Land Sakes (28 page)

“Who knows? I hope we don't run into them.”

“That woman can talk the horns off a billy goat, can't she?”

Mrs. Winchester was so unsteady on her feet that I debated about taking her onto that ice. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple men getting off the helicopter and thought I might ask them to help me. One of them hailed me to wait up, so I figured they saw I needed help. I waited as they were coming our way, glad there was somebody friendly enough to lend me a hand.

But as they reached us, they didn't look at all friendly. One of them said, “Ladies, come with me.”

“What?” I said. “Why should we come with you?”

He grabbed Mrs. Winchester by the arm and at the same time poked a pistol at me from under his jacket. Before I could scream, the man in back of me slapped his hand over my mouth and pressed the barrel of another gun in my back. “Come quietly or you will die,” he said.

With both hands I was trying to pry his fingers from my mouth and kicking him as hard as I could but getting nowhere. He kept pressing that gun in my back and swearing.

The other guy was hustling Mrs. Winchester toward
the helicopter. I knew she was terrified. Even if I could get free, I couldn't let them take her away by herself.

The chopper blades were rotating as that goon got me to the helicopter. He pushed me inside, and I fell against Mrs. Winchester. Climbing in after me, the goon slid the door shut and bolted it. Mrs. Winchester was terrified; her heart palpitating in her neck. A third man, taller than the other two, sat at the controls and did not turn around to look.

“Where are you taking us?” I demanded.

Nobody said a word.

“Who are you?” Still no answer. “What do you want? Is it jewelry? If it is...”

Those men just stared straight ahead and said nothing.

Mrs. Winchester clutched my arm, shaking all over. I worried that she might be in shock. “I don't know what they're up to,” I told her, “but just hang on.” Over and over I was telling myself,
What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee
. But I was scared stiff.

The way that helicopter leaned sideways as it swept away from the glacier gave my stomach a turn. In no time we leveled out and were flying over open water.

Hoping to keep Mrs. Winchester from passing out, I reached my arms around her. I held her as best I could, telling her, “Don't worry. There's nothing going on here that the Lord can't handle.” Her whole body was shaking.

It wasn't long before I saw a forest of trees growing down to the water's edge—then a house built on stilts
alongside the water. We passed over the house, and I saw no signs of life the rest of the way.

We were flying overland close by the water and must have flown for another ten minutes before the helicopter began slowing down. Finally, it was hovering over a clearing. “Where are we?” I demanded. Nobody answered.

Once we landed, the pilot cut the engine, and we sat there while the chopper blades whacked slower and slower. There was nothing to see outside except that bare spot of ground we had landed on and dense trees all around.

One of the men opened the door and crawled out. The other man nudged me with his gun. “Get out.”

I had no choice. Once on the ground I reached up both hands to help Mrs. Winchester. She was in such bad shape that it took both of them goons to help me get her out. After we got her down on the ground, the man inside climbed out and the pilot followed.

The pilot led the way on an overgrown path leading through the trees toward the water. Mrs. Winchester and I were herded in back of him by the other two men bringing up the rear. The ground beneath our feet was soggy, and I slipped once but didn't fall. I was holding on to Mrs. Winchester, and it's a wonder we both didn't wind up on top of each other. Her teeth were chattering, and I had to keep talking, trying to calm her down.

That path led to a house built on stilts over the edge of the water. I saw two boats docked underneath the house and a slippery gangplank that led up to the back door. I doubted that Mrs. Winchester could make it up there in the state she was in, but one of them hoods took her
other arm. With her teeth chattering and trembling like she was, we had to take it slow and easy. Taking one step at a time, we did manage to get her all the way up without a mishap.

At the door a stringy-haired woman in a shabby coat and big boots met us and let us inside. A young man holding an assault rifle stood in back of her, looking like he was ready to shoot at the drop of a hat.

The pilot held a straight-back chair for Mrs. Winchester to sit on, and I sat on another one beside her. He told the woman, “Get Mrs. Win
chus
ter a drink.” And the woman went in the next room. From what I could see, it was a tiny kitchen. The boy with the weapon sat down by an open door that led to a porch. Didn't look like he relaxed one muscle.

Finished with getting us settled, that pilot pulled up a chair right in front of me, straddled it, and looked at me with a big smile. “We've met before,” he said.

I had never in my life seen anybody that even looked like that beetle-browed goon. He sure wasn't the suspicious guy on the ship Lionel had warned me about.
He can't be that so-called Indian; he's not wearing a turban or a Nehru jacket. In fact, he don't have a mustache
.

Seeing I didn't recognize him, he leaned over and got right up in my face. I smelled garlic on his breath, and the wheels in my head started spinning. In no time it dawned on me who he was.

“I know you!” I yelled. “You're the one who pinned me to the wall!”

“Right,” he said and backed off, grinning from ear to ear. “You should've listened to me that night, Esmeralda.
You could've saved us a lot of time and trouble. All you would've had to do was let us know when we could take Mrs. Win
chus
ter without interference. As it is, we had to take you too. Now, instead of being a hostage, you could've been in on the ransom.”

“Ransom?”

“Three million, in fact. A million for each one of us.”

“You'll never get it. Philip Winchester will never pay a ransom.”

“You better hope he does. If he don't pay, you two better prepare to meet your God.”

“I am prepared!” I told him.

“That so? Esmeralda, I understand you are religious. For whatever it's worth, you better start praying Philip Winchester forks over that three mil.”

