John Henry. Steel. Nine-pound hammer.
His grandparents. His grandmother had sung it while working around the house.
Truman opened his eyes and turned his head to see Ollie sitting next to him on a stool, working on a wood figure with a knife. The boy had taken off his coat, and his sweater had a rip at the collar. Truman abruptly realized he was warm, weighted down by blankets and quilts on a very uncomfortable bed. Ollie’s bedroom.
When did we get here?
“Ollie?” he croaked. His tongue was so dry it was sticky.
The teen nearly dropped his carving as he twisted to Truman. Wide brown eyes blinked at him. “Are you okay?” Ollie asked.
“I’m thirsty.”
Ollie jumped up from his stool and poured water from a small bucket into a mug. Truman tried to sit up and made the mistake of using his left arm to lever up. Explosions of light went off in his vision, and an awkward moan escaped him.
“Let me help you.”
The teen put an arm behind Truman’s back and easily lifted him to a sitting position, helping him sip the water. Truman was as weak as a baby. He drank what he could, then gestured to be laid back down as the room slowly spun. He clenched his eyes shut against the spin.
“What happened?” he muttered.
“You’ve been sick. Fever.”
“How’d I get here?”
“I helped you walk. You were out of your head.”
Visions of a nighttime trek while leaning heavily on Ollie came to the surface. He recalled falling a few times and the boy hauling him to his feet, telling him they were almost home.
“You kept talking about mercy.”
Truman’s eyelids shot open. Mercy. He tried to sit up again and couldn’t, flopping back onto the bed. “Bring me a phone,” he ordered.
“Don’t have one.” The teen sat calmly on his stool, watching him.
“Then . . . a computer . . .” That seems unlikely. “What do you have?”
Ollie shrugged. “Nothin’. If you want to call someone, we’ll have to go to the Lynch place. He has one.”
“Okay. Help me up.” He held out his right hand.
“I don’t think you’re strong enough to go anywhere. I practically carried you the last bit to the house.”
For the first time, Truman took in his surroundings. The room was tiny, lined with rough boards. The bed he was lying on was framed from similar rough boards, and his covers were a mismatched pile of quilts and blankets. In one corner was a tiny wood stove whose heat Truman could feel on his face. A kettle and a pan sat on the top.
Truman frowned.
He spotted two mismatched wood chairs and a rickety, tiny table holding a few dishes. Shep lay curled up on a blanket under the table, his gaze on Truman.
Comprehension dawned. Truman wasn’t in a small bedroom. “Ollie, is this your home?”
“Of course. I said I’d bring you here.”
“Thank you.” Truman could barely speak. “Do you live by yourself?” he slowly asked. This was the extent of the house. No windows. A rough door. But it was warm, and no rain dripped through the roof.
“Yep.” The teen’s brown eyes focused on the floor, his shoulders slightly hunched. “I know it’s not much.”
“It’s great,” said Truman. “You saw the shithole where they were keeping me. I’m warm and lying in a bed thanks to you.”
“It was nothin’.”
Lingering pains shot through his left arm, and he clumsily pulled it out from under the blanket. It was wrapped snugly in worn towels and bound with duct tape. A soft splint. His back still ached, and he could feel every lump and bump in the bed. He shifted, moving his legs, and realized he had been sleeping on several layers of blankets on a board. Not a mattress.
I’ve taken his bed. He tried again to get up and failed.
“I’ve got some soup,” Ollie said, grabbing the pan off the woodstove. He poured its contents into another mug, and Truman salivated at the smell.
Ollie helped him sit up again, and Truman looked in the mug. Chicken and stars.
Another memory of his grandparents came roaring up from the past.
He drank carefully. It was hot. And tasted like heaven.
“How long did I sleep?” he asked between sips, feeling stronger each second.
“Ummm . . .” The boy screwed up his face in thought. “You’ve been sleeping for two nights, three days.”
“What?” Truman sloshed his soup on the blankets. “You’re counting the night we slept in the woods, right?”
“No. You’ve been here for two nights.”
He couldn’t swallow. “I don’t know how many days I’ve been gone,” he said softly.
“They locked you up six days ago.”
“H-how do you know that?” Six days. Six days?
Mercy must be frantic.
“I saw them drag you in. I had to wait for a good time to get you out.” The teen spoke as if it were something he did every day.
“Ollie.” Truman remembered how the teen wouldn’t answer questions after helping him escape. “Who locked me up?”
“Those crazy guys. My grandfather always said to stay away from them.”
“Then why were you there?”
The teen gave the first grin Truman had seen from him. “Because they’re easy to raid. They leave food and supplies unlocked all the time.”
“You steal from them?”
“Gotta survive.”
“Where are your parents?”
“Dead. I lived with my grandfather most of my life. He died two summers ago.”
This poor kid.
“I’m very sorry.” Truman studied the thin teenager. “How old are you?”
“I turned eighteen last Christmas.”
I was way off in estimating his age. Malnutrition, maybe?
“Do you have other family close by?”
“No. Just Shep. We take care of one another.”
He has no one.
The dog heard his name and jumped onto the bed, nestling in between Truman’s legs. It was uncomfortable, but made Truman happy at the same time.
“Why did you call those guys crazy? Was there more than one? I only saw one person.” But two definitely attacked me.
The teen’s face closed down. “Because they killed my grandfather.”
His heart went out to Ollie, and Truman struggled to find words. “Again, I’m so sorry, but why did they kill your grandfather?” He steeled himself for the answer. What kind of people attacked me?
“Because he wouldn’t work with them anymore. He threatened to go to the police.”
“Work doing what?”
“Making the fake stuff. IDs, license plates, the booklets. He wasn’t proud of doing it, but he was really good at it and made them a lot of money.”
Joshua Forbes. Truman’s brain tried to connect the dots in Ollie’s story. “Ollie, don’t take this the wrong way . . . but was your grandfather a sovereign citizen?”
“Yep.” Pride radiated from the young man.
“And when he said he wouldn’t do as they wanted, they murdered him? These were the same guys who held me?”