Rescue

nothing but what you’d expect in the kitchen drawers and plastic cabinets and built-in bureaus of a bachelor living simply on a gravel road in a forest The clothes were alternately wrinkled or tom, universally smelly. The dining utensils were mismatched and bent, the glasses few and smudged. No liquor, though, and no evidence that any had been around.
    I stopped for a minute and thought about it If I lived out here, I’d have myself a hidey-hole for really important things-
    Poking and prying, fifteen minutes later I tried the tank behind the toilet. A bundle the size of a broken brick» wrapped in opaque brown plastic.
    I fished it out and took off the elastic bands. After some unraveling, I got to the core. Cash. Hundreds of bills, heavily fifties. Roughly ten to fifteen thousand, an awful lot of money for an unemployed man who’d just bought a new truck-Nothing but cash in the bundle, though, no names or addresses or documents of any kind. I rewrapped the cash and replaced it.
    After checking to see I’d put everything else back, I clicked off the flashlight to let my eyes readjust to the dark. I hadn’t found much, and Florida was a long way away, but it was a start and more than I’d had before.
    Taking the toilet paper off the lens, I put the flashlight itself back by the sink where I’d found it. Opening the back door and stepping onto the chair, I noticed it was now darker outside than it had been inside. By the time I registered the boots on the ground, something was making contact with my head, turning everything so much darker still that the stars behind my eyes really stood out by contrast.

10

    I think it was the bouncing rather than the country music that brought me around.
    I was lying on my back in what felt like the bed ofa pickup truck through a sleeping bag I was on rather than in. My mouth was gagged and taped, my hands also taped at the wrists behind me. My legs were tied, but with about eighteen inches of slack between them, as though I was meant to be able to walk hobbled. I still had the gloves on, the pads of my fingers not able to say whether it was electrician’s tape or something else equally strong that someone had used on me.
    There was a burlappy hood over my head that was drawn to my nose every time I inhaled. It didn’t seem to be affected by any wind as we moved along, so I figured I was in the camper shell of Lonnie Severn’s truck. The hood or the sleeping bag—or both—smelled of motor oil and urine. The music was coming from just above and beyond my head. I didn’t feel we were going fast, more an erratic jolting and rocking, as though the truck was crawling slowly over a bad dirt road.
    Then we turned to the right and stopped.
    I heard a door open from where the music had died, then a shift in weight and the thump of the door closing. What I guessed to be the camper’s hatch opened past my feet, a male voice saying, “You awake in there?“
    It sounded like the redhead from the tire-changing incident. Not quite as much southern accent now, as though he weren’t trying to disguise his voice anymore.
    Severn said, “You ain’t awake, I’m gonna stick you about an inch deep with a knife till you are. So, if you’re awake, you pound your right foot twice.“
    I pounded.
    “Good. Now, I’m gonna pull you out by your shoe a little, then you’re gonna have to play like a worm till you’re all the way out and setting on this back gate. You follow me?“
    I pounded twice.
    “That’s the idea. You clown around any, this knife’ll go in more’n an inch. We understand each other?“
    Again.
    “Okeydokey. Now, just relax some.“
    Severn first tugged, then dragged my left foot out maybe three feet before stopping. With the taping, I couldn’t have managed much of a windup for my right foot, so I didn’t try anything.
    Letting go of me, Severn said, “Reminds me of the time I had getting you in there. Like two hundred pounds of potatoes, all loosey-goosey. All right, boy, now it’s your turn.“
    Using mostly my feet, I worked my way toward his voice. My skull banged against the top of the camper frame as my center of gravity carried me out and down. I ended up in an awkward sitting position on the gate.
    “Your head all right?“
    I pounded my foot once against what felt like packed earth.
    “Sorry I can’t let you rub it, make it better.“
    Severn said it easily, like he’d used the line before.
    “All right now, we’re gonna have you stand up.