Disneyland
I made my way from the top of the ridge I was on back in the direction I had come. Dempsey had said the mercenaries were holing up in a box canyon, but I wasn’t sure exactly where that would be. I was wondering if I would ever be able to find the boys again when I heard the screaming. I’d been running most of the way back, but I ran harder now. The scream was high pitched, and my first thought was that someone was hurting Joey. But as I got closer, the scream turned to cursing. I decided then that it couldn’t be Joey. I reached the top of a rise just in time to see the group moving into a space between some large rocks. Joey went first, a woman with a stick behind him. Ron and Eric followed, with another man trailing them. Ron’s wrists looked to be firmly secured. Peng and JR came last, with Tiny, whom I recognized from my previous encounter, behind them. Tiny was swinging his head from side to side and was continually swiping one arm behind him as if he were being attacked by invisible flies. He was the one doing the cursing, so I assumed the scream had also come from him. All of the boys looked unharmed. I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t let Hope down. Not yet.
I thought about calling out now, giving myself up, making the move Dempsey had said was inevitable in his game. But I didn’t do it. I looked skyward, hoping for some answer from above for what I should do next. All I heard was Tiny’s frequent cursing and the other man laughing at him. I’d listened to what I’d thought was a prompting and had come back to help the boys, but now I felt nothing—no inspiration, no revelation, no ideas.
I sat and pulled out the map. They were headed into a small box canyon. I didn’t think I could follow them in without being seen, but at the same time, they couldn’t leave without me seeing them. It looked like they were going to hole up for the night and wait for the reinforcements to arrive. I figured I had at least until morning. My best course of action was probably to wait to see if Ron would be able to make a move during the night.
I didn’t like not doing anything, but there really wasn’t anything for me to do. If morning came and nothing had happened, I would probably have to give myself up.
* * *
Peng watched the path carefully as they made their way through the rocks. In places, the trail was like some of the slot canyons they had hiked in as Scouts, boulders rising up on either side, making it impossible for more than one person to proceed at a time. Jackson hadn’t said this, but if an outlaw gang had really hidden in this canyon, they would have had to leave their horses behind. There were a few spots where Peng could climb out of the labyrinth, but as he followed the routes upward, he saw only dead ends. He would find a way though. It was only a matter of time.
The trail was steep but not very long, and they made it to the end without any of the large spiders attacking them. They moved out of the rocks and into an open canyon, then hiked another couple hundred yards and approached a flat spot that had walls on three sides. As they approached, Peng heard the clattering of rocks up ahead, and the kidnappers all pulled their guns. A flash of white scrambled up the cliff face to their left.
Jackson laughed and lowered his gun. “No worries. It’s just our goat friend with the broken horn. Looks like we took his favorite hiding spot. Okay, folks, drop your packs and set up camp. This is where we’re spending the night.”
“Here?” Tiny asked. “The ground is all rock, and there are spiders all around us. Not to mention how cold the wind is now. At night this place is going to feel like the North Pole.”
Jackson studied the place with an air of satisfaction. “It’s perfect,” he said. “There’s only one way in, and we can easily defend it. We’ll only be here for one night. Tomorrow the wet team will arrive and take care of our problem on the outside. Tiny, since you don’t seem to care for our camping spot, why don’t you head a ways down the trail and take first watch. Find a place where you can see anyone who comes through that slot. If anything sticks its head in, you shoot it.”
Tiny looked back the way they had come, then he looked at the spiderwebs all around them. He shivered once, then, grumbling, moved back down the trail to guard the entrance to the valley.
Peng watched the goat on the cliff face again. It had been outside the canyon and had found its way in, and it hadn’t used the trail they’d used. Now, with their arrival, it looked like it was moving out of the canyon again. Peng tried to memorize the path it was taking and thought he could see a faint line of a trail weaving back and forth across the cliff face. Jackson was wrong. There was more than one way in and out of this canyon. The goat had found it, and so could Peng. Once it was dark, he would leave.
He wondered what would happen when they found him gone in the morning. Would they harm the other boys? Peng decided Ron would protect them. Besides, the kidnappers said they only wanted Peng and Matt. Maybe they would let the others go. He looked over at Jillian and knew that was a wishful thought. He wasn’t sure why people like this would be after Matt, but Matt must have some secrets. Peng was okay with that. He had secrets of his own.
“You boys drag some of those big logs over here,” Jackson said. “And pick up some of that deadwood. If we’re going to sleep in this hole tonight, at least we can build a fire.”
The boys did as instructed. When the fire was going, the boys found a place on the log and sat around it.
