Posted on February 16, 2009

Karaoke Quintessence: Chapter 8: Mountain Cabin

Dale followed the men when they left the bar.  The glance from the fat one, the look he was sure had outed him as a snoop, was only passing.  Soon the three men were back to talking, though now with their heads closer together and their voices kept at a whisper.

After twenty minutes, the fat one again left the group, going to the bar and settling in.  Caesar and his black companion stood up, left money on the table, and left.

Dale counted to thirty before doing the same.

He had no trouble keeping their trail.  The men were loud, shouting and laughing and reminiscing about old times, and their progress along the sidewalk was slow enough that Dale could keep back a good distance.  He briefly considered staying in the bar to watch the fat one, taking him as the leader of the group, but decided he had to stick with these two.  They might not know as much, but they didn’t seem nearly as smart.  Caesar and the black man would be more likely to make a mistake.

Eventually the two found their car.  Dale memorized the make, model, and license number.  He had contacts working for the state who could help him find the vehicle again if need be.

He ran back to his car, got in, and drove in the direction the two men had been parked.  He only had to go a couple of blocks before he found them.  Again Dale followed.

What he hoped to get out of this wasn’t entirely clear.  These men didn’t already have the culture box.  That much he’d been able to pick up from their conversation.  But they knew something about it, and that was more than he did.  Perhaps they’d take him to their source for the box—or someone who knew that source.  Dale was still on Charlotte’s and Madison’s tab.  That meant at worst he was wasting their time and money, not his own.

Caesar’s car wound through residential streets until it connected with a main drag and then the highway.  They took the entrance ramp going west, toward the mountains.  After forty minutes, when they got off the highway and onto an unlit road that climbed steeply toward the peaks, Dale grew nervous.  It was one thing to follow a bunch of possible thugs through city streets, where his calls for help, should be be discovered, would attract  some notice.  But in the mountains, he’d be on his own.

He told himself he’d bail the moment things looked dicy.  He wouldn’t take any chances, not for two probably crazy preteen girls.

Some time later, their car turned onto a dirt road under a rusted metal arch that held up a sign that said only, “Ranch.”  Dale drove past a quarter mile, parked in the trees, and walked back.

With his flashlight, he could see that something had once been written over “Ranch” on the wood, but had long worn away.  The gate that used to guard entrance to the ranch was broken and bent on one side and entirely missing on the other.

This certainly counted as dicy, but Dale continued along the dirt road, glad he’d remembered to bring a pistol.

The dirt road turned out to be a dirt driveway.  A couple hundred yards from where it started, the path took a sharp turn to the right, through a small grove of trees, and ended in front of a dilapidated mountain shack.  From within the grove, Dale looked out at the cabin, trying to work up the courage to investigate further.

Caesar’s car was parked in front, next to black van with tinted windows.  The back doors of the van hung open.  The sun had long gone below the line of the mountains, but Dale couldn’t risk using his flashlight this close to the shack.

Cursing himself for falling prey to Charlotte and Madison’s charms—and their money—Dale crept forward.

None of the windows were lit.  When he was next to the van, Dale made out two men standing in the shadows of the porch, on either side of the door.  Neither looked like Caesar or his buddy, though both were of African descent.  The larger of the two men held a huge staff, which he leaned on, apparently dozing.  The other held a pistol, turning it over and over in his hands, the metal sparkling in the moonlight.

Dale pushed forward again, hoping to get around the side of the house to look in a window, but stopped when gravel crunched under his feet.  The guy with the staff looked up and walked over to the railing, peering out into the night.  He turned and said something to his friend, who shook his head.  The guy with the staff shrugged and went back to his place by the side of the door.

Dale waited.  He couldn’t risk getting any closer, now that the men were on the alert.  Ten minutes later, they chatted again and then both headed inside.  When they’d closed the door behind them, Dale crept to the side of the shack and then on to the side.

When he didn’t find any windows—just rotting wood speckled with dried mud—he continued to the back.

There were windows here: two small sets of four panes, each about five inches square and filthy.  He had to press his face up against one to see through.

Inside the shack was dark, but Dale thought he could make out several shapes.  Two tall blobs stood at one end—probably the black men—and near the center was a larger, lower something, a blog that might have been a piece of furniture covered with a cloth.  Dale squinted, trying to make out more.  His breath began to fog the glass and he had to move on to a different window.

