I don’t even try to mask the noise of my progress, the clumping rattling of the chain, the sound of the prod banging against the walls, my labored breathing and groaning like a wounded animal. Had there been anyone else in the house, he or she would have heard Brenda screaming, and shots would have been fired well before I left my prison cell.
The door to the Saint Michael’s room has been left ajar, the area bright from slanting sunlight coming in through the picture window. The light makes me squint; it seems to be late afternoon. I lose my balance and fall awkwardly against the wall. The large painting of Saint Michael looms next to me. I turn toward it, the image having its own force of gravity, the swirling colors pulling me in like water down a drain, and, dropping the cattle prod, I plant a balancing hand against the canvas to steady myself. Saint Michael gazes down at the eternal foe pinned beneath his feet, his sword held in his right hand poised to strike, the fires of hell behind him, and I see what I’ve never seen before. In his left hand, he’s holding a chain, the length of which stretches over the back of the devil, the near end disappearing behind the angel’s right leg, at ankle level.
A nerve in my calf explodes, and the muscles in my arm quiver from holding on to the stone. I close my eyes for a moment, the narcotics talking to me, telling me to sit in Evangeline’s comfortable chair and wait for the End Times to come, putting a stop to the pain. When I open my streaming eyes again, the angel is looking at me, admonishing me, scolding me as only a medieval unrelenting Catholic icon can do. And I’m certain to the core of my being that if he could talk, he would be telling me, as Benny would, that there’s no crying in roller derby and that winning comes only from a hard ass sliding down a long track.
When I pull my hand away from the canvas, I leave a wet, bloody palm print over the demon’s balding pate.
I pick the prod up off the floor and am halfway to the window when I hear the distant rumbling sound of a large truck engine approaching. There are hedges outside the window so I have no clear view. But the truck is nearing the house. I turn back into the hallway, a clumsy careening behemoth, the weight of the stone threatening to pull me over. I limp and stagger to the other end of the hall, the muscles in my right leg knotting up. There are doors to the right and to the left, and I open each one quickly and find a kitchen, a near-empty dining room, and, finally, an interior door that opens onto a foyer fronted with a heavier wooden door with little frosted windowpanes set into the top half of it. The roaring engine is coming from that direction.
I go down the hall to the left and find another door that opens onto a mudroom with a washer and dryer and a patio exit door made of glass. Sneakers and work boots are scattered on the floor. Coats hang on a wall rack. I jam my feet into a pair of too-big men’s sneakers, grab the longest, warmest jacket and throw it over my shoulder, and open the back door.
The air is only cool, but in my weakened condition it might as well be freezing outside. My eyes are nearly shut against the light, and I hobble blindly across a tiny cement patio to a narrow lawn, limping grotesquely toward an adjacent stand of trees and shrubby brush. To the left of the house are several open carports and one enclosed metal hut, a garage or work shed, and I hide myself from view by crouching behind the trunk of a large pine tree. I crane my head around in time to see an oversize pickup truck pull into one of the carports. The engine is cut and two men get out of the cab, one of them Tommy Roy.
They open the back of the truck and begin unloading boxes and carrying them into the storage building. The bed of the truck is full, and it will take them a while to complete the unloading. I can only hope they will finish before Tommy decides to go inside. Behind me is a narrow dirt road running parallel to the house. On the far side of the road is a thick growth of trees. The beginning of a pine forest.
My lungs are burning, my thighs look fish-belly white, pimpled with chill, but I need to keep moving through the forested area to find a house or a busier paved road to get help.
I set the stone and the prod down and quickly pull on and zipper the heavy jacket. Then I tuck the prod under one arm, pick up the stone in both hands, and, bent low, creep across the road and into the trees.
36
The towering pines are spaced wide apart, but the ground is choked with shriveled pine needles, ferns, and vine runners. Tall, fibrous reeds scratch my bare ankles as I walk, catching at the links of the chain on my right leg, tugging painfully at the embedded hobble that is exposed like a dangling subway strap outside the thin bandage.
