by Dana Mentink
But if taking up your cross meant giving up your own dream to take the better life that God offered...
The thought both scared and confused him so he put it aside as they found the last trailer. It was set apart from the nearest one, concealed by a cluster of dense shrubbery that cried out for a good pruning. The sound of a burbling creek met their ears and the scent of moist ground hung heavy in the air. Striped curtains covered the windows and he could not stop the urge. He drew Ella behind him.
She gave him a puzzled look, but did not question. He might not have been able to explain anyway. They were here in the good old US of A, but the sense of being watched, targeted, would not be ignored.
He stood to the side of the door, Ella behind him, and knocked.
SEVENTEEN
Ella felt the tension radiating off of Owen as he rapped on the door for the second time.
“Ms. Ferron? Your sister told us you might be able to chat for a minute,” he called.
The trailer remained dark and quiet until a slow shuffling sounded from the other side of the door. It opened a few inches and a woman with thinning, straggly hair peeked out. Her thick glasses were askew on her nose and her breath smelled of alcohol.
“What do you want?” It was hard to guess her age, probably somewhere in her midfifties, but she might have been much younger. The lines on her face told the story of her difficult life.
Ella stepped around Owen. “I’m Ella Cahill. I’m a farrier, and this is Owen Thorn. He works a ranch in Gold Bar.” She handed over one of her business cards to add some credibility.
Linda peered at the card. “Don’t need a farrier at the moment.”
“We need to talk to you about Bruce Reed,” Ella said.
“Bruce Reed.” She twirled the name around in her mouth as if she was tasting it. “Bruce Reed.”
“Yes,” Ella repeated. “Do you know him?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, eyes shifting. “I know him. Come on in.” She turned away and disappeared into the house, leaving the door ajar for them to follow. Something deep inside Ella did not want to enter that dark space, but her feet took her in anyway, following just behind Owen.
The interior was stark, with only a few pieces of tattered furniture. A small TV was tuned to the shopping channel, which was touting a line of luggage, perfect for the world traveler. The living room opened into the kitchen, which was stacked with dirty plates and empty liquor bottles, heavy with the smell of spoiled food. Linda sank into a threadbare recliner and sat watching the ice in her glass melt, not offering them a seat. Ella noticed only one photograph perched on the side table, an eight-by-ten picture of a younger Linda Ferron standing next to a beautiful bay horse.
“What a lovely animal,” Ella said.
Linda’s eyes came into focus. “That was Lancelot. He was the finest jumper I ever owned.”
Ella tried to decide how to steer the conversation toward Bruce Reed, but Owen plunged in with the direct approach.
“Did you buy any horses on the advice of Bruce Reed?”
She blinked. “Oh, did I, but Lancelot I bought on my own. He was like the child I never had.”
They both waited until Ella prodded her again. “Your sister said you knew Bruce Reed fairly well.”
“Well enough. He was a charmer, wasn’t he, that Bruce Reed? Knew everything about horses and treated me like a queen once he found out I had some money from my ex-husband to spend. Dinners, dancing, horse shows, and I opened up my checkbook, of course. First one horse, two, a trailer, and then, well, wouldn’t you know, the horses turned out not to be worth what I paid, and the trailer was stolen before I had it insured. But just a little more money, one more investment and everything would be just fine. So a couple of thousand here and there and soon my problems weren’t gone, but my money sure was.”
“Did you go to the police?”
“Oh, there was no proof. My own stupid choices to purchase. Nobody’s signature on the dotted line but mine. He would never be so foolish as to put his name on anything.”
She felt a stab of desperation. There had to be something they could take to Larraby, one bit of hard evidence.
“There was only one way out to cover the debt.” Linda’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at the picture of Lancelot. “He was such a beautiful horse.”
Horror began to fill her. Ella took a breath. “Lancelot was heavily insured?”
She nodded.
She had to force the words across her dry mouth. “Did Bruce Reed arrange to have him killed for the insurance payoff?”
“Such a beautiful animal and noble, gentle, but the creditors you see...” Her haunted eyes roamed the photo. “My car was repossessed, I lost my house. I had nothing left, except for Lancelot.”
Ella sighed and closed her eyes. Bruce Reed, he was responsible for ruining Linda Ferron, and once he’d gotten every last dime out of her, he’d left her without a backward glance and moved on to Candy Silverton.
“I’m so sorry,” Ella said, throat thick.
“Oh, me too, honey,” Linda croaked. “Sorry I ever laid eyes on Bruce Reed.” Her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket. Her expression went stark as she listened. After several hard swallows, she disconnected without saying a word to the caller. Ella and Owen exchanged a puzzled glance.
With a shaking hand, Linda filled her glass from a bottle of whiskey, gulping a swallow so quickly it sloshed onto her shirt. “I’m a drunk,” she said. “No one believes me and I guess they shouldn’t, really.”
