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  He washed the smoke and day’s grime from his body, donned faded pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, and went back to the living room where she waited on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and one of green tea in the other.

  “So tell me, you going to get that oil to come up out of the ground in the allotted time? Are you really going to Alaska?”

  He reached out and took one of the cups and sipped the chocolate. “I hope so on both counts. You ever been up there?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve seen pictures on the Internet.”

  “It’s not the same as seeing the place. You live a lifetime in Texas and see maybe two or three bald eagles. In Alaska you’d see that many in a week. Lighting on telephone poles and looking like the king of the clouds. And the peace is unreal.” He sat down in the rocking chair.

  “To me this place is peace,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “A noisy honky tonk?”

  “That’s right. Peace is the condition of the heart, not the place the body abides.” She didn’t say that lately her heart hadn’t known a moment’s peace or that most nights she fell asleep wondering what it would be like to awaken all curled up in his arms.

  “Want to watch a movie tonight?” he asked.

  “No, I’m wiped completely out. I’ve got to get up in the morning and balance the cash register and then drop a deposit at the bank so I’m ready for bed.”

  “On Sunday?”

  “I usually make my biggest deposit on Sunday. There’s a night drop at the bank so it’s no big deal. But it takes me a while to get it ready and on Sunday I don’t have to rush. What’s your day looking like tomorrow?”

  “We’re on schedule but I’m going to put in some hours out at the rig. Want to go out tomorrow evening for dinner and maybe a movie. A real date?”

  “How much of your money is in the pot?” she teased.

  “Enough to buy dinner and a movie. But I’ll give it all to Luther if you’ll go with me,” he said.

  She nodded on her way to her bedroom. “I’d love to. Good night, Travis.”

  He carried both cups to the sink, rinsed them, and put them into the dishwasher. He thought he heard a vehicle moving slowly through the parking lot but he was already half asleep and didn’t leave his warm spot to check it out.

  * * *

  The next morning Cathy found the sofa put to rights and the covers folded in the rocking chair. She called Daisy while she ate a Pop Tart and coffee breakfast but only got her answering machine. She left a message telling her that she’d call later in the week and went into the Honky Tonk, took all the money from the cash register, pulled the tape, and set down to balance them.

  Lately she’d been bringing in twice what she did in the first days when she took over the joint. If the fad built into a steady thing she’d have to consider hiring full-time help. Her zippered bank bag was full of cash and credit card receipts when she finally got the money and register tape to agree.

  She still wore her flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt but she didn’t need to be dressed up to drop a bag of money through a slot. She thought about putting on a hooded sweatshirt or a jacket but the truck would warm up quickly and then she’d be too hot so she tugged on her cowboy boots, stuffed her cell phone into her pocket, and headed out to the garage. From the edge of her vision she caught sight of a van going down the road too slow.

  “Tinker, you’ve got me seeing demons on every corner.” She sighed. She kept a watch in the rearview mirror as she drove to Stephenville but only saw a pickup truck with an elderly couple talking with their hands and one of those new station wagon vehicles with several children in the backseat.

  She made her deposit, stopped by the Sonic for a cherry limeade, and headed home. When she reached the turn-off to go to Garrett’s ranch, she slowed down and seriously considered going for a visit. Then she remembered what she was wearing and changed her mind.

  She rolled up the garage doors with the remote and backed the truck inside. When she stepped out two men rushed inside. She scarcely had time to blink before one had her around the neck and the other was pointing a pistol at her head. She kicked the gun from out of the red-haired man’s hand and elbowed the one trying to strangle her. Gun man made a dive for her feet and she planted a boot in his shoulder, sending him sprawling against the pickup.

  “Get the hell off my property,” she shouted.

  Neck man jumped on her back and she leaned forward and then threw herself backwards against the Cadillac parked next to the truck. She heard a whoosh as the air left his lungs and he slumped to the ground. The banty rooster in front of her went for the gun and pointed it at her again. She plowed into him like a bulldozer over an ant hill, cussing and ranting like a mad woman. The gun went off in the melee and ricocheted around in the garage, hitting an empty metal gas can and rattling around inside until it came to a stop.

