Freedom's Child: A Novel

by Jax Miller

  “We don’t care about the fire, Captain Banks.” Howe shimmies to the edge of his seat and leans forward. “We’re interested in Freedom Oliver.”

  “That lush?” Banks scoffs. “You don’t think she had something to do with causing that fire, do you?”

  “No, but we think she may have been a target.”

  “A target for what?” Mattley asks from the file cabinets behind the Feds.

  As if previously rehearsed, Gumm and Howe simultaneously pull out their notepads. They notice Mattley’s interest. “Has Freedom ever said anything that might raise a red flag? Something about her past, perhaps?”

  Mattley raises an eyebrow. “The only things she ever says are the incoherent babblings of someone who wants to drink herself to death.”

  “Nothing? Nothing at all?”

  Mattley clenches his jaw at their skepticism and cuts his answers short. “Nope.”

  Gumm pulls out a folder with a pile of mug shots, grabs the attention of Banks and Mattley alike. “Tell us if you’ve seen any of these upstanding citizens around here.” One by one, Gumm places the faces of the Delaneys, including Lynn and Peter, on Banks’s desk. But neither one can identify them. “We need to find Freedom before these guys do.”

  Banks looks up to Mattley as if what’s about to come out of his mouth is going to be painful. “I have to say it.” Banks rubs his brow. “Freedom just stole a patrol car and a cop’s firearm.” He swallows hard. “She’s in the wind.”

  “Not surprising,” Howe says and pulls out a phone. “Can’t you just track the GPS in the car?”

  Again, as if the words were small knives that slice at the corners of his lips, “We don’t use them here.”

  Mattley can read the Feds’ thoughts: Stupid small-town cops. Howe looks up to Mattley. “I take it it was yours?” He smirks as Mattley turns his head away. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s not the first time. Not for Freedom. She can charm anyone she wants. She’s been doing it for years.”

  “I assure you, there’s nothing charming about that woman,” Mattley reacts. But I can still taste her, he thinks to himself.

  Howe rises from his seat and paces the office on his cell. He commands, “We need an APB on a stolen patrol car, calling for backup from Portland on a fugitive who is armed and considered extremely dangerous.”

  “Freedom’s not dangerous,” Mattley says and tries to get in front of Howe to stop him from making the call. “I mean, if she’s going to hurt anyone, she’s only going to hurt herself. There’s no need to get the Feds here, you’ll just scare her off.”

  “Who? Freedom?” Gumm laughs from the chair. “Nothing scares that woman off. She’s a cold-blooded cop killer.”

  “What.” Mattley’s surprise comes out completely deadpan. “She’s no killer.” They can barely hear him. He knows he’ll be caught in his own lie. “She was falsely accused, she never killed her husband.”

  Banks’s jaw hits the ground. And now Mattley wants to rip the smirks clean off their chins.

  “So she has talked to you?” Gumm smiles. Mattley shakes his head and grinds his teeth. “So you know all about Nessa Delaney?”

  “Never heard the name,” Mattley growls.

  Howe pulls out an old mug shot of Freedom. The arrest plate reads DELANEY, NESSA. Mattley has to squint and study the eyes to realize that it’s her, from decades ago when she was in her early twenties. Gumm begins, “Once upon a time, Freedom Oliver was sweet little Nessa Delaney of Mastic Beach, New York.” Banks examines the photo after Mattley. She’s hardly recognizable. Gumm speaks like he’s reading from an instruction manual. Most Feds do. “And then Nessa Delaney gunned down a well-respected cop of the NYPD.”

  Howe pulls out a police academy portrait. Gumm continues, “This is Mark Delaney, husband of Nessa Delaney. And these?” He waves his hands over the montage of criminals like he’s some federal wizard in Hogwarts, Oregon. “These are the rest of the Delaneys, the ones that want her dead more than anything else in this world.”

  “She’s a protected witness…” Banks trails off.

  “That’s right.”

  “Then why are you telling us?” Mattley asks. “No one’s supposed to know that.”

  “Because the second she committed a federal crime, like, let’s say, stealing a patrol car and police-issued firearm”—Gumm takes Freedom’s file and tears it in half—“she left the program.”

  “She said that the guy who did it was released from prison just the other day.”

