by Kate Merrill
This animal could be the identical twin of the mule she’d seen at Mattie’s, only this fellow was considerably younger.
“Wanna pat him?” Juan dropped the reins to zip up his fly. “I can ride him real good.”
Should she hug the boy, or spank his bottom raw? In the end, her great love of horseflesh won out and she stroked Gee’s neck. “Do you ride him bareback?”
“Sure, except for this blanket.” Juan adjusted a weird contraption across the mule’s back. The ingenious blend of work harness and Indian blanket was rigged with rope stirrups that could actually accommodate a rider.
“I’m impressed.” Diana smiled against her will.
“Leona keeps him hidden in the forest.”
“Well, let’s walk him back to the forest, then, before they see we’re gone.” At that moment, she noticed the boy’s eyes were fixed on a far ridge behind her back. “What do you see, Juan?”
She turned towards the dark hill above, where Matthew and Leona had gone over the rise, where two bright lights now jogged in wild unison. That seemed strange, because Matthew and Leona weren’t carrying flashlights. Suddenly Juan flung himself at her, pointing and gulping as he tried to speak. He clung to her legs as she tried to understand the problem.
“What’s wrong?” As the lights came closer, descending towards the shack at high speed, she recognized the whine of a motorcycle engine.
“It’s him!” Juan whimpered through chattering teeth.
A scream stalled in Diana’s throat as she clutched the child to her breast, because every instinct told her to stifle that scream and run like hell. The bouncing headlights illuminated the tiny clearing below just as an unsuspecting Leona walked over the rise.
At the same time, the engine stopped and the beams canted through an acid green patch of grass to land directly on Leona’s white face. She was the proverbial doomed deer in the headlights, frozen in fear before the moment of impact. When the shot rang out, Leona wilted in slow motion and the bucket filled with water tumbled crazily down the rocky slope.
Juan’s fingers clawed at Diana’s arms as a second barrage of rifle fire began. The man, Diana realized, was Floyd. He revved up his dirt bike, and its headlights zigzagged into the valley towards the shots, obviously being fired by Matthew.
She could not think, nor breathe. She was desperately afraid for Matthew, but the only possible way to save Juan was to escape to the hills and avoid the valley. She gathered the terrified child into her arms and carried him. Although every muscle in her body cried out to protest the burden, Juan was surprisingly light.
She broke his strangle hold on her neck and hoisted him up onto the mule. The animal was skittish from the gunshots and circled wildly as she clung to the reins. When she finally gained a foothold in the rope stirrup and mounted, Gee continued to spin and fight her.
Diana pulled Juan into the cradle between her legs and leaned over him, all the while crooning and stroking the crazed mule. The explosive gunplay continued, but she tuned it out as tears blurred her eyes.
At last the beast wearied and stopped. Without one clue as to where he would lead them, Diana gave Gee his rein. Still cradling the sobbing child, she said a prayer to the dark heavens and swiftly tapped her heels on the creature’s ribs.
FORTY-NINE
Fear of the hunted…
“Leona’s dead, isn’t she?” Juan’s little body shivered against her.
“Of course not.” In fact, Diana considered Leona’s death a distinct possibility. They had both seen her take the bullet, then her seemingly lifeless body had fallen to the ground.
“What about Trout?”
“I’m sure he’ll take good care of himself and Leona,” Diana said with as much conviction as her aching heart could muster. If Matthew survived the gunshots, why hadn’t he called out to them, or attempted to follow?
“If Trout’s okay, how come we’re running?”
For an eight-year old, Juan was as incisive as a Supreme Court Justice. He was hyper from fear and juiced on nervous energy, but she wished he would calm down and fall asleep in her arms.
“This mule seems to know where he’s going.” She steered them onto a different subject.
“Yes, Gee knows everythingabout these hills. When Leona and me rode him up, he took us to the caves all by himself.”
“What caves?”