  The red-haired man was on the ground, with her knee in his chest and her fingers around his neck. She enjoyed the beautiful sight of his face turning blue when something stung her neck. She could endure a bee sting if she could watch the man turn one more… shade… of…

  Suddenly the man’s face was entirely too close. Why would he try to kiss her when she was strangling him? Her hands went slack and she couldn’t convince them to press any harder. The garage walls danced toward her and everything went black.

  * * *

  Cathy’s eyelids felt like they were made of those heavy rubber bands. She’d open them and then they’d spring back shut. She forced them open and listened to her captors. Why weren’t they dead? Why were they still talking? She’d choked one and smashed the other.

  “So you think we’ll be there by nightfall? I hate that place after dark with all those weird sounds and the rats. God, I hate rats,” one said.

  “Stop your bellyachin’ and look back there and make sure she’s still sleeping,” the other answered.

  “Stop worryin’. She’s out for twenty-four hours. Ain’t no way she’ll wake up after that shot. Damn she’s a big woman, ain’t she? We shoulda brought one of them stretcher things. It woulda made the job easier.”

  Cathy blinked several times. Her nose itched but when she tried to scratch it she couldn’t move her hands. They were both asleep and she was lying on them. She never slept with her knees drawn up but they were all cramped up under her and she couldn’t straighten them. She inhaled deeply and tried to stretch but neither her legs nor arms would move. The strong smell of hamburgers, onions, beer, and smoke filled the room. In the dizzy darkness she wondered what those aromas were doing in her bedroom.

  “Don’t know why in the hell he wants someone that damn big. Ask me, a little woman is a lot easier to control. Slap her once and she knows who’s boss. That big old horse of a woman ever hits him back and he’ll be on the floor whinin’ like a pissy little girl.”

  She was in the middle of a hellacious nightmare and couldn’t wake up or move. Where was Travis? Had he awakened early and left the television playing when he left for work? Was she meshing whatever dialogue the actors were saying into her dream? She tried to swallow but her mouth was so dry it felt as if it had been packed with sand. She looked around the blurry room. Only it wasn’t a room. She was in Travis’s trailer house and it was rocking worse than it had during the tornado. Had they made love and she’d slept through it? Then someone started talking again.

  “She made him mad when she lied about being married to that redneck rancher. He said he’d get even. And then his uncle said that if he didn’t settle down with a woman like her he was going to be out of a job. I guess some women at the oil company filed a sex harass thing against him. His uncle got him out of it but said he had to get a wife and be ’spectable. It’s probably the truth about him comin’ on to the women. That boy never could keep his zipper up even when we was all kids. If it was a girl it was fair game. He reckons that by the time she spends a few days in that fishin’ shack she’ll be softened up and ready for hi
m to rescue her. She’ll be so damned grateful to be out of there that by fall she’ll be engaged to him again. Then the old man will be happy because he always did like her more than he liked Brad anyway. At least that’s what he told me. Did she kill off all your brain cells when she put that choke hold on you? I done told you this once.”

  “You reckon he’ll settle down?”

  “Brad? Hell no! But she won’t know it. He’s a sneaky bastard.”

  She forced herself to focus on the wall. Her eyes adjusted and she realized her knees were bent and short chains went from cuffs on her ankles to those on her wrists. Her first reaction was to scream and fight. She arched her back and had her mouth open with a string of cuss words that would fry the slime off a frog’s ass then clamped it shut.

  “You sure you gave her enough to knock her out for a whole day? I damn sure wouldn’t want her to know who we are.”

  She relaxed. She was in the back of a van. Two men were talking in the front seat. The passenger was eating a hamburger and onion rings. The driver had a beer in his hand and took a swig every few minutes. But why was she there and what did they want?

