walking east you’re bound to find it.

  What then?

  God knows. Worry about it when we get there. One thing at a time. Too tired to think.

  Let’s see what we’ve got in here, kid. You want Gerber’s applesauce or Gerber’s apricot? Where’s the Goddamn plastic spoon?

  Here, quit making such a mess all over your face. You handle the mouth, let me handle the spoon, all right? Try to get the food inside the mouth, right? That’s the idea.

  Now stop looking at me like that. Like I’m taking food out of the mouths of babes. In the first place the damn things are too heavy to go on carrying. And in the second place Momma needs nourishment too, you know. One jar of Gerber’s apricot isn’t going to make that much difference in your life, kid, take my word for it.

  God, it tastes good. I think I’m going to start eating baby food for a regular diet. If we ever get out of this mess alive.

  62 She finds a narrow blacktop road and walks east on the shoulder. Every time she hears the rumor of an approaching vehicle she takes cover off the road.

  The baby is delivering herself of long closely reasoned monologues in a language known only to herself.

  It probably isn’t very far in miles but she hasn’t been able to move at a very good pace. By the time the country road takes her across another hill from which she sights the superhighway below her, the sun is setting; by the time she stumbles to the overpass the last of the twilight has dimmed to dusk.