Lucy couldn't recall how she got in the trunk. In fact, there seemed to be several lapses in her short-term memory. She knew that she was living in New Mexico with her boyfriend, Ned Blanchet, after returning from Manhattan, where they'd helped foil a plot to kill the Pope.
No, wait, my dad got shot, she thought. Then Ned went back to Taos because the ranch needed him… And he's probably grown a little tired of "vacations" with the Karps… But I stayed until Dad was going to be okay, then I went back to New Mexico.
After that, her mind was drawing a blank. She wondered how long she'd been in the trunk. Hours, anyway.
The road apparently had a lot of curves, judging from the way she was jostled back and forth. And the sound of the tires was a monotonous whine broken only by the occasional growl of a car passing in the other direction. It all added up to the conclusion that she was being transported along a rural two-lane highway in the mountains of New Mexico.
Suddenly, the monotony of the road noise was broken by a thunderous rumbling, as if the car were passing through a storm. She was trying to identify the sound when a whistle shrieked, making her jump and bump her head on the trunk lid. A train. We're driving next to a train.
Soon thereafter the car slowed and turned left onto a gravel road, judging by the crunching sound beneath the tires. They didn't go far, however, before stopping, apparently to allow the train to pass. She could hear it thundering just in front of the car.
Remember all of this, she told herself in Euskara, it will be important later.
The train passed and the car moved forward again on the gravel road, but again, only for a few more feet before it stopped. Someone got out of the car and she could hear voices. Then someone got back in, a gate creaked open, and the car drove forward again.
After what she assumed to be a mile or so-given the time and her approximation of speed-the car swerved to the right and continued on for another mile or so. When it stopped, all four doors opened and she heard footsteps approaching the rear of the car.
Need to escape, she thought. Get to a telephone and tell the cops to drive several hours along a two-lane rural highway that at some point runs parallel to a train track. Then turn on the gravel road…
Lucy stopped, overcome by the realization that it was all useless. What she'd just described could have been anywhere, a thousand country highways, a million gravel roads. And her captors weren't about to just let her go.
She could hear men outside laughing and talking; their speech was slurred, as if they'd been drinking. Suddenly, the trunk opened, revealing that it was not nighttime as she had supposed. Instead, an intense afternoon sun blinded her, making it difficult to see the faces of the two men who leaned over and reached for her. Her eyes struggled to adjust, but everything seemed too bright, out of focus, and surreal. I must have a concussion, she thought.
All she knew for sure was that her tormentors were bald, which was odd, as they were obviously young. There's a reason, she thought, but it wouldn't quite come to her. The only other details that stood out were their cruel, smirking eyes and the smell of alcohol on their breath.
Lucy lashed out at the taller of the two men as he pulled her from the trunk, scratching at his face and kicking. Her knee caught him in the groin, and he fell to the ground, which made his comrades laugh and jeer. When he got up, his eyes were red with rage, and he began striking her in the face with his fist. The odd thing was that Lucy knew she was being hit but didn't feel any pain.
The tall man dragged her to the driver's-side door and shoved her down on the seat behind the steering wheel, to which her bound hands were lashed. She glanced at the steering column and noted the Cadillac symbol. Small consolation for being right, she thought.
Looking out of the side window, she saw that her abductors were standing in a line with their backs to her. They seemed to be posing; one was raising a beer and shouted something. Oh my God, they're taking pictures, like this is some sort of show!
The pounding of her heart sounded as loud as a drum. She peered between two of the men and saw the photographer standing on the little hill. "Pikutara joan," she cursed the men. It meant "Go to hell," but they only laughed.
When they finished, the tall one she kicked in the balls walked back and leaned in the window past her and turned the keys in the ignition. The car roared to life. As he started to withdraw, he turned his face to her and tried to kiss her. But she spit on him and struck him with her forehead; her fingers wrapped around the chain that dangled from his neck and yanked hard enough to break it.
The man swore and grabbed her around her throat with his left hand while he punched with his right. He struck her again, and the fight left Lucy, who slumped in her seat, resigned to her fate. The man called her a name and reached back in and put the car's transmission into Drive.
The car crept forward but didn't have far to go. Immediately in front, the earth opened up into a six-foot-deep pit that had apparently been dug in the rust-red soil by the earthmover that sat belching black smoke off to one side. The car pitched forward and then rolled down a steep dirt ramp to the bottom, where it splashed through a shallow puddle of water before crashing into the far wall and coming to rest.
When it hit the wall, Lucy was propelled forward, striking her head on the steering wheel. Dazed, she tried to grasp what was happening. Then she realized she was in a car-sized grave; even the dirt walls around her wept groundwater as if in sympathy for her plight. Above her, the earthmover roared and a few moments later dropped the first massive shovelful of dirt and gravel on the car. She screamed in terror while the men on the edge of the pit looked down and laughed.
Lucy must have blacked out then because the next thing she knew, the pit and car were filled so that only her hands, shoulders, and head were above the gravel, dirt, and sand. The weight against her chest made it difficult to breathe. She opened her hand, the one that had torn the chain from the tall man's chest, and saw that along with the chain, she was holding a medallion made of three interlocking triangles. She turned her head to look up at the men taunting her from the edge of the pit.
"Sasikumea," she shouted, but the Basque word for bastard only provoked more hoots of derision.
She locked her eyes on the tall one to get his attention, then looked back at her hand. He stopped laughing when he saw the medallion; his hand went to his neck and he blanched, his face contorted by rage. He turned toward the earthmover as if to get it to stop, but then another scooperful of gravel crashed down through the broken windshield and flooded the interior of the car.
Entombed, Lucy tried to scream but her efforts were muffled, choked by the earth that clogged her throat, nostrils, and ears. Soon her body began to spasm from lack of air. My baby, she thought, my poor baby!
As she died, she could hear Jojola singing in Tiwa, the native language of the Pueblo Indians. "May the gods bless me, help me, and give me power and understanding," he chanted as the drum kept time with the thumping of her heart.
The singing stopped and Jojola's voice commanded, "Lucy! Lucy Karp! Listen to me. It's John Jojola. It is time to come back from the spirit world." Then he was shaking her roughly and patting her face. But she was dead and couldn't open her eyes.
"Inhale, Lucy, breathe deep and return," the voice of John Jojola continued. She smelled the fragrant sweetness of burning sage and took a deep breath despite the fear that she would inhale the rocks that filled her mouth. But when she did, the only thing that flooded her lungs was fresh air with a hint of sage.