by Kate Merrill
Quickly as her cramped legs would carry her, she sprinted towards the sound of a fast-running stream located in a stand of thick pines. She relieved herself, then headed towards the cascading waters. She drank deeply of the fresh cold liquid, then bathed her face, hands, and arms.
Only then did Diana allow the pent-up tears to flow freely down her cheeks. She longed to bring Juan out from his dark prison to enjoy the water and feel the warm sunshine. Maybe she’d been wrong to leave him behind? Maybe the best plan was to seek their way back together, hand in hand?
But then she remembered the gunfire and how Leona fell. She ached for Matthew and refused to believe that he had come to harm. No, she was right to leave Juan hidden. To bring him into the light of day and expose him to certain danger was foolish indeed.
Besides, she had no firm plan of action. Without Gee to guide her, how could she hope to retrace their steps? She was alone, unarmed, and lost---an unpleasant trio of disabilities. And the threat was real, not imagined. Diana felt evil lurking in the forest and heard it muttering in the sluggish breeze. It impregnated the benign mountain morning.
And she had already lost so much time. The day was heating up fast, and by the angle of the sun, she judged it was almost noon. She shouldn’t have fallen asleep, yet she was thankful to be clear-headed and able to think a whole new way---like a mule. Moving cautiously downstream like the devil was on her tail, Diana followed the path of water, where the sweet clover bloomed.
FIFTY-ONE
Finish the job…
Floyd lifted his head off the rotten log, and the pain ricocheted like fireworks in his head. It was worse than a hangover from a weeklong binge, yet he hadn’t drunk a single drop lately. Struggling upright in the leaves sent the pain shooting down through his neck and set his left shoulder on fire.
Damn it all to hell! The treetops shifted in dizzy patterns up where the sun hurt his aching eyes. His right arm was numb and useless, and when he lifted his fingertips to explore the damage, he found his shirt was soaked through with blood. The metallic stench filled his nostrils and made him retch like a puking baby.
Once the heaves eased up, he carefully lifted the shirt out and over his head and peeled it away from the wound. “Sweet Jesus…” he whimpered as little bits of scab and flesh stuck to the fabric.
Floyd fingered the entrance and exit sites of the bullet and was somewhat satisfied that the slug went clean through. At least it wasn’t festering inside. He couldn’t rightly remember how long he’d managed to ride the bike last night, nor did he know how far he’d come into the forest, but he thanked the good Lord for allowing him to pass out in the bushes by this creek instead of out in the open like a sitting duck.
He lowered the rag of his shirt into the freezing stream and rinsed it out real good. When he pressed the cold water to his wound, it stung so bad, it brought tears to his eyes. So he fetched the flask of Wild Turkey from his knapsack, took a long swig to fortify himself, then dribbled the rest on the wound. The pain almost made him pass out all over again.
Tucking his head low between his knees, Floyd waited for the agony to recede and tried to remember. What really happened last night at the still?
First off, he never planned on shooting Leona, at least not until he’d done what he’d come for. During all the lonesome days in the stinking trailer, he’d dreamed how good it would feel have his way with her, until she begged him to be done with it. But last night something snapped the moment he saw her limping along the ridge, hauling that stupid bucket of water. He saw her face shrink up in terror and smelled her fear, so he was obliged to strike her down on the spot, compelled by God’s own vengeance.
Then the way she fell, her long white legs all twisted in the moonlight, gave him a hot rush like he was doing Leona and that bitch Juanita, both at once. Those two women were the whores of Babylon, worse of their kind than Sodom and Gomorrah.
Giving themselves over to fornication, they are set forth for an example,
Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
No doubt about it, women were his curse. It didn’t help Floyd’s mood that maybe an hour before he spotted Leona, he’d already seen her grandma Mattie at the Birdsong place. The old witch started blasting away the moment his tires raised dust in the drive. Without so much as a howdy-do, how you been all this time…? Mattie started scatter shooting, sparking shards off his bike. One bit of flying metal bit into his leg below the knee, and Floyd roared out in pain, while Mattie, the old banshee, screamed at him, gray hair flying around her head as she fixed to kill him.
Somehow Floyd made it to the Birdsong’s barn and had drawn his weapon in case the crazy bitch decided to follow him. It was then he spotted the old blue station wagon, the one he’d bought for Leona back when they were staying at Johnson’s Hideaway.
Dragging himself back to reality, Floyd staggered to his feet, dropped his jeans, and pissed in the creek. The cut under his knee had already scabbed over. It pleased him to know he’d been right all along about Leona running home to Grandma. Did she really think she’d escape him that easy?
