Thistle and Twigg (19 page)

I
made the call to Florida. My savings accounts were still there in the military credit union. They would transfer the money for Cal’s land into a new checking account under his name. After Mr. Roman’s treatment of me, I didn’t relish putting money in the Bank of Tullulah but it would be easiest for Cal. He could withdraw all the cash he wanted whenever he wanted. After we dealt with his intruders.

My mind was a jumble. A cup of hot tea and a few minutes of meditation helped sort things out. However, no ready answers came to me in regard to how to handle the blackmailers without the police.

I went to my desk where I’d set out one of Cal’s boxes to look through. He had labeled it “Important” for it was full of legal papers and bill receipts, unlike the others I’d peeked in, which seemed to hold only assortments of rocks and arrowheads, scribbled notes on torn pieces of paper, or odd bits of junk.

An hour later, I’d reached the bottom of the box but was no closer to finding what I’d hoped to find, a copy of an old will. Since it was such a personal thing, I’d not asked Cal what his plans for his land had been before I came along. Still, I wondered. Once the intruders were sorted out, I needed to know he was sure he wanted to go forward with our land deal. In his state of mind, he might not be thinking clearly, just as Dad Burn suggested. I wouldn’t take advantage of him. I would help him out of his present difficulties, but then, if Cal decided he wanted someone else to inherit the land so be it. Either way, we needed to talk about it.

I set out once more across the street onto his property. When I reached the bend in the road near his house, I saw his front door was open. “Hello, anyone home?” I called. Homer had not greeted me in the road, as was his custom. When there was no response, I stepped inside and called again. That was when I noticed the broken clay pieces on the floor.

It was the bowl he used in his ritual or one very much like it. Around it lay ashes and shreds of burned sage. “Cal!” I ran through the house worried something terrible had happened. There was no sign of him or of Homer.

I returned to the broken pieces, looked them over as I set them one by one on the coffee table next to a stack of papers. I accidentally brushed the top papers causing several to flutter to the floor. A sheet from a yellow legal pad caught my eye. Instead of words, a series of pictures, sticklike figures, were drawn across it. They were like those I saw on the rock where Cal performed his ritual. I was looking down, absorbed in the diagrams and their possible meanings, when a black boot stepped into my view. Before I could look up, I was pulled to my feet by a strong grip on my arm.

“Looking for something?” A man dressed in a camouflage T-shirt and olive drab pants stood before me. A black handgun gleamed in his hand.

He didn’t give me a chance to answer. With unnecessary force, he pushed me out of the room and into the hallway. At the front door, he shoved me into the yard.

“What’s wrong?” I said. “What do you want?”

“I want you to shut up and walk until I tell you to stop.” He brought the gun barrel to my temple. I walked.

As soon as the cold metal touched my skin, I felt calm and my body relaxed. It was the reaction the Colonel had taught me through many drills and tests.

We walked a few steps. I looked about, surveying my surroundings as best I could. He aimed me toward the woods. Remembering the camp Phoebe and I discovered, I had a feeling I knew where we’d be going.

I knew I had to act quickly. Escaping from one man would be difficult enough. I couldn’t risk being taken where more men might wait, men most certainly armed.

My captor gave me another shove. Now he walked behind me. He must have felt I presented no danger, for he no longer kept the gun barrel against me, but close to his body. That made us even. My mistake had been in not being alert, in not hearing his approach. His mistake was in not being smart.

I found early on in my defense training that rhythm of movement led to success. I fell in with my companion’s steps, counted two, and on the upbeat of the third, spun around to face him, grabbed his gun hand and twisted it while continuing to walk forward. I pressed the gun against his weak thumb joint until it gave and the gun was mine.

I flipped it round as I turned my body toward him again. Quick kicks to the back of each knee made them give, and an immediate, well-placed knock to the back of the head put him out. It was the oldest trick in the book. I almost felt ashamed of myself for employing such a juvenile tactic.

Just then, a terrible sound came from the forest. A woman’s scream.

I
meant to just see where they went from The Pool Cue and then go on to Jane’s. The funny thing was, it looked like the Jarhead, Hank, and that other no-count lowlife were going to Jane’s, too. I stayed back far enough where they wouldn’t get suspicious. It didn’t matter. There were only three places they could get to down Anisidi Road—Jane’s house, the refuge, and Cal’s place. I knew they must be going to their camp.

