The Road Out of Hell (9 page)

So she was able to confirm that there was no telephone anywhere in the state of California registered to a Gordon Stewart Northcott, nor to a George Northcott or a Louise Northcott, either. She hit a snag when the information operator informed her that a telephone owner could pay an extra fee and have their phone number withheld, which was called being “unlisted.” The worst part about it was that the company could not even confirm that such a person had a telephone, let alone what the phone’s number might be. Jessie’s consolation was that it cost extra to be “unlisted,” and she remembered the Northcott family well enough to know that their style was too austere for personal luxury. They were unlikely to indulge in the expense of a personal telephone in the first place, but they certainly would not agree to the extra cost of keeping their telephone unlisted.

That was as far as a telephone inquiry could take her. She started the long trip home and again skipped the bus. There was no reason for her not to be satisfied that she had gone above and beyond on the matter of contacting Sanford; nevertheless, she walked away carrying the persistent sensation that things were not right. It bothered her like a stubborn itch. Her concern was a matter of long habit. Being four years older than Sanford, she had stomped on bullies who tried to mess with her brother on more than one occasion. Now when certain thoughts flashed through her head regarding what she would do to Uncle Stewart if he ever allowed any harm to come to Sanford, Jessie flushed with guilt and felt ashamed of the contents of her heart.

Four

It only took a couple of weeks to complete the farm’s basic ranch house, a simple rectangular box carved into two small bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. George Northcott came out on Sundays, after putting in a full week at his own contracting business. He was always able to keep things moving along, in spite of his small physique. They had all the main components assembled for a working chicken ranch before the month was out. They threw up one particular shed that was completely covered with wood planks to keep it dark inside, and set up candling tables to check the eggs once they began to come in. They would then pack them into soft egg crates and get them ready for the market truck. They could put up two chicken coops per day if they pushed it, made of wooden slats over simple two-by-four frames with chicken wire and partially open rooftops, but after doing a few of those they began to just add on to the largest coop by expanding its far wall forward so that the simple coop could grow longer every time they needed more room for equipment or stock.

The place was soon stocked with hundreds of laying hens. They dug a shallow duck pond and brought in a stock of squab and a couple of goats to keep the lot weeded. The bungalow’s inside walls were nothing more than the framing studs and the horizontal lath boarding, but Uncle Stewart said that plastering would make a perfect indoor project for Sanford during his off-hours.

When nobody was around, he took to referring to Sanford as “my new darling,” which was how he addressed him every time he warned him not to talk to
anybody.
He liked to deliver the message after locking both hands around Sanford’s neck in a death grip and whispering to him, “I will grab you like this and keep on squeezing until you’re all the way gone.”

In keeping with Uncle Stewart’s love of secrecy, he never raped or beat Sanford when Grandpa George was around. Sometimes if the indoor radio was hooked up to the car battery and Grandpa George was in the other room, he would use the music to cover the sound of thumping Sanford’s head with something. Or sometimes he would employ a special little trick that involved his holding a glass tumbler with a thick bottom while he was lecturing and gesturing his arms around until he “accidentally” swept it past Sanford’s head so that the heavy glass caught him square in the temple. It hurt like hell, but Sanford knew better than to say anything to Grandpa. At times when Uncle Stewart didn’t have the radio for cover, he might fling a piece of scrap wood at him for making a mistake, maybe throw a single punch, but as long as Grandpa George was around, that was usually the extent of it. Sanford figured it was not all that bad, considering. Or that he ought to be able to put up with it.

But he always hated to see Grandpa George drive back to Los Angeles.

The daily clean-and-feed routine was left to him, so he quickly came to understand that the harder he worked and the fewer breaks he took, the less Uncle Stewart bothered him. Sanford got by well enough by keeping busy and staying out of grabbing reach. It worked except when the sexual rages were upon Uncle Stewart. Then nothing could stop him. The ordinary rapes did not harm Sanford as much as the objects of rape that Uncle Stewart inflicted when specific punishment was the theme.

They had barely managed to get the place up and working when the piano finally arrived. It turned out to be a big help. For several days, Uncle Stewart spent most of his time inside the house pretending to be playing in front of a big audience. Sanford listened with relief while the music tinkled through the air. It was an assurance that Uncle Stewart was busy and inside the house. He hoped it might mean that things were getting better around there, and they did for a few days. Then Uncle Stewart decided it was time for Sanford to write a letter home. It was a simple enough request, given everything else that Sanford had been through since leaving Canada. Just let the folks know that you’re all set up in California, going to school, attending Scout meetings, and even helping out good ol’ Uncle Stewart with a little of the ranch work when there was time.

It was nothing that should have been worth fighting over. The issue just happened to come up at a moment when Sanford had to say no to something, anything at all, just to make sure that he was still there.

“But this time it’s bad.” Sanford spoke in the faintest whisper. He exhaled the words like little water snakes, so slippery silent that Uncle Stewart could not have heard him even if he’d been sitting up there at the edge of the shallow pit and looking straight down at him. It was dark in the coop, barely enough light to see. His chains left him little room to move.

Sanford’s ability to hush his own voice in the presence of dangerous power was not a new skill for him. It had been fairly well developed long before Uncle Stewart took him away. A freshly acquired ability, however, was his newfound sense of mental balance in the face of fear. He felt it working for him at that moment—that he had outgrown the little-boy tendency to collapse into terror whenever something dreadful loomed. He stood firm against his primal urge to panic. He pursued this new steadiness with the awkward determination of a newborn colt. And because of that new power, some small part of himself actually believed his own inner voice, assuring him one more time:
It’s bad this time, but it’s not that bad. It could be a lot worse.

