Purgatory Ridge

“Well, you’re looking in the wrong place. Only people out this way are me ‘n’ that big log home over there. We all keep pretty much to ourselves, ‘n’ we like it that way. Tha’s why we live out here.” He looked at them pointedly, to let them know his privacy had been invaded enough.

“I thought you gave up the drinking, John,” the deputy said. She said it as if it concerned her.

“I gave up drinking lotsa times. What the hell business is it of yours anyway?”

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. LePere,” the man in the suit said.

They left.

He’d seen lights the rest of the night. Around the big house. Down at the shoreline. In the morning before he left for work, he heard dogs in the woods between his place and Lindstrom’s. He hadn’t slept at all despite the bit of whiskey he’d drunk in order to make a good show. He hadn’t taken his morning swim. He’d showered, shaved, dressed for his shift at the casino and gone to work as usual.

But he felt watched. Bridger had predicted that, too. Told him not to let it get to him. It was natural. As if Bridger did this sort of thing all the time.

John Sailor LePere went about his routine as naturally as possible, complaining of a terrible hangover every chance he got. Although it was Sunday morning, the casino was still doing a brisk business. LePere wasn’t a particularly religious man, but there seemed something unsettling about a world in which so many people gambled on a day that was supposed to be kept holy. A commandment was being shattered, yet there seemed no punishment. God, John LePere had decided long ago, was asleep at the wheel. For a brief moment, he thought about his share of the ransom money-one million dollars. It was not money he would gamble away. It was to purchase justice, another thing that God, in his carelessness, had overlooked.

28

SHE HAD A SENSE OF MORNING. Of light. Of air moving as day pushed out the night. She heard birds, too, and that was a dead giveaway of dawn.

She was past aching. Or she hurt so much and in so many places now that she couldn’t separate what hurt from what didn’t. Her back, she was certain, had begun to fester from the splinters wedged under skin when her captor had forced her down the square post.

All night, she’d heard the van come and go. She’d decided there was no one watching when the man who’d brought them was gone. Whenever the van drove away, she’d felt along the ragged post, hoping to find a way to nick an edge of the tape, to begin the work of freeing herself.

She’d heard the others moving, shifting, making noises of discomfort. However, Stevie hadn’t made a sound at all, and that worried her.

Fear had passed. What moved in to replace it was anger, a hatred that festered like the splinters on her back. The bastards. She wanted to get her hands free, to fill them with something big and deadly to smash the heads of the men who would hurt her child. She couldn’t fathom why God would let this happen.

A little moan came from somewhere in front of her and to her right. Was it Stevie? She tried to speak, to offer her son some comfort, but words couldn’t pass her taped lips, and the sound came out an unintelligible mumble, frightening even to her. God, she wanted to speak to him, and to have him reply, just to know that he was all right. She thought of the night before, when she’d put him to sleep with a song. How wonderful and simple that had been.

Jo began to hum, thinking the words in her head.

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John, Brother John? Morning bells are ringing. Morning bells are ringing. Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.

She stopped, hoping for a response that didn’t come. Oh, God, please let him answer. Let his little heart be strong.

She tried again. Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John, Brother John?

Now she heard the resonance of another voice, but it wasn’t Stevie’s. It was Grace, who hummed with Jo, Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing. Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.

The two women paused. Once again, only a terrible, silent waiting filled the cabin.

Then she heard a smaller voice humming. Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John, Brother John?

It was Scott. Grace joined him, and Jo’s voice became a part of the music, too.

Morning bells are ringing. Morning bells are ringing. Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.

To hum was liberating, to fill the cabin with the nearest thing to talk they could achieve. They went through the round once again, Jo praying that she would hear Stevie. But at the end, he was still silent. A moment passed. Then a high little hum, like an echo of the round’s final line, reached her-Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong-and her heart leaped. Stevie was with her, and he knew she was with him. It was so small a triumph, yet she found herself overwhelmed and weeping. She began the round again, and four voices joined in a sound Jo believed the angels would have envied.