CHAPTER 17

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday, September 18th

Deer Creek, Montana

Jennifer sat at the council table, trying to focus on the group’s conversation. Despite Gabe’s best efforts, the discussion had gone off on another tangent again. This time the conversation had drifted to the subject of what had happened to the people in prison and whether or not they were free and a threat to the community. Jennifer felt it was a useless topic to discuss because there had been no issues with any outside threats so far, but Doug spoke animatedly about forming some kind of militia, and the council was hearing him out.

Doug’s infatuation with her made listening to him difficult. He had stopped by everyday since the last meeting with the excuse “to check on them,” but to her, the visits were obvious attempts to win her over, and his comments made his intentions all too clear. Before the meeting, he hung around her like a dog in heat while she did her best to avoid him. That seemed to upset him, so when the meeting began she waited for Doug to find a seat, then sat as far away from him as she could, only to find that every time she looked up he was staring at her.

The meeting dragged on for another forty-five minutes, with Jennifer too distracted to contribute to the discussions, but trying hard to focus on taking notes. As the meeting concluded, the thought of possibly having to walk home with Doug tightened her stomach. She looked around and noticed Carol Jeffries, the community’s “doctor,” about to leave.

“Carol!” Jennifer called out. “Mind if I walk with you?”
“Sure,” said Carol. “That would be nice.”
Jennifer grabbed her bag and dashed out the door, catching a glimpse of Doug visiting with Gabe, unaware of her hasty departure.
“So,” Carol said as Jennifer caught up with her, “how are you guys dealing with all of this?”
Jennifer filled Carol in on her family’s routine, and soon the two women were chatting like old friends.

As they walked, Jennifer glanced back regularly to see if Doug was following them, but he was nowhere to be seen. The longer they walked, the more she relaxed, and by the time they arrived at Carol’s house, her anxiety was mostly gone. The two women chatted easily at the end of Carol’s driveway for twenty minutes, then bid farewell.

The day was warm and sunny, and after two days of cold, windy weather, Jennifer enjoyed the change. She walked with the sun on her face, and her mind shifted from worrying about Doug to worrying about Kyle to worrying about to how she and the kids were going to handle the coming winter. Extra shirts and socks at night had worked so far, but when winter hit, she knew there would be some major adjustments.

Jennifer turned the corner onto her street and stopped to visit with a neighbor who was trying to alleviate his boredom by cutting his grass with hedge trimmers. After a short visit, she continued on to her house.

When she walked through her door, David was in the kitchen, searching for something to eat. “Hey guys! I’m home. How is everyone?” she asked as Spencer’s laughter drifted in from the living room.

“Hi, Mom. We’re good, but we’ve got company,” David said, motioning with his head towards the living room.

Jennifer gave him a curious look and stepped around the corner. Sitting on the couch, with one arm perched casually across the back, was Doug. She noticed dark patches of sweat in his armpits, along with a half-dozen white rings where sweat had previously dried since the last time he’d washed his uniform. The sight of Doug sitting in her living room, smelly, unwashed, and playing with her son, made Jennifer sick to her stomach.

“Hi, Jenn,” Doug said, a big smile on his face. “I missed you after the meeting. Figured I had better stop by and see how things were.” He reached out and grabbed for Spencer, who giggled loudly as he dodged Doug’s hand.

Spencer was thrilled that someone was willing to play with him and made repeated feints towards Doug before darting out of reach and laughing hysterically.

“I appreciate the concern,” Jennifer replied dryly. “We’re doing just fine. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Doug. “It sure makes my job easier when things run smoothly.” He paused and looked around, while Jennifer just stared at him. She wasn’t sure how to deal with the situation. She had never allowed him to come so far into her house, and she certainly didn’t want to do anything to make him feel welcome.

“Say, would it be possible to get a glass of water?” he asked. “My throat’s a little dry.”

“Just a minute,” Jennifer replied. She walked into the kitchen where David was still searching for food. “How long has he been here?” she asked under her breath.

“I don’t know, about fifteen minutes. Not too long, why?”

