“Mr. Johnson, this is Cassie Dewell. I’m just so sorry to hear about Raheem.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said. “I was thinking that when they asked me to give them stuff that might have his DNA on it…” He was attempting to be stoic but she could sense his sadness.
“I know there’s nothing I can really say other than it’s a terrible thing. I wish I could have called with good news.”
“No shit,” he said. “I wish you could have, too. But you didn’t. And now I find out he got his damned head blown off and he was left in a field. I can’t even … I can’t wrap my mind around it.
“Tell me,” he said, “do you think it was racially motivated? I ask that because Kyle wasn’t found with my boy.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Johnson.”
“Because that would make it worse. That would make it a hate crime: Let’s kill the black one. And why do you think it wasn’t?”
She couldn’t think of a good answer.
“Raheem was a knucklehead at times but he was a good boy,” he said. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
“I agree. I’m doing my best to find out who did it.”
“When you find them you call me. I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”
“I’ll call,” she said. “But not before I get law enforcement involved.”
“Great,” he said with sarcasm. “The same folks who wouldn’t even look for him.”
With that he disconnected the call.
* * *
CASSIE FELT LIKE she’d been gut-punched, but she forgave Clyde Johnson. She could only imagine how she would react in the same circumstances.
When her phone buzzed she thought it might be him again but the number on her screen was local.
“Cassie Dewell.”
“This is Rachel Mitchell. I’m sorry to call so late but my dad insisted I call you right now this second.” She sounded exasperated. “I’ll put him on.”
“Cassie,” Bull said in a shout so loud Cassie had to move the phone away from her ear, “I blame you for screwing up my enjoyment of Tucker Carlson tonight. All I could think about was that peckerwood Frank Pergram.”
“Yes, what about him?”
“There’s a section southeast in the mountains where he told me he used to get firewood. It’s harder than hell to get to and who knows what the road is like these days. The park border cuts right through it but it ain’t like there’s a marker or a fence of any kind.”
“Can I drive there?” she asked.
“What kind of vehicle do you have?”
“A Ford Escape.”
He scoffed. “You’ll need more clearance than that just to get close to the trailhead.
“It’s probably been twenty-five years since I’ve even been there. I could draw you a map but unless you’ve been there before you’d probably get lost.”
“Could you take me there?” she asked.
Bull began to shout something but he was interrupted as the phone was pried away. Cassie could hear him say, “What the hell…”
“Cassie,” Rachel said, “my father is in no condition to guide you in the backcountry anymore. I just can’t let him do it.”
“If he could just take me up there and point—”
“That’s not his style, believe me,” Rachel said. “He doesn’t do anything except with both feet. So I’m very sorry to say that the best we can do is sit down with a map and have him circle where you need to go.”
She said it with finality.
“I got some maps today,” Cassie said. “I could bring them by in the morning.”
“Perfect,” Rachel said.
In the background, she could hear Bull saying, Give me back that phone.
“Tomorrow,” Cassie said.
* * *
FIVE MINUTES LATER she got another call. Same number.
“Rachel?”
“Naw. Bull,” he whispered. “Rachel’s in the other room. She doesn’t know I’m calling. You know, she’s a good girl but she thinks she’s my goddamn nanny. So I waited until she was gone before calling you back.”
Cassie raised her eyebrows.
“So you worked with Cody Hoyt?” he asked.
“Yes. He was my mentor. He was tough to get along with at times but I wish he was still here.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re saying. I wanted to hug him and kill him at the same time when I took him into the park that time. But mainly kill him.”
Cassie huffed a laugh.
“Can you ride a horse?”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Do you have outdoor gear? You know, like a sleeping bag and a rain slicker?”
“No, but I can buy some. Bull, you’re not planning to actually go with—”
He cut her off without a response. “Come by the house at ten-thirty after my goddamn nanny has gone to work. We’ll take my truck and I’ll show you where that peckerwood Frank Pergram used to poach.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
Location Unknown
KYLE’S EYES SHOT OPEN AND he nearly cried out when he received a sharp vibrating pulse on the skin of his throat. He threw off his covers and sat up in bed.
