Blood Country (20 page)

Another shot cut through the trees, and she was afraid that it had hit her horse, because something seemed to have gone out of her. Don’t quit running, she told herself. Don’t count the bullets. That was three. Count your steps. She slowed down to a trot, but it was constant. She grabbed at tree trunks and pushed off them to help her keep going.

And finally she came out of the woods. Just when she thought it would never end, she broke through into a field. She ran into it and saw it was freshly plowed. The ground pulled at her feet. She stumbled and caught herself and kept running.

A bullet tore past her face, and she felt covered in sweat. That was four. The field shone black in the night that was falling. She stood out in her white shirt. She couldn’t disappear, and he would follow her with those last bullets.

She couldn’t run anymore. Her legs were burning, and her arm was on fire. Her throat rasped raw, and she was whinnying with fear. She turned and saw him on the edge of the field. He lifted the gun, and she knew another bullet was coming.

I
T WAS DARK
out. When she had crawled into her hidey-hole, she could still see light filtering through the screen of tree branches she had built. But now it was pitch black in her hole. She must have slept. Meg remembered curling up and closing her eyes and praying that she would be all right. She wasn’t sure it was okay to pray for something like that. She wondered if you weren’t supposed to just pray for the poor people in China, but she decided to send out a prayer so it would keep her mind busy. The prayer had melted into sleep, but she didn’t know how long she had slept.

She blinked her eyes, and it didn’t get any lighter. She shrugged out of the leaves that surrounded her and poked her head up. Dark all around. Meg came out of her hiding place and let her eyes grow into the darkness. She wouldn’t move forward until she was sure that the man wasn’t around anymore. She figured if she hid long enough, he’d have to go away. Her mom would catch him otherwise, and she was a cop and could put people in jail.

Rocking in the dark, her knees tucked right in front of her, Meg hoped that her mom would put that man away in jail. Otherwise how would she ever go to school again, or anything? She’d have to be watching all the time, and that would take away all the fun of walking around by herself.

Meg could see through the tree branches now. There was a light on in her house, and there were cars parked around it. She needed to go down there and tell her mom she was all right. She stood up and took deep breaths. Her feet felt like they had gone to sleep on her, but she kicked the needles out of them.

Meg walked slowly down out of the hillside, holding tree limbs as she went She walked as quietly as she could, like the Indians moved through the forest, not making a sound. When she got to the edge of the woods, she looked carefully. There were some pickup trucks. She’d have to walk in slowly and make sure it wasn’t a trap.

Meg dropped to her knees and moved across the ground like a woodchuck. They snuffled through the grass, and she wouldn’t make the noise they made, but she moved like they did, rocking gently back and forth, wiggling forward. She made her way down to the fence line, and then she froze. Someone was standing on the side of the road. She could see the tip of a cigarette floating up and down, and she heard a cough.

Then Meg saw the white hair on the person’s head. It was a woman, an older woman. She was watching Meg’s house. A woman had to be okay, especially one this old.

Meg said, speaking from among the weeds in the field she was lying in, “What are you doing here?”

The cigarette dropped, and the woman spit out, “What the hell?”

Meg stood up. “I’m sorry I scared you, but what are you looking for?”

The woman came and took Meg’s face in her hands and then shone a flashlight on it. “Probably you. Like half the town here. Where have you been?”

“Who are you?”

The woman turned the flashlight on herself, and Meg stared up at the ghostly face that appeared. Bright red lips, hair that looked like cotton candy, and a face with wrinkles that ran the wrong way. “I’m Darla. Landers’ sister-in-law.”

“Oh, you live down on the highway.”

“Yes, I do.” Darla turned the flashlight back on Meg. “Now I’ve answered your questions. You answer mine. Where have you been?”

“Hiding.”

“Why?”

Meg remembered what her mother had said to her, “Never tell anyone what you know, Meg. It’s too dangerous.”

“I fell asleep in my hiding place. I was just playing.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Meg didn’t know what to say. Everyone always believed her. This old woman looked like a witch—
hag
had been the word used in one of her fairy tales. But she could be a good witch. There were such things. And maybe it would take a good witch to see the truth in Meg.

Darla lit another cigarette and looked at Meg. “What’s going on?”

“Somebody tried to get me.”

“A man?”

“Yeah.”

Darla stiffened. Meg felt Darla’s body go tense as she stood next to her, then she asked, “An old man?”

“Not so old. Medium old. He had red hair.”

Darla relaxed. “Red hair, don’t think there’s a guy in town with red hair. Maybe not one in the county, come to think about it.”

She asked Meg, “Did you know him?”

Meg shuffled her feet on the ground. This was what she wasn’t supposed to talk about. But she had to answer the older woman. “In a way.”

“But you got away from him?”

“Yes. I ran and hid. He didn’t find me.”

Darla put an arm around the girl and started walking her back to the house. “You did good, kid, real good. Your mom will be proud of you.”