To my own ears, the crunching noises beneath my feet sound like a dinner bell for wolves. After I walk for five minutes, the ground, which had been hard-packed at first, becomes spongy from the rotted vegetable matter holding in rainwater, and the mud sucks at my feet, threatening to pull off the loosely fitting sneakers. The muscles of my back quiver as the stone becomes heavier by the yard.
The trees soon grow closer together, separated by only a few feet. There is no clear path; it is wild, undeveloped land without even a deer track to follow. I’m vaguely aware of the sun just beginning to set behind me, a reddish tinge marking the bark of the tops of the trees.
I step hard into a deep depression hidden under rotting ferns, and I lose my balance. Releasing the stone, I fall forward, trying to catch myself with my hands. The rock misses crushing my feet, but I land on top of the rock, bruising my chest against it, getting the breath knocked out of me with a groaning cry. I raise myself up with both arms, the painted yellow letter E for Ephesians on the stone winking beneath me, and a boiling pain erupts out of my right leg. Teeth gnashing, breath rapid and shallow, I ease back into a sitting position and pull my left leg and then my right leg from the slimy depression.
The gauze has been ripped from the ankle; the incisions tore open in the fall and are bleeding freely. I wipe away, as best I can, the rotted vegetation from the wounds, and I fish out the sneaker that was pulled free from my foot and put it on. My brain skitters around the thought that if I were to examine the incision more closely, I’d be able to see light coming through from the other side. At this I lean over and vomit up everything that is left in my stomach.
Using a slender tree trunk, I pull myself, hand over hand, to my feet. I yank on the chain to bring the stone closer to me and stand for a moment, clenching my jaw, willing myself not to faint. I use the tree for balance as I pick up the stone, and then I keep moving.
Every few steps, I lean against another tree, and then another, pausing a moment and then lurching forward again. Like a demented pinball, I think. A Pine Curtain pinball.
My face, neck, and chest are slippery with sweat, as are my palms—one of them still seeping blood—which makes holding on to the stone more difficult. At one point, I lean against a massively tall pine; a loblolly, I recall from some shrouded recess in my brain. I’m grateful that at least there are no exposed roots to trip me up.
Then I realize that I’ve lost the cattle prod. I must have dropped it when I fell into the muddy depression.
I think how good it would be to slide down to the earth and rest with my eyes closed, my head braced against the fragrant bark, the stone settled on the ground where it belongs. It’s getting darker, and I consider sleeping all night in the woods. I’d be hidden, I’d gather my strength, and then I’d press on in the morning. But simply being still for a few moments has brought on the fever chills. One night in the woods and I’d die from either thirst and exposure or the infection in my leg. I’d be found in the woods tomorrow as stiff and imposing as a Polish war memorial.
In the distance, there is a new sound, a bass rumbling. It recedes and then advances again, like a dark wave. It’s Tommy Roy’s truck on the move.
I glance down and see a dark, wet puddle next to my right leg. Blood from the wound has overflowed the sneaker and is pooling in the dirt. I push away from the loblolly and shuffle-walk, bending forward like an ancient crone in order to rest my elbows against my hips. My biceps feel like they’ve been shredded, and I ca
n’t rely on the muscles to keep the stone up against my chest anymore.
Shuffling in syncopated rhythm, the longer beat on the left foot, the right foot barely a resting break in my stride, I continue forward. If I could just get rid of the fucking stone, I think, I’d make it. It’s the stone weighing me down, suffocating me, tearing at the muscles and tendons in my arms and legs. I think of how much ground I’d have eaten up only a few days ago running freely, my body whole and strong. I could run all night at an easy pace and probably be back in Dallas by morning.
The tip of a fallen branch catches at the hobble, bringing me up short again. Exasperated, I hurl the stone onto the ground, and like a miniature meteor, it throws up a shallow collar of dust. With both hands I pull at the chain in opposite directions, the metal cutting into my palms, trying to separate the links. I find a fist-size rock, place the chain over another larger stone, and pound the links with whatever strength I have remaining in my right arm. I pound until the shrill whistling noise in my throat makes me stop. There were sparks off the metal, but I can’t break the chain; the rock I’m holding is not heavy enough and the ground underneath the other one is too soft.
