Dead Pile (Maggie #3)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  She shuts the gate. When she returns to Bess, Reggie is in the driver’s seat. He points her to the passenger side. She gets in and Reggie drives on. As they cross the next pasture, Maggie’s fear turns to terror. She sees the mound in the distance and knows exactly where Reggie is taking her.

  Fifty-Eight

  It only takes five minutes to reach the dead pile, and they’re the shortest minutes of Maggie’s life. Reggie parks so close to the edge of the cliff—the old buffalo jump, where the dead pile gets pushed over with a tractor—that she’s scared the ground will crumble and drop them the hundred feet to the rocks below. Her hands start shaking violently in her lap. She clutches them together.

  “I’m putting the truck in neutral. We’re going to get out. But don’t try anything stupid. I have the gun pointed at you.”

  She exits the truck, looking for a place to run and hide. There’s nothing. Nowhere and nothing.

  Reggie is out and around the truck before she can come up with a plan. “Now you’re going to push.” He jams the gun between her shoulder blades, forcing her to the tailgate.

  She stares at her truck and shakes her head.

  He digs the barrel in harder. “Push.”

  A silent wail reverberates inside Maggie. She puts both hands on the truck she’s loved since first sight. “Too heavy.”

  “Push!” Reggie shouts. “Now!”

  She bends at the knees and waits and pushes. The truck doesn’t budge. She crouches further and uses all her strength and weight. The truck starts to roll, and her feet slide out from under her. The truck stops. On the way down, her chin smashes into the trailer hitch. The pain is blinding.

  “Ow.” She cradles the gash with her palm. To buy herself time, she asks, “Why are you making me push my truck?”

  “Everything about you is evil. I have to destroy it all.”

  “Bess hasn’t done anything wrong. I haven’t either.”

  “Get up. Be quiet.”

  “I—”

  “Shut up or I shoot.”

  Maggie crawls to her knees, leaving a bloody handprint in the snow that she can just barely see in the dark. Her head spins as she stands.

  “Push again.”

  “I’ve tried. I’m not strong enough.”

  “Like with the gates, tonight you will be.”

  Maggie swivels and digs her heel in the snow until she reaches the grass below, then does the same with her toe. She repeats the digging with her other foot. Once she has traction, she pushes again, every muscle in her body straining. Her chin pulses with pain. She cries out, and it turns into a long scream of effort, fear, and rage.

  The truck moves forward again.

  “Don’t stop.”

  She takes a breath and lets out another scream. Bess rolls another few inches, gathering momentum on the slight decline. Bess. Her beloved truck. He is making her push a piece of herself over the cliff to its death. She can’t. She just can’t. Maggie hates this man. She desperately wants to turn the tables on him. But try as she might, she can’t think of a way to do it. Best to play along a little while longer.

  She empties her lungs on a final war whoop of a scream, and the truck topples over the edge. When she hears it hit something hard down below, Maggie crumples to the ground. “Bess.”

  “Walk.”

  She hesitates just too long, and he smashes her ribs with the gun.

  Again, she cries out, but at the same time, she fights to get to her feet. “I’m g-g-g-g-oing, asshole.”

  He marches her to the dead pile. “I hereby judge you as the corruptor of my boy, forcing your immorality on him. Playing the guitar is nothing but prideful vanity. I won’t let you continue to ruin him. Just like that Paco who took him to bars. And that whore who was tempting him with her loose ways.”

  His words are horrifying. This isn’t a one-time break brought on by the stress of Andy being a suspect in the murders. This is madness. Reggie Yoder is a multiple murderer.

  She has to keep him talking. “What about Michael?”

  “The Indian boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “May God forgive me for him. But he showed up as his sister’s protector, and I had no choice. Just as I have no choice with you if I want to save my son.”

  “I haven’t been corrupting him. I promise.”

  “Hush!” He holds up his gun and points it at her. “This time, no one will pin it on my Andrew.”

  She’ll never be able to talk him out of this. Her mind whirls. She has to fight back, now. She searches around her for something to use as a weapon. Her size and strength are no match for his, much less for his gun. But in all the snow, she can’t see anything heavy, even though she knows there are rocks and debris near the pile.

