I didn’t have to wait until morning to see what my fate was. During the night in one of my more painful, lucid moments, a hand covered my mouth while another pair? scooped under my legs picking me up. I stifled my gasp of pain and fear, trying to see who had me. Silently, this pair wrapped me in several layers of thick blankets and carried me outside the cabin into the cold.
It was bitter cold, our breaths made visible puffs of smoke in the unnatural stillness of the air. The moon was just a hint in the dark sky, overcast so that I couldn’t see any stars. Or the face of the man who carried me.
He shifted me. Into the other man’s arms and pulled on a backpack that was sitting on the ground. The two whispered, heads together with me sandwiched between. Only then did I recognize Tats and the driver.
Quietly, they gathered together a small pile of gear and headed into the woods. No one spoke for an hour, an hour in which I grew increasingly more puzzled, colder and uncomfortable. Moving me made my back scream in agony. Once they stopped, he slid a needle into my arm. Everything went black and fuzzy.
I must have dozed awhile for the next time I opened my eyes, dawn was creeping in and the pair had stopped under a thick-skirted evergreen. They were drinking coffee from a thermos and I could see the steam. Speaking quietly to each other, I could barely hear them even though I was close enough to touch both.
“You didn’t leave any sign?” I said and he pulled the blanket away from my face. I was on the ground in a pile of leaves, on my side so that my back, rear and thighs weren’t in contact with the ground. It helped a little.
“How ya feeling, kid?” Tats asked. His dark eyes gleamed in the faint light that filtered under the tree branches.
“Can he track you?’
“Who? The Sergeant? Not unless he’s part Native American,” the other man said. He offered me a hand. Which I could not take. “I’m Tuck. Jax and I were Rangers. We know how to cover our backtrail.”
“Prints in the snow?”
“We kept off the snow. There’s been a major thaw since we brought you here. Once we’re out of this area, I’ll stop and treat your wounds.”
“Where is ‘here’?” I paused. “I can track a fish upstream.” They looked at me funny. “My dad can, too.”
“Your dad’s dead,” he returned flatly. “DeAngelis shot him in the head and buried him in a quarry near the cabin. We’re in the Northeast Kingdom, near the border. Know where that’s at?”
“Vermont, I think. I thought I killed him once, too,” I said and shivered. “I’m cold. It hurts.”
“I know. I can give you more morphine. It’ll knock you out and lower your body temperature. It’s not really safe. Try to sleep, you’ll be out of the woods in another hour or so.”
“He’ll come after you. He’s like that. Worse than Tempe. And I can’t sleep. You ever try to sleep when your back was flayed open and wool was rubbing against the open sores?” I tried to shift, to find a more comfortable position but everywhere hurt. Even my hair. Tats offered me a sip of his thermos and I swallowed coffee that was black and still hot. Strong enough to float a silver bullet and it hit me like a shot of adrenaline.
“Whoa!” I gasped. “That’ll put hair on your chest!”
He snorted so loud that he spat coffee on himself. He tried not to laugh but he couldn’t help himself. Pretty soon, all three of us were laughing until I started to cry. That made these two big tough men stand there helplessly. They didn’t know what to do to help me until Tuck picked me up and carefully hugged me as he patted my back. I sobbed until sheer exhaustion made me sleep. I slept through the next three hours which it took for them to hike out of the woods using the GPS on his cell phone. I didn’t wake until he slid me onto the back seat of an old station wagon with wooden paneled sides that smelled like it had last hauled goats.
As my eyes flickered open, Tats leaned over me and put his finger near my mouth signifying that I should keep quiet. I nodded, not an easy thing to do wearing the neck brace.
“Thanks for coming out here,” Tuck said easily to the driver. “Uber is amazing. I can see why you have five stars.”
The old man turned around. He looked as old as that actor who played Gandalf in all the Hobbit movies and with the hair to match. Had a weird New England accent peppered with ‘eyahs’ and ‘yups’.
“Gotta do something to make a living around here,” he grumbled. “Farming don’t pay no more nor fishin’. Loggin’ sucks and syrupin’ ain’t so great either.”
“Is this an old Woody?” Tats admired.
“Eyah. My first car. Kept her in the barn till the barn fell in. So. Where you folks wantin’ to go?”
“How about Newport? That drivable for you?”
The old man grunted. “Hell, I’d drive you to Florida if you paid enough. Get in. You need to stop anywhere first?”
“Nope. We’re good to go,” Tats said and slid in beside me.
The old station wagon puttered off as the driver shifted manually. Tuck leaned over and checked the back of my clothes beneath the blankets. Somehow, they had dressed me while I was unconscious, and I wore only the one blanket.
“Okay. I’m okay, Tuck,” I whispered trying not to wince. Everything still hurt but the edge was off. I wasn’t sure if it was that he’d given me more shots or enough time had passed that I was getting used to it.
He dug through the pack that lay at our feet. Inside it were bottles and he removed one of water and some pills wrapped in a plastic baggie. Gave them to me and I hesitated.
“Vitamins, Tylenol and antibiotics,” he said. “Nothing stronger.”
“I’m really hungry.”
“I have chocolates and some protein bars. Want one of each?” I nodded and he fed them to me holding the bottle between sips.
“How far?” I asked barely heard.
“Since camp? Day, day and a half,” he said.
“The boy need a doctor or hospital?” the old man asked. “He don’t look too good.”
“He had a bit of a problem out in the woods,” Tats said. “Allergies are really bad, that’s why we cut the two-week camping trip short. We’re heading home to Momma and his GP. And he has a really bad case of poison ivy.”
