No Sanctuary

by Richard Laymon

  So who suggested it might be an adventure to take a closer look? Rick couldn’t remember. Whatever. At the time, it seemed okay to investigate and discover who needed isolation so desperately as to put up sticks out here in the wilderness.

  On the way down Rick decided that it was a bad idea, breaking in on somebody’s solitude like this. But Bert insisted. “It’s an adventure, Rick. We are on vacation after all, aren’t we?” The way she looked at him, all innocent and eager, almost made Rick change his mind. Trying hard to convince himself, he reasoned that, time-wise, a slight detour wouldn’t make a major difference. And they didn’t exactly have a deadline to meet...

  They descended at a slow jog, their packs bumping on their backs, propelling them forward.

  “Did anybody mention climbing back up the mountain with these packs on our backs?” Rick muttered, under his breath.

  The cabin was old; fifty, sixty years old, Rick reckoned. And it was in bad repair. The filthy rag stretched across the front window looked as if it’d hung there since the year dot. A broken-down rocker with a greasy plaid cushion propped up on its seat stood on the rotting porch.

  The bad feeling Rick had had before suddenly got worse. He climbed the wooden steps and looked at Bert, poking around, pushing open the cabin door which was already ajar. The door had a small window in it. Its glass was stained with grime. A around hole had been rubbed in the dirt.

  A peepho/e.

  Bert’s curiosity got the better of her, she was about to step inside.

  “Bert...” he began.

  A manic whoop cut through the stillness, then tapered off into a coy giggle. The giggle ended in a humorless titter.

  Angus.

  Who else?

  Appearing from the far end of the cabin, making his way slowly along the porch toward them. Head cocked like a wary animal.

  Angus with a gun this time. An old hunting rifle held loosely but, Rick saw, with the practiced ease of an expert. It hung cocked in the crook of his arm.

  King of the Wild Frontier or Preacher Man. Which is be today? Rick wondered. Whatever, the guy means business...

  Bert, taken off guard, backed up against the doorframe. Her face had paled. A look of defiance had the twist of fear that was already teasing her gut.

  “Hi Angus,” she managed, cheerfully. “Care to give two weary travelers a drink of water?”

  The coyote skins, even in this heat, shook around the preacher’s shoulders. His bony chest was naked. Roughly stitched skin trousers covered his bowed legs. He let out a bark that Bert took to be laughter. She blanched again, hearing the triumphant ring to it.

  “Yeah,” Rick bluffed. “We were just passing by and thought you might offer us a drink—then we’ll be on our way... On the other hand, no worries about the drink. We’ll just be on our way. Bert?”

  “Why yes,” she chirped. “We’ll be on our way. Er ... have a nice day, Angus!”

  Suddenly they were looking down the barrel of the preacher’s gun. His face was screwed up alongside.

  Easy does it... Rick’s eyes signaled the message to Bert.

  Catching his drift, she nodded imperceptibly.

  The gun jerked toward the cabin door.

  “Get on it, get on in there, my fine, young travelin’ friends.”

  Angus at his most amiable. Most wily.

  A bullet clicked home.

  Angus at his most persuasive, most lethal, Rick decided.

  They turned and trouped in through the doorway.

  First thing they noticed was the stench. Rotten food, human smells and something else; gamey, putrid. Couldn’t make out what it was. Angus jostled them to a deal table. It was stained with coffee, food and God knew what else. The surface was cluttered and cracked with age.

  Sweeping aside the dirty crocks, stale food and other debris, Angus made one end clear. He jerked the gun again.

  They slid out of their packs and sat down.

  Taking the rickety spindle-back chairs either side of the table, Bert had her back to the door. Rick faced her. Angus took his place at the head of the table, to the right of Bert, and eased himself into a wooden armchair. The rifle rested across his bony knees.

  A moment’s silence. Then Angus snatched off his hat and tossed it to one side. It landed in a mangy heap on the cabin floor. His head was bare, but for a few long gray hairs crawling through patches of thick, yellow scales. Grinning, he made his scraggly beard wiggle at them, and tapped the tabletop with a bony forefinger. Bert stared in disgust at the finger’s long, grimy nail, noting that all of his nails were black—and curved, like the talons of a giant bird of prey.

