by Linda Ladd
“Don't worry, we'll get you there,” Millie Mae assured her as she got down off the edge of the bench. “You want me to hold little Joey so you can eat? It's real good. You look like you could use some food inside you."
Though reluctant to give Joey over to anyone, Kate finally agreed and let Millie Mae take her place in the rusty chair. She handed Joey down and Millie Mae took over the bottle with the expertise of a trained nanny.
Kate took a seat beside Little John, but not too close. The first bite of mashed potatoes tasted like manna from heaven, some of the best she'd ever tasted. She said as much to Millie Mae.
“Yeah, Granny always told me to add a pinch of rosemary sprigs to creamed potatoes. It just makes ‘em taste better, don't know why, but that's all there is to it, right, boys?"
“Right."
“Sure does."
“That's right, gonna go inside and get me some more right now."
Millie Mae simply beamed.
The chicken was excellent as well, and Kate realized she'd never been so ravenous in her life. She was feeling a lot more comfortable now among the raw-boned hillbilly boys, thinking they were probably just poor hill folk who had been forced to sell drugs to make a living. She didn't think any of them would harm her, but she wasn't sure enough to let down her guard completely. Suddenly it occurred to her to ask them about the man she'd encountered in the woods. Maybe he was a cousin or something.
“Yesterday when I was trying to get away in the woods, I saw someone. A great big guy, dressed all in camouflage."
They all stopped eating and stared at her.
“He was real dirty with a long beard and hair. I thought he might be a man named John that Pop used to tell me about."
“That sounds like the one we call Bigfoot,” Mark said. “But he usually stays on t'other side of the river. He ain't friendly, that's for damn sure."
“He's plumb crazy, Miss Kate,” Little John added, voice muffled by the half cup of mashed potatoes he still had in his mouth. “We're all real careful to stay clear of him."
Luke put down his beer can and nodded. “Yeah, once, we started across the river to hunt down a buck Mark was tracking and Bigfoot shot at us. Never did see him but we knew who it was. Knocked the gun right outta Matty's hand without leaving a scratch on him. He can shoot like a sonofabitch. No, uh uh, none of us don't mess with that old coot. Matty's seen him a couple of times up the road at Jumbo's truck stop gettin’ his grub and stuff, but we stay far away from him, he's nutty as a fruitcake, crazy as a loon, I tell you."
“He didn't try to hurt me, or anything. Just showed up out of nowhere and scared me to death."
“We think he escaped from the loony bin,” Millie Mae confided in a low voice. “You sure was lucky he didn't haul off and shoot you dead for trespassing on his side of the river."
After listening to all that, Kate felt lucky she'd survived the encounter with their Bigfoot neighbor. After they finished eating, she and Millie Mae washed the dishes at the kitchen sink while Little John slopped the hogs. It was Mark's turn to be lookout for any lawmen who might be snooping about, and the other two boys retired to the living room to watch The Dukes of Hazzard with North Carolina drag car races rushing by in the picture-within-a-picture feature in the corner of the screen.
Millie Mae chattered on about all the important things in her life, including her favorite television shows. Kate found out she was extremely partial to MTV, but the cartoon network was her “bestest favorite,” that and the one that was always selling the most interesting things for people to buy up with their plastic credit cards. Why, all you had to do was call and they'd send stuff through the mail to you. Sure wished they had a telephone line and she'd make Matty get some of those shiny new pans they was always advertising, pans that browned meat real evenly and would never, ever wear out, no matter how many times you used them. Imagine that, never, ever, no matter how many times you used them.
At one point, Kate had Millie Mae show her the cellular phone in Matty's truck, but she couldn't pick up a signal. Matty said she could try again later after he got back from his evening drug run. Thirty minutes later he took the truck and drove off, and Little John, finished slopping, had taken his oldest brother's place in one of the recliners. When an episode of Xena, Warrior Princess came on, the two younger brothers were immediately smitten and vowed her to be the most beautiful lady they'd ever seen, especially when she was riding on a horse, and tough, too, as tough as nails. Unfortunately, they decided to light up a joint to pass around and Kate soon excused herself, pleading tiredness, as the pungent odor of marijuana settled in a cloudy haze around the television set.
