Chapter 26

From Susanville, California, Tony had driven west toward the Pacific coast on California State Highway 36. They had found coffee and gasoline at an all-night station in Red Bluff but, by the time they got into the Trinity National Forest, the coffee long gone, forced Tony to pull off the road into a recreation area to close his eyes. He wasn’t about to let Rudy drive, even though he had insisted, so he had torn more strips from the burnt orange bedspread wrapped around Hank and tied Rudy’s hands together behind the front bucket seat. With Rudy unable to move and Natalie’s hands and feet secured, he lay next to Hank on the grimy floor in the back of the van and slept for a few hours.

Except for that brief break, they had driven through the day north on US 101and stopped for fuel only once. As far as she knew Tony had been awake for the better part of two and a half days. Since they left the motel, he had done all the driving and that had to be seventeen or eighteen hours ago. She had no reason to believe Hank or Rudy had spelled him at any juncture before that.

It was almost five o’clock in the evening and the sun, draped in a tapestry of orange and gray, sagged heavily in the western sky. They approached the outskirts of Lincoln City on the central Oregon coast. Natalie faced east and could see the reflection of the sunset in Rudy’s window. The otherwise white steel door frame next to him had taken on an orange tint.

The only real relief she had realized through her second night of captivity had been sleeping but fitful dreams didn’t allow it to be very restful. Most of the night she fled in the darkness from an attacker who, even though he’d seize her again and again, she intuited he had more than rape and murder on his mind. One dream had saved her—being home in Iowa. In it, she sat down to Sunday dinner around the scarred dining room table covered with that old bed sheet surrounded by family—Cindy, and her mom and dad. The dream so vivid, she could almost smell pot-roast and fresh gravy.

By the sheer grit of her determination to survive, she had endured being entombed in the trunk of a car for more than twenty hours and had been able to sit on the uncomfortable and filthy floor of a van for the better part of a day. On the farm, everything always seemed disheveled. She hated to feel unclean, yet even though she longed for a hot bath and her eyes wept for lack of sleep, her mind, still sharp, couldn’t think of anything except how to end this nightmare.

She was surprised at how strong she had grown since this began. Resilience had never been one of her strengths. She grew up the “prissy” one as her mother put it. Preferred activities were: playing dress-up as a young girl, styling her hair, putting on makeup, and talking on the telephone with what few friends she had as she got older. Yet, even though she hated creeping critters of all kinds, she had come to believe that life for every creature was sacred. Everything had its place in the cosmic scheme, even if it crawled or slithered.

Yet, here she was the nursemaid to a man who bore the bullet she put in his chest. His scarred face with the long scratches she dug into his cheeks with her fingernails taunted her in silence. She remembered her assessment of him when they first met two days ago in the warehouse—Not the brightest set of headlights on the highway to Hell—and now this non-violent girl had likely hastened his demise.

In her short years of life, she had never witnessed someone die. Her great-grandmother, who had been ill for several months, had passed when Natalie, then Amy, was fourteen. Before death overtook her, Amy had spent some time at her bedside holding her grandfather’s hand while he watched his mother die. Each breath her great-grandmother took sounded much like Hank’s labored struggle now but, when the end came, Amy had stepped out of the room. Natalie feared there’d be no room to step out of when Hank succumbed to his injury.

She had continued her vigil throughout the day with Hank’s head in her lap and he was still alive. Even though her lower body had become numb from sitting in one position, the immobility seemed to aggravate the discomfort of the many wounds and bruises she had suffered over the last couple of days. Her head and jaw ached now as it had most of the day and the freshest wounds, her scraped knees, which had become swollen and inflamed, stung whenever she shifted positions. She was happy to still be alive but, with Hank’s life dangling over an unstable precipice, she had doubts about how much longer that would be true.

