The Captive (28 page)

"Stop it you fools,
dummerassels
, swine. Stop shooting. You are going to kill us all."

More shots were followed by another howl of pain and more screaming from Ludwig, now joined by other voices. The shooting stopped and Renee jumped as a voice that seemed inside her head said,
Here, take these keys.

She turned, reaching out in the darkness, brushing thick fur with her arm as the keys dropped cold and hard into her open palm. The voice seemed to speak again,
When you find the car these fit, start it up and get out to the road, I'll fix the others so they won't run. I don't want them following us.

She stood with the keys in her hand, feeling for which key might fit a car ignition, slipped open a car door and the dome light went on in a burst of brilliance. It was the La Salle. She pushed Mina across the seat to get the door closed and tried the key. It would not go in, and she had to turn it over, trying it and the other keys on the ring.

"Hey, who's that in the car?" shouted a voice from the darkness.

"Somebody's takin' the cars," shouted another voice.

Renee was sure the keys didn't fit this car. "Stay down low, Mina," she said and opened the door. As the brilliant light went on again they crawled out and slammed the door as more shouts came from the darkness. A bullet cracked close and the report of a rifle was followed by more shouting.

"Don't shoot, you'll wreck the cars. Let's rush 'em."

She pulled Mina to the next car and pulled open the door, and this time no light went on, but the keys would not fit. And now she could hear stealthy footsteps around her in the dark. She ignored them, going to the next-to-last car in line. As she pulled on the door handle, she felt Mina's hand jerked out of her grasp, and the little girl screamed. Renee turned, dropping the keys on the ground, feeling for the child. Mina was screaming for the big pussy cat. She heard a rush in the darkness as if a wind had gone by and then a solid thud, but as she walked blindly toward the noise an arm closed around her neck from behind so that she could not even scream.

"Now you gonna be my good luck charm," she heard Lowden's voice say as she was dragged backward. Then both she and her captor went down in a heap as she heard Lowden curse once before there came the sound of hard blows against flesh and he released her. Someone was starting  the car nearest the cabin. The engine ground over and caught, and the headlights went on in a burst of brilliance as the car lurched forward. The driver must have been wounded, drunk, or paralyzed with fear, for the car jumped forward, swerving as the left fender took off the corner of the porch, and then bumped straight down the mountain until it crashed into a tree where it made a rattling sound like a dying machine gun and then stopped. The lights blinked out again as the car hit, leaving the forest twice as dark as it had been, but in the interval Renee had watched a tableau as stark and frozen as if the figures had been carved of stone: off to her left Mina was getting to her feet while the great yellow beast appeared to be sniffing the body of a man with his throat torn away; at her own right as she lay where Lowden had thrown her, the fat man sprawled with his arms flung out and blood on his face while Barry stood over him in a classic attitude of outrage, fists and face tight with hatred.

But in the renewed darkness as she got to her feet and reached out for her husband, even as her lips formed the words "Oh Barry, are you all right?" and she felt his one hand on her arm, it was as if the hand had ceased to exist. It did not leave her arm, pull away, move in any way from that touch. It stopped being there.

"Here's the keys you dropped, Mommy," Mina said, putting a bunch of car keys into her hand. Renee felt for the side of the car, for the door, and then realized she could dimly see the car, Mina standing beside her, the form of Lowden at her feet. The dirnness that was not quite light was wavering, as if someone far away moved a curtain in front of the moon. She looked up into the sky, but it was not the moon. A barely visible orange glow hung in the sky like the first touch of dawn.

The great yellow beast came loping out of the dimness as she and Mina got into the car. She watched it as she fumbled the key into place. It had to be this one, and it was. The motor roared into life.

The forest is on fire back there where they burned Barry's car
, the beast seemed to say, standing at the car window.

"I can't drive out of here," Renee said. "There's a car right behind me and the La Salle is in front."