  “Put ‘em down, right here!” he ordered. “That’s it. You heard me right first time. Them huntin’ knives you got tucked away in there.”

  They didn’t want to do it, but right at this moment there wasn’t a hope in hell of playing it any other way. Angus held the aces. And the gun.

  Slowly, they unfastened their belts and placed the sheathed weapons, and the looped belts, side by side at the center of the table. Angus leaned over, raked them in and dropped them into his lap.

  Rick and Bert remained poker-faced. Wouldn’t do to let the bastard see that taking their knives was any major deal.

  “Well, now,” Angus smiled craftily, looking from one to the other. “Ain’t this fine an’ dandy. Just the three of us. Sitting here like old friends.” He settled back into the curve of his chair and smiled some more.

  Way too big for a skinny runt like him, Bert thought. It’s built for a bigger man ... She glanced around the one room cabin. Seated on her side of the table, she didn’t have to move her head to do it.

  A tousled bed with grimy, greasy covers stood in the top right comer. The filthy ticking pillow skewed sideways, half on, half off the mattress. Bert’s eyes followed the pillow downward. To a huddle of dark canvas stashed beneath the bed. A loop or a strap had strayed from the pile. It lay curled like a snake on the worn wood floor.

  A breath of fear flicked at her throat.

  Over the bfass-knobbed headrail hung a framed picture of Christ on the cross. Bert figured it probably served as a reminder to Angus to keep up the Lord’s good works. She pictured him jumping out at them yesterday. Screaming insults and vile words.

  No chance he’d forget, she reckoned.

  To the right, sunlight filtered through a dirty rag-draped window. In the comer stood a large store cupboard. Its dark veneer had been polished at some stage of its life, but not anymore. She looked at the dull, wormy wood and reckoned it must be at least a hundred years old. An heirloom.

  Like the dresser, with its heavy, carved shelves towering above the good-sized set of storage drawers. The whole thing filled most of the cabin’s facing wall. Religious bric-a-brac and faded sepia photographs in brass frames littered the shelves and top surface of the drawers.

  Bert’s eyes lingered on a picture of a small, gentle-looking woman standing by the side of a seated, autocratic man. Both were laced up to the chin in Victorian-style dress.

  In particular, she studied a photograph of a young girl with mournful eyes. She wore a crocheted shawl and stood with one arm across the shoulders of a small, pixie-faced boy with blond curls.

  Family photos.

  Was Angus that small boy?

  An old Indian blanket thrown roughly over a wooden rail came next. Bert reckoned it could hide another door. Or a secret store of weapons, maybe. Her mind worked overtime. If Angus got caught off guard, Rick could tackle him. I could rush the blanket, grab a gun or something, and we could shoot our way out...

  Yeah. Pigs might fly.

  Her eyes slid around to the left, taking in the plastered walls scarred at intervals by brown floral wallpaper. A section of the left-hand wall, the far side of one of the cabin’s three windows, hoasted a rogue’s gallery of faded heads.

  Clerics of long ago. Much of a muchness: dog collars, around wide-brimmed hats and pursed, pained expressions. Different images of two men, it
appeared. One, the elder, had a full bushy beard and mean eyes. The other had the same mean eyes, but was younger and clean shaven.

  Father and son.

  To her left, by the remaining window, stood a brownstone sink. Next to it, a lit stove made tiny spitting, crackling noises. It exuded a malodorous stink. The ash can beneath the stove was catching gobs and spills of grease. The falling grease made dark holes in the mounds of fine gray ash.

  “You interested in my pictures, whore? Them there’s my daddy an’ my granddaddy. Both good men of the cloth. Preachin’ the Lord’s word all of their lives...

  “Yessir ... they wus good men, my daddy and my granddaddy. Men a mother could be proud of. Ridding the world as they did, of SCUM LIKE YOU!”

  “You bastards...” Rick caught Bert’s warning look and snapped his mouth shut.

  “No offense. No offense ...” Angus said, with a lewd smirk at Bert.

  “Gotta keep on doin’ the Lord’s work.”

  He carries on like this, I’ll kill him, thought Rick.

  Interpreting his thoughts, Bert gave a small frown, and shook her head.