The bleeding had stopped in Hank’s chest. She had dressed the wound a couple of times with the diapers and masking tape, even though it had been difficult with her hands bound together. Hank’s injury had become distended. The flesh around it a mixture of crimson, jaundice, and black. The color in his face had gotten more sullen and, in the last few hours, his mouth had fallen fixed into an O shape.

His wheezing struggle for breath had deepened and often several seconds passed between breaths. When he did inhale again, it sounded like the gasp of someone who broke the surface after being submerged beneath the water too long. Over the last hour, though, a new symptom had emerged. Hank had begun to cough up blood. She wiped it from his lips each time with a rag of a disposable diaper but she convinced herself he had entered the last hours of life.

Except for squatting beside the van before they left the recreation area where Tony had slept for a few hours, she hadn’t been allowed to use a bathroom even though she had begged. Not that she needed to go, for she had been deprived of not much more than a couple of swallows of water since they left the motel but she was desperate to get her feet untied so she could stretch some feeling back into her stiff muscles. Also, with the pen and notepad still undetected in her panties, if Tony just once gave her an opportunity, she hoped to leave another note.

The air in the van had grown more pungent as the day drug on, foul enough to cause even the strongest stomach to wretch. Natalie had found it difficult to breathe the odiferous cocktail. Tony had chained smoked cheap cigarettes—the only thing keeping him awake—so the air was filled with a heavy tobacco scent. Hank’s breath carried with it the stench of decay as the blood in his lungs congealed and the injured tissues began to rot. To add to the foulness, he had lost bladder control and urinated on himself several times throughout the day.

Now, the intensity of the sun’s stream through the windows warmed the fetid air and turned it into a noxious anesthetic. Rudy, who had tried every few hours since sunrise to get Tony to let him drive, sat where he had been since they stole the van last night, in the passenger seat. From where Natalie sat, she saw his head leaned against the window, asleep. The repetitious drift of the van and the chatter of the tires as they bumped against the turtle-like rumble strips that divided the highway lanes concerned her but she, too, fought drowsiness. Her heavy lids fell closed again.

The penetrating sound of an eighteen-wheeler’s air horn woke everybody except Hank and the van pitched to the right.

*

Harman Rathbone and his wife Gladys had retired eleven years ago to the central Oregon coast, where they bought a small piece of land for their fifth-wheel trailer. They spent eight months out of the year living where they could look out to the Pacific Ocean. During the winter months, they followed their migrating instincts and pulled the trailer southward, along with other snowbirds, to the sunnier climes of Peoria, Arizona. Once the Cactus League, professional baseball’s spring training, finished in early April, they’d head back north to their little spot by the sea.

Gladys sat inside letting each day turn into night without much notice and even less activity. Other than clicking through the channels on the television set and scrounging for snacks in the kitchen, she filled her life with crossword puzzles and gossip magazines.

Harman didn’t want the life of retirement to become a sedentary existence. He puttered around the camp doing various chores and each afternoon, weather permitting, peddled his bicycle the three-mile one-way trek into Lincoln City. Mostly for the exercise but he also picked up the evening paper and latest Hollywood rag for Gladys.

Harman, outside enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, sat at the picnic table tinkering with the burner on the barbeque. They had used it so much over the summer it had become caked with food droppings. Since the days were getting shorter and cooler, they wouldn’t be using the appliance until they reached Arizona in the next few weeks. He had decided to take a steel brush and pocket knife to it.

At five o’clock he had just finished all he planned to do today, so he rose, stuck his head in the door of the coach, and announced he was going to take his ride. Gladys didn’t respond. He closed the door, mounted his classic Schwinn cruiser, and began his ride to town, leaving Gladys behind to her vices and hopefully, although a rare act, to get supper started.

*

When the van jolted to the right, Natalie heard the large truck swish by. The horn faded into the distance behind them.

Rudy shouted, “You’re going to get us all killed! You need some rest. Let me drive.”

Natalie's spirit lifted as she watched Rudy from her position behind the driver’s seat. She caught his glance, he masked his thoughts but she teased herself that if Tony went to sleep, she could work on Rudy to either set her free or turn himself in to the police. A fool’s hope.