I kicked him. Poison ivy didn’t grow in the winter months. The old man turned around and winked at me. He knew that Tats was lying, too but he didn’t make a big deal about it.
“You feeling itchy, boy? Lots of calamine will fix that right up. And some Benadryl.”
“How long will this take?” Tuck asked before I could.
“To Newport? Couple of hours. Unless you want me to break the speed limit, but I don’t recommend that. The Staties around here are real bears. No pun intended.”
“What do we call you, sir?” Tats asked.
“Why, my name’s right on the Uber site. Gramps Kelly. Yours?”
They gave him fake names, but they must have talked about it earlier because they answered him quickly without flubbing. Even had a new name for me, Chip Lennon. I was Tats (Gus Lennon) kid and Tuck was my Uncle Pete Lennon.
“I’m not tellin’ you fellas what to do but if’n I was you, I’d stop in at Bellywaters Clinic. They take anyone and no records. The boy’s obviously in pain and needs attention. You folks are on the run.”
“How do you know?” Tuck asked curious. He was inching his hand towards the back of his jacket and I pushed his hand away.
“Cuz I been there myself,” he said. “I was in the witness protection program forty years ago. Hard to believe, but I worked for the Mob. Ratted them out and had to go on the run. They caught me, killed my family in front of me and if it wasn’t for two Navy buddies of mine, I’d be toast. So, I recognize the same thing in you fellas. You runnin’ from the cartels or the Feds?”
“My grandfather,” I said, and he stared at me in the mirror.
“Your grandpa?”
“He’s a New York State Trooper. He killed my father and kidnapped me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m ‘John Doe’,” I said simply.
He slammed on the brakes and pulled off onto the side of the road. “Holy shit,” he said inelegantly. “I suppose I should be charging you triple.”
I laughed. “I suppose I might pay it. My father thought he was going to steal all the money and my grandfather refuted that assumption. He in turn, tried to do the same thing. I tried to refuse his demands and my back bears the evidence of his displeasure. Although it pleasured him to do it.”
He looked aggrieved. Angry. Glared at the two men. “You let him do that to a child?”
“Tha’s why we ran in the middle of the night,” Tats said mildly. “He’s a decorated State Trooper, a sergeant. You think the cops are going to believe two mercenaries over a Trooper? And a delusional kid?”
“Delusional? Why are you delusional, John?”
“My name is Cris. And I have lived other lives and remember them.”
“Well, I’ll be hornswoggled,” he said. His bushy white eyebrows raised high. “Ever been one of those Vikings that came over here to New England?”
He made me giggle. “Nope. You looking for Leif Ericson’s treasure?”
“My neighbor and I have had arguments over who were the first ones to come here.”
“Earliest I can remember was the 1830s, my dad was a captain in the army. The Quartermasters Corps.”
“Bet you have some stories to tell.”
“And we’d all like to hear them someplace safe,” Tats reminded. Mr. Kelly drove back onto the road. He drove in silence for a while, but it was plain to anyone that he was one of those people who had to fill such voids with words. To be quiet was unnatural to him so even though I didn’t feel up to it, I held a conversation with him for most of the time that we were in his old car. Finally, when I ran out of things to ask him, he spoke in admiration.
“Well, John Doe. You are some kind of conversationalist. Here I’ve told you my whole life story and don’t know much more about you than what you told me at first.”
“It’s dangerous to know about me, Mr. Kelly. If you don’t mind, I’m really tired now,” I said politely. I had to close my eyes. When I did, I leaned back against the headrest and my whole body sagged. I could have used a shot to knock me out and wouldn’t have complained about it, either. I hurt that bad. My head throbbed with the mother of all headaches, my neck felt like a red-hot iron collar was cinched around it and my back screamed louder than all of it.
Tuck must have felt it in me, and he handed me a single white pill with a scored middle and a bottle of water. I opened my eyes wider and looked at him. Vicodin. Or maybe oxycontin. Strong. Knock me out time. I took it without protest and in minutes cool relief hit me. My head felt light and everything faded away.
The next four hours were gone. Simply gone. I didn’t feel, see, hear or remember any of it. That was probably a good thing because during that time, they undressed me, washed off my grandfather’s handiwork and treated the whole mess. Later, Tuck told me that my clothes had stuck to the welts and it made him sick to have to pull it off my back. It took a whole bottle of Betadine and made me bleed again. It took he said, two hours and thirty staples to fix everything.
Mr. Kelly had dropped us off at a tourist campsite that he recommended called the Seven Pines. He knew the owner and got us a special rate. We had two cabins. Tuck carried me into the first one and placed me on my stomach on a queen-sized bed. Mr. Kelly wanted to help but they sent him on his way before he could see how bad my back was and would insist I be taken to a hospital.
Once Tuck finished with me, they packed what little they had unpacked, called another cab company and were driven to the local Super 8 on the other side of town near the Interstate. It was warm in that room, stuffy when I opened my eyes slowly, unsure of what I’d find. Green walls with paintings screwed to the plaster. The kind that my mom had called couch art. Landscapes that looked as if they came off an assembly line. Two beds with a nightstand between them with floral duvets.
I was on my stomach with my head turned towards the door and I couldn’t turn to look anywhere else. I could see a telephone on the nightstand, the door to the bathroom and a long bench where you were supposed to put your suitcases. If there was a window, I couldn’t see it.
The bed opposite me had been slept in and was left unmade. But it was the man sitting on it that made me cry out in surprise.