Stepping Stones (2 page)

And then it was too late.

He caught up with her in an instant.  I
froze
, unable to move.  Jessie struggled, fought like a cat.  I heard him laugh as he doubled his fist and hit her.  Then he jerked her jacket over her head, covering her face and trapping her arms.  Brutally, he yanked her jeans down around her ankles and ripped off her underwear.  Jessie was crying but she kept fighting, kicking blindly with her feet.  The man held her down and punched into her jacket
until
she lay still.  Then he undid his belt.

It was over in minutes.  Although I couldn’t move, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the horror, either.  I just . . . w
atched.  As long as I live, I will
never forget my feelings that day of helplessness, self-loathing, and despair.

When he finished, the man pulled up his pants and fastened his belt.  Jessie lay at his feet, her legs smeared with blood.  He lifted her, hefting her over his shoulder.  Then he set out on the frozen river toward a hole fishermen had cut the previous weekend. 
We had
passed it every day on the way to school, and I knew only a thin film of ice now covered it.  With a sinking feeling, I realized
that
the man didn’t intend to let Jessie go.

I had to do something. 
But what?
  I was no match for him, and if I revealed myself
he would
k
ill me as well.  Nonetheless,
I couldn’t simply stand by as he took her life.  Without thinking, I grabbed a baseball-sized chunk of river rock and slipped out onto the ice behind him.

I had a good arm for a kid.  I hoped if I could get close enough, I could stun him enough to give us time to get away.  Not much of a plan, but it was all I could
come up with.  The trouble was,
he had Jessie slung over his shoulder, blocking a clear shot at his head. 
Jessie had
worked one arm free and was struggling again, making things even worse.  At one point she turned toward me, and for a terrible instant I saw the terror in her eyes.  She knew where he was taking her, too.

Only a few yards remained to the hole.  I crept forwar
d, my heart pounding
.  When I got in range I eased out to the side for a better shot.  Knowing
I would
only have one chance, I held my breath, wound up, and threw as hard as I could—stepping into it, putting all my weight behind that throw.

The man must have seen a flicker of movement just as I released the rock.  At the last moment, he twisted.

The stone glanced off his temple.  It hurt him, but not enough.

I stood dumbfounded.  He whirled to face me.  “You little bastard,” he snarled, wiping blood from his forehead.  Then he grinned.
I knew we’d both
just
had the same realization: 
I was out of rocks, and I couldn’t outrun him.

He covered the last yards to the hole in a heartbeat.  Jessie screamed as he threw her in.  With a cracking sound, her body broke through the ice.  Then he turned to me.  I shot a look at the shoreline, knowing
I would
never make it.  Even if I did,
he would
catch me in the woods.  I hesitated, then
turned and
sprinted for the center of the river, heading for
the
thin section
of ice we had
been avoiding all week.  I hoped
he would
follow.

He did.

He had
almost caught me when the ice abruptly gave way beneath him.  Narrowly avoiding going in myself, I stood on the creaking surface, watching him thrash in the freezing water.

Then I remembered Jessie.

Praying
she was
still
alive
, I made a wide circle around the broken area and returned to the hole where
he had
thrown her in.  I found her clinging to the
side
.  The river was flowing sluggishly beneath the ice, but with enough force to drag her legs under the
edge
.  “Jessie, hang on!” I yelled, scrabbling through a pile of firewood the fishermen had left.  I needed a piece long enough the span the hole.  The best I found was a
four
-foot length of two-by-four.

Too short.
Maybe onshore.

“Hang on!” I yelled again, starting for the woods.  “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“No time,” Jessie mumbled, her teeth chattering.  “Can’t hold on.  Get me out now.”

The current was pulling her under.

Stretching out on the ice, I extended my hand.  She took it.  Her grip felt weak, her skin cold as death.  “My wrist, Jessie,” I shouted.  “Grab my wrist!”

“Wha . . .?”

“The fireman’s grip.  I can’t hold you otherwise.”

Shifting her hand, she grasped my wrist, and I hers.  It felt solid, but I knew I didn’t have the str
ength to pull her out.  “You have to
help.”

“I can’t.”

“Throw a leg over the edge.  You can do it.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” I said, willing it to be true.  “You have to.  Do it, Jessie.  Now.”

Slowly, painfully, using my hand for leverage, Jessie struggled from the hole.  Finally she rolled onto the ice.  Shivering violently, she pulled on her wet clothes, covering her nakedness.  I gave her my jacket.  Then, without warning, a crack soun
ded on the ice behind us, followed by
the sound of somet
hing else.  Something moving
.

Jessie wasn’t the only one
who had
made it out.

Somehow the man had managed to pull himself up
onto the ice
.  Moving on his hands and knees, he started toward us.

After all that
, I thought bitterly,
we’re no better off than before.

All at once the surface gave way beneath him
again
.

With a surge of relief, I headed for the shore.
Jessie didn’t follow.

Puzzled, I turned back. 
“Jessie, let’s go!”

“No.”

Fighting panic, I returned and began
tugging
her arm.  “Please,” I begged.  “Let’s go!”

