As the deputy typed into his computer, Gary told the story of his abduction and escape yet again.
“Do you remember anything about the car?” the deputy asked. “Make and model? Color? Did you get a license number?”
Gary shook his head, frustrated. “Like I said, they drugged me. I saw the car when I came to, after the accident, but it was dark and far away and all smashed up, and I couldn’t tell what it looked like. Wait,” he said. “I do remember something. The plates were white.” He squinted, trying to see them in his mind. “I think they were… Texas plates.”
“Do you recall any letters or numbers? Any at all?”
“No. But if you’ll just go out there, you can see for yourself.” The emphasis seemed lost on the deputy.
“And the men, you say, were dressed strangely.”
“Yes. I told you. They looked like pioneers or something. They were wearing, like, Little House on the Prairie clothes.”
The deputy looked at the sheriff, who had just come back into the room. Gary thought for a brief second that the two of them had heard something like this before, that his description of the men was somehow familiar to them, but he dismissed that idea when the sheriff said, “Let’s go out and take a look at this, Herb. See what’s what.”
Four men took two vehicles. Gary fell asleep in the back of the sheriff’s car but was awakened as they approached the garage. Yellow caution tape was strung around the building itself and stretched over the entrance next to the road in order to keep cars from driving in. “Where do we go from here?” Watt asked.
“Keep heading straight,” Gary told him.
The car accelerated. “How far?”
“I don’t know exactly. I was walking.”
They sped over the flat land, and Gary was stunned at how far he’d come. Granted, it had taken him most of the night and part of the morning to get from the crash site to the garage, but he was still amazed that it took them as long as it did to get across the plain in the car. Even the hills beyond the plain went farther back than he expected.
“Are we getting close?” the sheriff asked.
“Not yet,” Gary responded.
“Damn. You did walk a long way.”
The road flattened out on higher ground, the landscape here less desertlike, and Gary was so surprised when the turnoff to the dirt road came up that by the time he shouted, “There it is!” they were past it.
The sheriff stopped, turned around, then pulled his cruiser onto the narrow trail that led into the chaparral. Behind them, the deputy’s car did the same.
It had been night when he’d left the crash site, but he was pretty sure he knew where it was, and as they reached the boulder-strewn hills, Gary told the sheriff to slow down. A narrow, winding section of road above a wide and rocky gulch looked familiar, and his careful scrutiny was rewarded when he spotted strewn dirt, scraped rock and crushed bushes. “This is where we went off the road,” he said.
The sheriff parked the vehicle, and they all got out. Gary led the way to the edge, passing the boulder against which he’d found himself resting. He looked down the slope. The deer was there but not the car. And definitely not the bodies.
He looked around, confused. How could it have been moved? And so quickly. The car had been totaled. And as far as he could tell, the only towing service within a fifty-mile radius was Tow-to-Tow.
It didn’t make any sense.
“The car was right there,” he said, pointing. “We were heading back toward the highway and we hit the deer and went off.”
“Well, you say you were drugged.”
“I was, but my head was clear after the accident. Everything had worn off. It was hours later. And I looked over and saw the car. Right there.”
The deputy, Herb, took off his hat and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. “Your head was clear? You told me you were disoriented, that you threw up.”
Yes!
“I did. There,” Gary said, walking over. He pointed to a dried glop of vomit on the dirt, standing proudly next to it.
The deer was there, and the vomit, but apparently that was not enough to corroborate his story, particularly when a wrecked car carrying the bodies of three kidnappers had mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
“We-e-l-l-l,” the sheriff said, drawing out the word as he looked around at the flattened brush and disturbed ground. “It does look like something came through here.”
But Gary knew his credibility had taken a big hit, and though he wanted to explain everything all over again to make sure they understood exactly what had happened, he figured it was smart not to push it. They would just go on to the ranch where he’d been held. Maybe the wrecked car had miraculously been moved, but the ranch would still be there.
It was. And it was just as he’d described it. That had to count for something. Still, he could tell already that Watt and his deputies were thinking that his ordeal had made him disoriented and had caused him to imagine things that weren’t there and had not happened.
The woman with the limp answered the sheriff’s knock with a puzzled expression and a “Yes? May I help you?”
“I’m back,” Gary said fiercely. “And you’re going to pay for what you did!”
Frowning, the woman looked to the sheriff. “What’s going on? I don’t understand. Who is this man?”
“You know damn well who I am,” Gary told her. He turned to the sheriff. “She helped them chain me up in her back room there. She made us all food. Meat and potatoes. They all talked in some kind of code so I wouldn’t know what they were saying.”
“Ma’am,” the sheriff said politely, “according to Mr. Russell here, he was drugged against his will and abducted from his college in California by three men. He alleges that after driving for approximately twelve hours, they arrived here at your property, where he was physically restrained for approximately eight hours, before being once again driven away to an unspecified location. Their vehicle had an accident en route, at which time Mr. Russell claims he escaped.”
“I don’t know what happened to him,” the woman said, “but he was never here before.”
“You people kidnapped my girlfriend, too! Joan Daniels! You kidnapped her and you’re holding her hostage!”
The woman stood stoically.
He realized he sounded crazy, but there was nothing he could say that would make it seem even slightly more believable, and that only made him shout all the louder. He knew, intellectually, that he should be doing exactly the opposite, talking slowly and rationally, explaining things in a logical manner, but exhaustion and frustration made him even more keyed up. He pointed a finger at her, stared directly into her eyes. “You held the jar when I had to take a piss! You held my cock!”
She did not even flinch. She turned toward the sheriff. “I have never seen this person before in my life.”
“She’s lying! Search her house. The front room there has no rugs or couches, just a plywood floor and chairs and tables made out of branches. There’re no lights, only kerosene lamps. And a prayer cabinet, filled with little scrolls. The next room has chains on the floor, shackles. That’s where they kept me!”
“I’m afraid we don’t have a warrant to search the premises,” the sheriff told him. “And I don’t think we have probable cause to obtain a warrant.”
“Just walk around the side of the house! Right there! Peek through the window, and you’ll see the chains they tied me up with!” He started to move in that direction, but the sheriff grabbed his arm and held him tightly.