  Angus was gone. Oblivious to the mental dialogue of his captives, he nursed his rifle lovingly against his chest, his bony fingers caressing the hard steel. He began rocking to and fro. The knife belts in his lap shifted and chittered. The sound roused him from his reverie and he continued his story.

  “My daddy and his daddy afore him were strong Scottish Presbyterian. Ministers of the cloth, both. Back in Perthshire, Scotland, my granddaddy ministered to his flock of good folk ... and kept them free from sin. A-men.

  “Jist as the good Lord woulda wished.

  “When he died, my daddy took over. But, in a wee while, that same flock turned on my daddy, so they did...”

  His attention wandered again. Mumbling to himself, he looked up and stared for a long time at a brass crucifix hanging over the door.

  Rick coughed. “And then what, Angus?” He looked at his wristwatch. “Whoa. So late? We really must be moving on. What d’you say, Bert?”

  Relieved that Rick had broken the tension, Bert said, “Yes, sure thing. We better get going. Mustn’t keep the girls waiting, must we, Rick? Promised we’d be back before dark.”

  In a flash, Angus was on his feet. The knives fell to the floor with a clattering thunk. He gripped his gun and shoved it at them with both hands.

  “SIT DOWN, FILTH! I haven’t finished yet. You ain’t goin’ nowhere till I’ve had my say!”

  They all sat down. Angus gave them another crafty smile and resumed his story.

  “First off, you can’t fool me. Them girls broke camp a while back. They on their way to somewhere else by now. That means you’re on your lonesome. Two lost sheep who’ve gone astray!” He giggled at his own words, then fell silent, his loose, wet lips pulsating gently beneath his beard. Testing the effect of the pun on his audience.

  He leered slyly at Bert.

  “See, now, where wus I? Yep. Then my daddy heard that there was a need for God’s ministers over here in the United States of America. So we came over in a sailing ship. My daddy, my mammy and Maire and me. We traveled across the seas to this great country and finally dropped anchor, so to speak, in the Tehachapis.

  “My daddy preached an’ he preached till he was blue in the face. He loved his flock, oh my, how he loved them people. Mammy would cry and say that there was no need for him to love and care for them so much. ’Specially the young ’uns. She was there, she said—he didn’t need no more love...

  “And then he got to lovin’ Maire. The Lord’s wishes, he swore. An’ my Daddy, he allus carried out the good Lord’s wishes. Praise be to the Lord. A-men.”

  If I keep him talking, looking my way, Rick thought, Bert could break out before he gets a chance to use his gun. I could overpower him. And we could be on our way.

  As if.

  “Anyways. One night, them good church folk held a meetin’ and a whole contingent of them marched over to our house and told my daddy to get out. They said he wus evil. Not fit to be a man of the cloth, they said.

  “Daddy told them to go away and he closed the door, right in their faces. Went straight in to Maire’s room and loved her some more. I could hear her pleadin’ an’ cryin.’ She wus saying, Daddy please don’t. Don’t Daddy, you’re hurtin’ me...

  “When Mammy went in, she found my sister Maire dead in her bed. A seizure, so my mammy said. She ran out into the night a-screaming for help and daddy got his gun, the one that’s setting on my knee this very minute, and shot her dead.

  “My daddy and me gathered up a few family treasures, took to the hills, ’n built us this mighty fine cabin, so we did. My daddy told me we were poor wanderers, a-travelin’ the wilderness with only wild things for company. Jist like the Lord Jesus Christ, he said. Only we stayed more ’n forty days an’ forty nights. We stuck it out for much longer. All of my daddy’s natural born life, turned out...

  “An’ I been here since my daddy passed on. Lookin’ after God’s creatures and spreadin’ the word. This ’ere mountain country is my home. It gets a bit lonesome sometimes and I don’t have much truck with outsiders... but, it’s my home...”

  “That’s it.” Rick stood up. So did Bert. Grabbing their packs, they started for the door.

  A gunshot whined and hit the roof.

  “No you don’t. Filthy swine! Foul defilers! I’m not yet done with ye. REPENT AND BE SAVED!”

  He marched them through the door, out onto the stoop and around to the back of the cabin.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Bert’s heart sank when she saw where they were headed.

