Chapter 24
Sweat beaded on Buddy’s face, despite the chill of the stone enclosure. “You can’t—we can’t—”
“Shut up, Buddy,” Wynter interrupted. “We end this now and nobody knows what happened to Elsie Hostetler. Everybody thinks that Dathan killed her and then himself. There’s nothing to tie us to either of them.”
“But you can’t kill Rachel and Mary Aaron. I won’t let you do it. It ain’t right. I’m not a murderer,” Buddy yelled in Wynter’s face. He looked to his other cousin. “Tell her, Duck. Tell her that’s stupid. We’re not shooting anybody.”
Duck backed toward the door, his voice soft, manipulating. “She’s talking sense, Cuz. This will never be finished if we don’t tie up all the loose ends.”
“They stuck their noses where they didn’t belong,” Wynter said, “and now they pay for it. Consequences to everything.”
Rachel couldn’t make out Wynter’s face, but her tone was cold, almost emotionless. It was as though Wynter could talk about taking human life as easily as taking out the trash. Rachel tried to suppress her anger so that she could reason with the three of them. “You guys haven’t thought this out,” she said. “You’ll never get away with it.”
“You’ll have to face a higher court,” Mary Aaron said, forgetting that she was supposed to be gagged. “John Miller’s a God-fearing man. He didn’t raise you to be killers.”
“And look where he is. An old man sitting here on this worthless farm, never seeing nothing, never getting anything. I gave up worrying about what he thinks a long time ago,” Wynter answered.
“There’s got to be another way,” Buddy said.
“You have the brains of a turnip,” Wynter taunted.
“He’s not the stupid one,” Rachel said. “He’s the only one who realizes the consequences of what you’re considering. He’s not ready to risk his immortal soul for you.”
“Everybody’s got an opinion, don’t they?” Wynter said, swinging the gun around to point the barrel at Rachel. “I’m not happy about this. Duck isn’t. But it’s the only way to get free of this mess.”
“Buddy, please. You have to do what’s right,” Rachel begged. “Don’t listen to them. They don’t care about you. When the police arrest you, Duck and Wynter will blame everything on you. It will be your word against theirs.”
Buddy swung around to look at his cousins. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
“Let’s take this outside,” Duck said.
Buddy stood between Mary Aaron and Wynter’s gun. “Stop waving that thing around before it goes off,” he warned her.
“I think you’re scared,” Wynter said. “And you’re the one who’s supposed to be the mighty hunter. Don’t you shoot stuff all the time?”
“Deer, rabbits, not people,” Buddy answered. “And not women.”
“Outside,” Duck barked.
The three of them filed out of the springhouse, leaving Buddy’s flashlight where he’d put it on the floor. Someone slammed the door and slid the bar. Rachel could hear their voices raised in anger. One of them, Buddy, she supposed, was crying again.
An ominous phrase raised the hair on the back of her neck.
“. . . the old mine shaft.” Duck’s voice. “Nobody will ever find . . .”
Frantically, Rachel attempted to free her hands from the bindings. The nail head beneath her dug into her hip again. This didn’t seem real. She had to hold it together. If she gave in to hysteria, she’d be useless. Below, Rachel could hear the spring, flowing continually out of the rock and earth of the mountain. Above her, in the rafters, there were high-pitched squeaks. Bats. She hated bats. She could imagine their tiny, leathery wings brushing against her face and their scratchy claws—“There’s a nail sticking up, poking me,” she told Mary Aaron, trying to get her mind off the bats.
“I don’t think that’s our biggest problem right now.”
Rachel almost smiled.
“I’ve been watching Netflix. In the movies, this is when the hero policeman shows up,” Mary Aaron whispered. “Evan would be good. Or Trooper Mars. I’d settle for any of them.”
“Don’t panic,” Rachel replied. “We’ll think of something.”
“Too late for that. Can you move over a little? Away from me?”