“About time you were getting up,” Ron said from his chair at the table. “You’re burning daylight, son.”
Although Ron usually walked around with the three transmitters hanging on lanyards around his neck, on that particular morning they were lined up one by one on the table. As always, he wore his semiautomatic pistol in a shoulder holster.
Kyle wanted to tell Ron he hadn’t slept since he’d had that horrible dream again about what happened to Raheem.
BOOM.
Instead, though, Kyle reached up and slipped his fingers beneath the vinyl collar and rubbed his neck where the two electric prongs were in contact with his skin.
“Just testing,” Ron said. The day before he’d placed colored dots on the collars and transmitters that corresponded with each other. Amanda got blue, Tiffany red, Kyle green.
“I’m making sure I got all the colors right,” Ron said. “Otherwise, I might hit the wrong one at the wrong time. We wouldn’t want that, would we? Besides, it’s time you got up.”
Kyle scrambled out of bed and then turned and made it up. Ron was a stickler about neat beds.
* * *
THE DAYS THEY’D BEEN at the cabin had started to flesh out into a kind of haunting routine.
It had been difficult for Kyle at first, as it had been for Amanda and Tiffany. Ron somehow expected them to know what he was thinking and act accordingly. When they made a mistake, like sleeping too late or going out of order to the outhouse fifty yards away from the cabin, he would “correct” them, as he called it, with a vibrating pulse on their collars. If they made the same mistake twice or the original transgression was deemed severe, Ron administered an electric pulse.
When they did their twice-a-day outhouse visit, Ron would stand by the window with a transmitter in his hand. He’d watch them go to the outhouse and come back to the cabin. Amanda went first, then Kyle, then Tiffany. As one returned he’d nod at the next in line, grasp the correct transmitter, and watch them the whole way. Color-coding the sets made less guesswork for Ron, Kyle assumed.
When Tiffany spent too much time in the outhouse—in Ron’s opinion—he sent a pulse her direction and she screamed inside. Ron had snorted with laughter. It was the first time Kyle had ever seen him laugh.
The next time she spent too long in there Ron bypassed the vibration feature and sent a mild shock that startled Tiffany so badly she fell out of the door with her panties still around her ankles. That had made Ron laugh out loud. He obviously enjoyed humiliating her most of all.
Kyle always did his business in the outhouse as quickly as he could. The structure was small and old and cold wind blew in through the gaps in the planking. He’d never used an outside toilet before and he didn’t like it at all. He hated the plop sound his excrement made a second afte
r he’d expelled it into the dark cavern below.
* * *
KYLE HAD BEEN “corrected” a half-dozen times and each time it happened he froze and closed his eyes.
Once, he’d been clearing away the lunch dishes when the pulse nearly made him drop the plates on the floor. He looked up to see Ron beholding him with distant eyes and a grim expression on his mouth. Kyle didn’t know what he’d done to deserve the pulse.
“Clear my dishes first,” Ron had said as if Kyle should have known that.
It made Kyle angry when Ron came up with a new rule he’d never used before. When he glared up at Ron he was hit with a mild electric shock that startled him.
Kyle never did that again.
He also never opened up to Tiffany or Amanda, even when they were all alone and left in the cabin. He couldn’t risk it. He’d observed how Ron played them all against each other. He’d rewarded Amanda with a a smile and a bag of hard candy for telling him that Tiffany had looked into Ron’s room while he was away, which was forbidden. Then he punished Tiffany by turning his transmitter up high and bringing her to wailing tears administered by the shock collar.
By the same token, when Tiffany whispered to Ron that Amanda had been stashing food in a cubby near their bed and eating it at night—also forbidden—Ron kissed Tiffany on the top of her head and administered a series of shocks to Amanda that made her sink to her knees and sob.
