Chapter 8

Violet opened her eyes. The bus had stopped. No other passengers were present. Even the driver was gone. Trying to wrench herself back to awareness, Violet stretched. She looked out the window. The bus was on the side of the road in the country. Had they broken down? As Violet stood and walked down the aisle, she looked out the windows for everyone else. She could see no one.

Stepping off the bus, she realized she was in El Jay. Stunned and confused, she lost her footing and tumbled down into a deep ditch. She rose up from the shallow water and deep mud and searched frantically all around for the others. There were no others. The sun was low in the sky nearing the mountain tops. "Sundown comes early in these mountains," Waylon had said. "You don't want to be here at night."

Violet staggered to her feet, dizzy, head still muddled from the medication she had been given, and crawled up out of the ditch. She was on the main road at the edge of El Jay. Across the road was the cemetery. The old two-room schoolhouse was just down the road. Behind her the thick woods that cloaked the mountains came down to the ditch she had tumbled into.

Violet saw someone walking up El Jay Camp Road toward her. Arley, about a hundred yards away, carrying a large knife. Screaming, she scrambled up out of the ditch up into the trees.

Violet thrust herself headlong up the mountain tearing through dense undergrowth. She fought madly with the branches and thorns and vines that attacked her. A tree root snagged her foot and she crashed hard. She clambered back up to gouge her way through the smothering greenery on up the mountain. She ran blindly up flailing at the forest with bare hands.

Violet again fell, and this time didn't get up. She heaved for breath, sobbing, bleeding from dozens of cuts and slashes. Yet from somewhere deep inside, her spirit roused. She was in the wilderness. She loved the wilderness. The fierceness of it, fierce life, fierce inanimate rocks, fierce elements. This mountain was wild and fierce, El Jay was fiercely wild. She belonged here, this was her world, her wilderness. She had spent much of her life seeking wild places like this. This was what she had trained for her entire life. She pried herself up off the ground and struggled on upward.

Finally, she stopped. Slowing her breathing and wiping her eyes, Violet looked around. She was so deep in the woods she was unable to see more than ten feet in any direction. She listened, but could hear only her pounding heart and her ragged breathing. It didn't sound like Arley was chasing her. Calling on skills gained from years of backpacking in the wilderness, she resumed her laborious ascent slowly this time. As the trees grew steadily darker.

Violet limped upward through wild growth. Up was the only direction she knew to go. The deep woods were growing black. She stumbled up to the edge of a clearing. An open meadow filled with tall bright green plants. Violet looked it over curiously. She started to step into the meadow.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Violet cried out in surprise and jerked around searching for the voice. Phoebe emerged from the shadows with a burlap bag slung over her shoulder. "That's Jacob Taylor's marijuana patch. Booby-trapped, it is. His dad was in Viet Nam. Taught Jacob some nasty ones. His dad learned them first hand. Lost his right leg below the knee to one."

Violet backed away from the clearing. "Help me. Please. They're trying to kill me."

"Who's trying to kill you?"

"Arley. Joshua Wheeler. Garth. He's a Wheeler, too, isn't he?"

"He is. But they're not trying to kill you. Except maybe Arley. He's crazy mean."

Violet grabbed Phoebe. "Help me. Help me get away."

Things spilled out of Phoebe's bag when she broke away from Violet. "You're making me lose my seng." Violet watched Phoebe gather up what had been dropped. "Drug company pays good money for all the seng I can gather. Grows wild in the mountains. It's honest work. Not like growing wacky weed. Young folks want the easy money nowadays. Won't work in the mines or the log woods or the saw mill."

Phoebe stood and rearranged the bag on her shoulder. "Nothing I can do for you, Violet. Can't interfere. Just try to stay away from Arley. He's the only one wants you dead. The others?" She gave a dry cackle. "They sure don't want you dead."

"What do they want with me?" Phoebe turned away. "What did Arley mean yesterday? When he said Garth was the lucky one."

