by Nick Adams
I said, “You sure he’s alive? He barely looks conscious.”
“Yeah,” Linda sighed. “I guess he’s going downhill fast. Maybe I pestered you for nothing.”
I knelt down in front of Bob. Clapped my hands a few times. His eyes were glossy and out of focus.
“Bob,” I said loud and clear.
He slurred, “Gowaway, Bob.”
“You’re Bob,” I told him.
“Go to hell, Bob. I’m on vacation.”
I said, “No more drinks, Bob.”
He replied, “You fix the ink.”
Linda explained that Bob worked in a high-stress office setting.
After another minute of strained communications, vaguely Bob began to understand that he was in fact Bob, and that he was now in some sort of trouble. He started struggling to free himself from the flimsy chair. In the process of trying to stand up, he succeeded only in dumping himself on the ground. Face first. He flopped forward. Caught his toe. Fell on his face without the presence of mind to extend his arms and break the fall. The chair remained wrapped around his ass.
I looked down at him on the ground. He reminded me of a drunken letter A.
Then he started struggling and flopping and making a lot of weird noises. Sort of like a beached fish. Linda knelt and rolled him over on his side. Bob farted. Gulped. Hiccupped. His whole body convulsed and I stepped back, afraid that he was about to vomit. But then he settled right down again and just lay there groaning. Probably feeling like he was spinning out of control.
I hauled him up by the arms and sat him straight and level in his chair. Looking down over him, I realized that he’d pissed in his shorts. Not a little, a lot. His pants and belly were soaked. Dirt and pine needles were all stuck to him. He’d probably lost control during the fall. He smelled like used rum and clammy sweat, mixed with a little hint of pine riding on the breeze.
“Oh, wonderful,” Linda said with a wave of her arms. “Happy Memorial Day, you idiot!”
I asked, “Is Bobby a veteran?”
“No. But he does watch a lot of war movies.”
“That doesn’t count.”
She nodded.
“How much did he drink?”
Linda pointed to the tall, now nearly empty, bottle of Captain on the seat of the picnic table.
“Since when?”
“That was new last night.”
“Dinner, breakfast. Now lunch.”
She shrugged, said, “He’s okay to a point. Then he goes downhill really fast.”
Bob blabbered something incoherent to get involved in the conversation. Drunken gibberish.
“He stinks like hell,” I said.
“Sorry,” Linda said.
“You’re the one who has to sleep beside him.”
“God,” she sighed. “I can’t let him in the tent like this. Or the car.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“We’ll have to burn his sleeping bag when we get home.”
I tried not to smirk. She shook her head in disgust. He was a hundred and eighty pound baby that needed changing, and Linda didn’t appear up to the task.
I said, “I don’t suppose you’re an experienced nurse.”
She answered, “I’m a secretary for a chiropractor.”
I nodded and moved on to the next plan.
“How much water do you have in your cooler?”
“A bunch of bottles,” she said. “Almost a dozen.”
“That’s not enough.”
“For what?”
“A bath.”
Linda laughed weakly. It was a release of stress more than an expression of actual gladness.
“I’ll go get a bucket,” I said. “You keep an eye on him. Get a bottle of water and try to make him drink.”
I told Frank to stay and keep an eye on things. He didn’t mind. The temperature was creeping over seventy degrees and he was stuck wearing a Chewbacca suit. Frank prefers New Hampshire’s three cool seasons. As do I. Snow and wind and subzero temperatures don’t really faze us. But anything over seventy-five makes us irritable.
I walked to my cabin and filled my car washing bucket with five gallons of cold water. Bob’s makeshift bath. I snapped the cover on and loaded it on my golf cart. Slid into the cramped compartment and drove back.
The scene I returned to looked like a serious interrogation. Bob was complaining in his drunken gibberish language. Linda was snapping in return. Demanding compliance. Forcing him to drink water. He kept turning his face away. He was stuck in the chair. Trapped. He gargled and coughed. Water was going everywhere. It looked bad. An innocent passerby might have been seriously alarmed. I had the sudden urge to watch Zero Dark Thirty.