  “Stop askin’ me that question, you moron. I’m smart enough to know how much juice to give a horse to drop them in their track. I gave her enough to keep her quiet for the whole trip. Hell, she ain’t goin’ to wake up until sometime tomorrow. She’ll wonder how in the hell she got from Mingus to Jefferson, Texas. Not that she’ll know where she is. He wants her to think she’s in hell for a week before he sweeps in there and rescues her.”

  “She won’t just think it. She will be in hell in that place. When he comes to rescue her, she’ll be so glad to see him she’ll marry him on the spot.”

  “That’s what he’s hopin’ for. His uncle said the next time he messes up he’s out of the business and he’s sure got used to that big money. Remember when we was kids and he always said he was going to have an office with lots of pretty girls all around him?”

  “Did his uncle really say that he only had six months to settle down?”

  “If he didn’t would we be drivin’ a horse of a woman to an old fishin’ shack?”

  Her eyelids drooped but she forced them open. Maybe they would keep talking and she could figure out what in the hell was going on.

  “Hell would be heaven when she wakes up and finds herself in that old fishin’ shack on the bayou. Put that Larry the Cable Guy CD in the player. I could use a good laugh. This is a boring damn ride. If I’d a known how far it was over to that gawdforsaken hellhole I wouldn’t have gone over there.”

  Cathy tried to get comfortable as Larry the Cable Guy had the two men guffawing with his country comedy. Her legs cramped, yet if she tried to straighten them the metal cuffs cut into her wrists. She held her eyes open until they were so dry they hurt as bad as her legs. Finally she couldn’t do it anymore and her eyelids snapped shut. As darkness closed in around her she repeated what they had said over and over. Jefferson. Bayou. Fishing shack. Only four words but she had to remember them.

  Chapter 13

  Cathy named the one in the driver’s seat Beer and the passenger Hamburger because that’s what she could smell. She had no idea how long she’d lain in that position but every bone in her body ached like she had a severe case of the flu. Nothing was real. She was only lucid a few minutes at a time before the effects of whatever they’d shot her with put her back into la-la land.

  They’d gotten into a discussion about Brad Alton during one of her clear moments and whether he’d pay them or not. Beer said if he didn’t pay them he was going to set the woman free and tell her where to find him. Hamburger said if he didn’t pay up, they’d best keep their mouths shut because Brad could be a mean sumbitch. She wondered how much he offered them to tie her up like a calf at a roping arena but drifted back to sleep before they admitted anything.

  “Put that pillowcase over her head. If she wakes up we don’t want her to see our faces,” Beer said.

  “Damn it, Duroc, I told you I give her enough to knock out a horse,” Hamburger snapped.

  “Do it anyway or else give her some more juice. I ain’t takin’ no chances. Sheriff in Jefferson gets his paws on me again he’ll send me to prison, Oscar.”

  She didn’t know if they’d been driving thirty minutes or thirty years. She might look in the mirror later that day and see an old woman looking back at her. Whatever was in that bee sting of a shot sure put her in an episode of Twilight Zone where time had no meaning. In the past fifteen minutes she’d managed to stay awake enough to realize they were going through a town and hitting every red light. After that Hamburger said something about crossing a bridge and being glad it wasn’t frozen over yet.

  She drew her eyebrows down as she tried to remember the night before. Or was it a month ago? Travis had kissed her and she went to bed. She awoke that morning and went to the bank. When she returned two men rushed inside the garage and attacked her. She was killing one of them with her bare hands when a bee stung her.

  You sorry bastards. You shot me with a tranquilizer. That’s why the garage started spinning and I lost my grip. I’ll tear you apart limb by limb if you ever take these cuffs off me.

  She wanted to bite and scream when they opened the double doors at the back of the van but she made herself pretend to be asleep. Cold drizzling rain blew in on her bare feet and hands but she played dead. Which wasn’t easy when it was so cold and she had to keep the shivers at bay. Hamburger grabbed the chain and pulled her to the edge of the van floor like she was a dead deer he’d shot. She was angry enough to spit but there was no way she could run or walk if she did get free—not until she got feeling back in her hands and feet.

  “Keep them chains on her. We can get her to the boat. It ain’t but ten feet from here,” Beer said.

