by H L Stephens
The other prize we brought home that day from the fair was a tiny goldfish that I named Herman. After seven years of tender care and life in a fifty gallon tank we got at a yard sale, Herman was the size of a small Buick.
"What about Herman?" I said. "I can't take him with me."
"I'll look after him," Iggie said.
I looked at Iggie with tremendous skepticism.
"Iggie, you killed an air plant from neglect," I said. "No one can kill an air plant. They live on air."
"I know that," Iggie said. "This is different. I wasn't motivated with the air plant. I'll take good care of Herman. You'll see."
When I looked at Iggie, I saw his eyes were rimmed with red. He was as near to tears as I was. He needed to do this for me, or at least he needed to feel as though I trusted him to do it.
"Okay Iggie," I said, "but the tank stays here, and you coordinate Herman's care with my dad."
Iggie's face brightened a bit.
"You mean it?" he asked.
I dreaded what I was about to say.
"Yes, Iggie," I replied. "You can take care of Herman."
My dad walked in just as Iggie was giving me a bear hug.
"You two alright in here?" he asked.
Iggie let go of me and straightened up as if he was suddenly confronted by a drill instructor.
"Yes sir," Iggie said. "Jane just said I could take care of Herman while she is away, and I was thanking her, sir."
I was expecting him to salute my dad at any moment.
"That's fine son," my dad said. His brow was crinkled like he wasn't quite certain if Iggie was in his right mind or not, but all he said was, "I need a few moments alone with Jane, if that's alright. Mrs. MacLeod has some nice refreshments downstairs if you are hungry."
Iggie was always hungry. He had to feed his constant growth spurts and needed little encouragement when it came to partaking of food.
"Thank you sir," Iggie said, as he rushed through the door. I could hear him stumble down the stairs in high gear like he was a fireman running to a five alarm fire. My dad and I laughed.
"That boy's got more problems than a math book," my dad said with a chuckle. "It's one of the many reasons why I like him. He's odd, but he's as genuine as it gets."
"You said you needed to talk to me Daddy?" I asked as I tucked another shirt around Bernard.
"Yeah pumpkin, I do, and this is serious," he said as he sat down on the bed.
"Every discussion we have had in the last two days has been pretty serious," I replied as I took a seat beside him.
"This is a little different Jane," he said. His features were intense; almost primal as he looked into my eyes. "This is about life and death. I want you to take this." My dad handed me a boot knife with a leather sheath. He showed me how to strap it on and conceal it beneath my pants. He then proceeded to show me how to release it and hold it safely and securely in my hand.
"I don't understand," I said. "What is this for?"
"Last resort Jane," he said. "The people who are hunting you are brutal, as you well know. They will not hesitate to kill you if they can get their hands on you. If you find yourself in a situation where someone has you in their grasp, you aim to kill; you understand me? I don't care what they say to you. What they threaten you with or what assurances they offer you. Don't you let them take you anywhere. You trust your gut, and if your gut starts to twisting, you cut and run just as fast as you can, and don't you hesitate."
"What do I cut?" I asked.
I could feel my heart racing as if I was staring danger in the face at that very moment. We had never talked of such things before. Even when we had gone fishing over the years, we had thrown back everything we had caught because it bothered me too much to kill another living creature. I was so tenderhearted as a child, I once cried for half an hour because I watched the light dim in a dying lightning bug I had caught.
"Remember, surprise is your best advantage," he said. "If someone comes up behind you and tries to choke you or something like that, if you can, push back against them as hard and as fast as you can to take away their leverage. If you can grab your boot knife, use it to cut the tendons in the arm that is holding you. I guarantee if your strike cuts deep enough, the person attacking you will let go. Then aim for the femoral artery right near the groin. If you can't reach the femoral artery, then aim for the carotid artery here at the neck. Again, speed and surprise are your greatest allies. I know this is hard for you to imagine doing pumpkin, but you must be brave about it. You must show no mercy, and you must not hesitate if it ever comes down to such a moment. These people aren't playing around. If you're gonna strike, make it count." My dad took my hands in his. "You gotta promise to come back to me pumpkin."
"I promise Daddy," I said.
My voice sounded small in the face of such an enormous demand. I always kept my word, but some promises are harder to keep than others. I discovered as time marched on, my promise to return home would be the hardest promise I would ever have to try and keep.
After the rushed tutorial on bleeding an attacker through arterial severing, my father and I gathered the rest of my things together and went downstairs to wait for Agent Howard to arrive. Iggie was pensive, my mom was miserable, my dad was restless, and I was sick to my stomach. I kept close watch on the nearest trash can just in case I needed to make use of it.
When Agent Howard knocked on the screen door announcing he was ready to collect me, I finally lost the battle with my stomach and heaved my breakfast into the wastebasket by the couch. Iggie held the can while my dad held my hair and my mom got me something to rinse out my mouth.
"What the hell's wrong with her?" Agent Howard asked as he walked into the room.
"She just has a nervous stomach," replied my mom in a gentle tone as she returned with a glass of water. "She'll be fine in just a bit."
