The Road Home (32 page)

As she stood looking at the quilt, she could see that the stains were almost gone. There were still a few spots that were slightly discolored, but the vinegar had restored most of the brightness. She began to understand on a deep level what the Lord had been showing her through the quilt. His words came to her again.

The washing of the water by the word…

“No matter how much we try or how many rules we follow, we will never be free from the stain of sin in this life, will we, Lord?” Jerusha asked.

Then without waiting for the answer she spoke, for the word was in her heart. “You made us whole, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to Your mercy You saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. And now when we sin again, You have made a way for us to remove the stain. But, Lord, as I look at the quilt, I still see the stain. Isn't my life like the quilt?”

Yes
, dochter,
but when I look at your life, I see the life of My Son, who lives in you. And there is no stain or sin in Him. He has made the way. He has covered you with His blood, and He washes you with His word. That is the way You must walk, and it is the way for Jenny. You must pray that she does not love Me because of you, but because of what I have done for her. She must understand My shed blood and the power of My word to cleanse. That is the key, and that is the way for her to find peace
.

Jerusha began to pray.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

The Hideout

B
OBBY AND
R
EUBEN WALKED QUIETLY
up the trail through the ravine. Sheriff Gary and his men followed, and Johnny was out front, leading the way. It was dark, and a light snow had been falling intermittently.

From time to time the snow clouds cleared and allowed the dim light from the moon to light the way. They had flashlights but kept them pointed down at the trail as much as possible. They could see a small creek meandering through a wide, flat area filled with rocks and sand to their left. Beyond the creek, the east wall of the ravine rose steeply up into the darkness. To their right, between the trail and the western side of the ravine, was a flat area filled with brush and trees.

Reuben was unarmed, but Bobby and the men behind them carried rifles. They had helicoptered in to the field behind Bear Lake, where they met the local police. Now fifteen men were moving up the trail toward the supposed hideout.

They had been walking twenty minutes when Johnny stopped and motioned for quiet. He slipped back to Bobby's side and pointed to a small dam that blocked the creek. A flat, concrete path led to the other side across the top of the dam.

“The trail to the first cabin goes up over there,” Johnny whispered. “It's steep but fairly easy to get up. I know the way, so I should go up first and check it out. The cabin is about fifty yards from the ravine, so it'll take me a few minutes to see if anyone's there.”

“Okay. Take a flashlight but use it sparingly and cover the lens,” Bobby said. “And be careful. Only go far enough to determine whether they're there, and then come back.”

Johnny nodded and slipped away into the darkness. Reuben and Bobby and the rest of the men waited silently. In about ten minutes they heard Johnny coming back down the hill. He came across the dam and whispered to them.

“This cabin is empty. It doesn't look like anyone's been here for a long time. The road into the place is filled with weeds.”

“How much farther to the next cabin?” Bobby asked.

“About five minutes,” Johnny answered. “It's easier to get to—the original owner built a staircase down the side of the ravine to the creek. It comes up right behind the cabin. The bank widens out on the other side of the creek, so we can cross here and walk up.”

“Lead on,” Bobby said.

Once again Johnny took the lead as they crossed the dam and began to walk single file along the eastern side. After about five minutes they came to a place where another gully came down from the left and intersected the ravine. Johnny pointed up the gully.

“That's where the stairs come down. The bottom of the stairs has a door that locks from the inside so kids like me couldn't climb up.” Johnny smiled. “It's easy to climb over and unlock it from the inside. I used to do it a lot.”

The men quietly moved into the end of the gully. About twenty feet up they came to a wooden wall that blocked the end of the gully. Set in the wall was a door. Johnny moved to the right side of the wall.

“Let's see if that old root is still here,” he said, reaching up into the darkness. “Yes, here it is.”

Johnny grabbed onto something and put his foot on the side of the gully. With a quick pull and a scramble, he was on top of the wall. He let himself down on the other side, and Bobby and Reuben heard a click. The old door opened, and they could see a flight of stairs zigzagging up into the darkness. Johnny put a finger to his lips and disappeared up the stairs. In a few minutes he came back down.

“This is it,” Johnny said. “There are lights on in the house and at least two cars in the driveway. One of them is the brown sedan Luis was driving.”

Bobby and Gary gathered the men around them. “Call the PSP on the walkie-talkie and let them know that it's the second cabin on Stone Tower Road. How far is it from Tannery, Johnny?”

“It's Jonathan,” Reuben said.

Johnny looked at Reuben with surprise, but he couldn't read his expression in the dark.

“How far up, Jonathan?” Sheriff Gary asked.

“A little over a quarter of a mile. The driveway from Stone Tower Road into the cabin is really just a dirt trail that cars can come down, so they need to watch carefully for it. There should be an old mailbox and a green tube where they put the newspaper out in front. The road into the cabin is on the left of the mailbox.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Gary asked.