The woman came with the drink and handed it to Mrs. Winchester. The pilot turned aside to introduce the woman and the fellow with the assault rifle. “This is your hostess, Daisy LeGrande, and your host, Willie Miller.” He laughed like that was funny. “Willie is a fisherman, but he won't be doing any fishing until we finish this job.”

Seeing the pilot wasn't ready to leave, the other two men sat down, and he introduced them. “This here is Tony and that's Pee-Wee.” Both of them had beady eyes like them serial killers you see on
America's Most Wanted
.

“You haven't told us who you are,” I said.

“No, I haven't, have I?” Grinning like a Cheshire cat, he was enjoying this game he was playing. “How unmannerly of me. Let me help you ladies guess who I am. Mrs. Win
chus
ter, I got to hand it to you. You played a good
game of one-upmanship on that world traveler Bailey, didn't you?” He laughed. “You beat him at his own game, ordering that clabber—something he never even heard of before.”

He
was
the Indian! “Where's your turban?” I demanded.

The other two men snickered.

Alphonso pulled the turban out of his jacket pocket along with the fake mustache. “I'll be glad when I can get rid of this stuff for good, but I'm bound to wear it until this cruise is over. You have to admit, Esmeralda, I had you fooled.”

“Oh, I don't know about that. I figured you were a phony from the word go.”

“Did you? Esmeralda, I have to hand it to you. You are one gutsy woman.”

The other two men were getting jittery. The one named Tony said, “We better get out of here, Alphonso. Once these women are missed, the law'll be all over the place.”

“You're right. But first, I got to take care of a little business. Hand me that tape recorder, Pee-Wee.” Pee-Wee handed it to him, and Alphonso started messing with it. “Mrs. Win
chus
ter, have you settled down enough to give us a sweet little message for your husband? He'll want to know you're all right before he shells out the dough, so tell him you are both fine and that we're taking good care of you, okay? Tell him the sooner he pays up, the sooner he can get you back.”

She had calmed down a bit, even though I knew she was still scared out of her wits. She nodded.

“Okay, now speak up; we want Mr. Win
chus
ter to think
we can deliver you alive and well as soon as he comes through with the cash.”

She looked at me for help. “Do as he says,” I told her. “Just speak up and say that you and me are okay. I guess you better tell him they're treating us okay and for him to pay the ransom.”

Her voice was a bit shaky, but she gave the message almost word for word. Alphonso played it back and was satisfied that it would do. “Well, we gotta go,” he said. “I got to get the chopper back to the rental agency. I'll catch the tender back to the ship while you boys take care of the rest of this business.” The three got up to leave. “Daisy, take care of these ladies, and you, Willie, see to it they don't go no place.” He laughed. “If they do, you'll not see the light of another day.”

Wide-eyed and sweating, Willie was tense and nervous, which is not a good combination when there's a finger on a trigger. He didn't say a word.

The three goons left, and once they were down on the ground, Willie told Daisy to pull up the gangplank.

“There's no need of that,” Daisy said. “You want it pulled up, do it yourself.”

“Takes both hands, and I got to hold on to this gun.”

“I'll hold the gun for you,” she said. Seeing as he was not willing to let her touch the gun, she looked disgusted and said, “All right, I'll pull it up. Esmeralda, I'll need your help.”

Together we got the thing up off the ground and fastened the cable to hold it there. “I don't hardly never pull it up,” Daisy was saying. “It's too much trouble and not a bit o' use doin' it way out here. There's bears and
moose, but it ain't likely they would ever take a notion to come up it.”

She shut the door behind us.

Willie looked like he was frozen to that chair and was gripping the assault gun so hard his knuckles were white.

“What's got you so uptight, Willie?” I asked him. “We can't go nowhere.”

He didn't answer.

Daisy went in the kitchen and turned on a radio, saying we sure didn't want to miss the news. I heard some static, and Daisy fooled with it until she found a better station. Coming back in the narrow room, she sat down and started talking.

“Having womenfolk to talk to is a treat for me. It ain't often I go downriver far enough to stop in at the next house, where Granny Sparks lives. It's easy twenty miles or more.”

I heard the chopper engine starting up.

“Willie here, he don't got the nerve for what he's doin'. It's his first time signing on with crooks. He don't have sense enough to know what he's got hisself into, and I tell you, he's 'tween a rock and a hard place. The law catch him holdin' you two at gunpoint, and he'll spend the rest of his life in the pen. Not do what them plug-ugly hoodlums give him to do, and they'll blow out what few brains he has got. They'll most likely do that anyway to make sure he don't talk.”

I could hear the chopper taking to the air. I listened until I could no longer hear it.

So this is it. We're kidnapped
.

29

Mrs. Winchester held out her glass, asking Daisy for another drink. Daisy left her holding her glass and went in the kitchen. When she came out, she brought the bottle and another jelly glass, then poured Mrs. Winchester a drink and one for me.

“No thanks,” I said. “I don't drink.”

“If you lived in Alaska, you'd have to drink.” She sat down and started drinking the one she had poured for me. “Mrs. Win
chus
ter, where you from?”

“Newport, Rhode Island,” she said.

“And I'm from Live Oaks, South Carolina,” I told her.

“Well, I'll be! I'm from Mississippi—sixty miles outta Jackson.”

“What brought you to Alaska?” I asked.

“That crazy husband I married. I had a few husbands, but he was the craziest. This fool Billy Tyson showed Tom a gold nugget. Said he found it up here and that there was buckets more where that come from. The only
hitch was, Billy needed money to sink a shaft to get at where the gold was at. Said any man willin' to put up two or three thousand dollars, he'd take on as a partner to share and share alike in the mining business.