They surprised me though. They split up. The van with Hank and the other redneck took the last turn-off, going left into the Shady Lane apartment complex. The leader’s car went straight toward the refuge. I didn’t know what to do, follow Hank or follow the brains and stolen dynamite. Since the leader had to be going to the camp, I decided to follow Hank thinking maybe I could see where they went and write down the apartment number. I pulled in a few buildings away where I could see them but they couldn’t see me.

I watched the other redneck with Hank talk into a cell phone. He seemed interested when a car drove slowly by. He hung up the phone real fast. He disappeared from the front seat into the back. Hank pulled the van right next to the new car as the driver door opened.

The redneck jumped out the van’s sliding door. As soon as the car’s door opened, he grabbed the woman in the driver’s seat and the next second had thrown her in the van. He held her so close and moved so quick, I didn’t get a good look at her. All I caught was a glimpse of her hair, long, straight and red, but that was enough. I gasped. I knew it was Shelley Barnette.

The van didn’t squeal out of the parking lot. It went real slow and casual over speed bumps and around the apartment complex until it circled back to the main road. I followed him out and felt around in my purse for my cell phone as we turned onto Anisidi. I held up the phone over the steering wheel so I could dial and keep my eyes on the road at the same time. When I pressed the first button, the phone squealed. I glanced down at the display. It said, “Recharge battery.” The stupid thing wouldn’t dial. Now what? Flag somebody down? Ram the van from behind?

Then I remembered how a police car had been stationed all the time near the refuge entrance. The van was way ahead of me. When I went around the last bend before Jane’s house and the refuge, the van was nowhere in sight. Not only that, but I could also see that the police car usually sitting in the road was, of all times, gone.

My car rocked to a stop in front of Jane’s and I ran into her yard calling out “Jane! Jane!” all the way up to the porch and inside. She was gone, too.

I nearly had a fit. I ran to her phone and dialed 911 so hard I nearly broke the numbers. Her phone was dead. All I got was that weird loud static instead of a dial tone. “Dagnabbit, now what do I do?” I hollered.

I ran out the door. Cal didn’t have a phone and it would take forever to ride all the way back into town for the police. There was no way I could live with myself if something happened to Shelley before I could get help. I was way out in the yard when the screen door slammed shut behind me. I’d made up my mind what I had to do.

I hurried to the back of my car and opened the trunk. I took a deep breath as I unzipped my new gun carrier, a special fabric one in a green, brown, and black camouflage pattern that Donnie threw in for free.

I lifted out my new AK-46 and a half. Jerry Nell had done a magnificent paint job on it, just like I knew she would. The original black finish, which I loved at first because it was darned scary looking, just didn’t fit my personality Jerry Nell agreed. She knows what I like. She’d made most all the interior decorations in my living room, which is where I planned on displaying my rifle as a wall hanging, so she knew exactly what colors to use so it would match.

I gently stroked the sight now painted in Apricot Blush. The paint job graduated from light at the top to a darker orange at the bottom of the rifle body. Jerry Nell added the two special touches I’d asked for, and she did them just perfect. Up near the barrel, she drew an Indian dream catcher in brown and turquoise, just like the ones she made for me to hang in my windows. Little shadings of gray and black made it stand out real pretty.

The other special touch turned out even better than I imagined. On the big fat end you put against your shoulder, Jerry Nell airbrushed one word in turquoise, the name I’d given my AK-46 and a half for good luck:
Smokahontas.
A little plume of smoke curled and trailed off the end of the last letter. Oh, what I would give for Jerry Nell’s artistic genius.

I was nervous and sweating like a hog. It was up to me. Me and the Man Upstairs. With both hands, I raised Smokahontas up toward the woods and said what I could remember of a Cherokee prayer that Jerry Nell had written in calligraphy and framed for me. “Oh, Great Spirit… Hear me … I am small and weak… and I forget the middle part… but when the sun sets, may I come to You with clean hands, straight eyes, and no shame.”

Amen to that. After I set Smokahontas down, I grabbed the box of Israeli bullets and held them up to the sky toward the east. I felt like I needed to say a Jewish prayer, but I only knew one word in Hebrew so it would have to do.

“Shalom,”I said, “but not right now.” I kissed the box and bowed several times, and then set the box down next to Smokahontas.

