Wesley Read online

  But this time, once again, no one stops.

  I eventually hike into the woods. I build a fire and dry all of my damp stuff on the bushes and tree limbs. I let the fire warm the chill off me. I always carry dried food: oats, barley, quinoa, and rice. I cook some rice and pick some salmon berries in a vacant meadow. Voila! I eat a warm meal at last. It’s just heavenly after days without heat or cooked food. It tastes like a meal fit for a god. I stretch out, letting the sunlight warm my skin. I fall asleep in the warmth. Evening comes and I decide to stay and camp here. I love this part of my life. The freedom to come and go. Or not. On a whim. On a prayer. If I feel lazy, I can sit around all day. Other days, I might walk twenty miles with an eighty-pound pack on my back.

  I might wake up in a five-star resort I’ve decided to splurge on like I did in New York City once. Or I could be in someone’s barn where I spent the last five days mucking their stalls. Actually, I did that six weeks ago and earned five hundred bucks. Too bad I spent most of that amount when Jacey asked me to send her some money. I will do that as soon as I get to another town where I won’t be recognized. If I ever get there.

  The next day, I pack up and start down the highway again. I duck off it, however, when the sounds of sirens first enter my consciousness. They are rushing from Silver Springs down the highway, towards me. Fuck! Did someone call them after seeing me meandering down the road? Pricks! What? A black guy can’t walk down the road? It always insults me if I’m doing nothing but walking. Existing. And usually, I haven’t committed any crime, so I don’t deserve it.

  Usually.

  This time, I deserve it.

  This… well, for once, maybe someone was justified.

  I quickly head off the road and into the green trees beside it. It’s so easy to hide here. Thick tree trunks shield me effortlessly when I’m only a few feet off the highway.

  I don’t want to waste my time in jail and getting processed or whatever punishment this town plans to dole out. I want to get out of here. Two squad cars rush past me, their sirens blaring, lights flashing red and blue. Time to get off the main highway for good. Maybe I’ll follow the shoreline and the river. It’ll come to a town eventually.

  I take a gravel, one-lane road beside the woods. There are no houses in view at the moment. The road crosses over train tracks, then dips downward. The trees open up and a meadow, a huge green flat field with white fences, stretches before me. It’s rimmed by more trees and farther off, the water of the river glints in the sun. But the sight I spot downriver has me grimacing now. There is a wall of dark, black clouds rolling up the river’s canyon right towards me. I groan. I’m sick of water. I just got dry! No. Nope, I’m not spending another soggy, wet night in the woods while the squall releases its deluge on me. This one could soak me worse than the river did.

  I’m tired. More sirens.

  Ugh. I throw my head back. This damn place is like a prison and it won’t let me out of here! Have I gone five miles since the barge? Maybe. Up ahead is a house to which this quaint scenery and driveway belong. It’s a two-story, white farmhouse, something you might see on a feel-good calendar of rural turn-of-the-century houses in the country. What a place. Too cute and too pretty for words. I shake my head. Some people have a very different concept of reality and life than I do. Or that I ever had.

  But to the left of the house is a barn. A large, red barn. Hell. Why not? It will protect me from the imminent squall. I could hide and curl up with relative warmth. Be gone long before the family finds me and is frightened at the sight of a stranger in their barn.

  Though, if I’m trespassing in their barn, maybe I could see being scared of me. Lots of crazy-assed people out there and who knew if I would kill them for their shoes or rob them of all their worldly goods or kidnap their daughter? Or just vandalize their stuff? No, I get being afraid of me under certain circumstances. Just not all circumstances.

  I leave the gravel driveway and go into the woods and, hidden by the trees, stroll parallel to the back side of the barn, staying hidden from the house. I walk along the barn wall and then slip inside it after a quick glance at the front of the house. There isn’t a twitch of movement. Darkness from the clouds is covering the land in moody shadows so I doubt they’ll see me if I darted inside.

  I stand there, letting my eyes adjust. There are no sounds from people or animals. This space isn’t used as a barn anymore. No. There’s a nice, big, black truck before me that’s hooked up to a metal boat. I know nothing about boats, but this contraption probably costs as much as the truck did. More money than I’ve probably managed to spend in my lifetime. People’s willingness to go into monthly debt for hobbies amuses and confuses me. I just don’t get it.