Jackson pulled something out of his pack and tossed it to Eric. Eric caught the can in his hand and looked at it—Easy Cheese. Jackson fumbled around in his pack and pulled out a packet of crackers. “There’s nothing like Ritz and Easy Cheese to make a man feel better.” He walked over to Eric and held out a cracker. “Why don’t you load me up?”
Eric pushed the nozzle and sprayed the cheese onto Jackson’s cracker.
Jackson popped the whole thing in his mouth and closed his eyes. “Now that’s a good cracker.” He gave the rest of the package to Eric. “Help yourself.”
Eric looked at Ron for permission, and Ron nodded. Eric grinned and began his feast.
“See?” Jackson said. “This doesn’t have to be that bad. Think of us as your protectors. Our job is to get you out of here safe and sound. You help us, and we’ll help you. Now, why don’t you all break out your stoves and get something hot to eat. This canyon is a little chilly.”
Ron still had his hands tied behind his back, but he nodded to Peng to pull the stoves out of the packs. Peng gave one to JR and was going to hand one to Joey, but Joey was sitting on the log, his head in his hands, tears dripping onto the ground.
Jillian moved over to Joey, sat next to him, and poked him in the side. “Snap out of it, doughboy. I’m not going to listen to you sniveling all night.”
Joey looked up at her. “Why are you so mean all the time?”
“This isn’t mean. This is doing you a favor. It’s time for you to grow up and get tough.”
“I don’t want to grow up,” Joey said. “I want to enjoy being a kid.”
“What’s there to enjoy? You’re crying in the dirt like a little girl,” Jillian said.
“Weren’t you ever a little girl?”
This question seemed to take Jillian off guard, and she paused before answering. “Yeah, I was a little girl once,” she finally said. “Let me tell you about it. When I was five years old, I saw a commercial on television for Disneyland. I got it in my head that it was the best place on earth. I begged my mom to take me. I begged her until I was blue in the face. We lived in Southern California, so it wasn’t a far drive, but she said we didn’t have the money. We probably didn’t. She was a single mom with a blue-collar job, and the place we lived in was a dump. But she had just hooked up with a new boyfriend, and he had a nice car. I thought maybe he could buy us some tickets. She said he didn’t like kids, and anytime he came over, they made me go to my room.
“Then one day my mom came home with two long pieces of cardstock in her hand. They had mouse ears on them, and I think I almost wet my pants with excitement. ‘Dan bought us tickets,’ she said. ‘Go get your jacket.’ Dan drove us to the park in his new car. My mom sat right next to him, almost on his lap, and I sat in the backseat.
“‘I’ll be waiting out here,’ he said to my mom as we got out. ‘Don’t take too long.’
“When we got inside, I couldn’t even speak I was so thrilled. Everything was so clean, and everyone looked so happy. I begged my mom to take me to Small World first thing, and she didn’t argue with me at all. She just took me right there. She let me get into the boat first, and then as she was about to step in, she pulled her foot out and said, ‘Mommy has to go to the bathroom, honey. Why don’t you do this one on your own? I’ll wait for you at the end.’
“Now, understand, my dream in life, my whole goal as a five-year-old was to ride that Small World ride and revel in the experience. But the girl who got in next to me was sitting in my mom’s spot and was a pimply, sweaty teenager with a head cold, who snorted the contents of her nose up into her brains about every fifteen seconds. That’s what I remember about my first Small World ride: not the singing, not the smiling robotic children, not the journey through different countries and cultures—just a snotty teenager and worrying about whether my mother would be there when the ride ended.” Jillian paused, her eyes looking into the distance as if remembering every detail of the experience. “Well, she wasn’t. Nobody was waiting for me when the ride ended.
“So I got back in the line and rode around again, thinking that maybe my mom had gotten sick, maybe she was just taking a little longer than she thought she would. I rode that ride all day long until the park closed. And every time, I thought for sure my mother would be waiting for me at the end. I remember it like it was yesterday, as vivid as a high-definition picture. But you know what? I don’t remember the ride itself. I barely even remember the song. I didn’t enjoy it, not any of it. Even the times without the snotty teenager. Because I was worried about some stupid adult waiting for me at the end so they could take care of me.” Jillian glared harder at Joey as if she were trying to penetrate his skin with her eyes. “So, yeah, Mr. Doughboy, I was a kid once. But in the foster homes that followed, I grew out of it real fast.”
Jillian stopped talking and looked around her as if waking from a dream. Everyone in the camp had been listening. Everyone had heard her story. No one was willing to meet her eyes.
