Swept Aside

by Sharon Sala

  “Let me go check on the woman. Make sure she’s asleep, and then I’ll join you,” Nick said.

  Wayman nodded, then left the living room with Lou right behind him.

  Nick took the stairs up to Amalie’s room on the run, then hesitated outside her door. He couldn’t hear anything, and the lights were off. Still, he needed to make sure she was where she was supposed to be before he left the house.

  He turned the knob quietly. The door swung inward on well-oiled hinges, revealing the darkened room and the woman asleep on the bed.

  He stood for a moment, making sure she wasn’t faking it, and watched the even rise and fall of her breathing before leaving to join the others.

  Outside, the air was thick and muggy, causing sweat to quickly bead on the surface of Nick’s skin. The lamps they’d confiscated had been lined up beside each other about six feet from the car and debris, giving them maneuvering room while still casting some light by which to work.

  Wayman was trying to start the chain saw, while Lou was using the handsaw.

  Way looked up as Nick approached.

  “Damn thing won’t start,” he muttered.

  “Let me try,” Nick said.

  Way handed it over, then stepped back, watching as Nick pulled the rope several times in rapid succession. Then he stopped, walked over to the lights, removed the gas cap, then tilted the opening toward the light.

  “What?” Way asked.

  “It’s empty,” Nick said. “That’s why it won’t start.”

  “Then we gotta refill it,” Way said.

  Lou paused. “There’s not any more fuel.”

  “How do you know?” Way asked.

  “’Cause when I found the saws, I also found the gas cans. They were all empty.”

  Wayman waved his hand toward the car. “We’ll siphon off some gas from the tank.”

  “Won’t work,” Nick said.

  “Why the hell not?” Wayman asked.

  “Chain saws don’t use straight gasoline. It’s a mixture of gas and chain saw oil, and if the mixture’s not right, it won’t work.”

  Wayman kicked at the dirt, then threw his hands in the air.

  “I don’t get it! Why does everything bad keep happening to us?” Then he grabbed the chain saw out of Nick’s hands and flung it halfway across the yard into the darkness. “To hell with the damn chainsaw! I’ll drag that tree off with my bare hands.”

  He pivoted angrily and strode back to the car, encircled the base of the limb with his arms, and began pulling and twisting until his hands suddenly slipped and he fell backward with a shout of dismay. He was moaning loudly as he rolled over onto his knees, then staggered to his feet.

  “Your arms! Look what you went and did to your arms!” Lou cried.

  Wayman glanced down. In the dark, the blood oozing through his skin appeared black. The bark had shredded the skin on both arms all the way to his wrists.

  “Fucking hell!” Wayman wailed, and doubled over in pain.

  Nick felt like cursing right along with them. Not only had Wayman injured himself, but his twisting and jerking had firmly wedged the upper half of the limb even deeper into the crease in the metal roof.

  “The only way that limb comes off now is in pieces,” Nick said. “Way, you need to go wash your arms good and make sure there aren’t any splinters under the skin. Use some of that alcohol from the sack in Tug’s room when you’re done.”

  “Hell no! Alcohol will burn like fire,” Wayman said.

  “Better a little sting than both arms infected,” Nick said.

  Lou glared. “Well, great. Now that just leaves one saw and both of us to do all the work.”

  “So start sawing,” Nick said. “Once you get a piece off, I’ll do the next.”

  Wayman stumbled his way through the dark and back into the house, moaning as he went.

  Cursing beneath his breath, Lou began to saw. Little by little, they made headway on the smaller branches. But the work was slow going. The tree was green and the sap sticky, causing the saw to drag and buckle frequently.

  Time passed, and Nick was guessing it was close to midnight. He’d just sawed through a chunk and was helping Lou carry it away when all of a sudden, a sound carried through the night that made them stop in their tracks.

  “What was that?” Lou asked, looking fearfully beyond the weak halo of light. Then the sound came again.

  “Dogs,” Nick said.

  “Like hounds? Bloodhounds?” Lou asked.

