The Letter Keeper

by Charles Martin

  I didn’t know how much time that would buy me, but every second counted, so I returned to the house where Gunner and I watched the bus as the sun came up.

  Just after daylight, the bus door cracked open and Amazon woman walked to the smaller cabin, where she peeked through the window and the cracked curtain. Seeing the driver “asleep,” she turned toward the bigger cabin. Thinking she was headed for either the bathroom or kitchen, I stood in the shadows, able to meet her going either direction. Gunner alongside me. I couldn’t risk the sound of a gunshot, so I grabbed a solid wood cutting board. Not ideal but it would work.

  She stepped onto the porch, pushed open the door, and didn’t immediately turn on the light. She turned right, away from me and toward the only locked door in the house. She unlocked it with a key hanging around her neck and pulled open the door, which showered us in blue light emitting from multiple screens. She had been sent to monitor the feed. She sat in a chair and began clicking files, bringing up the last several hours of recording. Quickly, she used software to scan sixteen camera feeds, many of which I never saw. The software stopped anytime movement was detected and gave her the chance to continue or zoom in. Showing experience and dexterity, she continued rapidly through several animals until she got to me.

  At least nine cameras had recorded my and Gunner’s advance on the cabin. Not to mention infrared. When my face first hit the screen, she reached for her phone but never finished dialing because I brought the cutting board down across her head, resulting in what I could only imagine was a rather nasty concussion. Hard to tell, but as I was swinging all I could see in my mind’s eye was Summer sitting with Ellie. The effect of that image on me was not good on the Amazon. I dragged her bound to one of the bedrooms and shoved her in a closet.

  I knew when she didn’t return in a reasonable time that soda man would exit the bus. And as much as I wanted to simply shoot him in the face and be done with it, we needed him to be able to talk. We needed to know who was paying them.

  A few minutes later, soda man did as expected and entered the house, where he immediately turned on the lights and called out, “Jody?”

  When Jody didn’t answer, he unholstered and then suppressed a CZ 75 and began walking toward the media room. I own several CZs, and one thing I know for certain is that I don’t want to get shot by any of them. A 9mm exiting any barrel is still a 9mm. Suppressed or not.

  He cracked open the door. When he saw Jody wasn’t where she should be, he turned and was met by me and the cutting board. I broke his nose and he dropped the CZ, but the rest of his reactions were catlike. He rolled and, within a millisecond, had me rolling on the ground with him. Somewhere in there I saw a flash, and when I reached for it, my hand told me it was a knife.

  I hate knives.

  He’d obviously been a butcher in a former life because he handled it with dexterity. Sixty seconds later, I was bleeding out of five holes and he had managed to get me in a choke hold. My walls were closing in so I brought in the reserves.

  “Choctaw!”

  Gunner leapt at him, latched hold of the muscle just below his groin, and began tearing at the man, who started squealing and immediately let go of me. Tiring of this circus act, I drew the Sig and blew out his right knee. But driven by either rage or reaction, he continued slicing at me unfazed, so I blew out the other as well. That second bullet distracted him long enough for me to get untangled and pull Gunner off him before he went to work on my dog with his knife. Thus far, I’d worked to keep him alive—but if he hurt my dog, that would change quickly.

  I dodged the knife one last time, sidestepped, and kicked him in the head, finally putting him to sleep. While he was unconscious, I cut two curtain cords and made two tourniquets, because as much as I didn’t like him, I didn’t want him to bleed out before we had a chance to talk to him. What he did after that would be up to him.

  “Bones?”

  “Check.”

  “See any movement around me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You need to hurry. I’ve got these three mopped up, but I got a funny feeling.” I studied my surroundings, especially the media room. Something just was not right. “This was too easy. Someone else had to be monitoring these cameras remotely. There are enough electronics in that room to supply NASA. We need to get everyone out of here before somebody sends reinforcements.”

  “Twenty minutes out.”

  I had a feeling he was close. He was never one to let me have all the fun.