No one except Joey, who had stopped crying and was staring Jillian in the face. “Jillian?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“This trip was supposed to be my Disneyland.”
Jillian blinked and looked away.
Joey stood and moved to a spot on the other side of the fire.
“It’s amazing the kinds of things you learn on camping trips,” Jackson said, shaking his head.
Jillian gave him a look that stopped him from saying anything else.
“Well, that was pathetic,” Ron said.
“Get over it,” Jillian shot back. “The kid needs to be introduced to reality sometime.”
“I wasn’t talking about the kid,” Ron said. “I was talking about you, letting your mother control your life like that.”
Jillian pulled out her gun and pointed it at Ron’s face. “You want me to paint these rocks with what’s left of your face?”
Ron didn’t even blink. “She was a bad mother,” he said. “She should have been there waiting for you. It wasn’t your fault she abandoned you. You were a kid. You needed her to be there. But living your life trying to prove that you don’t need anyone else means she’s still in control. She’s still the one pulling your strings. You need to learn to let her go and truly become your own person.”
Jillian’s hand began to tighten on the trigger. Jackson stepped in and gently pushed the gun away. “I think it’s time we concentrate on the task at hand and remember that if we don’t bring him and the kid in alive, we don’t get paid. Now, why don’t we work on getting some hot food into us. It’ll be dark in a few hours, and we still need to set up the tents. I think all of us would be a bit better off if we evened out our blood sugar some.”
Jillian scowled, lowered her gun, and stomped to the other side of camp. The boys got up slowly and dug inside their meager packs for some food.
Peng just watched. He watched Jillian as she circled the camp like a cat; he watched Joey as he pulled out his pack of dehydrated food; he watched JR and Eric trying to ignite their backpacking stove but having difficulty in the swirling wind; he watched Ron as he seemed to be studying every rock and every burning tree limb inside the camp as if assessing what weapon to use and the right time to use it. Ron would probably wait until it got dark to make his move, after some of the kidnappers were asleep. But Peng didn’t intend on sticking around long enough to find out.
Jackson was looking at Ron, staring at him as if he were trying to work out a puzzle.
“You know this would go a lot faster if you untied my hands and let me help them,” Ron said.
Jackson started to shake his head and then seemed to change his mind. “All right,” he said, walking over to Ron and grabbing his arms. “But if you make one wrong move, Jillian over there is going to put a bullet in one of your boys. By the look of her pacing, she’s itching to kill something. So I suggest you let me see your hands at all times.”
Jackson cut the zip ties with his knife while holding his gun to Ron’s head. He then backed away as Ron turned around, holding up his palms in front of him. Jackson seemed to study Ron’s hands with great interest, and then Ron moved to help JR and Eric set up a windscreen so they could get their stove lit.
Jackson bit his lip. “Hey, Easy,” he said to Eric. “I’m wondering if you could do something for me.”
“Sure,” Eric said, standing up. He seemed a little less wary of Jackson since they’d shared the cheese and crackers.
“Tell me about your other leader again. The one who’s still out there somewhere.”
“Sure,” Eric said, the wariness returning to his voice.
“What was his name again?”
Eric glanced quickly at Ron. “It’s Kelton. Ron Kelton.”
“There’s something puzzling me,” Jackson said. “When we picked you up, you called this man over here Brother K.” He motioned to Ron. “But your other leader also has a last name that starts with a K. So what do you call him?”
“Well,” Eric said, beginning to stumble over his words. “We just, uh, call him Ron. Because having two Brother Ks would just be confusing.”
“Ahh,” Jackson said. “Makes sense. You wouldn’t want to confuse the two. But is calling a leader by their first name allowed in your church? Wouldn’t that be disrespectful?”
“He asked us to,” JR said, stepping in and picking up on the tag-team routine he and Eric had performed so many times. “He doesn’t like being called Brother anything. He’s more like one of the guys than a leader.”
Jackson chuckled and shook his head. “I’ll bet he is. I’ll bet he is. It must be quite a thing to have an ex-Delta as one of your Scout leaders. Thanks for helping me make sense of this puzzle. I have to admit it was bothering me.”
He turned his gaze to Ron again, who was standing over the burning stove. Once again, Jackson seemed to be studying Ron’s hands. “Brother K,” he said, chuckling to himself. Then he lifted his pistol and shot Ron twice, once in the right hand and once in the lower leg.
The pot of water Ron had been holding went flying, and Ron went down on one knee, holding his hand.
