Bad Moon On The Rise (25 page)

Minutes inched by, who knew how many,
before I heard Risa call out softly. “You okay?” she
asked.

“
Not really.”

“
You’ll get used to it,”
she said.

“
That’s what I’m afraid
of.”

She fell back into silence and I spent
the next hour going over every possible scenario Bobby might have
in mind, plotting how I would react and what I might do. Was he
really going to try and break me out of here? There was a double
chain-link fence surrounding the exercise yard at the back of the
prison, topped with coils of barbed wire. He was out of his mind if
he thought I could hoist my caboose up a pair of twelve-foot
fences.

I had visions of him ramming through
the fences in his land boat, like a shark cutting through a bay,
heading for its prey.

Then getting caught in one, like a
shark in a net.

Oh, god. I had to be prepared for
anything.

Just before four, I rose and pawed
though my meager possessions. There wasn’t much to choose from. I
put on two tee shirts followed by both of the work shirts I’d been
issued then hid the copies of my family photographs in the pocket
of my inner work shirt. My roommate watched me don four shirts and
three pairs of socks, all without comment. When I was done, I
looked like I’d gained ten pounds, but you could not tell I was
wearing four shirts. I had little else that would be of use. One
pair of underwear would just have to do and well, I didn’t actually
own anything else at the moment. At least not within two hundred
miles.

“
Here,” Risa said, rolling
to her feet. She went to her shelf and dug through a neatly folded
pile of clothes. “Take these.” She held out a pair of
gloves.

“
I can’t take those. You
might need them.”

She shrugged. “The cold doesn’t bother
me. We don’t get to be outside long enough. Looks like it bothers
you more.” She stared at my shirts.

“
Thanks,” I mumbled,
avoiding her eyes. Did she know what I was up to?

Oh, for god sakes, of course she knew
what I was up to. I’d jumped out of my bunk and put on multiple
layers of clothing then started pacing the cell like an animal in
the zoo all while mumbling to myself. The only thing more obvious
would be if I had a pick ax slung over my shoulder and held a sign
saying, “Follow me to the secret exit tunnel.”

But Risa didn’t seem like she was
going to turn me in. In fact, she was helping me.

“
Thanks, I might need
them,” I said as I took the gloves.

But she’d turned her back on me and
was silently staring at the wall again.

I thought she’d go back to sleep, but
she followed me to the exercise yard at four. She was my shadow,
darting in and out of corners, always there.

There weren’t many of us outside on
that gray winter day. Maybe a dozen of us, standing near the
doorway that led outside to a red clay surfaced exercise yard no
larger than a quarter of a football field. The sky overheard was
pewter and the clouds so heavy with snow they looked pregnant. But
the flakes had not started yet.

Women began to filter out into the
yard, some in pairs holding hands, others with their arms wrapped
around their torsos, needing the glimpse of the mountain—and the
world beyond—badly enough to brave the cold.

No one gave me a second glance, but I
knew my roommate was watching.

Was she just waiting for the right
time to call the guards? Panic nibbled at the edges of my
consciousness. Risa could get a lot of privileges for turning in
someone planning to escape. She might even get time taken off her
sentence.

Stop it, I told myself. Just stop it.
What was time taken off of a nine hundred-year sentence with no
chance of parole? That was ridiculous. She meant me no
harm.

And, yet, there she was, on the edges
of the yard, huddled by herself against the wire fence, pretending
not to notice anything other than the sky.

But I knew her attention was on
me.

“
Concentrate,” I willed
myself. I could not afford to screw this up. Whatever harebrained
scheme Bobby had cooked up, this was my only chance to get out
before I was trapped in here for months. I had to be on my
game.

“
Well, if it isn’t College
Girl herself.” I recognized the voice even before I turned and saw
the mountain of aggression known as Martha Ray coming to get
me.

“
Get lost or I’ll tell the
entire world your real name is Petunia,” I warned her.