The low rumbling of the truck vibrates through the forest from the other direction this time, as though the driver has circled back around. They’re still far away, but they’re looking for me, and at some point they will get out of their truck and begin to search in the trees. I’ve left enough signs for a blind person to track me.
Get up, you fucking baby, the internal voice screams. I need to pull myself up and keep moving forward, but the thought of even standing is too much to bear.
Get the fuck up and keep moving. Sitting here whining like a little girl. Boo-hoo-hoo, poor pitiful you. Start walking before I kick your ass so hard the Roys won’t have anything left to kick.
I think of the damage done to my body. Of the reptilian, sanctimonious countenance of Evangeline Roy. The near rape by her son. The murder of Lana by her other son. Tommy Roy standing over Jackie’s bed as she slept.
With a sickening jolt I realize that it’s the first time in days that I’ve allowed myself to think of Jackie. More horrifying than any outrage, though, is the realization that, for the briefest instant, the time in which it would have taken an atom to break apart, I couldn’t recollect her name. But now the name has summoned forth a flood of memories: her body sleek and buoyant in water, her scent, the excruciating welcome of her smile.
No, no, no, no, no crying now. There’s no crying in roller derby. Just get up. And walk.
On my hands and knees, I raise my head to find and grab hold of the nearest tree, and in the distance, about fifty yards in front of me, I see a dark green wall. I hoist myself up, hug the stone to my chest, and begin moving toward it.
Within twenty yards, I can make out that the green wall is a high, chain-link fence covered over and nearly obscured by choking vines and ivy. It must be a privacy fence to a residence. I’ve made it to a house.
I stagger down the length of it. The fence is too vast to belong to just one modest house. Behind it is either a large estate or, better yet, a residential community. Soon, I can see the tip of a tall, steeple-like structure, as on a church, looming over the top of the fence.
There is no break in the fence that I can see, and I open my mouth to call out for help. I’m dehydrated, my mouth parched, and in the time it takes to summon my voice, I look again at the church steeple. A church means a church community. Evangeline has a church community. All of those good souls she’s saved through her ministry of the coming Apocalypse.
I close my eyes for a moment and listen for any sounds coming from the other side of the fence. I hear nothing, not even Tommy Roy’s truck. After gasping along for another twenty yards, I find a break in the vines that reveals a gate with a length of chain holding it closed. There is a rusted lock through the links, but no one has thought to secure it. I put my eye to an opening between the gate and a fence post.
On the other side of the fence, looking like a movie set for a Western, is a small compound of old-fashioned one- and two-story buildings with wooden porches and a few log cabins, lined up on either side of a narrow dirt road that’s rutted deep with what looks to be wagon tracks. It’s a pioneer reenactment village, I realize, something that’s popular all over Texas, harking back to a simpler time when men were men and their women knew to keep their bonnets on and their mouths shut.
The compound, at least for now, is deserted, the storefronts neat and tidy. A large banner suspended from two poles and hanging across the main street reads KING JUBILEE HERITAGE AND HISTORICAL VILLAGE, JUNE 1 THROUGH AUGUST 31, 2013. FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!
The lock is easy to remove, but the gate squeals when I open it, causing me to freeze, my heart racing in my chest. There is no answering noise, so I ease through the gate, close it behind me, and head for the nearest building, which is the church, a boxy, whitewashed structure with a tall steeple that screams Protestant self-denial. Through one of the front-facing windows I can see a few uncomfortable-looking wooden pews and one ornate, dilapidated organ. There are neat stacks of hymnals on a table and a simple, unadorned cross affixed to the wall. But unless I wanted to hurl the enormously oversize Bible resting on the pulpit at my pursuers, there is nothing inside I can use for my protection.
