34
The early morning temperature was well below freezing, and the light coat Carlie was wearing was hardly warm enough to ward off the cold. Her feet were so numb that she kept losing her balance; she couldn’t even tell if her fingers were still on the handholds of the tiller.
Her lips were beyond the point of functioning; she couldn’t have formed the words to tell her brother to stop long enough for her to warm up if her life depended on it. Not that it would have done any good—Patrick couldn’t have cared less if she fell off. He more than likely wished that she would. Patrick’s lack of concern was Carlie’s motivation to hang on at any cost.
In the distance, Carlie could see the stand of trees marking the western boundary of their farm. It was miles away from where they were supposed to be tilling. Carlie knew instinctively that Patrick was up to something, but only time would show her what.
She was shaking uncontrollably from the bitter cold, but the sun was beginning to come up and she prayed that it would warm up before she froze to death.
Stopping the horses at the edge of the tree line, Patrick turned to Carlie and told her to get off. She had no idea why, but before she could ask, he pointed to the ground ahead of them.
“We’re going to be needing that rock. The ground is just too hard to cut without the extra weight.”
The rock he was pointing at was huge; it had to weigh at least three hundred pounds.
Carlie stepped off the plow and walked over to it. Her first test of its weight found it frozen solid to the ground. She rather hoped that Patrick would climb down and offer to help, but she knew that would never happen.
Squatting down, she grabbed the front edge and lifted with all her strength. It rocked backward and partially stood up, but she had no way of lifting it from that position. Dropping it, she looked to Patrick for help, but he was staring off into the stand of trees.
Wrapping her arms as far around the rock as they would go, she squatted down again and lifted with all her might. As the rock began to move, she adjusted her stance to compensate. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t lift it past her knees.
“Maybe you might be needing some help with that,” Patrick said.
When she looked up at him, he was smiling at her.
“You might ask your da—he’s right over there. I’m sure he would be happy to help you.”
Carlie had no idea what he was talking about and was scared to death to ask. She dropped the rock and followed his eyes. He was looking at something deep within the shadows.
“Go on, boy, he’s right over there,” Patrick said, pointing to where he was staring.
Carlie knew he wasn’t going to let it go until she complied, so she started walking toward where he was pointing. Any minute she expected him to snap the reins and leave her stranded in the middle of nowhere—at least a day’s walk from home. But he didn’t. Instead, he waited patiently on the runner of the tiller.
Carlie could see something hanging from the branch of the oak, but she couldn’t make it out. The deeper into the stand she went, the more the shadows played with the sunlight. She was practically on top of it before she realized that she was looking at a dead body. Someone had killed this person and left the body hanging on the tree. The stench of death and decay was overwhelming; every breath left a rancid, greasy taste on the roof of her mouth.
She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a man—or what was left of him. His face was no longer recognizable; someone had crushed it, and the crows had done the rest.
His clothes appeared to have been ripped from his body, hanging in shreds and gently flapping in the early morning breeze, exposing a gaping wound and an empty hole where his stomach had been.
When she turned back to where she had left Patrick, something struck her hard in the chest, knocking her to the ground.
“We figured you would want to be with your old man when you died. He’s been hanging around waiting for you for quite some time. I’m sure by now, though, he had almost given up on you.”
Carlie knew in an instant why he had brought her out here. He was going to kill her.
“You’re fucking nuts, Patrick,” Carlie said as she tried to jump to her feet.
Falling directly underneath the body, she landed in something wet, slippery, and horrible-smelling. She couldn’t manage to get her footing. As Patrick rushed at her, she pushed her hand through the soft and squishy intestines and rolled herself onto her side.
Finally, she was slightly away from Patrick and out of the abomination she had been lying in. Standing, Carlie ran toward the horses. She had gone only a few feet when Patrick grabbed her by the collar. She twisted to her left and broke free from his grip, but she knew she would never reach the horses before he got hold of her again.
Frantically she swung her arms out in hopes of connecting hard enough to stun him, giving her the edge she needed to escape. However, she connected with nothing but air. Her fear was now panic, and she was running toward the light harder and faster than she had ever run before in her life.