  I crossed the driveway and pulled open the bus door. When I did, Summer—followed by Casey and Angel—jumped on me like spider monkeys and commenced beating the life out of me. They got in six or eight lip-busting blows and somebody kicked me in the groin before I said, “Hey! It’s me. It’s me!”

  In their minds, they were all fighting for their lives, so my words didn’t immediately register. What did get their attention was a really friendly dog trying to lick their faces off.

  Summer finally came to, stopped trying to gouge out my eyes, and grabbed my face in her hands. “Murph!?”

  Evidently, soda pop boy had gotten the better of me and I wasn’t looking too fresh, because she said, “What happened to your face?”

  At this point, I was lying on my back while the three of them sat on me. I pointed inside the house. All three were staring at me in shock. Summer asked, “Are we okay?”

  I tried to sit up. “I was about to ask you that.”

  From there all three of them started talking a thousand miles an hour, and I couldn’t make out or get in a word. Finally, I held up my hands. “Where’s Ellie?”

  I had held it together pretty well until then, but when I walked into the room and Ellie started sobbing uncontrollably, I lost it a little. With Ellie literally chained to the wall, I returned to soda pop boy, who smiled and started laughing when I began searching for the keys. So I lifted the cutting board and relieved him of all the teeth in the front of his mouth.

  When I unlocked her cuffs and ankle fetters, Ellie threw her arms around me and wouldn’t let me go, so I carried her out of the bus and we collapsed in the snow, where she pressed her face to my chest and screamed. All I could feel was her heart beating 180 beats a minute, so I carried her into the house and set her on the couch in the living room where Angel was busy making a fire.

  When finished, she latched her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek, saying, “Padre, if you weren’t married to my mom, I’d make out with you right now.” She then put her hand on her hip. “And I don’t know much about much, but if there’s tequila in this house, I’m about to add it to my hot chocolate.”

  Returning to the smaller cabin, I found the driver awake and staring at me but unmoving and unable to do so. I poked my head in the door. “You good?” He nodded and tried to mutter something, but the gag prevented any real noise from leaving his mouth. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  When I returned outside, Casey met me. Waiting on me. Behind her, standing on the porch, Summer stood with her arms crossed, watching from the house with concern on her face.

  Casey was shaking. Hands, face, lips. The dam she’d held back was starting to crack right in front of me. I tried to make eye contact but she was not behind her eyes. At some point since being taken, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, she’d checked out. The pain had been too much. She couldn’t go back there.

  Her voice broke when she spoke. “You said you’d come for me.”

  “I did.”

  “But you really did it.”

  “Casey, I’m sorry. We should have done a better job of—”

  “But you . . . you really came for us.”

  “Told you I would.”

  She shook her head. “Those were just words. This . . .” She touched the blood trailing down my arm. The puncture in my bicep. Another in my shoulder. The gashes on my neck and face. “These are not words.” The look on her face expressed total disbelief. “Why would you do this? Don’t you know?”

 
“Know what?”

  “Who I am.”

  I held both of her hands in mine and then lifted them to my face. With her palms on my cheeks, I reached out and placed mine on hers. We stood there nearly a minute while I said, “Casey . . .” Still no eye contact. “Casey . . .”

  After nearly two minutes, she blinked, her pupils darted to the side, and then the light returned. She blinked again, focused, and I was looking at Casey. When she came back and stood behind her eyes, she saw me. And her. And all of us. And she smiled and fell into my arms.

  Which I thought was a good sign.

  While I held her, she just kept saying over and over, “You came for us. You came for us . . .”

  A few minutes later, Bones drove the Suburban into the drive and found us sitting in front of a roaring fire. The girls were alternating between crying on the couch, making hot chocolate, snuggling with Gunner, and staring at the closed door of the room currently echoing with obscenities. While Bones debriefed with Angel and Casey, and then sat with his arm around Ellie, Summer tended to my wounds—which were many. I was more swiss cheese than man. Soda-pop boy had skill, and my adrenaline had been pumping so fast I didn’t take notice of it. That’s the problem with a knife. You never know until it’s too late.

