Rode Hard, Put Away Dead

by Sinclair Browning

  It seemed like an hour passed, but it was probably only a minute or two, before my leg started twitching uncontrollably. I felt as though I'd fallen off the barn roof. My senses were a blur as my heart pounded faster than I thought possible. What in the hell had happened to me?

  My stomach was doing flips as I shook my head, trying to get a sense of normalcy. My battered mouth was nothing compared to the pain I had just felt.

  Head down, trying to collect my wits and a sense of physical well-being that had all but drained from me, I snuck a peek out of my eye to his hand, hanging by the blue horse logo of his white Ralph Lauren shorts. Nestled in his fist was a small black box, not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes.

  The fucker had zapped me with a stun gun!

  “You play fair, don't you?” I gasped.

  “Look, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, but I need you to come with me, out of here, in my car.”

  I was taking deep breaths now and when I finally quit shaking I rolled over and sat up slowly in the hay, still dazed.

  Peter reached down and pulled me to my feet. My balance was totally off as I staggered into him. My left leg felt like mush, weak, unreliable as I struggled to make it work.

  “Okay,” I said, having no intention of going with him.

  He seemed relieved and he took me by the elbow as though he were escorting me across a street. Such a gentleman. But I was painfully aware that the stun gun was still secure in his left hand.

  We were almost to the opening of the hay barn when I decided to run for it. Twisting away from him, in the same instant I brought my left heel down hard on the instep of his right foot. I heard him yell as his fingers lost their grip on me.

  I was free!

  Running was my only chance because I knew I couldn't have contact with him or I'd get electrocuted again. While my leg was still shaky I prayed it would hold up as I dashed for the opening. I was just short of it when he tackled me from behind. I went down hard, my chin skittering off the hay-padded concrete. The alfalfa was probably the only thing that saved me from a cracked skull.

  He was on top of me, straddling me. He snapped my head back by yanking my hair and then I almost blacked out as he pressed the stun gun hard against my back.

  Excruciating pain again flooded my body. The high keening I heard could not be my own, could it? Had an animal been wounded? I flopped on the ground like a fish out of water, gasping for breath and praying for the pain in my back to go away. I was convulsing dryly, trying to throw up and trying not to, and beyond embarrassment as I became dimly aware that I had just wet my pants.

  If I'd thought my heart was racing before, it now threatened to leap out of my chest. Couldn't stun guns cause heart attacks? Was I having one?

  Minutes passed before I got some measure of control again. When I was able to, I curled into a fetal position in a desperate attempt to be safe. Tears were running down my cheeks, the salt from them neutralizing the copper taste in my mouth as my muscles twitched and spasmed.

  I was dimly aware of Peter's hands on my back, rubbing where he had last applied his miserable weapon. His hands were deceptive. They felt strong and caring as they massaged my back, but they were also the same hands that had brought me down and taken most of my spirit with them.

  “I'm sorry, I'm really sorry about this. Please don't fight. Just come with me.” He sounded like he was almost pleading, but then he was the guy with the stun gun so he could sound any way he wanted to.

  I nodded slightly, fighting the bile in my throat. I didn't trust myself to speak, or to stand. It was all I could do to get my brain synapses to work. I tried to focus my mind, but all I could think of was getting nailed again. The sweat that was pouring off me was from fear, not the heat.

  I was again breathing deeply and after a minute or two, I whimpered, “Please, just … just give me a minute.”

  “It's okay, everything's going to be okay.”

  I knew it wasn't, but for now I was content just to lie quietly on the hay. Funny how we take the little things for granted. Like not being tortured.

  “Take your time, catch your breath,” Peter said encouragingly.

  I stayed curled up on the wet alfalfa, which was damp and thick with the acrid stench of my own urine, and tried to think. But it was hard. My head was throbbing, whether from the slap, the hit my chin had made to the floor, or the stun gun, I couldn't say.