“You can get help,” Ella said, moving closer and kneeling so Linda had to look her in the face. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Spare me the fairy tale, honey,” she said, mouth pinched. “There’s winners and losers in life and I’ve lost. There’s no getting it back. Bruce taught me that. He was raised poor as a church mouse, with a whole bunch of siblings, but he was small, like his mother, so he got picked on a lot. He said he learned early to point his nose toward the money and follow the trail until he got what he wanted. But I don’t think it was all about the money. I think it was about the score. Pulling one over on people so he could feel smarter, bigger than they were. Bruce Reed needs to be the biggest man in the room, no matter what the cost.” Her gaze drifted once more to the photo and tears gathered.
“Anyway, you know, I do have some photos and stuff, with Bruce and me together. And there’s some old papers and checks and the like, if you want to look through them.”
Ella straightened. “Really? That would be very helpful.”
Owen’s forehead creased in a frown, but Ella pressed on.
“May we look right now? I promise we won’t make a mess.”
“Might as well. I got no appointments to keep.” She took one last drink from the glass and struggled from the chair, leading them outside behind the trailer. “In there,” she said, pointing to a metal shed about fifteen feet high with a rusted metal roof. With Owen’s help she shoved aside some stacks of newspaper and wrenched open the door. It gave with a shriek. The dark interior was stacked with moldy cardboard boxes, an old saddle and a desiccated bale of hay.
“It’s a mess, but you can poke around to your heart’s content. I’m not gonna help you, though.”
“No problem,” Ella said. “We’ll just take a look and let you know when we’re done, okay?”
She nodded, sucking on the tip of her index finger. “Make yourself at home.”
Ella stepped inside, shuddering as a cobweb drifted along her cheek.
The dust filtered through the space, making her sneeze.
“God bless you,” Owen said. “I’m...”
His comment was lost by the shed door being slammed shut. She and Owen both sprang for the opening, but Linda had slid something between the handles and locked them in.
* * *
; Owen threw himself at the doors without hesitation, but the metal held in spite of the rust. He hammered with his fist. “Linda, let us out. Was it Bruce Reed who called you and told you to do this? You don’t have to do what he says.”
Ella was on her cell phone. “I called the police. I’m looking up the number for the trailer park office.”
“Look fast,” he said.
Her eyes went wide as Linda slid a burning piece of newspaper under the door. He stomped it out, but she followed with another and this time before he could douse the flame, it caught a stack of cardboard and flames began to devour the dried paper, pouring smoke into the cramped space.
“Get back and cover your mouth,” he yelled, still trying to smother the flames. It was no use; the piles were the perfect kindling and the flames began to crawl from stack to stack. The temperature climbed rapidly and sweat poured down his temples.
Ella yelled into her phone. “Dory, help us. We’re locked in a shed behind your sister’s trailer. She trapped us in here and it’s on fire.”
He huffed out a breath, relieved that help was on its way until Ella said, “No one answered. I left a message.”
The cops would be five minutes at least, and they’d be near dead of smoke inhalation by then. Ella grabbed his shoulder and pointed up. There was a small skylight set into the corrugated roof, almost obscured by the piles of junk. Immediately, he scrambled up a stack of wooden crates but the wood snapped like matchsticks under his weight and he crashed back down into a pile of papers.
Ella helped him up, coughing against the smoke that filled the shed. “Let me try.”
She restacked the crates, discarding the broken ones and gingerly climbed up, but she was several feet shy of reaching the skylight.
“You’ve got to get on my shoulders,” he called over the whoosh of the fire as it spread to a roll of brittle carpet.
“But...”
He didn’t wait for her to elucidate. Injury or not, it was time for Owen to do his best ladder impression. He moved next to her, helping as much as he could while she climbed onto his back. Holding the wall for balance, she got one foot up on his shoulder and then another. Grinding his teeth together to keep from crying out, he grabbed her ankles and maneuvered underneath the skylight.
She pressed her palms to the dirty glass. “It’s fastened in place and there’s no way to open it,” she yelled. The smoke was funneling upward, burying her in an acrid fog that set her choking.
“Air’s too bad,” he yelled. “You have to come down.”
“One more try. Maybe I can break it,” she rasped out. This time she pounded against the glass. He felt her feet tremble on his shoulders and he worked desperately to keep her from falling. The glass held fast and the smoke was now completely filling the apex. She tumbled and he tried to catch her. Together they fell into a pile of newspapers and plastic garbage bags.
“We can’t get out,” she said, cheeks filthy from the smoke, tears making streaks through the grime.
He pulled her into the shelter of his arms, turning her face to his chest. “Breathe against me.”
* * *
Ella wasn’t sure exactly how long it took for a person to die of smoke inhalation, but she figured they had to be getting close. Even with her mouth pressed to Owen’s chest, her lungs burned from inhaling the noxious air.
She gripped his shirt. “I’m sorry,” she said. Sorry for dragging you into this. Sorry you are the kind of man who won’t turn your back on your duty even if it gets you killed. Sorry I didn’t realize how much you meant to me.
“Don’t be sorry.” He pressed a kiss to her sweaty forehead and snuggled her closer. “Help’s coming.”
