Journal (2 page)

About
ten months before her death, Claire Huston wrote something in her journal that
has occupied my thoughts much these last couple of days.  She wrote,
“
If I can keep but a single tear
from a trembling cheek or offer up a tick of will to a wasted spirit or make a
gift of hope to one given up, my time here will not have been idled.”

So
I guess the question is, am I doing this because of my own need to see things
right, or am I doing this because this woman, who I don’t even know, has shamed
me into living a life not idle?  I truthfully don’t know the answer to that.  I
hope it’s the former rather than the latter but whichever the case
, man or mouse,
I’m committed now and feel better
for it.  So you see, I have to write now if I’m to write at all because this
may end up being both my first and last entry.  April Fools Day.

Well,
enough for now.  If I’m to pull this off, there’s much to do before it gets
dark.  So maybe I’ll write some more
later — or
maybe
not.  We’ll see.

April
3, 2054
–

This
is the first chance I’ve had to write and, as you can tell, I’m still ali emotional connection about shoulderve.  As
far as the boy goes, well, things didn’t turn out exactly as I thought they
would.

____________

I
started out just before dark on the evening of April 1st, in one of those
thick, heavy drizzles that seems to soak right through your pores, freezing
your insides until you shake from one end to the other.  I stashed my pack,
food sack, and rifle under a rusted-out flatbed and followed their path through
the trees, carrying only my pistol and a few lengths of nylon cord.  I hadn’t
gone far before I smelled the smoke from their fire and soon located them in a
cluster of rundown buildings that must have once been a farm.

It
was situated on a flat piece of land bordered on one side by a row of giant
cottonwoods, a bulwark holding off the strong north winds common to the area.  There
was a main house, small and square with a shingled roof and a wooden porch that
sagged on one corner, a moderately sized metal barn with an open door, and a
long, three-walled shed.  There were also several pieces of farm equipment in
the yard surrounded by high weeds and an old faded blue pickup truck missing
its back window.

Though
smoke was coming from the house and a vague light flickered in its windows, I
wasn’t convinced they were all in there.  Given the way things are, I figured one
of them had to be somewhere outside looking for intruders.  That’s certainly
what I’d do, and have done.  So I decided to wrap myself in my poncho and settle
down to watch.

Quite
a while passed before I saw a man wearing a baseball cap and a plaid coat come out
of the house.  He walked to one of the pieces of farm equipment, some sort of
machine that sat tall on big tires and with a partially glassed-in cab.  He
slapped the side
of it with his hand, hard enough for
me to hear, and I saw a head pop up above what must have been the seat.  After
more movement from within, a man got out, the one with the limp I’d seen
earlier, holding what looked like a pump shotgun.  The man with the ball cap
took the shotgun from him and said, “You’re crazy man.  You know what he’ll do
if he catches you sleepin’,” as he climbed up into the cab.  The one with the
limp started toward the house but was stopped when his companion told him he
was supposed to bring some wood back with him.

The
man hobbled over to the barn where I could hear the sound of more conversation,
but not the words said.  A minute or two later, he reappeared cradling some firewood,
followed by the kid carrying still more.  They walked to the house, and the kid
started to follow the man inside, but he was forced back from the door.  The
kid dumped his load on the porch and remained there a moment longer, looking through
one of the windows, angling one way and the other before finally heading back
to the barn.

So
that told me that there were at least three men in their party, and they had at
least two firearms between them, a pistol and a shotgun.  It also raised an
interesting question.  If the kid was in the barn by himself, why wouldn’t he
just sneak out and run off?  Why did he need my help?  Maybe there was someone
else in there with him who would shout a warning.  Or maybe they checked on him
every couple of hours.  Or maybe he just figured that if he did run off, they’d
only track him down and give him a real thrashing or battery
operated radio with t worse.  At the time, too
many maybes to know, but it also didn’t matter.  In my mind, I was going to try
to help him nonetheless.