  How long had Quinta said she was going to be? When would Cori Elena be home? Where were the dogs? My mind was murky and as it slowly came around I realized that the dogs were in the house and that not much time had passed since Quinta had left the ranch. As for Cori Elena, who could tell?

  Time passed and finally Peter stood. “We should be going pretty soon.”

  I rolled over on my back and stared at the barn roof and wondered if there really was a heaven. All I could see from this vantage point were a few empty bird nests up on the rafters. Had God put them there? The bird angels had fled the coop. Like rats leaving a sinking ship? I wondered numbly.

  My eyes rolled to the side and I saw the hay hooks nestled on nails on one of the barn timbers. If only I could get to them they'd make a weapon. But that was impossible. At least as long as Peter was so close with that damnable stun gun.

  I brought my good leg up, bending the knee, and then slowly moved the left one, the one that had gotten zapped. It still felt funny, but not as bad as it had.

  I was keenly aware of my back. It twitched and burned and I felt an unrelenting stiff ache. I shifted my weight a little and still couldn't get rid of the steady throb against it. It felt like a huge welt was rising on my flesh, as though my skin had hardened and was ready to pop open.

  I didn't trust myself to stand yet, so I reached behind my back and tried to feel for the damage. What was I expecting? Blood? A wound? Ridiculous, since a stun gun wouldn't leave a hole the way a gun would. This was an insidious pain that left no obvious sign.

  The good news was I knew the damage wouldn't be permanent. At least not this time. But Peter Van Thiessen had other, more serious damage plans for me, I knew.

  As my fingers groped my back searching for the welt, I was surprised that the hardening I'd felt was not my flesh. There was something stiff and hard against the back side of my hand, between my back and the cement barn floor. Flipping my hand over, and praying that Peter didn't know what I was doing, my fingers felt hard rubber.

  The knife!

  It was the rubber haft of the knife we used to open bales of hay. My fingers walked down the haft to the blade.

  “You'll live,” Peter said. “Now let's get going.”

  “I …I need a minute, please.”

  My plea must have gotten to him because he looked away.

  I was careful sitting up, scooting my rear end as close to the knife as I could, while secretly brushing hay back over it.

  Finally in the sitting position, I plopped my butt on top of the knife blade and kept my right hand behind my back, rubbing the place where he had zapped me.

  Peter reached for me.

  “No!” I gasped and threw one hand up to my mouth. “I …I think I'm going to throw up!”

  He stepped back, apparently concerned that I was going to barf on his Topsiders.

  I made gagging noises, dangerous since I hadn't been that far away from doing the real thing, and as I did so, I scooted around so I was still sitting, but facing him now, and more importantly, was off the knife.

  As I continued with the godawful noises, my right hand dropped down to the weapon in the hay. The blade was sharp against my fingers, and while I would have preferred handling it by the haft, I didn't have that luxury. I arched my aching back and slipped it up under my shirt, and dropped the knife down my denim shorts.

  It wasn't perfect, but it was as good a job as I was going to be able to do. It was a struggle until I finally got to my feet, without his help. As I walked I felt the tip of the knife nudging the soft place between my shoulder blades. Peter's hand
pinched the soft skin above my elbow as we walked out of the barn.

  And in his other hand was the gun from hell.

  46

  THERE WAS NO QUESTION IN MY MIND THAT I WOULDN'T GO with him. My two encounters with the stun gun had left me dazed and weak. I had the knife so I might have a chance, but I also needed my strength, which as long as I was getting zapped would continue to ebb. Realistically, I'd have one shot at him and I had to make it count.

  I'd often in the past daydreamed about someone abducting me in a shopping center parking lot. You know the drill. Bad guy comes up with a gun and either jumps in your car or makes you get back into it and then drives you out in the toolies somewhere, far from other people or help, and then proceeds to rape you and then kills you. I'd play the mental game with myself, what would I do ?

  Given that scenario, my solution was always that I would stay in the parking lot and fight like hell or run and take my chances of a bullet in the back. I'd risk all that for the benefit of being in a populated area where someone might see fit to give me aid or at least call 911.

