by JC Gatlin
“Leave it,” he said.
“You plan on playing it?” she asked.
He grimaced. “It’s okay. Just leave it.”
“All right,” she said, gingerly angling her body back onto the seat. “Hang on, okay?”
She stared at him for several long seconds, studying his bloody stomach and shoulder. She unbuttoned her shirt and slipped her arms out of the sleeves. Taking it into her hands, she ripped it into two pieces. Turning to Owen, she lifted his shirt again and wrapped one piece around his stomach and tightened it. Owen groaned in pain and she retreated. When he looked calm, she positioned the other piece of her shirt around his shoulder, mopping up the blood.
“We need to call for help,” she said, moving his torso in the seat.
Looking around the cab, she leaned down toward the floorboards, opened the center console, and then checked the backseat.
Owen stirred and opened his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for my purse.” She flipped her upper body over the console, into the backseat, and stretched her arms. The bent steering wheel dug into her thigh as she stretched her body. She reached as far as she could, then snapped back into the front seat with the brown “Fish Naked” T-shirt she’d worn yesterday and a pair of sandals in her hand. “I can’t find my purse. It’s gone.”
“You said you hid it back at the boat ramp.”
“My cell phone was in it.” Rayanne sighed, slipping her arms into the T-shirt and rolling it down over her head. Once she was in it, she held up the sandals and struggled to maneuver around the bent steering wheel, toward her feet. She slipped her left foot into one sandal as she spoke. “The kids … they took it.”
“It didn’t match your shoes, anyway.” Owen chuckled at that, and she took it as a good sign.
She got the other sandal onto her right foot and sat back against the seat. She looked at Owen.
His head wobbled on his shoulders and he slurred as he talked. “Your cell wouldn’t get reception out here.”
She ignored him and searched the floorboard by his feet. “Where’s Darryl’s phone? He said he left it in here. Where is it?”
“Don’t matter. No cell recep—” Owen coughed, unable to finish. He leaned forward, coughing deeper until he cleared his throat, and leaned back. He looked over at her. “Where’s the shotgun?”
She watched him a moment before answering. “It’s in the backseat.”
“You need to get it.” Owen shifted his torso so that he faced her. He coughed and turned his head toward the backseat. “No one’s coming for us.”
Rayanne buried her face in her hands. She wanted to scream and to cry all at once, but all she could do was breathe. So she took short, shallow breaths.
“I don’t know what to do,” she mumbled. “Lord, I just don’t know what to do.”
“No one’s coming,” he said again. “I want you to get the gun and head out for the county road.”
Rayanne shook her head. She didn’t want to look at him. “Owen, stop it. Be serious.”
He coughed again, struggling to speak. “It’s not far.”
She stared at him a moment, trying to decide if he was lucid or out of his head. She stated, “I’m not leaving you.”
“It can’t be more than a coupl’a miles.” He winced in pain. “You gotta flag down a car or someth’n.”
“No,” Rayanne insisted. “I can’t leave you. Those teenagers are still out there. They’ll find you here.”
“Or they’ll find both of us here,” he said. “We don’t have a choice. Get the gun out of the backseat.”
Tears streamed down her face and neck. The wreck. Owen’s condition. The teenagers. The violence. It was all starting to get to her. “I can’t leave you. Not like this.”
“Babe, we don’t have a choice.”
Rayanne sniffled and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. She felt tears mixed with blood and that seemed to bring a surge of strength up from some deep well within her. Though she ached with every movement, she swiveled and stretched into the backseat again. She grasped the shotgun and returned to her seat. She raised it in her hands for him to see, then thrust it toward him. “If I go, you have to keep this.”
“No.” He reached for the gun as if to push it away. The sudden movement hurt him and the pain showed in his face. “You’ll need it.”
“Owen, you’re badly injured. If those kids come back … they’re outta control.”
“Don’t argue with me.” He gripped the gun in his lap. He tried to hand it back to her. “There’s wild boars out there. Bears.”
She wouldn’t take it. “I’m more worried about those kids than wild animals right now.”
