Posted by hisdinner on August 02, 2004 at 22:42:19:
So Dear
He missed bleached sky and desert heat, so we packed the car and set out for home. We took a southern route and passed through farmland in the night when lush fields exuded their heaviest perfumes. We carried her along, that sweet soft Amish girl. Amie. As we lost the farmland to sweeping stretches of barren plains and rocks, she wept. I did my best to comfort her. But it was high summer, and I was so cold.
We'd left the other ones behind, the ones I'd captured and he'd slain. Even Molly was gone, that last proud girl, the one who'd put up such a fight. I'd held myself in so tightly as one week, then two passed, as I watched him use her, twist her, tame her. He seemed to never want to claim her. He seemed reluctant to give her a place beside the rest of them. And all of them had pleased him. His eyes had shone with sated hunger every time he'd slaughtered one. And how their whimpering mouths and their tender, young bodies had pleased him before his knife came down. One by one, he'd slain them, even Molly.
But not her. Not Amie. Not this delicate angel who slept behind us in the back, who hardly filled the narrow seat, even with a fluffy quilt tucked all around her. No, not this one. He kept her still, and I still ached with dread every time I saw the way his eyes softened as he looked at her. Amie was the real reason we'd had to leave the lush green of Indiana. All the other girls, or what remained of them, were hidden safely, deep beneath that warm brown earth, feeding the corn. He couldn't bear to lose this one. And I could hardly bear to look at her.
We drove and stopped only to refuel and relieve ourselves, walking out into the musty night air in Missouri, or the dust of the Texas panhandle. We took Amie's hands and supported her wobbly steps toward the restroom. We fed her in the car and I helped her wash when we'd come across a sheltered creek near a deserted stretch of road. Her body was so beautiful, golden curls dipping to cover her breasts, her hands always covering her downy pubic hair. He'd not even had me shave her yet. So soft, I thought, as I stroked her there, letting icy water rush through her quivering legs. So dear. My mind circled around the same questions, endlessly. Why won't he kill her? Why must we keep her, when his hunger grows so fierce? I knew the answer; I'd heard him say it. Amie was so dear. I'd heard him whispering the words to her.
Just outside Gallup, New Mexico, we had a flat tire. He guided the car off the road about five miles outside of town. It was three a.m., and eighteen-wheelers rushed past, but few even slowed. He had us stand down in the ditch, just outside the area captured in the light of the big trucks as they ran past. The air was clear and hard with sparkling stars, and it was cold. I pulled the quilt from the car and covered Amie's shoulders with it, but her shivering persisted. My master had the spare out, a full size tire and was nearly ready to put it on the car. I knew he'd reject me if I offered help. "Your place is minding Amie," he'd said as he'd shooed us into the barrow pit. "Stay there." I wondered why it stung so much when I heard him speak her name.
When he was almost finished a car slowed and stopped behind ours. Its headlights glared around us, and Amie shielded her eyes. My master gestured for us to come to him. As I helped Amie climb up the loose gravel to the road, a car door squeaked open and a man spoke.
"You folks alright? Got car trouble?" He stepped into the light. He was a barrel of a man, a flannel shirt stretched tight over a hard belly. He wore dirt-creased Wranglers and a straw cowboy hat. His western boots were dusty, and his voice was thick with alcohol and good will, tinged with just a little lechery. He looked us over, tipping his hat toward us girls. My master stood, tossing a rag into the trunk. The men shook hands.
"Just had a flat. We're ok now. But thanks for stopping. Could have been a long walk to town," my master said. The stranger stood by, swaying in the stiff night breeze, nodding and smiling. He lit a cigarette. Smoked billowed toward us, and he coughed and spat.
"You from Nevada, huh. Don't get out there much. Damn one-armed bandits and hoors stolt all my money the last time. Heh." He winked and then glanced behind my master at the two of us and added, "Pardon my French, Ma'ams."