I couldn’t help it. Whenever I saw
her, my mouth took on a life of its own. It was like being told not
to put beans in my ears. All I wanted was to put beans in my ears.
The more people told me to shut up around her, the more I just had
to sass her.

She didn’t like it, either. As a woman
of far fewer words than me, she raised an arm and balled her
massive hand into a fist. I can’t be sure, but I think she may even
have been growling.

“
Don’t make me
mad.”

It was a quiet statement uttered by a
gentle voice, yet Martha Ray froze when she heard it.

My cellmate, Risa Foster, had somehow
appeared at my side. “Don’t make me mad, Martha Ray,” Risa
repeated. And though there was no malice in Risa’s voice, Martha
stepped back, dropped her hand and walked away without a
peep.

“
Wow,” I said. “That’s
power. Thank you.” I wanted to say more but Risa was already
gone.  I don’t know how she did it.

After that, I avoided everyone, kept
my mouth shut and surveyed the perimeter as Bobby had instructed,
trying to separate the trees from the shadows, trying to spot
anything moving in the darkness of the forest that surrounded the
prison grounds. Pines grew down the slope in a canopy of deep
green, but rhododendron bushes and other shrubs created a
ground-level barrier my eyes could not penetrate. It was hopeless.
I would not be able to see anyone coming. I’d just have to keep
watch for movement along the edges, or anything unusual or out of
place.

Like say, a giant fiberglass hot dog
poking out from between two large stands of mountain laurel.
Because that’s exactly what I was looking at. I didn’t know whether
to laugh or to cry. An enormous hot dog tip was bouncing and
jostling in the bushes with what looked like a grizzly shoving its
way through the underbrush behind it. Then I saw a flash of yellow
– painted mustard, I knew—and the tan of the fiberglass
bun.

It was genius, I thought, whatever
else he had in mind—because who would ever believe they were seeing
what they were seeing if they saw any of this? They’d think they
were hallucinating for sure.

Wait. Maybe I was
hallucinating?

But, no it was real. The giant hot dog
wavered, then steadied, as if Bobby had braced against a fallen
log. My god, what was he winging toward me? A gun? Money to bribe
the guards?

The sky had darkened. The first few
flakes of fat white snow began a gentle fall from the heavens,
spiraling lazily to the ground as I heard the sharp pop of the
pneumatic gun going off. A dark object soared upward from the
bushes, higher and higher. I spotted it at its arc and began to
pray as it neared the top of the outer fence. As it cleared the
barbed wire, I crossed my fingers and willed its trajectory to
continue upward. But it only climbed a few more precious inches
before the object began to fall back toward earth.

Oh, no, it wasn’t going to clear the
inner fence. It wasn’t fair, I thought wildly, it wasn't fair. I
was a good person. Bobby was doing his best. It wasn’t fair that we
should fail.

A second later, a tiny parachute
popped and bloomed above the object, just as a gust of wind sent
the snowflakes dancing in tiny tornadoes. The parachute jerked
abruptly upward, cleared the barbed wire of the inner fence by two
inches at most, then began its descent on my side. I raced toward
it, but the wind gusts grew fiercer, the parachute filled and the
object sailed away from me to my right. It was heading straight for
my cellmate, Risa Foster.

She looked up, startled, as the object
fell at her feet. I froze, not knowing what to do. She bent over
and examined the object. She picked it up and fiddled with it, I
could not quite see what she was doing with her hands. But when she
straightened up, the tiny parachute and all of its strings fell to
the ground. She planted one foot in front of her, cocked her arm
behind her head like a third baseman for the Yankees and let fly,
sending the object soaring a good forty feet across the exercise
yard. It fell in the red clay a few yards away. I dashed forward,
clawing at the dirt, extracting industrial wire clippers from the
muck. Bobby D. had managed to send half a pound of metal flying
over both fences with his stupid hot dog gun. And Risa had helped
get it to me.