He reached for the guitar handle sticking up along the edge of the seat by his bloody leg, and said in a deepened voice, “If they come back, I’ll hit them with this.”
He grabbed the guitar and moved it ever so slightly, despite the pain.
“Owen, I’m not joking.” She refused to take the gun from his hands. “I can run. I can hide, but you can’t. If those kids come this way, and they probably will, you’ll need to defend yourself.”
Owen looked at her. He let the guitar fall to his feet, and grasped the shotgun. He started to say something else, then stopped. He leaned back with a deep exhale. Rayanne knew he was too weak to argue.
“I’ll be back before nightfall,” she said, and leaned her shoulder against the door. She had to force it open, taking all her willpower and strength. It finally gave a loud, protesting squeak. With the door hanging open, she moved her legs out from under the steering wheel.
Owen grabbed her hand before she was fully out of the car. She hesitated and looked back at him.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you more than anything in the world.”
She smiled at him, then leaned over the console toward him, and pressed her lips to his. When their lips parted, she stayed there a moment, close to him. She could feel his breath on her face.
“I love you too,” she whispered. “More than anything in the world.” She pulled away.
He still held her hand, and gripped it tighter. “Be careful,” he said. Then he released her.
Rayanne climbed out of the Chevy, limping badly.
A warm gust of air came through the trees, bringing with it the strong stench of oil and crushed metal. She stared at the mangled Chevy and was surprised that the damage didn’t look as severe on the outside. The paint was heavily scratched, and a rear wheel was warped and distended from the wheel well like a broken foot. She knew the rear axle had snapped. The right side of the truck, where Owen was sitting, watching her, butted up tight to the slope of the ditch, and the back passenger door on the driver’s side was crushed inward. The front windshield was shattered.
The noise and the smell of the wrecked truck would bring those teens, or other predators. Dropping her arms to her side, she glanced once into the shadows between the trees and made her way up the steep slope, leaving prints from her sandals behind her in the dirt.
15
Rayanne followed scorched tire marks in the grass. Broken limbs were scattered along the undergrowth, with weeds and small shrubs ripped from the ground. The runaway truck had cut a winding path of destruction back to the dirt trail.
She passed the remains of the boat trailer. It looked like a discarded skeleton of steel beams and shredded tires. It hadn’t fared as well as the Chevy, but she was thankful for that.
Rayanne stepped forward, expecting at any moment to see the teens jump out from behind a tree. She pictured their hateful faces in the shadows. Heard them laughing with the crows above and in the rising and falling trill of unseen cicadas around her.
She stepped onto the rutted dirt path. If she followed the two worn strips of tire tracks grooved into the dirt, she knew they would lead her back to the county road. She hesitated, listening for the teenagers in either direction. She didn’t hear them. They must have left, she decided. She felt better knowin
g they weren’t on the path the Chevy had cut through the woods. They weren’t headed toward the ditch or to the wreck. They weren’t headed to Owen.
Turning north, she headed along the dirt path. It was only a couple of miles to the county road, she told herself. A couple of miles.
* * * * *
Rayanne plodded along for a solid hour. The sun was sinking, but she knew she had plenty of daylight left. It wouldn’t be dark for hours. Still, she walked with purpose. She no longer cared about finding deer or photographing the local wildlife. She just wanted to see the old windmill.
She hoped she would see it rise like a tower on the horizon, above the tree line. If she saw that—when she saw that—the county road would be close.
A faint whistle carried on the wind.
Rayanne heard it and froze. She strained her ears, listening. The whistle came again, followed by a high-pitched voice calling, “Luuuuuuuugggggggeeeeee-errrr!”
A deeper voice came right behind it. “Heeeeeee-eeerrreeee, boooooooy!”
The teenagers. Rayanne knew it instantly. They were ahead of her on the dirt path. She heard them call out again, and then came another whistle. Loud and insistent. It was the larger boy, Roddy, and that girl, Dru. Maybe Scut? Maybe only the two.