He took stock of things again and found himself calmer now. After all, he was comfortable enough for the moment, and he was not in any pain, aside from the old sore places. The temperature of the cool night air was perfect after a long day of scrubbing contaminated cages, killing sick birds, burning the carcasses. He was just as well off right where he was as he would have been anywhere else. Maybe better. He sure as hell didn’t need to be inside that house. Let the famous musician play all he wanted. Even now, the music sailing through the air was his tenth or maybe his millionth repetition of “Song of Songs,” some sappy melody that Sanford had no choice but to memorize.

True, the music was a soothing presence in the night air, but the effect had nothing to do with Uncle Stewart’s playing; it was that soothing guarantee that Uncle Stewart was safely inside the house.
Thank God he doesn’t play the guitar,
Sanford thought, and even made himself grin for an instant at the recognition that he was making a joke in spite of the circumstances.
That’s all 1 need—Uncle Stewart strolling the property and playing his music like a street-corner beggar while he looks around for bright ideas.
… So the piano was a good thing. All Sanford had to do was work so hard that there was nothing for Uncle Stewart to do, so that he never got any calluses on his hands and he could play as good as the birdies sing.

He felt a quick burst of pride over how fast he was learning to find his way around the worst of his uncle. It felt fine. Learning at school had always been such an ordeal for him that he had never savored the power of using his brain. Now he was a newly inspired scholar of human nature. His studies focused entirely upon the sole purpose of staying alive long enough to discover whether or not there could ever be a way out of this.

He already had an icy feeling deep in his bones that there was absolutely no relief waiting in the future, but hope was somehow taking root in him anyway. After all, Sanford had discovered an abiding point of personal honor—
“Turns out that I can do it.”
He muttered the words, giving them a little actual voice this time. What the hell, he could be certain that Uncle Stewart was in the house; the piano couldn’t play itself. He probably could have spoken a lot louder without being overheard. “Turns out that I can do it,” he repeated. So he consciously swallowed his fear and instead used this opportunity to go back to school on Uncle Stewart. He started off by running a quick tally of the little bag of tricks that he had managed to assemble so far, for avoiding pain and minimizing attacks.

Main thing for avoiding pain: give up on every idea of resistance. Don’t let dumb-ass pride goad you into saying anything against him. It won’t do you any good, and it’s guaranteed to start him off on a fit of some kind.
Because here’s the thing,
he reminded himself:
maybe it’s true that there’s nobody around to stop him, but at least nobody else knows what goes on here.
It was vaguely reassuring to Sanford to know that his humiliation was happening in secret.

He sensed that in some strange way his willingness to do every single thing he was told to do made him important to Uncle Stewart. It was also important to Uncle Stewart to rub Sanford’s personal dignity into the ground. Sanford had arrived at the same conclusion that savvy hookers, abused wives, stupid girlfriends, and terrorized children have had to accept down through the ages:
let them hurt you a little bit. They usually leave you alone after that.

But today, tonight, for the first time, Sanford’s newly active brain power added two more tools to his survival kit. One was the fact that on the one hand, it made no difference how foolish he
looked
when he obeyed his uncle, because nobody else saw it. The other was that every time Uncle Stewart turned and walked away without going full-out crazy on him, that meant that Sanford had successfully given him something that he needed. He was old enough to realize that if you provide somebody with something they need, a measure of power over them falls to you. Once you have that, you can find the best ways to use it.

He inhaled that small sense of power like a drowning man who has just broken the surface. It allowed him to draw one long, clear breath, all the way in, and then press it all the way back out of his lungs without shuddering at all. The effect of a single normal breath was like magic. There was a tangible sense of consolation. It felt like reassurance, whether or not he could think of a reason for it, and the faintest glow of optimism began to rise up in him.

It consoled him well enough to ease his sense of isolation and at the same time to feed his stiffening muscles with warmth and strength. Sanford understood at some instinctive level that this learning process was his most immediate survival skill. Because if Uncle Stewart ever completely turned on him—not just with one of his passing violent fits or his sexual rages, but in some delusional state where he came to regard Sanford as a true enemy—he would inflict a very bad death on his new darling. Of this Sanford had no doubt.

He could just make out the letter waiting there for him, the one that Uncle Stewart had left for him to sign—even though Sanford’s stubborn refusal to sign it had caused his current predicament. The fountain pen lay next to the page. He tried to remember why it had seemed so important to refuse to put his name on it after he had already written down everything, just the way that Uncle Stewart told him. But somehow the letter hadn’t really felt like the pack of lies it was—until it had come time for him to put this name at the bottom. He knew what he would put into a real letter if he could get one mailed and then safely get a response back into his hands. As for this one, he had to wonder how it could ever fool anybody back home.

Unless they’re already inclined to be fooled, eh?
The little voice in his head chimed in with that one before he could block it out. But when he considered the emptiness of Winnie’s detached stare while she sent him away, he realized that his family might buy into the deception.
Even Jessie?
He couldn’t tell about her.

He strained his eyes toward the unsigned letter. Although his cursive writing was jerky and hard to read, there was just enough moonlight to see by. He knew his own hand well enough to make it out:

Dear Family—Everything Uncle Stewart said that he would do, he has done for me. I am healthy and working hard whenever I am not in school. My school teacher Mrs. Haberdasher says Uncle Stewart is doing a good job of teaching me everything I need to know about the farm and she should know because her whole family is from a long line of farmers in the area and they have made several fortunes in citrus crops and cows. My Scouting group had a campout right here on the ranch and Uncle Stewart provided the tents. I hope you are well. I am fine.