I was vaguely aware of what was going on around me; yet it was just that I felt so horrible. Sick. Feverish. Hot, aching all over as if my very blood was on fire.
I had thought that I had been healed by going to the hospital, but maybe, my father had told them not to treat me at all. Who knew what that crazy old witch lady had done to me in that nuthouse? She was some relative of my father, I could tell just from her looks and the ugliness in her eyes.
I was pretty sure that I was lying in the back of a fancy SUV. Wasn’t quite sure who was there with me or who was driving. Seems I remember some pretty fancy racing in reverse, but we weren’t moving right now.
No, we were parked and surrounded by eighteen wheelers in the back of a mall or something. I could see trailers and trees, cars and the back end of a long, low building that was not over one story in height. Above the gray roof, I saw the huge blue and orange ‘76’ sign. A truck stop. Off a major Interstate.
I was really thirsty and swallowed trying to work up some spit, so I could say something. I must have made some noise because a man’s hand touched my forehead. I could barely see his face. I already knew that it wasn’t my father’s. This one was smooth, pale skin that didn’t have a tan, clear blue eyes that held laugh lines and curly hair that was almost the shade of chestnut, sun-streaked to blonde. He was handsome, lean and powerful, his face one that promised safety, love, and all those things I had not gotten from my own father. When he spoke, his accent was as soft and pleasing as mom’s but totally different from anything I had heard before.
We stared each other in the eyes, and I saw who he had been and who he was now.
“Matt,” I said, my voice a mere croak. I shivered. “I’m thirsty.”
“I know, Cris. I’m sorry. We’re calling for backup to meet us at the nearest ER. You want some water or Gatorade? It’s warm, we don’t have a cooler or ice, yet. I sent Jake to get you some Tylenol and call for help.”
“Where are we?”
“Exit 9. The ‘76’ Truck Stop near a town called Sutton’s Lick.”
“How far are we from my Dad?”
“About 35 miles from where we picked you up,” he answered. “Forty-five from the Juvie Hall. We haven’t seen him or any of his cohorts. Does he know anyone around here?”
“He knows scum from all over the state.”
He opened a bottle of grape Gatorade and held it to my lips. I swallowed. It brought tears to my eyes, my throat felt as if I had gargled with razor blades.
“Your accent?”
“I don’t have an accent,” he protested. “You do. I’m from Boston. We talk like this there.”
“I’m thirsty,” I said, and he looked at me funny. “Is he coming?”
“Who? Jake? Or your father?”
“Johannsen. The man who wants to rape me,” I whispered, and he looked shocked.
“Did he do that to you, Cris?”
I saw real anger in his face. And pity. That made me angry. I spat back at him. “NO! Momma never let him, and I know how to protect myself,” I denied hotly. “I gotta go to the restroom.”
“Can it wait until Jake comes back? I don’t want to leave the car unguarded,” he returned. He swiveled his torso around to watch the building. I wanted to look, too, but I couldn’t move.
“I’m thirsty,” I said. “Can I have a drink?” He gave me another look and held the purple bottle up to my mouth. It was already open and a quarter of it gone. It tasted flat and warm. Yet, it didn’t touch my raging thirst.
“Here he comes,” Matt said with relief as he saw the cop striding toward us. I saw him in the rear-view mirror – a tall, thin man. He looked young, but he was dressed funny. He was in a pair of fishing waders and dirty suit pants with a buttoned-down shirt. He carried paper sacks from Burger King and plastic from the convenience store as he waddled up to the car. The locks clicked, and he opened my door which let in warm, humid air. Leaning in, he ran something across my forehead. A thermometer. It buzzed, and his eyes widened in alarm. He showed it to Matt but neither told me what it read.
Matt went through the plastic bag which held icy water, beads of condensation running down the plastic. An orange bottle of Children’s Tylenol with a cup stuck to the top. He poured me a dose. It tasted gross but the water after was welcome. My stomach felt warm.
