Almost Heaven (31 page)

“Don't worry. I'm here. It's all right, Callie. Go back to sleep.”

She curled up in the corner running her hands all over to try and get warm. She swallowed hard and rasped, “Close the window, Billy.”

“I wish I could, darlin',” I said.

“Thank you, Billy. Close the window.” Then she was gone again, her head jiggling against the door.

The fact that Clay wasn't following us both excited and troubled me. I slowed and stopped, listening to the radiator hiss. Surely the antifreeze was running out. If this road was a dead end, Clay would have caught up to us by now. Unless he had gotten stuck or gone over the hill somewhere. Unless this road was just a loop connected to the other one and he was coming to meet us that way or was waiting.

I kept going until I settled close to Callie's Subaru, then turned off the truck and heard the diesel chugging. Unsure how far away it was, I ran to the Subaru and pulled her keys from my back pocket. There wasn't much gas left, but it fired to life. I threw it into four-wheel drive and backed it out quickly, grabbing Callie and sliding her into the passenger seat.

“It's so cold,” she said. Her eyes were rolling back.

When we hit the fork in the road, I knew this decision might be one I'd regret the rest of my life. Or it could be the one that would release us.

I'm not the kind of person who says the Lord talks to him. I don't believe you can hear an audible voice that tells you to do things or not do things because I just don't think he works that way. But I do get impressions about things and the impression I got right then was the single word
wait
.

So I sat and waited and prayed like there was no tomorrow, which was entirely possible for the both of us. “Please, God. You know this fellow is going to kill us if he gets the chance. He's half killed Callie the way it is. You know he does not want the truth to come out about what he's done. Deliver us, Lord. Help me find a way out of this hellhole.”

I always close my eyes when I pray, but that time I made an exception. I kept them open and watching for the truck. I had my window down to hear and it was good to be able to see again, even with the crack in Callie's windshield.

Then, like the sun coming up on Easter morning, I saw the flash of headlights on the trees to our right, coming back toward me on the fork I had taken. I started the car and slammed it into drive and took off on the other fork, knowing Clay couldn't have seen me with the lights off.

“Yes! Yes!” I said. “Thank you, Lord. Thank you for your deliverance and your mercy.” I was all but whooping and hollering. You cannot know relief until you are in a place where your life is literally hanging in the balance and you finally have a glimmer of hope that everything is going to be okay. Relief is a flood I don't mind going through.

23

I only stopped once, at an all-night truck stop to get enough gas to make it to Huntington. The car was on fumes when I coasted in, and I swore if I saw that truck pull in or pass us, I was going to call the police. But I never saw it and we went on our way to the emergency room. I suppose Clay gave up or he put another plan in place, but I imagined with as serious as he was about getting rid of Callie and me, he wasn't too happy with us.

My station had been off the air for a while, but I wasn't worried about anything but Callie. When you're in that kind of situation, the stuff that's important bubbles to the surface and your priorities change. That a few hill people couldn't wake up to gospel bluegrass and Scripture reading took a backseat to getting help for someone I cared about.

Callie was still slumped in the seat, and I prayed God would help me get her to a hospital fast. I was just praying up a storm and the tears were falling, partly because we'd gotten away and partly because I knew she had more hurt inside her than any tests would ever reveal.

I drove up to Cabell Huntington's emergency room entrance and told the orderly inside I had a friend in the car who didn't have clothes. They brought out a wheelchair and a blanket and loaded her in. In the dull light of the early morning she looked pale, and her face was drawn from hunger and whatever drug she'd been given. She was beginning to come around, and all I could do was watch them wheel her back to a curtained-off place and then go give what little information I knew to the lady who needed it. I told her Callie was a government employee, so she had to have insurance, but I didn't know much more than that. And I promised I would pay for anything she couldn't cover. It was a promise I intended to keep, though I had no idea how I would do it.

As far as I'm concerned, nurses could run the world a lot better than doctors, lawyers, or politicians. Put them in charge of just about anything and it seems to get done. And fast. The nurse helping Callie went to work hooking her up and checking this and that, and then the doctor came swaggering in, looking at papers. I told him the short version of the story, and he nodded like he'd heard it before, but I don't have any idea how you could have heard that kind of thing. Somebody must've phoned the police because they came a little later and asked questions and it seemed they didn't believe me at first. That's when I called Sheriff Preston and he got there lickety-split. Because he vouched for me, the local police backed off.

“Why didn't you call me, Billy?” Sheriff Preston said. “I would have helped you.”

“I know, Sheriff. I wish I had. But when you're in the middle of it, you don't think straight.”

“You could have both been killed out there.”

I nodded. “That's a fact. We probably should have been.”

He said he'd call Callie's parents, and I asked if I could do it. I dialed them from a pay phone in the hallway and Mrs. Reynolds picked up. It wouldn't have surprised me a bit if she'd been up all night praying.

“Billy, what's wrong? Did you know your station is off the air?”

“I know, ma'am. I've got some good news. I found her.”

“You did?” She said it in a gasp, and then she started crying and whimpering. “Where? What happened?”

“I'm down here at the hospital with her.”

“Hospital? Is she okay?”

“I think she's going to be, but she's been through a lot, Mrs. Reynolds. Some of it I don't even know. I knew you and your husband would want to come down and be with her.”

“As soon as I can throw some clothes on, we'll be there. What happened, Billy?”

