Red Mountain (11 page)

He sank back into his chair and wept. He had never been this scared in his life. At least in Mexico he’d been able to look the enemy in the eye and deal with the problem. Now he’d been reduced to lying to his best friend.

CHAPTER 18

When the man called Stick came to bring them their breakfast she knew something was missing.

“What happened to the other trailer?” Peggy said. She moved past Stick and took a step outside the door before anyone could stop her. A few yards away she saw the deep tracks in the dirt. The tracks hadn’t been there the night before.

“Trailer?” Stick asked. He looked away while his hands fidgeted at the edges of the box he was carrying.

The guard standing nearby pointed his rifle at her. “Get your ass inside or I’m going to start tying you up in there.”

Peggy backed up. She hadn’t realized Stick was behind her, and when she bumped into him several water bottles toppled from his box to the trailer floor.

“Oh no!” Stick cried. His face turned bright red. He set the box down and began to gather up the bottles. Peggy saw a book of matches drop from his shirt pocket and before Stick or the guard even noticed she’d slid her foot over it.

“It was my fault,” Stick said. He reached into the box and picked up some food wrapped in foil and handed it to Peggy. “I’ve got to be more careful.”

“It was all my fault, Stick. Not yours.”

“You’re too kind lady.”

When Stick bent down and picked up the box she noticed the bloody slits in the back of his shirt. They’ve been whipping the poor man, she thought. It’s no wonder he’s acting so nervous.

“I want to thank you for all that you’ve done,” Peggy said.

“It’s nothing...”

“I mean it. You’re a good man Stick... I know you are.” Peggy reached out and put her hand over his. The flesh was dry and brittle and she could feel the individual bones beneath. Stick stared down at her hand and didn’t move, and when the guard barked an order to leave Stick looked Peggy directly into the eyes for the first time and she saw how terrified he was.

“Don’t give up,” Peggy whispered. But she wasn’t sure if he’d heard her…

The guard finally stuck his head inside and looked around. “What the fuck did I say Stick? Get a move on before I decide to see how easy it is to break your bones.”

Stick lowered his head and followed. The guard shut the door and Peggy listened to them walk to the next trailer. She hid the matches beneath the small shower with the pieces of wire she’d removed earlier, the balls of string they’d pulled from the lining of the couch and the screwdriver lodged beneath the greasy oven.

****

She didn’t have a plan. For the past two days they concentrated on learning as much as they could about what was going on around them while harvesting from the trailer whatever things they thought might be useful without causing notice. It had become a game between Peggy and Connor, to see who could find the item with the most potential. So far their captors hadn’t been interested in checking the inside of the trailer too closely. Peggy hoped it stayed that way.

Back when she was in the army she had trained to be an explosives expert. She learned all about how bombs were made, including those created with ordinary things you could find around the house. Most importantly, she was taught how to dismantle them before they killed anyone. It was at the base in Georgia where she first met Will, who’d also grown up in Portland. The two instantly became close friends and ended up working on many projects together. Neither one of them cared for Georgia much, so their conversations about home were a welcome escape from the oppressive humidity and their inability to feel like they belonged. Will’s wife at the time was serving in Desert Storm, and when she returned to the States she introduced Peggy to her cousin Andrew—a tall, shy man, who’d marry Peggy shortly afterwards and started a family with her.

After a few hard years of living from paycheck to paycheck with a baby to care for, Andrew finally completed his training and became an officer with the Portland Police department. Things started looking up. For the first time ever they had enough money to pay their bills and some extra to set aside. Connor started school, allowing Peggy to work part time for a security company as well as take some night classes. Eight months later, everything came to a screaming halt. On a sunny, cloudless afternoon, her husband, who’d only been on patrol for the first hour of his shift, was standing on a freeway shoulder trying to help an injured dog when a drunk driver swerved and hit him. Completely devastated and far from any family, Peggy knew she wouldn’t have been able to survive the period that followed without Will’s love and support. And now, as she ran ideas through her head about how to escape, she often imagined Will nodding or shaking his head to each suggestion.

So far, Will hadn’t liked anything she’d come up with…

As soon as it had become dark the night before, Peggy figured out how she could deal with the paint-blackened trailer windows. The flat strip of metal she’d removed from the edge of the shower stall was thin enough to wedge between the sliding panes of glass and scrape away some of the paint on the outside. Just tiny strips really, but they could cover them up from the inside with some of the electrical tape they’d unwound from some wires behind the fridge. There was also the vent above the shower stall. If Peggy held Connor up, he could easily see through the crack where it lifted from the roof. It didn’t exactly help with seeing things at close range, but it did allow them to survey the horizon from every direction.

They stopped to eat their sandwiches and drink some water. Connor felt sleepy afterward and she told him he should lie down. He crashed out almost immediately, with his head cradled in her lap as she stroked his back.

Peggy thought about what they’d seen that morning when the trailer across from them was moved. She was certain it was the strong smell of gas that had awakened her before the sound of a truck’s engine idling close by. There may have been a faint scream and a steady pounding inside the trailer before she’d had time to find a proper slit to look through. By the time she’d managed to see just the outline of the trailer in the pre-dawn gloom, several shadows were already moving around it, attending to various tasks.