The smell from the BK bag didn’t make me hungry, the smell made me dry-heave. As I leaned forward in misery, Mr. Eachann rubbed my back in slow circles and murmured to me in a language that Crispin knew. He called me Annwyl, which meant cherished, beloved. He spoke in Gaelic, a language that neither of us knew in the present but our souls called to each other in that remembered tongue.
“Jake, we ready to leave?” Matt asked him as soon as he crumpled up the empty containers and bags. I asked for another drink and he gave me more grape. I managed to swallow two or three sips before I pushed it away. Purple dripped down my t-shirt and I pulled at it. I didn’t remember where I got it from or how I got there.
Their voices faded. My surroundings turned dim and gray; I recognized the motion of a car moving. We were on the road again. Traveling slowly, the AC on because it was cold in the car. I complained because I was shivering, my leg hurt, my back and stomach muscles were cramping so bad that it pulled me into a ball. He leaned over, scooped me off the seat and stretched me out in the rear cargo area so that I was flat. The move made me a bit more aware of what was going on and I heard Jake curse, explain to his friend that the road ahead was closed to traffic. There was a detour. I felt the car bump over potholes, turn sharply onto a gravel road, the distinct noise of the tires crunching on the stones. Thought that was odd as most of the roads around were either paved or sandy. That I could hear meant that he had opened the windows, the smell of piney woods came through strongly, as well as the sharp scent of sulfur from marshy water. We were back in the swamp or near a large river.
The SUV picked up some speed but no way as fast as when we were on the highway. He drove for a while and then the car turned again onto a paved road where I caught the hum of the tires as we picked up speed. Matt told him to close the windows and let the AC cool off the inside of the car.
It was darker and cooler on the new route, trees hung over and made a canopy of green with Spanish moss, vines and even kudzu. I could see a thin strip out the back window of the SUV, a big one like a Navigator or Yukon. The trees were planted in rows, marked with red or orange blazes of paint on the eight and nine-inch-wide trunks. A tree plantation and the markers indicated which were to be cut and harvested. I knew that meant something. Something bad but I couldn’t bring the completed thought to my head or out of my mouth. Something inside me had disconnected.
“What’s the GPS say, Jake? This doesn’t seem right,” Eachann asked as we drove down the two-lane road. No other cars passed us, we were alone and that didn’t make sense either. There should be more cars than just us on a detour route. There wasn’t another sign, either. No detour signs, no County Road markers.
I pushed myself up, held onto the back of the second row of seats and cleared my throat. Looked through the front windshield and saw what Jake saw. The twisting, winding road made into a tunnel by the overhanging trees and foliage. There wasn’t a shoulder on this back-country road, just ditches on both sides used as drainage for the frequent and heavy downpours that often hit. Stagnant water lay in them, dank and full of mosquitoes. Some so thick that you could see the clouds of the bugs as they hovered over the pools. I wouldn’t want to be outside with them, you’d be eaten alive within minutes.
An occasional side road came out of the trees and onto the pavement, but these were clearly logging trails. From the deep ruts made in the sand and greasy mud, you could tell that they were made by heavy log haulers.
I finally managed to say something, Matt turned around and grabbed me, relieving me from the strain of holding myself up. His hand caressed my face and I leaned into it with unconscious longing.
“Jake, who was at the detour? Sheriff or road crew?”
“Sheriff’s Deputies. Two of them,” he answered, looking at me in the rear view. “Hey, little man. How are you?”
“Were they directing traffic away from the roadblock or towards it?” I asked, my hand still gripping the seat with white knuckles.
“The two deputies,” he answered uneasily.
“What color car?”
“The cruiser was red and white.”
“Not blue and green? Where are we? What parish?”
“Parish?” he asked me, confused. “Like a…church?”
“Parishes are what they call counties or townships in Louisiana, Jake,” Matt answered.
“Oh. No, it was white with red lettering,” he said firmly. “Why?”