  Nick tilted his head. “Hounds for sure. That baying sound is familiar. Probably just hunters.”

  Lou shook his head and dropped his end of the piece of wood.

  “They’re close. Real close. What if it’s bloodhounds? What if it’s the searchers?”

  Nick frowned. “Not at night. I don’t think they’d run at night.”

  Another long, mournful bay shattered what was left of Lou’s nerves.

  “Hell no! Those are bloodhounds. I can tell. They’re looking for us, and I am not standing around here waiting to get my ass caught.”

  He made a run for the house, moving as fast as he could go.

  “Lou! Get back here! We’ve got to get this off the car tonight!”

  But Lou wouldn’t slow down, and Nick couldn’t stay out here and work alone, for fear of what the other man might do to Amalie.

  “Damn it all to hell and back,” Nick muttered, then let go of the wood and sprinted for the house.

  Lou was standing at the window, peering through the curtains.

  “The lamps. We left those damn lamps burning.”

  “So go outside and unplug something,” Nick said.

  Lou bolted back out the door. Moments later the yard went dark. Then he hit the back porch on the run, locking the kitchen door behind him as he entered.

  “We gotta turn off the lights in the house, too.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Nick muttered.

  With work over for the night, there was nothing left to do but sleep. Wayman was on his pallet at the foot of the stairs, still bemoaning his misery.

  “Did you get your arms doctored okay?” Nick asked.

  Wayman nodded. “Yeah, but they sure do burn.”

  “Sorry, man,” Nick said. “They’ll be better by morning.”

  “I hope so,” Wayman said. “See you then.”

  “Yeah…in the morning,” Nick said.

  His frustration was growing as he climbed the stairs. He was beginning to wonder if they would ever get away from here. As soon as he reached Amalie’s door, he took off his shoes and shirt, pulled the mattress back in place, then lay down, positioning himself so that if anyone came up the stairs, he would see their approach. And after the tirade Lou had just indulged in, he didn’t trust him not to try something.

  But nothing happened, and he fell asleep within minutes.

  Wednesday it rained again. The day came and went with little to no work being done. Tempers were short. The food supply was shorter. By the time night came, everyone was on edge.

  Amalie went to bed fully dressed, certain that something bad was bound to happen.

  She was dreaming she was in Jasper, and that it was hailing outside her home. In the dream, she was fretting about the dents that would likely be left in her car when something shifted in her subconscious and she woke up with a start. The rapid thump, thump, thump that she’d interpreted as hail while she was asleep was actually footsteps. Someone was coming up the stairs on the run.

  Panic shifted as she threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, surprised to see that it was morning.

  Though her shoulder was still sore, the shooting pains were gone. Nervous as to what must be happening, she ran a shaky hand through her hair and waited.

  All of a sudden the door flew inward. It was Nick—out of breath and obviously frantic.

  “I need you downstairs! Now! There’s a man on an ATV coming down your driveway toward the house. Whatever you have to do to get rid of him, do it. Don�
�t give him a reason to be suspicious. The last thing I need is another hostage situation on my hands.”

  Amalie was so startled that it didn’t occur to her to wonder why Nick would be worrying about being responsible for hostages. And when he grabbed her by the hand and began dragging her out of the room, she resisted.

  “Wait! My shoes.”

  Nick cursed beneath his breath and ran back to the other side of the bed, grabbed her tennis shoes and then dumped them at her feet.

  “Here. And hurry,” he said.

  Amalie could hear the sound of an approaching engine as she slid her feet into the shoes. The moment she tied the last lace, Nick grabbed her by the arm and started running. They made it down the stairs in record time. By the time Amalie got to the living room, she could see a green ATV pulling to a stop at the front of the house. Then she recognized the driver as her elderly neighbor, Louis Thibideaux, on his John Deere Gator.

  Wayman and Lou had stationed themselves at different parts of the living room, and both were armed with butcher knives from the kitchen. The expressions on their faces said it all. They would do whatever they had to do to stay free. All of a sudden, she understood Nick’s concern. They were only moments away from bloodshed. She ran toward the door, then turned to face them.

