Mindy covered her face with her hands and wailed.
“I told you, no more crying,” Brad reminded her.
“Don’t like it here,” sobbed Mindy. “Cricket wants to go home!”
“We are nearly home,” Brad told her. “It’s not much farther. Once we hole up in the cabin we’re going to be safe.”
But was that true? The question occurred to him suddenly. To whom had Tracy been making her surreptitious phone call? In the car after leaving Winfield, he had talked so much about the cabin that she might suspect that he would take his sister there. Of course, she did not know its exact location, but anyone who stopped in the village could find that out from Renzo.
What if Tracy had decided Mindy belonged with the Carvers? What if she had called the police to report that Brad had taken her? Although Gavin did not have legal claim to the child, neither did Brad. It was his mother who had been awarded custody, and at the time, she had seemed to want it very much. Still, once the legal battle was over, as Tracy’s father had demonstrated, the responsibility of full-time parenting could seem less appealing. The fact that their mother had shown so little interest in getting Mindy back did seem to indicate that she was no longer eager to raise her. If the police should arrive at the cabin and confiscate the child, it was not inconceivable she might be returned to Gavin.
Well, he would not allow that to happen, Brad vowed silently, glancing across at the girl on the seat beside him. He had not brought her this far to give her up now. No one was going to take Mindy, as long as he was able to prevent it, and he had no intention of leaving her unguarded.
The road was becoming steeper and more rutted the farther they progressed. After about three quarters of a mile, they came to a rise, and the Chevy lunged up it, grasped, lost its grip, and slid back down. Brad floored the accelerator, and the car shot forward again for a second charge. This time its tires caught hold and it managed to haul itself laboriously upward until it reached the peak of the slope and plunged triumphantly out into the knee-deep grasses of a mountain meadow. Brad put the car into neutral and switched off the engine.
Immediately the world was filled with the trill of birds and the far, sweet song of wind in rustling branches.
“There it is,” Brad told Mindy reverently. “Look up there!”
The cabin was nestled in a hollow on the lower slope of a hill, like a small brown wren settled snugly into a nest. The mountain cedar grew so thick around it that the trees seemed to be holding the little house in their arms, and the stream that tumbled by at the base of the porch was a leaping, laughing miracle of churning silver.
Brad opened the door of the car and got out.
“Come on, Mindy,” he said. “We can’t drive any closer than this. We’re going to have to walk across the field and climb that hill. We’ll take just enough supplies right now so we can eat and get ourselves settled, and I’ll come back later and bring up everything else.”
He opened the rear door and extracted the groceries.
Mindy shook her head stubbornly and refused to look at him. “Don’t like it here,” she muttered. “Want to go home.”
“You can take Monk-Monk with you,” Brad said enticingly. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m here to take care of you. If anyone comes, we’ll hear their car when they’re a long way off. Nobody’s going to take you away from me, baby.” He shifted the sack of groceries into the crook of his left arm.
Then, with his free right hand, he picked up the gun.
Chapter 18
IT WAS MID AFTERNOON by the time they reached the Pecos, and later still when Jamie finally maneuvered her car up the last steep stretch of muddy road that brought them over the top of the rise and out onto the grassy plateau across from the cabin.
She pulled the car to a stop next to Brad’s and shut off the motor.
“So, he’s really here,” Tracy said, gazing across at the familiar blue Chevy that stood opposite them.
“The man at the store in the village told us he would be.”
“I know, but I still can’t believe we ever found this place.” Tracy gave the field a hasty perusal. “Where’s the cabin?”
“Up there,” Jamie said, gesturing toward the hill on the far side of the meadow. “It’s hard to make out anything with the sun in your eyes. It’s in all that foliage by the side of the stream.”
“Oh, I see it now,” Tracy said, squinting into the blinding glare of the afternoon light. “I can see why Brad had to park the car down here. There’s no way anybody could get a vehicle up between those trees.”
“This is backpacking country,” said Jamie. “We’re right at the edge of the Wilderness. It’s lucky for us there was a road that came in this far.”
She opened the door on her side of the car and climbed out. Shading her eyes with her hand, she stared up at the shadows that encompassed the cabin.
“I think there’s somebody out on the porch,” she said.
“Is it Brad,” Tracy asked, “or Cricket?”
“I can’t tell. I just thought I saw some movement there by the steps.” Jamie drew a long breath. “Brad, is that you?” she called.
There was a moment of silence; then Brad’s voice floated down to them.
“How did you get here, Tracy? Where did you get the car?”
“He thinks you’re me!” exclaimed Tracy, making an automatic move to open the door on the passenger side.
“No, stay where you are,” Jamie cautioned. “It’s better if he keeps thinking he’s dealing with only one of us.” Raising her voice again, she called to the boy on the hill above her, “This isn’t Tracy, Brad! It’s Jamie!”
“Get back!” Brad shouted. “You can’t fool me, Tracy Lloyd! I know why you’re here! You want to take Mindy back to Gavin! Well, I’m not going to let you have her! You know I’ve got a gun!”
