Noah's Rainy Day (47 page)

“Liv, you could have been killed.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“That’s why you’ve been walking so gingerly, protecting your ribs?”

“I bruised them, I think.”

We sat on the log in the center of the campground and said nothing. I adjusted the lens of my mind’s eye several different directions until I could focus my thoughts. The string of cars looked like an eel. Fletcher’s words about Noah being more like Joseph, only not a king, no colorful coat. Bible references. Beulah fixed on the outhouse. Something kept eluding me.

“If the boys are dead, Fletcher probably didn’t kill them. He caused their deaths, but didn’t actually do it,” Streeter thought aloud.

“But the bleach at his house?”

Streeter shook his head. “I don’t think so. He was too much of a coward to kill them. And too cowardly to let them live.”

“Didn’t think about it that way, but you’re right,” I said. “After all, Clint lived.”

“Fletcher was so much of a coward that when he was caught, he killed
himself to avoid any suffering. Any embarrassment or pain he may have had to endure during the trial or in prison,” Streeter continued. “So if he was too yellow to kill the boys and was scared to death of little Max telling someone who he was, he would have left them for dead. Out here in the woods. In the middle of winter.”

“How could he be sure the boys would never be found, like Clint? Or that little Max wouldn’t walk out of here alive? Would he tie them up?”

“Maybe. Restrain them or incapacitate them somehow,” Streeter suggested. “Little Max knew too much. He was with Fletcher too long. He wasn’t sure what Noah knew. He snatched him from the car, probably because he saw your sister pull out of the garage and go back into the house. Who knows?”

“Do you think Fletcher worried about someone seeing him out here?”

“I doubt it. From what he said on that audio your nephew took, it sounded to me like Fletcher was crazy. Claiming his mother was trapped inside your nephew. I don’t think he was all there.”

“Noah’s eyes are gray. One is quite cloudy. Blind. It kind of freaks people out.”

“Maybe his mom had gray eyes. Or was blind. But I don’t think Fletcher worried about anyone seeing him up here. And if he did, he may have figured he couldn’t risk having someone stumble across the boys. After all, he thought this was a remote location, isolated, a summer destination. He never imagined seeing another car. And who knows what he might do if he did?”

“He may have decided to abort his plans and get rid of the boys somewhere else. A different location,” I guessed.

“No,” Streeter said with confidence. “We timed his trip. Remember? He wouldn’t have had time, based on your sister’s estimate of when Fletcher took Noah.”

“He must have panicked.”

“And was desperate,” Streeter added.

“Desperate enough to overcome his cowardice? To kill the boys?”

“Maybe.”

I couldn’t stomach the thought. Beulah whined. I stood and tugged on her lead. “Come on, Beulah. Let’s get you back in the car.” Beulah resisted,
planting her paws firmly in front of the outhouse. She looked at me with sad, droopy eyes as I insisted, “Beulah, come. What’s the matter with you?”

When I leaned against the lead, Beulah bolted for the outhouse. The lead slid through my hands, the nylon burning against my scabbed palm. “Beulah!”

She ignored me, scratching at the door until it opened enough for her to squeeze through. Streeter scrambled to his feet and ran after me toward the outhouse. When we arrived, Beulah was howling, standing with her front paws straddling the seat.

Streeter and I crowded into the outhouse with Beulah. Our eyes met and our mouths fell open with recognition.

“He panicked,” I repeated.

“He needed to find a place for little Max and Noah where no one would ever find them and where they could never get out.”

“In the shit hole.”

“Alive,” Streeter said.

“Not Noah, but Joseph. He’ll never be a king, never have a colorful coat,” I recalled. “Straight from the Bible.”

“What?”

“Joseph’s brothers,” I explained. “They were jealous and threw him down a hole to die.”

DURING THE NIGHT, WE
had looked down that hole many times and seen nothing. We still couldn’t see any sign of the boys down there, even with our headlamps shining all the way to the bottom, which had to mean they were alive after they were dropped down the hole.
If
they were dropped down the hole.

“Little Max would have scrambled to the edge to stay dry and get out of the shit. Who wouldn’t?” I speculated, pulling Beulah off the seat. “He must have helped Noah.”

Streeter peered down the hole. He shouted, “Max! Max, can you hear me?” There was no answer. “The bad man’s gone. Papa’s gone! We’re here to help, Max! Noah?”

