The captive v1 0, p.18
The Captive (v1.0), page 18
The stove was adequate, as was the supply of plates and pans. There was no sink, but a large basin with water brought in from a well outside did for dishes, and she had a slops pail that the fat man, Lowden, had to carry out, cursing under his breath, since she was not allowed to go the hundred yards down the hill to the dump. Each time she or Mina used the rickety old outhouse, they had to be accompanied by Bill or Lowden, whichever was on guard at the moment. She hated these trips because the old wooden structure was full of wasps’ nests and she had to sit there on the edge of panic as they zipped gracefully around her head and out through the large cracks between the planks. When she mentioned it to Bill and asked if something could be done, he only laughed rudely and said not to worry about the ones she could see, that there might be some she couldn’t. After that she said no more about it.
She made out a list of things she would need to do a passable job of cooking. Bill was rejecting many of the things as frills, but Ludwig came in and said she should have most of them and ordered Bill to go to the town, and he made a motion with his head rather than saying the name, obviously to keep her in the dark about their location. Bill left by himself to get the supplies, but he gave her a threatening look as he went out the door, so she knew she would have something to look forward to later. After she had straightened the dishes, put the bunks back together where Lowden and Ludwig had slept, and made up her room (which she thought strangely insane to call hers), she and Mina asked Lowden for permission to take a guarded walk through the woods.
The fat man, whose name was Clyde, said they could walk as far as he could see them easily, which meant in a triangle from the cabin to a large yellow pine down the hill somewhat and back to the leaning little outhouse. She and Mina made the best of it, knowing the guard was watching them every second, the rifle always on his arm.
When Bill returned some three hours later, he had much more food than she had ordered, and she heard the men talking about the “others” who would be arriving that night. As she put together a meal, she could not help wondering what was going on. And the best she could come up with was some sort of criminal plot, perhaps a big bank robbery or some crooked deal that required several thugs, many weapons, and a “mastermind,” which was undoubtedly the part Ludwig was playing. She caught herself not taking it seriously as she placed the plates around the table. It was a game. The men acted as if they were involved in some kind of drama, like imitation soldiers in a comic opera. When supper was over she found it was a serious game, for her at any rate, when Bill again hit her in the face, for, as he said, back sassing. The blow flung her against the log wall where she stayed, holding her face in her hands. It hurt so bad. She could not feel anything but the pain in her eye and the side of her face, and she sobbed like a child, trying to get hold of herself again. Yes, she thought when her mind came back, it’s serious.
That night was a repeat of the previous one, with the men drinking and talking until the sound of car engines came loudly through the woods shortly after dark and the tramp of many feet on the little porch announced that the rest of the “unit” had arrived. Renee peeked out through a crack in the door, but she could not tell how many there were, only that the little room was filled with men, smoking and drinking and milling around Wiggy as if he were a little Napoleon on the eve of battle. In a few minutes they had all filed out and she heard them slamming car doors and the voices drifting away down the hill. She and Mina offered prayers, kneeling beside each other, and Renee told the story of Pooh and the Heffalump as nearly as she could remember it, with Mina helping when she forgot something. The little room was a bit stuffy because the window opened only a crack, but it was quiet and private, at least until Bill decided to come to bed. When Mina’s hand slipped out of hers and she knew the child was asleep, she allowed herself to cry a little and think about Barry before she went to sleep too.
The next morning she awoke and could not remember Bill getting into bed, and she offered a silent thanks for that. The men were all down the hill somewhere, shooting and yelling back and forth as she made breakfast for the five people who lived in this cabin. The others, she found out later, were living in a larger cabin down the hill a ways and had their own supplies, and presumably, their own cook. When things were cleaned up, she asked Clyde, who was on guard again, if they could take the same sort of walk they had yesterday and he nodded and grunted, leafing through a magazine while he sat on the porch steps, the rifle still in the crook of his arm.