The thing that ultimately keeps me from entering the church is the painted letters over the double doors, which chill me to the bone and echo the wooden plaque in Evangeline’s sitting room: WELCOME HOME.
Next to the church is the one-room schoolhouse, and I can’t imagine it contains anything to improve my chances of escaping the Family either. A pencil for jabbing, a ruler for the slapping of wrists. I erupt in choking, hiccupping laughter that brings on a fit of coughing, the bubbling up of terror and exhaustion. A wave of dizziness narrows my vision, and my knees begin to buckle. I struggle to stand in the middle of the narrow dirt road, the stone in my arms a monstrously weighted thing that wills me to set it down and then lower myself to the ground as well and rest awhile. I drop the rock and lie curled up on my side, using the stone as a pillow.
I hear the vibrating sound of a large vehicle somewhere beyond the pines, but I don’t care. Closing my eyes, I think of my brother and how he must have felt letting the water of the Atlantic Ocean cover him. Releasing himself finally into the abyss.
“He got sucked down into the abyss of his own morass,” Benny is telling me. “But you’re not going to allow that to happen. I won’t let you.”
My brother’s death has incapacitated me, has broken me. I am a raging hole of despair and anger. I have taken to my bed, stopped talking, stopped eating. I had started at the police academy, but I am done with that too.
Uncle Benny is at the door to my bedroom. I’ve never seen him so angry.
“Get up,” he orders, yanking the blanket off my bed, the blanket I have used to cover myself for days on end.
“I’ve never been disappointed in you until this moment,” he tells me.
The tears for my brother have dried, but now there are new tears, not of loss, but of shame. Benny looks down at me, enraged, but below his anger is the fear that he will lose me as well. I sense this as surely as I sense his untiring love for me. He reaches out his hand, and I let him pull me up from my bed.
My eyes snap open. Dust and grime cloud my vision, but I can see, directly across the street, a wooden shack with a sign that says BLACKSMITH FORGE over the door. A blacksmith forge with metal tools. I push myself to sitting, then to standing, and when I’m certain I won’t pass out, I heave up the stone and slowly, agonizingly, cross the road.
The front-door handle is merely a latch; it opens easily, and I stumble into the room, wilt into a cane chair against one wall, and allow the stone to crash to the floor. All my limbs shake uncontrollably from the collapse of my internal adrenaline pump and from fever, but the room is warm and still, and I look for the thing that will free me.
Most of the implements an
d iron bits resting on worktables and against the walls are archaic-looking, their functions a mystery to me. There are a few sharp pikes and one large crowbar, which might be of use. And at the far side of the room is a small anvil on a low platform, the hammer still resting on it.
Taking a steadying breath, I will myself to stand again and drag the stone by its chain to the platform. The anvil is small with a long narrow horn at one end, but the blacksmith’s hammer is massive, strong enough to bend metal bars. I heave the stone onto the platform and with both arms bring my quivering right leg up so that my foot can rest on the body of the anvil, near the horn. I slip off the filthy sneaker and see that my foot is black with dried blood. After I make the high step up, all the muscles in my leg begin to cramp as though fire ants were stinging every nerve. The flesh around the gaping incisions at my ankle is swollen, a brilliant, unhealthy scarlet. I have to lower the leg for a few seconds, massaging the flesh, waiting for the cramps to subside. Grimacing in pain, I reposition my foot again on the anvil.
I press one link of the leg chain over the tip of the horn, like slipping a ring onto a finger, and reach for the hammer. There will still be a length of chain running from the hobble, but at least the punishing, heavy end will be gone.
I grasp the hammer in one hand and try to lift it, but the weight of it coming off the anvil almost pulls me backward. I have to grab it with both hands to wield it, and the first strike, even though it hits the link, doesn’t have enough power to break the chain. I exhale forcefully a few times, lift the hammer again, and strike the metal.
Nothing.
Stinging sweat pours into my eyes and into my palms and I have to wipe my hands on the jacket to dry them. I grab the handle once more. A stronger swing, a strike, and the link breaks like a cheap piece of plastic.