After all, Floyd had once lived at the Birdsong farm for almost two weeks before Mattie kicked him out, but that was plenty long enough to learn the lay of the land. He knew, for instance, that Mattie owned two mules, and last night he’d seen only one. Plus, he knew that old Pappy Birdsong, the only family member with good sense and enterprise, once kept a whiskey still up in the hills. So it didn’t take a genius to conclude that Leona and the boy took off on the mule and were heading for the still. It took more than a pair of hick bitches to put Floyd Clontz off track.
He zipped his fly and walked stiffly to where he’d dropped his dirt bike before he passed out. His injured shoulder throbbed with each step, to where he felt faint and likely to puke again, but the urge gradually subsided.
He carefully righted the machine, straddled the seat, and then kicked the starter. The Suzuki DRZ 400had cost Floyd his last car in trade and his life savings, but with a hundred grand reward at the end of the line, the bike was well worth it.
He hath multiplied your seed sown and increased the fruits of your righteousness.
As the engine vibrations circulated up from his loins to torture the bullet wound, Floyd again tried to piece together what happened last night…
Right after Leona fell, the rifle shots came out of nowhere. At first Floyd saw nothing in the dark valley, but then he realized the shots had originated from down at the creek. He figured the stupid little boy he was after didn’t have the skill or the balls to fire a gun, so it stood to reason there was someone else.
Once he spotted the shack, which was well concealed at the crest of the hill, Floyd guessed Leona had hidden the boy there. So driving in a zigzag pattern, he climbed the steep slope and made it to the door. He still had hold of his Beretta when he dove into the dim space, all the while telling himself not to shoot the little pisser, but when he looked around, he saw the shack was empty.
Breathing hard, Floyd took his weapon in a two-handed grip and eased out, his barrel pointed at the valley. Keeping his head low, he then picked up his bike and walked it clear.
At that moment, he saw the man silhouetted on the ridge where Leona fell. The man was crouching over the body, but when he stood up, he spotted Floyd and swung his rifle in Floyd’s direction. Even at the distance, the man looked to be big as a grizzly and twice as mean.
Floyd mounted his bike and twisted the ignition. He braced his gun wrist on the right handlebar, kept to low gear, then commenced to circle around the man’s ridge, all the while keeping sharp watch out for the kid. The tall man’s rifle followed his progress, and once Floyd knew for certain the boy wasn’t with him, he was forced to deal with that new complication.
They eyed one another for what seemed like an eternity. Floyd shifted to idle and tried to think. He still hadn’t seen the white mule, so likely the boy had ridden off by himself. Catching a lone, scared little pisser was not a problem---but the man was.
Floyd thought about how his brother Darryl was lying at death’s door. Or, for all Floyd knew, Darryl had already passed on to his Maker. This man was to blame. Floyd imagined the stranger was Leona’s new stud, bedding her before Leona’s husband was even cold in his grave. The idea made Floyd burn with righteous indignation. Any man who’d screw a widow under those circumstances would like as not shoot Floyd in the back if he rode away.
So last night, Floyd had squeezed off a round at the bastard, and then the stranger dropped to his knees. Floyd was pretty sure he’d hit him, but before he could be certain, he felt an explosion in his shoulder. It spun him backwards off the bike and it burned like the fires of Hades.
After that, his memories were hazy, but who cared what the hell happened last night? Today he was on the move, bumping along the rutted bank of a fast-running creek. Brambles clawed at his boots and raked his fenders as the noonday sun glared through the branches above his fevered head.
If the bastard who shot him wasn’t dead, Floyd would go back and finish the job. He’d finish old Mattie Birdsong, too. But first he must find the boy.
It seemed God Himself led Floyd by the hand, guiding him upstream to the high country. This Heavenly revelation caused him to focus hard ahead on a grove of river birch trees, where two long pale ears twitched in a camouflage of branches.
“Praise the Lord!” He had found the white mule.
FIFTY-TWO
Grownups don’t get it…
Juan had never been so cold and hungry, and he had to pee real bad. He crawled back into the little stone cradle where Diana had held him and curled into a ball, keeping one eye on the single stab of sunlight that pierced like a Jedi beam into his darkness.
Little sparkles of fairy dust floated through the light, which Juan figured came from way upstairs in the castle. The light passed though all the rooms, like in Disneyland, and as long as Juan concentrated on Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, he might be safe from the snakes and bats clinging to the ceiling.
His parents took him to Disneyland when he was just a toddler. They pushed him all day in a stroller. He saw real cowboys and Indians and pirates and space ships, and then he threw up all the pink furry stuff he had eaten off a stick.
In California, all the grownups called his parents Mrs. Maria McCord and Mr. Randy McCord, but Juan remembered them as Mama and Daddy. Mama was soft like Diana, but her hair was long and black like Aunt Nita’s. Daddy’s hair was yellow like Diana’s and he smelled like vanilla.