Phoebe called back over her shoulder. "Can't tell you. They'd be mad at me for meddling." Just as Phoebe was about to disappear into the shadows, she stopped to look back. "Skirt Jacob's marijuana patch. On the other side's a foot path. That'll make your going easier. Wherever you're going." Phoebe melted into the dark trees out of sight.

Violet crept around the edge of the clearing while keeping an alert eye for anything that might be a booby trap. After tense minutes of painstaking progress, she stepped out of the thick growth onto a narrow foot path. She gasped to stifle a scream. Waylon's naked body was strung up between two trees at the entrance to the clearing. It was bruised and slashed and hacked much like the dog she had found on her car engine that morning. The loss of blood made him seem a pale ghost suspended in the air. She knew he must be dead. Yet she had to check. He had helped her so much.

Quaking, she approached. Touched his cold chest feeling for a heartbeat. Raised a finger to his nose feeling for a breath. Nothing. She stepped back and dropped to her knees with a moan to stare up at the lifeless man who had given his life for hers. Violet lowered her head in a short prayer. Rising to her sore feet, she stumbled away up the footpath.

Violet trudged up across the mountain on the narrow path. Although totally dark, the clear night sky was ablaze with stars. Violet didn't notice them. Her head drooped and her body sagged. Even her fear of Arley and the shock of Waylon had dulled. She moved in a weary plodding daze staring at the ground.

Violet rounded a twist in the path and came face to face with a ten-year-old boy carrying a shotgun and accompanied by two dogs. She stopped, staring, but was too tired to do anything else.

The boy returned her stare. "They're looking for you."

Violet pointed back the way she had come. "Waylon's body."

"I heard."

"Who?"

"Arley and Joshua."

"Why?"

"Waylon killed Elijah."

Violet looked at the shotgun he held with the barrel lowered. "Are you going to kill me?"

The solemn boy broke into a grin. "No. I'm coon hunting." He set his shotgun down and took off his backpack. He produced a bottle of water and a package of homemade biscuits. "Ain't much. But you look like you could use it." Violet gulped down half the bottle. His grin grew. When she paused for air, he said, "Go ahead and drink it all. I know a spring I can fill it back up at." Instead, Violet opened the package and wolfed down the biscuits. "So you're a Taylor?" the boy asked.

"I'm told I am," Violet managed as she gobbled.

"Your folks from down here?"

"Grandmother was."

"Where you live now?"

"Cincinnati."

The boy sighed. "Cincinnati. I'm getting out of here as soon as I'm old enough."

"What grade are you in?"

"I ain't."

"You're not in school? I saw a schoolhouse."

"Closed. Some kids go to Barboursville. Most don't."

"But you need an education."

"Phoebe teaches us. What she knows. Calls it home schooling."

Violet drained the last of the water and handed the bottle back. "Why are you helping me?"

"I'm a Taylor, too."

Violet smiled and ruffled his hair. Deeply embarrassed, the boy shrank back. "Which Taylor are you?"

"Aaron Taylor." Reaching into the backpack, he pulled out a flashlight and offered it.

"Don't you need this?"

"Not as much as you. I know where I'm going." Aaron pointed up the trail he had just come down. "Continue up the trail for a while. You'll come to a dirt road. Go on up the road a ways. You'll come to an old cabin. No one lives there anymore. Not a bad place to sleep the night. I've stayed there before."

Violet smiled her appreciation. "Good luck with your hunting."

Aaron frowned. "I'm through hunting for the night. I'm going to check on Waylon's body."

"It's not a pleasant sight. For a young child."

"I've skinned squirrels, possums, groundhogs. Any worse than that?"

"It's human."

"Yeah, there's that." Aaron picked up his backpack and slung it on.

"Thank you, Aaron Taylor. It's nice to know I have such good kin."

Aaron's embarrassment deepened to a dark crimson as he walked off. "Be careful, Violet. Keep away from Arley and you should be alright." He and his dogs vanished into the dark woods.

