Love Thine Enemy (16 page)

“I’m asking, how well do you know the man?” she snapped.

“Elmer Reed picked up the cattle,” Walter answered.

“Where was the trailer headed, and when did it leave?” Sam asked, trying to rein in his growing fear.

“He was going to drop the heifers off in Abilene and then deliver the bulls to a ranch down by Wichita. He left an hour ago.”

“Wichita? Did the girls know where the trailer was going?” Cheryl demanded.

Walter nodded. “Yes, I heard Reed tell them where he was taking the cattle.”

“I told the twins that I would be staying with my sister in Wichita. Could they have gotten into the trailer without the driver knowing it?”

Walter shook his head. “They wouldn’t be able to get in back with the cattle. There’s no way they could lift the end gate. The trailer did have a side compartment, but they’re too little to reach the door handle.”

Cheryl’s gaze flew to the bucket sitting a few feet away, and she pointed. “What if they stood on that?”

Sam followed her across the yard. Small muddy boot prints and paw prints decorated the top of an overturned white plastic five-gallon bucket.

“This is where the trailer was parked, wasn’t it?” Cheryl looked to Walter and back to Sam.

“Okay.” Sam bowed his head a moment. He had to think straight, he couldn’t let his fear get in the way. “Walter, get the information on where those cattle are being delivered. Call the people and let them know what’s going on. The trailer should be almost to Abilene by now. Then notify the Highway Patrol and have them start looking for it. Mom, check with the neighbors to see if anyone has seen the girls. This may turn out to be a wild goose chase. If it is, we’ll need to organize a search party and have them spread out from the ranch on foot.” He started toward his truck.

“Where are you going, Sam?” his mother called after him.

“I think Cheryl is right. I think they hitched a ride to Wichita on that trailer. I’m going to try and catch up with them. Walter, raise me on the radio if you hear anything.”

“Right.”

Cheryl hurried after Sam. He had started the pickup
by the time she yanked open the door. He glared at her as she climbed in. “What do you think you’re doing?”

She slammed the door closed. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You don’t have time to drag me out of here, so drive.”

“Your sister will be here soon.”

“She’ll wait.”

He hesitated an instant, then he shoved the truck into gear and tore out of the yard.

He flew down the highway well over the legal speed limit. Several times, he glanced at Cheryl. She sat silent and tight-lipped beside him, a worried frown etched on her face. Twenty minutes later, he slowed for the wide spot in the road that was the town of Delavan. Cheryl continued to stare straight ahead, but he saw her lip quiver before she bit down on it.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

His grip tightened on the wheel. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

She fixed her gaze on him. “At first, because I thought I would be gone in a day or two, and it wouldn’t matter.”

“And later?”

She looked away. “Later, I was afraid that it would matter.”

“I wish you had trusted me.”

She sighed. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Oh, by the way, did I mention my family used to steal cattle, and I spent time in jail for helping?’ That’s a little hard to work into after-dinner conversation.” She stared down at her hands. “I thought if you found out, you wouldn’t want me near the girls.”

“I thought we had more going for us than after-
dinner conversation.” He couldn’t help the bitterness that crept into his voice.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. The truth is—I was trying to protect myself. Running away, hiding from my past had become an ingrained habit. You can’t imagine what it was like, being mocked and worse because my name was Thatcher. I wanted to bury who I was and never dig her up. You helped me see that I had to face my past. You showed me how people of faith live. I wanted to be a woman like that. That’s why I went to see Jake today. I was coming back to tell you everything. I never wanted to hurt you, or the children. If you can’t believe anything else, I hope you’ll believe that.”

“I do.”

She raked a hand through her hair. “I shouldn’t have let them out of my sight. I knew how upset they were.”

“This isn’t your fault.” He shook his head. “If they hadn’t hitched a ride on this trailer, they would’ve hatched some other harebrained plan.”

A small grin lifted some of the worry from her face. “They
are
imaginative.”

He tried for a lighter tone. “Do me a favor, will you? When you’re back in New York, keep an eye out for them. There’s no telling how soon they’ll think of a way to visit you.”

“Maybe their father could bring them,” she suggested softly.

He glanced at her. “Yes, maybe he could.”

Hope began to unfurl in Cheryl’s heart. Sam had been hurt by the way she had deceived him, but perhaps he could forgive her, in time.

She stared straight ahead. The highway ran west in a long silver ribbon between vast stretches of prairie. In
most places, the hills were little more than acres of charred ground where the spring fires had swept across them. Boulders and stones protruded from the burnt ashes like white bones, but here and there, new green life was beginning to show as the resilient grass sprouted again.

The bright sunlight dimmed, and she realized towering thunderheads had blocked out the afternoon sun. The radio crackled as Walter’s voice came on. “Sam, do you read me? Over.”