Son, I started stuffing bullets into that magazine as fast as I could. While I stuffed, I thought about angels and how so many people believe in them. I do, too, but not the fluffy ones that float around singing all day.

“Dear Lord,” I said, “You know that’s not the kind I need right now. I need me some warrior angels, preferably of Cherokee or Jewish descent, with tongues of fire flapping off the end of their swords and shooting out of their noses and fingertips and eye sockets.

“But I don’t have to tell you what I need,” I said, as I clicked in the last bullet. I snapped the magazine up into place. It sounded mean. It felt good. “I have faith You’ll protect me and guide me to do the right thing.”

I ran to the refuge and turned left onto the walking trail, just like Jane and I had done. When I got to the place where we walked into the woods, I slowed down and stepped as quietly as I could toward the redneck camp, hoping I’d get there in time to save Shelley.

T
he cries came from the east, the direction of the refuge. It might not have been Phoebe’s voice I heard. However, something in my gut told me it was my dear friend and that she was in grave danger.

I still held my attacker’s handgun. I clicked the magazine, checked that it was full, and pulled back the slide to see the edge of a bullet in the chamber, ready to fire.

‘Thank you for being so well prepared,” I said to my unconscious friend, as I headed toward the forest in the direction of the scream.

I followed the same path Cal and I had taken that first day I’d visited. I made my way toward the stream we’d crossed. A moan of pain came from that direction. My body jumped with terror. It was then I saw smears of blood in the grass and, farther ahead at the water’s edge, two forms lying on the ground. They were much too still.

I sprinted across the last of the meadow with horror clutching at my heart. Cal lay near where the spring house spanned the stream. I ran through the thick grass and fell to my knees at his side. I grabbed my stomach on seeing the red stain that covered his shirt and the wound that gaped open in his upper chest. I closed my eyes to pull myself together.

It was a gunshot wound at close range, my guess from a .22 pistol, and not fired by a professional for the shooter had not made certain Cal was dead. He was alive, but he wouldn’t be for long unless I could get him immediately to a hospital, and even that thought held no hope whatsoever.

The other prone form broke my heart as well but I couldn’t afford to attend to him just then. Homer lay a few feet away. Blood covered the side of his face. He’d been hit hard, I imagined with the butt of the gun that shot Cal. I gently moved my hand under Cal’s neck, could feel a faint pulse there. It was weak and erratic. His eyelids fluttered as I cradled his head.

“Cal, can you hear me? It’s Jane. I’m here.” I lay his head gently in the crook of my arm in what I hoped was a more comfortable position, and also pulled his left arm out of the water to his side. His lips moved but his words were too weak to understand. “Don’t talk now. You’re going to be fine.”

I knew it wasn’t the truth. Cal did as well, for he summoned his strength and bored his dark eyes into mine. He knew he was not long for this world. His mouth moved as he tried to speak. “Hank,” he said.

Had I heard him correctly? I leaned closer and watched his lips move.

“Hank,” he repeated with urgency. “Snake …”

His throat rasped. His eyes opened fully, focused on mine for another few seconds. They spoke volumes, all of good-byes, before fluttering and finally closing for the last time. He breathed out, his spirit released into the forest he loved so much.

Another scream cut through the air. With care, I lowered Cal’s head to the grass, brushed my tears away, and gathered my courage as I ran toward the east.

I slowed my pace as I neared the camp area Phoebe and I had discovered. Rather than go straight to it, I remembered the rock ridge that overlooked the clearing and went there for a look. I turned in that direction and was pleased to find a faint trail leading up. Conscious of every step as I drew closer, trying not to make noise, I emerged at the top and lay flat in the trail’s head.

A few feet away, another trail led down into the great ceremonial hall where, far down on the right, I could barely see the Maiden. I was nearer the other end of the hall, close to the two great trees I remembered from Cal’s map of the canyon, their height stretching for what seemed like miles toward the clouds, their great crowns intermingled. Below and in front of me was the clearing where the survivalists made camp. The log cabin was to the right. I could see no one save the stuffed mannequin target Phoebe and I saw previously, its vacant painted-on eyes staring like those of a dead man in a much too convincing way.

Beyond him was the much-used round archery target. Its red bull’s-eye was in tatters with gaping holes where straw showed through. I shuddered. Whoever practiced here shot well, whether with guns or bows. A bowhunter would be a formidable enemy, one accustomed to stealth. I’d been a good shot myself years ago but only in tournaments with nonmoving targets. A hunter would not only be able to shoot moving targets, but would most certainly own a compound bow. Powerful and lethal, this type could kill in an instant and with hardly a sound.