Stillness settled in the expected stench below.

Streeter ushered me out and closed the door. He must have seen the expression on my face of the dread I had been feeling. He added quietly, “No. Don’t think that. Come on. Help me.”

He rammed his shoulder into the side of the dilapidated shack, hell-bent on tipping it over as if it were a gravestone pinning the boys’ fate. I ran beside him on his second charge. Rage coursed through my veins. The worn, gray wood groaned in protest. We charged again and again until
we both doubled over to catch our breath. My ribs ached and my lungs burned. I was having trouble catching my breath.

“Fletcher probably figured no one would ever find the boys until they froze to death,” I panted.

“No one would ever find the bodies. Or notice the smell of decay. It’s a perfect hiding spot.”

Beulah sidled up to me and licked my face. “Good girl. Come on. Kennel.”

Streeter caught his breath. “Do you have a rope? Blankets, too. Bring anything you think might help.”

I streaked toward the car, slipping on the packed snow and landing hard on my left arm. Wincing from the pain in my ribs and my arm, I pushed myself to my feet.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” I lied. I gave him a pathetic little wave and bolted for the car.

Beulah barked at the commotion, sensing our mounting excitement. I kenneled her, tossed her a handful of snacks, and rummaged through the car, grabbing several blankets, including the electric blanket that had draped Beulah’s kennel.

I carried everything Streeter had asked for in my right arm, except for the blankets, which were draped over the left. I was hurt, but I wasn’t about to say anything now. We had more important things to do and he needed my help. He had his head stuck down the hole, his shoulders preventing him from going any further.

“No rope,” I said. “Will this work?”

Streeter nodded his approval at Beulah’s harness and the twenty-foot lead that I held up.

“It’ll have to do.”

Streeter flung open the outhouse door and wrapped the dog’s lead around his chest, throwing the other end over a support beam. He had eased the two latches off their hooks and threw the entire hinged bench back like a lid to a treasure chest. He took a step up to straddle the box.

I hoped that Fletcher had dropped Noah still strapped to the spongy, blue chair. The chair would at least cushion his fall. And it would have easily fit in the opening if Fletcher lifted the bench as Streeter just had.
I hoped he hadn’t taken Noah out of his cushion chair and dumped him down the hole with nothing. He really would be broken.

Streeter answered my unspoken thoughts, “If they’re down there, it could mean they’re sleeping.”

“Or unconscious,” I braved.

I watched as he started to step in and lower himself.

“Streeter, wait!”

He hesitated.

“Let me go. If you go down there and find them, I don’t know if I can pull them up with one arm.” His puzzled expression made me explain. I removed the blanket draped over my arm and showed him my limp arm. “I think I messed something up. When I slipped just now and fell on my arm.”

He pulled himself back up and untied the harness from his chest. “This isn’t long enough for me to leverage them up from the bottom.”

Standing nose to nose with one another in the cramped space of the outhouse, I said, “My turn.”

There was really no other answer. He knew it. But he tried anyway. “We’ll wait until the other guys get back and we’ll send one of the guys down there.”

My desperate words were choked, “If they’re down there, we can’t wait. The other guys won’t be coming back for at least another hour and a half, maybe two hours.”

He had no argument.

“But I can hold on to the rope with one hand while you lower me down the hole.” I added in a whisper, “If little Max and Noah are down there, we’ve waited long enough. Come on. I need your help.”

I straddled the open bench seat wearing my thick winter coat, Streeter’s rag wool sweater, Phil’s too-tight charcoal gray suit pants, and my snow boots. I pulled on my insulated work gloves and wrapped Beulah’s lead around my chest. I looked down at Streeter and offered him a tentative smile.

“Ready?” I said and stepped in.

Streeter gripped the rope. I groaned as the lead tightened around my chest and my ribs were compressed as he lowered me down into the outhouse pit.

I called up to Streeter, “I’m down far enough. Stop for a minute and let me look around.”

I felt Streeter hold tight to the lead. I pulled the rag wool sweater over my nose and mouth.

When I turned my head to sweep the headlamp’s beam across the dugout walls and floor, all I could see was the heap below. The foul odor crowded my senses. My beam swept across the bottom of the outhouse pit and along the walls, searching for any sign of the boys.

