by Cee Bowerman
“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t want him to be mad at me. They poisoned his mind against me already and I can’t fix that. I don’t want him to get angry.”
“Then you should leave before he gets here. The girls will take care of your baby for you until you can come back and talk to Rowdy when he’s calm.”
“You’re going to make them come out of there.”
“I can’t,” I shook my head. “If it’s locked from the inside, I can’t get in and they can’t hear anything from the outside.”
“Then how will they know when Rowdy comes to get them out?”
I scrambled, realizing that I may have painted myself into a corner, “He has a secret knock. I don’t even know it. Only he and Leia know it.”
“Leia?” Beverly whispered. “That’s her name?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Her name is Leia.”
“Come with me,” Beverly moved so quickly, I wasn’t prepared when she grabbed my arm and jerked me to walk beside her. “I’ll call out to her. She’ll know it’s me since I’m her mother. A little girl can trust her mother.”
My eyebrows rose and I tried hard to silence my features. If she saw that I thought she was totally insane, she’d get mad again. I needed her calm while I figured out what to do.
My first thought was to get some sort of weapon out of the tack room, but she jerked me along behind her so fast, I didn’t have a chance to even glance in there before we passed it.
“Leia!” Beverly screamed over and over again. “I’m your mother, Leia, and I order you to come out right this instant!”
I could tell by the sounds in the barn that our horses were agitated because of Beverly’s screaming and when I glanced into the stall that held the newest rescue, I saw her face through the bars of the door and realized she was crazed. I could see the whites of her eyes and she was breathing hard. I knew that any second now she would go off and be uncontrollable.
I almost laughed when I compared the horse to Beverly in my head and then realized that I must be losing my fucking mind to find anything funny at a time like this.
“Leia!”
“She can’t hear you, Beverly,” I yelled. “The girls are safe and won’t unlock that door for anything but their Daddy.”
I prayed that the girls could hear my voice and understand that I was telling them that no matter what they heard, they should leave the door locked.
As if there wasn’t enough chaos around us, my phone started ringing from my purse. I glanced down at it and knew in my heart it was Rowdy calling to see what to pick up for dinner. The phone rang until it went to voicemail and then immediately started ringing again.
“Don’t you dare answer that phone!”
“If I don’t answer it, he’ll think something’s wrong and call the police.”
“He wouldn’t dare!”
“He’s all the way in town, Beverly. He’s working and can’t get away. If I don’t answer, he’ll assume the worst and the police will come right out. If they do, you’ll never get to meet Leia or hold your baby again.”
I wondered where in the hell this woman had gotten a baby in the first place, but shook that thought off. I had a plan to save us, I just needed to keep Beverly talking until I could warn Rowdy and maybe even get him out here to distract her.
The phone started ringing again and I watched Beverly’s face.
“You can answer it, but don’t tell him I’m here. I want it to be a surprise. Just act like everything is normal and talk to him like you always do. If you warn him, I will shoot you in the fucking head.”
“Okay,” I nodded as I scrambled to get the phone out of my bag. “Whatever you say.”
“Hey, Rowdy Roo,” I purred into the phone. “Sorry I didn’t pick up when you first called, I was in Buttercup’s stall giving her some carrots.”
“You what?” Rowdy asked me, confused.
“Yeah, she and Thumper were all worked up, so I thought I’d give them some treats to make them happier. Orange is their best color, you know,” I laughed shrilly.
Beverly glared at me and I just shrugged my shoulders like I was stupid enough to really follow her directions.
“What the fuck is going on, Sierra? Buttercup? Thump… ,” Rowdy kept talking but I interrupted him. I knew he would understand when I mentioned the horses names. We had jokingly talked about naming our mares sweet names like that and had discussed all sorts of Disney names, but decided to go with Rowdy’s theme of female singers instead. My horse was Stevie Nicks, Leia’s was Aretha because she had always loved her songs, and Leia had chosen Dolly because she loved the song “Hard Candy Christmas.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said into the phone. “Um, get me that salad I like from there. The one with the fresh raspberries on it. Would you ask them for extra raspberries since they’re my favorite? I’ll pick my tomatoes off and give them to you.”