  Yet here I was, on my home ground with a man who had caused me more physical pain than any man ever had, and I was actually thinking it was a good idea to leave with him in his car. More than likely to go to a remote place where he would try to kill me.

  Real life.

  Getting zapped with a stun gun can do that to you. And hope can drive you to places where you never thought you'd go.

  As we neared the ancient, faded Bronco I noticed that even the tires were old, with cracked, split sidewalls. Peter opened the driver's door and got in, sliding across the console to the passenger's seat as he pulled me in behind him. As he dragged me into the tattered driver's seat, the blade of the knife shifted. Although I tried to hunch my back to catch it, I felt the knife slip deeper in my shorts. The tip was now near my bra line and the rubber haft fell below my waistline.

  “Pull the door closed,” he ordered.

  I did as he said, moving carefully so the knife wouldn't stab me.

  “You're driving.”

  As though I hadn't figured that out.

  The interior of the car was shot. The cloth seats were ripped and torn and I could see the foam padding underneath. A gaping hole was all that was left of what had been a radio. The windshield was a road map of cracks and glass starbursts. While I thought ranchers were hard on trucks, this one was a real beater.

  The dashboard looked as though someone had taken a knife to it, a victim, I suspected, of being left unprotected in the hot Arizona sun. Glued between two of the long, wide dashboard slits was a faded plastic Madonna. She'd pulled off miracles before and I said a silent prayer that she could do it again. For a Presbyterian. For me.

  “Nice car,” I said.

  “It's not mine.”

  No kidding.

  I was praying that Juan had awakened from his afternoon nap and was out in the garden. Not that I'd expect him to do anything, but I was hoping for the solace that he could at least tell someone that I'd gone off in the Bronco. But it was not to be. As we drove slowly past the vegetables, there was no one there but the birds pecking at the bright, ripe tomatoes.

  I drove out the dirt lane a lot slower than I ever had, barely distracted by the pair of bouncing foam dice that swung from the cracked rearview mirror. Peter said nothing, seemingly content with our pace. When we passed the turnoff to Sanders's ranch I threw a longing glance in that direction, wishing I could mentally make him appear.

  Unfortunately we made it all the way out to the highway passing only one person I recognized, Ginny Eske in her Blazer with her passel of kids. She drove past not noticing me. But then, why would she? I was piloting a strange car, not Priscilla.

  While I'd had trouble staying awake on my drive home from town just a short time ago, my priorities had shifted and, although exhausted, my adrenaline had kicked in. Now that I was worried about sleeping permanently, I was eager to stay awake as long as I could.

  I didn't talk and neither did he. While I was full of questions, I was still trying to get my mind back on track. My eyes drifted down to the console between us where Peter's tan hand clutched the thing that looked like an innocent TV remote controller. The problem was, I knew better. And I was terrified of getting zapped again. I'd thought I was having a heart attack when he hit my back. Was there a cumulative effect to those things? Is that what he planned, to zap me to death? Was that possible with a stun gun? I shuddered.

  “Are you cool enough?”

  “Pardon me?” I stole a quick glance at Peter, who was adjusting the controls of the refrigeration unit. It was one of the few things in the old car that seemed to be in good shape.

  “It's on high,” he said, almost apologetically.

  What in the hell was going on? He'd just zapped the shit out of me twice with a stun gun and now he was solicitous of my comfort? What was I going to tell him? The temperature's fine but I have this stupid knife poking me in the back and my legs feel sticky and itchy from where I wet myself. And I'm worried that you're going to kill me. Hardly.

  Although it was as much of a rush hour as we ever get when we drove through La Cienega, as near as I could tell, no one noticed us.

  We were just through town, nearing the County Line Road, when he said, “Turn here.”

  I did as he asked and headed west across Big Wash toward the Tortolita Mountains. The road hadn't been graded in a long time and we bounced and rattled over its washboard surface. I dropped the speed down to twenty-five and tried to get a grip on my possibilities.