“You’re faking, Brad!” Jamie took an impulsive step out into the field. “You don’t have a gun, but even if you did, you’d never shoot anybody!”
“Don’t bait him like that!” hissed Tracy. “He does have a rifle. He used it to threaten Doug Carver. Face it, Jamie, Brad’s as dangerous as he is crazy!”
“Don’t you dare call Brad crazy!” Jamie said angrily.
“What term would you use for someone who threatens to kill people?”
“He’s been pretending too long, that’s all,” said Jamie. “You don’t have any idea of all that Brad’s been through. It’s enough to have made anybody act sort of—different.”
“Tragedies occur, and people live through them,” said Tracy. “Brad’s not the only person in the world to lose someone he loved.”
“With him it’s worse than just having lost his sister.”
“You mean, there’s more to the story?”
“Yes, there’s more.”
“I don’t understand. What else could there possibly be?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jamie said shortly. “None of it would have happened if his mother hadn’t pushed him so far.”
“I don’t think this is something we ought to be dealing with,” Tracy told her. “I think we should go back to Terrero and call the state police.”
“No,” Jamie objected. “We just can’t do that to Brad. This whole stupid thing would get blown out of all proportion. I’m going to go up there and try to talk some sense into him. No matter how upset and confused he is, he’d never hurt me.”
“Look, we’re not the only two people involved here,” said Tracy. “Maybe you’re right, maybe you could march straight up there and nothing bad would happen to you. But the thing is, Cricket’s in that cabin too. If Brad should go nuts with that gun, anything could happen. We can’t afford to take chances with a little girl’s life.”
“All right,” Jamie said. “First, we’ll get the Carver kid out. After that, I’ll go up and see if I can reason with Brad.”
Tracy regarded her doubtfully.
“You actually think he’ll allow Cricket to
come down here?”
“No, of course he won’t, but one of us can go up and get her. Brad knows I’m here, but he hasn’t caught a glimpse of you yet. He doesn’t have any idea there are two of us. The door on the passenger side faces away from the cabin. If I divert his attention by walking out into the middle of the meadow, you can jump out of the car and make a dash for the trees.”
“What, then?” Tracy asked skeptically. “What good would that do?”
“Once you’re in among the cedars, you’ll be as good as invisible. You can work your way around the edge of the meadow to the base of the hill. There’s a path that starts over there by that big clump of bushes. It runs along the side of the stream, all the way up through the woods. If you take that, it will lead you to the back door of the cabin.”
“Then what would I do?” Tracy asked her. “Open it and walk in? I don’t think Brad’s going to have the welcome mat out for me.”
“He’ll be out on the steps, just the way he is now,” said Jamie. “He can’t see what’s happening inside when he’s busy talking to me. You can slip in through the back, grab Cricket, and get her out of there. It shouldn’t take you more than a couple of minutes.”
“That might work,” Tracy conceded, “provided the back door’s unlocked and Cricket’s in the house and not out front with Brad. Let’s say I do get her out, though, what happens after that? When he discovers what we’ve done, won’t he take it out on you?”
“Brad would never do anything to hurt me,” Jamie said confidently. “Well, what do you say? Are you game to give this a try?”
“It doesn’t look like I have any choice,” said Tracy.
“No, you don’t,” agreed Jamie. “Not as long as I hold the car keys. There’s no way you can get back to Terrero unless I drive you.”
In the short time the girls had been talking, the sun had dropped lower in the sky, and it was now balanced precariously on the peak of the hill. Its rays were suddenly filtering through leafy branches, and the vibrant green of the meadow had become more muted, as though it were being viewed through a pair of tinted sunglasses. A breeze moved across the field and the long grass came to life, bending and rising and bending again in a fluctuating wave. As Tracy sat watching Jamie move slowly out into the midst of the turbulence, she had the strange impression the girl was entering an ocean.
“What do you think you’re doing now?” Brad shouted.
“I want to get out where you can see me!” Jamie called back to him. “Look at me, Brad! You’ve got to see that I’m Jamie! I’ve come here because I want you to go back home with me!”
How confident she sounded, how sure of her place in his life!
Well, I wasn’t in love with him anyway, Tracy tried to tell herself.
Not “in love,” perhaps, and yet, he had kindled something—a spark of light in the depths of her inner darkness. She had thought she could never feel anything again for anybody. Now she realized she could, but she still wasn’t sure why she would want to.
She waited until the other girl had reached the center of the meadow before she made her move. Then she quietly opened the door and slipped out of the car. Jamie had parked just past the top of the rise, so it was only a matter of yards to the edge of the woods. Tracy covered that distance quickly, keeping in a direct line with the car so it would cut off any view of her from the cabin.
Once safely concealed by the trees, she breathed a sigh of relief—and then discovered she was in for more problems. The undergrowth was thicker than she had imagined, and forcing her way through it was a marathon battle. Low-hanging branches whipped across her face, and bramble bushes ripped and tore at her clothing. By the time she had finally reached the foot of the hill, her cheeks were raw and stinging, and her arms and legs were covered with cuts and scratches.