Sam picked up the mike and answered him. “Go ahead, Walter.”

“The trailer arrived in Abilene twenty minutes ago. The twins had been in it, but they must have gotten out somewhere along the route. All they found was one of their hats in the feed compartment.”

“Did the driver say where he stopped?”

“We figure he made about eight stops, mostly at intersections. Three of those would be in towns along the route, three would be rural intersections. He says he stopped once for a train on Highway Fifteen and once at a narrow bridge to let a combine go through. He thinks that was on this side of Herington, but he can’t be sure.

“Eight stops in sixty miles. That doesn’t narrow the search much.”

“The Highway Patrol and the county sheriff are questioning him now. They’ll start working their way back from Abilene to here.”

“Okay. We’re just west of Delavan, Walter. Keep us posted.” Sam turned on the wipers as big drops splattered the windshield.

“We’ll find them, Sam. I know we will. I have faith.”
Cheryl didn’t know if she was trying to reassure Sam or herself.

Like a hamster on an exercise wheel, her mind ran over and over all the dire possibilities. They could have been picked up by anyone—a kindly farmer or a dangerous stranger. They could be scared and hiding so that even the right people couldn’t find them. She tried to ignore the possibility that they might have tried to jump out of the moving trailer and be lying injured in a ditch somewhere along this road. Her eyes searched through the rain-streaked glass for any sign of them as Sam drove westward.

The storm brought an early gloom to the late afternoon. Sam turned on the headlights. The road curved then dipped down to cross a narrow creek. Their headlights swung past an old abandoned church falling into ruins in a grove of trees at the road’s edge. A yellow cat sat licking its paw on the sagging railing of a little portico. The passing headlights reflected briefly in its eyes.

Cheryl twisted around in her seat. “Sam, did you see that?”

S
am braked the truck sharply. “What did you see?”

“Bonkers is back there on the church steps.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes—no! I don’t know. It was a big, yellow cat. Please, we have to go check.”

He turned the truck on the narrow highway and drove back, but the headlights revealed only an empty porch.

“I know it was Bonkers.” Cheryl opened the door, and shouted for the twins.

“Cheryl, get in. You’re getting soaked. We aren’t near any of the places the driver said he stopped. There must be a hundred yellow cats between here and Abilene.”

“I tell you, Sam, it was Bonkers.” Determined to prove she wasn’t mistaken, Cheryl crossed the overgrown churchyard and started up the dilapidated steps.

She tried the front door. It opened a few inches, but stuck fast on the warped wooden floor. From inside, she heard a faint meow. “Lindy? Kayla? Are you in there?”

“Cheryl, is—”

“—that you?”

Relief poured through her at the sound of their voices.
Thank You, dear Lord.
“Sam, they’re in here.”

He was beside her in an instant. “Are you girls all right?” he called.

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Can you come and get us?”

“They’re all right.” Relief made Cheryl lightheaded.

Sam grabbed the wedged door and pulled, but stopped when a loud groaning sound issued from the building overhead. “I can’t get in, girls. Can you get out?”

“No, the floor fell down.”

“All by itself.”

“We didn’t do it.”

Sam stepped back and began to look for another way in. Moving around to the side of the building, he saw that the center section of the roof had fallen in and bare rafters jutted out like broken ribs. The steeple and the ends of the building leaned precariously inward. He listened to the old boards creaking and groaning in the rising wind.

A streak of lightning flashed and thunder rolled in an ominous cadence across the prairie as the grove of trees around them bent low in a gust of wind. He glanced in fear at the slanting steeple of the old church. He had to get the girls out.

On the north side of the building, he found a large section of the wall had fallen in, and he made his way toward the gaping hole. The ground around the church lay littered with piles of old junk.

He stopped at the hole and peered in through the fallen wall. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Years ago, someone had pulled up the floorboards and left only the floor joists in place. They
stretched like an empty tic-tac-toe game above a deep cellar. A small section of the roof had caved in and caught on them. The twins sat huddled on a few fallen boards almost directly across the building from him.

Between him and the girls stood thirty feet of empty space. Below them lay a hazard filled pit.

People had been using the cellar of the abandoned church as a junk heap for decades. Scrap lumber, hundreds of broken bottles, rusted tin cans, rolls of barbed wire, broken bits of farm machinery and assorted debris covered the deep cellar floor.

“Daddy, come get us,” Lindy called as she sat with her arms around Kayla. Bonkers lay beside them.

“Okay, honey, I will. Just stay still.” Sam searched for a way to reach them. “How did you get out there?”

“We followed Bonkers in, but the floor fell down, and we couldn’t get back. I told Kayla we could walk out like Bonkers did on those boards, but she’s scared. She thinks she’ll fall.”