The boy scooted back into her ribs and folded his sneakers across the mule’s neck. “Indian caves. There are hundreds, maybe millions of caves where they could hide out forever.”
Diana noticed a lack of feeling in her fingertips as she stroked the child’s strange hair, but Juan was okay. He warmed to his subject and chattered on about the battles and exploits of great red warriors as they rode into the night.
Once Matthew told her that Juan was prone to exaggerate, or outright lie, so she had to wonder if there really were caves where they could hide, at least until daybreak, to equalize their odds.
Eventually, the boy’s recitation slowed and his tales of Indian valor got all jumbled up with cowboy lore and cartoon heroes. Soon after that, Juan fell fast asleep. The silence was unnerving, and every limb in Diana’s anatomy rebelled. So far, Gee had been sure-footed as he gingerly made his way to higher altitude through the dim moonlight. Then he stumbled, but quickly righted himself, and next he galloped down a ridge for no apparent reason but the sheer joy of not having to fight against gravity. Often he stopped to graze on what smelled like sweet clover, and then he drank from a fast running creek. From the sound of gurgling water, she believed the creek had paralleled their journey all along.
She couldn’t gauge how far they had strayed from the bootleg still, but she didn’t doubt that the old-time Cherokees could have hidden undetected in these hills. Several years ago Rudolph, the abortion clinic bomber, had holed up here for years before the police caught him. Neither the cops nor the FBI could flush him out. That was a comforting thought if one was hiding; a problem if one was lost.
As they traveled, Diana listened for the growl of a dirt bike in hot pursuit, but heard only the buzz of cicadas and Gee’s rhythmic snorting. The night sounds conspired to lull her to sleep, to blessed forgetfulness, but she resisted.
When she was a child, a fever had almost claimed her life. She remembered the weightless drifting in and out of pain, the foggy disorientation that left her spiraling and unable to find herself. She felt that way now. Her legs, thighs, and bruised bottom were numb, while those parts supporting Juan had long since cramped beyond feeling. Worst of all, she had this dizzy sensation that at any moment they would topple off the edge of some precipice to oblivion.
Through the misery, Diana gained a new understanding of blind faith. The mule, willing as he may have been, was not her ideal guide, one she’d have chosen to trust with her life, or that of an innocent child. But Gee was their savior all the same, so she gave her weary spirit over to his care.
And Juan slept on, even when they descended through a particularly nasty terrain where Gee balked, and then actually stumbled to his front knees. A dark roof of forest blocked the moonlight, which until then had provided a thin, silver ribbon to reality. After that, she was forced to make a decision.
She slid off the faithful creature, dragging a limp Juan behind her, then she dropped to her knees. For a stunned moment, no part of her body worked. A fiendish puppet master had cut all her strings, leaving every wooden limb useless. Yet somewhere a primal memory of how her parts once fun
ctioned allowed her to grope, push, and lift herself upright.
“What’s happening?” Juan, half asleep, clung to her neck.
“Gee needs to rest,” Diana whispered against his cheek. “Can you walk for awhile?”
Fleetingly the boy opened his eyes and decided reality was worse than the scary dreams he left behind. A vigorous shake of his head and a wrestler’s lock told her that Juan’s answer was an emphatic no. Either she’d have to carry him, or enlist poor Gee for another round.
No contest. Once the beast had recovered his footing, she hoisted Juan aboard and prepared to walk. The lightened burden rejuvenated the animal, and he took off at a slow trot. Diana latched onto his tail, then pulled herself forward to his reins. “Slow down, Gee!” She wasn’t about to be dragged blind through that treacherous valley. Gee and she had to reach a compromise--- he could lead, but she would set the pace.
Eventually, she lost all sense of time, and her abused feet lost all feeling. Luckily, Gee retained his sense of direction, and gradually their tempo slowed as moonlight, or was it the first hint of dawn, seeped into a clearing where the mule came to a dead halt. The sudden loss of forward momentum nearly toppled her, but Gee refused to budge. In his mind, they had reached their destination.
