A Valley to Die For

by Radine Trees Nehring

  Now it was nearly impossible to control her body enough to keep it from trembling.

  After a very long moment the man removed his fingers and checked her second jeans pocket. When he found the key to her station wagon, Carrie almost recoiled in terror as she thought of her purse on the seat, and her house key inside the purse.

  Suddenly the man paused as both he and Carrie heard the roar of a truck engine in the distance and a horn tooting twice in quick succession. Her key clinked to the ground, and the man’s feet pounded away as he ran toward—she concentrated, thinking of directions—as he ran toward the old barn. A metal door slammed, then a car—no, probably a truck—started, reversed, and raced past her, the tires coming so close that she could hear the spray of gravel they threw against her jacket as they picked up speed.

  Then everything was quiet. Very quiet. The truck that had sent the man running was gone too. Carrie was alone.

  She was lying on her tied hands, which was terribly painful, so the first thing she did was sit up, digging into the ground with her heels and lifting her upper body. A few movements of her arms and wrists told her that the more she tried to free her hands, the more the line cut, so she stopped struggling.

  She tried to think which direction the station wagon would be. After deciding it must be behind her, she began bumping her rear end painfully across the rocky ground, scooting in what she hoped was the right way. She could stand and walk, but then she’d lose contact with the only reference point she could figure out with certainty—the ground that was beneath her.

  After about five bumps and bounces she knew she must be going the wrong direction and stopped to think again. She was facing the wagon when she fell over, then he rolled her on her back, and... yes, she was going the wrong way... that is, she was if she hadn’t bounced at an angle. Several more bounces brought her up against the front bumper, and, enjoying the small amount of heat still radiating from the engine, she sat still, leaning against the hard surface, thinking about what to do next.

  If only she hadn’t locked the car. But locking it was automatic when she left her purse inside.

  Oh, no, thought Carrie. The car key! She’d heard it drop, and it would have been easy to locate if only she’d felt around before she moved. If she had it in her fingers, she could back up to the lock and open the door. Then there’d be somewhere to sit, somewhere to stay out of the cold. And, she could probably manage to honk the horn.

  Carrie shifted as the point of a rock dug into her behind, and she tried to think where the key might be. She started to open her mouth for a real, no-matter-what wail, and, just in time, remembered the disgusting taste of her woolly mask. Well, at least she could breathe, there was that to be grateful for, even if her head covering did have an awful smell. The line holding it around her neck was tight, but the mask itself kept the ties from cutting her.

  She sat in silence for a few minutes. Her hands were beginning to feel numb. She wiggled her fingers, trying to wrap her bare right hand in the gloved left one. She’d just have to find that key and get into the wagon! But she dreaded bumping back across the ground and wasn’t sure of the distance to where the key had dropped. Oh, why hadn’t the man tied her hands in front? Then she’d be able to crawl and feel. Did she dare leave the small but familiar comfort of her own station wagon and its waning engine warmth?

  And, how long would it be before somebody began to look for her? That was one problem of living alone. No one missed you for a long, long time if you got in trouble. Tears began to seep into the woolly mask. She thought of crying into Henry’s big, wide chest.

  “Carrie’s the stoic.” She could hear Amos saying it. “The stoic, the stoic.” Oh, no, no, no!

  Maybe searching for the key would help keep her warm.

  She gave a determined shove against the bumper and began to bounce in the direction of the driver’s door, wishing she’d worn heavier underpants and her long underwear. At least they would have been some protection against the rocks. She tried getting on her knees. That made moving easier, but the rocks felt even sharper on her kneecaps, where neither flesh nor clothing offered any worthwhile padding at all.

  When she reached what she guessed was her original location, she rolled on her side and inched along, feeling for the key with her bare right hand.

  In a few minutes she had to stop and rest. It was hopeless! But at least movement was making her warmer. She’d have to keep trying.

  After a long time, scooting and feeling, she gave up. She wasn’t going to find the key.