Violet used the flashlight to find her way along the narrow twisting footpath. Eventually, the trees opened up into a clearing. Before her was the end of a deeply-rutted dirt road just wide enough for one vehicle. She flipped off the flashlight. Out of the trees, there was enough moonlight for her to see. And to be seen. She eased from the trees out onto the road and peered all around. She felt vulnerable and exposed in the open air after being swaddled all night by dense forest. Cautiously placing one foot after the other, she avoided the deepest of the ATV ruts as she started up the road.

How she felt was a paradox. Now that the struggle to move had lessened she noticed her exhaustion more. She was fleeing for her life through a terror-filled woods with mutilated corpses and people chasing her with knives. But she loved being in the woods on such a beautiful night. She was so tired she could fall on her face and not get up. But she often felt that way when she was backpacking in the wilderness. She enjoyed this feeling of pushing herself so hard, of knowing she could push herself even harder, and make it.

Violet rounded a curve and saw the shack. It wasn't much. Roof fallen in, window glass broken and mostly gone, door frame doorless. Could she rest there? Maybe sleep? Aaron had said it was all right. And Aaron was family. Violet tip-toed up to the dark little building. No one was about.

Stepping up to the open doorway, she flicked on the flashlight and looked inside. Several rotted and broken chairs and a table were scattered across the mud-caked floor. No feral eyes glinted back at her in the flashlight beam. It should be all right. She brushed the cobwebs off from in front of her face and stepped inside onto the rotted floor.

A hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed her wrist. The flashlight was knocked out of her grasp. Violet screamed as the beam of light spun crazily away through the gloom. Arley emerged from the dark to grab her other arm. "Took you long enough to get here."

Violet pulled away, but his grip was iron. He slammed her against the wall. She fought with every fiber of her tired body to break free. One arm came loose, but only because Arley had released it so he could punch her in the face. Violet crashed to the floor. Arley dropped down on top of her. "Now let's see what Garth thinks he's getting." He tugged at the snap of her jeans.

That brought Violet to life. She kicked and bucked, grabbing his arms and forcing them away while raking bare skin with her nails. Arley knocked her arms aside and punched her in the face. Punched her again. Violet went slack. Arley laughed and punched her yet again. As she lay sprawled limp beneath him, he opened her jeans. Violet pleaded. "No. Please. Don't."

Arley yanked her jeans and panties down her legs. "Save your begging for your wedding night."

Violet writhed beneath him trying to get away. "What are you talking about?"

Arley pulled the wad of cloth and her shoes off over socked feet. Violet scooted backwards up into a corner. There was nowhere to go. Lunging back on top of her, Arley flashed the knife Violet had seen him carrying earlier. It was caked with dried blood. "I could cut up that pretty face. Like I cut up Waylon." He held the blade an inch from her eyes. "That's Waylon's blood. But he was already dead when I carved on him. I'll slice you up while you're still breathing. So I can hear you scream." He dragged the flat of the blade across her lips, her nose, her eyes. "Maybe then Garth wouldn't be so hot for you." Arley drug the blade across her cheek down to her throat.

"Why do you want to kill me? Just because I'm a Taylor?"

"That's reason enough. But I ain't going to kill you just yet." The blade slid down into her tee shirt inside her bra. The well-honed edge sliced easily through the material. With his free hand he ripped the cut-open tee shirt and bra off and flung it away. Then he leaned back to look her over. Violet was prone on her back beneath him in only her socks. "You are a pretty one. Let's get a good look at you." Arley leaned over to reach for Aaron's flashlight.

Violet bucked and shoved with all her might. Arley toppled off her. She scrambled on all fours across the floor for the door. Arley lunged and grabbed an ankle. Violet kicked with all her strength. She dragged Arley along as she clawed her way out the door. Arley laughed, shining the flashlight across her thrashing body. "A real beauty. Shame what Garth's gonna miss out on." He pulled himself up her legs to her hips. But Violet wouldn't quit. The two wrestled their way out of the cabin and tumbled onto the ground. Where Arley managed to roll her over and pin her on her back. He raised the flashlight high to bash her face with it.