When we were pretty sure my heaving was done, she led me to the bathroom and helped me wash up. I cried on her shoulder away from the eyes of everyone else. I felt as small as I had when I first arrived. Here I was tossing my cookies before I had even taken the first step out of the house. How in the hell was I going to handle an extended separation? The tears washed over me in an anguished torrent.
"There, there baby girl," my mom cooed. "Everything is going to be alright. You'll see."
Part of me wondered if she believed what she was saying, but the other part of me - the part that needed the reassurance she offered - clung to her words.
"You know, this reminds me of the story of my great, great grandmother," she said, leading me over to the edge of the tub so I could sit for a moment and collect myself. "No one really knows what her real name was, but in the stories that were passed down to me, she was known as Mutter, which means 'mother' in German. It was the name everyone called her back in her home country. Her story is more legend in our family, but it's believed that Mutter was the bastard child of a noble lady and a Bavarian lord; a lord who wasn't her husband. Mutter was forced to raise her legitimate brothers and sisters while her lordly mother and father went about their high falutin' business. Hers was a sad life, but it was all she ever knew.
"One day, her parents told her she had to leave Bavaria. She was being married off to a man she didn't know who was heading to America. It was her parent's way of ridding themselves of the reminder of her mother's shame. Mutter didn't have a choice. Back then, women did what they were told in such matters, so she packed up her few possessions and went to this new life that was forced on her.
"Some say Mutter had a love in Bavaria that she regrettably left behind. Some say she didn't. The point is dear Jane, she left all she knew and loved because she had to. Mutter was brave, and she faced her new adventure with the kind of heart only the women in our family can have. So baby girl, I am asking you to be like Mutter and be brave in the face of all of this. None of us want you to leave. The difference between your story and Mutter's story is that we want you here, but you must go all the same. It i
s not forever though. I don't care what Agent Howard or the FBI says. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
"I think so," I said.
"Good." My mom kissed my forehead. "Now to the second reason for my bringing you in here. I know Agent Howard said you wouldn't be able to contact us for a long time because people might be monitoring the house. Do you remember the secret codes you and I developed when you were growing up?" I nodded that I did. "I have an idea."
She smiled one of her secret smiles that meant she was up to no good.
"If you ever need to reach your dad and me, you use that secret code," she said. "Keep your messages short. That'll make it harder for anyone to crack them if they are intercepted. Remember everything I taught you, and whatever you do, hold onto the stories I have told you, Jane. They are a part of your history as well as mine. Now, this is the most important thing I am going to say. I need you to remember this. They can't keep us apart forever."
If only my mother knew what the future held for us all, she might not have been so certain about our reunion.
We finished in the bathroom and joined everyone back in the living room. Agent Howard was the only one who didn't ask if I was better.
All he asked, "You're not going to puke on my floorboard, are you kid?"
My dad gave him a look that could wither an oak, and Agent Howard kept any other witty comments to himself.
"We should get going," Agent Howard said. "You've already wasted enough time with the vomitorium routine. The longer we stay here, the more likely we are to be discovered. Only a handful of people know I am here, but we need to get moving if we are going to rendezvous with the agents who are going to take the kid to the safe house." Agent Howard looked at me. "Your stuff is already in the car. I'll be out there waiting."
Agent Howard didn't say anything else. He walked out the screen door and let it slam against the door jamb as his departing last word. I felt the pit return to my stomach.
"It'll be okay pumpkin," my dad said. He put his arms around me. He could always read when I was upset. "We knew we would have to say goodbye at some point today, and we knew that moment wasn't going to be easy. Come on, we'll walk you out to the car."
It felt like we were walking a dusty plank out to shark infested waters. I was walking right into the jaws of the devil himself, wrapped in the guise of a delivering angel; an angel with mustard stains on his shirt. Everything inside of me screamed that I should run away from this man. My guts wrenched again in protest, and yet I continued in my march towards my destiny. I should have listened to my gut.
I wanted to shriek that I could not do this; that I would not do this. But I kept quiet. My lips wouldn't move. My throat remained stubbornly closed. I struggled just to get air into my lungs. I was dying inside. My heart was turning to stone once more. The icy fingers that had gripped me so fiercely when I first arrived were once again caressing my insides. I had not felt that wintery touch in years, but as I faced separation from all I held dear, I sensed its return. With the cold would come the nightmares.
I hugged and kissed my family goodbye as we stood around the devil's car. I even hugged and kissed Iggie who blushed thirty shades of red. I clung to my dad when I came back around to him for another hug and kiss. I didn't want to let go of him, and from the strength of his arms around me, he didn't want to let go either. I could feel a sob rising in my throat ready to burst forth at any moment when Agent Howard laid down on the horn. The sob receded, and I slowly let go.
"I guess it's time pumpkin," my dad said, opening the car door for me.
"Yeah."
A single tear coursed down my cheek. My dad wiped it away and stroked my hair.
"Don't you fret baby girl," he said. "There isn't any corner of the world where I won't come find you if you need me. That is a promise. I don't care what they say. If you need me for anything, you get to a phone, and you call me."
"I will." I gave my dad one last kiss and started to get into the car. "Oh, Daddy, please don't let Iggie kill Herman," I added as I sat down.