  She turned to Bones. “He’d better get some stitches on a few of these.”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  Summer stuck a stiletto finger in my face and shook her head. “Not another word out of you.”

  I loved the way she fought for me.

  Bones nodded and began making arrangements to get me checked into the nearest ER, which was an hour away. When he suggested that everyone climb into the bus, they revolted, saying they were never climbing in that thing again.

  I didn’t blame them.

  Bones put in a call, and both federal and local authorities would be here within the hour, but we didn’t plan to wait around. We also knew that while the girls didn’t want anything to do with that bus, we needed to disassemble it because it might help us determine where it came from or who had programmed it.

  We decided Bones would drive the girls in the Suburban. Summer and I would follow in the bus. I’d never driven one, but how difficult could it be? Having finished her hot chocolate, Angel stood, walked to the closed door, and pushed it open. Below her, spread across the floor, lay two of her captors. Seeing her, she was met by the rather arrogant voice of soda man saying, “What do you think you’re doing, bi—”

  He got the b and i out his mouth about the time I heard bone snapping and soda man screaming, followed quickly by another snapping sound and Amazon screaming at the top of her lungs. I jumped to the door to find Angel hovering over both like Cassius Clay standing over Sonny Liston.

  “Angel?”

  She turned and glanced at me, but her eyes were lit up like rubies so I left her alone. Kneeling, she whispered something to the both of them, then exited the room and climbed into the Suburban, followed by Ellie and Casey.

  Bones watched all of this with mild amusement.

  With the sun just breaking the skyline, Bones drove the girls out the drive. We were headed down into Fort Smith to find someone to sew me back together. I cranked the bus engine, put her in drive, and began circling the drive when I remembered my crossbow. I shifted to park, told Gunner to stay, and jogged around the house and out across the backyard. Weaving through the trees, I returned to my hiding spot, but there was a problem.

  My crossbow was gone.

  I studied the ground around me, making sure I was in the right place. Judging from the footprints left in the dusting of snow, I was. Having stashed the weapon in the dark and now searching for it in the light, I knew shapes and angles could play tricks on me, so I retraced my steps and tried to reenact what I’d done when I left it. All my double-checking brought me to the same spot. There was no mistake. I was certain.

  I studied the ground below me. That was about the time I noticed the footprint that was not mine.

  Chapter 37

  A crossbow makes a distinct click followed by a phhhtt as the trigger is depressed, releasing the string and sending the arrow toward its target. Incidentally, the speed of sound is 1,125 feet per second, while the speed of the bolt leaving my Mission crossbow is 410 feet per second. That means the sound of the click and phhhtt touched my eardrum and sent a signal to my brain only a millisecond before the bolt entered my back and exited my stomach. My eyes picked up the flight of the bolt after it passed through me and sailed out across the canyon, allowing me to register the color of the bolt, which was now red.

  That’s not good.

  I knew that to stand here was not smart. Even a novice shooter can cock and reload in just a few seconds. I attempted to take a step but quickly learned that while the bolt had not passed through my spine or spinal column, it had gone through me a few inches to the left, which meant it cut the muscles in my back and stomach required to lift my legs. With the first attempt unsuccessful, I tried again to move but fared no better. In fact, I made things worse. The second frantic attempt threw my body weight forward while unsupported by my legs, which meant I began falling.

  Which was bad given that I stood only feet from the edge of the canyon wall.

  My forward fall landed me on the edge while my body weight pushed me over the icy precipice. Unable to find purchase, I began tumbling. The thought cycling through my mind struck me as strange: I can’t believe someone just shot me with my own crossbow.

  The canyon wall was not a straight drop. Vertical, yes, but more seventy-five degrees than ninety. The snow-covered descent hindered my plummet and began spinning me like a snowball. By the time I reached the bottom, I was flying. While most of the canyon wall flared outward toward the water, the final thirty-plus feet did not. The wall launched me out into the air where I began freefalling.