Dear God, let Noah be here. Alive.

I thought I saw something on the bottom and slowly swept my beam back and forth. It settled on a drag mark through the slimy, semifrozen piles of excrement. The mark was about a foot wide and flat. I followed the drag mark beneath me over toward one corner.

I gasped.

Little Max had dragged Noah’s chair to the side.

“They’re here! Ease me down. Quick,” I called up to Streeter.

I could feel Streeter fumble with the lead and begin easing me down the hole. I saw a lump of different colors in one corner of the dugout structure and a patch of shiny bright blue.

Noah’s chair!

“THEY’RE HUDDLED IN THE
corner. I think. All I see are colors. Mostly pink. It looks like a pink hat or something.” I swallowed hard and told him the truth, “And they’re not moving.”

Down to the last two feet of the twenty-foot lead, I reached bottom.

Streeter called down, “How far to Max and Noah?”

“About six feet or so. Maybe more.” I loosened the lead and tied it around my good wrist. I trained my eyes at the pile of many colors so the beam would stay steady and thought of the Biblical story of Joseph. Wearing his coat of many colors, he had been tossed into a pit by cowards. Selfish cowards. I trudged through the thick muck that was stiff with cold, like oatmeal left in the refrigerator too long.

I felt the lead tug my arm.

Streeter called, “Don’t let go of the lead. I’m hanging on. Just to be on the safe side. See if you can reach them. Without slipping.”

Too late.

My feet slid out from under me and I wrenched my arm again. I groaned and righted myself, trying not to let my boots get sucked right off my feet with every other step. Where the excrement wasn’t frozen slick as snot, it was thick like foul quicksand.

How in the hell did little Max pull Noah through this?

As I narrowed the gap, I held my breath. Not because of the stench. Anxiety constricted my lungs and I felt an overwhelming desire to hear every sound in the dark hole. I wanted to hear sounds of life, but all I could hear was the thick sloshing of my boots. My headlamp bounced with every step, my head jerking. The lead grew taut just as I reached the mound of colors. I was literally at the end of my rope. I untied the lead from my wrist and baby-stepped my way toward the corner.

A screeching rat scampered across the pile of colors.

And the colors moved!

“I hate rats. Don’t you?”

Streeter called down, “Did you untie the—”

“My name is Liv.”

Streeter would figure it out. I wasn’t talking to him. I was talking to little Max, or to Noah, whoever it was that was moving under the layers. And I didn’t want to scare him by hollering back up at Streeter. He was scared enough.

“You boys shouldn’t have to stay down here with these rats. Max? Let’s get out of here. Together. Would you like that?”

I heard a small sound from one of the boys.

I tossed back layers of colors, clothing that little Max must have stuffed in his backpack and piled on top of himself and Noah to stay warm. They had huddled together beneath the mound. Noah wasn’t moving. I tried not to look at him, because I knew I’d start crying. And little Max was barely moving, blue. Scared. And right now he needed me to be strong. So I was. I swallowed hard. One at a time, I told myself. One at a time.

“Okay then, little bud. Let’s get out of this yucky place … Max? Can you hear me? Wrap your arms and legs around me. Can you do that honey?” I coaxed him in a soothing voice. “Max?”

Max wasn’t answering me. He had slipped away. Don’t let it be too late, I prayed.

“Liv?” Streeter called down.

I didn’t answer him.

“How about I just scoop you up and carry you? Would you like that? I’ll hold on to you. I’ll come back for Noah. I’m Noah’s aunt.”

“Broken baby? His name is Noah?” His words were nothing more than a harsh whisper in my ear as I bent to lift him. He stared at Noah, who was listless, but breathing.

I nodded. I was conflicted. I wanted to scoop Noah up first and come back for little Max. Get my nephew help immediately. But after my quick and initial assessment of both boys, little Max appeared in worse shape, dehydration and hypothermia causing some delirium. His skin was much bluer than Noah’s and I knew I had to get little Max out first.

“You call Noah broken baby?” I asked him, hearing Noah groan a dull laugh, which made me realize my choice was wise. Max didn’t answer. I was starting to panic as little Max was starting to fade. “Thanks for keeping Noah warm last night, Max. And for pulling him over here with you. Noah, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.”