by Tim Young
They were smuggled into a small, dark cargo room aboard a boat. As the boat raced away, she feared she would never set foot on her homeland again. An hour later the boat stopped, and the men shoved them onto the back of a large truck. The men hauled them through the night to a remote mountainside, where they understood nothing. Not a word spoken, not why they were there, and most frightening, not what fate had in store for them.
As Isabella looked back to the shack she saw that Eduardo was just getting up, but Felipe still slept. No surprise there, but from the distance, her eyes softened as she watched Eduardo mope around the shack. Day by day, she watched as he grew more dejected, which made her sad and stressed. When they met he was so full of life, so vibrant. Even when they were first captured he had such a determination to free his family and get everyone back home safely. To protect his family from these vicious men. But escape was impossible, even for Eduardo. Isabella begrudgingly accepted that early on and turned her attention to her children. Eduardo refused to accept that reality and spent days and months planning, plotting, and testing ideas on how to escape. With only the tools God gave him, he exhaustively tried to tunnel under the high voltage fence. He made progress in the hard ground more than once, but never had time to break through before the captors returned. When they saw the evidence of his digging the first time the men beat him brutally. When they caught him a second time they beat both Eduardo and Felipe with a 2x4. Ultimately, Eduardo was forced to acknowledge that there was nothing he could do without endangering Isabella and the boys and that realization steadily sucked the life out of him. He seemed beaten, utterly dejected, and it broke Isabella’s heart.
Isabella couldn’t afford the luxury of giving up. She had to make life as safe and happy as she could for Felipe and Ozzie.
The black truck continued its ascent. Isabella knew that other prisoners would get their food first before the truck continued on the circular makeshift road, something of a rutted cul-de-sac in the wilderness, with her family its final stop. Then the truck would rev its engine and burp exhaust in her face, providing an all too vivid reminder that her life stank.
“Why didn’t they just leave food when they came a few hours ago?” Isabella asked rhetorically. Ozzie stood behind her.
The truck continued its rounds, sputtering and nearly dying every few minutes, stopping then pulling ahead, like a carrier delivering mail. A hooded man stood in the back of the truck and tossed bags of ready-to-eat food over the fence to a designated drop spot in each camp.
“Finally!” Ozzie softly whispered to his mother as the truck pulled up to its last stop. “I’m starving!”
Ozzie crouched behind his mother as she, too, hunkered down in the buckeye and privet understory, fifty yards from the drop zone. The truck cut its engine. Two men got out and walked to the rear. A third man in the back of the truck jumped the tailgate and landed in a mud puddle. The men surveyed the camp. Their eyes met Eduardo’s.
“That’s the one,” one of the men said very softly, the left half of his cheek ballooned out by a wad of chewing tobacco. “That big ole black sumbitch.” He spit a stream of tobacco juice in the puddle and wiped his lip.
They approached the thick steel gate, unlocked it, and walked inside a six by eight foot caged entrance they used for unloading newbies. They opened another gate that took them into Ozzie’s camp, placed the food ration in the drop zone, and motioned for Eduardo to come inspect it.
Eduardo had learned the hard way to do what the men asked. Hoping, praying that he if gave no trouble, no resistance, then maybe they’d leave his family alone. As he walked, he started to glance in Isabella’s direction and then thought better of it, not wanting to draw attention to her in case the men hadn’t seen her in the bushes. He ambled the twenty yards to the men and stared at the pouches as they opened them, feeling relief to see no surprises. Just the same flavorless, ready-to-eat meal as every other day.
The men turned away and Eduardo looked once more toward Isabella, catching her eyes and offering a reassuring, loving gaze. As he did, a thunderous boom echoed throughout the forest that prompted every living thing to cringe. Blood spewed from Eduardo’s mouth as his world plunged into total darkness. His eyes fixed on Isabella and Ozzie as his body crashed to the ground.