She watched with amazement as the beast stood on its hind legs, standing on what she would call its hooks and reaching down to grip the front bumper of the old Plymouth with blunt fingers from which the claws had retracted. It heaved the front of the car clear of the ground and walked to one side with it, freeing space for her to back out. To their left she could see the ruddy glow getting brighter now with hints of flame sparkling in the darkness above the trees. Mina had rolled the window down on the other side and was screaming at the beast again.

"Get my old daddy, Big Pussy Cat," she kept screaming.

Bullets cracked around them again as the beast dropped to all fours and streaked into the cabin, clearing the wrecked porch at one leap. It reappeared walking on its hind legs, carrying the limp body of Bill Hegel in its arms. Renee watched as it came down the broken steps and toward the car. She heard shots and saw the beast stumble, go down on one knee and then get up again and come on to the car, stuffing Bill into the back seat with Mina.

Get out to the road
, it seemed to say, panting, and then it looked back at the fire, now visible all along the downhill side of the forest. The ominous crackling and roaring sound had been growing slowly as a background noise until now it leaped into her awareness suddenly and she wondered if they could get away. It seemed to be growing so fast. The beast too hesitated, and then it went on,
Turn left, uphill, go slow but keep going. I will catch you after I disable the other two cars.

"Where's Barry?" Renee screamed as the animal dropped to all fours and ran. She saw it slew about in the pine needles and call back to her words which seemed to form in her mind rather than be heard,
He is safe. Now get out to the road.
And it was gone.

She would think later that she had indeed been callous to not even consider how the rest of the Volksbund people would get away from the fire if their cars wouldn't start. But perhaps one could run away from a forest fire. She didn't know, nor did she think about it at that moment when she was swinging the steering wheel around as she roared back in reverse, scraping the side of the car against a tree, racing the engine and jamming the gears into first and leaping off through the forest under the wavering light of the approaching fire. Not until she had turned left into the wretched little double ruts of the road did she think to turn on the car lights.

Even at ten miles an hour the car took a beating, dropping off ledges and high centering, but she clenched her teeth and drove, calling back to Mina to hear the little girl's voice and know she was all right. They rocked down into a gully and back up and she slammed on the brakes. The beast had emerged from the forest and now stood by the car, fumbling the door open. It panted and was holding its left hind leg up off the ground. It clambered into the front seat besides her with great difficulty and lay on its right side so the huge yellow furred back was to her and almost crowding her out of the seat. She smelled blood and the odor of the beast itself, a not unpleasant odor that she would recall later as being something like the smell of puppy fur. Its legs doubled up, its head against the car roof, it seemed to be holding itself tight in some way, and Renee wondered if it had taken another bullet somewhere. She felt absurd asking if it were all right, but it seemed so human she could not stop herself.

A broken leg
, the beast seemed to say, and Renee could see that Mina was standing up in the back patting and smoothing the great yellow head.

"It's hurt, Mommy," she said with tears in her voice.

It is nothing, Mina
, the beast seemed to say without  moving.
I can fix it, but I must lie still for a time.

"Where are we going to pick up Barry?" Renee said, trying to ease over the boulders in this travesty of a road.

He is safe
, the beast said again.

"I saw him back there just before we got away," Renee said, feeling her stomach clench at the thought of finding him and then losing him again.

The beast turned painfully until it could see her face in the dimness of the car interior. She felt its large green eyes fixed on her for a time, and then it turned away.
You did not see him there
, it said.

"Yes I did," she almost screamed. "I saw him when that car hit the tree. He was -" And the sound she heard from the beast was so startling that she stopped talking, almost stopping the car by reflex. It had growled.

He is safe
, the beast said, finally, and its voice seemed to come from a distance.
He will be home soon after you
, it said, its voice fading.
Now I must not talk more.

She had no choice but to keep on now. The fire and the men with guns were behind her. She must trust this  supernatural creature, whatever it might be, and she had to trust Barry to get away on his own. After all, she thought, he had escaped that car full of men who had gone out to kill him. Surely he was all right.