As Jamie had predicted, a space between the bushes at that spot opened onto a narrow trail that led up through the trees. As Tracy began to ascend it, the sound of rushing water, which until then had been no more than a background whisper, became increasingly louder. When the path took a sudden sharp turn to the right, she abruptly found herself on the brink of the stream.
From there on, the trail became nothing more than a narrow catwalk along the bank. Water tumbled past, swirling around rocks and churning in unseen basins, and Tracy’s shoes were soon soaked from the leaping spray. The roar of the stream obliterated the sound of Brad’s and Jamie’s voices, and the woods and the water became a world of their own. The one connection with reality that made it possible for her to continue to relate to the situation that had brought her there was the sight of two sets of footprints imbedded in the soft, damp earth—the deep impression of Brad’s leather loafers and the smaller, slighter indentation made by Cricket’s tennis shoes.
Although the trail was not particularly steep this low on the hill, Tracy found that the unaccustomed altitude made even an easy climb difficult. It was only minutes before she was gasping for air and her heart was pounding. Then, just when she had decided she could go no farther without a rest stop, she glanced up and saw the roof of a small log house jutting out from beneath a canopy of leaves. Several yards ahead of her the path she was on veered away from the stream and led directly up to the cabin’s back door.
She was close enough now to hear Brad’s voice from the porch at the front of the house, no longer raised in anger, but lower and much more calm. When she strained to listen, she thought she could hear a girl’s voice also, although the words being spoken were impossible to make out. She wondered if Jamie had climbed the hill from the front and if she and Brad were now standing together on the steps. If this was the case, she hoped that Cricket was not with them, or if she was, that Jamie would find some pretext for sending her back into the house.
Breathing more easily now that she had had a moment to recuperate, Tracy resumed her trip up the path to the rear of the cabin. Two slabs of flat rock had been placed one on top of the other to form steps leading up to the back door. She tried the knob and was relieved to feel it turn in her hand. She gave the door a shove and it swung open, revealing a narrow, rectangular room laid out in two sections. The front portion obviously served as a living room, for it was furnished with a high-backed couch and two overstuffed chairs. The back section contained a table, four straight-backed chairs and a wood-burning stove.
Cautiously, after a moment’s hesitation, Tracy stepped in through the doorway. The door at the front of the house stood open also, and she could hear Brad’s voice clearly, along with the lighter tones of Jamie’s voice. Although their voices did not sound angry, they were obviously arguing.
“… know you can’t stay here long,” Jamie was saying. “It was one thing, baching it here by yourself or with your dad, but a little kid can’t be expected to rough it, with no indoor plumbing or anything.”
“Mindy’ll love it here, once she gets used to it,” Brad insisted. “She got fussy this afternoon because she needed a nap.”
There was only one door off of the kitchen area. It was closed, and Tracy assumed it must lead to a bedroom. Moving as silently as she could, she tiptoed across the kitchen, cringing as a board creaked under her feet and maneuvering around haphazardly placed chairs. Turning the knob of the door, she pushed it open. The small bedroom that lay beyond contained only two bunk beds and a chest of drawers.
Cricket was lying on one of the bunks, but she was not sleeping. Her eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling, and her face was puffy and red and streaked with tears. Her breath was coming in little gasping hiccups, as though she had cried herself into a state of exhaustion. In her arms, she cradled the shabby toy monkey.
“Cricket?” Tracy said softly. “Cricket, it’s me.”
The child evidently had not been aware that the door had been opened, for she gave a start and jerked her head around to stare at Tracy.
Her eyes showed first fear and then recognition. “He said you wasn’t coming!” she exclaimed.
“Shh,” Tracy warned
in a whisper, raising her finger to her lips. “Be very quiet. We don’t want anybody to hear us.” She crossed the room to the bed and bent to gather the little girl into her arms. “We’re going to sneak out the back, and then we’re going home.”
Releasing her hold on the monkey, Cricket clasped both arms around Tracy’s neck.
“To Mommy?” she asked hopefully in a tiny voice.
“Yes, to Mommy,” Tracy promised, keeping her own voice low. “And, boy, I bet your mommy will be glad to see you!”
She lifted the child from the bed and, holding her tightly in her arms, carried her back out through the door to the kitchen. The conversation at the front of the house was still going on. Brad was saying, “You will too, if you give it a chance here.”
“He’s bad,” Cricket whispered, tightening her grasp on Tracy’s neck. “That boy’s bad. He’s got a gun to shoot people!”
“He’s not going to shoot us,” Tracy told her reassuringly. “We’re leaving this place right now, and we’re not coming back.”
She crossed the kitchen with slow, careful steps, avoiding contact with furniture, awkward and thrown off balance by the child she was carrying. She was attempting to transfer the full weight of her burden to her left arm so as to free her right hand to open the door when Cricket startled her by suddenly saying, “No!”
“Shh!” Tracy cautioned her. “We’ll talk when we get outside.”
“No!” Cricket said again, more loudly. “No! Wait! Where’s Monk-Monk?”
“He’s back in the bedroom. We can’t get him now. We’ll come back for him later.”
“No! Monk-Monk! I want Monk-Monk!”