Their calls echoed in the trees, silencing the crows. She could hear their voices. She could hear them talking. Conversation. They were coming her way. Getting closer. She had to hide.
Rayanne looked into the woods.
Turning off the dirt path, she made her way into the undergrowth and scrambled for the shadows of the oak trees and pines. She crouched down into the dirt and prayed they couldn’t see her. Her eyes watched the dirt path ahead.
She listened to them get closer.
Scut’s voice grew louder. “I say we leave the damn animal behind.”
“We’re not leaving Luger.” It was Dru and she yelled for her dog again.
“Will you give it up? He’s gone!”
Three shadows stretched across the rutted grooves, then Rayanne saw Scut, Dru, and Rude Roddy emerge along the path. The nerdy teen with the broken arm wasn’t with them. She leaned back deeper into the shady hollow so they couldn’t see her.
The group stopped, and Dru yelled again, “Luuuuuu-gggeeerrrr!”
Rude Roddy, the big bear of a kid with the shaggy beard who wore the black knit beanie, seemed nervous. “We gotta get outta here,” he was saying, “before someone finds it.”
Scut pushed him. “Ain’t no one comin’ out here and ain’t no one gonna find that body for days.”
Roddy pushed him back. “But what about that woman? The old man’s wife. They took off.”
Dru paused from her yelling for Luger. “I’m telling you they crashed. I ran them off the path, into the woods.”
“Then we should go find the truck,” Scut said, moving ahead of them on the path. He was directly in front of Rayanne now, and her eyes widened, watching him. She listened to him holler back to his friends. “Let’s find the old man and finish the job.”
“No.” Roddy grabbed his arm. “The job’s done. That Owen guy didn’t even know what we were talking about. Let’s get out of here before someone finds the other guy’s body.”
Rayanne gasped. Poor Darryl, she thought. He didn’t deserve that. She turned away as Scut spoke again.
“He ain’t goin nowhere and ain’t nobody comin’ in here,” he said.
Rayanne’s left leg tingled from her crouched position, and she shifted ever so slightly to relieve the pressure. In doing so, she slipped. She grabbed hold of a branch for support, disturbing the trees.
The teenagers froze.
Dru called out, “Luger?”
“No, it ain’t your dog.” Scut pushed her aside. He stepped toward the edge of the path, peering into the woods.
Rayanne remained motionless. She held her breath. She watched the boy step closer. He leaned down, putting his hands on his knees, and craned his neck. His face was inches from hers. Their eyes met.
Rayanne jumped and ran into the woods. Leaves crunched beneath her feet as she heard Scut yell, “There’s someone in there!”
Behind her, she could hear them coming. She ran faster, blindly, through the trees. The kids were yelling behind her. Her sides ached. She told herself to ignore the pain. She kept her face forward, not daring to turn her head.
She vaulted over a stump, almost hit a tree, then turned. Ran faster between the trees. Underbrush slowed her down, tripping her. She slipped. Fell on her side. She rolled through tall grass, scraped her arms, hit her back, her head. She rolled faster, downwards into a hollow. Stopped at the bottom of the hill and slid into the dirt.
She got up on her knees. Her head spun. She felt dizzy, but she could still hear their voices. They were coming. Rayanne looked around.
There were old cars, left abandoned. Seven. Eight. Twelve, she counted, and then saw a dirty mattress, ripped open with its inner planks showing. Stinkweed spiraled up the rusty poles of a swing set. A discarded washing machine. Bricks and cement chunks scattered in the weeds. A pile of black tires. It was some kind of dump.
Rayanne heard the kids’ voices, and she looked again at the old cars in the bottom of the ditch. The first thing that came to mind was rattlesnakes. But she knew she couldn’t think of that right now.
She got up and headed for the rusted jeep. The hood was gone and it looked like a corpse left to rot in the sun. She glanced at the other cars. There was a hatchback with no doors. A pickup was off to one side, on blocks. The wheels had been removed and the driver’s side door thrown open and left to hang. There was a yellow Volkswagen Beetle half buried in the dirt.
