Paradise Valley (Highway Quartet #4)

“I don’t know.”

Hours later, Ron fired up an ancient front-end loader that had been parked on the side of the shed and scooped up the entire smoldering fire pit and dumped the debris and earth into the Missouri River with a loud hissing sound. There had been a lot of sparks as each load hit the water, and Kyle could smell the acrid steam even that far away.

*

THE NEXT DAY RON PUT hoods over their heads and taped them on securely. Kyle listened as Ron led Tiffany and Raheem outside and told them calmly to lay down on the back floor of the pickup truck.

Kyle felt Ron’s presence as he entered the trailer and his grip under Kyle’s arm.

“You’re next,” Ron said. “You get the seat but you have to lay down on it. Don’t sit up no matter what.”

Kyle had no idea why he got the seat and Raheem and Tiffany got the floor. He felt guilty about it as he wriggled into the back of the cab.

“You’re next to me,” Ron said to Amanda, who apparently didn’t have a hood over her head. “Sit there like you’re my wife. Don’t look at anyone and don’t make eye contact. Don’t take off that scarf over your collar. You know what’ll happen if you do.”

And they drove away from the trailer house. Eventually, Kyle could hear the singing of the tires as well as passing vehicles. Ron didn’t say a word to anyone.

Kyle wished at the time he knew his directions better. He couldn’t tell where they were headed in the truck, only that it was taking hours upon hours. For a while he tried to count the minutes and then the hours by saying in his head “one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two” so he could figure out how far away from the trailer they would end up. But he messed up his count and couldn’t recall where he’d left off.

He could hear Raheem breathe at times, and sometimes his friend moaned in frustration. Tiffany was extremely still when she wasn’t quietly crying.

*

A LONG TIME later Kyle could feel the truck slow down and take a long turn on pavement. It stopped a couple more times and he could hear the ambient sounds of cars around them. He guessed Ron had stopped at a stop sign or under streetlights. Then Ron swung off the street into what Kyle guessed was a gas station or parking lot.

“You’re coming with me,” Ron said to Amanda.

The springs in the front seat groaned as Ron turned in his seat to address Raheem, Tiffany, and him in back.

“Nobody fucking move,” Ron had said.

Kyle had felt the truck rock a little as Ron and Amanda got out and shut their doors. Then the back door opened and he knew it was Ron.

“Hold your hands out.”

There was rustling and Tiffany cried out, “Not so tight!”

Kyle was confused about what was happening until his own bound hands were jerked away from the seat. He felt the bite of wire being wound around his wrists.

Ron ran the wire over Raheem and Tiffany and tied it off somewhere under the seat, probably to the frame.

“Just in case anyone was thinking about getting out,” he said and shut the door tight.

*

KYLE HAD THOUGHT about what he should do. Should he writhe around on the cushion until he was in a sitting position where someone might see a hooded boy in the back of a truck and call the police? Or would the person who saw him turn out to be Ron?

Both Raheem and Tiffany were moving around and grunting on the floor. They seemed to realize Ron was gone and they were trying to get up.

He hadn’t heard the sounds that would have resulted in the truck being fueled—the gas cap being opened, the gasoline pumping into the tank—so Kyle assumed they were parked elsewhere.

But where?

Before he could make up his mind to try and sit up he heard the familiar bass of Ron’s voice not far from the truck. Tiffany and Raheem heard it, too, and both became still.

The truck doors opened and Kyle could sense both Amanda and Ron climbing in.

“That man might wonder why you’re buying two shock collars at once,” Amanda said.

“People around here train their dogs to hunt birds. He only saw cash,” Ron said back. “Now shut up, please. You talk too much. I don’t need your help or advice.”

Later, when Kyle thought about it, that had been the only real chance in the past month he’d had to draw attention to his situation and possibly escape. He might have been able to tug hard enough on the wire that it became unfastened, or he could have started shouting with the hope that someone outside would hear him. But he hadn’t acted.

Since then, he, like Amanda and Tiffany, had gotten used to a new and terrible way of life. He heard Amanda say it had been four weeks, but it seemed much longer. So much longer that when he recalled pushing out on the river with Raheem on that glorious day it now seemed like a dream.

Raheem would have hated this new life, Kyle thought, but at least it was life.

*

IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, Kyle heard labored breathing outside and he turned his head toward the door. Both Amanda and Tiffany clammed up.

The lock clicked and a bolt was thrown and the door opened.

Ron stood in the threshold covered with blood. It was on his face and hands as well as his clothing. He peered inside because it was dark and let his eyes adjust. A rifle was slung over his shoulder, the muzzle behind his back pointed up in the air.

“There you all are,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I was gone longer than I planned to be.”

“We’re just fine,” Amanda said. She always felt she had to say something, Kyle thought. Unlike him.

“Good, ’cause I hope you know how to butcher a deer,” Ron said to Amanda. “I field dressed it already so you don’t need to worry about that.”

Kyle let his eyes drop from Ron in the doorway. A two-point gray buck deer was slumped behind Ron. The buck’s eyes were open but dried out and its tongue lolled out of the side of its mouth like the deer was smoking a swelled-up pink cigar. Ron had dragged it from far enough away that he was obviously worn out from the exertion.

“I’ve cooked venison,” Amanda said cautiously. “But I’ve never actually skinned out a deer or cut one up.”

Ron nodded in that way that meant he could care less what she said. He reached behind him and produced a small bone saw designed for big game. He reversed it and pointed the handle toward her to grasp.

“Here,” he said. “I’ll show you how.”

As an aside, Ron winked at Kyle and said, “It’s the first time this saw’s been used on a game animal.”

Then he grinned as if sharing a joke.





PART THREE

EKALAKA





CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

CASSIE KEPT A CLOSE EYE on the gas gauge of her Escape as she got within five miles of Ekalaka, Montana, on State Highway 7. She regretted not stopping back in Baker for fuel fifteen minutes earlier. A gaggle of men standing around in coveralls surrounding the only open pump had convinced her to keep going.

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