Meanwhile, Frank lay a few yards away. Ignoring the situation entirely. He’s above and beyond most drama.
“He is not happy,” Linda told me.
“You want to hold him or pour the water?”
“I don’t think I can lift that bucket.”
“Guess you’re holding him.”
“Guess so.”
I smiled as I got in place behind Bob’s chair with the bucket. I kept on smiling when he started howling as I poured the cold water over his head. He panted and gasped. Linda gasped too when the cold water hit her arms. She was working hard to hold him steady while I tried to pour a controlled stream.
After his shower I dragged Bob over beside the trunk of a maple tree. That way he could lean against something solid and Linda could sit at the picnic table and keep an eye on him. He could dry off and sober up, while she tried to relax.
“I dumped all the rum,” she told me. “Got him to drink half a bottle of water.”
“Good. Keep putting it to him.”
“I will,” she said. “Thank you, Evan.”
“No big deal.”
“No, really. You could have kicked us out or called the cops.”
I shrugged and said, “We’ll be back to check on him later. Make sure he’s coming around okay.”
She nodded and I gave her my cell number and told her to text me if she needed help. Frank stood up to follow me.
My phone rang while Linda was thanking me for the last time. It was my father calling to tell me about the kidnappers, five minutes before we knew for certain that they were kidnappers.
“Two guys coming up the road,” my dad told me. “Faded red minivan. I don’t like the looks of them.”
“You got something against minivans?” I asked. Just to have a little fun with him.
“It’s a junky beater, not a nice soccer wagon. I don’t like the looks of the two guys.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to find them attractive, Dad.”
“I’m serious, Evan. We’ve got trouble.”
He wasn’t kidding. So I adjusted my tone.
“Okay,” I said.
“Something about them seemed off,” he said. “Gave me a bad feeling. I don’t think they give a hoot in hell about camping. They might be thieves.”
“You had a bad feeling, and you let them in anyway?”
“I couldn’t be sure, Evan. Just go take a look.”
“Will do.”
“I’m on my way with a little heat. Just in case.”
“Meet you in the middle,” I said and ended the call.
4
Frank walked bedside me while I chugged along in the golf cart. To him it was just another stroll through the campground. To me it was a bit of a tense ride.
Over the years my father has developed a solid sense for judging character. If someone made him nervous, there was probably a good reason. The only problem is that he’s more of a people person than I am. He tries to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even when his senses are warning him not to. Which was apparently what had happened with the two guys in the faded red van.
We made our way up the paved access road through the central section of the grounds, which was all tent sites divided by little patches of trees and bushes to create separation between sites. Pe
ople were milling about as usual. Some going to and from the pond. Some going to and from the central building which housed showers and bathrooms. Everything looked normal. Busy but not sinister.
Then the rear end of the red van came into view. It was parked on the side of the road. Maybe a hundred yards in front of me. It was partially obscured by leaves and underbrush, due to the slight curvature of the road. But it was definitely the vehicle my father had described.
I pulled my golf cart over. Took the key and continued on foot, hoping to blend in. My eyes were locked on the van. I tried to keep my movements loose and careless. Just a guy going for a walk.
Being so focused, I forgot to switch on my camera.
Within thirty seconds I got my first look at one of the kidnappers. He was pacing, his hat was low over his eyes, and the sun filtering through the foliage wasn’t bright enough to show his face. He was tall and scrawny with bad posture and he instantly struck me as unusually tense. Nothing loose and relaxed about him. He wasn’t a typical vacationer. Maybe an addict looking to steal something. Or maybe he’d just had too much coffee. He was pacing on the roadside opposite the van. About a dozen yards in front of its nose. Smoking a cigarette. Puffing hard, looking all around. Every few seconds he looked back at the red van.