“No, Paul.  He’ll get out
again
.  He’ll catch us before we reach the road.”

I knew she was right.  The best we could do was split up.  Maybe one of us would escape.  “What do you want to do?” I asked, my voice trembling.

She picked up the two-by-four
I had
discarded.  “Stop him.”

I followed her out on the ice. 
Jessie was right. 
By the time we reached him, the man had moved to a thicker section and already had a leg up over the edge.  I watched as Jessie raised the two-by four and brought it crashing down.

She drove him back into the water.  Blood poured from his nose, staining the river around him.  But he was strong.  He wouldn’t give up.

But every time he came close to making it out, Jessie was there.

He lasted
about
fifteen minutes, maybe a little more.  I saw the fury bleed from his eyes, turning to surprise, then pleading, and finally
to
despair as he realized he was going to die.  In the end the current simply took him under the ice.  We wat
ched as his shadow drifted down
river beneath the surface.

“Jesus,” I said, trying hard not to cry.

Jessie threw her bloody club into the water.  It bobbed a second; then the current took it away, too.  After it disappeared, she put her arms around me and held me tightly.  I could feel her body shaking under her wet clothes.

“You saved my life,” she said quietly.

I looked away, feeling a hot rush of shame.  “I . . . I wanted to do something earlier, but
I
. . .”

“You saved my life,” she repeated firmly.  “I’ll never forget it.  Never.”  Then her voice hardened.  “I had to do what I did.  He would have caught us and . . . I couldn’t let him get out.  You understand, don’t you?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“Then it’s over.  We’re not going to tell anyone about this.”

“But you’re hurt.  What will you say to your folks?”

“I’ll make something up.  Please, Paul.  I don’t think anyone would understand, not really.  And even if they did . . . Listen, I just want to put this behind us.  Please.  Will you promise not to tell?”

I thought for a long, searching moment.

“Say it, Paul.”

I hesitated a moment more.  Finally I took a deep breath and nodded. 
“I prom
ise,” I said
.

Neither of us ever spoke
again
of that day, but it wasn’t forgotten.  I kept my promise, and it became a covenant of trust between us, a bond that drew us together, something we shared alone.  And through all the years that followed, after Dad died and Mom sold the farm to one of the big conglomerates that took over in the late sixties, after Jessie moved to California and I to New York, it held us still.

I spent most of
the
evening sitting in the hospital room holding
Jessie’s
hand, remembering.  I did a lot of talking, too.  It didn’t matter that she couldn’t hear; it just felt good being with her.  As I rambled, I gradually became aware that her fingers were twitching again—not all of them, just her index and middle fingers.  First one, then the other.

One, two.

One, two.

Let your fingers do the walking.

“Jessie, can you hear me?”

One, two.

I sat up, suddenly alert.

One, two.

All at once I
understood.  I released her hand and allowed her fingers to inch up my arm.  Seconds later
her hand
opened slightly, then closed
on
my wrist.  With a shock of recognition, I closed my hand too, completing the fireman’s grip.

“Oh, God,” I
whispered.  I tried to swallow
but couldn’t.  Her face hadn’t changed, but her grip was stronger now, unmistakable.  Perhaps she simply sensed my presence, perhaps she only recognized the sound of my voice, but of one thing I was certain:  Jessie knew I was there.  And with a feeling of horror, I realized something else.

Jessie wasn’t just telling me
that
she was aware.  She was asking something of me as well.

Once again, she was asking me to save her.

“I can’t, Jess,” I said softly
, wondering why no one had noticed this before
.
  Was it only sometimes that Jessie rose to consciousness, or . . .

Her grip tightened.

I sat
for several minutes, trying to sort things out
. 
If this were something new, did it really change anything?  Jessie was still unable to move, to see, to breathe on her own—forever entombed in a body that for all intents and purposes was a prison.  I tried to imagine the suffocating horror she must be experiencing. . . and failed.

Finally I put my lips to
Jessie’s
ear and told her that I loved her.  I told her that
I needed time to think
.  I told her
that
I was afraid.  But only after I promised to come back,
no matter what
I decided
, did she relax her grip.

I spent the remainder of the
evening
in the hospital cafeteria drinking coffee and watching bleary-eyed medical
personnel
drifting in and out on their breaks.  Repeatedly, I ran it over in my mind.  Jessie was aware,
at least part of the time,
but imprisoned in her own body . .
. without light, without hope.

How long had she lain there, struggling to cry out?

And now she wanted me to end it.

I knew from her grip what she was asking of me
.  I knew it
as surely as if s
he had
spoken aloud.
Again, I felt like a
frightened boy cringing in the woods, wanting to help but too terrified to move.  Yet I knew I couldn’t abandon her
now
, any more than I could then.  But could I bring myself to do what she wanted?

And even if I could . . . did I have that right?  Did anyone?

The horizon was awash with the first glimmers of dawn as I rode the elevator back up to the ICU unit.  Numbly, I walked down the corridor, nodding to the bright young faces at the
nurses’ station as I passed.  After all these months t
hey knew me by name, didn’t care that I was there before visiting hours.