  Wearily she made her way back to the station wagon and leaned against the door. She wiggled her fingers, trying to warm them. It was easier to wiggle now, because she could no longer feel the line cutting into her wrists.

  She tried standing for a while, pushing her body up against the side of the wagon, but there was a breeze, and standing only made her colder. Finally she just sat in silence, her mind almost blank, until her head dropped forward and she fell into a semi-conscious doze.

  In a troubled dream, Henry was scolding her for going to the old farm by herself. Well, she thought, he’s right, and this time, I must tell him he is. I’ll tell him right away!

  She heard Shirley’s voice saying, “Men want you to need them,” and thought, Please, God, I need someone very badly tonight.

  She jerked her head up and cracked it against the station wagon door. Wide awake now, she sat listening to a black night where not even owls talked to her and tried to control a body that was shaking violently with cold.

  Chapter XV

  Time ceased to have any meaning for Carrie. In between pondering the events of the past four days, she prayed, recited Bible verses, and sang hymns to herself. She was fighting panic as well as an urge to close her eyes and drift into unconsciousness, and she hoped keeping her thoughts active would help. She kept telling herself that she needed to be alert and aware of her surroundings. Yes, and wiggle hands, legs, feet, hands, legs, feet. So cold...

  Think... She couldn’t brag about being strong now. She just felt like crying and crying. Her life sure had changed. City housewives didn’t get into this kind of mess!

  Tears made her cheeks feel like ice, and she couldn’t blow her nose if she cried, so she began saying the words of the 91st Psalm, learned in Sunday School so many years ago:

  “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

  “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

  “Surely he shall deliver thee... ”

  She stopped. Trust. Oh, dear God, this can’t be beyond you! Almighty... all mighty, I will trust, and... that’s all I have right now.

  She had to stay alert, keep her spirits up.

  Her thoughts went back to the pottery she’d found. She knew what it was as soon as she felt it because of a similar pot Evan had given to Amos and her a number of years ago.

  Evan often spent three or more weeks in Arizona during the winter, and one of his favorite activities was pot hunting. Not the archaeology kind of hunting, the shopping kind. One year he had brought them a lovely little black pot made at the pueblo of San Ildefonso near Santa Fe. It wasn’t by Maria, the internationally known potter of San Ildefonso, but that didn’t matter at all to Carrie.

  She loved rubbing the pot’s glossy surface. It had been coiled rather than thrown on a potter’s wheel, then smoothed with a small wood paddle and with fingertips. The surface looked quite regular, but those who touched it and rubbed fingers around its circular form could find the irregularities—something like the small irregularities in a chubby baby’s skin, Carrie thought. Indeed, the pot’s surface did seem almost soft if you didn’t rub too hard.

  Carrie still had the San Ildefonso pot. She could picture it now, sitting on the bookshelf in the main room of her house. She usually took time to run her fingers across it when she dusted the shelves.

  She was startled when she heard a small wh
imper and understood that it was hers.

  Would she ever dust that pot again?

  She forced her thoughts back to more positive speculation. Of course, the piece of pottery she had found by the bank of Walden Creek wasn’t black. It had been, the best she could tell in the dim light, almost rosy in color, something like the brick in the old chimney. She’d have to ask Evan about the color. He’d be interested in what she’d found since he collected pottery.

  Her attacker had taken the pot, so that probably meant it was very important. Was it proof there were once Native Americans living in the area, and would something to do with that stop the quarry? Carrie decided the man must have been the quarry owner since he didn’t want her to have the pot she’d found on his land.

  Her head jerked downward as she started to doze. She pushed herself upright and began saying verses from the 91st Psalm again:

  “... shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.”

  Here Carrie, without realizing it, switched to first person:

  “He shall cover me with his feathers, and under his wings I will trust: his truth shall be my shield and buckler. I will not be afraid for the terror by night... ”

  Years ago, she’d resisted memorizing all those verses in Sunday School, but her teacher said she’d be glad some day. Well, Mrs. Butler had been right, she was glad now.