She avoided answering with a shake of her head, then grabbed a worn paper cup from a stack on the counter and the jug of drinking water out of the fridge, which no longer worked but was a handy place to store food and keep it away from the flies.

She filled the cup and returned to the living room. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to him.

Doug drained the cup in three loud swallows, then crushed and set it beside him on the couch as he wiped a drop of water from his chin with the back of his hand. “Are you avoiding me?” he asked, his eyes locked onto hers.

Jennifer was startled by the bluntness of his question and struggled to gather her thoughts. “I, uh, I think ‘avoiding’ sounds a little strong,” she answered, her voice wavering a little.

“Then what do you call it?” Doug asked, hurling the words at her.

The situation felt like an interrogation and Jennifer forced herself to stay calm. “I don’t know that I call it anything,” she replied. “I guess I’m just trying not to do anything that makes you think we’re more than just acquaintances.”

From across the room Spencer darted towards Doug, continuing the game they had been playing when Jennifer got home. Doug stuck out his arm to stop Spencer but sent him tumbling to the floor. Jennifer could see that her son was stunned and struggling not to cry.

Doug ignored Spencer and stared at Jennifer, his face expressionless. “Why don’t you like me?” he demanded.

“I don’t want what you want, Doug,” Jennifer said, gathering her courage. “Like I’ve told you, I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m married. I have three kids. I’m waiting for my husband to get back. Our world has been turned upside down, and I’ve got more important things to think about. I don’t even know if I’ll have enough food for us to get through the winter, and you want me to have some relationship with you? Why are you doing this to me?”

“I offer to be around for you and help with stuff, and now it’s me who’s doing something to you?” he shot back at her.

“It’s not the help that I have the issue with, Doug. It’s what you expect in return. Everyone needs help, myself included. I just don’t want to sleep with you for it. Is that clear enough?”

Doug glared at her, his jaw muscles working, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes drifted from her face and slowly scanned down her body. The t-shirt and blue jeans she wore were certainly nothing that made her feel alluring, but it didn’t seem to matter. Jennifer crossed her arms in front of her chest and turned to block his gaze. Doug ignored her attempt to shield herself, and continued to leer at her.

Spencer, having recovered from his tumble, resumed his game, darting towards Doug again and grasping Doug’s arm in a wrestling hold. Doug shifted his attention from Jennifer and grabbed Spencer just above the elbow, holding him out at arms length. Spencer laughed and pried at Doug’s fingers, trying to break free.

Jennifer could see the muscles in Doug’s forearm tighten, and Spencer’s laugh changed to a whimper, his mouth open in a silent cry, but Doug didn’t let go.

“Mom?” Spencer managed to say, his eyes pleading for her help.

“Let go of him, Doug!” Jennifer ordered. “He’s four years old, for heaven’s sake.”

Doug’s face was filled with contempt, and he gave Spencer a hard shove towards Jennifer.

Spencer’s legs tangled as he lunged for his mother, and he fell in a heap at her feet. He immediately started to cry. Jennifer scooped him up and put his head on her shoulder. “You need to leave,” she said. “We have nothing else to talk about.”

Doug looked at her, an arrogant smirk on his face. “It doesn’t need to be so difficult. Most women find me quite likable.”

“Then go find some other woman,” Jennifer snapped. She lay Spencer down on the love seat and stepped to the side to allow Doug to pass.

Doug stood, smiling like he had been when she’d gotten home. He spread his arms out, as if to give her a hug. “Let’s be friends,” he said and stepped towards her.

Jennifer took a step back and stuck out her hand. “No. But if you want to just be friends,” she emphasized the word just, “I’ll shake on that.”

“I’d rather hug. It’s so much more enjoyable,” Doug said as he reluctantly took her hand in his, his eyes drifting down her body again.

Jennifer jerked her hand away, wishing she could run and wash it. Doug stopped in front of her and put his hand on her shoulder. She could tell he was trying to come up with something to say. “A guy’s got needs, you know,” he said at last.