22

S
ilence hung over the field. Bridget held her breath inside her body, willing herself to lie still. Pain seared her left shoulder and her right leg. Electric and burning, it felt like energy was pouring out of the holes the bullets had made. More than blood, she was losing her strength of will to go on.

She was lying facedown in the dirt. There was no reason to get up. If she stood, he would see her and shoot again. She couldn’t run away from him. She wasn’t sure she could stand. The tilled earth was soft beneath her, and she pressed into it, wishing to disappear.

Then she heard him. He was grumbling to himself. Cursing. Probably mad that he couldn’t find her. For a second, she thought of jumping up and running again, but decided it was too late. She was so deeply in the mess she was in, she could go no farther. She thought of the soldiers who lived because the enemy thought they were dead. That was the best thing that could happen to her.

Bridget kept her eyes closed and quieted her breath. She let the pain wash over her in waves. She concentrated on feeling it so it wouldn’t overwhelm her.

He was coming closer, no longer cursing. She heard his legs move through the field. Like an animal, her sense of hearing had opened wide up with the adrenaline that was pumping through her. As a pharmacist, she understood what was happening to her, but she could neither stop it nor control it. Ride it out, she thought. Last moments on earth, and she was filled with pain and fear. How many people died like this?

She wished she had told Chuck she was pregnant He would lose something he never knew he had. The sound of the footsteps were closer. He stood right over her. She waited for the last shot. If it killed her, she might not even hear it, the sound traveling slower than the bullet itself. That would be a relief, not to hear the sound of her own death. Then he nudged her shoulder. She didn’t move. He pushed, and she rolled over. She waited for the final bullet, but it didn’t come.

She felt him lean down close to her, and her eyes popped open.

She screamed and screamed. Her enemy had a different face.

R
ICH TUCKED THE
pheasant chick in the crook of his arm. He wasn’t sure why he was bringing the small bird with him. Admittedly, it needed attention, as it had been severely pecked by another bird. Bird cannibalism happened from time to time, but usually it meant that the birds were feeling some sort of stress, such as overcrowding or cold weather. He knew neither was a problem in his pens. Rich hoped the birds weren’t still getting harassed by someone lurking out in the woods. He hadn’t seen any evidence of his pheasant stalker lately. Every once in a while, cannibalism happened for no reason, and this time he had been lucky and got to the chick in time. He would keep it separate from the other birds until its wounds were healed and then reintroduce it to the flock.

After feeding all his birds, he had called over to Claire’s and found Stuart manning the phones. Most of the search crew had gone home. Claire and her partner were nearing Prescott, according to Stuart’s latest report from them.

It was going to be a very long night for everyone. Rich decided that if he was going to stay the night at Claire’s, he might as well have the little chick near him to feed and to watch over.

The chick struggled in his arms, and he stroked the silky back of the bird. The down on a baby bird was so soft it reminded him of a woman’s cheek. It had been two years since he had kissed a woman, and that had happened by accident at a street dance when he had had too much to drink. He never saw the woman again. She might even have been married. Most of the women he knew were married. He had been married once for a short while, to Jenny. He had met her in college, and they had married in her hometown of Minong, Wisconsin. Their marriage had lasted for about fourteen months. Long enough for him to feel pretty hurt when she left. But that was years ago. As far as he knew, she was living out in Los Angeles now.

He had wanted to get to know Claire, but with the abduction of her daughter, he wondered what would be left of her. Claire already seemed so removed from life, very watchful of all around her.

A sliver of moon crested the bluffs as he walked up the hill. Not enough to see by, but a wonderful shape to look at Rich found the waxing moon intriguing. He loved to look beyond the lighted part and make out the outline of the rest of the moon in shadow.

When he walked down the street toward Claire’s house, he saw two figures leaning up against the fence, one average height, one fairly short As he came closer to them, he could hear them talking. The slight breeze of the night air carried their voices to him: an older rusty voice, weathered like the siding of a barn, and the other one, young and feminine, a pitch of energy he had heard before. Meg. It sounded like Meg. She must be all right. She was talking to old Darla Anderson.

What was Darla doing up here? She could mean trouble when she wanted to. Cranky old woman who never had a good word to say about anyone. That’s what his mother had always said about her. Then she’d shake her head and say, “But maybe she has reason.” Rich had never followed up that odd statement, and now he wished he had.

He stood still and listened to the young girl and the old woman talk, taking in the feeling that was flushing through him—the world turning again into a place of possibility. Claire’s daughter had returned; Claire would come back; he had a chance to enter their lives, as a friend at least.

Rich quickened his pace, stroking the back of the bird he held in his arms. Maybe Claire and Meg needed a pet. They didn’t have a dog or even a cat. A pet pheasant might be just the thing they needed.

C
LAIRE AND BRUCE
were gliding through Prescott when they heard an emergency call come through on the shortwave: ambulance on its way to the hospital, picked up a thirty-year-old woman, bleeding from gunshot wounds, found in a field by a farmer.