  “Because... the Lord... is my refuge, even the most High, my habitation;

  “There shall no evil befall me...

  “For he shall give his angels charge over me, to keep me in all his ways.

  “They shall bear me up in their hands, when I dash my foot against a stone.”

  Trust. Even here, even now. God was here.

  Carrie began to feel warmer, calmer.

  “... He has set his love upon me... I will answer him... he is with me in trouble... ”

  Trust completely, she thought, but why only now, in trouble? Why don’t I do this all the time?

  It hadn’t occurred to her that her assailant would come back, not until she heard a truck engine in the distance.

  The urge to stand and run was almost overwhelming, but where? Could she get to the old barn? How would she know she was really hidden if she couldn’t see?

  But she had to hide somewhere. If she could just get out of the awful head cover! The cord around her neck felt like it was getting tighter—it was almost choking her.

  Under the station wagon! It would be a poor hiding place if someone really hunted her, but where else could she go? She might as well be blind. For her, there was nowhere else! If she lay on her stomach, she could use her toes to shove herself under the wagon.

  She fell on her side, then flipped over on her stomach. Painfully she pushed forward until her body was under the wagon. Rocks banged her cheek as she turned her head to keep from hitting the metal frame.

  The vehicle was coming very slowly. She wondered, too late, if her wagon was high enough for headlights to shine under it as they approached the farmyard. Well, she’d done the best she could. She had to trust. Had to.

  She laid her head against the ground. He was going to kill her now... for no reason. She didn’t know anything, she didn’t, she didn’t... her twirling thoughts skittered and screamed, then once again, she thought of God’s presence and became completely quiet.

  The vehicle came into the farmyard and stopped. Tears melted into her mask. She prayed, Please help me, oh, please, and then, eyes shut, she waited.

  Two doors slammed and a bright light hit her. Dear God, oh, dear God... he’ll cover me with his feathers.

  Then, she heard Henry’s blessed, wonderful voice calling, “Cara! Carrie!” followed by Roger’s voice saying, “Here, under the car,” and two sets of feet thudding toward her. She heard Henry say, oddly echoing her own words, “Dear God.” And, “She moved, oh, thank you, God!”

  She heard both men kneel at the edge of the car.

  There was silence for a moment before Henry spoke again, very calmly and slowly, “Carrie, can you hear me? Are you hurt anywhere?”

  She heard her own voice saying, “No,” and ignored the taste of the mask.

  Hands reached her, touching her more gently than she thought possible. In a minute Henry was holding her against his familiar rough jacket while Roger cut the ties on her wrists and neck and murmured, “Look at that, would you!” to Henry. Then the awful woolly thing was off her head, and Henry was smoothing her hair with his big hand. He carried her to the truck like a child and held her in his arms while Roger drove away from the farmyard.

  Finally, she managed to say, “My key,” and Henry, who for some reason understood at once, said, “Yes, Roger found it in the dirt. I’ll come get your car in a bit. First, let’s take you to Shirley. She’s waiting.”

  * * *

  For a while things were a blur. Shirley helped her get out of her torn and filthy clothes and into a tub full of hot water. “May hurt,” said Shirley, “but use that soap good on your wrists.” Then Carrie sat docilely, wrapped in a flannel gown and robe that had belonged to one of the Booth girls, while Shirley smoothed salve on her wrists and covered them in gauze.

  After putting on a pair of Roger’s socks and Shirley’s slippers, Carrie insisted she could walk just fine and flapped into the living room. She sat in front of the fireplace eating a bowl of stew with biscuits and applesauce and listened while Henry and Roger told their part of the story.

