by A. American
He laughed. “Yeah, didn’t last long, did it?”
The sound of a motor at the river snapped us back to reality. Instinctively I reached for my rifle, which was leaned against the picnic table. We both looked downriver for the source of the sound. It wasn’t long before Danny’s boat came into view. We walked down to the river as it eased into the mud.
“Back so soon?” I crowed.
I shook Mike’s and Ted’s hands as they got out of the boat, followed by three others I didn’t know.
“Morgan, Thad, this is Ian, Jamie, and Perez,” Mike said, introducing them.
Thad and I both shook hands with them as Doc got out of the boat.
“Well, to what do we owe the pleasure of this little visit?” I asked. Looking at the boat and the load it was carrying, I added, “Looks like you guys are about to stir some shit somewhere.” I pointed at the pile of packs, ammo cans, and other gear. “Y’all bring enough party favors?”
“Yeah, we got a little sneaking around to do,” Ted said.
Mike smiled. “What’s a party without some noisemakers?”
“Better not be any noise, that is not the point of this mission, peckerwood. You better keep your noisemaker in its holster,” Ted said.
Mike rocked his boonie hat forward on his head, put his hands on his hips, and leaned back at the waist, pushing his hips out, “You mean my noisemaker, or my noisemaker?” He was smiling and bouncing his eyebrows up and down, looking at Jamie.
Jamie cracked her knuckles. “I see your noisemaker and I’ll fieldstrip it.” Her statement got a round of laughter.
Thad looked at Doc. “You gonna take care of these guys?”
“Nah, I’m not going. I just delivered ’em here.” He looked at Ted. “If they do this right, they won’t need my skills. They’re just supposed to do some surveillance on the camp so we don’t go in there blind.”
“Holy crap, they’re going out without adult supervision?” I asked, with a laugh.
“That’s what she’s here for,” Ian said, nodding over to Jamie.
Jamie snorted. “If you’re counting on me to be the positive influence, you’re in trouble.”
Perez snorted. “There’s an understatement.” We all started to chuckle. It was clear that Jamie was a rough-and-tumble girl.
“Hey, Morg, I need some pipe. I know you guys brought a bunch. Do you have any to spare?” Doc said.
“Yeah, Danny’s piled it up somewhere.”
“Where is he?”
“He and Jeff went off fishing somewhere. What sort of plumbing you doing?”
Doc rolled his eyes. “You don’t want to know, really.” He looked down the river. “I’ll go find them as soon as we get the boat unloaded.”
“I’ll go get the war wagon,” Mike said and headed off toward where they were parked.
We all pitched in and started to unload the boat. There was a mountain of ammo and supplies piled up in it: some for us and some for their mission.
Mike soon rolled up in Sarge’s wagon and started setting it out it so it could be organized with the supplies. Once the boat was emptied, Doc got in and started it up.
“Which way did they go?” Doc asked.
I pointed upriver. “Last I saw them, that way.”
Doc nodded and eased the boat out into the river. “I’ll be back,” he said.
Mike was bent over at the side of the buggy pinning a SAW to the hard mount. I kicked the back of his knee, buckling it. “When are you guys heading out?”
He looked back with an expression that said asshole. “After dark. And actually, we need your help. We want to go over the drawing of the camp with you. You know this location way better than any of us. We need all the details you can remember about the landscape.”
“Sure thing. Let me see the drawing. When you guys are done sorting out your crap, come over to the picnic table.”
Ted handed me the drawing and Thad and I walked over to the table. I sat down while Thad took a seat in the camp chair and went back to stirring his slurry. The crew came over to the table and sat down. Mike looked over in the pot. “I was going to ask what’s for dinner, but I’m afraid to ask now. That looks like shit”—he sniffed the air—“and smells worse. What the hell is that?”
Thad chuckled. “It’s soap, or it will be.”
“Damn, you wash with that, and you’ll smell worse than before you started,” Mike said, scrunching his nose. Thad and I both laughed.