Isabella’s eyes grew wide, full of shock and fear as her heart hammered into her chest. Ozzie stood paralyzed, not feeling the warm urine seeping down his legs. Eduardo lay in the mud, blood oozing from the back of his head where the bullet penetrated, convulsing and gasping on the ground as life left him, choosing for him this remote, desolate prison in which to die. There would be no sympathy cards, no flowers, no mourners. His death would go unnoticed. He would never be free, never see his homeland again.
Adrenaline thrust Isabella from the privet as if hurled from a trebuchet, flailing wildly toward Eduardo. The forest echoed with her shrieking screams as the sound of the gunshot still rang in the ears of all prisoners. Their camps grew alive with consternation and alarm.
The men anticipated the reaction and were ready for Isabella. She ran straight toward Eduardo, seeing him and only him, her one and only love, as if he were the light at the far end of a tunnel. He was all she could think of as she momentarily forgot about the three men, forgot about Ozzie and Felipe. She was crazed with disbelief, with hate and anger, driven to save her soul mate, to be with him once more. As she drew within feet of Eduardo, two men swooped in from the bushes to her left and shoved her hard in the direction of the gate. Knocked off course, she veered to the right and staggered to the gate entrance, hitting the ground nose first. Disoriented and now hurt, she tried to get up, but the men rushed up behind and pushed her into the caged vestibule that was no man’s land between captor and captive, freedom and confinement.
Isabella screamed violently as they locked the door. She rammed the fence like a crazed lunatic bouncing off a padded cell room wall. She screamed piercing cries as only a frantic mother can.
Then, she stopped as suddenly as she began and grew hauntingly silent. She stood and helplessly stared through the cage into Eduardo’s lifeless eyes, only then realizing what she had done. She had left Felipe and Ozzie alone with the killers.
Chapter 2
Blake Savage loved to do “the worm”. And on the first Saturday of September, Blake Savage did “the worm” all the way from Sky Valley to Mountain City as he drove his black 2010 Harley Davidson edition F-150.
Ever since he had been a child, Blake had liked to pretend his hand was an airplane wing when he held it out the car window and let the moving air hit it. As he drove south, Blake rested his left elbow on the open window frame and pointed his hand forward as he kept the palm of his hand parallel to the blurry pavement. He slanted his fingers down, allowing the relative wind to hit the back of his hand and force the worm to dive, he imagined, before raising his fingers and letting the worm rise as the air blasted against the palm of his hand. A kid on the side of the road pointed and laughed as Blake rode by with his arm moving up and down like a flying serpent. Up and down, up and down, Blake’s worm inched southbound on Route 441.
Blake put his hand back on the wheel as he banged a right on Wolf Fork Road at the sign that read Black Rock Farm - Pastured Poultry and Grassfed Beef. Wolf Fork Road divided the mountainous terrain of Black Rock to his left from the fertile valley farmland to his right. Acres of corn stood ready for the harvest, and Blake found himself wondering how the farmers would go about harvesting the endless sea of corn. Too much to do by hand, he figured, as he bit off a third of the McChicken sandwich he had just bought for a buck. He put the uneaten portion on the console and stared at the neat rows of corn and pondered. Probably a combine or a bush hog, he said to himself, or something like that. Growing up, Blake had been interested in only one thing, and it wasn’t farming.
Past the cornfield was another type of farm. Ten large houses lay side by side, each much longer than a football field. About a dozen ventilation fans larger than Blake’s truc
k were stuck on each house. Blake scouted the farm as he slowed his truck, but didn’t see a single person or animal, just a hauling truck that was fully loaded with crates of chickens. It looked as if it was ready to pull out. Blake read the sign at the entrance:
McReek Poultry Farms
For Bio-Security Reasons
NO UNAUTHORIZED VISITORS
Blake drove for another half mile until he reached the home of Gus Wyatt, owner of Black Rock Farm. The F-150 pulled onto the gravel drive and Blake parked next to a metal building. He got out and didn’t see anyone right away, but announcers loudly calling the Bulldogs game on the radio suggested that Gus was probably close by. In the field next to the house, Blake saw what looked like a flock of wild turkeys. Some were perched on a line of large, wooden cages that were neatly lined across the field. He walked over and was shocked that the turkeys not only didn’t flee, they came right up to him. Bending over, Blake peered into the cages and began counting the number of plump white chickens that were crammed inside one. Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty—
“Blake!” Blake nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned and saw a man standing tall and leering over him, covered in blood and holding a knife. Blake exhaled deeply.
