‘OK! OK! Take it easy. I’m pulling over.’
From beside her Nicole’s voice was plaintive. ‘You can’t stop, Jay. They’ll kill us.’
‘They’re only trying to frighten us. They’ll just do what they have to do, then leave us alone once they’ve had their fun.’
‘Jay, for God’s sake, don’t stop! You know what kind of fun those beasts are after…’
‘What else can I do? If I don’t stop they’re definitely going to kill us, Nic.’
And that was how she’d ended up here, in this coffin-sized structure, covered over with a tin sheet which she now recalled had been wedged over her and then chained down.
Before this, there had come two horrendous days that she could hardly bear to contemplate. Except the memories kept on coming, little snippets of terror and humiliation that stacked up in her mind, threatening to topple her into an abyss of endless torture.
Forced to stop, Jay had foolishly wound up the windows and locked the doors of the SUV while Nicole continued her fruitless task of attempting to call the police. Straw Hair smashed the window nearest Jay with the butt of his pistol and jammed the barrel under her ear. ‘Get outta the goddamn car.’
Jay was dragged on to the road and thrown down on her knees. Straw Hair straddled her back, holding her between his legs as he shouted to the older cowboy.
‘Quit your hollerin’,’ the cowboy yelled back. ‘I’ve got her.’
Straw Hair gripped the back of Jay’s head and she felt the cool steel of his gun alongside her jaw. Something inside forbade her to fear her own fate: she was too busy worrying about Nicole.
In the next instant her friend was forced to the ground beside her, the cowboy pushing her belly down on the dusty road. Nicole looked across at Jay, her eyes bottomless holes of despair.
‘I’ll get us out of this…’
‘You won’t do a goddamn thing, little miss,’ Straw Hair growled. The clicking of the hammer going back on his gun was super-amplified in Jay’s senses.
There was a crack and a flash, followed by interminable blackness, and this time Jay really did think she was dead.
When she woke up that first time, it was in the back of her father’s SUV. Straw Hair was driving, following the pick-up truck along a dirt trail. Beyond the windows, huge weather-worn mesas dominated the sky, but Jay barely noticed them. Crouching over her was a third man, who reminded her of the gargoyles that decorated the rooflines of Gothic cathedrals. He was broad and squat, with greasy black hair slicked back from a bulbous forehead. His pig-like eyes were small beads of light enfolded in puffy eyelids, and his mouth was a slack gash that showed yellow teeth as he grinned down at her. She hadn’t been mistaken back at the gas station. She recalled seeing a bent shape slipping from the pick-up and approaching the family in the station wagon. Looking at him, you could be forgiven for concluding that the man was of low intelligence, but Jay didn’t think that was the case. The way in which he stared down at her, the inner turnings of his mind were painted clearly on his features, and Jay knew that of the three crazy men, this one should be feared most.
‘You’re awake? Brent must have hit you hard with his gun… you’ve been out for more than an hour.’ The man wasn’t showing any remorse, merely stating a fact.
Jay now knew that Straw Hair — or Brent — had knocked her out and didn’t have to feel the large lump on her skull for confirmation. All that she was concerned about was the whereabouts of her friend, because Nicole wasn’t in the SUV with them.
‘Where’s my friend?’
‘Hush now,’ the gargoyle said. ‘You don’t have to worry about her. She’s with Carson.’
Carson must be the name of the older cowboy. ‘What is he doing to her?’
‘Why, giving her a lift, of course. What do you expect? Now don’t you worry, he’s treating her like a princess.’ The man smiled, reminding Jay of a toad. ‘And don’t you worry about yourself, miss. A princess needs her handmaiden to be treated with the same amount of respect.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Jay croaked. ‘Where are you taking us?’
‘We have to take you back to where the princesses belong.’
Princesses? Jay looked through the gap between the front seats and could see a leg, too thin and dainty even to be Nicole’s. The man leaning over her made it difficult to see further, but for a second he jiggled to one side and Jay craned forward. In the passenger seat a small figure turned its face towards hers. A teenage girl blinked back at her in a mix of shock and dismay. The girl couldn’t speak. She’d been gagged by gaffer tape wound round her head, but she conveyed the bleakness of their situation through her horrified stare.
Now, lying bound in this sheet metal and timber coffin, Jay recalled the young girl’s look. She had been seeking help from Jay, and Jay had returned a look of her own that spoke a silent promise. The only thing was, until now, there had not been a damn thing she could do to help. Plus, the prospects of anything changing in the future were scant.
Yet she must try.
Nicole and the girl were relying on her.
Jay screamed… but that was about all she could do.
10
In hindsight, I should have gone to the police, perhaps asked them to check things out, but I’m not the most patient of types. Not when the buzz of adrenalin kicks in and I have the scent of a trail. My impulsive nature took hold of me and I drove out into the desert, taking with me a four-litre jug of water, my newly purchased gun and lock-knife and very little else that would keep me alive in the wilderness. I had brought my belongings from the hoteclass="underline" a change of clothes, as well as the paperwork I’d come armed with, but that was it. In my defence, I was only following a lead that might turn out to be nothing, and thought that within a few hours I’d be back at Scott Blackstock’s trailer reporting a dead end. I didn’t know how woefully misinformed that assumption would turn out to be.
Prompted by his buddy, Rob, Scott had told me about the run-in he’d had with the family who owned a homestead out in the desert, and how one of the Logan men had shown an unhealthy fascination with Helena, and had gone as far as pawing his wife’s hair before Scott had intervened. They’d been drinking in a bar that was frequented primarily by a local Native American contingent, but Scott and Helena were regulars and had been accepted into the community. The Logans were a different story: when they entered the dimly lit bar room, the promise of unrestrained violence in the air became palpable. The Logans made no secret of their dislike for their Navajo and Hopi neighbours, and made it plain with their unchecked insults and racial slurs. Some of the local men might have stood up to them, but they knew it was a pointless exercise, and one that would bring them further trouble. They took the Logans’ belligerence, kept their heads down and hoped they’d pick on someone else.
That was when, uninvited, they had joined Scott and Helena at their table.
‘Guys,’ Scott had tried, ‘you mind? Me and my wife are trying to have a little privacy here.’
‘We don’t mind,’ their elected spokesman said. All three Logans sat down, the spokesman, Carson, slapping a bottle of bourbon on the table top. ‘You go ahead with what you were doing and pretend we aren’t here.’
Scott and Helena shared a grimace. ‘C’mon, guys. Give us a break will ya?’
‘We ain’t sitting with any of those savages.’ Carson tipped his head at the other customers with a sneer. ‘Besides, these are the best seats in the house.’
‘They sure are.’ Brent Logan leered at Helena, admiring the swell of her breasts beneath her white blouse in open disregard of Scott.
Scott glanced at Helena and could see the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. He couldn’t allow Brent to be so brazen without appearing a coward, but he’d heard rumours about these bad asses and didn’t want the kind of trouble they could bring. ‘C’mon, guys? We’re only having a quiet drink, winding down. There’s plenty other places to sit.’