“Hey, Thad, we got a couple of hours before dark, and it looks like this soap project isn’t going anywhere fast. You think we could grill up a piece of that hog for these guys?”
“Sounds good to me. Let me get some more wood and some meat,” Thad said as he stood up.
“Great. And if you don’t mind, tell Mel we’re going to have company for supper.”
He nodded and headed for the woodpile.
“You guys have fresh pork?” Perez asked.
“Yeah, we’ve got a few hogs. Butchered one recently.”
“Damn, fresh pig meat! I haven’t had that in forever.”
“Thad’s great on the grill too,” I said with a smile. Mike and Ted both nodded their agreement.
Ted tapped the drawing. “So, what can you tell us about this place?”
I spun the drawing around and started making some marks. I indicated where the antenna where we had met Calvin was, then marked the approximate location of the rear gate. I drew in the roads to the best of my memory. As we were discussing the access to the camp, the boat came back into view with Danny and Jeff on board. They climbed off and Danny and Doc headed for Danny’s cabin. Jeff came up and flopped onto the bench beside Jamie, looking at her with a big grin. “Hello, I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of meeting,” he said with a wink.
Jamie cut her eyes at him, then scooted away. Ted rolled his eyes and smiled. “Jeff, this is Jamie, Perez, and Ian.”
Still smiling, Jeff grabbed Jamie’s hand. “Really nice to meet you.” He looked back and gave the others a curt nod.
Ian couldn’t help himself and started to laugh. Jamie couldn’t take it anymore. She was a redneck girl, and so she was used to speaking her mind.
“Fuck you, Ian!” she shouted across the table and kicked at his knees under it.
Still laughing, Ian jumped. “What’d I do?”
Jeff was resting his head on one hand, the elbow propped up on the table, still grinning like a mule eating briars. Being a single man, Jeff enjoyed the company of beautiful women, and we all knew from tales of his conquests that one in uniform with weapons was a real turn-on for him. This was classic Jeff flirtation style—embarrass the girl a bit, hoping that his charm would win her over.
For her part, Jamie wouldn’t turn her head in his direction. The look on her face told everyone she wasn’t happy. Ian was enjoying it more than Jeff—you couldn’t have smacked the smile off his face if you’d tried. While all this was going on, I was still trying to make notes on the map. Once I had given them all I could remember, I dropped the pen and stood up just as Mel and Bobbie walked over with the two older girls.
As they were introducing themselves I checked on Thad and the soap, which he was tending to in between getting the cooking prepared. The pot of lye had cooked down considerably.
“How much longer till we can get clean?” I asked.
Thad lifted the stick he’d been stirring with, looking at the liquid as it ran off. “Might be there,” he said.
“How will you know?”
He smiled and plucked a chicken feather from the cupholder in the arm of the chair he was sitting in. Dropping it into the pot, he explained, “This is a little test you can do to see if the lye is strong enough.”
The feather hit the lye and the fine edges of it dissolved nearly immediately, then the quill slowly dissolved. After le
ss than a minute there was nothing left of it.
“Holy shit! It just dissolved the entire thing!” I exclaimed.
Thad smiled. “Yeah, it’s some rough stuff, ain’t nothing to play with. But now we know it’s ready.”
“What do we do next?” The process was fascinating to me, way more than I’d expected.
“Now we add the fat and mix it up.”
“I’ll go get it,” I said and headed for the cabin. We had rendered a bunch of it and kept it in a five-gallon bucket with a lid hammered down on it.
As I headed for the cabin I looked around. Everyone was down at the picnic table talking. The older girls had made their way over to where Thad was. He was showing them the feather trick again. Little Bit would like that, I thought and looked for her. She wasn’t in the cabin either. I looked around the grounds for her as I carried the bucket back over to Thad.
“Hey, have you two seen your little sister?”
