Jacob's Ladder (12 page)

She opened the narrow door and quickly moved up the steps and slid in. She felt her pulse race, and small beads of sweat formed on the top of her lip and along her brow line.

She was uncertain if the men had seen her movement. She sat with her back against the closed door and glanced around for anything in the trailer that she might use as a weapon. She also looked for a place to hide.

Though she knew it was hardly a means of real protection, she reached up and turned the lock on the handle. Just as she spun the lock, she heard the voices. The men were just outside the trailer.

“Shh,” one of the voices said.

Rose sat completely still.

“What was that?” the man asked.

There was another pause.

Rose tried to think if she recognized either of the voices, but she didn't. She felt the weight on the steps just behind her. She closed her eyes, preparing for the worst.

“Probably just mice or something,” replied the other man.

Someone fiddled with the handle. Rose held her breath.

“It's locked,” the voice at the door said.

“Well, the window is broke. Just cut the tape.” The other voice sounded as if the man had now moved over to an area in front of the camper, near the truck.

Rose heard a rustling. She could feel the trailer shake as the man tried to break open the taped area around the shattered window. He pulled a bit, said a few curse words as he tore at the tape, and then Rose felt him move away. He was walking around to the front to join the other man.

When she knew he was away from the door, Rose remembered that there was a small storage area beneath the bed in the rear of the camper. She crawled toward it, moving through the mounds of strewn supplies and belongings that were still on the floor. She assumed the body had been taken out and delivered to the morgue.

She felt under the bed for the small door to the storage area, found it, and opened it. Although she figured that she was probably too large to fit, she drew in a deep breath and forced herself in. Then she quietly pulled the small door shut. She heard the click.

Fortunately, she didn't think the men now standing somewhere near the truck, away from the camper, had heard it. Neither one of them seemed to be returning to the door.

Rose waited. She couldn't make out the conversation they were having, although she did hear the two men discussing something. She heard only a muffled string of words. She felt a knock near where she lay and then heard a clamor, like metal on metal, somewhere near the hitch.

Minutes passed and Rose heard and felt nothing. She was thinking that the men had left and that she was going to be able to crawl out of the dead man's camper and finally get to her own.

She thought that maybe her good fortune, her friend's good fortune, was even more substantial than Tom believed. She told herself that she would have to remember to inform him about this and see if she get a copy of the chain letter that she had, based upon his advice, torn up and thrown away.

She waited a bit longer. She didn't want to be too impatient. After all, the men hadn't just come to the trailer to sightsee, she realized. They were there for something. She knew that their plans, whatever they were, would not be scrapped by a few inches of duct tape.

She wondered if they were there for the bracelet, which she felt in her front pocket, just beneath her ribs. Because of their arrival, she had not had the chance to discard it. She wondered if they were the killers, if they would kill her, too, if they found her.

With that thought, she felt her pulse pick up speed and she tried to think of something else, like how she was sure she would get out of this predicament soon and how the two or three men who had boated up the river to Shady Grove had found what they were searching for in the dead man's truck and were probably gone for good now. She tried to continue focusing on that possibility.

It remained silent. Rose heard nothing, felt nothing. She waited a few minutes more. She wanted to be completely sure that the coast was clear, that the men had departed.

She was just about to open the compartment, get out, and make a run for it, when suddenly she felt the trailer shift and then lunge forward. Much to her surprise, it stopped and then started again.

The trailer was moving. The men were stealing the rig. And apparently, from all of the bumps she was feeling, they were heading out of Shady Grove by a way other than the main driveway. And then just as she realized what was happening, Rose was thrown against the rear wall of the tiny storage area under the bed. With the weight and sudden impact of her body, the wall collapsed; and Rose found herself in a modified section that had been cleverly concealed.

Her neck and back ached a little from the fall and she felt something long and awkward beneath her. The trailer picked up speed, but because she was now in such a small area, she rolled only a little from side to side.

Rose had not noticed this compartment when she had been in the trailer earlier. She knew this storage bin was in the camper when she had looked under the bed after she had discovered the dead man. And as she lay in the small area as the camper was being pulled along the road, she remembered that with the storage door open and the contents emptied and thrown about the camper, she had seen only the rear wall. This, she realized as she lay there, was something added to the Coachmen, something she had not expected. She had crashed into a secret compartment.

Once the road seemed to smooth out and the jerking movement eased, Rose reached up and felt around her. It was dark where she was and all that she could sense was the short, thin partition on the side from which she had fallen and a long wall that was the exterior of the camper on the other. Above her head was just the top of the storage compartment, which would have been the bottom of the bed.

She felt the camper take a quick turn to the right, and when she reached beneath her, bracing herself, she felt thick pieces of wood, two long ones on both sides studded with smooth round stones, and small, narrow pieces that were attached.

She grabbed the longer, thicker rails beneath her and held on, discovering that the structure was so perfectly positioned that even with the sharp turns and the bumpy ride, Rose was able to keep from being tossed about.

THIRTEEN

Rose lay quietly as she heard things slide and careen outside the storage compartment. All of the dead man's belongings that she had seen earlier scattered along the floor and across the camper were now being thrown around. She realized that she was safe from being hit by the pots and pans, the shoes and books, because of where she was hiding. She congratulated herself for being so resourceful.

She had closed the door to the storage compartment under the bed when she'd squeezed in; and since the small area where she lay was located far enough away from the door, she knew that even if it came open, she was protected from being hammered by the unsecured objects. Rose was grateful for that.