Would it get here in time? She didn’t know, but she realized that she was enduring her worst moment with her best friend. Owen Thorn had been a part of her life every day, because even when he’d been gone she’d held him close to her heart. Curling her arms around him, she held him and she prayed, for their deliverance from the flames and for the lion-hearted Owen Thorn.
As they lay cocooned together, the heat rising to unbearable levels, she thought she heard a shout from outside. Her senses dizzied, she struggled to move air in and out of her lungs. Owen lifted his head and yelled something she couldn’t make out.
Her ears reverberated with the roar and crackle of the fire, which seemed to have spread everywhere, creeping closer and closer to their tiny refuge, filling every square inch with suffocating smoke. The walls shuddered around them and suddenly a rush of air fanned the flames even higher, and she believed she must surely be roasting alive. She was seized by her shoulders and dragged from the burning shed.
Owen, Owen, Owen. Was he behind? Had they gotten him out too?
Her rescuers multiplied as someone took her feet and another her shoulders and she was carried away from the heat. Blessedly cool air bathed her face as she was placed carefully on a patch of grass.
Where’s Owen? she wanted to shout, but her mouth was parched dry and coated with bitter soot.
“Easy, honey,” Dory said. “Get some water,” she ordered a man in a delivery service uniform. “Look out, everyone,” she called out. “Ambulance is coming.”
Rolling onto her side she coughed violently, unable to stop until a palm cupped her chin. She forced her eyes open. Owen’s face swam into view. He too was lying on his side next to her, eyes watering just as much as her own, blue as those long ago summer days when they were children and life stretched ahead of them like an endless adventure. Her brain was addled, body offline, but he was there with her.
“Don’t leave me,” she said, her own voice unrecognizable to her. “Please don’t leave me.”
He brushed the hair away from her cheek. “Shhhh,” he said. “I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere, Ella Jo.”
Her mind knew it was not a promise he could keep in the future, but for now, for this one moment she let herself believe it. An ambulance rolled up and she and Owen were placed on stretchers with oxygen masks over their mouths.
Dory appeared once more before the ambulance started for the hospital. “I’m so sorry. My sister took off. The police will find her. I can’t... Well, I know she’s done some bonehead stuff, but I didn’t think she would ever do something like this.”
Bruce Reed destroys people, Ella wanted to say, but she could only manage a nod before they were en route to the hospital. The paramedic took her vitals and talked soothingly. For some reason, Ella could not stop crying, tears rolling down her face, dampening the crisp white sheet they’d draped her with.
Owen reached out and took her hand in his. He didn’t say a word and he didn’t have to.
I’m here, his touch said. And I’m not going anywhere.
EIGHTEEN
Owen was pronounced hale enough after a few hours of oxygen, a chest X-ray and blood tests. His throat was raw, a sensation that did not diminish after he downed a glass of water. As he sat upright in the bed pulling on his filthy clothes, he replayed what Ella had said.
Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. He knew she must have been foggy, her thoughts askew from the smoke inhalation and too much carbon monoxide in her system, but the words would not retreat from his mind.
Don’t leave me. He felt the tug of that request rumbling around his soul, the frightening pleasure of being needed so deeply by someone whom he cared about.
But he was going to do exactly that, just like he’d planned.
I’m made for war.
You’re made for more than that.
It was the first time in his adult life when he’d faltered, when he’d imagined a different path, when he’d heard a voice calling from another direction. Don’t leave me. But that was a path that couldn’t be taken. He was meant to return to the marines as soon as he brought down Bruce Reed.
But what if you didn’t? There it was aga
in, the whisper of a strange idea from far away. That thought stopped him, froze him in place. What if you stayed?
His brain supplied the answer. Then he would undoubtedly be as terrible a husband as Ray predicted.
He would always fear deep down that he hadn’t been good enough to return to the marines.
He would disappoint Ella eventually, disappoint them both.
Friendship was all he could offer.
He asked the nurse about Ella’s condition. “We’re waiting on one more blood test,” the nurse said, “but I think she’ll be okay to be released in a couple of hours.”
Thank you, God.
He played down the incident to his family when they called, told them not to come, explained that they were both fine and would be home soon. The local cop who’d already spoken to him earlier was just stepping outside Ella’s room when he got there. “She’s asleep right now, but I think I have enough details to move forward.”
She’d obviously told him what they both believed.
Bruce Reed was behind it. He’d scared Linda Ferron into trapping them with some threat or another.
“Already spoke to Officer Larraby and filled him in,” the cop said. “We’ll continue to look for Linda Ferron and keep you updated on our progress.”
Owen thanked him. After the officer departed, he sat in the chair next to Ella. She looked very small there in the bed, the fringe of her brilliant red hair singed and blackened. He reached over and fingered the burnt ends, anger swelling inside.
Bruce Reed will pay for every single strand, he promised.
His phone buzzed with a text. Why is there no answer from Ella at the house?
Ray. He considered his reply. Felt she and Betsy were safer at the ranch he texted back.
He imagined Ray reading his message, trying to make sense of it.
More threats?
He would not lie to his friend. Yes.
Do whatever you have to, man.
I will.
And don’t let her get too comfortable there at the ranch.