She looked at him, disgusted. “I can’t help you with that.”

Doug turned, and as he stepped towards the door, he dropped his hand from her shoulder and rubbed it across her breasts. “I think you could. I bet you’d be great.”

Jennifer knocked his hand away. “Get out of my house, you pig!” she spat, no longer disguising the disgust and anger she felt.

Doug laughed as he showed himself to the front door. “Thanks for having me. I’ll stop by again to check on things. Don’t forget to call if you have any problems.”

Jennifer didn’t reply, she just watched the door close behind him.

“Are you okay, Mom?” David asked his mom as she walked into the kitchen. He sat at the kitchen table, chewing on a piece of dried spaghetti. “You look upset.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just Doug. He’s having a hard time dealing with things, and that worries me.”
“Do we need to get a hold of the police?” David asked, a grin on his face.
“He is the police, Son, ” Jennifer replied, her eyes on the door. “That’s a big part of the problem.”

 

Tuesday, September 20th

Northern Texas

Kyle awoke to the sound of wind whistling around the cab of the truck. The weather had turned stormy the night before, forcing him to call it a day earlier than he would have liked. Luckily there had been a semi truck close by on the side of the highway, and Kyle had been able to force it open and get out of the weather. Now he lay on the top bunk, listening to the wind as he drifted in and out of sleep. An unfamiliar sound caught his attention, and he sat up in the bunk and listened. The sound grew more intense, until finally he realized it was rain.

This was the first significant rainstorm of his journey, and Kyle was not about to waste it. He put on his shoes, climbed out of the truck and, in the near blackness of the early morning, hurried cautiously to where his cart was stowed under the trailer. He dug out empty water bottles and positioned them around the truck to catch the runoff, then stripped to his underwear and washed his body and his clothes in the downpour. It had been forever since he’d showered, and with the rain pouring over him, he could feel the layers of grime washing away.

Feeling clean for the first time in weeks, Kyle grabbed a clean set of clothes from his cart and climbed back in the cab of the truck. Cold and wet from the impromptu shower, he pulled a blanket off of the bunk and wrapped it around his shivering body, then dropped into the passenger seat. The chattering of his teeth accompanied the steady drumming of the slowing rain, and with his knees pulled up to his chest, Kyle rubbed his arms and legs in an effort to warm them.

The sun was just starting to lighten the sky on a day that looked to be cold, wet, and gray. As Kyle warmed up, he took in the world around him through the rain-streaked windshield. In addition to the mud, crops, and streams of water, he was relieved to see the city of Dalhart in the distance, a city he had originally planned on passing through early the day before.

Kyle put his feet down and dried his hair with the blanket, then dropped the blanket onto his lap and inspected his injuries from Lubbock. The bruises were fading but still felt tender when pressed. The visor mirror showed that the purple around his eyes was turning dull gray, and the cut on his cheek was still slightly swollen, but the scab was starting to wear away. Kyle laughed at his reflection. With his beard, bruises, and self-inflicted hair cut, he’d have no chance of passing as the man in the picture on his driver’s license.

He unwrapped the blanket and dressed, putting on the last of the new clothes he had looted with Ed back in Houston. It had only been sixteen days since that excursion, but it felt like a lifetime ago as he thought about everything he had been through since then.

Kyle climbed into the driver’s seat, pulled out the set of keys he had found the night before, and inserted the key in the ignition. He hit the power button on the radio and once again tried to coax some life out of the unit, but met with no success. He’d only listened to one presidential broadcast since leaving Donovan’s, and as one accustomed to reading the news two or three times each day, he was anxious to know what was going on. Frustrated with his failure, he turned off the radio and threw the keys back on the dash.

He looked to the west, where the sky was gray and threatening as far as he could see. The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, the steady sound of it almost lulling him back to sleep. Shaking his head to stay awake, Kyle reached into the back of the truck for a case of CD’s he’d noticed and, flipping curiously through the mix, was delighted to find a disc that had been a major part of his childhood years.