Once in the back bedroom Millie Mae had directed her to use, Kate locked the door and opened a window and sucked as much fresh air as she could into her lungs. A nice breeze was blowing in from outside, so she lay down on the bed and got Joey settled beside her. At least she didn't have to worry about snakes tonight. She played with him for awhile, smiling as he grabbed at one of Millie Mae's red hair bows. After he went to sleep, she lay down beside him, fully dressed, even her shoes, definitely planning to stay that way. Just in case.
Millie Mae was going to sleep on a cot in the room where they kept the marijuana seedlings, and after an hour or so, she heard the child go inside and shut the door. She couldn't hear the boys but could still faintly smell the scent of cannabis. Kate lay back and tried to relax. She stared up at the ceiling tiles where rain had seeped in. Directly above her head was a rust-colored stain shaped like the state of Idaho.
Joey had soiled his diaper earlier and she'd changed him, but she was afraid the whole milk might disagree with him. Not yet, though, because now with his little belly full, he was sleeping peacefully. She made sure he was covered securely with a soft quilt, then tried again to relax enough to go to sleep. She was so tired, maybe too tired to rest well. But she was also on edge again, now that Millie Mae's brothers were getting high. She listened to the low murmur of their voices in the living room intermittent with bursts of giggling laughter. They were watching reruns of Johnny Carson now; she could hear the familiar theme song and the roar of the audience laugh track. She shut her eyes, hoping she would get enough rest to sustain her. The last thing she remembered hearing was Ed McMahon's booming gut laugh.
Thirteen
YURI HAD PICKED UP the girl's trail just before dark the night before. Thus far she'd been adept at hiding her tracks in thorny ravines or making them stumble into yellow jackets’ nests. Now, apparently, there was a fresh ingredient in the soup. Something had sent her tearing headlong through the forest, leaving them a path to follow as wide as Red Square. Dmitri wasn't precisely sure what had spooked her to such a degree, having come to the conclusion nothing much could shake her. Filled with admiration for the woman's courage and ability to evade them, he was astonished to find himself secretly rooting for the escape of his own prey. Despite his perversity, Dmitri's role in Kate Reed's desperate little drama had suddenly become a good deal easier. This time luck was on his side.
When Yuri had first spied the bent saplings and broken branches of Kate's wild flight, Dmitri suspected another of her tricks, like the stinging yellow jackets. He glanced at Nikolai. The man's face was fiery red and pitifully bloated from insect venom. Occasionally the former officer would moan furiously how he'd make the bitch pay for his suffering. Misha's face, too, was painfully blistered from scalding water. Kate Reed had plenty of tricks she didn't hesitate to use. They'd kept on strict alert since they'd started earlier that morning around eight o'clock; they had to be getting close to her.
Dmitri moved slowly, placing each foot with care, his Beretta hanging loosely in his right hand. He'd learned to expect the unexpected from this Katya. Her resourcefulness and resilience were causing him a great deal of trouble, placing his team in jeopardy, especially now that the law was involved. As intriguing as he found her, as much as he coveted the chance to get her alone and find out if she was as smart and beautiful as h
e thought, he needed to concentrate on getting the baby and getting the hell out before the authorities launched an extensive manhunt. His men were like fish out of water among these redneck provincials, and it wouldn't take the State Highway Patrol two minutes to figure out they'd been involved in Mike Reed's murder.
About ten yards on either side of Dmitri, Misha and Yuri were combing the woods as they walked along the base of a granite cliff rising off the hilly forest floor. She had come this way, probably late yesterday afternoon, then inexplicably turned westerly, when she'd traveled south before, parallel to the river toward the nearest town. He wondered what had caused her to change her mind and conjectured she might be sick or injured. He didn't want her to get hurt, certainly didn't want to kill her. In his eyes she'd earned respect, and he found himself sorting through various reasons he could use to justify letting her go once they got the baby. He was not one to leave loose ends, but unless it was disastrous to his own success, he would not execute Kate Reed.
