The Ballad of Dinah Caldwell Read online

  Warren’s mouth had fallen open, too. He stared from Kara to Dinah.

  She’d been going to ask everyone to help pay off Gates. But she hadn’t meant Kara’s savings. “You can’t—”

  Kara closed her hand around Dinah’s arm. “Mi cielo, we can’t screw around with this. If you lose the well, you’ll have to move. And we’ll all be worse off for it. Please don’t argue. Just take it.”

  Dinah shoved the money into her pocket. Kara swung an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close for a second. “We got this,” Kara whispered.

  Dinah nodded into her hair, smelling pears and bar soap, and then she stepped back. Kara would understand how much she wanted to say more, and why she wouldn’t.

  She swung onto her bike and let it roll down the incline toward the highway, Warren following.

  Fifty-two dollars. It wasn’t enough, but it wasn’t nothing.

  Warren biked beside her, his feet stretching to push the pedal all the way down. The exertion was hard on him, but he was so self-conscious about his asthma that if he thought she was going slow for him, he’d get upset. She usually biked as slowly as she could without him noticing.

  Today he wasn’t coughing, but his chest heaved.

  “Hey, my toe hurts from kicking those pears yesterday,” she said. “Can we walk up this hill?”

  “Sure,” he huffed. “Don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  They slid off their bikes and walked them up the steep grade. Brambles and raspberry canes filled the ditches falling away on either side of the road. The trees were so huge, so old, their branches made a tunnel by threading together over the highway.

  The afternoon had gotten oppressively humid and warm, even though the sky was overcast. She was so warm by the time they reached the bridge over the ravine that she was unzipping her jacket when Warren stopped walking.

  “Dinah. Look.” His tone made her head jerk up.

  That big silver truck sat in front of their house. Parked arrogantly sideways, the front tires off the driveway and into the grass.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  “ROLL THE BIKES INTO THE DITCH. STAY HERE. DON’T MOVE.” Dinah dropped her bike in the road.

  “I’m not staying.” Warren dropped his bike, too.

  “You have to. I’ll come get you if it’s okay.” She paused long enough to make sure he wasn’t following, and then she ran.

  Why would he be back again?

  The house was still a quarter mile away, and she was coming up from behind it. She couldn’t see anything but the reflection of the sun on the house windows and the gleaming silver of the truck. She gripped the hilt of the knife in her belt.

  She had Kara’s money. If he was here to force her mother to sell the well, she could give him that. Promise the rest in a week. A few hundred yards left.

  Twice now, she’d left her mother alone with that man.

  Her feet hit her yard. Tore over the patchy grass.

  Dinah slammed into the back door and almost tripped on the steps. But it didn’t open when she yanked on the doorknob. Locked. It was never locked.

  A scream stuck in her lungs. She ran around the side of the house to the front door. But her feet involuntarily slowed, and then they stopped on the driveway all by themselves.

  He stood on the porch. Gabriel Gates was leaning against the railing, smoking a cigarette. White skin tanned leathery, creases around his eyes from the sun. One boot crossed over the other, like he belonged there.

  The door stood open, but she couldn’t see through the screen door from here. She waited for her mother to look out the window. But nothing.

  Dinah ran past him and into the house.

  Her mother lay on the braided rug in the living room. Her arm was bent at an impossible angle. Dinah’s knees hit the rug. “Mom. Mom, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

  Everything in the house looked fine. Nothing was out of place. Nothing except the way her mother’s head tilted, like something was wrong with her neck.

  Dinah thought she’d been helpless yesterday. That yesterday had been the punchline.

  She touched her mother’s face. No response. She grabbed her hand, trying to feel a pulse. Anything to say this wasn’t her whole world, gone.

  Her mother’s knuckles were scuffed, the skin on her hands creased from working in the garden, kneading dough, stitching up rips, chopping wood. Her hands looked a little like raisins, dried by the sun but with everything good still inside them.

  The creak of the screen door had her turning around, pulling her knife out of the sheath.

  Gates stood just inside the doorway. “Your mother got very upset.”

