A Plunder by Pilgrims (2 page)

He was happy with his quiet life.  He didn't like dealing with people unless it was absolutely necessary.  The most conversation he'd had lately involved saying "Paper" to the cashier at the supermarket.

And yet, it was just a local case.  He could keep a low profile . . .

The internal wrangling went on for a good hour, until suddenly it came to Gage.  He thought he knew the answer.  It was the best feeling in the world, when a solution came to him out of the blue, as addictive as any drug.  It was only a possibility, but of course now he had to know.

He reached for his phone.

* * * * * 

Ten minutes later, the kid was back sitting at Gage's kitchen table, his cheeks pink from the cold.  He'd changed from the wet sweatshirt and blue jeans he wore earlier to a purple sweater and black pants.  There were green bits of arbor vitae stuck to his shoulders.

"Were you guys fighting about sex?" Gage asked, without preamble.

Marty's cheeks turned even pinker.  "What?"

"You wanted to have sex, but she wanted to wait until after you were married."

"Who—who told you that?"

"Answer the question."

Marty swallowed hard.  "We—we weren't fighting about it.  Not really . . ."

"Look, I don't want to talk about this either, kid.  But only a virgin would have blushed as much as you just did."

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"Were you fighting about it?"

Marty looked at Gage a moment, then sunk his head.  "Yeah, I guess."

"Don't beat yourself up too much.  You're no different than millions of other teenage boys."

"She—she wanted it to be special."

"Which is no different than millions of other teenage girls.  That also brings me to my second question."  Gage shifted in his seat.  What was he, Doctor Phil?   "Let's say she decided to have sex with you, okay?  Let's say she decided she was going to do it on your birthday — because, you know, you'd both be 18.  Let's say she went to check out this place on Friday night.  It would be someplace not too far from the store, because she had only a few minutes.  Any ideas?"

Marty eyes widened, and he looked at Gage suddenly.  "The Granger cabin!"

"What?"

"It's—it's this tiny two-room cabin up in the woods near Hair Trigger Creek," Marty said excitedly.  He stood abruptly, turning first right, then left, as if he wanted to run but wasn't sure which direction.  "We saw it when we went hiking this summer.  It's not too far off the highway.  When we were walking by, this old guy came out, and we thought, oh no, he's going to come after us for trespassing, but he was real nice.  He said he and his wife used it all the time during the summer, but she'd just passed away so he was boxing up stuff.  He said he couldn't bear to keep it, because all the memories.  I even joked to Tammy as we were walking away that we should ask him if he'd let us use it as a honeymoon suite." 

"What did Tammy think?"

"Oh, she blushed bright red like she always does when I even come close to talking about — well, you know."

"Yes, even a recluse like me knows."

Marty looked aghast.  "That's not—that's not what I—"

"Save it," Gage said, reaching for his cane.  "Let's go for a drive."

* * * * *

They rode in silence along Highway 101, the tires whispering over wet asphalt.  It had stopped raining.  The turn-off would have been easy to miss in broad daylight, and in the murky soup that passed for night, the kid passed it twice before finally turning his Toyota Tercel onto the dirt into the woods.  They passed one little house surrounded by trees, then another, the trees encroaching, the road getting bumpier, the mist on the windshield thickening until Marty finally turned on the windshield wipers.

When they were a quarter mile from the house — according to Marty's best guess — Gage had him pull the car to the side.  Anybody passing would see it, but it couldn't be avoided.  He didn't know what he was expecting to find out there — maybe the girl had just taken a bad spill — but experience had taught him to be careful.  Marty had wanted to call the police, but there was still a good chance this was a wild good chase, and then he would have blown his anonymity for nothing.

When Marty killed the ignition, they were sitting in utter darkness.  It was silent except for the ticking of the engine.

"You sure you want to walk?" Marty said.

"What, because I'm a cripple?" Gage said.

"No, that's not—"

"You got that flashlight?"

"Yeah."

Gage adjusted his fedora and stepped into the moist darkness.  Marty clicked on his flashlight.  It was a feeble thing, a penlight he'd fished out of his glove compartment. The darkness pressed in on all sides.  There were no crickets or hooting owls — just the sound of the day's rain pattering on leaves, limbs, and pine needles.  He felt the faint brush of a few droplets on his cheek.

"How's the cell phone?" Gage said.

Marty pulled it out of his jacket pocket and flipped it open, the bluish light illuminating his face.  "One bar," he said. 

"It'll have to do."

There was a slight incline he hadn't noticed when they were driving but was immediately aware of when they were on foot.  His knees ached after only a few steps.  It was slow going, the ground dappled with shadows that were sometimes holes and sometimes just shadows.  More than once he stumbled and would have fallen if the kid hadn't grabbed his arm.  Maybe he
was
a cripple, for god's sake.