“Hey, Gus,” Blake said. “I was just looking at these chickens and wild turkeys.”
Gus laughed. “Those aren’t wild turkeys, Blake. We raise them for folks to eat on Thanksgiving. They’re called Heritage Turkeys.”
Blake eyed one of the turkeys and thought that it looked like a prehistoric creature. “Hey, I got another load of bones in the back of the truck for you to grind for me,” he said.
“Let’s take a look,” Gus said. They walked over to Blake’s truck. Blake pulled a tarp back to reveal a truck bed almost overflowing with bones.
“Well,” Gus began, “the grinder is already hooked up to the back of the tractor. Seeing as you’re parked beside it, just throw the bones in the top of the grinder and I’ll grind them into your bone meal after we finish killing chickens over here.”
Blake climbed into the back of the truck and began tossing the bones into the grinder. The radio blared loudly from the shed as announcers discussed a player injury.
“You been listening to the game in Athens, Blake? Dawgs and the Gamecocks?”
“No. Been running around doing errands.”
“Well, that Georgia quarterback got hurt pretty bad a second ago. Took him out on a stretcher.”
Blake felt his tension rise. He shrugged at Gus and kept tossing bones.
“Yeah well—hell, he ain’t half the quarterback you were, Blake. Couldn’t carry your spit bucket if you ask me.” Gus began walking over to a large walk-in freezer and looked back over his shoulder to Blake. “I’ll get the coolers of chicken and beef ready for you to take to The Federal.”
Blake clenched his jaw and looked down at the blood-stained bones. Grabbing a femur, he threw it as hard as he could into the grinder. The force of the impact shattered pieces of smaller bones.
Gus wheeled a couple of large coolers over as Blake jumped out of the truck bed.
“Let’s just put those in the back seat to keep ’em clean,” Blake said.
“Good thinking,” Gus said. Blake hoisted the coolers into the back seat of the truck, closed the door, and hopped in the front.
“I gotta hit the road, Gus. Told Nick I’d be in Athens by 3:30 or 4:00.” Blake hesitated a second. “Let me know when you need me to do any more deliveries for you.” Blake put it in reverse and began to back up.
“Sure thing, Blake. I expect in a couple of weeks.”
As Blake began to drive slowly forward Gus shouted, “Say, when you and that pretty wife of yours gonna have some young’uns?”
Blake looked back and shrugged his shoulders. He rolled up the window, gripped the steering wheel, and twisted his hands, as if he were trying to wring it out. He was in no mood to do “the worm.” Instead, he ground his teeth side to side.
As he pulled out of Black Rock Farm and onto Wolf Fork Road, the truck hauling chickens cut in front of him and began shifting gears. A foul smell slapped Blake’s nostrils open: a mixture of feces, feathers, ammonia and bedding. The heavy odor wafted forcefully into the truck as Blake rolled the windows up. As the windows closed, he grimaced and tried to decide if he had locked the smell in the truck. He rolled the windows back down, and his nostrils were pummeled once again with stench.
“Goddamit,” he exclaimed. As he fought through the vile smell, his mind drifted to the things Gus had said. Innocent remarks and questions that induced a rage to stew and burn within. “It’s none of his damned business if we’re gonna have kids or not!” Blake fumed. But it wasn’t the question about a baby that infuriated him. He just couldn’t escape the reminders about football, about the fame and fortune of the NFL that was almost his. Should have been mine!
Blake gripped the wheel tightly as he stared at the dispirited birds packed tightly in the cages on the truck in front of him. The chickens lay placidly, either unable or unmotivated to move. The truck rounded a sharp corner allowing Blake to see the McReek Trucking logo on the side. As the truck picked up speed, one of the birds was thrown out and landed in the middle of the pavement with a splat. It tasted freedom for the first time and looked around with bewilderment.