  His voice should have no power over her. She shouldn’t freeze like he was her god and what he said next would determine her whole life.

  “She hit her head when she fell.”

  Dinah touched her mother’s face again. Her skin was cooling, but maybe that didn’t mean anything. Her mother had to be alive. Dinah was just wrong. Because her fingers were turning numb and she couldn’t feel anything correctly.

  Her mother’s eyes stared across the room. Maybe she’d blink. Dinah brushed the soft skin by her mother’s eyelashes. Her eyelids felt stiff.

  Gates shrugged, his thin lips moving into a flat line. “She was very emotional. Tried to make me leave when I told her I’d be foreclosing. It was a terrible accident.”

  Dinah’s mind had left her body, gone somewhere safe, maybe just followed her mom to wherever she was now.

  Gates was talking through thick clouds. He sounded miles away from where she sat on the braided rug of her living room floor.

  She could feel the knife in her palm. She twisted the handle of her knife around and around in her hand. The blade flashed sunlight from the window. Stand up. He’s lying. Stand up. She didn’t fall.

  His cigarette ashed onto the floor.

  Dinah stood up. “Everyone is going to leave. All you’re going to have is three empty counties of deserted forest.”

  He flicked his cigarette into the sink. “As long as people are desperate, there will be people who won’t leave, and people who will come here to work for me. I’m creating jobs.”

  Dinah flung her knife at him. But he was already moving toward her, and the blade buried itself in the doorframe where his chest had been.

  He grabbed her braid, tilted her head up until she met his bloodshot eyes.

  “You’re right,” she said. “We won’t all leave.”

  His other hand gripped her jaw, and she couldn’t have spoken then even if she’d wanted to. Looking into his eyes made her feel like she was leaving her own body. Rising out of his grip and out of the house until she could crush him inside it.

  Something creaked. Then the metallic pop-chink-thunk of a shell hitting the chamber.

  Warren stood in the doorway, looking down the sights of his rifle. His voice shook, but his hands were steady on the gun. “Get out of our house.”

  Warren, no.

  Gates tightened his grip on her jaw, fingers pressing on her lips until they cut into her teeth. “You put that gun down, or I’ll break your sister’s neck right here.”

  Warren’s shoulder steadied, went still. Dinah saw it. He squeezed the trigger. The bang was so loud in the small house. Gates ducked, and the shot hit the wall to his right. Dinah twisted her head and sank her teeth into Gates’s hand.

  He screamed and jerked back, but she kept digging her teeth in until they pierced flesh. He shoved her away. Her head snapped back. She bolted to her feet, reaching Warren in three steps.

  Together, they moved away from the door, over to the table. Blood had spurted into her mouth. His blood, his iron and salt. She spit onto the floor.

  Gates stepped toward Warren. “You really think you’re going to kill me, kid?”

  Warren kept his aim steady. “I’ve killed all kinds of things. Get out.”

  Gates went still. He watched them for a moment and tilted his head to the side. Then he w
alked out of the house and climbed into the truck. The bang of a truck door sounded, and a moment later the engine rumbled. The truck jerked as it turned onto the blacktop. Rubber screamed as the truck accelerated.

  Warren lowered his gun. His pale gray eyes strayed to their mother’s body.

  Dinah had to do something. Even though her body was a husk. All her insides must have fallen out or blown away like smoke.

  Dinah reached out and carefully took the gun from him.

  “We have to call a doctor,” he said.

  Dinah shook her head.

  “They have an ambulance in St. George. They’ll take her to the hospital.”

  Dinah shook her head again. She wanted to scream, shake her mother’s body just to see her move.

  “I should’ve shot to kill him instead of threaten him. We could have taken her to the hospital in his truck.”

  “Warren, listen, honey.” Dinah crouched down and set the gun aside. “You need to get some stuff together, okay? Get all your warm clothes. The potatoes, the cheese, all the meat. Fill the water jug, too.”

  His eyes finally met hers. “Why?”