I gave him a weak grin. I was trying with all my heart to be brave, but I felt like Jello inside; all wobbly with no substance.
"I'll make sure he doesn't," he said.
My dad had barely closed the door when Agent Howard slammed the car in drive like he was at an Indy 500 qualifier and skirted down the dirt road that ushered us away from my happy home. I could just make out the waves of goodbye through the dust storm he created. It was the last I would see of my family and Iggie and little dusty Ironco, Texas in this life as innocent Jane MacLeod.
Angel of Death
The miles boiled past the window of the sedan in endless succession as we drove for hours in silence. My heart was filled with sorrow and dread for the first few hundred miles. It was then overtaken by boredom and uncertainty. We stopped once for gas, but Agent Howard wouldn't let me get out of the car. He said it was too dangerous.
"The organization has eyes everywhere," he said.
He filled up the car and two containers he had in the trunk with gas and then went inside. I riffled through his things while he was away and took a peak at the map. Nothing was marked on it as far as routes were concerned, but I could tell by our direction that something was wrong. We weren't heading toward any major cities, towns, villages, or even minor blips. We were driving towards no-man's-land, and it was making me nervous. I replaced the map where Agent Howard had tossed it and waited for him to return; all the while feeling the pit in my stomach grow. Agent Howard tossed a bag of chips at me when he got back into the car.
"Here," he said, "I thought you might be hungry." He had a gas station hotdog with gobs of mustard and onions on it and a giant soda to wash it down.
"Did it ever occur to you that I might want a hotdog too?" I asked as I fingered the bag of chips.
"Don't press your luck kid," he said as a glop of mustard landed on his stomach. "Eat your chips and be grateful. You can harass your next keepers about food when we get where we're going."
"Where are we going exactly?" I asked, looking at a landscape that was becoming more and more barren with every mile.
"You'll see," was all Agent Howard said.
After another hour, I found myself humming Road to Nowhere. After another hour, I started singing the words under my breath. Agent Howard told me to shut up twice.
"What?" I asked. I then tortured him with songs from Oklahoma and West Side Story. I was just beginning to enjoy myself with my third round of Singing in the Rain when Agent Howard turned down a gravel road, and I saw the edge of an old, abandoned quarry appear in the distance. The pit in my stomach became a ragged boulder that churned and cut the inside of my belly.
"What are we doing here?" I asked. My voice cracked in the asking.
Agent Howard's mouth flickered with an imperceptible smile that disappeared as soon as it materialized.
"This is our rendezvous place," he said.
"This doesn't look like much of a rendezvous place," I replied. "Shouldn't we be meeting at a roach infested motel or some dive-y diner with greasy, indigestible food somewhere? I thought that would be standard protocol for the FBI in cases like this." I tried to chuckle but even I thought it sounded forced.
"We thought this would be a safer place to meet," Agent Howard said. "Fewer eyes to see you."
And no one to hear me scream.
I started memorizing the landscape. Something told me I might need a good place to hide or run to. Knowing something about the terrain might give me an advantage or at least a fighting chance if it came down to it, but there wasn't much in the way of hiding places. The landscape was barren, filled with scrub brush and scraggly trees that eked out their existence from the small amount of rain that fell in this arid climate.
We pulled up near the upper edge of the quarry. Piles of rubble were strewn everywhere, discarded at the bottom of the quarry's pit as a testimony to the years spent excavating for mineral wonders within the earth. It was abandoned lo
ng before my parents were born. Nature had done its best to reclaim what it had once owned, but the process was a slow one in a land where nothing thrived.
A muddy pool lay directly below us. Its depth was impossible to gauge, but it had withstood evaporation from the brutal heat. The minerals in the surrounding ground had painted it brilliant shades of green, blue, and yellow. It might have been more beautiful had the moment of its viewing not been so ominous.
"Where are these other agents?" I asked as we sat there staring over the edge of the quarry. My stomach bolder rolled a few times, churning the bile up into my throat.
"They'll be here soon," he said.
Sweat broke out on his upper lip and forehead even though the air conditioner was running on high. I could smell the stink of his armpits like the musk of an animal that was trapped and ready to pounce.
"You know, Jane, you've been nothing but trouble for me since the first day we met."
"I didn't realize I was such a millstone around your neck," I mumbled. "It's not my fault my family was murdered and we were forced to cross paths."
"No, I guess not," Agent Howard said. He slipped his hand to the left of his seat. "But you should have died with them. It would have made things so much easier. So much neater. Instead you had to hide in that vent. Complicating things. Complicating my life."
"I don't see how my survival complicated your life any. I didn't even know you until you came and got me from that horrible foster home."
Agent Howard sat in silence for a minute. He never looked at me, but I could see his neck throb with the force of his pulse. His heart was racing. I pulled my knees up and locked my left arm around them. I reached with my right arm for the lock on the door. I hadn't noticed before that the head of the lock had been removed. There was nothing for me to grab hold of to unlock the door. I tried the handle and pulled, but nothing happened. Agent Howard must have set some kind of child safety setting. I was trapped inside the car with death's pale, sweaty angel.