“I don't know for sure, but I think somebody was holding her against her will. It's a long story, but if you come down, I think it would be good. Sheriff Preston is here.”

“Sheriff Preston,” she said, like she was in a daze. “All right. You know that your station is off the air, don't you?”

“Yes, ma'am. I'll fix that as soon as I get home.”

The locals said they would need to get in touch with the Kentucky State Police to investigate further. Sheriff Preston worked it out with them to do the tests they needed done on Callie and he would take me back to Kentucky to show them the cabin. I said I needed to get back home and put my station on the air. They kind of looked at me weird, but Sheriff Preston explained.

“I'll run him back up to Dogwood and then we'll meet the state police,” Sheriff Preston said.

“That fellow's gonna be gone before you get back,” one of the locals said.

“We both know he's probably cut loose already,” the sheriff said. “I'll coordinate it.”

I stared out the window at the mist rising from the morning dew on the mountain as the sheriff drove me home. He waited in the living room while I changed the tapes and did a station break. I threw on the headphones and thanked people for tuning in, and I asked them to pray for me and my friend Callie Reynolds, who was in the hospital. I don't know if anybody heard me, but I threw it out there hoping someone would. Then I started another four hours of music and kicked myself for not getting some kid from the neighborhood to come in and help me out. Surely I could have found somebody like that, but I was so intent on doing stuff myself that I guess I let pride get in my way.

I tested my sugar levels and I was pretty much in range, give or take. There wasn't much to eat in the house, so Sheriff Preston drove by McDonald's and got me a couple of sausage biscuits, and that perked up my system. He even let me listen to the station as long as we could. I didn't know it, but I fell asleep as we drove back toward Kentucky. The sheriff woke me as we met up with some officers from there. They followed as I showed the way to Clay's cabin.

The road looked different in the morning light. My truck was still there where I had left it, and I pointed out the shot-up windshield. I waited in the cruiser a tense few minutes while Sheriff Preston and the others surrounded the cabin. Over near the marsh there were tire tracks dug deep into the mud and I shook my head when I thought of how close Callie and I came to dying here. Sheriff Preston and the others said the cabin was empty. I showed them where I'd found Callie, the syringes, where the shots were fired, and the bathtub in the backyard. In the light of day it became clear that the horror in the tub wasn't a deer. A couple of the Kentucky police fellows strung the whole area with yellow tape and another fellow put the syringes in a plastic bag.

When I'd told them all I could, Sheriff Preston took me back to the hospital and we found Callie's room. Her parents were outside the door and Mrs. Reynolds hugged me.

“How is she?” I said.

Mrs. Reynolds's face was a mix of sadness and hope, which is the way things ought to be in a weary world. “She's awake. The doctor's in there. She asked about you. I don't think she remembers much of what happened last night.”

“She slept through most of it,” I said. “Doesn't surprise me. Can I see her?”

The doctor came out and talked with her parents, so I walked in. Callie was sitting up in bed. The nurse was doing something, but when she saw me, she pulled the curtain and left us alone. I sat down next to Callie and she reached for my hand.

“I guess we had an interesting night,” she said.

“An interesting few days,” I said.

“How did you find me?”

I smiled. “I'm a bloodhound at heart, darlin'. Get my nose to the trail and it's hard to kick me off.”

“Or the woman who lost the coin.”

I squeezed her hand. “Just like that. She didn't know what she had until she lost it.”

She turned her head a little. “How are you, Billy? I've been worried about you.”

I shook my head. “Here you are in the hospital hooked up to tubes and you're worried about me. If that don't beat all, I don't know what does.”

“He could have killed us both. The police said we were lucky to be alive.”

“Luck didn't have a thing to do with it, Callie. It was like I was being drawn to that cabin. I can't explain it. All along the way the Lord ordered my steps and I don't have any doubt he guided me.” I leaned closer. “There's something I've never told anybody. Back in Buffalo Creek when I was little, the flood . . .”

She leaned closer when I couldn't talk. “What is it, Billy?”

“I've just felt like the Lord has had his hand on me to do something, and maybe this was it. Maybe this is why he kept me alive all this time. To get you out of that place.”

A tear leaked out of her eye and ran down her face. I reached over with a finger and wiped it away, and she held my hand there.

“I think there's more for you to do than this, Billy Allman. And I think you've been doing it all your life.”

I shook my head. “This is not about me.”

“It's true. You've been a good friend. The very best. And I've put too many expectations on you. I'm going to start cooking for you again as soon as I can get out of here.”

“I think there are going to be a lot of changes for us,” I said. “But you take your time. We all need you back on the route. I keep getting mail from across town.”

She laughed and it was like the sound of the doves flying in the morning light. Just soft and warm and good. I asked what the doctor had said about her condition, and that led her down a path I could tell she didn't want to go.

“Stuff happened out there, Billy. Some really bad stuff.”

“I know.”

“No, you don't.”

“I mean, I could tell it was bad from what I saw.”

“You don't know how bad.” She put a hand to her head and squeezed her temples. “I don't remember much, but what keeps coming back makes me cold inside. It was awful. Evil.”

Her eyes filled with tears. I hate it when a woman cries. I really do. I remember it happening with my mother and how I needed to just go away when she would have a crying jag. But something told me to stay with Callie and not turn. And what sprang to my mind came out in fits and spurts, but it came out just the same.

“Callie, God didn't turn his back on you the past few days. I hope you don't think he abandoned you.”