Peng was stunned. So was everyone else, including Jillian, who stopped her pacing and moved quickly into camp, her gun up and pointing at Ron.
Jackson continued talking as if nothing had happened. “It seems to me that Ron Kelton would be the more likely one to be referred to as Brother K. Knight doesn’t even have a hard K sound to it. I think you boys have been trying to pull the wool over our eyes. All along we’ve had the wrong Brother K. We’ve been holding Ron Kelton, while Matthew Knight—the one we’re supposed to be taking back to the client—has been running free and making us feel like we had a Delta on our trail. But the Delta man has been right here in our midst, just waiting for the right time to strike.”
“How could you know that?” Jillian said, not lowering her gun.
“That’s easy. In the Delta OTC, we spent eight hours a day in a place we called the shooting house. We endlessly practiced breaching a room and shooting cutouts of terrorists, making sure we didn’t hit the hostage. We practiced so much that the flesh between our index finger and thumb became blistered and then calloused. We used to joke that no Delta man could really go undercover—you’d be able to pick them out by looking at the palm of their shooting hand.” Jackson spat on the ground. “I should have seen it from the first. Our man over there has a Delta palm. Our real target, Matthew Knight, is still out there. Probably long gone by now.”
“Why’d you shoot him?” Jillian asked.
Ron continued to hold his hand to him while at the same trying to stop the bleeding in his calf.
“I hit his shooting hand to take away his major advantage. I hit his leg so he won’t be able to follow us when we get out of here. We’re taking the boys and leaving, and I don’t want a Delta with us, wounded or not.”
“So you’re telling me Matthew Knight killed Woolhead, not a Delta?” Tiny said.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Jackson said.
“And you’re going to leave the Delta alive?”
Before Jackson could answer, Jillian tightened her finger on the trigger and shot Ron three times in the chest. The impact knocked him backward, and he rolled over once, his face in the dirt.
“Why’d you do that?” Jackson said.
“Tiny’s right. You don’t leave a Delta alive,” Jillian answered. “Wounded or not.”
Peng felt all the air go out of him. This could not be happening. Ron was their leader, their rescuer, the one who was going to get JR, Eric, and Joey out of here safely. He ran to Ron and knelt beside him.
Ron was still breathing, and his lips were moving. Peng leaned down to hear what he was saying.
His words came out distinctly but only loud enough that Peng could hear. “It’s up to you now. Keep them safe.”
“No,” Peng said, shaking his head violently.
Ron’s breathing was becoming more labored. “Peng?”
“Yes?”
“Whatever happens, don’t let them shoot me in the face. I don’t want a closed coffin.”
And then he let out a long breath, and his chest stopped moving.
“No,” Peng said again. “You can’t die.” But Ron didn’t move, and he didn’t respond.
Jillian was coming closer, her gun in front of her, pointed at Ron’s head. “Let’s finish this and get out of here.”
Peng placed himself in front of Ron. “No.”
“You might as well move out of the way, kid,” Jackson said. “Besides, he’s already dead. She triple-tapped him in the heart, and I bet you could cover the strike pattern with a playing card. That Jillian is one good shot.”
“No,” Peng said again. “You will not shoot him anymore. If you do, you’ll have to shoot me, and then you’ll have nothing. No money. No payout.”
Jillian turned her gun to Peng and seemed ready to come away empty-handed if it meant killing someone else. Then Joey stepped in next to Peng. “You’ll have to shoot me too. Ron was right. You are as bad as your mother.” Joey’s whole body was shaking, but he didn’t back down.
Jillian moved her gun back and forth between the two of them, trying to decide which one to shoot first.
“Do you think you missed his heart?” Jackson asked.
“I never miss.”
“Then let’s stop playing and get out of this hole. He’s either dead or close to it. If he hasn’t bled out by nightfall, the hypothermia will do the rest.” He looked at Tiny. “Or we can move back through those spiders in the dark.”
Tiny lowered his gun and began packing his stuff. “I agree with Jackson. We need to get out of here.”
Jillian lowered her gun and studied Joey for a minute before turning away. She turned her attention to JR and Eric, who were standing with their eyes wide and mouths open, obviously terrorized by the events.
“Don’t just stand there; get packed up.” She glanced once again at Ron and then back at Joey. “I’m tired of this place.”
Within minutes, they had killed the fire, packed up their things, and started on their way out of Spider Hollow. Peng looked back at Ron’s body, looked up at the goat trail he had planned on using that night, and looked at the dejected figures of the boys Ron had left him in charge of.
His biggest fear had come to fruition. He was now responsible.