  “The guy who did it, this cop’s brother Matthew, just served her time. Just like your little girlfriend planned.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means she killed a man and got away with it,” Howe yells. “And not only did she get away with it, but she had the wrong man locked away for it for nearly two decades.” Howe goes on. “That’s who you’re dealing with. This Freedom nonsense? She’s dangerous. She’s cunning and calculating, and she’s always, I mean always, two steps ahead of you.” His words hang in the air. “Dismissed with prejudice…means she can’t be charged for it again.”

  “Only in the good ol’ U.S. of A.,” Gumm offers. “Land of Freedom.” The Feds begin to leave. “It’s like Jesus once said. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” He smiles. “Didn’t Jesus coin that phrase, Howe?”

  “Think so.”

  “You guys can think about that. We’ll let you know if we find her.” Gumm gives Mattley their card, a not-so-subtle hint for Banks and Mattley to stay out of their way. In truth, Gumm and Howe were more than happy to have her expelled from the Witness Protection Program. They were sick of having to come all the way down there from Portland, constantly giving her warnings, through one ear and out the other. There were people out there more deserving of such relocation, waiting for ages, when ungrateful people like Freedom had it handed to her.

  “Where are you guys going?” Mattley follows.

  “To the Whammy Bar.” Howe tucks the files in his jacket. “If she’s not there, the Delaneys should be.”

  The moon tries to break through a smoky canopy that covers the picturesque view of the ocean. Pinpoints of silver light shoot through the pine branches and over Passion’s body as she winds down the roads that line the cliff’s edges, on her way to Sovereign Shore. Her white fur coat follows behind her; Passion’s chased by rabbits. The chill of autumn bites at her cheekbones, makes her eyes tear. Gunsmoke’s bike vibrates under her, her nose close to the gas cap as she hums “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” to keep her nerves at ease. The glow of a speedometer shines off her sequined suit that looks more like a bikini as the Harley bawls through the night. With the ocean to her left and the cliff side to her right, she focuses on a double yellow line.

  Meanwhile, with the knowledge that the Feds are on their way there, Mattley races through the back roads to beat them to the Whammy Bar. He flicks another cigarette out the window. Trying not to make a habit of it again, he unwraps three sticks of spearmint gum at seventy miles per hour and chews. And at the Bend of Beelzebub, the notorious strip of road that swallows the lives of speeding teenagers and buzzed bikers, he falls back to second gear. But wait…Did I just see Passion pass me in a bikini on a fucking bike? He merges onto the next soft shoulder and makes a U-turn to follow, and while he’s already lost her through the knots and turns, he has an idea of where she’s going: to Freedom’s favorite place in the world to get drunk. Sovereign Shore.

  Passion makes the right onto a dirt lot lined with driftwood fence posts. The lot opens up to the cliff top roped off with signs of danger. Passion parks the stolen bike near the stolen police car, and on the other side of the ropes, near the edge that stands a good hundred feet above sharp boulders and the shore, is Freedom.

  —

  My name is Freedom and I hear the exhaust of Gunsmoke’s motorcycle from down the road; the headlight dances with the curves of the cliff’s edge and beckons my attention, my focus. And suddenly, I
hold my breath. Because I really don’t have a plan since my original one turned to shit. All I know is that I have to stay in motion; I have to move. If I don’t, I’ll jump. I’ll crash. I’ll die. Even if it’s just a few inches, a few minutes, I have to get closer to finding my daughter.

  Passion parks the bike near the police car. I see her shadow and hear those harpoons as she walks toward me. “I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking,” she calls out.

  I smile and step a few feet back from the edge. My voice is low, I’m not sure she hears me through the wind. “I’m not going to jump.” Our footsteps wring rainwater from a blanket of reds and yellows and browns of fallen leaves as I meet her. “The car’s still warm, if you’re cold,” I offer. Her fingers feel like frozen bones wrapped in leather as she hands me the keys to Gunsmoke’s bike. “I don’t have a lot of time. I’m gonna have to get out of here.”

  “Any idea where you’re going?” she asks, her voice soft through the fog that surrounds us.