Two snarling dogs charged out of the night. Arley released Violet and tried to stand. But the dogs were on him. Screaming in anger and pain, he rolled off Violet across the ground, kicking and swinging the flashlight as the dogs tore into him. Violet struggled to her feet and staggered back away with her eyes on the fight.

"You okay?"

Violet spun around to find Aaron behind her. "Those are your dogs?"

Aaron was red-faced and trying his best not to look at her, yet he still grinned with pride. "Yeah. Thought I better keep an eye on you." Violet and Aaron both turned to watch the fight. Arley, kicking and screaming, crawled back into the cabin with the dogs still at him. "I better call them off Arley before they kill him."

"Do you have to?"

Aaron laughed. Until a gunshot blasted inside the shack. A dog cried out. "He's killing my dogs!" Aaron ran to the shack with his shotgun. Another shot. Another dog cried out.

"Aaron! Don't go in there!"

Aaron stopped just outside the shack. "Run! Go!"

Violet fled up the road away from the shack. She heard a shotgun blast. Then another gun shot. Violet ran faster.

Emerging on the road into a clearing, she stopped to look around to see where she was. Then lost her balance and crashed to the ground. She was spent. Trembling, panting, she looked all around. Across the clearing she saw the dark entrance to a cave.

Violet rolled onto her back and looked up. In the clearing the night sky was unobstructed by trees. It was beautiful. This was her world. Her wildness. She was wild, she belonged here. She knew how to survive in the wild, how to find her way through forests, how to climb rocks, how to repel down cliffs. Violet took a deep breath and, as if revived by starlight and the fresh mountain air, rose up onto all fours then on up to her feet, and ran across the clearing to the cave.

Violet heard the crashing approach and the labored breathing of someone stomping up the road from the shack. She hurried on to the cave entrance. It was small, three feet high if that. She dropped to the ground and scooted in backwards. She squirmed just far enough in to get out of sight. Then she laid perfectly still on her stomach, watching.

Arley staggered up the road into the clearing. He was in bad shape. He was shotgun-shot by Aaron and chewed up by the dogs. Blood soaked the shreds of his clothes. Even his face had been bitten, and most of one ear was gone. Yet by using Aaron's shotgun for a crutch he was still on his feet. A pistol stuck out of his waistband on one side, and on the other was the handle of his knife.

Arley hobbled up into the middle of the clearing. Leaning heavily on the shotgun, he stared at the cave. "I know you're in there, bitch!" Violet wriggled further back into the narrow cave. Arley staggered up to the entrance. Violet scooted further and further back. Arley pulled out his pistol and fired into the dark opening. The bullet ricocheted off a wall into her leg. Violet screamed! Arley laughed. "Stupid bitch."

"Did you kill Aaron?!"

"No. Just shot him in the leg. I take no pleasure in killing young 'uns. I did enjoy killing those damn dogs of his." Arley collapsed in front of the entrance. "You wouldn't have gone in there if you knew what's in there with you." Violet looked all around the tight shaft, but could see nothing. "There's abandoned coal mines all through these mountains. Makes good homes for snakes, spiders, bugs, rats the size of groundhogs, all manner of vile creatures." Violet squirmed all around in her tight slot swiping at herself, as if she could feel things crawling on her. "Panthers been known to take up residence. Wild boars. Now there's a nasty way to die. Eaten alive by a wild boar."

Violet swiped at real or imagined horrors. "How did you kill Waylon?"

Arley shivered. Pressing his free hand to his stomach, he tried to staunch the blood from where he had caught buckshot. "Me and Joshua got the jump on him at the motel in Barboursville. He came out of his room to check on you. We shoved him back in and knocked him out. Put him in his truck. I pushed it away before starting it up so you wouldn't hear it. Joshua stayed to chase you."

"To kill me?"

Arley laughed, then coughed. "You are one dumb bitch. You still don't know what's going on, do you? Joshua chased you to Garth." In a sing-song voice, "Let nature take its course." He spat out a mouthful of blood. "Fucking matchmakers."