  Hamburger slipped his hands under her arms and lifted. “God, she’s heavy. I’m glad the dock is right up to the water.”

  “Don’t seem too heavy to me,” Beer said.

  “Well, by damn, next time you get this end.”

  They eased her down in the boat. She waited for the engine to start but it didn’t. When the boat began to move she fluttered her eyes enough to see that they were rowing. If she didn’t have chains putting her in a reverse fetal position she would have beat them both with the oars until they were blue and tossed them into the cold water for the alligators to feast upon. Or crocodiles or water moccasins or any other varmint that could survive cold water and had a good healthy appetite. She opened her eyes and tried to memorize details to give the sheriff but all she saw was their backs. They were both medium height and thin built but they wore gray hooded coats and heavy boots. There was no way her description could ever help catch the sorry bastards. She did remember the one she was choking was red haired and neither of them were nearly as tall as her so that would put them below six feet. Their names were Oscar and Duroc. Evidently Duroc was the red-haired little piglet and Oscar the chubby one with bad breath that smelled like chewing tobacco and beer.

  “I’m glad it ain’t but a mile down here. My arms is already sore from haulin’ that big ox of a woman around all night,” Hamburger said.

  “I hear you, Oscar.”

  “Stop using my name. She might hear it even in her sleep. You moron, Duroc.”

  “Well, you just called me by name, and besides, I’m not ig’nert. I filled up that needle good. She ain’t going to hear shit the way she’s sleepin’.”

  Finally, they docked on the other side of the water and wrapped a rope around a rotting tree stump.

  “It’s your turn to get her arms,” Hamburger said.

  “It’d make it easier to get her in the cabin if we was to loosen them chains. Ain’t no way we’re goin’ to carry her up them stairs with her all bent backwards. Keep the cuffs on her feet and arms. If she was to wake up then she couldn’t get far before we’d catch her and give her some more of that stuff,” Beer said.

  Was Oscar or Duroc the one she’d named Beer
? Which one was Hamburger? She wanted to open her eyes but she didn’t dare take a chance of another dose of medicine, so she went completely limp.

  Hamburger fiddled with the chains. “You get her up under her arms and I’ll get her feet. It ain’t but a hundred yards back to Brad’s grandpa’s old shack. We can do this. Pretend it’s two of them hun’erd-pound sacks of deer corn.”

  Cathy did not weigh two hundred pounds. A fit of anger stiffened her body.

  “Is she dead? Feels like rigor is settin’ in. Brad will shoot you dead if she ain’t alive in a week. Good God, did you give her too damn much of that horse tranquilizer?”

  Cathy went limp as a wet dishrag.

  “She ain’t dead. She musta been havin’ a nightmare. I don’t guarantee my shots will make them have sweet dreams, just that they’ll sleep.”

  One man slipped his hands under her arms and grunted when the other pulled her feet up out of the boat. Twice on the way to the cabin they almost let her fall. The next time Beer lost his grip on her arms she almost arched upward to keep from getting any wetter but relaxed at the last minute.

  “Shit, man, I can’t keep this up. Trade ends with me,” Beer said.

  “You ain’t nothin’ but a weaklin’. Lay her down and we’ll swap. I’ll be glad when this job is done. Next time Brad wants something done he can do it hisself.”

  She was only on the cold wet earth a minute before they picked her up again and trudged on toward the cabin, but it was long enough to chill her entire backside. She lolled her head to one side and opened one eye just enough to see what was ahead. She’d seen outhouses that looked better than that place. Surely they weren’t going to leave her stranded there for a whole week. If she got free, Duroc and Oscar were about to find themselves cuffed to the porch post of that horrid looking shack. She pictured them shivering in nothing but their tighty whities. As angry as she was she might not even leave them that much to keep them from freezing. With their IQs they didn’t need to reproduce anyway.

  They were both panting when Beer kicked the door open with his foot and heaved her onto a bed. It squeaked and bounced twice then everything was quiet. Hamburger unlocked the cuffs from her arms and Beer fiddled with the ones on her leg.