  “East,” I tell her. “East, to the ends of the Earth.” And somehow, I think the ends of the Earth are exactly where I’m going to end up. I walk to the bike and she follows. I peek inside a leather pouch on the side of the seat, one bolted on with silver studs reflecting in the moonlight. Inside, a burned spoon and a stack of ten thousand dollars, give or take. Shit. I zip it back up before Passion can see.

  “To me, that’s only Sallins Street.” She tries to laugh. I pull a smoke from my bra. Passion lights it for me. The spark lights up the shadows around us, illuminates the demons in our eyes. Then the slews of a truck race on the parking lot behind Passion. Who the fuck is this? Mattley jumps out, practically before the vehicle stops. He marches toward us before I can even get the first drag of my cig. He looks pissed. I take Passion’s arm and step in front of her. I reach down my underwear and grab the coldness that is Mattley’s piece and point it toward his head.

  He stops dead in his tracks and puts his hands in the air. And I hate having to do this, really, I do. But I see no choice. Like I said, I just have to be moving. I will keep going. I will not be stopped. “Is this what it is, Freedom?” he snaps, in a way I’d have never imagined coming from the placid copper. “You’re gonna kill another fucking cop?”

  And there I was, feeling bad. But this? This sloppy accusation, this fucking assumption, this topic he knows nothing about? Who the hell does he think he is? Gumm and Howe must be around here, because I only told Mattley I was charged with killing my husband, never mentioned him being a cop. The fire would have surely brought the whippersnappers out this way, anyway. “Only if you stand in my fucking way, James.” It’s the first time I ever use his first name, and it feels so foreign on my tongue. I take a shot, but I don’t actually aim for him. I miss his head by a few inches, just to show him I’m not fucking around.

  Passion screeches behind me and pulls at the back of my shirt. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “You’re out of your goddamn mind,” Mattley roars from the pit of his lungs.

  “Old news, James. Old news.” I step sideways toward the bike. “Now, I’m going to need for you to get out of my way.”

  “Freedom,” his silhouette cries. A tear runs down my cheek. It could be anger, it could be sadness, I’m not sure. Either way, it brings a pang to my gut. Pieces of my heart seem to rise to my throat, but I swallow them. I can’t let anyone see that all I want to do is tell him I love him, but what’s the point? I won’t because as a glutton for punishment, I can’t let a good thing like Mattley happen. There are no happy endings, not in any of my stories, not in real life. Life doesn’t want to see two people like us together in each other’s arms. And it never will. Such is life.

  “I’m sorry.” I point the gun toward his truck and shoot out the tire. I reach in my pocket and throw him the keys to the cop car. “This way you can’t cross state lines, not in a cop car and not in a truck with flat tires. Take Passion home.” I turn around, hop on Gunsmoke’s Harley, and turn the ignition.

  Just as I’m about to leave, he walks to me. “At least take this.” He worms out of his black bomber jacket and drapes it over the handlebar. I look up at him and he turns his head away. My stares hurt him. His avoidance hurts me. And as I give Passion a little nod of gratitude, I leave.

  With my back to Painter, Oregon, I ride east into the night.

  “I’m coming, Rebekah. I’m coming.”

  My name is Freedom and I’m eight hours out of Painter, in the darkest part before the dawn. I think I’ve passed Hell’s Canyon back at the Oregon-Idaho border, so that would make this Snake River Plain, Idaho, I suppose. Unless I went south, then I’m somewhere in the Great Basin like the Sierras, maybe Nevada or Utah, as long as I avoid Death Valley, Christ Almighty. Eight hours of riding this bike and I have no more sensation in my clit from the vibrations. My knuckles are frozen stiff. My legs feel like a wishbone being pulled at either side. Between the tears and the wind, my eyeballs feel like they’ve been removed, dipped in salt, and put back in my sockets. I’m thirstier than I’ve ever known, to the point where I’m weak and my tongue’s stuck to the roof of my mouth. Perhaps I should have planned this better, because I haven’t seen a single sign of life in four hours, since the general store and gas station, if you call that toothless redneck drinking Mylanta a sign of life, I’m not sure. I pass the signs too fast to know where I’m going. I can’t turn around, there’s nothing to turn back to. Just rocks and cacti, cacti and rocks. And Rebekah isn’t there.