“My Dad’s parish is Piniella; their cars are blue and green. I don’t know what parish is red and white, I don’t know if he knows anyone from that department.” I sagged, exhausted from the five-minute conversation but I didn’t have to hold myself up, Matt did it for me. His grip was firm.
He took a sudden, sharp curve and the road Y'd, the left fork went toward a larger intersection that we could see down the straight-away; the right turned onto another highway that was marked with a ‘DETOUR’ sign. Shot through with bullet holes. Jake took that way and was able to push the SUV up to a much faster speed.
“The GPS says this is the way toward the HWY, toward the hospital but it also says we’re twenty-five miles further away than where we started. This detour took us back toward the truck stop,” he said puzzled. “The signal keeps cutting in and out. We’re still quite a way from the Hospital.” He caught Matt’s eyes in the mirror.
I went flat, my head whirling as I got light-headed. Out of the corner of my eyes, coming from the right side of the road, I saw a black streak just as something hit us from the left. The car slammed sideways as Jake screamed and fought the wheel, but we spun around, hit the ditch and flipped over and over until we came to a sudden stop as the car hit with a vehement crash. Metal groaned, and the engine died. We were wrapped around one of the red blazed tree trunks, in the rows of pines.
I was thrown around like a rag doll, even though someone held me tightly against his chest. I felt liquid running down my face and tasted blood. Hair and the taste of fabric. Glass trickled over my head and the smell of gasoline was heavy, acrid and stung.
The sound of breaking glass, shrieking tires and metal shrieking in stress was my entire existence. It wasn’t until the car stopped shaking and the noises quit that I was able to feel the pain.
It hurt worse than anything I had ever felt before. Even the beatings that I had endured at my father’s hands had never been this bad. The broken leg didn’t come close, but it hurt now worse than when I’d broken the bone originally. It hurt as if every bone in my body was on fire, macerated, torn out of my skin and laid on the ground to be pounded into splinters by hammers.
I didn’t know how you could feel such pain and remain sane, let alone awake but I wasn’t allowed to find relief from it. I suffered. My breath taken away so that I couldn’t even scream.
It was Jake that groaned first. He moved, cursing as he fought his restraints. He called Matt’s name and when he heard no reply, he struggled until I heard the click of a seat-belt release and the thud as his body fell.
He crawled over the seat which made me realize that we were upside down, I was lying on the roof and underneath me was the hard metal of a tube. The rifle that Jake was so proud of was poking me between the shoulder blades. I tried to roll off it, but I couldn’t move an inch and when I tried, my muscles seized up in a giant Charley horse that made me scream. That woke Matt.
Groggily, he pushed me out of the way just as Jake reached him over the top of the seats. “What happened?” Matt asked with a fogged look. I saw blood on his face, sparkles of glass in his hair and his eyes were swelling to puffy slits.
“Remember me saying redneck trucks? One of them just T-boned us out of a hidden side road. They’ll be coming after us with guns next. We gotta get out of here. Can you move, Captain?”
I looked up at his face and saw someone else behind his brown eyes. Someone who spoke with an Irish accent and had a ready grin as danger approached us. I rubbed my eyes, not certain that I was coherent or conscious, but the face remained the same.
“Mr. Fitz?” I asked in disbelief. He scooped me into his arms and dragged me through the busted-out back window. He pulled Matt out next and handed him the rifle.
“Captain?”
“Fitz give me a hand,” he said, and he had the same lilting accent in his voice. Irish. As green as the hills of Kilkenny. I saw Crispin’s father, Captain Faille Lacey standing there instead of Matt Eachann and no matter how hard I rubbed my eyes, the pair remained solid and there. Yet, I was not Crispin and my father was paying the men who had wrecked us.
Both crawled out of the car, checking for their weapons before they checked their injuries. Mine, they left for last. Finally, when Jake moved my arms and legs, the pain hurt enough that my conscious mind cut out and I went gratefully into the darkness.