When they crested the next hill they found a neatly cultivated cornfield. There was no fence or wall, but the waist-high green stalks indicated a nearby farmhouse. Yuri searched the perimeter of the corn until he found the path Kate had taken through the field. Dmitri motioned Andre and Nikolai to take point. He'd already given orders to take her alive, and under no circumstances could they risk harming the child.
The long, straight cornrows reminded Dmitri of his grandfather's farm and the happy days he and his siblings had spent there in his youth. Those early days had been good, comfortable times, and he enjoyed visiting there where many of his brothers and sisters still lived. He regularly sent them money, American dollars, to insure that Kavunov lands survived the Russian political upheavals. Someday he would retire to the farm where he'd once been so happy.
Pregnant in the wind sluicing through the corn were barnyard odors, the well-remembered stink of hogs and perhaps chickens in a coop. Probably the home place of an old man and woman scraping out a bare subsistence as Dmitri's grandparents had done their entire lives inside their generations-old stone cottage by the river. Good-hearted folks who'd not hesitate to take in a frightened woman and her baby. They'd give her food to eat, a warm bed, anything they had. Once more the desire to quit this dirty business and return home to his Russian roots burned fiercely inside him.
“Hey, hey, aaaah..."
Andre's loud cry awakened a flock of nesting guinea hens that flapped and squawked in startled flight, raising more racket than an air raid siren. As Dmitri jerked his eyes around, the two Moscow cops dropped into the ground like rabbits in a disappearing act. He blinked, not sure what was happening as the earth gaped open like a hungry mouth, crumbling the earth under Misha's feet as well. The boy dropped his gun and grabbed frantically at the cornstalks, and luckily Yuri was close enough to grasp Misha's shirt and haul him back from the edge. Dmitri stepped back quickly from the yawning pit, realizing a sink hole had been covered with dead cornstalks.
“Kavunov, get us out of here!” Low, urgent, Andre's voice floated up from about twenty feet down.
“Keep quiet,” Dmitri ordered, helping Yuri drag Misha farther away from the pit. More dislodged dirt rained down, extending the broken earth closer to his own position. He stepped back and scanned the field for a farmer with a shotgun welcome for trespassers.
Below, Andre and Nikolai were not trying to scale the fifteen-foot dirt wall, smart enough to know the dynamics of a sink hole. When the ground gave way, it gave way. It was only a matter of time before the edges cracked again and ate up more of the field. Someone had taken effort to disguise this particular surprise for unwanted intruders. Dmitri found it unlikely that Kate had had the time to fashion anything so elaborate, but if she hadn't, they had a new problem on their hands.
“Hashish, Dmitri.” Yuri was gesturing with his gun across the gaping crater. Dmitri searched among the cornstalks until he found the cannabis plants. Illegal drugs on the premises gave a whole new dimension to the problem. He didn't have long to consider his options because the sound of howling dogs thrashing through the field grabbed all his attention. Dmitri motioned for Misha and Yuri to drop back and take cover.
Within seconds three dogs burst out of the cornrows and headed straight at Dmitri. As the German shepherd in the lead took a running leap at him, Dmitri raised his gun and fired once, the report muffled by the silencer. The dog yelped as the bullet struck him in the chest, the impact hurling him backward. He landed at the edge of the pit where he lay twitching. The rest of the animals circled the dying dog, slavering, growling, fangs bared, their attack spooked by the smell of fresh blood. Before Dmitri could melt into the woods, a voice rang out directly behind him.
“Drop them guns, you bags of shit, or I'll blow your heads clean off your shoulders."
Turning his head slowly, Dmitri locked eyes with a very big, dumb-looking hillbilly type, one with a lethal M-16 rifle pointed directly at his chest. He dropped his Beretta and raised both hands. A wary glance told him that Misha and Yuri had been apprehended in similar fashion, by what appeared to be clones of the beefy man prodding Dmitri in the back with his gun. One hard shove between the shoulder blades sent Dmitri into the pit, and he tried to jump and roll but couldn't block his fall. He grunted as he hit hard, numbing his left shoulder, dirt and cornstalks caving in on top of him.
