BODACIOUS Read online

  BODACIOUS

  By Sharon Ervin

  Chapter One

  A shotgun blast jarred the isolated convenience store, shattering plate glass windows. Women screamed. Men yelled. Sara Loomis crouched, curled over her knees, and covered her ears.

  Some of the half dozen customers remained upright, paralyzed. Others, like Sara, dropped to the floor. Muffled voices shouted commands, but Sara couldn’t understand a word they said.

  Suddenly, fingers bit into her upper arm and yanked her to her feet. She tried to jerk her arm out of his grasp and yelled, “No.”

  Her ears rang at a second gun blast. The fingers pinching her flesh lifted and shoved. She lurched forward, her feet doing a quick stutter step to keep up. Her purse strap dropped off her free arm. Before she could catch it, the satchel plummeted, scattering contents which clattered and spun, skittering over the floor behind her.

  “No!” she shouted again, tugging, trying to tear her arm free of the pinching fingers. “No, no!”

  The masked man with the biting fingers bumped and bulldozed her out into the brisk October afternoon, past the first set of gasoline pumps to the far driveway.

  She flailed with her free hand to keep her dress from billowing over her head as the wind swirling through the Ozark mountains licked at her clothing.

  Shoved into the cab of a cannibalized pickup truck, she struggled to get out of their way as a gang of shouting, shooting, smelly men piled in, around, and on top of her. The driver gunned the engine and peeled out, toppling the occupants who tumbled against each other shouting obscenities.

  “Wah Hoo!” the man with the pinching fingers yelled, yanking off his ski mask, and righting himself. “Did you see that porch monkey hit his knees when I pointed my gun at him? ‘Bet he peed his pants.” His laugh sounded phony.

  “Hey, fool,” the driver shouted, pulling pantyhose from his head. Sara shivered. “Queenie said no shootin’.”

  “Cappy done it, Holthus,” a muffled voice volunteered.

  Free of his pantyhose hood, the driver had heavy jowls, bright red hair, and a beard. “Joe Lee, was there any bills in that ATM?”

  One of the skinny guys on Sara’s lap answered, removing a ski cap. “Hell, I thought we was drawing cop fire, Holthus.” She couldn’t see his face, only the acne-riddled back of his neck. “I didn’t get to the damn machine. Shit, I thought I was fixin’ to be dead.”

  Smashed into the seat with two sweaty men on top of her and others crammed on either side, Sara blinked hard. The air was putrid with the stench of booze, tobacco, and unbathed bodies. She swallowed, trying not to retch.

  Pulling off caps, stockings, and ski masks, the other occupants all talked at once. She didn’t move, hoping to remain invisible.

  “If the cops had showed up, someone’d be shoveling their guts up off that pavement ‘bout now,” one bragged.

  “Holthus, how much’d we get?” said another.

  The driver swung a hard left to avoid a chunk out of the roadbed. His passengers resettled before he said, “How the hell do I know? Gilbert, did you get the cash drawer?”

  The man in the passenger seat stiffened. “Yeah. Got the whole wad right here in my pocket.” Patting his jeans pocket, he caught his elbow in Sara’s rib. She flinched, but bit her lips to keep from making a sound. His eyes widened and he stared at her. “What’s she doin’ here?”

  Necks craned and eyes glowered. Sara cringed. The driver leaned around to peer at her and scowled. “Cappy?”

  “B-B-Beer’s all I g-g-got. Franklin got the g-g-girl, Holthus. You know it weren’t me. Weren’t me doing no sh-shootin’ neither. I ain’t c-c-carryin’ no gun.”

  Holthus shouted louder. “Franklin!”

  Smushed next to Sara, pinchy fingers puffed up. “Holthus, I had that there clerk lickin’ floor the whole damned time. Don’t be hollerin’ at me. I done my part exactly like Queenie told us. Didn’t see him settin’ off no alarms, did ya?”

  “The girl, Franklin. What a dumb ass thing to do. We come away with a couple of six packs, a pocket full of change, and the feds looking at us ‘cause of her. You damn fool. You’re all the time screwing us up.”