A dreary caste to the air enhanced the feeling of foreboding in my heart as I looked across the empty clearing. I could see the front porch and one side of the cabin where someone moved inside across the window.

I listened intently. The soft sounds of footsteps across a creaking floor and then a man’s voice reached my ears just before a loud slapping sound and a woman’s cry pierced the quiet.

I descended quickly the way I came and made a circuit of the back half of the clearing, slowing as the cabin came into sight. Loud male voices and another scream quickened my pace. I stepped off the thin trail and veered to the right where the forest was thicker, moving quietly from tree to tree, listening, getting control of my breath. I closed my eyes, inhaled and exhaled deeply and silently, and prayed.

From behind a great hackberry tree, I heard the cabin’s floor creaking as heavy shoes walked inside. I moved quickly behind the trees at the back of the cabin where pine needles softened my footsteps and from there, moved to the other side unchallenged. No outside sentries. A long low pine branch partially obscured the window there. I put my back against the cabin, hid as best I could behind the branch, and peeped inside the dirty panes.

The situation was much worse than I could have imagined. Two of the chairs had been brought to the center of the cabin’s single room. In them sat Shelley Barnette and Phoebe with their hands bound behind the chairs. Phoebe’s mouth was gagged with a white cloth. A man was tying a similar one around Shelley’s face. From where I stood, I could see a large red bruise swelling on Phoebe’s cheek. Shelley was crying.

I moved slightly as the back of a man moved into view. He crossed and turned as he spoke to the girls. He had a buzz cut and a determined set of jaw. As he turned sideways, I saw a long pale scar on his neck.

This was the man I’d seen on my first day in town in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot talking to Jack Blaylock, Phoebe’s gun instructor. Another new worry came to mind, the paper I’d seen on Detective Waters’ desk about the ex-military man with a scar. He had a criminal record. And now, he had Phoebe and Shelley as well.

Inside the cabin, a young man with a moustache and beard leaned against a wall. His rifle leaned beside him. Obviously he was unconcerned that his captives would escape. Even so, he was not completely relaxed. It was as if he wished to appear at ease, but his luminous blue eyes looked furtively about. They checked the room as if waiting, calm but alert.

After checking as much of the room as I could, I satisfied myself there were only the two. My opponents were young, well-built men, probably well trained, with access to at least three semiautomatic rifles, which I’d seen inside.

The leader spoke harshly to Phoebe. With slow steps he paced around the chairs. He went to the opposite window to look out. Waiting. Both men waiting. For what, I wondered, or whom? They didn’t need more help to handle Shelley and Phoebe. They could be waiting for their friend, the one I knocked out at Cal’s house. I didn’t think so. He didn’t strike me as a decision maker. The leader was here at the cabin yet he waited.

They waited for orders. There must be a higher-ranking member of this band, one expected to arrive soon. Jack Blaylock? According to Phoebe, he was an expert marksman and huntsman. I had to act quickly. Waiting was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

I made my plan. I let the tug of anger I’d kept in check sweep through my body like a cleansing fire. One friend was dead. Two more were in great peril. And at my feet, littering the forest floor, were more bullet casings, the metal remnants of vanity, arrogance, destruction. It was a desecration. They would do my friends harm and spoil this sacred place without the least remorse. I gritted my teeth and channeled my anger into a thin stream of thought.
No. Not on my watch.

I scooped up the casings lying at my feet and waited for a completely quiet moment. When the leader stopped talking inside, I threw a few at the nearest standing target in front of the cabin. The metal clinked on the target’s stand and I withdrew, putting my back against the wall around the corner of the porch.

A deeper quiet followed. I knew I would soon have company. I waited, tensed and ready, as the door opened and footsteps tapped quietly down the length of the porch. I saw the nose of the rifle first, edging out from the corner. It moved slowly forward and stopped, then edged left in the direction of the target. The man’s head began to turn for a quick glance in my direction. I gripped my pistol tighter and, before he could see me, brought the gun down with a thud at the top of his neck.

It was a good hit. He crumpled without a sound. I grabbed his shoulders as he fell, guiding his weight as best I could toward the cabin wall so he couldn’t be seen from the front door or window.