  She makes one last try to keep him talking. “Doesn’t the Bible tell us to let God judge?”

  “You have no understanding of God’s words or commandments.”

  “Help me understand. Please.” Suddenly, she remembers the knife and scabbard concealed under her sweater. The one Hank made her promise to carry. The one Reggie will thrust in the back of her skull if he sees it before she can use it. How had she forgotten it? Her sweater is already partially hiked up over one hip. Slowly, she pushes the bottom edge up further until she can rest her hand on the hilt of her knife.

  “Impossible.” Reggie strikes her across the temple with his gun. “You’ll never understand.”

  She falls toward the snow, time slowing, a metronome in her head counting out the ticks of seconds passing. Her face hits first. It’s cold, cold, cold, especially in the cut on her chin. Thank God for the cold, because it keeps her awake. She closes her eyes and wraps her fingers tightly around the handle of her knife, using her thumb to open the snap on the strap that holds it in place.

  Suddenly everything is clear to her. She wants nothing more in the world than to stay alive, here with Hank, on this ranch, in Wyoming. The emotion is so strong that it paralyzes her for a beat. Why has she been too proud to tell Hank she loves him? To fight for him and help him through his treatment change and the death of his mother? She’s been distant. Shortchanging him with her emotions. She wants to give him everything she has and is. She needs to tell him she loves him. And that’s not all. She sees that Charlotte is right, but also that she’s wrong. Maggie does need her people, but what her mother doesn’t realize is that Maggie’s people are here. Maybe she had to run to find them, to find Hank. Like Gidget did. And maybe being like her birth mother isn’t the insult people have always intended it to be.

  Reggie grunts. “I thought you’d have more fight in you.”

  He steps closer, snapping her out of her haze of thoughts. He pushes her with his foot, but she plays possum. After a few moments, he holsters his gun. She hears his breath as he leans over her. Through slitted eyes, she sees him reach for her wrist. His legs are by her torso. She rips the knife from the sheath and stabs backward into his calf.

  His shriek is inhuman, the cry of a screech owl, and scarier than anything he has said to her all night. She pulls the knife out of his leg with a twist. She rolls away, pushing herself, and her knife jams in the ground and rips from her hand. Reggie leaps on top of her. He lands a punch on her cut chin. Stars flash in her vision. Then he’s pressing down on her chest and something above her glints.

  He has the knife, and he’s a witch.

  She braces for the blade, her eyes closed. Then she hears a noise like the rhythmic beating of a bass drum. Her eyes fly open. Reggie looks startled, and he hesitates. Seconds later, snow sprays in Maggie’s face. Reggie grunts and falls to the side, all of his weight off of her except a leg. She crab-walks out from under him as fast as she can.

  When she’s free of him, she glances back. She barely processes what she’s seeing. It’s like a Tasmanian devil is attacking Reggie. Their bodies are writhing and turning, so intertwined it’s as if they’re one. Reggie is stabbing at the thing with his knife hand. The little devil is black. A bear? A wolf? No, it
’s too small. Wolverine? No, there are none in Wyoming. Tasmanian devils either, for that matter. The black fur is long, with white markings. Too big to be a skunk. The sound it’s making is like a growl. Or a whine. Or a . . . bark.

  “Louise!” she shouts. She has to help her dog before Reggie stabs her wonderful, loyal, hero of a dog to death.

  But it’s not just Louise. Lily is stomping, pacing, and pawing behind them. There’s no time to wonder how they got there. As she scrambles to her feet, her hand touches something icy cold, smooth, and hard. Really hard.

  Reggie’s gun. It must have dislodged from his holster in the struggle with Louise.

  She’s no gun expert, but it’s big and black and looks deadly. She fumbles with it. If there’s a safety, she can’t find it. She holds it up and aims it at man and dog. They’re a churning mass, slamming over and over into a small tree. There’s no way she can shoot Reggie without risking Louise. She gets as close to their fray as she can without being swept into it, then she smashes the gun down with all her strength. Louise yelps, but she doesn’t loosen the jaws she has clamped over Reggie’s arm.

  “I’m sorry, Louise.”