  So far, I'd only seen the stun gun. Could he have another weapon? While I was sure that I'd read somewhere that you couldn't kill a person with a stun gun, hadn't I also read that the electrical impulses could cause heart attacks? Was that what he planned? To heart attack me to death? While I knew I didn't want to go through getting zapped again, I felt slightly encouraged. In order for the thing to work, he needed to have physical contact with me. If I could just distance myself from him, the stun gun would be useless. If.

  The knife prodding me in the back reminded me that I wasn't entirely defenseless.

  We passed no one on the long, lonely dirt stretch. That didn't surprise me, since the mine at the end of the road had closed long ago and there were no residences out here. This was all state land, empty but for the grazing bald-faced cattle and the normal desert denizens. Occasionally on the weekends, or during hunting season, groups of four-wheelers would come out, but today was neither.

  Remembering the cracked sidewalls I found myself hoping—for the first time in my life—for a flat tire.

  The road was getting progressively worse as we neared the mountain. In my fatigue, I missed a washout on the right-hand side and the Bronco lurched and bucked hard, sending both of us bouncing in our seats. As I came down, there was a soft pop, like a balloon bursting, as the blade of the knife jabbed me hard in the back.

  “Arrrgggh,” I yelped. As I shifted my weight to redirect the knife the vehicle swerved across the road.

  “Watch it,” Peter growled.

  Tears flooded my eyes along with the awareness of a searing burn just below my shoulder blades. I gripped the steering wheel and fought the urge to pass out. Flattening my upper torso against the seat, I felt a cool spot spread in the middle of my back. I didn't have to look to know what it was. Blood. Shit! I'd managed to stab myself in the back.

  As I pressed my shirt against the seat it didn't feel as though I was gushing blood. I increased the pressure in an effort to stop the bleeding, praying the blade wouldn't poke out my shirt and get entangled in the foam cushion of the torn seat.

  My back hurt like hell and there wasn't a thing I could do about it unless I wanted Peter to discover the knife.

  We passed several dirt turnoffs but he didn't say a word so I just continued driving west. I had a pretty good idea of where we were headed and I was not happy about it.

  My suspicions were confirmed when we reached the old aban
doned mine at the end of the road. A heavy steel cable was strung across the entrance, and a small dim two-track split south from there. He motioned for me to turn down it.

  We drove another quarter of a mile or so when the road turned back to the north. Making a half circle we ended back at the mine property. All we had done was skirt the barricaded entrance.

  “Over there,” Peter said, waving the stun gun in the direction he wanted me to go.

  We stopped in front of a barbed wire fence bearing painted signs cautioning KEEP OUT and DANGER! OPEN MINE PIT!

  It was a popular spot as evidenced by the myriad broken beer bottles, faded Slurpee cups and cheery Budweiser cans. An old abandoned stained mattress, leaking its stuffing, was propped against a mesquite tree and what looked like the carcass of a dead dog was not far away. Not to mention a deep mine pit to put a body in that might never be found.

  Peter reached over and pulled the keys from the ignition. He opened his door and hunched out of the car so he could keep his eyes on me. “Get out.”

  Not eager to show him the huge bloodstain I knew must be on the seat, I kept my back pressed against it as long as possible and then swiftly bounded out of the car. My strategy worked, as his head popped immediately up above the car roof. “What do you think you're doing?”

  “Getting out of the car.” As I stepped away from the Bronco my eyes drifted inside where a bloodstain the size of a five-pound sack of potatoes spread across the back of the driver's seat. Seeing my own blood magnified the pain in my back, which was now throbbing, in addition to burning. The blood was slowly trickling into my underwear, which wasn't having a good day.

  Briefly, I thought about running right then, but knew that it wouldn't work with the knife stuck down my pants. It was a damned if I do, damned if I don't decision. I hadn't been thinking clearly before when I thought I could distance myself from Peter and his stun gun. He was a runner. A marathon runner, for God's sake. I'd never outrun him.

  My only chance was the knife in my back if I could just manage to not stab myself again.