She and Mina slatted off happily looking for different kinds of birds and noting each kind of tree and insect like two young scientists off on a field trip. Mina got no playtime outside the cabin except for these morning walks, and Renee felt a deep sympathy for the little girl who could be so patient and helpful, knowing she must be bursting with energy and wanting to run and play with other children. They had little games, running between the trees, catching each other, throwing pine cones at a target, and they were running from the yellow pine to the next tree down the hill in a figure eight pattern when Renee heard a loud Splat! followed by the roar of the rifle from the cabin porch. She dropped to her knees, terrified, and looked toward the cabin where Clyde was just lowering the rifle.
“Too far,” the fat man shouted.
He had shot at them, Renee realized soberly. She looked around from her vantage point some yards beyond the limits prescribed. She could see the other cabin from here, a larger version of the one they were staying in, and there was a plaque over the door that said, she squinted to see, “Troop 12I Manzano Boy Scouts.” Great Heavens, she thought, they were staying in a Boy Scout camp. She called to Mina who was standing rather defiantly farther down the hill looking back at the fat man who still stood with the rifle at the ready. And then Mina looked at her mother with a fierce light in her eyes, turned and ran down the hill as fast as she could go.
“Mina, come back!” Renee shouted, taking off after her daughter.
Another Splat! sounded over her head followed by the report of the rifle, and she kept on, full of terror for her child, running to catch her before that madman with the gun killed her. She heard the rifle sound one more time before she caught Mina, and then she had her, and they both fell and rolled in the pine needles, panting and holding to each other in fear.
“Mina,” Renee panted, holding the child tightly, “these are bad men. You must not run away.” She looked up, hearing the thud of boots pounding through the forest, and saw Bill running with great strides down the hill. She got to her feet as he approached, vaguely seeing Clyde still standing on the porch of the cabin far back through the trees. Bill’s face contorted with rage, and Renee, fearing another blow in the face, could not help herself, but ran from him in fear, ran down the hill in the slippery needles until he hit her from behind and she went down like a felled doe, sliding in the pine needles and rolling up against a tree. In an instant he was down on top of her, smashing her body to the ground, pulling frantically at her skirt.
For a second or two she couldn’t understand what he was doing, and then when his hands closed on her body with lust, she understood, saw Mina standing not more than fifty feet away, heard the panting of the big man in her ears as he wrestled her about on the ground. And she put her mouth to his ear, grabbing his head in her hands and digging her nails into his neck and cheek.
“Bill,” she said through her teeth, “if you do this to me in front of Mina and that man back there I will kill you. I will bite through your neck, you son of a bitch, I will tear your prick out of your body, I will bash your brains out when you are asleep, you will have to kill me now if you do this thing.” And she clutched her fingernails into his skin like claws, maddened in herself, insane, insane as he was, her teeth bared, ready to bite through his flesh.
And then he stopped, pulled away from her and the raking claws, stood up, shaking his head and looking down at her lying on the ground, feeling at his neck where she had dug him and blood was oozing down into his shirt. She got up, looking at him with more hate than she knew was in her. He looked away, then at the ground, speechless, and followed her up the hill toward the cabin, Mina coming to take her mother’s hand.
That night after the story telling in their little room, Mina asked, “Can’t we call Barry on the telephone and tell him to come get us now?”
“There aren’t any phones out here, sweetheart, and I don’t think the men here want Barry to find us.” She stopped, unable to say more.
“Daddy is so mean,” Mina said, snuggling down in the trundle bed. “If he hurts you again, Mommy,” she said, her eyes narrowed, “you tell me, and I’ll tell the Big Pussy Cat.”
“You shouldn’t worry about me, Mina. I’ll be all right,” Renee said, and then to change the subject more than anything else, she said, “What is this big pussy cat you talk about? I thought you left him at home.”
“Well, I did, but he’s pretty smart, and if Barry can’t find us, I bet the Big Pussy Cat can.”
