“Stay back, all of you, stay back, or this boy here’s dead!”
The Ox Ethan knew, the Ox he worked with, a man who was so tough he could beat the stuffing out of most other men without breaking a sweat, simply stood there, no expression on his face. He knew his deputies couldn’t believe Ox had folded, that he’d stopped fighting. It looked like he was now willingly protecting Blessed, letting him press his gun into his neck. Ethan raised a warning hand. “Blessed, we’re not moving. Look around you. You’re surrounded. Let Ox go, tell him to lie down. I won’t let you take him as a hostage. You hear me, Blessed?”
Blessed laughed, eerie and low. “No, Sheriff, Ox is my little buddy now, right, Ox?”
Ox didn’t move, didn’t speak, simply stood quiet in front of Blessed.
“Right, Ox?” Slowly Ox nodded.
Blessed yelled, “I want the kid! Bitch, I know you can hear me. You’ve probably got your gun aimed right at me. You send Autumn out now or this good old boy buys it. Now!”
Ethan heard her curse, knew she had no more bullets. She kept clear of the front door, but she was close. She shouted, “You’re not taking Autumn, you monster! Go back to that mad old woman and tell her it’s over. You’re not getting Autumn!”
His deputies were staring at Joanna, whose head came around the front door, but no one moved a whisker. Ethan figured he had maybe three more rounds in his clip.
He called out, “Why does the mad old woman want Autumn?”
Blessed screamed, “She’s not mad! It ain’t none of your business, Sheriff. I’m gonna hurt you bad for that, Joanna. Now I’m gonna kill me this big guy.”
Ethan said, “Wait, Blessed! Talk to me, maybe we can work something out. Tell me why you want the little girl. Tell me why she’s so Important to you.”
He didn’t think Blessed would answer, but he did, his voice high, nearly a wail. “I gotta have her. You hear me? That’s all you gotta know.”
Joanna walked slowly out of the front door.
Ethan felt his heart drop to his boots. “Joanna, get back inside!”
“No, Sheriff,” she said, her voice as calm as the night. “He can take me if he’ll let Ox go. You just have to take care of Autumn, give her her last two pills.”
“Joanna—”
She waved him away. “Will you let him go, Blessed, and take me?”
“You thieving, conniving bitch! What would I want you for?” Blessed yelled. “We should have put your lights out as soon as Ma realized—” Blessed jerked the gun away from Ox’s neck and fired at her as she jumped back into the house.
9
BLESSED FIRED AGAIN into the open front door, and the bullet chipped off a huge hunk of the door frame. He yelled and stepped back toward the woods, pulling Ox back with him, firing at them with each step. Then his gun clicked empty, and he turned and ran. Ethan’s deputies fired after him. He doubted any of their bullets hit him this time unless through blind luck. It was simply too dark, and he’d been running like a berserker, in and out of the shadows and the trees.
Ethan knew Blessed had to be running scared. He’d not only failed, he was wounded. Ethan split up his eight deputies into pairs. To the three pairs who were going after Blessed in the woods, he said, “Listen to me carefully—this is not bullshit. Do not look at this guy in the face, you hear me? He’ll hypnotize you, and you’ll start acting like Ox. Yeah, that’s what he did to Ox, believe me. Do not look at his face!” He sent his other two deputies to their cars, watched them roar out of his driveway to cover the road. They’d try to keep Blessed pinned inside the woods until the others found him. If they didn’t, Blessed would disappear into the Titus Hitch Wilderness, at least that’s what Ethan would do. He had no clue whether Blessed was experienced in a wilderness. Maybe Joanna would know.
Ethan wasn’t surprised when Faydeen roared up in her old Chevy Silverado. Between them, they got Ox into her truck and on his way to Dr. Spitz’s house.
Ethan stayed at the house, afraid to leave for fear Blessed would come back yet again. He spoke to his deputies on his cell phone, instructing them to push into the woods if they couldn’t find an escape vehicle. Push in and take care—who knew if Blessed had a third gun? At this point, nothing would surprise Ethan. He heard Joanna speaking quietly to Autumn just inside the front door.
Ethan’s deputies hunted Blessed Backman for two hours. They found no car, no truck, no motorcycle. He’d either vanished in a puff of smoke or gone so deep into the wilderness it would take a week to find him. Ethan called the ranger station, told them the situation, had Joanna give them Blessed’s description—mid-fifties, maybe five-foot-ten, thin, not more than one hundred fifty pounds, long, thinning gray-brown hair, brown eyes. With a look at Ethan, she’d told them his last name was Backman. Blessed Backman? They were related to this maniac? Ethan had never liked alliteration, and at this moment, he hated it. No, Joanna had no idea if he Had a car, a criminal record, or any scars.
Ethan called law enforcement in the half-dozen towns surrounding Titus Hitch Wilderness. He had them check their criminal databases, but there was nothing on Blessed Backman. He couldn’t think of anything else to do, except find out whatever he could from Joanna.
He called his deputies back in. None of them, they told him, had seen a thing. Because of what had happened to Ox, Ethan spoke to each of them in turn. They all seemed okay, thank God.
When Ethan walked into his living room at nearly two o’clock in the morning, it was to see Joanna stretched out on his sofa, spooning Autumn, both of them deeply asleep. Even though it was empty, Joanna still held Ox’s gun, a Colt that had belonged to his grandma, an old lady known hereabouts for extinguishing a cigarette at ten feet with a shot.
Ethan stepped outside to give instructions to his two deputies, Glenda and Harm, stationed in his driveway for the rest of the night. “Listen carefully. I know you realize there’s something hinky about this guy, and there is. Remember what I said—if he comes around, you don’t look at him, okay? You saw what he did to Ox. Keep your eye’s down if you see him, and keep shooting.”
“Sounds like this guy’s some major-league voodoo artist,” Glenda and, and looked him square in the eye.
“I think we can start with that. I think he’s also a lot more—he’s out of control.”
Glenda ran her tongue over her lips. She was scared, and that was good.
He had no idea what Blessed would do next. “Keep alert,” he told them at least twice.
When he called Dr. Spitz, he told Ethan it appeared that Ox was going to be all right. His headache had lessened in the past hour. Dr. Spitz said he’d never seen the like, but this deal about hypnotism, he couldn’t swallow that. Maybe it was drugs or some sort of psychotic episode. Even with all Ethan’s assurances that it appeared to be some sort of powerful hypnotism, Dr. Spitz remained skeptical.
All Ethan was sure of was that Ox would have shot Joanna Back-man without a moment’s pause.
Who was Blessed Backman? Who was the mad old woman?
He stepped back inside and stared down at Joanna, a woman he hadn’t known existed four days before, and her little girl. Autumn suddenly twitched in her sleep—probably a nightmare, and no wonder. Should he wake her? Before he took a step toward the sofa, Joanna began rubbing the little girl’s cheek, soothing her. From what he could tell, she was still asleep. It was an instinct, he supposed, and he wondered if you just did that when you had a kid.
Autumn stopped moving. She sighed deeply, pushed back against her mother’s stomach.