We’re caught in the same stupid, vicious cycle they are.”
Bertha, still worrying about Hickok, became aware Zahner had stopped. He was gazing at the ground, his eyes blank, dejected. “Hey, bro! Are you okay?” she asked him.
Zahner shook himself and smiled. “It gets to me sometimes, Bertha. You know what I mean?”
“I know where you’re comin’ from.”
“So, anyway,” he resumed, clearing his throat, “I came to the conclusion the only way we could escape this mess was to get out of the Twins. I picked my most trusted, capable soldier and I sent her out, hoping she could find a way out of the Twins.”
Bertha recalled her determined reluctance to return to the Twins and she avoided his gaze, feeling humiliated and a disgrace to those who had counted on her.
Zahner noted her look. “It’s been weeks, Bertha. Where the hell have you been? I was positive you’d been killed because of my harebrained scheme. Do you have any idea how bad I’ve felt? How many times I reproached myself for being a jerk?” His voice rose in anger. “Do you have any idea what you’ve put me through?”
“I’m really sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean…” She stopped, faltering, overwhelmed by her betrayal. “I didn’t think of it that way.” She lowered her head, resisting an impulse to cry. Not her! No way!
Zahner came closer, sitting on the mattress next to her. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you.”
“It’s okay,” she sniffed. “I understand.”
“I’ll leave you alone and come back later.” He started to rise.
Bertha grabbed his arm. “Don’t, Z! Don’t leave! I need to talk with someone.”
“I’ve always been here whenever you needed me.”
“I know. That’s what makes it worse.”
“How do you mean?”
She raised her head, her eyes rimmed with tears. “I wanted out of here so bad, I was ready and willin’ to turn tail and desert you and the rest.”
“It’s all right,” he tried to assure her.
“I was ready to wimp out on my friends,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard. “Now look at me!” she snapped bitterly.
“I really think you need to be alone.”
“No. Look at me! I’ve lost my friends…”
“You haven’t lost us. We might have doubted you, but you’re still our friend.”
“…and I’ve lost my ticket to freedom…”
“What do you mean?”
“…and the man I was comin’ to love.” She choked on the last words, reaching for him with her good arm.
Zahner, shocked, hugged her gently, stroking her hair. “It’s okay.
Bertha. Really. There’s no need to get so upset. We forgive you.”
“I don’t know as I can forgive myself,” she mumbled.
Zahner drew back, smiling, trying to cheer her. “You really need someone to talk to?”
“Damn straight.”
“Then I’m all ears.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“At the beginning.”
So she told him, every step of her journey, every gory detail, about her capture and subsequent sexual abuse and beatings, about the Family and the men she’d encountered, and about one man in particular, one man who had won her heart.
Zahner listened patiently, analyzing each detail, marveling. The telling took several hours. After hearing about the Family and the Home, the seed of an idea sprouted in Zahner’s mind.
Bertha finally finished, weary, reclining on the mattress. “And that’s it,” she concluded. “The whole trip. You can still sit there and tell me you like me after what I did? What I was going to do?”
“Could a soul be blamed for wanting to escape the torment of hell?
Don’t be so hard on yourself. We’ve got more important matters to consider.” His eyes, for the first time in weeks, lit with a spark of hope.
“I don’t follow you.”
“Oh, you will.” He laughed. “You’ll follow me all the way to our new home.”
“New home?” she asked, stumped.
“Our new home.” Zahner beamed. “The Home!”
Chaptert Sixteen
He didn’t know how long he’d been groping in the darkness, feeling his way foot by cautious foot, using his matches sparingly, only when absolutely necessary.
Great Spirit, was he to wander in this stinking maze until he dropped?
Geronimo stopped, his weariness nagging at his mind, needing to rest his head, close his eyes, and sleep.
The sounds returned, an ominous admonition that if he slept, he’d die.
Geronimo wanted to rub his tired eyes, but if he did, he’d smear the muck all over his face and burn his eyes. How long had it been since the Wack had lured him into the tunnels? He remembered falling, landing hard, twisting his right ankle, spraining the muscles. His flailing arms had touched his Browning, and he had grabbed it and risen to his feet. The girl had laughed at him. She had vanished, and he had heard scraping, and something had been pushed over the opening, sealing him in and plunging him into deepest blackness. He had tried to find a means of climbing out, but couldn’t. Frustrated, he had begun to follow the tunnel he was in.
The experience was a living nightmare!
The tunnel’s height varied, allowing him to walk erect for long stretches, and at other times forcing him to crawl through a reeking, clinging slime for interminable periods. The atmosphere was oppressive, dank and dismal. His knees and elbows were scraped raw, his sore ankle throbbed incessantly, and his stomach constantly reminded him of his gnawing hunger.
Then there were the sounds.
At first, there hadn’t been any, only unnerving silence. He couldn’t say exactly when he first became aware of the scratching and the squeaking.
One moment he was crawling along a cramped passage, trying to suppress a growing claustrophobic fear, the only noise his labored breathing, and the next moment something behind him squealed in a high-pitched tone.
He stopped and tried to peer over his shoulder, fruitlessly searching for the source. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness sufficiently to enable him to distinguish his immediate surroundings.
Later, he dozed off for a few minutes, and was startled awake by the sensation of tiny teeth nibbling at his left hand. He’d jerked his hand back and grabbed the matches, a box taken from the supplies confiscated from the Watchers in Thief River Falls. He hastily lit a match, and in the light of the flame he first saw the fiery, feral eyes glaring at him from the blackness ahead, red pinpoints of malevolent intelligence.
The rats.
Now, hours and, hours or even days later, he was finding it difficult to muster the effort to resist his fatigue. He speculated on why the rats hadn’t attacked. Their number had grown since the first solitary rat had found him and announced his presence with that piercing squeak.
Geronimo paused, glancing up. He’d been crawling for some time, but above him the top of the tunnel sloped upward, a patch of gray between him and the roof. He stood, his muscles tired, hurting, especially his sprained ankle. A subdued rustling filled the tunnel.
Time to light another match.
When he’d first lit a match after the nibbling incident, one pair of red eyes were staring at him. The next time he lit up, there were twenty eyes.
The last time, sixty.
How many now?
Geronimo struck a match against- the edge of the box and raised the match over his head.
Great Spirit!
There were too many eyes to count, a veritable wall of red dots confronting him. Why hadn’t they attacked? What were they waiting for?