“Someone’s there,” Rowdy whispered.
“Oh, and did you get the batteries for the emergency radios? I know Leia was messing with them and trying to call and talk to Jewel or somebody over there and the batteries were messed up.”
Beverly waved her hand, motioning for me to wrap it up.
“Are the girls safe? Are you saying they’re in the shelter?”
“Yeah, well, I’m still in the barn so I’ll just wait here for you until you come home.”
“Is it Beverly? Is she alone?”
“Yeah. You know how much I love the horses, so I’m going to let you go now. I love you so much, Rowdy. I’ll see you soon.”
I flipped the phone closed and clutched it in my hand.
“He’s on his way to pick up food and then he’s going to be here. Shouldn’t be long now.”
“Okay,” Beverly narrowed her eyes. She grabbed my phone and opened it before she bent the earpiece all the way back and snapped the phone in half. “I thought for sure you were going to warn him somehow, but I guess you’re just too stupid to figure out a way.”
‘Oh, bitch, if you only knew how good I was at being the victim who plays along until she finds a way to rescue herself and her baby, you’d have me tied up or dead by now,’ I thought to myself.
◆◆◆
ROWDY
“Holy fuck!” I yelled as I snapped my phone closed. “Fuck!”
I ran from the back room through the open area area Jace used as his studio and headed toward my truck at a dead run.
“What the hell is going on?” Hank asked me as he jumped up from the chair he had been sitting in while he visited with Jace. He put his arm out to stop me and I shoved him away.
“Beverly! She’s at the house. Sierra couldn’t say it, but she was saying weird shit and I knew something was wrong, so I guessed. She’s holding Sierra in the barn, but I think the girls are locked in the storm shelter.” I jerked to a stop and opened my phone up to call Grunt. While the phone rang, I prayed that he was home.
“Sup?” Grunt answered.
“Leia’s mother is at our house. She has Sierra in the barn. When I talked to her on the phone, she said that Leia had been playing with the radio and had run the batteries down. I think the girls are in the shelter. If they are, they’re trying to raise either you or Nicole on the walkie.”
“Fuck. Let me grab it,” Grunt’s breath was heavy as he started running and I could hear his kids yelling in the background at his house. He started yelling and I knew he was talking to his kids and not me when he said, “Get in the house and lock the fucking doors! Spruce, call Lout and Kale. Tell them to get here now and to do it quietly.”
I heard Grunt’s oldest son say, “Yessir,” and then only Grunt’s breathing again and thumping as he took the wooden stairs down into the basement of his and Shannon’s house.
I bent over and gulped down a sob when I heard my daughter’s voice saying frantically through the speaker of the radio as Grunt got closer to it, “Somebody answer me, I need help. This is Leia Lincoln. Please, somebody. Anybody. I need help. Over.�
��
“Baby girl, it’s Grunt,” I heard my friend say, his breathing hard. “I hear ya, honey. Are you okay?”
“We’re safe. We’re locked in the cellar. There’s a crazy fucking woman up there that says she’s my mother.”
“Okay, honey - is Lexi with you?”
“Yeah and we have a baby, too. Lexi stole it from her when I put my thumbs in her eyes just like you and Uncle Lout taught us. Then we ran down here and sealed the door.”
“Good job, sweetheart. I’ll let your Daddy know that. Do not open that fucking door for any reason, do you hear me? Promise me - both of you.”
“We promise,” I heard Leia’s voice first and then Lexi’s said, “I promise.”
“Can you hear anything from above you?”
“That lady has been screaming my name and telling me to come out and we heard Sierra say that we wouldn’t come out for any reason unless my dad used a secret knock.” Leia told Grunt. “I think she was telling us not to come out.”
“She was, baby,” Grunt told her. “Hold on for just a minute, I’ve got your Daddy on the phone and I need to tell him what’s going on.”
