Читать книгу Mountain Madness - Jimmy Dale Taylor - Страница 14
ОглавлениеSilence. A total absence of all sound. Had someone whispered, Jimmy felt as though he could have heard every word.
Only moments before, the noise had been maddening. There had been yelling! Screaming! Cursing! Terrie was crying. Sounds had seemed to attack his senses from every direction. And then came the most shattering explosion of all: the roar of gunfire. The little pistols had made more noise than he would have thought possible. Louder than the big guns had been when he was aboard ship off the shores of Vietnam. These were little guns that hurt bad.
Those sounds had evaporated. Now it was as though all the nocturnal animals were frozen in place and holding their collective breath. There was only silence. Stark silence. Deafening silence. Jimmy was certain that this silence was louder than all the noise had been earlier. He felt as though he was in danger of going mad and losing all sense of reasoning.
He closed his eyes but the silence increased in intensity until Jimmy feared his head would burst. And then it was interrupted by a repetitive sound that grew louder and louder, a sound that closed in and threatened to beat him to the ground. Any noise would have startled him but this one was devastating beyond all measure. Some moments passed before he recognized the sound of his heartbeat as his breathing grew shallow and rapid.
Gradually he realized that if he didn’t gain control there was the danger he might collapse. As helpless as Jay seemed to be, this he could not allow. If he quit now, he would never get down off this mountain.
He willed himself to take deep breaths. His forearm burned as though someone was pressing against it with a hot coal. There was a real danger that he might pass out. This he could not, would not, allow to happen.
Was Jay still alive? He didn’t know. All Jimmy knew for certain was that a few moments earlier he had been in a situation where he had to shoot or be shot. Kill or be killed. His life or Jay’s. All because Terrie had screamed and yelled for help.
Where was Terrie? He hadn’t a clue to what direction she had taken. Why had she run? She had no reason to fear him. What he’d done, he’d done for her as much as for himself. He couldn’t stand by and watch any woman be abused. And once he interfered, Jay would have certainly killed him if given the chance. Jimmy was convinced that the old man had intended to kill them both, no matter what.
Jay wasn’t moving. He lay face down, as still as death. Not a muscle twitched. His gun was nearby. Damn those guns! Jimmy couldn’t leave them.
Where was Terrie? He spoke her name softly. The sound of his voice shattering that stark silence frightened him. He called out again, this time somewhat louder. She did not reply. Why would she be afraid of him? There was no reason to be. He’d done what had to be done to protect her. To save her life even. Did she know Jay had threatened to kill her? To bury her on this godforsaken mountain where she would never be found?
There was no way she could know. Jimmy hadn’t wanted to say anything that would frighten her even more than she had already been frightened. Jay damned sure wouldn’t have told her. How do you find somebody at night on a strange dark mountain unless they want to be found? he thought, staring first in one direction then another.
Terrie grabbed her suitcases and turned left on Shell Peak Road, each step taking her farther and farther away from the Dead Indian Highway and the way they’d come. Moving downhill it was easier to walk. Deeper and deeper into the night forest she went.
Jimmy had to act. He couldn’t stand still forever while time passed and God alone knew who might come along. They hadn’t seen a sign of civilization but that didn’t mean they were completely alone. In spite of how solitary he’d felt only moments earlier, poachers could be roaming about. Lovers could be looking for a perfect place to park. Jay had seemed familiar with this spot. Others might be also.
Jimmy took a tentative step towards Jay, willing himself not to look at the man. He picked up the black gun, dropped it into his coat pocket and then, satisfied that he was in no imminent danger from Jay, dropped his gun in the other. He tied his handkerchief around his wounded arm and wiggled into his jacket. He rolled Jay over, hooked his hands under his shoulders, and dragged him over the rough terrain. He left Jay face up and hurried to the car.
The lights had been on a long time. This thought crossed his mind as he wondered if there was enough juice left in the battery to start the engine. He pushed the light switch and was as startled by the darkness as he had been earlier by the lack of any sound. Thankfully, Jay had left the key in the ignition. Jimmy didn’t want to spend the time it would take to hot-wire the vehicle.
The motor turned and caught. He switched the lights back on and pulled the shift lever into reverse. He managed to back up without plunging down the mountain and then headed towards Shell Peak Road. Where in the hell was Terrie?
Terrie grasped the handles of her two suitcases and groped her way down the mountain, away from Dead Indian Road, away from any possible chance of finding help that night and, although she did not know it at the time, away from a dead man she knew only as Jay.
Accompanied by a fear that was worse, much worse, than the fear of flying, Jimmy turned right on Dead Indian Road and tried to get the feel of the Oldsmobile as it climbed towards the peak. But there were too many horrible memories crowding into his mind to concentrate on driving or anything else. He was operating on instinct.
Scarcely more than twenty-four hours after leaving San Francisco with a man he hardly knew, Jimmy’s world had come crashing down. It had fallen on him like a concrete wall. Unless he found a way to turn back the clock and relive these last hours, his life would never be the same.
As he reached the mountain peak and started down, he kept telling himself it had been shoot or be shot. Kill or be killed. Even so, the nightmare remained. Would he awaken and find it had all been a bad dream? That none of this had happened?
But no, the events of the night were real. Jay was real. And Jimmy was afraid that the old man was really dead. Where was Terrie? After driving two or three miles around the twisting road, he considered going back and trying to find her. He even slowed the car looking for a turnabout, but then accelerated again. There were all sorts of side roads that turned off this one. There was no way short of a miracle he would ever be able to find the one Jay had turned on. Jimmy was beyond the point of believing in miracles. It was too late. One dead man and one frightened girl too late. He wondered if Terrie had returned to the clearing and found Jay, or if she was running down the mountain, even more terrified than he was.
