Elizabeth's Daughter (27 page)

  There was no place for her to turn around, and, in fact, she was afraid she might get stuck. She backed up cautiously until she came to a space wide enough to turn around.

  She made her way back out to the main road. One down, two to go. The next road looked a bit more promising, the area was more hilly.

  She turned onto it, but had only gone half-a-mile when she encountered a sign:

YOU ARE ENTERING PRIVATE PROPERTY

NO TRESPASSING — THIS MEANS YOU!

TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT

SURVIVORS PROSECUTED!!

  Elizabeth felt a mixture of amusement and amazement. What kind of mentality was this? Was it a joke, or perhaps... not.

  No sign, however, even if it read “Road to Hell” would deflect Elizabeth from her purpose, and she continued. She drove another half mile, when the burliest man she’d ever seen in her life came at her in a jeep.

  She stopped. He jumped out of his jeep as if he were ready to tear her car limb from bumper.

  She tried smiling as he roared up. “What’s the matter with you? Are you illiterate?”

  Elizabeth was hugely tempted to say, “Hola, no habla...” but she resisted. The man appeared to lack humor. “I stopped and read your most gracious sign. I am not the enemy, sir. I’m looking for someone who is out here, somewhere.” She held her map out the window, pointing at the three high-lighted roads. “See? I’m looking for a cabin that’s up on a hill, with two huge fir trees on either side of it.”

  “Well, you won’t find it here. I live alone up here and I don’t have any shacks like that.”

  Elizabeth nodded. She extended her hand.  “My name’s Elizabeth.”

  The burly man nodded back, but refused to take her hand. “Okay, Elizabeth, now just turn around and get out.”

  “What I had in mind, that is, I’m hoping you’ll let me go on up this road, just to check it out, and give myself peace of mind.”

  “I’ll give you a piece of
my
mind! I told you that what you’re looking for isn’t up here. Now
BEAT
it.”

  “Do you know of any place around here that might fit my description?”

  “There’s a place something like that on the other road you got marked there,” he said, poking an index finger the size of a plump hot dog at her map. “But nobody’s lived there for years. It’s uninhabitable. You can’t even drive up to it anymore, it’s so overgrown.”

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said gratefully, throwing her car into reverse. “Maybe you don’t like the idea, but you’ve just done a good deed.”

  She backed around and charged back to the main road.

  The third dirt road was on the opposite side of the main road, and, according to the map, virtually across the street from the one she’d just exited. But she had to drive up and back twice before she found the unmarked ruts.

  As soon as she turned onto the nearly invisible road, though, she knew she was in the right place. She drove for nearly a mile with tree branches thwacking her windshield and scratching the finish of the car. Then the trees thinned and she found herself in a meadow. It was flat, full of wild flowers and the palpable presence of small creatures. Ahead was another thicket of growth, and Elizabeth continued.

  These woods were darker and thicker, the road wound up and down bluff-like hills. Then, suddenly, there it was
–
a clearing with the cabin, and the two giant fir trees that were etched on her mind’s eye, taking three-dimensional form in front of her.

  Immediately she cut the engine and let her car roll back into the trees until she could not see the cabin. She crept out of the car and stole among the trees, working her way up the steep hill towards the cabin. Her heart pounded
–
to be this close to Amy! Elizabeth found herself practically gasping for air as she climbed the unmercifully steep hill while struggling through the dense, unyielding underbrush.

  Finally she reached the small clearing around the cabin. She crept up to the near fir tree, bigger around than she. She listened and peered around. There, just peeking out from behind the cabin was the nose of an old Ford pick-up truck. So that’s what he’d been sneaking around in.

  She heard nothing and realized that she would have to steal the remaining distance to the cabin and look in a window.

  She scurried forward and peeked through a side window. There, on a ratty, horrible couch, slept Tony. Her heart raced even faster, which seemed impossible.

  But she didn’t see Amy.

  Where could she be? Then Elizabeth heard a faint crying from another room. Amy! Her baby was practically within her grasp.

  “Shut up!” Tony yelled. “
SHUT UP!
” He didn’t move a muscle to see why she was crying.