I had no time to waste. Bobby was
waving at me, the hot dog gun leaning crazily against a pine tree.
I dashed for the first fence, staying low, although I knew the
guards were unlikely to be paying much attention, not on such a
quiet day, with the skies heavy with snow and the small number of
prisoners in the exercise yard. But there were still two towers
with sightlines to where I now crouched next to a large metal
trashcan, willing myself to be invisible. I frantically clipped
thick metal with my tool, twisting each wire away from a hole that
opened larger and larger as I cut and pried my way to freedom. My
arms ached from the effort and it was taking longer than I thought.
Someone would surely notice and not every inmate had as little to
gain as Risa. Then there was Martha Ray, who’d turn me in for
nothing in return.

But I had misjudged many things about
Risa. When I heard shouting, I glanced behind me, expecting to see
guards rushing toward me. Instead, I saw Risa hanging off Martha
Ray’s back, punching at the larger inmate’s face as the other women
crowded around, screaming for Martha Ray to fight back.

Risa was creating a diversion. God
love her. My angel.

I clipped faster, pulling the wire up
with strength I didn’t know I had. When I had a hole big enough to
crawl through, I twisted my way through the opening, not caring
when the sharp metal ends tore at my shirt and pants. I crawled
across the six feet of the open ground between the two fences on my
belly. When I reached the second fence, I stopped for a moment to
look around.

Snow was coming down furiously now, as
if God himself had taken a knife and ripped an opening in the sky’s
belly, releasing a giant pillow full of feathers on the world. The
shouts behind me grew fainter as I focused on what I had to do. I
scrambled to my knees and cut and cut, twisting and pulling,
yanking the heavy wires with my hands. I was inches from freedom
and there wasn’t a force on this planet that could stop me now. It
was as if every fiber in my being, every cell in my body, was
intent on flight. I would go fast and far. I would run, I would
escape, I would flee confinement.

One more twist of the wire and I could
wiggle through. I rolled out onto free land and kept rolling as the
slope took me away and I tumbled down toward Bobby D.

He dashed out of the woods, a mountain
of a man dressed in hunter’s camouflage. He was breathing heavily
as he pulled me to my feet.

“
Keep moving,” he said.
“My car is by the highway. We’ve got a quarter mile of forest to
get through first.”

“
Are you okay?” I gasped,
brushing snow from my shoulders and eyes. “How did you get up the
side of the mountain?”

“
I don’t know,” he said,
his chest heaving. ”I just did. But if anything happens to me, you
keep going.”

“
What?” I asked
incredulously as we started hacking through the forest underbrush.
“Are you out of your mind? If you have a heart attack, I’m not
leaving you here. Forget about it.”

“
Then I won’t have a heart
attack,” he promised, stumbling over a log and crashing into me. I
tripped and he nearly fell directly on top of me. Mercifully, a
bramble bush diverted his fall and spared me from being pancaked by
his bulk.

“
My god,” he gasped. “Did
I kill you?”

No.” I scrambled to my feet, leapt
over another log and darted through an opening in the underbrush.
“You saved my ass, Bobby D. You saved my undeserving
ass.”

“
Just go,” he gasped,
trying to stand up. “Don’t wait for me. I don’t think I can make
it. Just go.”

“
No way.” I dashed back to
him. “No one even knows I’m gone. We’ve got time.”

But even as the words left my mouth,
the sirens went off—their wail screaming over the open field and
into the forest like the cries of banshees on the warpath. “Oh,
god,” I said. “Oh, god.”

“
Keep going,” Bobby
shouted. He struggled to his feet. “Head down the mountain. I’ll
try to keep up. The keys are under the right front tire. Don’t wait
for me. Just take off. I’ll think of something.”

I knew the road was only a quarter
mile away, but it was a quarter mile blocked by twisted vines,
thick rhododendron and sharp-edged pines. I could hear Bobby
gasping for breath behind me as the sirens from the prison wailed
in the distance. Then I heard something that made me panic even
more.