I took his rifle, an AR-15 with an expensive sight, and quickly slipped the shoulder strap over my head. I put the handgun in the back of my waistband. Quickly I checked the rifle’s magazine and chamber. Full and ready to go.

I imagined the leader listening at the door, looking out each window. The cabin walls would most likely have muffled the sounds I’d made. Still, the woods were too quiet. I had to assume he heard the dragging of the man’s boots, the clicks as I released and replaced the AR-15’s cartridge, as well as the scrape of the bolt, though I slid it carefully. He would come and come soon. I went quickly to cover behind a wide tree trunk about ten yards away from the wall.

Since the cabin had no back door, the leader had no option in coming out. A few unlikely scenarios flitted through my mind as I put myself in his shoes. Was there perhaps a way to the roof? Would he exit through a window? No, he must come through the door. The smallest creak from the cabin’s front told me my opponent was on his way.

I couldn’t hear him. My only warning of his location came when a bird suddenly leapt from a niche in the porch eaves. Its movement caused an almost noiseless reaction from the leader, still out of my view but very close. I could feel him there. I pictured him swinging his gun to the bird in one swift slice, feeling rather than hearing the small rush of wind as his barrel cut through the air.

The leader moved like a shadow, coming slowly into view. He didn’t make the same mistake as his predecessor but pied the corner, coming wide around it rather than close to the wall. He snapped his weapon around the corner. With a quick but thorough look about, he took in the sight of the unconscious man and the surrounding area.

His gun was larger than the one I carried. I recognized it instantly. The Colonel was quite fond of Heckler and Koch, a German manufacturer who made the HK-G3 this man carried. An expensive toy with which to play soldier.

This time, a quick knock on the head wasn’t going to work. He was too tall, first of all, and to hit him I would have to come out of cover. I would have to take several steps toward him, knowing the possibility of his hearing my approach was great.

He would have the advantage of time. He was surely quicker than me. He was stronger, younger, and male. I had only one advantage. I knew where he was.

I could not allow him to fire. He was surely in better practice than I was, so one shot could be the end of me. This close to the cabin, there was a possibility that stray bullets could kill Shelley and Phoebe. No shootout. Nor could I allow this to become a contest of strength. His biceps bulged out from the arms of his T-shirt and his chest rippled with muscles under the fabric. If he saw me, I’d have no alternative but to shoot and shoot first, and that shot must disable him, if it came to that.

When he made a sweep away from me, I took long, quiet strides from my position behind the tree around the back of the cabin to its other side. From there, a ridge of several large boulders stood quite close to the cabin. My intent was to reach them, but no sooner had I peeked around the corner of the cabin than the leader, suddenly opposite me at the other end of the porch, swung his rifle and put me in its sights. He had backtracked. Too clever, this one. My blood chilled.

I jerked my head back from view. He hadn’t fired. The look on his face, changing from severe concentration to utter disbelief, told me he hesitated because of my gray hair, and perhaps my height, and had more than likely ascertained in that split second I was merely a harmless little old lady.

Funny, but I keep forgetting that. I didn’t think he could have seen my weapon, only my head. Yet I had noticed something extremely useful about his own gun.

“Oh, dear!” I cried out in a shaky voice and began to sob as loudly as I could. “Oh, my heavens. Please, p-p-please, don’t shoot!” Elsa Lancaster would have been proud. I snuggled closer to the cabin wall, took my stance, and readied my gun.

“Come out,” he said gruffly, barely disguising his amusement. “Come out with your hands up.”

Oh, no, my dear young man. You shall come to me.

I didn’t answer him but remained hidden and continued with befuddled whimpering, all the while gauging his steps as they came nearer, counting the rhythm, seeing the moves in my mind.

His boots clopped on the wooden porch slats as he came toward me. I watched the space where his rifle should appear and when it did, I smashed his trigger hand with the hard edge of my rifle butt, smacking his finger away from the trigger, and immediately slammed the rifle again in a quick upward jut to his chin. After another hard strike of the butt’s edge to his jaw and nose for good measure, I wrapped my foot around his ankle to ensure his backward fall.

As he fell, I brought my rifle down behind the G-3 he still held loosely and swept it out of his hands to the ground, giving it a kick that sent it off the porch. He’d not taken the time to put the strap over his head, but let it dangle loose to his side. When I’d noticed it earlier, I knew I had a chance to disarm him.