  Elizabeth suddenly knew what it was to have the strength of ten men. She hoisted herself up through the open window and flew to the back of the cabin where she had heard her baby cry. There was Amy, trapped in a corner by a pile of boxes and broken furniture, a cage of sorts. In her life, Elizabeth had never felt rage like she felt now, seeing her poor Amy humiliated and neglected.

  Tony flew into the room and jumped on Elizabeth. “What’s the matter with you?
What’s the matter with you!
 
NO WOMAN TREATS ME LIKE YOU DID!
No woman ever has, and no woman ever will. You’re my wife, you belong to me!”

  Tony’s rage and venom turned his perfect features into a frightening, hideous mask. The pulsing vein in his forehead looked as though it would burst then and there. “Besides,” he continued, digging his fingers like talons into her shoulders, “who else would have you, you wimpy little mouse? I married you for financial security. You were crazy to expect me to stay home and play daddy! I knew how to get you back, all I had to do was take the brat!”

  Tony stopped ranting and looked down at Elizabeth, trapped under him. “Wait a minute, how did you get here?”

  He dragged her to her feet, pulled her over to the window and looked out. There was nothing but trees and wild vegetation to be seen.

  “Hah! All by yourself. Too smart for your own good, aren’t you. Well, you’re here now. I knew it’d work, just grab the brat and you’d come running. I wanted to let you suffer some more before I told you where to come. I wanted to make sure you’d obey me after you saw I mean what I say!”

  All through Tony’s crazed harangue Amy was screaming at the top of her lungs, “
Mommy! Mommy!
”

  “And shut that brat up! I’ve had all of her noise I can stand!”

  Elizabeth’s fury was so intense, she’d become calm. “She’d better not be missing one single hair from her head.”

  “Ha! Ha!” Tony said in a forced tone. “Or what? You going to hurt me?” He slapped her. “I think I should make a matching black eye for that other pretty one I created. You still don’t know who’s boss, do you?”

  Elizabeth wretched herself from Tony’s grasp and ran toward Amy. She grabbed a chair from the pile and swung it at Tony. It knocked him into the wall and he looked at her in complete surprise.

  “Don’t make me angry, Elizabeth,” he warned. “I mean it. You’ve really been making me angry lately. I won’t tolerate it!”

  Elizabeth grabbed another piece of the makeshift facade blocking her from her baby, and threw that at Tony as well. Another box and she had her hand on Amy. Amy clutched onto Elizabeth. “Mommy! Take Amy.”

  “Yes baby, I’m taking you. Don’t worry!”

  Tony lunged at her, and threw her to the floor. She twisted out of his grasp, her eyes and mind only on Amy, who stood reaching through the last chair blocking her from Elizabeth, crying, “No, Nony, bad. Mommy, take Amy. Nony, bad.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t bear the plaintive cry of her baby. Oh yes, Nony had become very bad, indeed. “Yes, Mommy take Amy.” She kicked with all her might at Tony’s hand grabbing onto her ankle.

  “Damn, Elizabeth, that hurts. Will you just stop fighting me?”

  She jumped up, leaned over the chair and grabbed Amy, then sidled along the wall. Tony slowly stood, clearly disoriented, but not willing to stop. There were three feet between her and the door to the front room. She jumped through the doorway and Tony leapt forward, grabbing her shirt.

  She wrested herself free and put Amy down. “Outside, Amy! Amy, go outside!”

  As Tony threw her to the floor she saw Amy toddling towards the front door. Then Tony’s hands closed around her throat.

  “You stupid disobedient bitch! I’m the husband! You have to
OBEY
me!”

  Elizabeth saw the color of blood pulsing in her eyes. She couldn’t breathe and she felt consciousness ebbing, but she heard Amy crying outside and she refused to let go.

  She arched her back and threw Tony off balance. They rolled
–
Elizabeth broke his hold on her throat. She pulled herself through the front door, rolled, then tumbled down the three steps to the ground. Amy was standing on the porch, screaming bloody murder.

  Elizabeth reached up and seized her baby, turned and ran down the hill as if all the demons of a hideous hell were on her heels. And one of them was. Tony had regained his footing and was fast upon her.

  Off in the distance, Elizabeth was vaguely aware of a siren.

  Oh, someone was lucky, she thought. Someone else had help rushing to them, while she was out here alone with a mad man, where no one knew where she was. She came to her car and jumped in, berating herself for not turning it around before.