“What does he look like, sweetie?” Renee said, lying back on the old creaky bed and closing her eyes. She was horribly tired from doing everything for those men out there, who were down at the other cabin except for a guard on the porch. Not one of them would lift a finger.
“You saw him. Mommy,” Mina said, sounding sleepy.
“I don’t remember seeing him,” Renee said absently.
“You know, when he was in the cage.”
Renee caught the reference. Oh, so that was where she got the idea, and her mind drifted back to that time when she had thought Barry was either dead or had run away, the time when she was torn between trying it once again with Bill and knowing he would never change, that he would only get worse, as obviously he had, and she and Vaire had gone to see that escaped bear some farmer had caught. She recalled it almost like a dream, the bear in the iron cage. How beautiful its fur had looked, and then it lifted its head, the long muzzle full of sharp teeth, the strange rounded head and those intelligent eyes. Mina had said it looked like a big, smart pussy cat. Had she looked into those eyes? Yes, they had been very close, looking right into its face when the young man came up and told them to get behind the rope. The eyes had reminded her of something or someone. So Mina had remembered that creature and made an imaginary pet out of it. Poor sweet child, family torn apart, and now this. Whatever happens, she must not be hurt. And she thought for just a secret moment about something else close to her heart, but she was not ready to worry about that yet, and anyway it wouldn’t do any good.
She woke the instant she felt Bill get into the bed, tense and wide awake as if she had not been asleep at all. He moved close to her and she stiffened as he put his arm over her, stroking her back.
“Don’t you pull away from me,” he whispered, taking the back of her nightdress in his fist.-
“What do you expect?” she hissed at him. “You’ve kidnapped me by force, hit me whenever it pleased you, almost raped me in public, and did once in private.” She held herself away from him as well as she could, hating him.
“You liked it the other day in your bedroom, you know you did,” he said, sliding his other arm under her. “A little knockin’ around is just what a woman needs.” He pulled her body against his. “You don’t have to feel anything like mushy love for me. I want what a woman has for a man. And you are my woman.” He began to pull at the nightdress. “You’re going to be a part of the New Order, a new life. You’ll have my children for the New World and be a real woman again.” He rolled on top of her, holding her down.
She heard the part about his children and the New Order with no particular emotion. It meant nothing to her. She simply held herself together as well as she could, taking what had to be taken, saying no word, not even betraying by a sound when he hurt her, which he did when he found he could not make her respond in any way. He went ahead anyway while she thought about the various ways she might escape, and once when he hit her on the thigh with his fist because she could not cooperate, she thought very coolly about how it might feel to kill him.
Later, the little girl slipped out of the trundle bed, pulled the leather thong to unlatch the door and tiptoed past the two sleeping men in the bigger room. She was so quiet, knowing each piece of the floor that creaked and how far to pull the door open before it made a noise, that a mouse gnawing his way into a loaf of bread on the table was not disturbed by her passage. She walked out onto the porch and looked across at the thin slice of orange-colored moon sitting on top of the mountain crest and thought about how very much she needed to talk to the Big Pussy Cat, so she thought about him again, and soon she was talking to him, just like the night before, but better. Then, after the moon went down behind the mountain, she couldn’t hear him anymore, so she went back to bed.
That morning, Monday, all the men gathered around the smaller cabin so that Renee saw there were about fifteen altogether. She watched them, thinking it strange they were all dressed in about the same thing, as if they were wearing a uniform: white shirts, dark ties, black pants or jodhpurs like Bill’s, and for some of them the high, horsey boots. They did have the look of a militia troop of some kind, a poorly disciplined one, she thought, watching them lounging about against the car fenders or on the porch or leaning against the trees smoking cigarettes.