Kyle slid the disc out of its case and held it tenderly in his hands, memories from thirty years earlier flooding his mind. He scanned through the song list on Eddie Rabbit’s Greatest Hits and immediately spotted the first song he had any memory of, I Love A Rainy Night. Kyle’s thoughts drifted back to his childhood, to the family car trips when his mother would pop in their Eddie Rabbit cassette and crank that song up every time it started to rain. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, Kyle had heard the song a lot. He was quite young, maybe five or six years old, when the song had stuck in his memory, and at that age, had loved to sing along with his parents and older brother as they barreled down the freeway, all of them singing at the top of their lungs. The tradition continued as he got older, but gradually became a symbol to him of how un-cool his parents were, until every time the cassette was slipped into the player, Kyle and his brother, Kurtis, would moan and groan and refuse to sing along.

Reflecting back now, he was sure that his mother had continued the tradition to get a rise out of her sons, but also to instill a memory, as every other cassette, and eventually CD, had been switched out of the car with the exception of Eddie’s. It had even gotten to the point that Eddie Rabbit became the family peacemaker. If Kyle and Kurtis got to fighting too much in the back seat, their mom would threaten to pop Eddie into the player, usually eliciting promises of improved behavior followed by peace and quiet for a good twenty minutes.

As he relished these memories, Kyle’s fingers began tapping out the song’s beat on the steering wheel, and with the rain outside providing background percussion, he soon found himself singing the song he’d grown to love to hate. “Well, I love a rainy night. I love to hear the thunder, watch the lightning, when it lights up the sky….”

He was on the chorus following the second verse, singing “I wake up to a sunny day” at the top of his lungs and drumming enthusiastically on the steering wheel and dashboard, when a boney hand reached out and grabbed him on the shoulder. Kyle jumped violently in his seat, throwing the case of CDs in the air and banging his thighs sharply against the steering wheel. He spun to his right and looked into the face of Louise Kennedy.

“Pipe down! I’m trying to sleep!” she shouted at him.

Kyle exhaled slowly, his heart pounding in his chest like a jackhammer. “Louise. Sorry. I forgot you were back there,” he said. “I guess I got carried away.”

She gave him a dismissive look, then crawled back into the lower bunk and turned her back to him, pulling the blanket tight around her narrow shoulders.

Kyle watched Louise as his heart slowed to its normal rate, then turned back to the front and picked up where he’d left off, minus the drumming and earsplitting vocals, with memories and worries about his parents and brother and wife and children filling his mind.

 

Louise and Kyle waited in the truck until a little after noon, when the sky finally started to clear and the wind died down. Together they left the shelter of the semi behind, with Louise perched carefully in the cart and Kyle straining against the handle. Kyle’s joke with Ed about pulling a rickshaw no longer seemed nearly as funny. When the unlikely pair had set off three days before, Kyle had tried to have Louise walk, but that had worked for only about a half mile before it became apparent that because of her age and condition, she would only be able to walk a few minutes at a time before becoming too exhausted to continue. So, a half hour and a half-mile into their journey together, Kyle had been forced to repack his cart to make a place for her to sit. And there she rode, while he strained at the handle.

“It sure is muggy,” Louise said from the cart, the first complaint coming less than three minutes into their day’s travel.

“I know Louise. It rained,” Kyle answered, trying to sound pleasant but no longer caring very much if he did. “It will probably be muggy like this for the rest of the day.” He had grown numb to her ability to find the cloud to every silver lining, and while he wasn’t expecting a reward, at the very least he didn’t want to hear her constant complaints: the food, the heat, the wind, the uncomfortable cart, how slow he was walking, not enough food, the smelly truck, nothing to read, and on and on. By this point, each new whine had become something of a joke to him.

Dalhart was about eight miles ahead and, to Kyle’s inexpressible relief, was where Louise was headed when the attack had occurred and where Kyle would soon be able to deliver his passenger to her family. The temptation to abandon Louise on the side of the road the first night had been strong, and had she been headed much further north, he would have left her somewhere in Texas without a second thought, or at least that’s what he told himself. However, because so many people had been willing to help him, he had decided he could put up with a cranky old lady for a few days.