  “Wait! Please! That’s Mr. Thibideaux. He’s almost eighty and was one of my grandmother’s best friends. I’m sure he’s just come to check on me. I’ll get rid of him. Don’t hurt him. Please, don’t hurt him.”

  “If we had that four-wheeler, we could get away,” Lou argued.

  “There’s no ‘we’ on a four-wheeler,” Nick muttered. “And how far do you think you’d get? They’re not legal on the highway. I say let Amalie get rid of him.”

  They looked at Wayman, waiting for him to add his two cents, with Tug still out of the loop.

  “Well? What’s it gonna be?” Lou snapped.

  The doorbell rang, startling them all into silence.

  “Get down,” Nick whispered, motioning at Lou. “Easy does it. All of you. Amalie, this is on your shoulders. If you want your neighbor to leave here in one piece, don’t give us away.”

  “I won’t. I promise,” she said.

  She glanced back once, making sure everyone was out of sight, pasted a smile on her face and then opened the door.

  “Mr. Thibideaux! How nice to see you.” She stepped out onto the veranda without asking him in. She gestured toward a setting of wicker furniture a few feet away. “Please sit. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

  Louis Thibideaux was a tall slender man with a quick wit, a neatly clipped beard and a full head of snowy-white hair. He’d been a widower for more than ten years and had made tending to Laura Pope part of his business. Now that she had passed, he wasn’t going to abandon her granddaughter. Everyone in the area knew about the shooting at the school where Amalie taught. They’d all been horrified to learn that one of their own had suffered in such a way. To have Laura die while Amalie was still fighting for her life had been a tragedy. It wasn’t until he’d been running his hounds with his grandson last night and had seen a light on inside the Vatican that he’d realized Amalie was home. Although he had not been invited, he felt it was only proper that he come to pay his respects.

  Polite as always, he ignored her disheveled appearance and wrinkled clothing as he seated her first before choosing the chair beside her.

  “It is a blessing that you are alive, mon cher, but a sadness that we have lost your Nonna.”

  “I know. Thank you for coming by. You look well.”

  “I am well. Well enough for a man who has outlived his usefulness, at least. You are healed?”

  Unconsciously, Amalie brushed a hand across the place where she’d been shot.

  “Almost.” Then she realized what she must look like. “You must excuse my appearance. I fell asleep in my clothes last night and then woke to hear your engine coming down the driveway. I’m still in recovery mode, I’m afraid.”

  Louis frowned. “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything you need?”

  Amalie thought of her dwindling food supply and the car beneath the storm debris, and shook her head.

  “No, no, I’m fine. Really. My phone’s not working yet. Is yours?”

  “No. No phone service, although we were fortunate to be on a different electrical grid than the one serving Bordelaise. Parts of the area are still without utilities.”

  “Oh, my!” Amalie said.

  As he frowned, his brow curled into deep, weathered furrows. “Yes, yes, what has happened in Bordelaise is, indeed, a tragedy. An entire family died in the tornado. The Norths. You remember the Norths? Their daughter was a famous author…wrote mysteries.”

  “Oh, no!” Amalie said. She did remember them and was horrified that they’d died.

  “Also, a child is missing and presumed dead. Katie Earle’s little boy.”

  Amalie gasped. She’d gone to school with Katie Earle. She was reeling as Louis continued his litany of bad news.

  “They’re still looking for the child’s body. And there is even more. Four prisoners who were in the local jail disappeared, as well. You have seen the search helicopters, no doubt?”

  “Yes, I noticed the choppers, but I assumed they were just assessing storm damage.”

  “No. Chief Porter had search parties all over the bayou, although when I went into Bordelaise this morning, I heard that they had called everything off. Either the prisoners are long gone, or their bodies have yet to be found.”

  Amalie’s heart sank. If they called off the search, what did that mean for her? The pressure on the men to avoid being recaptured would be lessened. God only knew what would happen.