They were all there to keep watch on each other and tell Ron if any of the others stepped out of line. They were all there to please Ron.
He’d said, “A family is about rewards and punishments. Just like life.”
* * *
ALL THE MORNINGS were the same. Ron slept in the lone bedroom off the main room. When he woke up, which was before the sun came up, he’d say, “Amanda,” and it was her job to spring out of the bed she shared with Tiffany and make coffee. The two of them slept in an iron-framed double bed with their heads on opposite ends with Tiffany closer to the stove and Amanda against the wall. Kyle slept on a single bed four feet away. Both beds were along the back walls of the open room that served as the kichen, dining, and living area.
Breakfast was the same every morning, which was Ron’s preference. Bacon, hash browns, two eggs fried in bacon grease. Buttered toast. Amanda received a few corrections the first week while she cooked until she got everything exactly right.
Ron ate first and he did so leisurely. The others ate after Ron pushed his plate away. He made them finish their meals and clean up their plates.
After breakfast, Ron went out. He did most of his work outside close to the ancient log cabin itself but he never mentioned what he was doing or what his plans were each day. They would see him pass by the windows on the side of the wall or over the sink. He chopped wood, repaired the well, cleared brush from the front of the cabin, and he’d often vanish into a small shed for an hour or two.
Other days, they’d hear the pickup start up and drive away. Strangely, Kyle felt more anxious on the days when Ron was gone than when he was just outside, because he never knew when he’d come back or what he’d been out doing. Or what kind of mood he’d be in when he returned.
Twice a week he arrived with groceries, mostly canned goods. He never brought back a newspaper that might let them know where they were and he apparently made a point of discarding the grocery store receipt with the name and location of the store on it so it wouldn’t be found in a bag.
When Ron wanted to be alone he marched Amanda, Tiffany, and Kyle outside and into the shed where he’d sunk steel rings into the bare two-by-six framing. He looped a chain around their ankles and secured them to the wall with a large padlock. Then Ron would spend time in the cabin, sometimes for hours.
There was no stove in the shed and even though the days were mostly pleasant it still got cold in there. Tiffany trembled until her teeth clattered together like the sound of a rattlesnake about to strike.
Kyle suspected Ron was watching homemade videotapes on a compact player he’d seen in an open ammo box under Ron’s bed. Kyle didn’t dare look at them. Ron referred to it as his “Oh Shit” box for some reason.
Ron had warned them all there would be “severe consequences” if any of his personal belongings were moved or touched. He claimed he knew the exact physical location of everything he owned and he marked them with human hairs or finger lines in the dust. He’d know if anyone tampered with his stuff, he said.
* * *
AMANDA WAITED UNTIL RON WENT back to the cabin and she was alone with Kyle in the shed.
“Kyle?” she whispered.
He turned toward her suspiciously. Kyle was smarter than either Ron or Tiffany gave him credit for, she thought. In these circumstances it made sense to be suspicious.
She said, “I really feel bad for saying this to you because you seem like a nice boy…”
He was paying attention.
“I don’t want to become close to you and I hope you understand that. I can’t risk it and neither can you. If Ron thinks we’re close he’ll punish us both, but mainly me since I’m the adult. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The boy simply looked at her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking because his face was still, like it always was. She thought she could see something in his eyes, though. Something very alive.
“I don’t like Tiffany,” she said. “She’s hard to like and I don’t think for a second that she wouldn’t snitch on either one of us and get us hurt or killed. But you’re different, I think.
“It would tear me up inside if we became friends and Ron did to you what he did to Raheem. Like I said, I’m protecting us both. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
It took a few seconds before he nodded almost imperceptibly.
“I’m being selfish,” she said, lowering her eyes. “I don’t want to get hurt. Please don’t let me get close to you.”
He nodded again.