“Tell my daddy to come get us, Grunt,” Leia sobbed. “I’m so scared.”
“Don’t cry, honey. Fuck, please don’t cry,” Grunt told her softly. “We’ll come get you, I promise. Just sit tight.”
“I don't want to see that woman. She’s not my mom. Sierra’s my mom,” Leia sobbed.
“I need you to suck it up and get your shit together, Leia Lincoln,” Grunt said gruffly and I knew it killed him to do it. “You calm down, sit tight, and wait on us to get you. Hear me?”
“Yessir,” Leia’s voice sounded stronger. “I will. I’ll be strong.”
“You hear that?” Grunt asked me. “Come to my house. Cut the fence and drive through the field to the back of my house at an angle that will block sight of you from your barn. If you come in on the road, you’ll be noticed. Kale and Lout will be here soon. We’ll creep over to Nicole’s house and look in. You can see your barn from her side porch.”
“Okay,” I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Be there soon.”
“Let somebody else fucking drive,” Grunt said before he hung up.
I handed my keys to Hank and told him, “Drive me.”
17.
SIERRA
“Where the hell is he?” Beverly stomped back and forth on the concrete in front of where I sat on a bale of hay watching her. “What’s taking him so long?”
“He’s got to grab the food,” I told her.
“You have to buy your meals? You don’t cook? Of course you don’t,” Beverly rolled her eyes. “Well, when we get settled down with our daughter and our baby, I’ll cook Rowdy every single meal from scratch.”
“He’d like that. He can’t cook at all,” I told her. She barely even glanced at me as she paced back and forth in front of the rescue horse’s stall. Most of the time she muttered to herself, as if she didn’t even remember that I was there.
I sat quietly waiting to strike at just the right moment when she was lost in her head again.
“He’s my smart boy,” Beverly told me. “If he wanted to, he could cook. He just doesn’t want to show you up.”
I didn’t even acknowledge that with an answer since just yesterday the man had burned three different packages of Pop-Tarts using the same toaster I used successfully almost every single day.
Beverly started muttering again and this time, she was waving her arms as if she was arguing with someone. Or herself. I wasn’t sure.
‘She’s probably arguing with the fucking demon that possessed her body and told her it was a good idea to take me and my children hostage, the stupid bitch,’ I thought to myself.
I timed her footsteps through three more turns across the concrete and then launched myself at her with a roar.
I used all the strength in my thighs I had built up riding horses with my family in the last few months and pushed myself up as my arms planted in Beverly’s side and steamrolled her off her feet. With a grunt, I flexed my arms at the last of my upward motion and threw the crazy bitch over the door of the rescue horse’s stall.
She flew up and then back down, screaming the entire way as the horse inside went crazy. Beverly’s gun clattered to the floor at my feet and I reached down and calmly picked it up and then lifted my purse up off the floor beside the hay bale before I walked over to the door of the storm shelter and sat down.
◆◆◆
ROWDY
“Leia, baby,” I said into the radio. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I was so scared, Daddy. I didn’t know what to do,” I heard Leia say.
“Rowdy, is my mom okay? She’s been really quiet. We can’t hear her talking anymore,” Lexi’s voice said next.
“I can see your mama, Lex. She’s sitting on a hay bale, just listening. She’s not talking at all, so you haven’t missed anything,” I reassured her. “Do you know what’s wrong with that baby?”
“His diaper is wet - well, I think it’s a he. He’s only got on one of those white baby shirts. I don’t have another diaper to change him, so I haven’t looked,” Lexi explained. “He’s got his whole hand in his mouth, so he might be hungry.”
“Did she say who… ,” I didn’t finish because I was watching Sierra explode into action. I knew exactly what her plan was when she tossed Beverly over into the new horse’s stall.
“Holy shit!” Kale yelled. “Did you see that?”
“Whoa,” Lout nodded his head slowly, the expression on his face showed that he was suitably impressed. “Good strength there as she pushed up with her legs.”