  Without hesitation, she hammers the gun down again. She hears a sickening crack and Reggie cries out, then releases Louise. He rocks on the ground in the fetal position. Conscious? That’s not good enough for Maggie. She has better aim now that he’s not wrestling the dog. Grunting, she hits him again with the gun, harder, this time on the back of his head.

  “Umph.” Reggie’s body goes limp and silent.

  Louise barrels into Maggie, licking her and trying to push her away from their attacker at the same time.

  Maggie hugs her tight. “You are such a good, good girl. Such a good girl.” She looks up at Lily. “I rescue you, you rescue me. Good girl.” She checks Louise for injuries. Sticky blood mats her fur, whether hers or Reggie’s, Maggie doesn’t know. But Louise doesn’t seem to be in pain or distress.

  Maggie paws through the snow around Reggie looking for her knife. She’s not taking a chance he’ll wake up and jump her with it. The blade finds her first, drawing blood. She sucks her hand, then jams the knife into its sheath. As she starts to snap it in place, she stops. Thinks. Decides. She drags Reggie to the tree and props him against the trunk. Then she pulls the pigging string out of the scabbard, pulls Reggie’s wrists behind the tree, and wraps the pigging string over and over around them before tying it off. This wasn’t on the list of things Hank told me I could do with a knife and a string.

  When she’s done, Maggie’s hands are like ice. She walks over to Lily. “Help me out, girl?” She warms her hands between her body and the mare’s belly. Lily turns her neck and puts her muzzle on Maggie’s hair. Louise leans into her leg.

  Maggie’s adrenaline has worn off, and her energy is sapping out of her quickly. “Let’s go home, guys.”

  Louise leads the way in the dark. After ten minutes of high-stepping through snow and going through one gate, Maggie begins to wonder if she’ll make it back. Her clothing and boots aren’t made for winter hiking. Wetness has crept into her boots, and her feet are now as cold as her hands. After another ten minutes, she’s fairly sure she won’t make it.

  Louise seems to sense the quit in Maggie. She whines and bumps against her. Losing her footing, Maggie falls. She reaches up and her hand lands on the dog’s collar.

  Time stops. Her face hurts. She can’t remember where she is. It’s snowy and quiet, though. Louise barks and head-butts her.

  “Stop it.”

  She’s holding something. Louise’s collar. The dog strains and Maggie allows herself to be pulled until she’s standing up. With one step, though, she slips again and lurches forward, headfirst into something big, warm, and unyielding. She touches it with her hand. A horse. Lily. The mare bumps her muzzle into Maggie’s face. Reaching up, up, up, Maggie clutches a handful of coarse mane and buries her face into warm fuzzy horse hair.

  The warmth rejuvenates her, and her brain tries to make sense of everything again. She realizes she’s in the ranch pasturage. Because? Reggie. She’s out here because Reggie brought her. She groans. He made her push Bess off the buffalo jump. And he tried to kill her and put her on the dead pile. He’s still out there. Tied up, but he could escape. She has to get home. Get help.

  “You gonna help me, girls?”

  With Louise pressing into her lower legs from one side and Lily’s wide barrel against her head and shoulder from the other, Maggie keeps a tight grip on Lily’s mane and stumbles along between them. Little, big, and bigger, abreast, they keep moving for what seems like forever. Maggie’s feet, hands, and face are like ice, and she still slips, but Lily keeps her upright, and the warmth from the animals is a big improvement. They don’t do much for her brain, though, and she has trouble keeping the story she’s fought so hard to remember straight in her mind.

  Headlights appear in the distance.

  “Over here,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. She feels a strange sense of déjà vu. “Over here.”

  She’s babbling incoherently when a truck pulls up beside her.

  Hank jumps out. “Maggie, oh my God. We’ve got to get you warm.” He lifts her in his arms.

  “Lily and Louise saved me.”

  He pushes her into the truck and turns his heater on full blast. “Are you okay?”

  Louise jumps into the front seat with Maggie. Hank ties Lily to a metal loop in the side of the truck bed, then he gets in and closes the door.

  Maggie shivers. Her hands and feet feel like they’re being stabbed with needles. Her face burns, except her chin, which throbs. “I tried to text you.”