“Damn you and the whore,” Tony retorted. “If I go to sleep, I’ll wake up in jail or dead. We need gas anyway, let’s find more coffee.”

As they made their southern approach to Lincoln City, Tony veered off the highway and pulled into the gravel driveway up to a gas station pump. He opened the driver’s door.

“I’m going inside,” he said to Rudy. “Get some gas.”

“Please let me stretch my legs,” Natalie pleaded. “I won’t try anything.”

Without an answer, Tony stepped out of the van and slammed the door.

Natalie’s peek-a-boo view of the windshield offered just enough to see that Tony passed by on the way to the store. Her eyes fell easily on Rudy. As he unbuckled his seatbelt, a knock came from the window where he had been resting his head.

“Fuel?” the station attendant asked.

“Uh … unleaded,” Rudy said and then rolled the window back up. He turned back to Natalie. “Go ahead and stand. I can’t let you out of the van.”

She recognized his deep apologetic tone. “Thank you, Rudy,” she said as she shifted Hank’s head off her lap. “I think my whole body’s asleep. Please untie my feet.”

Rudy hesitated a moment and then passed between the two front seats. He reached to the ties on her ankles and undid the tight knots.

“Thank you,” she said and held her wrists out for the same favor.

“Can’t,” he said and slipped back into his seat with a worried look. “Tony won’t be happy I untied your feet as it is.”

“He doesn’t have to know,” she said, as she stood for the first time today. The three-inch heels on her black leather boots forced her to bend at the waist so she wouldn’t hit the roof of the van with her head. “Before he comes back, you wrap my ankles and wrists again, just don’t tie them so tight. After it gets dark, I can release myself and he’ll never figure it out.”

She held her hands out to him again.

“Okay,” he conceded, “but if I get caught it could ruin my plan.”

With her wrists untied, she massaged them and her ankles vigorously to motivate the blood to circulate again.

“Rudy, I know you didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said as she attempted to stretch every muscle in her body. “You saw an opportunity to have sex with me, you took it and I was willing for my own reasons.”

“Look, Nat, I’m sorry I got you into this.”

She remembered back in the motel room she told him he could call her Nat. The lifeline implied he was her friend and pulled him closer to where she hoped to drive a wedge between him and Tony. She had no thought of letting him slide for his part in this nightmare. He may be simple-minded and innocent in his own way but, because of him, she was here. The first opportunity she had to turn Tony and Rudy against each other, she’d take it.

“You know I’m counting on you,” she said, “and I’m glad you have a plan.”

“You must hate me,” Rudy confessed and faced toward the windshield.

Natalie, surprised by the sudden turn in Rudy's demeanor, said, “Look, I have every reason to hate you. You got me into this and look at what happened? I’ve put a bullet in one of your friends and Tony won’t stop terrorizing us. I’m so frightened we won’t survive. I do know this whole thing, in your mind, was to bring us together. It’s because you love me, isn’t it?”

“I do love you. You’re so beautiful,” he confessed and drew his eyes toward the debris at his feet.

“Am I the first girl you’ve loved?”

“Except for my mother.”

“Then, let me love you back, Rudy,” she said. “Do you remember when you asked me out before?”

“Sure, how could I forget?” he asked and turned his eyes back to Natalie’s.

“Well, just ‘cause I was busy that night didn’t mean you should never ask me again.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you didn’t have to go through all of this, involving your friends to be with me. I thought you were so cute. I’ve always thought you had that shy innocent look and I like that.”

“What are you saying, Nat?”

“I’m saying, if you get me free from these men, I want to be with you.”

“You won’t turn me in?”

“No,” she lied. She knew if a convincing role ever had to be played, this was it. Her life depended upon Rudy buying it.

“But what if we have to go into hiding? Will you go with me?

“Yes.”

“And then we can be together, forever, and we can make love anytime we want?”