"What are you talking about?!"

"It ain't going to happen. Waylon was set on stopping it, too. But he's too soft. Thought he could stop it without killing you." Arley gasped a laugh. "Waylon lost his edge. Because of you. He used to be one mean Taylor. I showed him who's the meanest in El Jay."

"So you butchered him? Like you did that dog?"

"Yeah. I saw the mutt take up with you at the cemetery." Violet screamed! She knocked a particularly large spider off her side. Arley tried to laugh, but hacked up blood instead. "Making some new friends in there? I told you. Now come on out before you get eaten up."

"So you can shoot me?"

"I can't stay out here all night. I'm losing a lot of blood. I got to get back and get patched up." Arley scooted closer to the entrance and raised his gun. "If you don't come out, I'm going to shoot into the mine again. I aimed high before. Won't do that again. I know this mine. You got nowhere to hide." Arley cocked the gun. "I can't miss."

"Wait! Don't shoot!"

"You coming out?"

"If you won't shoot me!"

Arley lowered his gun. "Maybe I won't. You're a lot tougher than any city girl I ever met. Must be the Taylor in you. Come on out."

Violet raised up on hands and the knee of her uninjured leg and wriggled out of the mine while dragging her wounded leg. She was caked with mud and blackened with coal dust. Blood streamed down her right thigh from where she had been shot. Her entire body, from head to toe, was covered with bruises and welts and cuts. Her face was bloody and swollen from Arley punching her. She trembled on her hands and one knee, peering fearfully into Arley's face.

He lunged forward and slapped the side of her hip. Violet cried out and collapsed onto her stomach. He motioned to the ground beside her. She saw a large spider he had just smashed. "Looked like he was getting ready to bite you. Can't blame him." Arley fell on top of Violet. She pushed him off easily. They stared at each other, both prone on the ground on their backs a foot apart. "Ain't going to make it," Arley said. "Lost too much blood."

Violet crawled to the shotgun. "You're about to lose a lot more."

Arley attempted to laugh. "That thing'll bust up your shoulder if you ain't used to shooting it. Got a kick like a mule." Violet looked over the shotgun doubtfully. Then looked at the pistol laying on the ground nearby. She put the shotgun down and crawled toward the pistol. "Stupid bitch." Arley rolled across the ground to the shotgun. Violet lunged back for it. They both grabbed the shotgun and wrestled for possession. But Arley was too weak. She forced him over onto his back and straddled his chest, then yanked the shotgun out of his hands. Arley dropped his arms and stared up at her. "Do it. You're a Taylor. You got the right."

Violet raised the shotgun high to drive the end of the stock down into his face. But she hesitated. She had never injured a person so badly before. Arley's right hand slashed up with his knife and stabbed her side. Violet screamed, then dropped the shotgun and collapsed on top of Arley. He tried to pull the knife back out. Causing her to scream again. But he didn't have enough strength, it only came half-way out. So he twisted the blade. Violet screamed once more as she swooned and fell off him.

Arley rolled her onto her back. "We're both going to die. But not before I finish what I set out to do." He tugged down his bloody pants and crawled on top of her.

Violet's eyes opened. To find Arley writhing on top of her. She grabbed the hilt of the knife. Pulled it the rest of the way out of her side without even a moan. Stabbed it into Arley's throat. Blood sprayed across her face as he fell prostrate across her. Then didn't move. Violet shoved. But she couldn't budge him. His blood pulsed across her face as she turned her head trying to get away from it. But she couldn't. Her strength was gone. His limp unconscious weight was immovable. So Violet relaxed, closing her eyes and accepting death. Her last thought was that at least she had taken a Wheeler with her.

Violet opened her eyes. She had felt something move. Arley was gone. A blurry form hovered above. Garth. Another face. Joshua. So they would finish what Arley had started. She tried to raise an arm to point, couldn't. She managed to move her lips. One of the shapes dropped an ear down close to listen. She tried again. "Aaron. Hurt. Shack." Then she closed her eyes.