Brown and yellow weeds sprouted up between the wrecks, but the ground was hard and Rayanne knew she had no choice. She raced past the rusting jeep, watching where she stepped.
She moved to the shell of a Volkswagen Beetle. It had two doors. She forced the passenger side open and looked into the dank interior. The overhead lining draped down like a misty shroud. Weeds had grown through the undercarriage and overtaken the floorboards. But two front seats and a long backseat remained. It could be a hiding place, she thought, and squeezed herself into the backseat. She cowered as low as she could.
She held her breath and prayed there was nothing living inside.
She shut her eyes and listened. The teens’ voices grew louder. They sounded like they were coming down into the hollow and she could hear Scut—or was it Roddy—say something about the cars. He sounded excited.
Dru was farther away. Rayanne could hear her calling the dog. Perhaps she didn’t want to walk down into the dump. It didn’t matter. Rayanne knew Scut and Roddy already had.
Their voices echoed, slipping between the cars. One of them said something about the pile of tires and the other laughed. She could hear them moving about, throwing rocks on metal remains, until they stopped right in front of the Volkswagen.
Rayanne stopped breathing.
“She’s hide’n here somewhere,” Scut was saying. He threw another rock and it hit the bumper. The sound reverberated through the Volkswagen, and Rayanne shivered.
“Naaaah,” Roddy said. It sounded like he was walking away. “I don’t think so. She’s a woman. She ain’t gonna come down here.”
“We’re not leav’n till we search every car.” Scut sounded like he was stepping away too. She could hear him throwing rocks at other cars now.
Rude Roddy was saying something when one of them screamed. For a second Rayanne thought Dru had made her way down into the dump. She was surprised to learn it was Scut.
“There’s a rattler! There’s a rattler!” Scut’s high-pitched wail echoed through the hollow, and she heard what sounded like some kind of skirmish. Perhaps an avalanche of gravel rolled down the slopes of the hollow, like marbles beneath their feet.
“I hate snakes! I hate ’em!” Scut’s voice rapidly moved away, and it sounded as far as Dru’s now. The girl asked them what was wrong.
They had to have climbed out of the hollow, Rayanne thought. She opened her eyes. She wanted to poke her head up, but didn’t dare.
When she heard them again, Rayanne was thankful she’d stayed put. She wished they would leave. They seemed to be standing there. Talking. Cussing. Loitering at the top of the slope. Perhaps they were waiting for her to make a move. Rayanne remained as motionless as she could, lying down, hidden in the backseat of the Volkswagen.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there, listening. She was aware of the heat, though. The sun was blaring down on top of that old car. The inside was baking and Rayanne was sweating.
Finally, one of boys noted the sky was clouding up and it would be dark soon. And when she thought she could take it no longer, she heard their voices trailing away. Their echoes, still calling for their dog, grew faint.
Rayanne waited several minutes before she lifted her head. The junkyard looked darker. Something about it seemed lonelier than when she arrived. A clap of thunder turned her gaze upward. Rain clouds were sweeping in angrily from the west. She folded her arms across her chest, feeling a chill; yet there was no breeze.
She moved around in the backseat and lumbered out of the car, then turned and climbed back into it. She shut the passenger door. The first loud plop hit the rusted roof, followed by another. Then another.
Rayanne glared out the back windshield at the dump. It looked eerily like a graveyard, more so now that darkness and rain had closed her in. Even so, she felt relatively safe. She crouched down inside the car, stretched out on the backseat, and listened to the rain hit the roof.
She hoped Owen was safe too.
16
Rain fell on the truck and made a monotonous clank that kept Owen awake. He looked down. Wrapped around his stomach, the tattered strips of Rayanne’s yellow shirt were stained with his dark blood. He wondered again when she would return. He’d kept a lookout for her all afternoon. He’d dozed off a couple of times. Only for a few seconds, though. The heat inside the truck and the pain in his leg had become unbearable and made any real sleep impossible. It only deepened his depression.