Claire turned to Bruce and said, “Maybe—”

He answered, “We’ll check it out. I wonder where the closest emergency room is to here.” He got on the CB and called to find out where the ambulance was going. When the answer came back, “River Falls,” he cranked the vehicle around on the bridge going over the Mississippi and headed upriver to the hospital.

“Why is this happening, Bruce? Why has someone tried to kidnap Meg and then taken Bridget? Do you think they thought Bridget was me?”

“Possibly.”

“I thought leaving the Twin Cities would take care of it. If it’s the drug gang, I’m no longer a threat to them. What is going on?”

“We’ll find out.”

Claire would always remember that drive. She kept thinking of her sister as a deer, caught in headlights, not knowing what was going on, shot in a field, a farmer finding her, a fairy tale where the kiss of life comes in time and the woman lives. She imagined her sister, standing and walking out of the field, the moon shining on her hair. She hoped for the best ending to this horrible story and wondered if the wounds would turn into red flowers decorating her shoulders and neck, flowers that would fall onto the field and grow. Claire told herself these stories as the night whipped by them on the drive up the river and her hands clung to her seat belt.

T
HE EMERGENCY ROOM
shone brightly with metal trays and white curtains and gowned patients, but it was much quieter than the emergency rooms in the Cities. A reverential peace of people whispering. As Claire and Bruce strode up to the admitting desk, Claire could feel the wake of attention they created: she in her uniform, Bruce by his sheer presence. People knew something was going on, or about to happen. Claire pulled out her badge, slapped it down on the desk, and asked the attendant about the young woman who had just come in.

“Is she alive?”

“Yes, very.” The male nurse leaned back in his chair behind the desk and waited for the next question. He had a hank of dark brown hair pulled up high in a ponytail, and under that his hair was buzzed short. His big brown eyes smiled at her, and she took this for a good sign.

“Who is she?” Claire dared ask.

“She said her name was Bridget Watkins.”

Bruce reached forward and rubbed her shoulder. Claire thought it odd she hadn’t given her married name, but told the nurse, “That’s who we’re looking for. Where is she?”

“In surgery.”

“Why?”

“Bullet in her arm has to come out. Patch up the hole in her leg. Could be a domestic.”

“Her husband doesn’t own a gun. Believe me, this is not a domestic. Is she okay?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“How is she going to be?”

“She’ll be sore for a while. She’ll have a significant scar. I’m sure we’ll want to keep her in at least overnight.” The young male nurse smiled his admiration. “She kept insisting that we not use a general anesthetic but rather a local. They checked her over, and as the bullets had hit neither bone nor major blood vessels, they agreed to it. They also sedated her.” He laughed. “Of course, in her condition, she’s absolutely right” He said no more.

Claire waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, she nudged him. “Her condition?”

‘Well, a general anesthetic isn’t recommmended for pregnant women.” The nurse snapped his chair down on the floor and stood up.

Claire took a step backward and ran into Bruce, who was still right behind her. He was being awfully quiet. “Pregnant? My sister?”

“She’s your sister? You two don’t look much alike.”

Claire nodded her head and said, “We’re not much alike.”

The nurse pointed to an old man in overalls, sitting in the waiting room. “He brought her in. Said he found her in his cornfield. Lives between here and Prescott. Probably saved her life. His name is Mr. Ferguson.”

Claire looked over at the man. She guessed him to be in his seventies, but it was hard to tell, with the weathered life he had led. His face was toasted a deep brown, and deep in the wrinkles were white lines, the color his skin used to be. His hands curled in, taut with arthritis. He drummed on his chest with them.

The old farmer looked up at her when he felt her gaze on him, and Claire was amazed at the lightness of his eyes, an eerie green color, like new-sprouted wheat She and Bruce walked over and introduced themselves.

The old man pushed back his hat, which had “Wayne Feeds” written across the front of it. “Once I found her, I couldn’t carry her, so I got the wheelbarrow. That worked good. Got her out of the field and to the car.”

“She couldn’t walk?” Claire asked.

Ferguson considered the question, shifted his jaw from left to right, and then answered, “Not so good.”

“How did you find her?”

“The shots. I heard the shots. Goddamn it, I hate it when the kids shoot at the deer that come in to eat my corn. I went out to give them what for. Dumb little shits. And then I found her.”

“Did she tell you what happened?”

Ferguson wrapped his fingers around the straps of his overalls. “She wasn’t in very good shape. I didn’t ask her many questions. Seemed like the best thing to do was get her to a doctor.”

“Did she tell you anything?”

“She said the word ‘five’ a couple times, and it seemed to scare her.”

“Five?”

“Yup.” The old man rubbed his cheek. “Then she roused herself when the ambulance came and told them what to do. Is she a doctor?”

“Yes. Of pharmacy.” Claire looked down at the man and asked him, “Why did you come down here?”

“Well, she’s got one of my shirts on. And I was worried about her.”

“She was shot up that bad?” Claire asked.