My dad was right. This guy was no camper scoping out a tent sight. He was shady and up to something that made him feel uncomfortable, and he lacked the self-control to mask that nagging discomfort. He was looking back to his buddy in the van for reassurance or direction.
Guilty.
“Here we go,” I whispered to Frank.
He nudged my hand with his cool nose. He was always ready for anything.
We moved on. Walking in the gravel along the edge of the pavement. I tried to use the leaves lining the road as cover. I didn’t want the guy to see me until I was close enough to see his face. Until I was too close to evade.
But then he did see me. A few seconds before I wanted him to.
He looked past the van and straight at me. Held his gaze on me while he puffed away at the last of his cigarette. I felt him seeing me. Felt him realize that I was locked onto him. He dropped the butt and moved off to the right. I lost him in all the foliage.
To my left the van’s taillights lit up and I started walking faster. Almost jogging. Frank kept pace. The van rocked as it was shifted out of park and into gear. The driver’s foot was on the brake, just waiting to transfer to the accelerator. My heart started to thump fast and then, over the steady hum of voices and birds and the breeze, I heard a muffled scream.
I started running. I’m not terribly fast, but usually fast enough when I need to be. Ahead I saw the van’s side door sliding open. Then from the right I saw the scrawny guy again. He was running too. But he wasn’t alone. He was carrying a small child now and was having a difficult time to keep from stumbling. Clearly it wasn’t his child. The kid was struggling wildly. I heard more muffled screaming and then a much louder scream from away on the right. A woman’s scream. Likely the child’s mother.
In that second I knew with absolute certainty what was happening. I wasn’t going to prevent a petty theft or speak with two goons trying to cheat their way out of paying for a site. Without question it was a kidnapping. It was right there. Happening right in front of me. Not even a full year after Lucy Kurtz disappeared. I was rushing for all I was worth to stop it. But it was all happening too fast. Time and distance were against me. The scrawny guy might have been struggling frantically, but he was going to reach the van before I could reach him. My dad was on the way, coming in from the front. But I wasn’t sure how close he was. With the seconds ticking by, there was only one option.
I looked down at Frank, loping carelessly at my side, and said, “Frank!”
He looked up, as if to say, “Yeah? What’s up?”
I pointed straight ahead and shouted, “Go get him!”
Frank rarely needs to be spoken to twice. It is my opinion that if you take the time to train a puppy, you’ll enjoy a lifetime of easy interactions thereafter. So it is with Frank.
With a deep grunt of excitement he surged forward to his full speed. Which was fairly quick, considering his robust size. Faster than me, that’s for sure. Fast enough to intercept the scrawny guy before he could reach the safety of the van. Frank was well ahead of me within a few seconds. Locked onto the fleeing target like a heat-seeking missile.
Now the scrawny guy was a few long steps shy of the red van. He must have heard me shout. He looked over and saw Frank coming straight for him. Then he glanced ahead quick and made the same instant calculations that I had just made. He wasn’t going to make it. The wriggling kid was gradually squirming out of his grip.
In a split second the guy made up his mind and let the kid slide out of his arms. His legs bowed out to avoid stepping on the kid, slowing him temporarily. The boy went limp as he fell and rolled raggedly across the pavement, rolling toward me. The guy made a final lunge for the van.
But he was too late. It was already over.
Had he dropped the kid a second or two sooner, he might have had a chance. But nerves were working against him. Then hesitation slowed him. And finally the millisecond he wasted stepping wide of the boy sealed his fate. In the space of a few seconds the odds had taken a drastic swing. Now everything was in Frank’s favor. Speed and strength and momentum were his. The aggressor was reduced to a victim in waiting.
Frank skipped easily over the fallen boy, like he was a mere contour in the road. He landed, compressed, his muscles flexed, he sprang up and stretched out wide as he became airborne, and with a happy roar he brought his target crashing down. All two hundred of his pounds hit the guy like a battering ram. The guy flopped onto his side a few feet short of the van. There was a sharp slap of bone against pavement. Frank skipped past him. Spun and then stood over him triumphantly. His tail whirled like a wooly windmill.