I
let things quiet down for about an hour and used a corner of the barn to shield
my approach from the man in the ball cap.  That got me to within about ten feet
of the door, where I used the weeds to hide me while I crawled another six feet
or so closer.  I laid there in the shadows and grass until I was sure the
lookout was turned the other way before drawing my pistol and slipping into the
barn.

I
must interject here that even to me these words make me sound like a man of
action — I “used the corner of the barn to shield my approach,” and “I crawled
another six feet closer” — but that’s so far from the truth, it’s not funny.  I
avoid trouble just like I avoid poison oak and all other things uncomfortable. 
I hate confrontation.  So strong is my aversion to it that in the old days,
before things fell apart, if I bought something defective I was more likely to
just keep it than to go back and argue with the clerk for a refund.  That’s how
much I dislike difficulty.  So I’m no man of action, I’ll tell you that.  And
as I think about it now, it simply amazes me how a few written lines in an old
woman’s journal was cause enough for me to act in the manner I’ve described.

Anyway,
getting back to it, it was pitch black in the barn, so I put my back against
the wall next to the door until my eyes had a chance to adjust to the lack of
light.  Standing there in the dark, essentially blind, I felt completely vulnerable
to whoever else might be inside.  I steeled myself for a shout or even worse, a
shot.  For the hundredth time that night, maybe the thousandth, I told myself that
this was one of the stupidest things I’d ever done and I should just turn right
around and get the heck out of there.  If there was someone else in the barn
with the kid, and he was awake, all he’d have to do is yell out and the guy
with the shotgun would be there.  My pistol against his shotgun wouldn’t be
much of a fair fight.

But
luck, fate, whatever, was with me.  There was nobody else, and I heard the kid
whisper, “Are you the one I saw today?  Were you the one up by the trees?  Help
us.  Please help us get away.”  Suddenly there was a hand on my forearm which
made me jerk back like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket.

But
he said “us,” not “me.”  Us who?  Us how many?

His
name is Gabriel Sanchez, and he was talking fast, whispering it out in one long
rush, close-up, so h
is breath felt like little
fingers on my ear.
  From what I could hear, he and his mother had been
kidnapped somewhere in southern Washington by the people who then held them.  After
the abduction, they walked for a long time, days, and along the way encountered
two separate groups of people who their kidnappers killed so they could steal their
food, and after that, they walked some more.

The
one with the ponytail is the leader.  He is also the one who was hurting Gabriel’s
mom.  He didn’t explain how this man hurt her, but I really didn’t need an
explanation.  A lot of that had gone on in Reno as well.  They had been at the
farm for about a week and kept him separated from his mother so neither of them
would try to escape and to get each of them to do what emotional connection soed and their kidnappers wanted. 
There were four altogether, three men and another woman, who was just as bad as
the men.  From what he could determine, Mr. Ponytail slept in a room with Gabriel’s
mother while the other three shared the living room of the house.  They had two
pistols, a small rifle, and a shotgun.

Finally,
he said what I hoped he wouldn’t but knew he would.  He asked me to help his
mother escape.  He said he wouldn’t go unless she went with him.

My
reaction was, “No way.  It’s impossible.  It’s too dangerous.  It would be
complete suicide.”  There was no way I could get past the lookout, get into the
house, and get her out without being discovered.  If there was shooting, and
there most surely would be, no telling how it would turn out.  His mother could
even be injured or killed.  Once
more I told myself
that I don’t know Gabriel; and (now) his mother.  For all I knew, they
could be thieves and murderers themselves.

After
that, Gabriel was quiet for a moment, and I was sure that in his silence he was
crying.  I could even picture the tears wetting his cheeks as he stifled his sobs. 
But that wasn’t the case at all because in a calm, steady, resigned voice he said,
“It’s OK mister, I understand.”  He thanked me for trying and told me not to
worry; he would think of some way to get his mother away from them.  I could go,
and he assured me he wouldn’t tell anyone I had been there.