Furrowing his eyebrows at the chicken, Blake swerved his truck. He lined the chicken up with his front left tire the way he often took aim at a discarded soda can. He stepped on the gas and ran straight over the hapless chicken, first with his front tire and then with his rear as his truck bounced down the road.
“Stupid chicken,” Blake said, still fuming.
He glanced at the rearview mirror to see the bird’s flattened carcass centered in the road, and cocked his head in surprise as a raven landed swiftly and hopped to stake its claim. Blake turned south on 441 and finished off his uneaten McChicken sandwich as he headed toward Athens.
Chapter 3
Angelica Savage marveled at the delicate silk teepee in the forks of Nancy’s fig tree. Every spring the tent caterpillars emerged, just as sure as the daffodils and yellow bells, and every winter they left behind egg masses to overwinter. And each winter she failed to remove the masses, thus allowing them to hatch the following spring. She had no desire to harm them or anything else, for that matter, but she couldn’t let them damage Nancy’s Tree.
Smiling at nature’s dew-covered masterpiece, she indulged in a moment of peace as she closed her eyes and thought about Nancy. There were no distractions in the sanctuary that Angelica had created, a secret garden in a forest clearing. The only access was a winding path from the house she and Blake had bought 300 yards away that was set well back off of Hale Ridge Road. She still couldn’t believe how lucky they had been to get this piece of land three years earlier, twelve acres for themselves surrounded by almost 100,000 acres of federal land, mostly densely wooded terrain up and around Rabun Bald. Might as well say it’s all ours, Angelica reasoned. It was far too much land for her to contemplate and she desperately needed a smaller place for herself, something akin to a pastoral altar. So she had painstakingly cleared the path by hand once she stumbled on the brookside clearing, just after Nancy...
“Oh Nancy,” Angelica sighed. Her shoulders collapsed, like a brick set on top of a house of cards.
Angelica bent down with the grace befitting her name, picked up a small stick, and gently brushed aside the silky mass. Very tenderly, she placed each caterpillar in a cup. She stared into the cup realizing, at least for the moment, that she was their God, in control of their fate. She was their captor, they were her prisoners. What must they think, having been abruptly confined to something as unnatural as a cup, looking up at Angelica’s raven colored hair and eyes as green as the forest moss? Maybe they thought she was an angel; perhaps one or two worried that she was an evil monster with glowing, green eyes.
With her long, slender fingers, Angelica reached in and picked out a chosen one for inspection. “Hello, li
ttle one,” she whispered before gently scolding the creature. “Now you and your friends have to stay away from that tree, okay?” And the little fellow was returned to the cup, eager to share the word of his God. Angelica walked to the far side of the garden and softly poured the contents on the ground underneath a mountain laurel. “There you go,” she said, before strolling back to Nancy’s Tree.
It had taken over a year for Angelica to be able to stand at the tree without bursting into tears, hating herself, feeling hopeless, helpless, and searching for understanding. Even questioning God. But two years had now passed since she alone had buried tiny little Nancy here. Now, finally, she had reason to be hopeful again. Still, the memory of the miscarriage haunted her. Twelve weeks, she had that time with Nancy before the bleeding began. That fact alone was enough to strike fear into any young woman’s heart. Then the cramps arrived and prompted a panicked trip to the doctor. Angelica feared the worst all the way.
Why is it, she thought, that anytime someone wants something...needs something as badly as I wanted and needed that baby, they can’t enjoy the journey? Instead, they have to live in a state of fear that they will be denied, that somehow they’re not worthy.
The ultrasound lived up to her fears, revealing no heartbeat and showing a fetus about the size of a nine-week old, meaning that the fetus, Nancy, had probably died a few weeks earlier. It was that realization more than any other that haunted Angelica; that Nancy had died, and Angelica, her own mother, didn’t know and didn’t do anything to save her baby. The emotional toll was almost unbearable. Angelica had never felt such a stew of emotions. The self-blame, the grief and the guilt were overwhelming. Sorrow penetrated every cell of her being, for her alone to digest.