  Henry had called her, as promised, when he got back from Bonny about seven o’clock. When she still didn’t answer at 7:30, he would wait no longer and drove to Carrie’s house, then JoAnne’s. Seeing neither activity nor car at either place, he headed to Roger and Shirley’s, where Shirley told him she had left Carrie alone in JoAnne’s house around four. Then he and Roger began a search, and the first place that seemed logical was the old farm.

  No one rushed Carrie into telling what had happened to her, but when Henry, who was sitting beside her holding the plate of biscuits where she could reach them, finished the account of what he and Roger had done, he asked if she felt like talking about what had happened. “I called the sheriff’s office while you were in the tub,” he said. “I should have called earlier, but seeing that you were safe and taken care of seemed more important.

  “I haven’t gone for your station wagon yet because I didn’t want to risk destroying evidence. The man undoubtedly wore gloves, but maybe he dropped something or left a shoe print somewhere.”

  “His truck was hidden in the old barn,” Carrie said. “He ran to it and drove off when we both heard a motor and horn in the distance. Did any of you see him leave? It was about dark.”

  “You must have heard the milk truck,” Shirley said. “The driver was still way off his schedule, thank the Lord, for it sounds like his truck is what scared the man away. I didn’t see anything else. As soon as the milk truck left, I came right in the house to finish making the stew. I don’t reckon Roger saw anything either since he was in the barn.”

  Roger shook his head. “Nope. Didn’t. Sure am sorry. All the activity on this road, I’m goin’ to have to put up a guard house out there.”

  “It must have been the quarry owner who tied me,” Carrie said. “What was over my head?”

  The two men looked at each other. Finally, Henry said, “JoAnne’s stocking cap, the heavy red wool one with the rolled edge. He simply unrolled it.

  “But,” he added quickly, understanding as her eyes widened in horror, “she didn’t have it on when she was shot. It smelled funny though. Did she get permanents or color her hair? Smelled like beauty shop stuff. Irena’s hair smelled that way sometimes after she’d been to the beauty shop.”

  Of course, that was it, the funny smell! Relieved by the commonplace origin of her head covering and its odor, but puzzled by the cap’s availability since the sheriff’s men had searched the barn and surrounding area, Carrie said, almost to herself, “Wonder why he had JoAnne’s cap.” Then she dropped the
subject and told the story of her ordeal, including her feeling that someone should return to look for evidence of more pottery before the quarry owner could come back and destroy it all.

  “Maybe that’s our proof, what JoAnne found,” Roger said after she had finished. “I don’t know what the man was doin’ there, but it’s possible he was huntin’ around fer more pots as you say. Darn trouble is, this time of year, anyone can come and go around here without notice since there’s so many hunters out. Lots of trucks from all over, and any one of ‘em could be the quarry owner. The man wouldn’t need to look at night, though, would he? It would make sense fer him to be on his own property during the day, but not at night.”

  “Jason and I did find out something very interesting today,” Henry said. “We went to the court house in Bonny, and they gave us quite a surprise about that old farm, which was confirmed by the real estate agency that handled the sale.

  “The farm property was inherited in equal parts by the five children of the couple who lived there when the house burned over forty years ago. The old couple died a few months apart, some five years after the fire, and the kids inherited. They didn’t sell, and my guess is that at least one of the heirs didn’t want to, because nothing happened until a couple of them were gone too. The remaining heirs put the land on the market then and it sold about ten years ago—to Mag and Jack Bruner!” He paused, but no one spoke.

  “Maybe they bought it, thinking they might eventually settle in the valley, I don’t know. But, anyway, the Bruners are the ones who sold the land to the quarry company.”

  Shirley and Carrie just stared at Henry, but Roger said in a low voice, “Hmmmm, sorta suspected somethin’ like that way in the back of my head. Just felt it. That’s one reason I thought the five of us should go this alone without the Bruners, though I didn’t want to say so since I only had suspicions. The gal at the court house couldn’t tell me who had sold the land when I was there. Maybe they didn’t have the records done yet, or she just didn’t know how to look.