At
the time, I thought what else could I do?  I felt bad for him, I really did.  I
didn’t want to leave him, but what sense did it make for her, or him, or me, or
all three of us to get killed on such a hopeless mission?  It would be four
guns against one.  In my mind, I convinced myself that I had done all I could,
that my intentions were good, and I wasn’t a coward.  I had to be realistic
about the situation.  It just wasn’t going to happen.

So
I shook his hand and told him I was sorry.  I also wished him luck and tried to
reassure him that things would turn out all right.  But as those puny words
tumbled from my mouth, they sounded just like the easy lies they were.  I can
only now imagine what he was thinking at that moment, about his mother, about
his own future, and about me.  I slipped out of the barn and headed back.

I
worked my way toward my stowed gear without being seen.  Along the way, I kept reassuring
myself that I had done the smart thing, that there was no other reasonable
alternative, and that I had nothing to be ashamed of.  If I tried and failed,
what good would come of it?  I’d be dead, and they would still be prisoners. 
Who would be the better for it? 

Of
course my conscience would have none of it.  With each step I took, I felt more
and more uncertain about my decision to abandon Gabriel, and more and more
uncertain about myself.

As
much as I tried not to think about it, his words pounded their way inside my skull.
 He told me …
me
not to worry.  He was just a kid for chrissake; a kid who
was being beaten, used as slave labor, and kept as a hostage so Mr. Ponytail
could continue to rape his mother without her resistance, and he tells
me
not to worry.  Oh, the names I called myself, first for getting involved emotional connection soed and and
then for not finishing what I started.  I felt ashamed of myself.

But
reality was not to be denied either.  There was no way I was going to win
against four armed people who had already demonstrated a willingness to kill
without remorse.  Still, I tried to come up with a workable plan, some way I
could redeem myself.

I
won’t bore you with all the idiotic schemes I considered and rejected, but
suffice it to say that all of them ended with somebody getting killed, most probably
me.  Eventually, though, an idea came to me.  There was a way …maybe.  It
wasn’t foolproof or guaranteed to avoid a confrontation, but it was the best of
the lot.  Up to a certain point, I also could still back out if I wanted to.  I
liked that part of it.

It
took me a good forty-five minutes or so to get back inside the barn.  When I
did, all Gabriel said was, “You came back.  I knew you would.”  And I believed
him.

I
quickly explained my plan to him and told him to gather his belongings.  While
we waited, I fashioned a raincoat for him out of a discarded trash bag, since
the drizzle had by then turned to a light rain.  A few minutes later, the right
opportunity presented itself when we saw the man with the ball cap slouch down
in the seat with his head barely visible.  We once again reversed my route out
of there, with only one difference; we made plain our direction of travel.  I
even had Gabriel drop his knit cap on the ground behind the barn so they would
be sure to see which way we went.

____________

We
picked up my gear from under the flatbed and ran south maybe three-and-a-half,
four miles, making ourselves obvious all along the way.   At some point, we
turned east for another mile or so until we reached Highway 97.   Once on a
hard surface, one that would be difficult to track on, we ran back the way we
came, north, past the farm by a good half mile.  Finally, we re-approached the
farm and found a good place to wait and watch.  We had essentially made a big,
looping
one-eighty
, and were now watching the
farm from the exact opposite side of our departure.  Somewhere during this time,
April first turned into April second.

While
we waited, the kid fell asleep.  It was really my first opportunity to get a
good look at him.  My impression now was that he was older than I thought.  He
also wasn’t as fragile as he first appeared.  He was lean, not skinny (there’s
a difference), and by the way he kept up with me, he had stamina enough to do
what was needed.  He had straight, black hair as thick as straw, that, at the moment,
was plastered to his face, a long nose, thin lips that would make him look
cruel if he wasn’t careful, and a scar at the tip of his rounded chin.  I had
to wonder at that point what kind of a man he’d turn into after all he’s gone
through and all that was, no doubt, to come.