“Maybe. A little. Why?” Rachel asked.
“I’ve been soaking the tape on my wrists for hours, in the water trickling behind us, and it’s a lot looser. Maybe if I can borrow your nail, I can get it off.”
“My nail?”
“The one poking you.”
Rachel squirmed away from the post back toward the wall. The beam from Buddy’s flashlight wasn’t much help because it wasn’t pointed right on them, but at least it wasn’t pitch dark. Mary Aaron dropped sideways onto the floor and searched for the protruding nail. “It’s right there,” Rachel urged. “On my left.”
“Found it.” Mary Aaron was breathing hard, her movement obviously painful. “There. Got it.” Quickly, she reached for Rachel’s wrists.
Rachel’s heart drummed against her ribs. It sounded so loud that she wondered why they couldn’t hear it outside. Any minute they were going to be back. She just knew it. “Hurry,” she whispered.
“Doing my best. Sit still. Can you bend your arms a little closer?”
Seconds became minutes. Now Rachel was sweating. If she didn’t get loose soon, Duck or Wynter would come back in and shoot them like fish in a barrel. Of course, if she did get loose, what then? She didn’t have a gun or a weapon of any kind. How would they—
“There.”
The cord came undone and Rachel clutched her wrists. Immediately, sharp pain shot through her fingers. Her hands felt numb. How could she defend them if she couldn’t use her hands? Mary Aaron began to work on Rachel’s ankle binding. “There’s a little window on the far wall. If you break the glass, I think you can squeeze through. Climb out and run. Into the woods. They won’t find you on the mountain.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Rachel said.
“I can’t run. I don’t even think I can walk, Rae-Rae. I’m telling you, my knee’s bad.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Rachel insisted.
“Your father’s right. You’re as stubborn as your mother.” Mary Aaron ripped loose the tape on Rachel’s ankles and used the post to pull herself upright. She tried to take a step, gasped, and let out a groan. “I definitely can’t walk on it,” she said. “And I won’t get far hopping like a rabbit. Go now, before they come back. They won’t shoot me if they think you can identify them. There wouldn’t be any reason to shoot me.”
Coming to her feet, Rachel rubbed her hands together hard, willing feeling to return. She wasn’t sure she agreed with her cousin’s logic. “I won’t leave you.”
Mary Aaron grasped her arm. “I’ll be all right. And I’m not afraid to die. It’s fine. If I die, I’ll be with Elsie.”
“You’re not baptized yet. How do you expect to get to heaven if you’re not baptized?” Rachel didn’t believe that, but it was what the bishop taught and she needed an argument. She had no intention of allowing Mary Aaron to sacrifice herself so that she could get away.
“That’s a minor detail,” Mary Aaron replied. “I’m sure I can clear that up once I get there.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Rachel insisted. “Is there anything in here I can use to hit them with? You’ve been here in daylight.”
“Over by the door there’s a broken butter crock. It’s in pieces, but the base must be pretty heavy.”
“Okay, so here’s the plan.” Rachel leaned down, picked up the blanket, and tossed it behind them so neither of them would trip on it in the dark. “You wait behind the door. When one of them comes in, you slam the door on the others. I’ll hit them with the pottery.”
“And what about the other two?” Mary Aaron was already crawling toward the door. “Watch the floor. Half the boards are rotten and some of them are missing.”
“I don’t think Buddy will hurt us, no matter what they say,” Rachel whispered. “With any luck, Buddy won’t be the first one in the door.”
“What about the gun?”
“Pray that Wynter comes in first. I’ll hit her with the crock and you slam the door on whoever’s coming in next. Wynter’ll drop the gun. You grab it.”
“Me?” Mary Aaron’s voice sounded childlike. “I don’t know anything about handguns.”
“You’ve used a rifle. I know the boys take you hunting. It’s easy. Don’t point it at anything you don’t want to kill.”
“I don’t know if I could shoot someone,” Mary Aaron murmured.