* * *
ON CERTAIN DAYS RON would have a distant look in his eye at breakfast. On those days he wouldn’t talk at all. He seemed angry about something, quick to punish and make corrections, and Kyle kept his distance and he noticed Amanda did, too.
When Ron left in the morning on those days Tiffany reluctantly rose from bed and got ready. Ron had communicated something to her and her alone. She washed herself in a basin and primped in front of a round mirror. There was makeup in a small bag and Tiffany reddened her lips and traced black around her eyes.
Kyle watched her surreptitiously when she cleaned up because he couldn’t help himself. She had long legs with barbed-wire tattoos around each upper thigh. There was a sparkly stud of some kind below her belly button and a tattoo of a cat on her lower back. She had no shame when it came to removing her clothing and cleaning up. Tiffany had larger breasts than Kyle thought natural, but he didn’t mind seeing them.
Amanda once caught him staring and slugged him hard in the shoulder.
Tiffany had laughed when it happened and said maybe Kyle was normal after all.
But Tiffany quit laughing when Ron came back into the cabin and ordered Kyle and Amanda out to the shed.
Kyle noticed how rough Ron was with his movements on those days when he locked them up. Ron’s face was flushed and his breath was shallow.
When Ron went inside the cabin to be with Tiffany it would sometimes take hours for him to come back. When Amanda heard Tiffany’s screams she would shut her eyes.
Then Ron would trudge back out to unlock them. His eyes were downcast as if he was ashamed of himself. His movements were more gentle.
Kyle noticed the smell on Ron when he leaned in close to unlock the padlock. It was a musky smell, almost metallic.
When they went back inside, Tiffany would be in her bed covered by blankets. Sometimes she was still. Other times she was trembling.
The days after Ron was with Tiffany, Kyle noticed the abrasions on her face, elbows, and knees. The previous time after Ron had been with her she wouldn’t open
her mouth until he was gone from the cabin. When she spoke Kyle could see she’d lost a front tooth.
“He’s getting tired of me,” Tiffany said morosely to Amanda. “Yesterday, he couldn’t be satisfied. I tried everything I could think of. You don’t know what it’s like to try and keep that man happy.”
Amanda looked away and said, “No, honey, I don’t know.”
“I ain’t long for this world,” Tiffany moaned.
* * *
AFTER LUNCH, RON NODDED at Kyle across the table and said, “Come outside with me.”
Kyle felt a chill shoot up his spine and the hair raised on his arms and on the back of his neck.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Ron said, fingering the transmitter with the green dot.
Kyle looked away. Reluctantly, he pushed his chair back.
* * *
RON OPENED THE FRONT door and stepped aside so Kyle could go out first. As Kyle passed Ron in the threshold he glanced at the .380 beneath Ron’s jacket in the shoulder holster as well as the transmitter with the green dot hung around his neck by a lanyard.
When Kyle looked over his shoulder Amanda had her head in her hands. Tiffany wouldn’t make eye contact.
It wasn’t lost on him that in Ron’s world, this world or the cabin in a forest, Kyle had no purpose. Amanda was there to cook and clean. Tiffany was there to provide Ron pleasure. Kyle was there … for what?
Before Ron sent Raheem off from the pickup, he’d said, “I was wondering what I was going to do with you anyway.” Kyle expected to hear the same words at any moment.
Maybe, thought Kyle, Ron wouldn’t make him run. Maybe he’d close in behind him and put a bullet in his brain. Kyle preferred a bullet to the exploding collar.
They walked out through the cleared front yard and into the timber. Ron stayed just behind Kyle’s shoulder but gave him directions.
“Bear left.”
“Cut around that tree.”
Kyle liked the way it smelled in the forest. The tall pines were fragrant and the mulch of orange pine needles on the floor of the timber gave out a ripe, musty odor when he stepped on them. Ferns he didn’t recognize poked up through the bed of needles. Squirrels chattered to each other down the line as if saying, “Here they come!”