He blanched at the thought of the girls trying to walk across the old beams above the wreckage-filled pit. The gusty wind would make the trip dangerous even for the cat. There had to be a better way.

“Stay there, girls, don’t move,” he called. “I’ll come and get you.”

But how? Desperately, he studied the wreck of a building looking for a way to reach his children. The rain fell in earnest now. Dropping to one knee beside him, Cheryl began to undo the splint on her ankle.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m going to walk over there and carry them out, but I can’t do it with this splint on,” she answered, working the straps loose.

Sam dropped beside her and grasped her wrist, stopping her. “Are you crazy? Did you look down there? Even if that old wood is strong enough to hold you, you can’t do it on a broken foot. If you fall into that junk heap, you’d be lucky to walk again, let alone dance.” The driving rain soaked both of them as they stared at each other.

“Have you got a better idea?” she asked. “You’re the architect. Will that roof hold if the wind gets worse?”

He looked at the old bell tower leaning inward over the sagging roof and shook his head. “I can’t see what’s keeping it up now. It looks like it would come down if a pigeon landed on it.”

“I can do this, Sam.”

He studied her face for a long moment. He didn’t see fear or hesitation, only determination in the bright blue eyes that stared back at him. She was willing to do this for his children. She was willing to risk her career, maybe even her life. Another strong gust of wind drove the rain into his face, and he wiped it away with his hand. Lightning flashed close by, followed by the sharp crack of thunder. The old building gave a creaking moan as it shifted.

“How can I let you do this?” he muttered.

“Hey, cowboy, the question is, how are you going to stop me?”

He gazed at her and knew she was telling the truth. She loved his daughters enough to risk everything for them.

Thunder rumbled again in the leaden sky, and Sam rose to his feet. “I’ve got a rope. Maybe I can rig a safety line for you.” He turned and ran for the truck.

“Hurry, Sam,” Cheryl called after him. She unbuckled the last strap and pulled her foot out. Sharp needles
of pain stabbed through her instep as she stood. Gritting her teeth, she began to walk back and forth testing her strength and balance. Another groan from the old timbers of the building caused her to look up in fear. She heard the twins calling, and she stepped up to the gaping hole in the wall.

“Are you coming, Cheryl?” Kayla called.

“You bet I am, sweetheart. I’ll come right over.”

“Hurry, please. I’m cold.” Lindy called.

“It won’t be long now,” Cheryl promised.

Sam returned with a coiled rope. “If I can get this over one of those rafters, I’ll be able to hold you up if you fall.” He gave a pointed look at her bare feet. “How’s the foot?”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure?” He made a toss with the rope and missed.

“I’m sure.”

The next toss of the rope went over the exposed rafter. He caught the dangling end and jerked on it. The beam held.

He turned to her and held out a loop. “Put this around your waist.” She did, and he tightened it, then gathered up the slack. “Ready?”

She nodded and carefully tested the beam in front of her. “I think it will hold, but I’m going to need some way to secure them to me so I can have my hands free for balance.”

Sam pulled a small pocketknife from his jeans, cut a length of rope from his end, and handed it to her. She knotted it and slipped it over her head and one shoulder, then she stepped out onto the beam with her arms raised from her sides and concentrated on finding her center of balance.

The beam under her bare feet was only about three inches wide. “Now I remember why I didn’t become a gymnast,” she muttered under her breath as she took several steps. Her ankle felt weak and wobbly, but it would hold. It had to.
Lord, please help me do this.

She looked at the small faces huddled together across the church, and she began to walk toward them with a smile set firmly on her face.

Gusts of wind pushed at her back like a giant hand and whipped her hair across her eyes to blind her. The old beam beneath her bare feet was rough with splinters. In places, it was wet and slippery from the rain that poured in through the hole in the roof. Each flash of lightning illuminated the danger that lay below her.

The sharp tines of a rusting, rain-slicked harrow gleamed dully in one flash, the grimy panes of a shattered window reflected her above it in the next one. She took each step with careful determination until she reached the jumble of boards where the twins sat.

“Stay still until I tell you to move. I can only take one of you at a time, so who wants to go first?” She turned around and lowered herself to straddle the beam at the edge of the fallen piece of roof.

“Lindy can go,” Kayla offered. She scooted back and made more room for her sister. Bonkers climbed into Kayla’s lap, and she clutched him tightly.

“Okay, good. Lindy, I want you to put your arms and legs around me and hold on tight. I’m going to tie this rope around us to help hold you on.”

“I can’t. I’m scared.”

“I know you are, but I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Your daddy can hold us up if we fall.”

Lindy shook her head and whispered, “I can’t.”

“Okay, this is what I want you to do. I want you to close your eyes and start saying your prayers. Can you do that?”