Clearing the last tree, she broke into the light to find Patrick standing in front of her holding the massive rock in his powerful arms. “Here, you little pissant, hold this,” he said as he heaved the rock at her.
Carlie felt the force of the enormous rock against her chest. Balancing herself, she pushed against its tremendous weight and shifted to her right, falling to the ground and slightly away from where it landed.
Carlie knew she couldn’t stand up and run; the rock had done serious damage to something inside her chest. She was seeing pinpricks of colored light in the oncoming black shroud that threatened to envelop her.
In a frantic attempt to get away, she tried desperately to ignore the pain as she crabwalked as fast as she could from where she had last seen the horses.
Exhausted and finding it impossible to breathe, she rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. She knew she was going to die; running would only speed up the process.
Panting, she could not take a full breath; the rock must have broken her breastbone, puncturing her lung. She had suffered broken ribs before, but this was different.
A few years earlier, a steer had kicked Ian in the chest. The broken rib punctured his lung. She remembered how painful it must have been when the doctor jammed a piece of broken glass tube between his ribs to reinflate the lung.
Carlie opened her eyes to the sound and feel of something pounding on the ground. She lifted her head, and what she saw almost stopped her heart: the horses were heading right for her. In seconds, the horses would trample her—just before the blades of the tiller cut her in half.
Covering her face, she held her breath, waiting for the pain and the quick death that the thousand-pound horse would bring.
Then, for no apparent reason, the world went silent. The next sound she heard was the whinny of the horses. Opening her eyes between her fingers, she saw the horses standing quietly in front of her and Patrick smiling down at her.
Patrick did something then that she never expected him to do: he grabbed the reins in one hand and held on to the front of the tiller with the other. With every ounce of strength in his body, he pulled on the reins until the horses were standing straight up on their back legs.
Carlie couldn’t believe it; he was going to have the horses stomp and kick her to death.
In an instant, she was sitting and pushing herself backward in the dirt.
The horse’s hoof came down on the edge of her right leg, snapping the bone and slicing through most of the flesh and muscle just below her knee. Doubling her effort, she ignored the incredible pain and pushed herself with her one good leg faster and farther away from the lethal hooves of the massive horses.
Patrick pulled the horses up again, yanking even harder on the reins. The horses screamed in pain and kicked out in protest, this time landing a glancing blow just above Carlie’s left eyebrow and around the side of her head.
Pain seared through her head and down her back and arms. Every inch of her body hurt beyond comprehension. She knew she had to move, or die for real.
She had to do something, and she had to do it right now. She somehow rolled her stiff and damaged legs backward over her head and pushed up with her hands. Standing, she held herself up on her one good leg. She watched the horses as they began to rear up on their back legs again.
She had no idea what was wrong with her, but brain damage popped into her mind. Her right arm was so much heavier than the other. Looking down, she saw a rock the size of a cantaloupe in her hand. She barely had enough strength left to lift it; she wondered what good it could possibly do her.
The scream of the horses brought her back to the moment. Looking up, she saw the sun glint off the bridle of the horse directly in front of her. As the horse kicked out, she threw the rock with all her strength.
The rock missed the horse completely and hit Patrick below his right eye, opening a deep gash directly on his cheekbone. There was enough force combined with the element of surprise to knock him off balance. With both arms flailing, he dropped the reins and slipped off the rail onto the ground.
As the horses lurched forward, the sharp metal-edged blades caught him in the back of his legs, knocking him to his knees.
Raising her arms, Carlie began waving and screaming. The horses veered away from her, twisting Patrick deeper into the first set of blades. As Patrick screamed out in pain, the horses reared again and ran even faster.
Carlie stood and watched as the horses, the tiller, and the rumpled body of her half-brother wedged deep within the blades galloped away.
Dragging her damaged leg, she staggered back to the security and shade of the tree line. A debilitating wave of nausea suddenly overcame her. As she bent over, the world went black.
Opening her eyes, Carlie saw Jon sound asleep in the chair across from her. The front room was quiet except for the gentle breathing of Jon and Loretta. The grandfather clock showed that it was a few minutes past 9:00 pm. She had been asleep for less than an hour. Picking up three of Edith’s journals, she quietly moved into the kitchen. She turned on the light and closed the door behind her.