"It's just around this next bend," Marty said.

"Okay, turn the light off."

"But we won't be able to see!"

"Do it."

They crept up the road like two blind turtles.  Gage stumbled again and kid grabbed his arm and kept it there.  A yellow light blinked at them through the trees.  They stopped at the last Douglas fir before the open dirt area around the house and peered around it.

The cabin was hardly bigger than the outhouse next to it — log siding, a sagging, metal roof, pine needles blanketing everything.  There were two windows, one with the shades drawn, rimmed with light; the other was open and revealed two men playing cards at a folding table.  One was big and bulky, the other as thin as Marty.  Both were dressed in black leather jackets, though the thin one was bald and had a thick, handlebar mustache where the fat one was clean-shaven and wore a red baseball cap.  The kerosene lantern between them provided a soft bubble of light. There were cardboard boxes stacked up on the wall behind them.

There was no girl, but on the table next to the lantern was a candle far too pink and feminine for a couple guys to have brought. 

"I don't see her!" Marty said.  "And her car's not here either."

"For Christ's sake, keep your voice down.  She's in there."

"How do you know?"

"Look on the table."

When Marty saw the candle, he started forward, and Gage grabbed his arm.  "Are you nuts?  That one there on the left has a pretty distinctive bulge under his jacket."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh. So let's call in the cavalry.  Get out your cell phone."

"But what are they doing there?"

Gage thought about it.  "I'm not sure yet, but they didn't walk here.  At least one more person will be driving up in a few minutes, so I'd make that call now if I was you.  Who knows what their buddy is going to think when he sees our car parked on the side of the road."

Marty took out his cell phone, fumbled and nearly dropped it, and finally flipped it open.  When the bluish light illuminated his face, Gage saw the stark fear — the wide eyes, the sweat drops as big as boils. 

"No bars!" Marty exclaimed.

"Shh!  It's all right.  Here's what you're going to do.  I want you to walk down the road until you get reception.  If you hear anyone coming, duck into the trees.  I'll wait for the police to arrive, and if they go anywhere, hopefully I'll hear where."

"But—"

"Just go!"

Gage watched until the kid's shape merged with the rest of the darkness, then he returned his attention to the cabin.  The skinny man threw down his cards in disgust, and the fat man started laughing.  What were they up to?  A bunch of hunters who interrupted the girl and decided to have fun with her?  What kind of hunter packed a handgun instead of a rifle?  Something else was going on.  Gage didn't want to say anything to the boy, but he knew there was a good chance the girl was already dead. 

There was only one way to know for certain, and that was to creep up to the cabin and peer through the crack in the curtains.  He didn't want to do it, but he couldn't wait for the police.  If the girl
was
alive, who knew what the men in there would do when the police came roaring up the road? 

With excruciating slowness, taking great care to find good, solid ground to place his cane, he limped to the side of the house.  There, he leaned against the wall, getting his breath back, trying to slow his heart. 

He started to round the corner, and that's when he heard a vehicle rumbling up the road.   A pair of headlights appeared in the gloom, and just before the light fell on the cabin, he ducked back into darkness.  The vehicle, a van or truck by the sound of the engine, pulled into the drive.  The engine wheezed and sputtered and finally fell silent.  The door creaked opened.  Safely out of the driver's line of sight, Gage didn't dare peer around the corner.

"Come on, inside," a gruff voice said.

Gage felt a chill prickling up his neck.  Then, when a voice responded, his fear was realized.

"What—what are you going to do?"  It was Marty.

"That ain't your concern," the man said. 

"Look, mister, I—I told you, I was just looking for my dog.  He—he ran off and —"

"Without your leash?"

"Well, I was, well, I wasn't going to—wasn't, you see—"

There was a slap, a groan, and then the sound of Marty being dragged from the van.  The door to the cabin banged open.

"What the
hell
is this, Al?" a man demanded.  His voice was high and reedy.

"Found this kid skulking around in the woods," the man named Al said. 

"And you thought it was a good idea to bring him back
here?
" the reedy-voiced one replied.  "Are you out of your mind?"

"If you closed your damn trap a minute," Al said, "I'd explain.  Take a look at what I found in his wallet."

There was a moment of silence, and then another voice, also high but more nasally, replied.

"Hollllll-eeee," the nasally one said.  "That's a weird incidence."

The reedy-voiced one snorted.  "That's
coincidence
, you moron.  The kid obviously came up here looking for her.  Damn."

"You got that right," Al said.  "Now we got
two
of 'em.  And the parade still four days away."

"I think we gotta do something about this soon," the reedy-voiced one said.