“Like at nighttime?”

“That’s right. Just like at nighttime. But first, put your arms around my neck.”

“Okay. Now I lay me down to sleep…but Cheryl, I’m not sleeping.”

Cheryl tied the rope around them both. “Don’t those words make you feel safe? They sure make me feel safe.”

“They do?”

“Yes, they do. Now, I’ve got a job for you. I want you to keep your eyes closed tight and keep saying your prayers. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

Lindy did as she was told, and Cheryl stood carefully. She looked back at Kayla’s pale face. “I’ll be right back for you.”

“Promise you won’t leave me?”

Cheryl felt a lump rise in her throat. “I’m not going to leave you, baby. I’ll be right back. I promise.”

It was difficult to keep her balance with Lindy’s added weight, and Cheryl’s foot hurt with every step. She glanced once at Sam’s worried face.

“You’re doing fine,” he coaxed. “Only few more steps.”

Kayla’s steady litany of people and animals she wanted God to bless droned in Cheryl’s ear. It took three more steps before Cheryl grasped Sam’s strong hand, and he pulled her to solid ground. Quickly, he untied the small rope and shifted Lindy to his arms. The rain poured down in torrents, and the old building shuddered in the fierce wind.

“Hurry,” he said as he set Lindy on the ground and pulled the slack out of the rope.

Cheryl stepped back onto the beam and tried to do just that. She lost her balance and wobbled wildly for an instant before she steadied herself.

Behind her, she heard Sam’s reassuring voice. “Easy, girl, easy. Are you okay?”

“Just peachy,” she said through clenched teeth as she waited for her bounding pulse to settle.

“You can do it, I know you can.”

“I’m fine.” She took a deep breath and began to walk toward Kayla and Bonkers. When she reached the edge of the boards again, she smiled at Kayla. “I told you I’d be back. You and I are going to do the same thing, okay?” She sat down. “Climb on.”

A sharp report sounded above their heads, followed by a grating groan that shook the boards they sat on. Cheryl glanced up, then quickly twisted around to cover Kayla’s small body with her own as a shower of wooden shingles rained down from a new hole in the roof. A long piece of a splintered rafter fell, stabbing through the flimsy wood inches away from her head.

“Are you okay?” Sam’s frantic voice filled the sudden silence.

“We’re okay.” Cheryl sat up with Kayla clutched tightly in her arms.

“Well, get out of there! This whole place is about to come down,” he yelled.

“I’m not dawdling in here because I want to!” she shouted back. Another loud crack rent the air. The rafter holding her safety rope snapped in two and fell into the cellar.

Cheryl stared at the useless rope. Kayla tugged at her arms. “I’m cold. Can we go now?”

Cheryl looked down at the face of the child she loved with all her heart. “Yes, honey. Let’s go home, shall we?” She threw off the useless safety line and stood.

“Come on, girls. I know you can do it.”

Cheryl heard the controlled fear in Sam’s voice. She shifted Kayla to her back and tightened the small rope around them. Bonkers dashed out onto the beam in front of them. He trotted a little way out, then turned around to see if they were following. He ran the rest of the way, jumped out, and stood with flattened ears in the rain.

“Show off,” Cheryl muttered as she started walking.

Another sharp crack split the air. The beam under Cheryl’s feet quivered wildly and shifted, and she gave a cry of alarm. A piece of falling shingle hit her head, and she struggled to maintain her balance as the beam under her dropped several inches.

Righting herself, Cheryl looked at Sam, and her heart skipped a beat before it began to thud in fear. He lay face down, holding on to the splintered end of beam she stood on. The veins in his neck stood out as he held their combined weight and the heavy beam. She began to walk quickly, praying he could hold them up.
Lord, lend him Your strength.

Suddenly, a series of powerful reports rent the air. An ominous moaning started low, then grew louder and louder.

“Jump!” Sam yelled.

Cheryl leaped toward the opening as the beam gave way behind her. She knew she wasn’t going to make it. She landed half in and half out of the opening. She felt
Kayla’s weight pulling her backward as she clawed for a handhold in the wet grass.

In an instant, Sam’s strong hands clamped on to her arms, and he pulled her up beside him. They scrambled to their feet and ran as the roof caved in and the ends of church toppled inward with a deafening crash.

As suddenly as it started, the sounds died away. Cheryl clung to Sam as they stood looking at a pile of wreckage where the old church had stood. With trembling hands, she began to untie the rope at her waist. Sam lifted Kayla from her back and gave the child a quick hug. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes, Daddy.”

He kissed her cheek, then set her on the ground.

“I want to go home,” Lindy said.

“That’s a very good idea,” Cheryl agreed.

Sam grasped her arm. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”