  A wet streak burned down her face and she wiped it away. “He’s coming back, okay? Did you see how fast he drove off? He’s coming back for us, and he’ll have his bodyguard and other people with him. We have to be gone by then. Hurry, Warren. Go, go, okay?” She had to push him a little before he ran into his room.

  Dinah picked up the quilt from the couch and draped it over her mother’s body. She should do more than that. How could a quilt be all she could give her mother?

  His blood was still in her mouth. She spit into the sink and rinsed, but the taste of iron wouldn’t fade.

  Warren’s dresser drawers banged. If he was making noise, he was okay.

  But he wouldn’t be for long if she couldn’t snap out of this. She ran to the kitchen, dug food out of the refrigerator. Hurried from room to room, piling things on the table.

  Gates could be on his way back by now. She didn’t know where he was going, who he’d be calling, how far away they’d be.

  A tarp, a rope, the matches. Soap. The gun. Ammunition. Kara’s money.

  She couldn’t even tell Kara or other neighbors. Because he’d go there to look for her and Warren first. If the neighbors knew anything, it would be trouble.

  Tears still burned down her face. Hot and falling, no matter how many times she wiped them away.

  Her knives. They didn’t have a compass. No room for her guitar. She couldn’t take her tablet or the school would be able to track her. She pried up the creaking floorboard in her room, shoved her tablet and her charger into the gap underneath it. Pounded the nail back in and to the side enough that it caught new wood and held.

  They were taking too long.

  Warren carried an armload of things to the kitchen and heaped them on the table. He ran out again and returned, carrying the backpacks—the heavy-duty waterproof ones their father had used for hunting trips.

  “Warren.” Words stuck in her throat and the sick feeling spread. She couldn’t tell him he had to say good-bye.

  He looked at the quilt-covered body, and his hands clenched on the straps of the bags.

  She could not freeze like this.

  Dinah took the backpacks from her brother and strapped the folded blankets to the bottoms. The water jug and the milk they could carry.

  Warren glanced at the pile of things on the table. “You haven’t packed anything.”

  Dinah looked up. Right. She needed her own clothing. “I’ll hurry.” She ran to the bedroom and grabbed socks, underwear, a tight shirt, a loose shirt, a sweater. Jeans. Softer, warmer pants. Hair ties. Antiseptic cream, toilet paper, tampons. Matches, the sewing kit. She paused by the kitchen sink. She bent and pulled out the plastic bag with the deed to the farm.

  “Dinah?” Warren touched her hand. “I’ll pack the bags. You said we have to hurry.”

  Warren was a natural organizer. She would have just crammed everything into a bag, but he’d put the things they wouldn’t need right away at the bottom, roll the clothing tightly, and tuck tiny items into crannies.

  Dinah knelt by her mother, pulled the quilt back, and touched her cheek. She’d told her she’d figure it out. Just last night, she’d promised that.

  Rasping sounds. Warren dragged the backpacks across the living room. His own face was wet now, too. He wiped his red eyes on his sleeve.

  Dinah reached for his hand and he gripped hers. They stood there, staring at the yellow quilt covering their mother, and all Dinah could do was hold on to Warren’s hand.

  An engine growled on the highway. Two engines. Fear leaped into her throat. The rumble didn’t slow; the cars barely braked for the turn onto the dirt. Dust surged up in a cloud. Seconds. They had only seconds.

  Dinah sprinted for the bags and shrugged hers up on her shoulders, then held up Warren’s for him. It was smaller, but not much. She grabbed the jugs of milk and water and stuffed them into the top of the packs.

  They ran down the back steps and across the yard. The cars didn’t stop on the driveway, tearing over the grass toward the trees.

  The woods were only a dozen yards away. Dinah seized Warren’s hand as they ran. Their feet pounded and sticks cracked under their shoes. They reached the edge of the trees. Voices yelled for them to stop. A shot fractured the air and a pine to their left shuddered. Then an elm and another pine.

  The woods were sparse enough here for them to be seen. Dinah gripped Warren’s hand both to keep him from falling and to keep them together. Leaves slipped on rocks. Wild raspberry canes caught their backpacks. Water sloshed in the jug.