“Earlier. She was playing with the dogs,” Taylor said as she watched the feather melt. “That’s cool,” she said, looking up at Thad.
“Hey, Mel, where’s Ashley?” I called to her.
She and Bobbie both turned around. “Lee Ann, you were supposed to be watching her. Where is she?” she said as she looked around.
“I don’t know, she was running around with the dogs and I didn’t feel like following her,” Lee Ann said.
“Well, I don’t see her, and I don’t see the dogs either,” I said as I walked out toward the dirt road in front of the cabins. I looked back at Lee Ann. “You shouldn’t have left her alone.”
Quickly everyone was up and looking for her. With so many people in our group, we covered the area around the cabins in just a few minutes. She wasn’t anywhere, and neither were the dogs. Panic was quickly beginning to overtake me as my heart began to race.
“Where could she have gone?” Mel shouted as she ran from cabin to cabin.
“It’s not my fault!” Lee Ann cried.
“We’ll go check the road, you stay right here,” Ted said as he and Mike passed me.
I nodded at them and headed for the woods on the east side of the cabins, behind the chicken coop. The chickens were back there browsing through the scrub, but no Ashley. Hearing my name being called, I ran out of the woods.
“Go out to the road,” Mike said, pointing.
I turned and headed for the road as he ran past me. Ted was knelt down, looking at the dirt track.
“What is it?”
He was holding a small stick and began to describe what he saw, “Here’s her print, and the dogs’, of course.” Pointing with the stick, he rose up and moved in a crouch. “Then there is this,” he said, pointing to a much larger track from what appeared to be a full-grown man.
My heart sank.
Mike came wheeling up in the buggy with Jamie, Perez, and Mel. Danny was right behind them on his Polaris with Doc.
Ted looked at me. “Notice how it’s only this track that leaves, plus the dogs’?”
I nodded and said barely above a whisper, “He must have carried her off.”
Ted nodded. Then Mel shouted, “Morg? What’s the matter? Where is she?”
I stood up as she ran up. “Someone took her. All we have are tracks.”
“What do you mean someone took her?” she screamed. “How could someone take her from right here with everyone around?”
“I don’t know,” I said, fear gnawing the pit of my stomach.
“But we’re going to find out, Mel,” Ted said.
I climbed into the buggy with Ted and Mike. Mel jumped in too. “Make room for me.”
Danny and Doc pulled up beside us. “We’ll follow you guys. The girls are staying here with Thad,” Danny said.
Mike drove down the road as Ted hung out the side watching the tracks. From the ATV, Doc was also tracking as Danny drove. They were going to the north, toward the paved road. If they got to the paved road it would be nearly impossible to find them. My head was spinning as I thought of Ashley’s smiling face. She was so little, so sweet. The thought of what could be happening to her made me sick. Tears began to run down my cheeks.
I looked at Mel. She was a total mess. I wiped my face to try and give the appearance of certainty that we would find her. I put an arm around her and she laid her head on my shoulder.
“We’re going to find her,” she said, more to herself than to me.
“Don’t worry, babe, we will.”
Several times we had to stop and get out to look for the tracks. For whatever reason, they wandered off the dirt road from time to time. At one of these spots, Ted found the tracks heading off the road. Ted, Mike, Mel, and I followed them off the road for about fifteen feet. We could clearly see Little Bit’s footprints in the sand, then a wet spot.
“Looks like someone took a leak,” Ted said.
Mel started to cry again. “She’s afraid to pee in the woods.” She looked at me. “You know she doesn’t like to do it when we go camping.”
Little Ashley had a thing about it, often requiring a detour to a real bathroom somewhere. The thought of her being forced to relieve herself out here in front of a stranger, a malicious one at that, sickened me. I wrapped my arms around her. “We’ll find her, babe, don’t worry.”
But even as I said it, a part of me feared the worst.
Chapter 6
Shane’s face and chest hurt. Niigata had been repeatedly slapping them in turn. The skin on his chest was now bright red, as was his face. Niigata had paused the assault. One of his gloves had ripped.