“That’s what you did before in the warehouse, didn’t you? You weren’t raping me. You were making love to me, weren’t you?”

“Yes!” he agreed and looked at her feet. “I was.”

“And it was beautiful, Rudy,” she said and delivered the punch line with a subtle smile. “I got afraid for a few minutes. That’s why I pushed you away at the end but it was . . . beautiful. You get me away from Tony and I’m yours.”

“I will,” he said and looked up at her smoky eyes again. “I will, no matter what.”

Natalie turned toward the store where she hoped to see how Tony was doing. She knew she’d only have seconds to get back into position under Hank once he finished. He wasn’t in sight.

She wondered what kind of plan Rudy had in mind. So far all she had seen him do was sit and act like a battered pup. He couldn’t save her with his tail between his legs but she needed to string him along.

“Tell me about your plan.”

“Well, it’s not much of one yet,” he admitted. “If I can find a way for Tony to trust me, maybe I can use that to get us away from him.”

Natalie realized this was a plan to fail. “I’m not sure you could ever earn that, Rudy.”

“But what else is there?”

“I don’t know and I’ll try to help you, but what I do know is we may not have much time. Hank isn’t doing well. He needs a doctor, now.”

“But Tony says we can’t do that.”

“You have to stop listening to Tony and start thinking for yourself or neither one of us will survive. Look, if Hank dies, Tony’s made it clear he’s coming after me. Once I’m out of the picture, do you think he is going to let you live? Tony’s a survivor and he’ll do whatever it takes. I’ve seen it in his eyes, Rudy. He has no soul, he carries no guilt, and he respects no one, not even himself. Allowing Hank to get medical attention would threaten his freedom, so letting him die is proof.”

“I just don’t know what to do,” he said and Natalie recognized his desperation. “I’m so tired I can’t think. I just wish I could go home.”

“There‘s no going back, Rudy. Once you crossed that bridge in LA, you sealed your fate. But if I survive with your help, it’ll go easier on you when the police do catch up with us. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

Natalie saw Rudy’s eyes drift toward the store. She followed his glance. Tony walked up to the counter and placed his coffee and an armload of food on the counter. He pointed toward the van, she assumed an indication he’d pay for the gas. The cashier began to ring everything up and bagged the groceries as he went.

“You better get back in place, Nat,” Rudy said. “Tony’s about done. I need to get you tied up again.”

“Okay but remember not to tie tight.” She scrambled back into position on the cold, uncomfortable, steel floor and placed Hank’s head back on her thighs.

*

Rudy leaned around between the front seats. He wrapped her ankles and wrists with the shreds of the bedspread and tied them in loose knots. When he finished, he whirled back toward the window. He watched Tony as he handed a credit card over to the male teenage clerk. After he swiped the card through the reader and returned it, Tony grabbed the bag in one hand and the coffee in the other. He started toward the door and as he reached for the handle, he stopped short. Rudy, in the full light of the setting western sun, saw Tony’s face through the glass door turn as pale as the midnight moon.

Tony dropped the coffee, reached to a newsstand, and grabbed a newspaper. Then, he spun back toward the clerk and pulled the gun from his belt. Through the window, Rudy watched as the nervous boy immediately raised his hands in surrender but Tony waved him towards the cash register. The terrified clerk reached in and handed Tony a wad of money.

“What the hell?” Rudy shouted.

“Wha … wha what’s going on?” Natalie screamed.

“Tony’s robbing the place.”

Rudy’s mouth fell open as he watched aghast. He hoped the silver barreled menace wouldn’t belch another deadly lightning bolt as it did in Reno. Tony waved the boy to the floor behind the counter, out of his sight.

“No, no, no!” Rudy screamed and the terror of what he feared cinched like a garrote around his forehead; a garrote so threatening, it also jabbed icicles into his shoulders and spine.

When the flash erupted, it filled the area around the counter with a moment of unmistakable luminosity.