“Hopefully you won’t have to,” Rachel answered, trying to figure out where the best place to stand was. “We have to fight back. Defend ourselves. It’s our only chance. They think we’re tied up. We’ll take them by surprise. If we put up a good enough fight, I think they’ll run away.”
Rachel stripped off her jacket. If she had to fight one or two of them, she’d need to move freely. She picked up Buddy’s flashlight and sighed at her own stupidity. The flashlight. If she needed a weapon, this was a far better one than some broken pieces of crockery. When Mary Aaron reached her spot behind the door, Rachel flicked the beam over to find the broken crock. The base was intact, thick, and almost ten inches across. She snatched it up and shoved it into Mary Aaron’s hands. “I’ll use the flashlight. You use this,” she said, handing her the crock. She turned off the flashlight. Darkness would be to their advantage.
“Is it wrong to pray that we can hurt them?” Mary Aaron whispered.
“Pray they won’t hurt us.”
They were barely in position when Rachel heard the murmur of voices and footfalls on the steps. The door creaked open. Rachel brought the heavy flashlight down on the first figure to come through the door. Mary Aaron threw her weight against the door to try to close it. Wynter screamed and tumbled to the floor. Wood cracked. A man barreled through the entranceway, shoving Mary Aaron aside. Rachel swung the flashlight again, striking his shoulder. He whirled on her. It was Duck. He was holding the gun in one hand, a flashlight in the other.
Rachel caught sight of Wynter, on her hands and knees. Mary Aaron brought the butter crock down on her back. Wynter shrieked as one hand and then a knee plunged through the rotten floor.
“Don’t hurt them!” Buddy charged into the room.
Duck swore.
Rachel heard a loud pop. I’m going to die, she thought, preparing herself for the blow. But she felt nothing. Somehow, Buddy was between her and Duck.
“Oh.” Buddy sounded surprised as his body rocked back.
“Buddy?” Duck screamed.
Buddy exhaled as he sank to the floor.
“What did you do?” Wynter cried, struggling to get free from the floorboards. “You shot Buddy. You idiot, you’re supposed to shoot her!”
Rachel switched on Buddy’s flashlight just as an object hurtled through the air and struck Wynter in the back of the head. Wynter sagged forward and collapsed, partially suspended between the rotten floorboards.
Rachel stared at Duck. He raised the gun again. He was less than six feet from her.
“Nice try,” he said, shrugging. “Too bad for you.”
John Miller’s big dog came out of nowhere. Growling, it burst through the open doorway and launched itself on Duck, knocking him to the floor. The handgun went flying. On hands and knees, Mary Aaron scrambled after it. Duck yelled as the massive animal pinned him down, teeth snapping inches from his face.
“Down, boy.” John’s soft voice was infused with threads of steel. “Easy now,” he ordered in Deitsch.
Still uttering deep growls, the dog backed off its victim and retreated to its master’s side.
Duck sat up. He was trembling and his face was white in the glare of the flashlight as he got to his feet. “What you think you’re going to do, old man?” he demanded. “You can’t stop me. I—”
A cold, metallic click resounded through the springhouse. It was a sound that many people might not recognize. Rachel wasn’t certain if she was imagining what she’d heard . . . if it was a desperate product of her imagination. But when John eased back the second hammer, she knew exactly what he was holding. A twelve-gauge shotgun. Her dat had one just like it that had once been his dat’s.
“You’re blind!” Duck shouted. “You can’t shoot me!”
“Let’s see,” John said. “Or you can get on your knees, hands on your head.” Rachel thought he looked like an avenging angel standing there in his white nightgown with his long white beard and shoulder-length gray hair.
“You’re blind and you’re deaf,” Duck spat, but he must have been scared, because he followed his grandfather’s directions.
“I may be blind, but I’m not dumb. And I kept my hearing aid in tonight. I heard you. I heard Wynter take my savings from under the floorboard in the attic, and I heard you say you were going to murder these girls and throw them down the mine shaft.”