She was also grateful that she did not have a problem with claustrophobia. The tiny spot where she had landed barely had room for her to lay with her arms by her sides. She felt like she was in the trunk of a car or a narrow box. And with those two images suddenly introduced into her thoughts, she turned her head so that she could face the door to the storage compartment at the other end from where she lay. She wanted to remind herself that she did, in fact, still have a way out even if it took her right into the path of the killers and thieves.

As the road seemed to flatten and straighten out, the truck and trailer moving more smoothly, Rose assumed that they had made their way to the interstate and the items inside the camper had settled. Once this happened, Rose began to understand the gravity of her situation. She realized that she was being taken somewhere and that eventually the camper would be searched and she would be discovered. She lay noiselessly and wondered what on earth she would do now that she was stuck inside a stolen vehicle.

She thought that if the trailer continued to travel at such a smooth pace, she could crawl out of the storage area, make her way to the front door, and jump out. She guessed that since there was only a hitch between the truck and the trailer, the men would not register extra movement from where she was.

She considered the difficulty of such an event and then also the risks, such as the likely damage she would do to herself when she leaped, how she could easily land beneath the wheels of the trailer or underneath another vehicle that could be following behind, and immediately began to have second thoughts.

She thought of the very real possibility that the driver and his cohort would see her when she jumped, quickly pull off the road, and find her once she landed.

Upon estimating the risks and probable consequences of that action, she decided to think of another idea. She figured that since she had not noticed this rear compartment before that maybe if she was able to secure the fake wall back in place, the thieves wouldn't notice it, either, when they entered the camper, at least not right away, thus allowing her some time to sneak out later when they weren't around.

She felt around her body, searching with her fingers for the broken wall and discovered that idea wasn't going to work, either. The thin partition that she had crashed through was now in pieces beneath and beside her. Without glue or a hammer and nails, she would certainly not be able to put it back together. She told herself that she would have to think of something else.

Rose did not know what to do. She tried imagining lots of other escapes, but nothing seemed logical or doable. As she lay in the confined area and tried to calculate her next move, fighting to stay alert, she found that the noise of the highway beneath her, the late hour, and the exhaustion of her adventure had begun to make her sleepy.

Rose was uncomfortable in her hiding place, and at first she decided this was probably a good thing. The objects poking in her spine and neck would keep her awake, and she knew she had a much better chance of staying alive if she stayed awake. The longer she rode, however, the more painful her position became.

Finally, when she could not stand it any longer and her body started to ache, Rose reached beneath her, straightening the broken pieces of wood, trying to cover the things that were jabbing into her spine. She again felt the short, knobby sticks, how they were evenly spaced, how they seemed to fit into the long vertical limbs, and she realized what it was she lay upon. It was a ladder, a long, narrow wooden ladder.

Rose couldn't understand why the owner of the camper had gone to such lengths to square away a simple ladder; but she was pleased that she was able to solve at least one of her riddles. She continued to pull and reposition the broken pieces of wood from the wall to cover the areas between the ladder rungs.

Finally, pulling her arms out from beneath her, she folded them across her chest and stretched out her legs completely. She realized that she had created a flat, level surface for herself.

Once she managed this rearrangement and relaxed, her body in a completely supine position, she discovered that the compartment was quite a cozy hiding place. And though she tried to stay awake, keep her eyes open, and plan her escape, in her newly achieved comfort and in her state of fatigue, Rose nodded off.

She was anxious and panicked about her circumstances, but Rose was also tired. She could not keep herself from falling asleep and she could not stop the dream.

Rose leaned down and away into the far-reaching well of somebody else's memory. She fell, like Alice in her wonderland, deep and long into the vision of another's restless soul. She tumbled against walls studded with old diamonds, gemstones, frozen tears of a snatched and disappeared people. She heard only small cries, those of children, old women; the sound was faint and broken and yet never completely covered up or lost.

Rose dreamed of the brightest colors, the blue of the morning sky, the red of the summer sun, of the narrow cup of roses, of blood. She slid and dropped and flew through wisps of a fragrant smoke, sage grass and cedar, through clouds of violent thunder pealing like the distant beating of a drum.

She spiraled down and down, deep into cold, dark layers of earth, and though she reached out for a means to catch herself, a rock to hold, a limb or rope, there was nothing but the wall of tears and never a place to land.

She was falling into endless space, past the colors, past the sun, until there was only darkness, only the faint cries, the rhythmic pulse of a drum, and the cold, thick darkness, with no way up to the light.

When she woke, she was immediately reminded of her dire circumstances and she was also unsettled by the dream. It was so unfamiliar to her, so foreign, she was convinced it belonged to someone else. She pulled herself out of the dream and discovered that she had no idea where she was or what time it was. She did not know how long she had been asleep. She made herself focus and realized that all she knew was that the vehicle had ceased traveling and that she was once again in danger of being discovered.

Rose waited. She was still on her back, jammed in the confined area, her body now stiff from the amount of time she had been in that one position. Unsure of the hour, she wished she had been wearing her watch.

She waited a bit longer. She heard nothing, felt nothing. There was no movement outside the front of the camper near the hitch, no sounds anywhere around her. Finally, she decided she had tarried as long as she could. She raised herself up, knocking her head on the top of the compartment that was under the bed. The trailer rocked. She quickly lay back down.

After hearing no one enter, she raised herself up again, this time more carefully, and rolled out of the hidden bin. She slid slowly to the door of the storage area, then waited. Still there was nothing. She slowly pushed at the door until it opened slightly.

It was dark, though Rose could see a bright light shining through the window next to the overturned table in the center of the camper. She stayed in her supine position behind the barely opened door for a few minutes, trying to get her bearings. When she still heard and saw nothing, she pushed the door and crawled out. She quietly closed the door and moved over to the large window, where she knelt and peeked out.