  But towards the back of the building, behind the boat, hidden from the wide, front doors is a little cubby with tools in it. It’s dark enough that anyone glancing inside the buildings wouldn’t notice me. I go behind the small wall, which used to be an animal stall. I drop my pack, and flop down on the cool floor, leaning my back against the wood wall and sighing as I hear the sudden torrent of rain hitting the roof. I smile, oh, damn! I just missed it. With nothing else to do, I draw out my sleeping bag for more warmth and take my boots off before I wiggle into it. I lie back and soon fall asleep, feeling warm, dry, and grateful for the building around me as the rain lulls me into a quick, light slumber.

  After what feels like only minutes later, I’m startled awake by a sound. Opening my eyes, I jump up, the sleeping bag falling down as the feeble light struggles to help me make out the sharp prongs of… of what I think is a pitchfork aimed right at my chest. I look past it to find a woman holding it with her hands shaking. Her gaze is huge, and her eyes are locked on mine as she screams at me, her voice trembling, “How the fuck did you get from the barge to here?”

  Chapter 2

  DANI

  I keep the pitchfork dead center on the guy’s neck even as he jerks from his slumber, somehow sensing me before I’m ready for him to wake up. He was asleep and jumped up to standing in what felt like only a few seconds. I keep the deep, sharp prongs pressed on his chest where I hoped I could do the most damage to him.

  I spotted something from the porch while waiting for Wyatt, who was late again. He’s been terrible about showing up on time this summer. That never used to be Wyatt. Sometimes it seems like he doesn’t want to come home. Or see me, but that can’t be. I won’t think about that. Or the other changes I’ve noticed in Wyatt since he came home from the University of Northern Oregon for the summer.

  I thought I heard a deep rumbling, so I went outside to check the weather. Sometimes the squall-like clouds gathered from downriver before getting funneled upriver by the high, jagged mountains that hug the shore and cause the fiercest torrential downpours. It’s most common in the spring, but even in June, it sometimes still happens. I love to watch the deep, dark clouds and the ferocity of the water as it hits the ground and creates instant puddles that boil and bubble.

  Something caught my eye near the barn, but I ignored it at first. It was impossible to hear anything over the pounding rain and I didn’t want to get wet anyway. But Wyatt still hadn’t shown up, so I became curious. It wasn’t the dog, Wilson. He was inside, asleep on his bed, the spoiled prince who wasn’t exactly a farm dog or even pretending to be one. Heck, he didn’t even bark at a cat.

  But I was afraid a cat might have snuck into the barn. Wyatt’s dad, Ryder, hated when that happened. They inevitably tracked their paw prints all over his prized black truck. He thought the dark color looked so sexy despite his frequent complaints about how hard it was to keep it clean in this area with all the rain, dust, or mud, depending on the weather. It was amusing to Wyatt and me. I crossed the farmyard to let the cat out. For some reason, the door was left open half a foot, which again, was so unlike Ryder. His boat, his most prized item, was in there.

  This wasn’t a working farm with animals and barn cats. Wyatt’s parents, Ryder and Tara Kincaid, had meticulously restore
d the old farmhouse and barn to its period grace, but with pristine, modern conveniences, retro style, and great expense. Their barn was really just a storage house for their toys. Their lawn and gardens surrounding the grounds were lush and weed-free. As were the gravel paths and all the walkways. I loved hanging out at the Kincaids’. My apartment had views of the grass of the baseball fields and the meadows that rose up behind it and extended towards the river. But the hills blocked the river and the mountains beyond. I didn’t have a lot of space and the river dominated most views in Silver Springs. I had liked it at the Kincaids’ long before Wyatt and I even reached puberty. We’d been friends since we were in grade school and had spent many days here. The Kincaids were always welcoming and used to me being over for dinner. Wyatt and I had been best friends since the second grade and that friendship had never wavered. Even hormones and my breast development and his voice deepening couldn’t change our friendship or the excessive amount of time we spent together. Even if it did eventually change how we spent that time.