I smiled and shook my head and drew a casual arm around Amie, who'd not yet shown her face. She stood close by me, still shaking. I was cold, too. My tank top clung to my nipples too prominently, and I felt that stranger's gaze. Any minute I knew that she might shake herself out of her stuporous daze and blurt out something dangerous.
I turned to my master and spoke as quietly as I could. "Mast-- Um. Do you mind if we get back in the car? We're freezing." My face burned. I knew better but I'd almost called him master in front of this drunken brute. What was the matter with me? I tried to smile casually as I looked up.
He shook his head and said, "No, get in. We have to make it to Flagstaff still. Hey! And nice talking to you! Thanks again." He flashed a smile at the stranger and shot me a far different look. I shivered and bundled the girl into the back of the car, and then I closed the back door, and enabled the childproof lock again. I took my place in the passenger seat. Outside the car, the stranger stood, smoking and eying the two of us.
"That your daughter in the blanket there? Pretty little thing by the look of her."
My master pretended not to hear, as he walked away. He nodded, smiling as he ducked inside the car and put it into gear. "Wave at that fat bastard," he growled at me. He gritted his teeth and gripped the wheel. I could see that it took all the self-control he had, not to peel out and throw handfuls of gravel into the stranger's face.
We drove past Gallup on the Interstate. I looked out across the train tracks at the sleeping town. Gallup was shaped like a well-fed snake, its belly swollen with all the Navajos who came to town to pawn and drink. They got lost in their bottles and swallowed whole. I knew that place, and I was glad we would not be stopping there. I turned to him, but he faced the road ahead, one muscle twitching high up by his cheekbone. I didn't speak. An hour passed. Amie had curled into a tight ball in the backseat, one of her hands against her face to shield herself from light, or whatever terrified her in the night. I didn't care. I turned to him.
"Master, I--"
"No." He said.
I looked across at him, and tried again. "I didn't mean to--"
"You've gotten careless, girl. That's unacceptable."
He didn't take his eyes off the road. He wouldn't look at me. I felt my eyes sting from staring at him, afraid to blink, afraid I might miss the smallest gesture of forgiveness. None came.
At dawn we were a few miles outside Flagstaff, and pine forests rose from the mountains, forming high walls around us, giant, darker shields that reminded me of the cornfields we'd left just days ago.
"We'll sleep here," he said, pulling off the road and maneuvering the car through a campground, negotiating its narrowing lanes beyond where the pavement stopped. The car crept forward over rich dark earth strewn with the long needles of Ponderosa pines. He drove the car behind a disused ranger's cabin into a dark grove of trees and shut the engine off. The engine ticked, and the pines around us shifted and creaked. I rolled down my window and let in the warm sap-scent.
Amie shifted in the back, tossing off the quilt that covered her. She'd been awake awhile now, I thought, judging by the clear-eyed look of her. My master lowered his seatback nearly flat and turned on his side to face her. His hand caressed her face and she moved her cheek against his hand like a kitten. Oh, I hated her. I turned my back to them and used a crumpled sweater for a pillow, wedging it against the window frame. I slept as the sun rose, dreaming red dreams, dark with blood.
He'd slipped into the backseat while I slept. I'd pretended some, not wanting to let them know I'd heard them in their sweaty, tangled gropings. He hadn't drugged her for days now, and she hadn't tried to leave us once. Her stupor was understandable, though, she'd been a virgin only three weeks before. He was the only man she'd ever known. She was his chalice, completely vulnerable, unfilled until he filled her. She was pure and she was his. He would make no move to claim her as just another kill. I buried my face in the scratchy wool of my sweater pillow to hide my tears.
A thin cord cut into my neck and my body was pulled tight up against the seatback, and I tried to scream. My garbled words were muffled by the rustling forest sounds. I reached up to try to claw the cord away from my throat, even though I knew it was his will that I die here. Not like this, I screamed inside. Not now! My body arched and twisted as I fought for air. My feet pushed hard against the floor as I tried to lever myself away. Each moment my pulse pounded harder in my temples, my head felt hot and tight, so tight. Tears and spittle covered my face as I grunted and heaved my body forward, upward, side to side.