Juan shivered and pulled his knees up under his chin, but he wasn’t scared. Nobody but Juan had been to Disneyland---not Johnny, not Diana, not even Mr. Trout. Peter Pan’s children had a dog named Nana, but she wasn’t near as strong as the wolf puppies would be someday. Juan just knew Mother Mattie would give him one, and when he showed that pup to Johnny, he’d cry and want one, too. But Johnny couldn’t have one. He could visit Juan’s, though.
Diana said he couldn’t leave the cave, but she didn’t know about the snakes and bats and how he was about to wet his pants. Juan squeezed his eyes shut and listened. Maybe he’d hear Diana returning from the forest, or the clip-clop of Gee’s hooves?
After all, she promised.
Diana told him she was the grownup, and he was the little boy. She said Leona wasn’t dead, but grownups didn’t get it.
Like long ago, when Juan was in the back seat, strapped into a baby chair and the big truck came around the curve. The truck was all silver, red, and shiny in the sun. Mama and Daddy screamed when their car floated off the road and sailed into the sky, but after that, everything was dark.
After a long time, Juan had waked up in a white room. Two old people were standing over him, and they said Mama and Daddy were in Heaven. His parents were dead, but the grownups didn’t admit it. They didn’t get it. Even when a fish floated up on the beach or the rabbit lay dead in the road, they always said “Heaven”.
But Diana promised.
Juan listened hard and heard the scratching of tiny wings and a squeaky sound like mice. The bats! He saw a movie once where bats tangled in a little boy’s hair and then clawed his eyes out.
Juan never promised to stay in this part of the cave. Scuttling across the gooey floor, he crawled up into the next cavern, where the beam was brighter. Just in time! Down below where he came from, the bats broke loose and screeched so loud it hurt his ears.
Hot pee trickled down his legs. I’m not scared! His fingernails dug into the crevice as he pulled himself to the third tier, where a jagged hole opened to the sky. At the same time, sudden, blinding light stung his eyes and a loud, chugging sound---like Aunt Nita’s electric eggbeater---echoed from above.
He’d seen a movie once where the giant bat of all times came down from space with glowing red eyes and pointy yellow teeth sharp as knives. It ate up all the creatures on earth before it drowned the crumbling cities in green bat goo.
Juan screamed as the beating moved to right above his head. He crawled under a craggy overhang as the black wings blocked out the sun.
FIFTY-THREE
Facing down the Devil…
Just as Diana spotted Gee, grazing and oblivious to all the trouble he had caused, she heard an odd growling sound traveling up the creek bed. From her vantage point in a meadow several hundred yards below the cave, it was clear that Gee had heard it too as he pricked his ears and bolted from the copse of river birch trees.
Before she could process it all, a speeding dirt bike lurched from the forest and began herding the terrified mule. The rider was unsteady on his seat, listing to one side as he fired a round of bullets into the air, just for the hell of it, driving the beast to a crazed stampede.
Diana stifled a scream when she recognized Floyd Clontz. Neither the newspaper picture nor the eyewitness account from Bobb
y had prepared her for the sheer evil that emanated from the man. She knew she was facing down the Devil.
Should she take cover, or run to get Juan? She was frozen, in a state of panic, while her senses were assaulted by yet another deafening sound as a surreal black helicopter lifted above the mountain housing Juan’s cave. It hung in the air, beating its great wings, like it was also plagued by indecision.
It was a black silhouette. The sun behind the giant bird’s wings stunned her vision as she read the bold initials FBI emblazoned on the chopper’s body. Floyd saw it, too. His bike slowed then stalled as he scanned the terrain to determine whether or not the intruders were likely to land.
They were not. Although Diana was no expert in these matters, she believed the ground was not flat enough to accommodate a landing. Her heart tried to jump from her chest as she followed Floyd’s gaze to the hilltop, where a small boy had emerged. Much to her alarm, Juan was waving his arms like a maniac.
“No!” she screamed as adrenaline flooded her veins. “Go back, Juan!” Finally, Diana’s legs caught fire, and she started running towards the boy.
Unfortunately, her warning got lost in the roar of the helicopter’s engine, as did the growl of Floyd’s bike bounding up the steep mountainside. Juan didn’t hear the bike coming. He was too busy attempting to catch the pilot’s attention. Then, when Floyd snatched Juan from behind, he dragged the child across his lap as though Juan had no substance. He was nothing but a small, weightless bundle, flapping its arms and legs.
Diana sprinted full out, her lungs bursting as Floyd’s bike careened drunkenly down the hillside. At the final steep incline, the machine toppled, sending man and boy into a headlong roll down the hill. They stopped against a stand of laurel bushes in the clearing.
“Run, Juan!” she yelled, opening her arms. “Come to me!”
The child tried, but Floyd grabbed hold of his leg. The man lumbered to his feet, dragged Juan against his body, and then spotted Diana for the first time. He roared an obscenity, and then pressed a gun to Juan’s head.