  I stepped into the barn quietly so the darn cat didn’t spook. There were two of them that the Kincaids fed and kept outside to help keep the rodent population under control. But something felt very different today. I can’t explain what. An energy seemed to emanate from the barn. I glanced back at the door I shut, knowing everyone who ever spent an hour at the Kincaids’ knew to keep the barn door shut tight because of Ryder and the cats. It was a gospel rule. It was also a comical obsession that they all followed, which Tara often teased and joked about. She made fun of Ryder’s insistence upon it.

  There is a yard light that shines on the front of the barn and it streams through the window over the door, adding enough illumination that I can see without falling. Then I spot it. Something is jutting out past one of the stalls. It isn’t right. I know it isn’t. I step forward, squinting. What the hell is it? I don’t feel scared, just puzzled. I’m assuming it must be some animal that snuck inside Ryder’s barn for shelter. I see the old pitchfork leaning against the other stall and I grab it, keeping it right in front of me, pointing out. I’ve never heard of a single dangerous wild animal attack in Silver Springs in all my life. So, I’m still assuming it’s a stray dog or something equally as common, but in case it’s not friendly, I have something to protect myself. I can at least keep the animal away from me or possibly herd it out of the barn.

  It’s not until I get directly in front of the prone figure that my eyes adjust and I realize the long bundle that looks like a giant cocoon, although black in color, is actually someone inside a sleeping bag.

  I don’t gasp or yell or scream in fright but grip the wood handle of the pitchfork in my hands more tightly. Something, either a sound or a change in breath alerts the figure, and in the span of time it takes me to blink, the figure stands up. I jerk back, raising the steel tines defensively as he rises.

  The sleeping bag falls, and I stare. Then it registers: It’s him! I’m stunned. Why would he come here? To this barn? I’m so unnerved that my mouth hangs open. Why is he here? I almost scream at him. What the hell is he doing here?

  “How the fuck did you get from the barge to here?” I don’t mean to say that out loud! But the shocking realization that I’ve seen this guy before immediately dictates my response.

  His posture tightens and straightens. “How did you know I was on the barge?”

  I don’t like his snarled response. How dare he ask me such a question? This trespassing asshole dares to snarl at me? I threaten him with my pitchfork.

  “I saw you swimming out there. I just don’t get how you got here.”

  “Who did you tell?”

  Is he for real? He’s grilling me? Twice now, I’ve been an eyewitness to his petty crimes.

  “Why are you sleeping in the Kincaids' barn?”

  “Who are the Kincaids?”

  “The barn owners, of course!” I yell, not out of frustration so much as terror.

  “Did you see that rain? I was just getting out of it.”

  I step back, forgetting to keep the pitchfork trained on him. I aim it at his throat again. “This isn’t a public picnic area for someone to hide in, even during a rain shower. You're trespassing. Once again.”

  He raises his hands and I tense, my arms shaking as I lift the handle higher for more leverage. I’m really scared. He’s big and bulky. His arm muscles ripple as he runs his hands over his scalp. His hair is short and closely cropped. He’s got to be way older than me to have a physique like that. I’m so wishing now that I didn’t come out here snooping. Or that I grabbed Ryder’s shotgun and wasn’t standing there armed with only a pitchfork. What if the guy has a gun? What if he overpowers me? What if he hurts me? Rapes me? Kills me?

  I shouldn’t have admitted I recognized him.

  “Look. I’ll just grab my stuff and leave the barn. I’ll be gone and you’ll never see me again.”

  “Oh, no. Don’t go near that gear!” I scream out. “And keep your hands up where I can see them!”

  I won’t fall for that. I brace my feet, ready to lunge forward.

  He backs up. Hands still raised in the air. “Hey, okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I hope you’re not going to hurt me. What… what do you want to do then if you're not going to just let me go? Call the cops?”

  “You idiot! You broke into a cop’s barn!”

  His stunned face is priceless. But I really need to muzzle myself. I don’t mean to keep giving him any details or engage in conversation. I don’t need to supply any motive for him to grab this pitchfork and stab me with it because I just made his presence here that much more alarming.