  Franklin sneered. “We got away, didn’t we? Free as birds, ain’t we? And we can do the same damn thing tomorrow or next week or any damn time we take a mind to.”

  The driver slowed the truck. “I’m gonna let ‘er out.”

  “No, Holthus. She done seen us. She can point to us in court. No. We gotta’ keep ‘er.”

  Sara trembled. She wasn’t supposed to be here. Pinchy was right. She’d seen their faces. She could identify them. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach and a tremor ran through her body. She knew one way they could guarantee her silence.

  But they wouldn’t kill her. Murder her over pocket change. No. Surely not. Not in this day and time.

  She cleared her throat. The putrid smells sickened her. Her mind darted irrationally. She should have flattened herself against the floor in the convenience store when the commotion started. She shouldn’t have let that stupid Franklin bully her. If he’d shot her there, she’d have been better off than letting herself be hauled out here with the five of them.

  How could she defend herself? Against all of them? Alone?

  Her mind swirled. Get a grip. Don’t panic. Think.

  When the truck’s other occupants turned their attention from Sara, Franklin’s small fingers wriggled onto her leg. She slapped his hand and squirmed as far away from him as she could. He grinned.

  She reconsidered. Maybe she wasn’t going to die. Maybe she was just going to wish she had.

  Think of something else. Their names. If she got away, someone would want to know their names. What did they call each other?

  Holthus, the big red-headed one behind the wheel seemed to be the leader. She prodded herself to the mental exercise. Peculiar name, Holthus. First or last? She didn’t know.

  Gilbert, the skinny one in the passenger seat, sounded the most intelligent but didn’t seem to have much influence.

  Joe Lee was on top of her. She’d seen only the back of his head. Stealing another look, she saw white particles moving in his dark, unkempt hair. She shrank as far from him as she could. In her lap, he was inescapable.

  Cappy, the young one who stuttered, was also partially in her lap, squeezed between Joe Lee and the steering wheel. She wondered why they’d brought him.

  And Franklin, the leering groper with the twitching, pinching little fingers. He kept touching her and grinning his toothless little grin. Ugh. It was obvious what was on his mind. Reflux rose in Sara’s throat. She swallowed hard and coughed.

  Her ears popped. They were gaining altitude. The truck sputtered, the engine missing, but kept going. The tires squalled around curves which wound up and up. She peered out the side window. They turned onto a dirt road. The stench inside the truck seemed to be getting worse.

  Sara peered between Cappy and Joe Lee to see ahead. The pitted roadway had dissolved to little more than a cattle trail.

  Franklin grinned at her. He didn’t appear to be over twenty years old, but he had no teeth in the front of his mouth. Strands of hair dangled from his upper lip. Chills pebbled Sara’s arms and she trembled involuntarily. His leer made the muscles around her mouth quiver.

  Eventually when the vehicle slowed and pitched to a lurching stop, bony fingers again clamped onto her arm. Franklin yanked Cappy and Joe Lee off her lap with his other hand before he jerked her out of the truck.

  Her feet on the ground, Sara found herself looking squarely into the toothless grin of Franklin’s flushed, misshapen countenance. Only a little taller than Sara, the man was spindly. His head and face festooned with scraggly patches of matted hair, he seemed to be the source of much of the st
ench inside the truck’s cab. She looked around. They were in a mountain clearing, surrounded by trees.

  “I get her first.” Franklin eyed Sara hungrily. She felt an energizing boost of adrenaline shoot to her arms and legs.

  She was a college educated woman with a future. She’d been with two men in her life--with Jimmy Singer the whole, long, miserable summer. If she cooperated, if she didn’t fight them, would they let her live? Five of them? She didn’t think she could endure it.

  Jerking her arm out of Franklin’s grasp, she spun and darted for the woods.

  “Let ‘er go!” Holthus shouted, but Franklin caught her in a dozen steps, threw her on the ground, climbed on top, and straddled her. She kicked and flailed and screamed with all her strength.