The road suddenly turned sharply to the left, back upon itself like a snake, and headed downwards in a long series of switchbacks that had fewer bad places, fewer deep ruts and ledges of stone. But now on one side was the wall of the forest or a blank face of stone, while on the other was the black emptiness of space or the tops of tall trees caught in the bouncing headlights. Each time she turned back left on the switchbacks she would see the radiance of the fire against the sky like a great city going up in flames, and she kept thinking,
He is ahead of us. He is safe.
But the tears kept coming, one and two at a time when she wasn't expecting them, trickling down her cheeks as she wrestled with the steering wheel listening to the breathing of her  passengers, the moans of the wounded man in the back seat, the occasional grunts from the huge heap of fur at her side when her elbow accidentally hit its back as she fought the road.

But she had seen him; his hand had held her arm for a moment. And she thought of that strange sensation as his hand left her arm. No, she thought, he had something to do, he had to go fast, he will be there. It will be all right. I can't think about it now. And then the road began to be easier, to flatten out, the trees became smaller and then there was a junction and the beast grunted that she should turn right, and the road was gravel, so smooth as to seem paved in heaven, the terrible grinding of the gears as she shifted from low to second, all that way down all gone now as she got up more speed, and they seemed to be in the world again. She felt competent now, and something like joy began to rise inside her as if a blessed spirit were pouring happiness into her from his magic urn, filling her body with relief that made her shiver and grip the leather covered steering wheel harder. He was alive. Yes, she knew now that he was. And the joy flooded her.

She drove on through the night, the fire far behind them now, nothing but the yellow glow of the dashboard  instruments and the steady, civilized reach of the headlights taking them down, swiftly now, off the mountain, out of that dark and burning forest.

She was not at all comfortable with the detective who looked like an aging rodent when he smiled, now sitting across the table from her making notes on a form. He had acted in all kindness, he said, not booking her when she was picked up by the stake-out at her home, as was within his rights as a police officer, he had said. She was so relieved to be back in Albuquerque, even though Barry had not shown up yet, that she hardly felt the sting of the hints the detective kept giving that she was concealing her second husband somewhere to keep him out of custody.

The man smiled, lifting his upper lip from yellow teeth, "You did actually see your husband, I mean Mr. Golden, on the mountain at the scene of the forest fire?"

"Mr. Frake, if it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't be here," she said tarty.

"You understand we have a warrant out for Mr. Golden's arrest, do you not?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure what for."

"Mrs. Golden, your husband is charged with resisting arrest, assaulting two State Police officers in the discharge of their duty, fleeing to avoid prosecution, disabling a state vehicle," and he looked up. "Is that enough?"

"Barry wouldn't do that," Renee said. "But why were the police trying to arrest him in the first place?"

"We had evidence, or we thought we did, Mrs. Golden, that your husband, that is, Mr. Golden, had done away with you and your daughter and fabricated a story of kidnapping to cover himself."

"My Lord," Renee said, leaning back in the chair suddenly as if the man had slapped her.

"Now let me explain here, Ma'am," the detective said, raising his lip. "We not only had what we thought was  fabricated evidence," and he picked the little gray piece of cardboard from the file, "but on our second interrogation of a neighbor child, we were led to believe that Mr. Golden had bribed the child to tell us a story about a black car that had stopped at your house that day."

"I wrote that card you have there," Renee said, "in about ten seconds in a gas station toilet on a piece of rubbish I found in the trash can. With my daughter's play lipstick." She could hardly believe what she was hearing. "And if you mean you took the word of little Benny Ochoa to send the state police after my husband -"

"Now just a minute, Mrs. Golden," the detective said, pulling out a set of typed papers. "I want you to listen to this transcript of what the Ochoa boy said in the presence of his mother who corroborated his testimony."

"But he's only eight years old," she said, but then she sat back to listen.