  She climbed up a mound of cracked boulders, hauling Warren behind her. Too wide to go around and it would block the gunfire. Warren jerked his hand free of hers to grab handholds. The soles of her shoes slammed into the ground as she landed on the forest floor.

  The ravine cut through the steady slope upwards, decreasing the grade. Dinah grabbed a tree root and swung down, Warren scrambling after. The side of the gorge was rocky enough that finding footholds wasn’t hard, but snakes sometimes hid in the pockmarked walls. Warren landed beside her.

  The crunch of leaves and branches above grew louder. “Run, Warren, come on.”

  He scrambled ahead of her, his backpack bouncing. She’d be okay running like this, but he wouldn’t be.

  They raced up the ravine, dodging cracked boulders and nearly tripping every third stride. Warren stumbled and she grabbed him by the backpack to keep him from falling. The autumn leaf cover made running nearly impossible. Fortunately, the men crashing along behind them were having the same problem. Several men, it sounded like. Who? Gates had some farmhands who worked for him, some people who were friends of friends. Mrs. McCaffrey’s nephew. But weren’t they just—farmers? Not killers. Not people who’d chase kids down in the woods. Then this must be his bodyguard, Brian Shaw, and at least two others.

  Angry voices echoed down the ravine.

  Her lungs heaved in air. Warren’s must be burning. Think, Dinah, think. They couldn’t outrun those men. The best they could hope for was to get far enough ahead so they could hide.

  Warren looked back at her.

  “Don’t look back,” she said. “You’ll fall.” The rock wall to her left erupted and fragments stung her cheek.

  Shit. They had to get out of this ravine before one of them got shot. “Where’s the gun?” she panted.

  Warren stumbled and paused his scramble up the rocky trench. “We left it in the house,” he whispered. “I forgot to pick it up.”

  No gun. Pebbles slid beneath her foot. “Come on. We can’t stop.” She reached for his backpack. “Let me take this so you can go faster.”

  Dinah swung the second bag over her shoulder. The incline only grew steeper, but a few hundred yards and they’d be out of the ravine. She glanced back. The men rounded the curve of the trench, half-running as they navigated the rocks. She climbed faster, her shoulder
aching under the added weight.

  Warren reached the top. His face paled, and when he started coughing, he couldn’t stop. He bent over and wheezed air in and out. Dinah scrambled out of the ravine and ran over to him. She touched his back. “Are you okay?”

  He coughed once more and spit on the ground. “Yeah. But I don’t think—” He coughed again.

  Her hands turned into fists and she shifted the backpacks. She and Warren had explored all over back here. A hundred yards away, a shelf of the mountain rose into the air. Around the side, a split hid in the rocks, just big enough to hold a person. “Hurry, come on.”

  Warren followed her as she ran for the shelf. The wind had picked up, and the air was getting colder. She knew not to believe storms anymore—they sometimes gave the empty promise of dark clouds, lightning, thunder. But never any rain.

  “Hide back in there and stay with the bags. I’ll run the other direction and then double back to get you.” She dumped the bags on the ground, and Warren crawled back into the split in the rocks. His breath still keened.

  Shit. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Rocks tumbled and clattered into the ravine. The men were climbing out. Warren waved at her and pulled a bag in after him. “I’m fine. Run fast, sis.”

  She glanced away, then back to him. “Okay. Love you. Don’t make a sound.” She sprinted up the hill, sticking to rocks and moss and avoiding the leaf cover.

  Without the weight of the bags, she leaped easily from foothold to foothold. At the top, she kicked down a small shower of stones to draw their attention away from Warren’s hiding place. Shouts came from below. They headed in her direction, firing wildly into the forest around her.

  She grabbed a vine to steady her headlong sprint down the slope. Up the next incline. The mountains were never downhill for very long.

  Gates himself wasn’t with these men. He’d sent his farmhands after Dinah and Warren as if they were stray cattle.

  A rabbit bolted past the bushy poison sumac she skirted, nearly making her fall. Running through the forest was almost impossible. She’d break her ankle and get caught.