  She locked the doors. Tony was in front of the car, wielding a log. He raised it towards her windshield. Elizabeth shoved Amy onto the floor, “ Stay on the floor baby,” She said as she shielded her face with one arm while starting the car. The car leapt alive, and knocked Tony over. Elizabeth pulled forward and made a frantic U-turn. She looked in the rear view mirror. Tony had picked himself up and ran at her car.

  She pulled away.

  “It’s okay, Amy, baby. We’re going to get away. Don’t cry anymore, baby.”

  Just as she came into the clearing of the meadow, a jeep, followed by a police car, followed by a ‘56 Chevy, roared into the meadow.

  Elizabeth stopped and grabbed up Amy. She stumbled from the car, bloody with torn clothes. Officers Timms and Avery, Peter and Gail, and the burly, surly man from across the road came pouring out of their vehicles.

  At that moment Tony burst into the clearing, saw all that was before him, then turned and ran back into the woods. The officers went pounding after him on foot.

  Peter ran up to Elizabeth, and she and Amy tumbled into his arms while Peter smothered them both in kisses. “Brave Elizabeth, you silly thing, how could you do this by yourself?  Don’t you know you can count on me?”

  Elizabeth nodded, but could say nothing.

  The burly man tugged Gail by the hand as they rushed up to them. “Lizzie, girl, Amy!” Gail panted, “thank God you’re both all right!” She took Amy’s little face in her hands and kissed her.

  “Gao! Gao!” Amy cried.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were trying to nab a kidnapper?” the burly man asked Elizabeth. “If there’s one thing I really hate, it’s any kind of person who would do any harm to a kid.” His terrifying visage melted into cherubic smiles as he patted Amy. “Hi, baby face,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “Hi little-angel-pumpkin-darlin’-cutie-cutie.”

  Amy chortled gleefully.

  “How did you find us?” Elizabeth breathed, tearfully.

  “Peter came over,” Gail began....

  “I went to your place and saw all those maps, and your pencil scratches on these roads. I know these roads
–
they’re not safe.” He led Elizabeth to a log and made her sit, then sat beside her.

  Gail and the big, burly man sat on the ground beside them.

  “And he thought,” Gail started....

  “And I also thought you were probably on to something, so I had the police come along.”

  “Good thing too, or this giant would have done us in,” Gail said.

  “Hey!” the burly man continued in his falsetto so as not to startle Amy. “You see what kind of crazies come creeping up into these hills. If not for me....”

  “If not for you, we might not have found them yet,” Gail nodded at the giant with unabashed approval and admiration.

Chapter XXXII

“That’s going to be so adorable,” Elizabeth said to Gail.

  Gail stopped rocking, held up the yellow bonnet she was crocheting for Amy, the firelight glowing cheerfully on her smiling apple-cheeks.

  Elizabeth squeezed Amy until she giggled. “Gail is making a pretty-bonnet for pretty-Amy!”

  “Pretty Gail!” Amy said.

  Peter chuckled. “You sure got that right!” He sat opposite Elizabeth who was holding Amy in the overstuffed chair beside Gail in her rocking chair, the light from the fireplace playing over them. “You should see the three of you with my eyes! What a beautiful sight!”

  “I couldn’t be happier,” Elizabeth sighed, exchanging with Peter a long and endearing smile. “But now we should try and fix Gail up.”

  “Not necessary! I’m completely content,” Gail protested.

  “Yes,” Peter agreed, unable to stay even eight feet away from them. He came over and sat on the floor by Elizabeth, then took Amy’s foot and counted off the little piggies. “And this little piggy stayed home... who do you have in mind for her?”

  “Well,” Elizabeth answered thoughtfully, “I believe Ralph would be perfect. He’s hard working, he’s interested in everything like Gail is, he’s intelligent, he’s good looking, and he’s already part of the family.”

  Peter nodded seriously. “Ralph is an excellent choice.”

  “Who did you have in mind?” Elizabeth asked him.

  “I thought that soft-hearted, tough-acting ruggedly handsome Mike was a good choice. After gallantly leading us and the police to you and helping Gail trudge through the wild brush, it seemed to me I saw a glint of interest there.”