  The open road gives you ample opportunity to think; in fact, the road forces reflection on a man…or woman, in my case. And it’s a terrifying thing, my thoughts. With each thought, each idea, each regret that makes my blood curdle, I accelerate. I race fast enough on the motorcycle so my demons can’t catch me, but they always seem just a step ahead of the game, always there to entertain my sin.

  I stop the bike at the top of this hill, one of about a thousand hills I’ve rolled over so far. I light a smoke to curb the hunger and crack my back and neck to relieve some of the stiffness. I’m still, unfathomable darkness, nothing but black against black. But up ahead in the not-too-far distance is a lightning storm, a dangerous place to be in the desert. It’s as if I’m standing in nothingness, something I imagine before life and after death. And if God exists, this was what it was before he created the Earth and life. Black. Nothing. And I try to wrap my head around the concept of no time, no feelings to feel, just nothing. It’s a mind-boggling thing if you have the desire to imagine it. And rides like this through nothing make you try to grasp just that concept.

  At the bottom of the hills, clouds flicker with purple and white and orange electricity that rips through the sky. The distant growls of the storm sound like something biblical. But where else can I go? What else can I do? I’m not going to make it out here alone in the desert for much longer. And it’s a risk, but it’s a risk I’m just going to have to take, because on the other side, the daughter I’ve never known is waiting to be found. On the other side is freedom from the authorities who are surely looking for me. On the other side is survival. I race down the straight-and-narrow roads. I try to get these fucking demons off my goddamn back. I try to survive.

  I’m a liar if I say I’m not terrified. The closer I get to the electric storm, the faster it seems to move my way, and before I know it, I’m in the thick of it, the belly of the monster. I count. One. Two. Five. Holy shit. And I scream as I watch the bolts strike just a few feet from me. I keep screaming, but don’t panic. Just get through this, and everything else will be smooth sailing from here on out. Do this for Rebekah. Do this for your sins, for your mistakes. Do this because you deserve this fear after all the awful things you’ve done with your life, Freedom. Each bolt lights up the Earth around me brighter than the sun, and it’s blinding. The purple flashes of land around me make me feel like I have new eyes, like those of an animal that can see everything. In this way, I can see the horizons of the desert in the middle of th
e night, in the middle of the nothingness. Like I’m seeing this world in a way that no man’s allowed to. Forty strikes per minute. I am going to die.

  The thunder is deafening and I wonder if my eardrums are ruptured because I can’t hear myself scream anymore. The electricity runs through my spine, through my blood, and suddenly, I am unstoppable. Insatiable. Immortal. I crouch down on the bike and go faster and faster. I am the lightning. And then….

  My bike stalls in the middle of the electrical storm. I’m a dead woman.

  I try to restart the bike; I beg it like it can hear me to turn back on. I begin to roar something violent, something vicious. In the middle of the desert, where no one can hear me, I scream and scream. My heart breaks. Because I can’t do one fucking thing for the daughter I’ll never know. As I scream, I see a yellow, dim light about a half-mile into the barren plains. I turn my bike so it faces the house and wave my hand in front of the headlight. In turn, someone in the house flicks the porch light on and off. And with what little energy I have left in me, I leave the bike and try to run across the desert.

  I seem to be in rhythm with the lightning all around me, this song and dance. I run blindly; blindness in the dark when the lightning settles, blindness in the brilliance of light when it crashes into the soft and dry dirt that I jog on. I have an idea that hell might be above us after all. But there’s no telling what I’m running into here. For all I know, I could be running to the home of Leatherface, who wants to make wind chimes out of my severed limbs and eat my skin with his oatmeal.

  And then lightning comes up from the ground.

  I’ve been shot in the leg. I fall to the dirt in unimaginable pain.

  —

  I don’t know if I’ve been followed, maybe the Feds or State Police or the Delaneys. I don’t know if I’ve been shot by the person who owns this home in the desert. I don’t know if I’m going to make it out of here alive. I can’t stand. I turn around and start to crawl back, but what the hell is there to crawl back to? I summon everything in me to use my arms to pull my legs behind me back toward the road. I grunt and cry with each inch, each haul of my body. It starts to downpour. I fall on my back with my mouth open to drink. I’m desperate and dying of thirst. And then I’m shot again in the arm, through Mattley’s jacket that he gave me. “Stop, please,” I yell.