The Captive (22 page)

"This is where we'll stay for now," he said, "until the rest of the unit gets organized, and then we'll be moving out to better quarters."

Renee had no idea what he was talking about. She looked around the little room. "Where will Mina sleep?"

Bill leaned down and pulled a trundle bed from under the big bed. It was also homemade, but someone had put some love into it, fitting the end planks and side bars together with pegs. It looked not only serviceable, but in an odd way, beautiful. Small wooden rollers were fitted on stubby legs so that it rolled easily under the other bed. Mina knelt down and examined the bed, smiling up at her mother. "It's a real doll bed," she said.

"What's in the other room?" Renee said, walking back into the large main room and reaching for the other door. Bill caught her arm roughly and pulled her back to the vicinity  of the stove and the shelves where the canned goods were.

"That's not your business," he said. "You stay away from that room, and keep the kid away too, or you will both be punished."

Renee could not understand the tone Bill had adopted, the military tone of a bad movie about the British in India sort of thing. He spoke as if there were a code of rules and regulations behind all he did and thought.

At that moment there were footsteps on the porch and the door swung open to admit a small, older man with a fringe of hair above his ears and his head set crooked on his neck. He leaned a rifle next to the door and came forward with one hand out in a civil greeting to Renee.

"How do you do?" he said, and Renee noticed he was cross-eyed so that one could not tell exactly where he was looking.

She assumed he was looking at her, took the hand which was cool and bony and shook her hand once and then dropped away. "Hello," she said.

"I am Ludwig," the small man said. "That is my last name, and first also, since everyone calls me by it, or  sometimes," he said, looking down at Mina and smiling with one side of his mouth, "they call me Wiggy." He said it "Viggy."

"Greetings, William," he said to Bill, and the other man bowed from the waist, bringing his boot heels together sharply with a click. Renee stepped back in surprise. She had never seen Bill do anything so ridiculous, and for a moment it seemed funny, but then she caught sight of the smaller man's face and realized they were both serious, more serious than was comfortable, as if they were both living out some sort of play that they had set up for  themselves. Or as if, Renee thought after a time, they were both mad.

***

Cooking was an escape of sorts, Renee thought, as she organized what meager equipment there was in the cabin. She was allowed free access to anything that had to do with cooking or cleaning, but all else was forbidden, Ludwig said with a smile, "Verboten, my dear," except for the room where she and Mina and Bill slept. Bill had not touched her last night, for which she was so grateful that she imagined that he felt her repugnance, and she had a few sad thoughts about her past and hopeless husband. But perhaps he had only been very drunk, for the three men had sat up long after she and Mina had gone to bed and were still drinking and talking in low tones when she drifted off to sleep. Mina had fallen asleep at once in the little trundle bed, and when she had awakened much later that night and got up, all the adults were asleep so that no one knew.

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 granted, leafing through a magazine while he sat on the porch steps, the rifle still in the crook of his arm.

She and Mina started 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 aloud Splat! followed by the roar of the rifle from the cabin porch. She dropped to her knees, terrifled, 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 121 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.