Deep shadows. Tall trees on either side and only a hint of starlight in between. Terrie’s feet were suffering from blood-covered stone bruises. She sat on one suitcase and opened the other. Tears streaked her face as she pulled out a pair of brown shoes made of soft leather.
Although Terrie had no way of knowing it at the time, Jay’s stolen car was not on its way to Seattle. Nor was it on its way to San Francisco, where Jimmy had decided to go. At the moment, the Oldsmobile, of which Jay had been so proud, was not on its way to anywhere.
Having realized the hopelessness of finding Terrie, Jimmy headed down Dead Indian Road in search of 1-5. He drove too fast, skidding around curves, wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and Jay. Luck played a large part in the fact that he did not crash. He wasn’t certain the big man was dead, not one hundred percent certain. Even so, there seemed to be little doubt.
And then, before Dead Indian Road flattened out, the engine sputtered and died, as dead as he feared Jay to be. One look at the gas gauge and he knew why. That damn fool, who’d been willing to rape and kill, had been so preoccupied with Terrie that he had failed to fill the tank.
Jimmy coasted to the side of the road and stopped. He sat there for a moment, his head buried in his hands. His right arm throbbed where Jay’s bullet had torn through. It was the middle of the night. Would any help come along? Did he even want it to? Or would it be better to abandon the car?
No! He had to have the car to return to San Francisco. If he drove through, he could reach the city quicker. Besides, with a bleeding arm, he didn’t want to depend on catching rides. Several miles to the southwest, he could see the lights of a town. Perhaps he could buy gasoline there.
Jimmy climbed out of the car. The guns weighed heavy in his pockets. He was considering what to do with them when the highway patrol car pulled up behind the Oldsmobile and stopped. Like a cornered animal, Jimmy was trapped in the headlights.
Terrie kept on walking. It must have seemed as though she had been on the move for hours, but it wasn’t that long. Her feet hurt. Her arms ached from carrying and dragging the suitcases.
There had not even been one house since she’d started down the mountain. Once or twice there was the sound of cars on a road nearby. It wasn’t a very busy highway. And by now she didn’t have any idea which direction to go to look.
And then she stopped. Ahead of her loomed a dark structure. It surely wasn’t a ranch. She eased forward with caution. Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving. It seemed to be a vehicle of some sort. It was a truck. She breathed easier. Did she dare stop?
She stopped for a moment, and then moved on. She needed a hiding place, not a vehicle parked alongside the road
“Got problems, son?”
Jimmy stood near the back of the Oldsmobile, outlined in the lights of the patrol car as the state trooper, looking even larger than Jay, moved cautiously towards him. Jimmy’s shot arm ached and he silently prayed that the blood stain hadn’t soaked through his jacket. He felt wet blood between his fingers so he was careful to keep his right hand out of sight. The guns weighed heavy in his pockets. Why oh why hadn’t he left them on top of the mountain or thrown them away on the drive down? He damn sure could not, would not, shoot any patrolman.
Perhaps, just perhaps, there was a reason for him running out of gas and this patrolman showing up just then. Jimmy felt a powerful need to tell all, to let loose all the frustration that had been building and building, filling him to the bursting point. He had to have relief.
Perhaps this man would understand. Jimmy could tell him that up on that mountain was a shot man, a man who was possibly dead, and somewhere on that same mountain was a scared young girl who was undoubtedly running for her life.
It was self-defense, officer. He was going to kill me. Not only me but the young girl as well. Terrie was about to get herself raped and then shot and buried. Me right beside her. We’d rot in the ground together.
Hell, nobody would believe him.
Nobody.
“Ran out of gas,” Jimmy said, hoping his voice didn’t betray him.
“What are you doing out this time of night?”
“On my way home.”
“You going to Ashland?”
Where in the hell was Ashland? “Yeah.”
“All right, come on and get in. Not up front. Crawl into the back. We’ll see if we can find a station open. I’ll take you down but you’ll have to find your own way back. Maybe you can hitch a ride.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Adrenaline can carry a person only so far. When this is exhausted, fear can sometimes kick in and carry him a little farther. For Jimmy, it would need to carry him a lot farther. He didn’t know how far he was from San Francisco, but he knew it was many miles. He felt that if he could only get back home he would be safe.
True to his word, the trooper had dropped him off at an all-night station and left to continue his patrol.
Even though he would have liked to have had a ride back to the car, Jimmy was relieved to see the patrolman drive away. He made a five-dollar deposit on a two-gallon can and filled it with gas. On the four-mile journey back he hitched a ride part of the way and had to walk the remainder.
All the while, Jimmy felt the weight of the guns in his coat pockets. Had they been found on him, they could have tied him to the shooting, but he couldn’t risk their being found if someone happened on the car while he was gone. Now, he didn’t want to keep them on him another second. One at a time, he took them from his pockets and tossed them over the cliff, throwing them as far as he could. He poured the last of the gasoline out of the can and into the tank, then threw the can onto the floor between the seats. Then he got into the car, and headed down the mountain.
He made only one stop and that was at the same gas station to which the patrolman had taken him. There he filled the car with gas. After that he headed for 1-5 and turned south.
Terrie had still not found a ride. The night was getting colder and colder. Finally she parked the suitcases on the road and got inside the old, cold truck. It smelled of sweat, oil, old leather, and brake fluid.
She left both doors open for a short while. But then she closed them. A bear might drag her out. She rolled the windows down. Within minutes, she rolled them up again. Perhaps bears could reach in through an open window.
A sob jumped from her throat as she lay curled on the seat. There would be no sleep for her this night.
As the distance between them increased, neither Terrie nor Jimmy had any idea that they would ever see each other again, and both would have been happier had that day never come.