“I used to hike down to the lake from this side because the fishing's better on the back side of the lake,” Johnny said. “I would ride my old Schwinn up from Uncle Jim's cabin. It's about three miles. I'd stash my bike out on the road and come down the stairs to the ravine. In the spring, the creek is full of brownies, and I'd fish my way up to the top. There's another ravine back a ways where the creek comes down from the ridge. It splits there—one fork goes to the lake and the other fork comes down the hill, crosses under a bridge, and goes down a deep ravine along Tannery Road all the way to Bear Creek.

“The old guy who used to live here didn't like me using his stairs. He
had some fruit trees behind his cabin, and I used to sneak up the stairs and steal apples and cherries. It really made him mad. I learned all the trails and roads around here so I could keep out of sight.”

Sheriff Gary turned to the man with the walkie-talkie. “Okay, give them the directions. Tell them to leave their cars about two hundred yards up Stone Tower and walk up to the mailbox. Then come in quietly and spread out in the trees in front of the cabin. We'll be out back waiting for them to let us know they're there. Then we'll move in. Tell them to remember the girl and to move fast so we can take these guys by surprise.”

Johnny led the way up the stairs. They followed several switchbacks up the side of the gully and finally came out on top. Johnny pointed silently as Bobby and Reuben and the rest of the men came to the top. They could see an old cabin about a hundred feet ahead of them. A light was on in one window. Bobby and Gary moved to the front of the group. Using hand signals, they spread the men out in a line in the woods behind the cabin. Bobby grabbed Reuben and Johnny and whispered to them.

“Stay with me and be careful. These guys are dangerous, and they're armed.”

The men crept through the woods forming a half-circle behind the cabin. Johnny pointed to the back door to the kitchen and another door on the side of the house. They waited for the PSP to move up from the front.

As they waited in the woods, Bobby remembered being with Reuben in the jungle on Guadalcanal, hiding from Japanese soldiers and spying out their positions. The clouds opened up again, and the dim moonlight cast an eerie glow over the scene. Bobby glanced over at his friend. Reuben's face was impassive. Reuben looked back at Bobby. Bobby had seen that look in his eyes before, and he knew it didn't bode well for the men inside the cabin.

Just then the walkie-talkie crackled and a loud voice said, “We're in position.”

The man with the walkie-talkie looked at Bobby with a stricken face. “I must have bumped the volume button,” he whispered.

Without hesitating, Bobby signaled the men, and they stood up and ran toward the cabin.

Bobby ran full tilt into the back door and broke it down. His momentum carried him into the kitchen area, but he kept his feet. Gary and Reuben rushed in behind him, followed by Gary's men. The assault completely surprised the two men stretched out on couches in front of the fire. One man started to reach for a gun, but when the sheriff's men leveled their rifles at him, he realized he was outmatched and quietly surrendered. More men came through the doors at each end of the house. Suddenly there was the crash of breaking glass from one of the rooms off the hallway to their left. Then there was shouting from out front.

“Drop your weapons and raise your hands.”

There followed low explosions from a heavy-caliber pistol returned instantly by a volley of rifle fire and more crashing sounds. Bobby and Sheriff Gary moved into the hallways and began checking the rooms. Bobby pushed open a door to a small room off the right-hand hallway. Johnny gave a cry, pushed past him, and knelt by the filthy mattress on the floor. He held up a white handkerchief. Reuben was standing behind Bobby and came over to Johnny's side.

“That's Jenny's,” Reuben said. “But where is she?”

Sheriff Gary came into the room. “We've got everyone that was in the house. One of them got shot when two of them went out through the front window. He's badly wounded, so we'll have to get him to a hospital. But we didn't find the girl.”

Jorge and Luis were walking through the woods back toward the cabin. They had been searching for Jenny for an hour without success. As they came up the trail, Luis stopped Jorge and pointed to the left. Fresh tracks in the snow led out of the trees and headed straight toward the cabin. Just then they heard a strange crackling sound and a voice. Then in a few seconds they heard a crashing sound from up ahead and some yelling. Suddenly the sound of two gunshots and then an answering volley of rifle shots crashed through the woods. Luis swore and shoved Jorge behind a tree.

“They found us. That stupid Sal must have got caught and squealed!” he growled under his breath and cursed again. “We have to find that girl. She's our ticket out of here.”

The two men ran toward the woods where they had seen the tracks. Just behind the first trees they came to a wooden landing at the top of a set of stairs.

“Hey,” Luis said, “maybe the girl found these stairs and went down into the ravine. We didn't see any tracks in the woods up here.”

Jorge and Luis hurried down the stairs to the door at the bottom.

“It's going to be dawn in a little while,” Luis said. “We have to find the girl before it gets light. Take my flashlight and go that way,” he said, pointing left. “I'll go down here. Look for little tracks. If you don't see anything in twenty minutes, get back here quick! It won't be long until they go out searching for the girl.”