My master's grip tightened on the cord and his breath was hot against my neck. I couldn't hear him, a buzzy humming filled my ears, and my vision faltered and went red. I saw hands flapping and I saw Amie's face, her mouth an O, and I saw her screaming "No! Nooo!"
I was so surprised at her. I thought she wanted to take my place. All this rushed through my head as it pounded and as the cord cut deeper into my neck. I choked and struggled, weaker, and everything seemed to last so long. My body spasmed up and down and darkness blotted out my vision, but this time I heard her, screaming "Watch out!"
There was a WHUMP of air and a cracking sound and blood, there was blood, and I could breathe again. The cord was still around my neck, but his hands were gone and someone was yelling into my face, they were yelling and screaming. And there was blood.
I coughed and clawed away the cord and rubbed my eyes. My ears were ringing and a stench of gunpowder filled the air. I couldn't stop coughing, and my eyes were blurring on the bulky figure of a man just outside the car.
"He was killing you I had to do it, oh my sweet Jesus I didn't mean to! Oh Jesus God, she should'na, she should'na-- oh Christ!" The blurry figure gestured wildly, some dark thing in his hands, then he suddenly bent double and vomited on the ground. He stumbled backwards, wiping the stinking spittle from his mouth.
My eyes began to focus and I saw it was the stranger, the man who'd stopped behind our car, back in New Mexico. It was him. I couldn't make sense of anything. My head pounded and my throat felt torn and burnt. I couldn't think. I wanted to turn to the back of the car but I was so weak. I coughed again and tried to focus on his gibbering.
He shook his head and he stopped his backward progress for a moment, staring into my eyes. "He was trine to kill you, lady! I had to! But then she-" His voice broke and he choked and sobbed, strangling on the words.
He regarded me, crossing his arms. "Just dint smell right to me, back there. Seein' that man with the two of you young girls and both of you with those bruises. Oh yeah, I seen 'em."
He shook his head, frowning hard, then remembered the pistol in his hands and jammed it out of sight inside his jeans. He spat and doubled over, and vomited again. Fear returned to twist his face.
"Oh Christ I didn't mean to do it, shit, god, I gotta go, I gotta get out of here, I'm sorry lady, Christ!! He was tryin' to kill you!"
My skin felt clammy and a wave of nausea roiled in my stomach. I tried to take a deeper breath, but all I could manage were tiny sips. I looked down at my hands. Three nails were torn and my hands were streaked with blood. Whose? I sat there, dumbly, staring at my trembling fingers. I didn't want to turn around. The world would change too much if I did that. If I just sat here awhile, and got back my breath, I could...what?
The stranger had reached his car and slammed it into gear. His wheels skidded and spun shallow trenches into the soft dirt as he escaped the killing ground.
From just behind me, my master groaned. I flinched and turned, my vision slewing as I moved, and then I focused on him. Just him. He didn't look at me. His head was canted downward and his arms were wrapped around his angel. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood. His voice cracked and shattered as he wailed and rocked her. He held her like a child, her perfect cupid mouth still in a perfect O. Amie had been my finest gift to him, and now that stranger had taken her away from him. I reached out a hand to smooth back her hair, and he pulled her back from me, but then he relented. He let me touch her limp, warm face. His shoulders slumped and he allowed me to smooth the curls away from her face. He lowered his head and his shoulders shook. Amie wore a dark red hollow on her forehead, and she wouldn't weep again. He wept for her.
There are canyons in the mountains hidden far from the campgrounds where the tourists stop. We took her through the woods and up deer paths slippery with rain-soaked weeds to a narrow chasm. The land plunged down here, at least one hundred feet or more. Mountains loomed close together, massive hulking giants separated by a narrow abyss, scarcely letting us breathe.
I sat under a pine tree as he made love to her one last time and then left her there. The sound she made, when he dropped her into the ravine, was a rushing, secret thing, like clouds of butterflies or angel's wings.
He did not send me out to hunt again for years.