  He starts rubbing her hands briskly between his. “I got your message about dropping Andy in Montana.”

  “Montana. Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m ashamed of how I’ve been treating you. I can’t lose you. I had to get away where I could protect you from what I was becoming, until the treatment started to work. So I went to Denver to get something for you. While I was there, I started to feel better, more human again. I think it’s working, the program and the shots.”

  Maggie groans. She’s only partially processing his words, but the sound of his voice is soothing. The rubbing isn’t.

  “I came home as fast as I could. You should have been back already, but your truck wasn’t there, and I couldn’t find you. You weren’t answering your phone. When I saw Louise and Lily were missing, too, and there were fresh tire tracks out toward the south pasturage—not ranch truck tracks, but skinny like the ones from your funky old truck—I was so scared.”

  “Bess,” Maggie whispers.

  “What?”

  She shakes her head. He puts his warm face against hers.

  It hurts so good. She sighs.

  “Wait, where is your truck?” Then he holds up her arm. “Is this blood?”

  Maggie smiles at him. It hurts her cheeks. “You didn’t do it.”

  “What?”

  “Neither did Andy.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  Maggie shakes her head. Her brain starts to come back to her. She points in the direction of the dead pile. “You’ll understand when you see the surprise waiting for you and two counties worth of deputies at the dead pile.”

  Fifty-Nine

  An unfamiliar truck pulls up the lane toward the ranch house two mornings later—looking like it shares a birth decade with Bess, but hasn’t aged as well—with Travis in his Sheridan County truck on its bumper. Maggie is walking back from the barn, where she’s been feeding Louise and Lily a special thank-you breakfast. She would have done it the day before if she hadn’t spent all of it either being questioned by doctors or law enforcement personnel. It’s not only the animals that have had to wait. She and Hank have barely had a moment to themselves either.

  A toothless man at the wheel of the ancient truck leans out the window and spits a stream of tobacco juice. Part of it splatters behind him on the re
ar door. He parks in front of the house. A light snow begins to fall as Andy gets out of the passenger side and walks toward the entrance. Travis pulls in beside him but leaves the motor running.

  Hank meets Andy at the door, and Maggie begins to trot, her long hair falling from the stretchy headband she’d pushed it up and back in. The headband falls down to her neck like a scarf, sticking to her ChapStick for a second on the way. She catches Hank and Andy mid-conversation.

  “You’re welcome back here, any time.” Hank has a hand clamped on Andy’s shoulder.

  “Thank you, sir. I know that. But I’ll be staying in the community. My mother needs me now, to help with the family.”

  Maggie is only a little out of breath. “Is that what you want?” Returning to the community means baptism and is a point of almost no return.

  “My father ain’t my religion. I can keep the pieces separate. This is what is right.”

  The lump in Maggie’s throat nearly chokes off her air. “You’re a good person, Andy Yoder.”

  “So was my father. Before. I wish you could have known him then.”

  Hank holds his hand out to Maggie and she takes it, gripping it tight.

  “Before what?” Hank says. “You’ve lost me, son.”

  “Before the rotgut ate his brain.”

  “Alcohol.” Maggie isn’t surprised. It confirms what she has smelled and suspected. And she knows substance abuse can destroy a human one brain cell at a time. She wonders if they’ll find bottles up at the summer cabin—she’d reviewed the new security camera shots in the hospital the day before. The mysterious figure she’d seen in the alerts? Reggie Yoder. “You knew?”

  “Others did. The truth is out now.”

  “Maybe he can get treatment in prison?”

  “That ain’t the Amish way. We don’t always understand God’s will, but I know my father never would have done those things before.”

  Maggie isn’t sure how it could be God’s will that Reggie kill off the people Andy cared about, but now is not the time to wrestle her theological demons. Whatever God’s will, Reggie’s quest is fulfilled: Andy is returning to the community. But if she remembers one thing from all her religious upbringing and education, it is not to confuse God’s will with man’s. Reggie made the choice to start drinking, not God, and that was the choice that led to all his other ones. Or that’s the way she sees it as a two-time survivor of rehab, and success story of sorts, anyway. Her head hurts from even that little bit of religious contemplation, so she forces her attention back to the conversation.