And then a strange thing happened. The fat man had gone into the little room she was forbidden to enter and had carried outside a small bundle. She watched as they unfurled it, attached it to the lines of the little flag pole in front of the cabin and hauled it to the top. It was instantly recognizable from newsreels, magazines and newspapers. When she saw what it was, she knew instantly what was happening, and she stood there at the cabin window transfixed, wondering if she should laugh or be more afraid than she was. She had thought they were a bunch of gangsters planning a big job, and here came the flag, scarlet ground, white circle, black crooked cross. The men had formed a ragged line facing the flag pole. Ludwig stood at the end of the line and at the signal of his raised arm, they all raised their arms and. shouted, “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”
Mina looked at her mother quizzically. “Have those bad men been drinking beer again?’’ she said.
Chapter 5
Barry lay exhausted in the big empty bed, listening to the frogs out in the ditch and cursing futilely, as he had been doing steadily all day. He had covered maybe half the gas stations in town that were open on Sunday, but had not got to the ones outside the city limits. Frank had helped by doing 85 north while he got 66 east and west, but it was probably 85 south, if they stopped for gas at all. Towns were scarce in New Mexico, and chances were they had stopped somewhere in town while they were here. He rolled over, thinking about what else he could do. It was a long time before he fell asleep.
I shift now that Barry is asleep. I almost forced him out of the way, for I feel Mina is trying to contact me again. I trot out the door and look for the position of the moon. It is hanging low, no more than an outline, going into its new phase. I sit on my haunches beneath the cottonwood and make my mind quiet, imagining the inside of a stone again to still even the sound of blood, and I listen.
Almost at once her voice cries to me from an enormous distance, “Where are you, you bad Pussy Cat?”
“I am here now,” I think, very still and so silent inside that I feel that my body has ceased to exist and is nothing but an empty shape in the dark.
“I’m lonesome for you and for Barry, and Daddy is being mean, and I’m going to run away if we don’t leave pretty soon,” she says all in a burst, the angry emotions spilling over into my mind like hot drafts from a furnace door. Her words flit as lightly as ripples made by wings over water, but the emotion is strong enough to make my hackles rise if I were anything but an emptiness attuned to her voice.
“Stay with your mother,” I say, holding quiet. “I cannot find you unless you help me, Mina. Tell me now, when you left home, did you go through the mountains or did you go along the river, or through flat desert?”
“We went in some all-twisty roads in mountains and Daddy made Mommy throw up in the car.”
So, they must have gone east, through the canyon. “Did you go all the way through the mountains and on flat roads again?”
“We just kept going through and going through mountains and then I lost Bruno and then I went to sleep. There’s lots of big trees here where we are now, like on the picnic.”
“Is it hot or cool during the day?”
“It’s kind of cool and cold at night, like now. I’m cold now. And Mommy and I get to play only one time in the day, and the fat man shot his gun at us today when I ran down the hill.” Her voice faded, only the wash of hot emotion remaining in my mind. I wait, but nothing further is said.
“Mina? Tell me more. Mina!”
I listen for a long time. Nothing. She is gone, and I see that the moon has slipped down past the volcanoes. I sit for a long time in the cool darkness, using Barry’s knowledge of the area to figure where they could be. Unless she is a terrible observer, they had to go into Tijeras Canyon, but did they go straight east toward Texas or turn off north or south into the Santa Fe range? Still, I am depending on the observations of a precocious seven year old, who fell asleep half way along the journey. But they could be on the east slope somewhere. I put the problem into Barry’s memory for his waking up and wander around the yard again, hoping to nose something new, but it is early Monday morning now and the scents are all cold. I walk back and sniff the fading scent of Mina’s hands on the trunk of the cottonwood where she hid the note. Her scent comforts me for a time and then I feel a great rage against my enemy and have to run for a while to calm myself. I find myself about to kill a dog 1 have cornered down in the river bottom, and I stop, just giving him a swipe that makes him scream but leaves him alive. I pace about for an hour in the moonless desolation of the sand hills before I give in and go back to Barry’s bed.