  Louis noticed she’d gone quiet—too quiet. This wasn’t like the Amalie he knew, although she had been through a lot lately. “Cher, I am sorry to remind you of your sadness, but my heart hurts for your loss. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  His kindness touched Amalie, bringing tears to her eyes.

  “No. Not a thing, but thank you for asking. I’ve moved home and will be announcing myself soon enough. However, for now, I’d still like some time on my own. I know you understand.”

  Louis took the information as a cue to leave and quickly stood.

  “Of course, of course. You must take all the time you need.”

  Amalie nodded, willing herself to stay calm. She needed all her wits to get him off the property without giving anything away. Just to make her point, she added, “When you see me in church, you’ll know that I’m receiving visitors.”

  “I will pass along the word so that you will not be disturbed until you are ready.”

  “Thank you, Louis. You were a dear friend to my Nonna. I hope you’ll be as good a friend to me, as well.”

  He smiled, his dark eyes twinkling. “But of course. Take care of yourself, and remember the missing prisoners, although I personally believe that the tornado surely took them. The back of the jail was completely destroyed.”

  “You’re probably right,” Amalie said, then stood up and walked to the edge of the veranda as he got on his ATV.

  Within moments he was on his way down the driveway, heading back to the road. Amalie watched and waved until he disappeared around the bend, then her shoulders slumped. It had been hell watching him leave when she’d wanted so badly to go with him.

  Suddenly the door opened behind her. It was Nick.

  “Good job,” he said.

  Amalie was relieved that her old friend was safely away, but even more concerned for her own safety now than ever. They must have heard the news about the search party being called off, and that the phones were all still out of order. She gave him a nervous glance, trying to read the expression on his face, but as usual, he was giving nothing away.

  She walked inside, only to find herself in the middle of a fight. Lou was in Wayman’s face, jamming a finger in his chest over and over.

  “We just lost a damn good chance of ge
tting out of here. One of us could have taken that ATV and gone to find a phone.”

  “And who would we choose?” Wayman asked. “I won’t leave Tug, Nick won’t leave the woman, and if you left you’d never come back. Besides, we all heard the old man. The news last night was right. They’ve called off the search. And since the old man doesn’t have a phone, either, no telling how far you’d have to go to find one. Not that you’d be coming back to tell us anyway.”

  “That’s a lie! I wouldn’t abandon you and Tug…we’re a team!” Lou yelled, and spun toward Nick, thinking he’d told what had passed between them. “You’re the new guy. You’re the one who’s trying to cause trouble. You said something, didn’t you?”

  Wayman grabbed Lou’s hand and bent it backward.

  “Shut the fuck up! You’re gonna upset Tug.”

  Lou’s face turned a deep, angry red. “Shit! Let go! Let go! You’re gonna break my hand!”

  “Turn him loose,” Nick said. “With your arms all skinned up, the two of us have to stay healthy to get that tree off the car.”

  Still furious at being the odd man out, Lou turned on Amalie.

  “What are you looking at, bitch?”

  She was so exhausted and stressed that she snapped before she thought.

  “A bunch of idiots fighting among themselves, and I’m hoping you kill each other and save someone else the trouble,” she said, then left the room without looking back.

  Lou cursed and started after her.

  Nick stepped in front of him.

  “No,” he said softly, and put a hand in the middle of Lou’s chest.

  Lou glared, but backed up. He still didn’t have the guts to take Nick on face-to-face, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have a go at him if his back was turned.

  Amalie was beyond caring who she’d pissed off. She hadn’t eaten anything since noon yesterday, and her stomach was growling.

  Although no one stopped her, she knew they were keeping track of her. When she got to the kitchen, she paused in the doorway, eyeing the mess and the dirty dishes piled in the sink, then sighed.

  Her spirits were already low, but then she opened the refrigerator they sank even more. It was almost empty.

  “There’s not much left,” Nick said, as he walked up behind her.