Juan stirred and lifted his sleep-creased face from the blanket. He blinked and sniffed the subtle change of venue. Here the air was fresher, lacking the pungent, mossy smells of the forest. The roar of rushing water was strong and close.
“We’re here!” Suddenly Juan was wide-awake. “I toldyou, Diana. Gee brought us to the caves!”
She peered around the clearing where the first rays of morning hung in the fog like pale gray gauze. Trying not to dwell on the fact that she had walked all night, willing herself not to think at all, she strained to see signs of a cave.
“It’s over there…” Juan slid off the mule and ran full tilt to a bank of laurel growing on the face of a sheer cliff.
Diana dropped Gees reins, stroked the good creature, and didn’t blame him when he shivered away from her touch in favor of a juicy stand of weeds. Once she was convinced the mule was going nowhere, she hobbled towards Juan, who was beating at the laurel with a stick. Either the child had lost his mind, or his over-active imagination was playing tricks, for she saw absolutely no evidence of a fissure, let alone a cave, in the cliff wall.
“I found it!” His whoop echoed through the clearing and reverberated across the miles they had just traveled.
Rushing to his side, Diana fell to her knees and clamped her hand across his mouth. “Shhh…” The fear of the hunted electrified her tortured body. She waited until Juan’s eyes reflected the same fear before slowly releasing her hand.
“Sorry, Diana.” He started scrambling ahead on all fours.
She followed in like fashion, but still saw no cave. Then suddenly Juan’s head, chest, legs, and finally his little sneakers were swallowed up into a black void. Diana felt cold, wet stone under her hands and an unexpected, chilly breeze on her face. Reaching ahead, she encountered nothing but empty space.
“C’mon, what are you waiting for?” Already Juan’s voice was receding.
Images of slimy snakes and nests of bats aside, she took the plunge. Or rather, what was a plunge for the boy, proved to be a squeeze for her. Slithering on her belly, she worked her way forward on her elbows until, after a claustrophobic eternity, the tunnel opened up into a large black cavern.
“Where are you, Juan?”
“Over here…” His voice was close and off to the left.
Patting the moist moss cover that formed their slippery floor, she crawled towards the sound, certain that her next move would be an elevator drop to nothingness.
“Don’t be afraid,” Juan said. “It’s flat in here.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it in daylight.”
Diana doubted it. Even at noon, this place would be as dark as any tomb, but then she felt a cold breeze on her cheeks and saw a pinprick of light in the vaulted ceiling.
“Honest, Diana, this cave goes all the way through. It’s like a bunch of rooms in a big castle.”
She reached out and touched his warm flesh. One second later, Juan’s little arms encircled her. He hugged and stroked her like she was a baby. Ashamed, she laughed out loud, and in an effort to reverse their roles, she rocked Juan against her breast.
“Don’t be scared.” He reached up to check her face for tears, and found them. “We’re safe now, Diana, just like the Indians.”
God, how she wanted to believe him! She longed for release, the sweet healing peace of sleep. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, her panic retreated and she maneuvered herself and Juan into a sheltering crevice that resembled a womb.
He curled into her body, a ball of warmth, and she told herself that Floyd would never find this cave. Diana needed to clear her head and regain her strength. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to sleep a little--- just until morning?
FIFTY
A benign mountain morning…
She was drifting, floating face-up in a chilly sea under a starless sky. The sensation was not altogether unpleasant, except for the hard object pressing into her lower back and a heavy weight on her left shoulder. Gradually she became aware of a warm, rhythmic puffing against her neck, a tickling under her chin, and the smell of dirty scalp. Smiling through the dream, Diana realized it was her little son, Robbie. He had sneaked into their bed again, terrified to face another day of nursery school. His bony elbow jabbed her rib, and she groaned aloud at the pain in her spine.
