When She Flew (11 page)

The others’ voices faded as they climbed, taking it slowly. Z was in good shape and could have climbed the ridge like a mountain goat, but he took his cues from the dog, letting him sniff everything in a wide circle around them. Jess shone her flashlight so they could see what Larry intuitively knew was there, in dark recesses, around trees. They saw the occasional arc of others’ flashlights, heard when they tripped and cursed, but it seemed the police officers were the only humans in the forest.

“Where are you, sweetie?” Jess said under her breath, wishing, hoping they’d somehow find her.

Ahead, Z and Larry crested the top of the steep ridge and suddenly there was commotion as they disappeared over the other side.

Jess’s scalp tingled, as if electrical currents were flying through the air, and she raced uphill to join them. Her boot struck something large and solid, and she tumbled backward, somersaulting, sharp, hard things gouging her back, her right shoulder, the side of her face, until she came to a rest, panting. “Ow,” she moaned, rubbing her shoulder. She opened and closed her hand, raised and lowered her arm. Nothing seemed broken, but the inside of her shoulder was on fire.

From above, Z yelled, “Backup! Backup!”

Jess scrambled to her feet. Adrenaline kicked in and she pulled herself up the steep face until she came upon Z just over the top of the ridge. He restrained a determined Larry, and pointed his flashlight at a huge downed log fifteen yards below them. She quickly drew her sidearm from her holster and held it with both hands in front of her, pointing at nothing, wondering what had happened to her shotgun when she fell. She couldn’t feel it on her back.
Damn,
she cursed herself. The sharp, hard things.

“Police!” Jess yelled. “Get your hands up and get the hell out here where we can see you.”

Who knew if they were facing a lone survivalist or a band of Nazi skinheads? Probably just one—the camp conditions indicated only one adult male—but they couldn’t be sure. They heard movement in the brush, a whimper, then a shushing. It was a girl and she sounded distressed.

“Now, goddamn it!” Jess shouted more adamantly. “Get out here now!”

Z tucked his flashlight under one arm and radioed the others for backup, holding the dog back with the other hand.

Where the hell were these people? Jess quickly scanned back and forth in the murky light, seeing only a gray-scale forest, but then she saw it, the shape of a head just behind the downed tree. Keeping her sidearm trained on the shape, she reached carefully for her Maglite, clicked it on, pointed it there, and watched the back of a blond head duck out of sight. A girl’s voice cried out, “Oh, no!”

“We’ve got them!” Z yelled.“Backup! Top of the ridge!” He dropped the radio and trained his flashlight back at the log.

They could hear the others scrambling below now, panting, trying their best to get to them as quickly as they could.

Jess advanced a step, trying to see better, and yelled down at the suspect, “Get out from behind that tree, now! We’ve got you surrounded! Give it up!”

The only sounds, the only movement, came from the other side of the hill as her comrades thrashed over brush and boulders to reach them, rays of LED light careening through the trees.

“Shit. What now?” Jess whispered to Z.

“I don’t know. You’re doing pretty good. Larry’ll nail the guy if they run.”

Everett reached them first, apoplectic from exertion. He had his sidearm drawn. “Where?” he panted.

“Spotted the top of a head just to the left of that branch,” Jess said, pointing with the light beam. “Heard a female voice.”

The others joined them and took tactical positions, Takei and Greiner drawing their AR-15s, Jenkins his shotgun. Jess and Z kept their lights focused on the log.

“Forward,” Everett ordered, and they advanced, carefully, a step at a time. “Columbia Police!” he shouted. “Get the hell out here where we can see you.”

Ten yards from the tree the light was better, the last of the dusky twilight filtering down through thinner treetops. Another two yards and they could see over the top of the log into a depression dug out on the other side, the back of a man huddled around what appeared to be an adolescent female. The two held on to each other with clawlike hands.

Jess gripped her weapon tighter. She hoped to god the man was unarmed.

“Hands up! Hands up!

“Get your goddamn hands in the air!”

“Police! Hands up!”

They all yelled at once, the surge of adrenaline racing through everyone. Even Larry lunged at the people, Z caught off guard and pulling hard to restrain him.

“Now! Get your motherfucking hands up now!” Greiner screamed especially frantically, and Jess winced at his choice of language in front of the girl.

The man and girl whipped their faces toward them. They looked like ghosts, the man lean and bearded, the girl small and wan, crying now.

“No!” she sobbed. “Don’t kill us! Please don’t shoot us!”

Bile rose in Jess’s throat. She’d pointed her weapon at juveniles before, but never one who looked so very much like her own daughter.

Everett boomed, “Shut up! Everyone shut the fuck up!” and everyone did.

“Now, you,” he said to the man, “get your goddamn hands up before we have to do something you don’t want us to, not in front of the girl.”

“No!” she screamed, hiding her face in the man’s shoulder.

He cocked his head at Everett with a look of indignation, then turned to the girl and spoke gently. “They’re not going to shoot us, Lindy. They don’t shoot people who haven’t done anything wrong.” He turned toward them. “Right? Tell my daughter you don’t shoot innocent, unarmed people.”

Jess’s hands trembled, but she kept her light and weapon trained on him.

Everett spoke in a normal tone: “Then get those hands up and step away from the girl, and send her out first.”

The girl collapsed against the man’s side, trembling and sobbing, and he looked back at Everett. “Promise you won’t separate us. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You do what we say and we—” Everett started, but Greiner advanced toward the man.

“Get your hands the fuck up, asshole, like the sergeant said!” He trained the barrel of his assault weapon dead on him. The man threw his arms in front of his face, cowering, and the girl screamed.

“Greiner!” Everett shouted. “Back the hell off!”