Were there people in the trailer? She didn’t know for sure. She had heard the guards moving the chains through the trailer’s locks earlier in the day, thought she heard Stick’s brittle voice while he made a food delivery. Then there was the look Stick gave her when she’d asked him about what had happened to the trailer. It was the same look she’d seen on a policeman’s face many years before, after she’d asked him if her husband was still alive…

Whatever was going on, they had better find a way out soon.

****

Peggy listened to the cicadas singing out in the desert while she turned over ideas. They hadn’t had much time to note a pattern in the guard’s routine. Although they didn’t have a watch they did have the sun coming through a skylight in the kitchen. Connor had helped her put notches in the cheap linoleum to make a crude sundial. It kind of worked, so long as the days remained clear.

The guards didn’t seem to come around much at night, but kept mostly to their tent where they drank and played cards. Still, Peggy felt as if they were being monitored around the clock. Many times when she pressed her eye up to a slit in the window, she’d catch some shadowy form passing by, and later Connor told her he’d wakened once to see a man’s face floating above the sunroof. She asked him why he hadn’t told her about it earlier, why he wasn’t scared. Connor shrugged, saying that the man was different than the others. He didn’t scare him like those men who were always staring funny at his mom, as if they were hungry dogs. He told her the man on the roof looked sad.

At night Peggy found no comfort in the idea of a ghostly face watching over them. It didn’t matter to her if Connor wasn’t afraid, she still shivered regardless. Unable to sleep, she got out of bed, careful not to awaken Connor as she went to examine their cache of supplies for what felt like the hundredth time since morning. She decided if she continued studying them an idea would eventually emerge. So far nothing had happened. The objects just looked more pathetic than ever as she turned them over in her hands, but gradually her mind began to pull itself together as a single beam of concentration, directing itself at a wide array of possibilities before being suddenly drowned out by a loud grating noise…

What was it?

Then she knew. Someone was at the trailer door undoing the chains. They sounded like steel teeth grinding against the outside of the door. Peggy jumped up from the floor and tossed the pile of objects below the bed before shaking Connor awake.

“What Mom?” he asked, bleary-eyed. When he heard the rattle of keys at the door he cringed.

Peggy pressed her face close to his. “I don’t know what they want. But promise me if I tell you to run that you run away as fast as you can... Don’t look back until you find someone who can help us.”

Connor’s eyes grew wide.

“What do you mean? I’m not going to leave you.”

“No. Do what I say.”

The door to the trailer swung open and Walker March stepped inside. Peggy watched his eyes move up and down her body while he puffed on a cheap-smelling cigar.

“It’s show time, darling.”

CHAPTER 19

Charlie Maynard was running out of options. He’d used up the last of his ammo keeping his trackers at bay. His horse had fallen and died and his mule would soon be following. Neither animal had eaten for days and they’d taken their share of lead.

It would be impossible for him to haul his entire horde alone. He hid it under a dry riverbank and went in search of a solution while buzzards made death-circles above.

When night fell he spotted a small campfire and crept up to investigate. He found two men snoring loudly beneath the stars. They didn’t have any horses. They were malnourished and their threadbare clothes hung loosely on their bony frames.

Just a couple of men down on their luck who were hoping to collect a reward, he thought.

They would have to do.

Because they’d been drinking hard, the two sleepers didn’t wake in time to stop Maynard’s knife from slipping into their throats. Yet when they opened their eyes again they had no memory of what had happened…

CHAPTER 20

Sheriff Longhorn enlisted more men from town and now there were at least twenty of them combing the forest below Mt. Hood looking for Maynard, driving him up closer to timberline where the forest became short and sparse.

Maynard traveled mostly by night, choosing to hide deep within caves during the day. On a chilly afternoon three boys discovered the entrance to a cave he was hiding in. The wind had picked up, and the fresh boughs he’d placed in front of it had blown over. Even from deep inside the cave, Maynard could hear the boys’ quick breaths as they checked and loaded their weapons. He decided to keep still, hoping they’d eventually lose interest and leave. If not, he’d have but one choice to make.

Outside in the cold wind, the boys’ faces were flushed with excitement. For some time they’d been calling for Maynard to surrender and come out with his hands raised.

“If that ain’t where he’s hiding, boys, I’m a horse’s ass,” said Phil, the oldest of the three.

“But he’s not surrendered,” replied Sam.

The youngest of the three, a pudgy seventeen-year-old named Rudy, spit a thick flow of tobacco juice next to the cave. “Then maybe he thinks he can just wait us out. Either that or he’s in there dying. You’re talking a hundred dollars for each of us. We’re going to be rich!”

“So who is going inside to get him?” asked Sam, who’d been peer-pressured into joining the search. He preferred to experience his adventures from books. And the stories he’d overheard about Maynard’s long string of victims had given him terrible nightmares. The sooner he got home to the safety of his warm bed, the better.

No one spoke for some time. Then Rudy spat on the ground again before glaring at his friends in mild disgust.

“Hell, I’ll do it, you pussies. But each of you is going to have to cough up twenty-five dollars of your reward.”

The other two didn’t argue. Seventy-five dollars was still a fortune as far as they were concerned.

“Maybe we should just smoke him out,” offered Phil. “We could build a little fire, you know. Put a bunch of stinky green twigs on it. It would be much safer than going inside after him.”