A sharp flicker of light played across the inside of her eyelids, nagging her to wake up and face the day, but when she did so, no part of the dark room was familiar. Blinking away the grogginess, a rush of fear energized her numb limbs and she cried out in panic to see a strange child asleep in her arms.
“What?” Juan yawned and stretched.
As Diana cast wildly about for reason, she saw a black, cavernous ceiling with one penetrating ray of light piercing the awakening boy. Then the truth hit home with terrifying force.
She stroked the child’s head. “Did you sleep well, Juan?”
He rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”
Was it early dawn or high noon? Their shadowy pit warped reality, and as the details of their plight crystallized in her soggy mind, even the day of the week eluded her.
Juan rolled off her shoulder and crawled free of their stony nest. “I’m hungry,” he said.
Diana’s stomach clenched at the thought of food, and she desperately needed a bathroom. More pressing still was the need for action, a way to safety, and the sudden image of the white mule grazing outside their tenuous hiding place initiated a fresh panic attack. To friend or foe, the animal was like a beacon leading straight to their den.
“I’m going outside to check on Gee,” she said.
“Me too.” Fully awake now, Juan’s beautiful blue eyes reflected her anguish. In that strange, aquatic light, with the one bright beam dancing on his head, the child looked like a tiny broken angel.
“I have a better idea…” she told him. “I’ll be the Indian Scout, and you’ll be the Brave.”
“No, I wanna be the Scout.” He scrambled across the damp moss towards the exit.
Diana latched onto his ankle and squirmed after him until they were lying side by side. “Listen, Juan. I’m the grownup and you’re the little boy. It’s myjob to go for help, understand? You must stay here where you’re safe, where no bad guys can find you.”
His eyes expanded as the word bad took on the human persona of Floyd Clontz. Juan pulled back from the exit. “But I’m scared, Diana. I can’t s
tay alone in here.”
“Sure you can. You told me how the brave Indians used to hide in here forever, and I know how brave youare.”
The cave stank of damp and decay, and one portion of the rock floor glistened with an evil pool where the stream surfaced. She wouldn’t wish this experience on a courageous adult, let alone a vulnerable child, but she had no choice.
“Think how proud Johnny will be,” Diana continued. “Wait until you tell him how brave you were.”
“Have you seen Johnny?” Juan perked up.
“Sure, I saw him right before we came to find you. Johnny worries about you every day, and he can’t wait until you come home.”
“Am I going home soon?” Juan asked in a tiny voice.
“Absolutely. I promised Johnny, and I promise you---you are going home, Juan.”
“No one’s as brave as me.” Juan’s chest puffed with pride.
“That’s right, but you have to promise that you will not leave this cave, no matter what.”
“I promise.” He crossed his heart.
Diana gave him a quick hug and kiss, and then crawled into the narrow passage before her courage deserted her. Rubble tore at her elbows as she wormed along, trying to ignore the soft whimpering of the frightened boy she left behind.
How on earth had they navigated this torturous route by night? It was calming to realize that a malicious intruder was highly unlikely to discover this cave, even by day. It did not calm her to realize that her most dangerous moment lay directly ahead. If Floyd had spotted the mule, he’d be waiting right outside, ready to shoot the moment she flopped into the open.
She took a deep breath, lunged up though the hole, rolled down an incline through the laurel bushes, and then came to a full stop in an open meadow. For some time she lay still, braced for an attack. In those suspended seconds, all her senses were heightened. She felt the sunshine, so hot after the frigid subterranean cave. Her bare arms stung with scratches from the laurel bushes, the sky was blindingly blue, and the only sound was the steady thrum of crickets in the weeds around her body.
Nothing else. She was alone. Lifting to a seated position, she searched the meadow for signs of Gee, but the mule was nowhere to be seen. Puzzled, she climbed stiffly to her feet and did an unsteady 360-degree turn to assess her position. Just as she thought, the entrance to the cave was fully concealed, but the clearing where she currently stood offered no cover from the rugged hills and forested copses surrounding it.