Misha was disarmed and came down hard after Dmitri, pinwheeling his arms for balance. Yuri was tossed in headfirst, body slamming into Nikolai and knocking him flat. Dmitri counted four rough-looking hillbillies ringing the pit. All were young, sunburned, muscular and covered with tattoos. All looked extremely pissed off. He got up and raised his hands, riveting his attention on the big guy who was ordering them to toss their weapons out of the pit nice and slow. They all quickly obeyed, not ready to argue with four M-16 rifles zeroed in on their chests.
“Look, man, we don't want any trouble with you guys.” Dmitri kept his tone calm and his hands high. “We aren't the police. We didn't mean to trespass on your land."
“Hey, Matty, I bet they's those damned Ruskies chasing Miss Kate and Joey,” one of them said with a godawful redneck twang. He was younger, with smooth apple cheeks that still had pillow creases as if he'd rocketed out of bed just in time to kill a couple of trespassers. He continued, focusing his weapon between Misha's eyes. “We oughta shoot ‘em up right now and kick some dirt in on them for what they done to her."
“Yeah, and they killed Sissy's favorite hound dog, too.” That came from yet another one with orange hair and a stiff, waxed mustache. He had on overalls with no shirt. Dmitri could see that his sunburn ended at the collar line and halfway up his biceps.
They all seemed to know Kate Reed rather well. Seemed to consider her a good friend, which was very bad news for Dmitri. He wondered how greedy they were and if he could get to the pistol he kept strapped to his ankle. He discarded the idea at once. With four automatic rifles trained on them, it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel. He'd have to talk his way out of trouble. They looked as though they had brains the size of shelled peanuts. Surely he could outsmart them.
“You got to listen to me. The woman's lying to you. What'd she tell you? That we're the bad guys? That's bullshit. She's lying to you. She stole that baby out of the hospital nursery right after it was born. Took it from its own mother. We're here to take it back home, that's God's holy truth."
“You shut your big mouth. Miss Kate wouldn't steal no baby, no way.” That was the one with imprints on his face.
A sudden high-pitched scream startled them all, especially those down in the pit. The big guy named Matty swung his weapon around, then lowered it as heartbroken weeping came from the vicinity of the dead dog.
“They shot Ol’ Pete, he's dead, ain't he, Matty? He's deader than a doornail."
Dmitri couldn't see anyone but it sounded like a child, a little girl, maybe.
“I know, Sissy, don't cry. It's okay,” soothed Mister Waxed Red Mustache. “We're gonna make ‘
em pay for killin’ Ol’ Pete. Pay hard."
“And for what they done to Miss Kate, too. Poor Ol’ Pete ain't done nothing to deserve to get shot dead,” interjected hillbilly number four, who'd remained silent until now. He looked the most dangerous, and Dmitri kept his eyes on him an extra moment. Tears, genuine ones, were running down his cheeks, shed over the dead dog, Dmitri presumed. Who the hell were these guys? Farmers from hell? And where did they get state-of-the-art U.S. Army-issue M-16's? He decided to concentrate on the oldest one, who seemed less affected by the demise of Ol’ Pete than the others.
“Look, Matty, you've got to believe me. She's not what she seems. She comes off so sweet and pretty, so helpless, but she's not.” He glanced around, latching on Nikolai's disfigured face. “Just look what she did to my friend here. Look at his face, if you don't believe me. Does that look like something some innocent little miss would do? Tied him up to a tree and beat the shit out of him, she and her husband did it. If we hadn't gotten there when we did, they would've beaten him to death."
The rednecks took turns looking at each other. Long, questioning, wide-eyed, dumb looks. No, smarts didn't exactly run in their family. The little girl's face suddenly appeared at the edge of the hole near Matty's black combat boots.
“You killed my dog, you fucker,” she said, hurling a clod of dirt down on Dmitri. He turned his head and deflected it with his shoulder.
“Now don't you be cussin', Millie Mae, you know better,” the big one said absently, gently pushing her back with the toe of his boot. Dmitri had a feeling the redneck was beginning to have a doubt or two about Kate's motives. It was time to push a little.
“There's something else you guys don't know. There's a big reward out on her head. The kid's parents hired us to come down here and get their baby boy back. That's all they want and they don't care how much it costs. Help us get her and I'll give you half the reward."