Six hours later, and three days after finding Louise, Kyle halted the cart on the north side of Dalhart in front of a cream-colored, stucco house adorned with a gray, armadillo-shaped welcome sign that hung to the side of the front door. He knocked, waited, and was about to knock again when he heard footsteps. A short, heavy-set, teenage girl cracked the door open and peered through the narrow crack. Kyle wondered to himself what she must be thinking, to find a strange, bruised and bearded man on her doorstep. The girl eyed Kyle and seemed poised to slam the door shut when Kyle spoke up.

“This is the Kennedy home, correct?”
The girl nodded. Kyle could see a man, likely the girl’s father, coming towards the door from a kitchen, his face wary.
“I found your grandmother on the side of the road. I brought her here.”

The girl looked past Kyle to the street where Louise was gathering what few possessions she had brought. “Daddy!” she called, turning towards her father.

The man had heard the comment, pulled the door open wide, and looked out to the street. “I don’t believe it,” he said to no one in particular, then stepped past Kyle and ran to his mother.

The girl called for her mother and older brother, and the family hurried outside to help Louise with her things. Kyle watched from the sidelines, musing that normally if a woman who’d been missing for two weeks had been found and returned, the family would’ve been overcome with emotion and barely able to contain themselves, an event worthy of a live CNN broadcast. This celebration was reserved. They hugged and talked, but there were no tears and no big displays of emotion. It was almost business-like in manner, as if they were actors in a play that no one really cared about.

Louise’s son approached Kyle. “I need to thank you,” he said. “We’ve been worried about Mom for the past two weeks, but I didn’t know how I could find her, and….”

Kyle interrupted him. “Look, it’s been rough for everyone. You don’t need to explain anything. I’m glad I could do it.” Kyle extended his hand to Mr. Kennedy, who embraced Kyle’s hand with both of his.

“I’d offer you something, but we don’t have much,” he said, assessing Kyle’s cart.

“I don’t need anything. Besides, you have more people to feed than I do.” Kyle started to walk towards his cart, and Mr. Kennedy followed along behind. “You know, I could use a hammer though; my cart needs some repairs. And, if you’ve got a way to get me to Montana, I’d take that as well,” Kyle said over his shoulder. “Otherwise, I’d better get on my way.”

The man shook his head soberly. “I don’t have any way to get you to Montana, but I do have a hammer. Give me a minute.” Mr. Kennedy ran off to look for the hammer, and Louise hobbled over to offer her thanks and say goodbye, then walked to the house with a grandchild under each arm just as her son returned, leaving the two men alone in the street.

Mr. Kennedy handed Kyle the hammer. “Go ahead and take this with you. I have another one. Good luck on your trip. We’ll be praying for you.”

“Thank you. Good luck to you too. Things are tough.”

The man nodded in agreement, his expression obviously anxious.

As he swung his cart around and headed back towards the highway, Kyle wondered if he’d done the family any favors, giving them one more mouth to feed. With conditions already bad, maybe they would have been better off without Louise, as cruel as that sounded. He trudged towards the edge of town, hoping he hadn’t made the family’s predicament worse.

Staying near Dalhart for the night was an option that would have fit his schedule, as tired as he was, but everything about the town unsettled him. It had been a week since he’d passed through any big towns, and in comparison the overall mood in Dalhart was much bleaker. There were no children playing in the streets or in the front yards, and despite the rain, even the grass and trees seemed lifeless and wilted. Instead of the friendly waves and words of encouragement that had been offered earlier in his trip, people eyed him suspiciously and retreated towards their homes when he approached, much as the people in Lubbock had done.

Walking gave Kyle plenty of time to think, and the hopelessness of the Kennedy’s stuck with him for a long time. They were hungry and fearful, like so many other people, perhaps even his own family. With those thoughts haunting him, Kyle walked on into the night, wanting desperately to be home, not stopping until long after the sun had set and the darkness had fully engulfed him.