  A half second later I met the water, and what air had not been knocked out of me by the sheer rock face of the canyon was sucked out of me by the surface of the water. Not to mention the cold.

  Because the river flowed, it had not frozen, but the temperature was still freezing. My body registered the cold, shock set in, and I knew I had very few seconds to make it to the edge. Pulling with my right arm, I dog-paddled to a rock wall. For several seconds I fought to keep my head above water and stop my flow downriver but was hindered from doing so. To complicate matters, I had landed in a collection of driftwood, which simply spun on top of the water every time I tried to grab it. Losing air and strength, I looped one arm around a cut timber bigger than me. And for whatever reason, it didn’t spin. I threw my right leg over, pulled myself up, and lay across the log. A perfect target for someone from above. As the water pulled me downriver and around the first bend, I looked up and saw how the last forty or so feet of the rock wall fell straight down and then curved inward, where the river had cut farther into the rock face over thousands of years of flow. This feature alone might have saved my life, because whoever had shot me with my own crossbow was probably standing up there searching the water below, yet was prevented from seeing me by the physical nature of the rock.

  I don’t know how long I floated, but the cold overtook me. The only warmth I felt was below me where the blood seeped out of the hole in my stomach. Somewhere in there I passed out.

  When I woke, I found myself wedged against another canyon wall that looked like all the rest in a collection of similarly sized timbers. I tried to move, but I’d nearly frozen and a stiffness akin to rigor mortis had set in. I knew if I didn’t get off that log I’d be dead in minutes, so I scratched and clawed my way off and into the shallow water. Mustering my strength, I crawled up the bank and dragged my waterlogged body along the frozen ground. I tried to stand. Couldn’t. Tried again. Made it to my knees, but this only pushed more warm fluid out of my torso. I pressed my left hand against the hole and began clawing and climbing my way up the small embankment. I didn’t know how far I’d floated or who was above me and whether they were coming d
own to find me, but I wasn’t going to hang around to find out. The only good thing I could report was daylight—I wasn’t attempting this in the dark.

  Now generating body heat, I managed to get my muscles moving and climbed fifty or sixty feet up the canyon, which, fortunately for me, was now more forty-five degrees than ninety. Knowing I couldn’t press it much farther, I began looking for a hole. Someplace to get out of the wind and make a fire. If I didn’t get warm quickly, I’d die before the hole in my stomach killed me.

  A few more feet and I climbed into a shadow. Which struck me as strange because the sun was climbing and the sky above was cloudless. Looking up, I discovered I’d climbed into the mouth of a cave. A cylinder carved by the water when the river level flowed here. The cavity was large enough to stand in and maybe fifteen feet deep.

  I collapsed at the mouth, caught my breath, and dragged my body under and into the opening. I lay there trying to catch my breath, knowing I needed to do something to stop the flow of blood but also knowing I needed fire first.

  That’s when I noticed I was not the first person to visit this cave. Not by a long shot.

  To my left sat a pile of driftwood. Dry driftwood. Collected in days past by some angel of mercy. Judging by the sight of the serpentine footpath that climbed up from the river’s edge, this must have been a popular spot in summer. Folks would travel several miles upriver from Okabeh Marina, tie up to a stake or boulder, and then backpack provisions up the last fifty feet for the weekend.

  I carved some wood shavings, collected them into a pile, and had to be careful not to cut off my own hand given that I was shivering so badly. Having created a pile, I then snapped and stacked the smallest driftwood and dug my Zippo out of my pocket. The wood was too cold and I didn’t have enough tinder to think I could just light some of the shavings and start a fire. I knew better. I needed fuel. I could disassemble several of the .45 ACP cartridges from my Sig, pouring the gunpowder on the shavings, but I had one other option I thought I’d try before I rid myself of the only way to defend myself.