I heard and saw this as I was maneuvering my way around my friend to get to the door of Nicole’s covered porch. I sprinted across the open field that was between my house and Nicole’s. My only goal right now was to get to my girls.
I vaguely realized that my friends were running behind me as I kept up my sprint all the way to the doors of my barn. I didn’t pause when I hit the concrete because Sierra was in my sights. She was whole and healthy, sitting there on top of the storm shelter with a gun in her lap. She looked completely shocked to see me screeching to a halt in front of her.
“Are you okay?” I gasped as I bent and put my hands on my knees, trying in vain to catch my breath. “Did she hurt you?”
“She didn’t hurt me, really,” Sierra admitted. “She just slapped me once and then pulled me around a little bit by the arm. I don’t know if she hurt the girls.’
“Let me get in there,” I told her, reaching for her hand to pull her up.
“No,” Sierra shook her head and pulled her hand back. “See if that bitch is dead. If she isn’t, call an ambulance and we’ll wait until she’s gone before the girls come up. If she is, take off her head and set her body on fire to make sure there’s no chance of her coming back somehow.”
I worried because Sierra’s face was slack and pale, her eyes showing absolutely no emotion.
“Oh, she’s dead,” Kale said from behind me. “All kinds of dead.”
“Then cut her head off and burn the body,” Sierra ordered him. “She tried to take one of our daughters and God knows what she would have done to our other one. And she was ranting that they have her baby down there, so I don’t even know what that’s about.”
“Honey, dead is dead,” I told her gently. “There’s no coming back from getting trampled by an out of control horse.”
“The horse shouldn’t be in trouble for killing her, Rowdy,” Sierra pleaded. “Make sure she doesn’t get put down for it, okay? I made her do it. I threw her in there knowing what would happen.”
“The horse won’t be punished for it, baby,” I reached out and took the gun from her and handed it to Kale. “Hop up and let me get to the girls.”
“Cops are on their way,” I heard Hank say from behind us. “I called Nicole and Shannon, too. I think Sierra is in shock.”
“The girls can’t
come up until the body is gone and everything is cleaned up. I don’t want that crazy bitch to taint their sanctuary any more than she already has.”
“Okay, I hear you, honey,” I told Sierra. “That makes sense.”
“Talk to her,” Grunt told me as he handed me the radio that I had dropped on the porch before I took off running.
“Leia, sweetheart?”
“Daddy? What’s going on? We can hear you out there! I tried to push open the door but it won’t move!” Leia said frantically. “Help me get out!”
“Not yet, sweetheart. Give us just a minute to get things settled up here. We don’t want you to come out yet.”
“Well, can one of you come down here?” Lexi wailed through the radio. “Or at least get this goddamn baby out of here? He’s making my teeth hurt with his screaming.”
I heard the men behind me laugh.
“Now she knows how I feel when the two of them get going,” I joked to the adults around me without pressing down the button on the radio for the girls to hear. I felt better when Sierra chuckled at my joke. “If this wasn’t such a traumatic event, I’d remind her of what she just said the next time they get all screamy.”
“Get the baby out and put Sierra in,” Kale told me. “I’ll take care of the little one and the big ones will feel better when they see your faces.”
Sierra moved off the top of the shelter and stood beside me as Hank opened the big metal door. We heard the baby screaming first and then I saw both of our daughters staring up at us with their eyes wide. Sierra was the first one down the ladder and she took the baby from Lexi and handed her up to Kale’s waiting hands. I went down the ladder next and grabbed all three of my girls up into my arms as I took my first deep breath in what felt like hours.
◆◆◆
“There’s an Amber Alert out on that baby. She was kidnapped from her grandparents’ home in Plainview earlier today. A woman busted in with a gun and pistol-whipped the old man. The grandma was in the backroom when she heard the commotion, so she’s not hurt.” Nick Cardenas, a police officer who was also one of my brothers in the Texas Knights, told our group. “The parents are on their way here to get the baby and I’m sure they’d like to meet your girls to thank them.”