“Gramps . . .”
“Enough, Deiter. You’ve said enough,” John said. “Rachel, are you all right?”
“I am,” she said as she passed her flashlight to Mary Aaron and crouched over Buddy’s sprawled form. She placed her fingertips over his mouth and felt nothing. His chest was a blossom of dark red. “He’s not breathing,” she said, her voice trembling. He took the shot point-blank. “Buddy’s hurt bad. Duck shot him.” She knew she should try to do CPR even though his eyes were open, his pupils fixed. And there was so much blood seeping from the hole in his chest. As she got to her knees over him, she tried to remember how many compressions you were supposed to do before giving a breath. But every instinct told her that it was too late, that everything that made Buddy Wheeler alive and human was gone, that even now, his soul was rising somewhere into the dark night.
“You shot your own cousin?” John asked.
“It was an accident,” Duck growled. “It’s not my fault. Just stand aside and let me pass. You owe me that much. I’m your grandson. Your blood.”
“I owe you nothing,” John said. “Mary Aaron, you okay?”
“I am.”
“You know how to use a shotgun?”
“I do,” she said.
“I’m going to hand this to you and I want you to take good aim on Duck’s knees,” John said. “If he moves so much as a finger, blow his leg off. He won’t run far then.”
Rachel glanced at Mary Aaron. She nodded as John passed the shotgun to her.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Mary Aaron said to Duck. “But I’m nervous. See how I’m shaking. If you do anything to frighten me, this gun is going to go off.” She pointed it directly at Duck’s knees.
John then knelt beside Rachel and laid a gnarled hand on Buddy’s face, closing his eyes.
“Should I do CPR?” Rachel’s voice trembled.
“He’s gone, child,” John murmured. “He’s beyond your help.”
Wynter was sobbing.
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel said, sitting back, panting hard. “He wasn’t a bad man.”
“Just a foolish one.” John exhaled a long, shuddering breath, got to his feet, and took the shotgun back from Mary Aaron.
Rachel put her hand out. “Give me my cell phone,” she told Duck. “Give it to me,” she repeated.
“Gramps . . .” Duck pleaded. “You don’t have to do this. Just let me go. You don’t want me to go back to prison.”
“But I do,” John said. “I want them to lock you up where you’ll never hurt anyone again. You and Wynter both.”
His granddaughter remained on the floor, weeping bitterly, making no effort to extricate herself from the floorboards.
“Buddy died for Rachel,” Mary Aaron said. “He jumped between her and Duck. He saved her life.”
“Then there is hope for him,” John said. “God have mercy on his soul.” He motioned to Rachel. “Back out of here. You, too, Mary Aaron. Dog, come. We’ll lock these two in here until we can get the police.”
“And the paramedics,” Rachel said. “Mary Aaron’s knee is hurt, and Wynter may need patching up.”
“I should have run those two out long ago,” John said. “But I was a foolish old man. I kept thinking they’d change. Maybe Buddy would be alive if I had.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Mary Aaron said. “And if you hadn’t come when you did, Rachel and I would both be as dead as Elsie.”
“They killed her, didn’t they?” John asked.
“Ya,” Mary Aaron answered softly. “They admitted it. It’s a long story. It started out with Buddy and Duck having too much to drink.”
“That figures.” John handed the shotgun to Rachel. “Bet you know how to use this.”
Rachel accepted it.
John turned his attention to Mary Aaron. “Let me help you down the steps. I’m blind, but I’m not helpless.” He locked the springhouse door. “You stay!” he said to the dog. “Guard the door. That will hold them.”
“I may have to drive down the mountain to get a phone signal,” Rachel said as she backed out of the springhouse, John and Mary Aaron behind her.
“You take your time,” John said. “What’s done is done. We’ve got all the time in the world to pick up the pieces and try to go on living.”