In the time it took him to make this switch, the thing in the middle of the room had moved.  Now it was clearly two shapes, two men—though the smaller one might have been a woman.  The larger appeared to be huddled on the ground, while the other was sitting in a chair.  Dale saw no sign of Caesar or his companion.

As he watched, one of the black men walked over to the two people in the middle of the room.  He said something Dale couldn’t understand—it was either muffled or in a language different than english—and leaned close to the person in the chair.  Dale realized the recipient of these words was bound, for he tried to pull away from the black man but only twisted where he sat.

Dale reached into his jacket and pulled the pistol from its holster under his shoulder.  It’s not your job to rescue these people, he told himself, but he knew that’s exactly what he’d do.  The two black men he could take out before they had a chance to react.  But where are Caesar and his buddy?

Dale didn’t have to wait long to find out.  The black man bent even closer to his captive and the one huddled on the floor inched away.  When the black man raised his staff over his head and brought it down on the captive’s shoulder, eliciting a terrible scream from the now injured man, Dale began running around to the front of the house.  He had to help these people.  He didn’t have a choice.

The front door was an inch open when Dale jumped the steps of the porch.  He shoved it the rest of the way with his left hand, while holding the gun out with his right.

The man with the staff stopped half way through a second blow and spun around.  The one who had been by the door made a grab for Dale’s arm.  Dale shot him in the leg.

The man with the staff charged forward and Dale shot him, too, the round entering his chest at the midpoint between left nipple and throat.

The guy on the floor crawled toward Dale, pleading not to be hurt, to be let go, that he hadn’t done anything and wasn’t a part of this.  Dale ignored him, scanning the room for the two missing men from the bar.  But the room was empty aside from the wounded black guy by the door, the dead one in the middle of the floor, and the two captives.

Dale turned to the one he’d shot in the leg and said, “Stay there.  Are you armed?”

The wounded man shook his head.

“I’m going to pat you down to check, okay?” Dale said.

The man nodded.

Dale stepped over to him and bent down, patting his pockets with one hand while keeping the gun pointed at his stomach with the other.  Behind him, the guy in the chair moaned.

“Will you take care of him?  See if he’s okay?” Dale said over his shoulder to the other captive.

“Yeah, okay.”

Dale finished checking the black man for weapons and found none.  He helped untie the kid in the chair and then he and the fat captive tied the black man in his place.

When this was done, Dale took a moment to look at the two men he’d saved.  The one who’d been on the floor was six inches shorter than Dale and fifty pounds heavier.  He looked vaguely Italian and was dressed in a sweat stained collared shirt with flowers and horses decorating the fabric.  In his hand he held an old leather jacket.

The kid who’d been in the chair was much younger, no more than college age.  He was thin, and dressed only in a black t-shirt and jeans.  The color of the shirt made it difficult to see if his shoulder was bleeding, but Dale didn’t think it was.

“Is it broken?” Dale said to him.

The kid shook his head.  “I don’t think so.”  He looked around.  “Goddamn, what the hell is this?  I’m riding the bus and chatting with this guy and then—  Goddamn.”

“What’s your name?” Dale said.

“Danny Weeks.”

“And you?” Dale said to the fat man.

“Jimmy Pete.  And I gotta say thank you, man, for busting in here like the fucking cavalry.  Saved my life.  Those two fucks, I mean, who knows what they were going to do.  Rape me?  Eat me?  Shit.”  He pulled on his jacket.  “So thanks.”

“Did you see two other guys besides these two?” Dale asked him.

“Nope.  Just them two fucks.”  He stuck out his hand.  “Jimmy,” he said.  “Name’s Jimmy Pete.”

“Alex Dale.”  They shook.

“Can we get out of here?” Danny said.

“Where the hell did they go?” Dale whispered, looking around the single, small room.

“Who’s ‘they?’” Jimmy said.

“There were two guys I followed here.  Their car’s out front, next to a van, but they’re not here.  They can’t have gone far.  I came here just after they did.”

“Haven’t seen ‘em,” Jimmy said.

“Me neither,” Danny said.

Dale said, “Okay, I’ve got a car parked a little way up the road.  I’ll get you out of here, but I have questions to ask on the way.”

“For what you did?” Jimmy said.  “I’ll answer anything.”