“You can’t do this shit to me. I’m an American citizen!” Shane shouted, his face stinging as he yelled.
Niigata turned, smiling. “So you are, but you are also now classified as an enemy combatant, which means I can do what I want to you.”
“Enemy combatant?! We were defending ourselves! Your people opened fire on us without warning!”
“Let’s not quibble over the details,” Niigata said, delivering a savage slap to the right side of Shane’s head. He slowly turned back to face Niigata. “Fuck you.”
In his pain, Shane hadn’t noticed the object in Niigata’s right hand. Niigata brought the stun baton up quickly, jamming it into Shane’s neck and triggering it. The hundred thousand volts caused his body to convulse and jerk in the chair as a long, loud moan escaped him. When Niigata finally let off, Shane’s body went limp, his head hung on his chest.
“Now, where were we? Ah yes, your meeting—what was the purpose of it?”
Shane’s head rocked back and forth. “I told you, we were just riding around and ran into them.”
Niigata stuck the end of the baton under Shane’s chin and raised his face. “No one just goes out for a ride these days. Fuel is precious, and the fact alone that you have a running vehicle and fuel says a lot about you. Now, who did you meet with?”
“There’s nothing to tell!” Shane yelled.
“If you were just out for a ride, as you say, then why were you armed? Under martial law you are not supposed to have weapons.”
“Come on, everyone’s armed!” Shane exclaimed.
“I can see this is going to require a little more effort. You may be telling the truth, or you may not, but we’ll find out.” Niigata took the gloves off and tossed them on the table.
Shane heard the door open. Niigata spoke to someone then returned with two other men. The hood was once again pulled over his head, and the two men set about removing the restraints that secured him to the chair and reapplying the ones he’d worn coming into this torture session. Once he was secured, the men pulled him to his feet and led him toward the door. Shane was thankful to be getting away from Niigata, though he didn’t know what would happen next.
Once outside, the sun’s rays warmed his entire body. This reminded him that he was still naked, being tr
otted around the camp with just a hood. He was led back into the building containing the cells—he could tell it was the same one from the smell. A cell door was opened and he was led in. The cuffs were disconnected from the waist chain and his arms lifted over his head as a clicking sound filled the room. Before he realized what was going on, his arms were pulled high over his head, then the clicking changed in pitch as he was lifted to the balls of his feet. He was barely supporting any of his weight with his legs, and his wrists ached.
“What the fuck?” Shane shouted.
“Here, this’ll make you feel better,” a voice said, a second before he was hit with a bucket of water.
The water was so cold, it caused Shane to yelp. Reflexively, he tried to turn his body, but before he could even react, he was hit with more water. The door was slammed shut, and one of the men said, “We’ll be back.”
Shane pictured how he must look: cold, wet, naked, hanging like a side of beef. He began to shiver. The building was cold to begin with, but now that he was naked and wet, Shane knew he was about to experience a level of cold he’d never known existed.
• • •
Kay was busy in the kitchen, humming to herself. The next lunch service would start in twenty minutes. She was stirring a large pot of red beans and rice and thinking of the girls. She was worried about them, and whatever cruel fate they were experiencing in detention. She had heard rumors about what happened there, but she didn’t even want to think of what those three were going through given the crime they’d committed. She smiled, thinking about how they would banter in the kitchen. Those girls had been different from most of the other women who worked for her, and she really cared for them. But there was nothing she could do for them now. Any attempt to help would land her in detention with them. Kay tilted the big pot and started raking the beans and rice out into a serving pan. As she carried the pan to the dining area she was greeted by the usual racket from the crowd.
Kay set the pan in the warmer and turned back to the kitchen. Before she made it through the door, someone called out to her.
“Hey, Kay!”
She stopped with one hand on the door to the kitchen and looked back. “Oh, hi, Aric.”