Greiner refused to back away or lower his rifle, agitated, and Jess guessed he was still pissed off at having fallen in the swastika. “Sergeant,” he said, “we have no idea if he’s armed or—”

“Drop your goddamn weapon!” Everett bellowed.

Greiner lowered his weapon, seething, but he said nothing more.

“Let’s all take a deep breath,” Everett said.

The girl calmed to whimpering, and the man finally raised his hands. The situation could still go bad, but Jess had new respect for the sergeant.

“Good,” Everett said, never taking his eyes from the man. “Now, young lady,” he said, “you come on out here, and we need your hands up, too.”

She looked at the man. He turned to her. “Do what they say.”

She rose to her feet and walked slowly around the log, her small hands raised, palms out. Her long brown hair was tangled on one side, like she’d been sleeping, and she wore a pink hoodie and jeans on her slight frame. Jess guessed she was eleven, maybe twelve.
She could be Nina at that age,
she thought.
She could be any kid getting off the school bus, or hanging out at the mall
.

Jess edged closer as the girl cleared the tree.

“No! Don’t take me away from my father!” The girl flexed as if she might bolt.

Jess stopped. “It’s okay. We’re not going to take you anywhere. We’re just going to talk to both of you.”

Everett sighed and said to the man, “Go ahead and come on out now.”

The man moved slowly, rising from his knees into a standing position as if it pained him.

“Hands behind your head,” Everett said.

The man complied. He wore an olive green T-shirt and jeans, his beard on the scruffy side. He had no visible tattoos, and he didn’t look like an addict, Jess thought. He was clean, healthy-looking. Except for the eyes. They had an unsettled look to them.

As soon as he cleared the log, Jenkins and Greiner were on him, each grabbing an arm and pushing him toward the nearest tree. The girl gasped. They forced him into a leaning position against it, bracing with his hands, and kicked his legs apart to search him as Z kept a light trained on them. The man kept looking back over his shoulder at the girl and she cried out, “Don’t hurt my father, please! Don’t take him away!”

“Calm down, now,” Everett said. “We’re just going to ask both of you some questions. See this nice lady here? This is Officer Villareal. She’s going to find a place for you two to sit and talk.”

Jess holstered her weapon and walked toward her, lighting the rocky path between them. The girl started to scream again.

Jess turned to Everett, who raised his light until her face was illuminated. “Wipe the blood off your forehead, Villareal. How’d that happen, for god’s sake?”

Jess reached up and felt stickiness on her right temple, then wiped it as best she could with her sleeve. “I fell, Sarge, just like everybody else.” To Lindy, she said, “It’s nothing serious. I just fell down. It’s tricky walking around here, you know? Especially in the dark, and especially for someone like me who doesn’t get out in the woods much. I bet you never fall down, do you?”

The girl shook her head, keeping her eyes trained on her father, her pink-sleeved arms shaking as she held them in the air. She was slight but not unhealthily thin. She had pink in her cheeks and clean clothes, clean hair. Jess had a feeling that if she could see the girl’s fingernails, they’d be clean, too.

“Look, I’m sorry, but I need you to unzip your hoodie and hold it open so I can see that you don’t have anything under there.”

The girl unzipped her sweatshirt with delicate, trembling fingers, then looked at her the same way Nina had whenever she’d been hurt, or experienced a disappointment, or didn’t understand how the world could be so awful.

Jess had to take a deep breath before she could say, “Thanks, sweetie. Now pull it wide-open and turn around for me.”

The girl complied, exposing an equally pink T-shirt.

“Thank you,” Jess said. “You can zip back up. I have to look through your stuff, okay?”

The girl nodded but didn’t come closer. After all the screaming, she’d gone mute.

Jess walked over to the log the girl and the man had been behind, seeing over it now with her flashlight: their blanket and backpacks and sleeping bags, a camouflage jacket and a girl’s pale blue parka, the leftovers of a picnic. No visible weapons.

The backpacks held clothing, including the silver dress, toothbrushes, small towels, books, a Bible. A copy of
The Wind in the Willows
. Jess looked up at the girl and said, “That used to be my favorite.”

The girl averted her eyes.

Jess called over to Everett, “Okay, Sarge. We’re good.”

12

I
t felt like a dream, the worst bad dream, when they all pointed their guns at us and yelled. I couldn’t understand their words. I couldn’t think. My mind was bright white, lightning flashes, blood and murder. I thought they were going to kill us. I thought Pater and I were going to die right there, and I could even feel the heat of bullets in my chest, the sensation of metal exploding my heart. Why else would they point their guns at us if they didn’t mean to kill us? All I could do was hold tight to Pater and scream for our lives.

After they put down their guns, after they searched us like criminals and made Pater sadder than I think I’ve ever seen him, they turned from nightmare monsters back into people. They spoke in normal voices, and asked us to do things that were odd, but they were mostly nice about it, even funny. The black man was the funniest, and the nicest. But the woman was nice, too.

She followed me down the hill to our camp, pointing her flashlight in front of her, but I knew the way in the dark. I wondered if she had her gun drawn again.

We sat on the log stools that Pater and I made last winter, chiseling out the tops and smoothing them with sandpaper to fit our bottoms more comfortably. She sat in Pater’s, but she didn’t look comfortable.

“Okay, Lindy, right? Can you tell me your full name?” She held her big flashlight between her arm and her side, and wrote something in a blue notebook, waiting for my answer.

The two policemen who’d grabbed Pater brought him by the arms down the hill.

“Are they going to hurt him?” I asked.

“No, of course not,” the policewoman said. “They’re just going to ask him the same questions I’m asking you.”

I kept watching them. They finally let go of his arms when they’d sat at our table beneath the cook tent, and then a lantern began to glow. Pater looked over at me and nodded. I tried to smile back.