I saw the van’s taillights go out. Heard the engine revving. The nose came up as it started fast up the road with the tires lightly chirping. It was out of reach. Beyond my control. I slowed as I neared the fallen guy. Just in time to see brake lights flash again. The tires screeched briefly and the van skidded into a tree with a definitive crunch.
Out of my control. Now out of commission.
Over my breathing I heard shouting up ahead. Then a thundering boom-click-boom. Two blasts of a 12-gauge Mossberg. Less than fifty yards away. The shots echoed and rolled under the canopy of trees like a freight train in a tunnel. My father had sent two rubber slugs through the driver’s side window. The driver spilled out of the van and dropped to the ground.
Game over.
I looked down at the scrawny guy. He was a few steps in front of me now. He rolled over slowly, away from Frank, and instinctively tried to get to his feet. I slowed my pace to a brisk walk. He looked up at me just as I reached him. I kept stride and planted my left foot firmly, swung my right leg fast and put the rubber toecap of my right hiking boot hard into his abdomen. There was an instant guttural sound and he curled himself up tight in response to the pain.
“Dad!” I called. I couldn’t see him clearly because of the foliage and the bends in the road.
“I got him!” came his reply.
I knelt down by the scrawny guy. Glanced quickly over my shoulder at the kid. A woman was approaching him. I looked back to my prisoner as I took the duct tape from my belt. I was breathing hard from the sprint and the adrenalin. My pulse was drumming hard. The guy was cowering away from me. He started saying, “No, no,” like he was afraid I was going to kick him again. I told him to shut up and hold still. He complied. The best decision he’d made all day. He was groaning but offered no physical resistance as I pulled at his arms and legs and hogtied him with the tape. I wasn’t gentle about it. Not particularly cruel either. Just moving quickly and efficiently to get him secured so that I could move on to the next guy.
People were gathering around by the time I stood up. Now that the gunshots ha
d faded, there was a rising hum of anxious voices from every direction. Dozens of voices. Stressed and asking questions.
Frank was still standing in the same spot. Wagging his tail and looking around hopefully for someone else to chase. He was the calmest of us all.
I gave him a quick pat and ignored everyone like a horse wearing blinders and took a few deep breaths as I walked over to where my father was holding the driver at gunpoint.
The guy was kneeling with his hands loosely raised. He was older than the runner, with white hairs in his close-cut beard. He was bigger and bulkier and he had tiny bits of broken glass on his clothes. He didn’t look nervous like the runner. Just angry. Angry for having been fired at and caught. He probably realized by now that he’d been tricked by nonlethal rounds. Homemade loads with a convincing boom. In an instant of panic he’d seen a shotgun pointed at him and swerved to avoid it and crashed his van unnecessarily.
“Get on your stomach,” I said.
“Like hell,” he replied.
“Do it,” I said. “Or else.”
He laughed. More defiantly than nervously.
“Got something to prove?” I asked.
“You guys ain’t gonna shoot me,” he grumbled. “Those ain’t even real bullets. I’d be dead if they were.”
I looked to my father and told him to lower the shotgun. Then looked back to the guy.
“No, we won’t shoot you. But you will get a serious beating.”
“That so?”
“Sure is.”
“From you or the old man?”
“You really wanna find out?”
“Kiss my ass, kid.”
I declined and said, “You’re headed for the clink either way, pal. You’ve got two options. Walk in with your head up or get pushed in a wheelchair. Your choice.”
He said nothing to that. Just stared at me, trying to call my bluff. He was maybe late thirties. Fairly heavily built with a rough face. He wasn’t as easily intimidated as most men. Evidently it wasn’t his first such confrontation or dirty job.
“Last chance,” I said. “I’m trying to be fair.”