  Toward a cage-like pen made from tough, pine staves about twelve feet high and bound together by stout twine.

  Angus danced around them, herding, prodding, maneuvering them together with his rifle. The cage door was open.

  “Ready and waiting,” Bert muttered.

  An almighty crack descended on Rick’s head and a gasp shot from his lips. He groaned, folded and went down on all fours.

  What the...?

  All in a day’s work for Angus. Suddenly, he was business-like; prodding Rick with the rifle butt, kicking and pushing him into the cage.

  Fuck.

  Rick slid along the dirt floor, lurched to his knees and tried to stand. His legs gave and he crashed, face down, into the mat of foul-smelling straw.

  Angus darted behind Bert and poked her sharply in the back. She stalled. Another vicious poke sent her sprawling onto the floor of the cage. Angus cackled to himself as he quickly secured the cage door with a strong plait of twine.

  “Rest awhile my travelin’ friends!” he simpered. “Rest and repent ye of your sins. Praise the Lord!”

  “Shit, shit, shit,” wailed Bert. She stood with her hands rattling the staves in angry frustration.

  Rick got to his feet. “Okay,” he panted. “He’s got us for now. But we’ll get out. No sweat.” He wasn’t sure how, but they’d make it. If it was the last thing he ...

  This is too ridiculous for words. We’re two intelligent, professional people. Doing nobody any harm. All we ever wanted was to be left alone...

  This can’t be happening to us. It can’t. I won’t let it ...

  Rick bashed the palings with a clenched fist. All the way down one side of the cage, the staves shook in unison. A blinding pain shot through his skull. And his fist. The pain in his head was bad, but now his fist...

  He cursed. They both needed his two hands to be in working order. Trust him to go and get a loused-up fist...

  The crack on his head, from the rifle butt had raised a fair-sized lump. He groaned and pictured a bottle of Jim Beam, standing on the bar, back in his apartment. A glass, half filled with sparkling rocks was ready and waiting. The amber fluid glinted seductively, beckoning to him ...

  Rick closed his eyes against the screeching pain in his head. Oh, for anything, but anything vaguely alcoholic, preferably straight from the bottle. And asp
irin. Got some in my pack.

  Angus, would you mind fetching me some water and aspirin? The aspirin’s in my pack, by the way.

  Christ, give me strength.

  When that fuckin’ turd leaves us alone, we’ll find a way out of his goddamn cage.

  “Rick,” Bert said quietly. “Look at this.” She pointed to a heap of canvas humps in the comer of the cage.

  “Backpacks. Old backpacks, Rick.” She looked at him and the same thought passed between them.

  “Huh. Kids who never got around to repenting...” Rick said.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Probably butchered and got eaten for breakfast.”

  Rick’s watch told him it was six o’clock already. “We rest up till dark. Okay?” he whispered. “Meanwhile, we’ll figure out a way to escape.”

  Bert was near to tears. “Oh, sure, Rick. What d’you suggest? Please Angus, let us outa here ’cos we want to go home now?”

  Rick hadn’t got an answer. Yet. They couldn’t climb over the staves. Too high, too pointed and far too dangerous. They couldn’t try to shake the staves loose from their moorings either. Angus might be watching.

  When it got dark, they’d find a way.

  They sat together, their backs leaning against the palings. They felt defeated.

  Bert huffed loudly. “I’m so hot and sticky. Can’t take my shirt off, our friendly fuckin’ neighborhood creep’d probably get off on it.”

  “Rest while we can, Bert, that’s about all we can do.”

  As the shadows lengthened around the cage, they fell silent and dozed a little.

  A low, throaty snarl brought Rick to his senses.

  He lay stretched out on the floor. Eyes closed.

  Christ. His head hurt.

  What in the name of Jesus happened to us these last few hours?

  He remembered this morning, so long ago now, sitting and staring at Bert, thinking that he could do that all day.

  Hell, I shoulda just done it. Stayed there. All day.

  Bert?

  Where is Bert ...

  Rick’s hand shot to his head. It felt like it had been kicked around a baseball pitch, non-stop. He groaned and let his hand drop to his side. Easier that way. Just lying there.