  I keep the fork trained on him. “Just go. Leave your stupid stuff behind.” I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Once out of my view, how do I know he won’t come back and attack me? But I could force him out the door. Push him physically out and then run back to the house and lock it up.

  “I won’t leave my stuff. Let me grab it. I’m gone. Forever then.” His hands are still up.

  “No! NO! Don’t you dare!” I scream as my anxiety peaks.

  We don’t move but stare at each other. Breathing hard, I don’t know what to do.

  “Dani? Dani? What is it?”

  Relief washes over me when the voice fills the barn from the entryway. But then I realize, duh, it’s Tara. She’s no more a match for this man than I am. “Get Ryder’s gun! There’s an intruder!”

  WESLEY

  Oh shit, no. The crazy, frightened, out-of-her-damn-mind girl is calling for a gun? From another woman’s voice. Ryder Kincaid the Cop’s gun? Or perhaps the female is the cop. I don’t know. But I know the girl isn’t bluffing. She started out pretty cool. But perhaps the reality of my looming presence outweighed her surprise. She started to understand that I was real. The longer we stand there, the more threatening I was becoming to her. I don’t want to prove that I could effortlessly wrestle that pitchfork and toss it away from her in about three seconds. No, not when it gave her a sense of safety. I don’t feel like listening to her start screaming so I remain at the business end of the metal prongs, mostly to relax her and give her some peace of mind.

  I really want to grab my bag and leave. I’m sure I can talk myself out of here. I’m positive I can charm her. The sheer freakiness that she saw me going onto the barge and then discovers me here, miles away, is pretty alarming. I can understand her need to call for a gun. Maybe she thinks I saw her wherever she spotted me, and I followed her here. When all I wanted was a dry place to sleep. Lord, I’m not up for this.

  But I must convince her to let me go. Since she didn’t call the cops the first time she saw me trespassing, I have some faith she won’t do that now. Until she announces that I’ve managed to break into a cop’s personal home. Again, I seem to be losing my streak of good luck.

  I study the girl who has long, thick, curly hair. It’s drawn back and some loose tendrils fall around her face and shoulders. It only adds to her panicked look. She has a narrow, sweet face with br
ight brown eyes and darker eyebrows that seem to make her sincere eyes shine even brighter. Her skin glows a warm beige in the light coming from the barn door. She has a sweet look to her face and a graceful, long neck. She wears a striped black and white t-shirt and black skinny jeans. Her terror of me is gaining traction. Her hands keep twisting on the handle as she grips her weapon and changes her stance as if that could make her more effective at lunging at me.

  But I don’t need any trouble with the daughter of a cop. I don’t need any trouble with anyone. I want to slip away into the night, amongst the trees before I truly disappear forever from Silver Springs, which is exactly what I told the girl.

  But damn, if someone else doesn’t happen to show up and now she’s yelling for them.

  To. Get. A. Gun.

  No, ah… hell, no. I really don’t need this shit. I have to disappear before Tara whoever comes back with a gun and then my ass gets all shot up and who the fuck is gonna care? I was trespassing in a cop’s barn. It’ll probably be spun into some evil plot, like I had to seek revenge or some such shit, especially after they count the cash they find on me, which just happens to equal the exact amount stolen from the blind charity and voila! I’m a monster. It all adds up.

  Yeah. Not doing it.

  I keep my gaze on the trembling girl and regret what I’m about to do. I step forward and lunge as her eyes widen in shock that I’ve moved and not stayed where she ordered. She screams and uses her weak little arms as she tries to rush me with her pitchfork. I push the prongs upwards, hold them away and wrap my hand around the wooden handle, pulling it towards me. She’s still gripping it tightly until we are only inches apart. Her “Oof!” of surprise is followed by a pair of owl-like eyes that stare at me in bewildered shock. I smile. Then I shove her, regretting the action, but I gotta hit the road. I can’t stand here playing around with her sad bravery. Although I do respect her courage in trying to hold off a person who is twice her weight and muscle mass using only a pitchfork. Even ordering me around and all that other shit.