  Franklin shrieked, trying to protect himself from her flying fists and unbuckle his belt at the same time. “Come on, some of you hold ‘er for me.” No one moved. “She’s done seen us. You know what that means. You know what we gotta do.”

  Sara squeezed her eyes shut, bucking and twisting and pummeling him.

  Suddenly, soft hands grabbed Sara’s arm, yanked her out from under Franklin, and straight up onto her feet. Whoever had helped loomed behind her as Sara stood facing Franklin, again eye to eye.

  He leered at her a moment before his gaze shifted to the person behind her. He narrowed his eyes and set his jaw stubbornly as the person spoke. “’Thought I’d find you up here.” The husky voice sounded female. “How much’d you get?”

  All eyes turned on Holthus. “Don’t know yet, Queenie. Gilbert, count what’s in your pocket.”

  Out of the spotlight, Franklin pulled a piece of hemp from his pocket and wrapped it slowly round and round his hand, never taking his eyes from Queenie who remained behind Sara.

  “I’ll do the killin.’” Franklin’s voice was quiet.

  “Nooo.” Queenie’s objection sounded more like a belch. Sara was afraid to look at her. Before she realized what he was doing, Franklin dropped the rough rope around Sara’s wrist and yanked. Recoiling, she took a swing at him. He dodged. She kicked a knee at his groin. He side-stepped nimbly. With no objection from Queenie, Franklin snagged Sara’s free arm. She slapped and kicked at him as he danced around knotting the cord and yanking it tight.

  “She’s gotta be kilt, Queenie, you and all of us here knows that.”

  The belcher hesitated before she spoke again. “Cappy’ll do it.”

  “It’s not his turn.” Franklin’s voice became a whine. “I got ‘er. She’s mine. Anyway, it’s my turn.”

  “Franklin, Cappy’s gonna do it, d’you hear me?” It was a rhetorical question; not a question at all, but a thinly veiled threat. “It’ll make up to him some for that buck.”

  Franklin clenched his jaws, glowered at Sara, and gave the rope a yank. It tore her flesh. She gritted her teeth and trembled with the effort not to scream. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction--or any other--if she could help it.

  “She’s a handsome woman.” Franklin arched his thin little eyebrows. “Nice all over. Real nice tits. They’re her owns. I already felt of ‘em. I like pink cheeks and black hair, too. I always did like black hair on womens. Queenie, her and me, we’ll have us some fun. I’ll get her wore out proper before I...”

  His words dwindled as he looked at the imposing form behind Sara. “Come on,” he wheedled, “Cappy’s too stupid. He’ll forgit somethin’. He’ll be too embarrassed to strip her bare. He’ll leave something on her they can trace if they find her. Me, I’ll see she’s stripped proper. Do it right. Enjoy the doing of it.” He continued leering. “Maybe together her and me’ll have a lotta fun. Might let her live a couple of days, if we’re havin’ a real good time.”

  The woman’s voice was a snort. “I said it’s Cappy’s turn. He’ll peel ‘er right. He just got rattled and forgot before.”

  “Hell, Queenie, Cappy’s too stupid to hardly find his way home after he gets her kilt.”

  Queenie hollered, “Cappy, come on over here.”

  The wiry stutterer who had been partly on Sara’s lap in the truck and appeared to be maybe fourteen years old, shuffled closer. When he reached for the rope binding Sara’s wrists, his hands were so badly stained that the filth looked permanent.

  Franklin refused to give up the lead at first, staring at Sara and giving the rope another savage yank. The hemp burned, and again Sara bit her lips to keep from crying out. She stiffened as a gun cocked beside her ear. Franklin’s eyes bulged and he shoved the tether into the younger man’s hand.

  “Queenie, you wouldn’t...” Franklin gazed at the gun barrel suddenly propped on Sara’s shoulder. His expression turned docile, pleading.

  Sara looked at Cappy’s triumphant, snaggletoothed grin, and exhaled a sigh of relief. His pale eyes were blank, his face full of giddy appreciation as he stared past her. Grinning, he turned his dull orbs to Sara’s face.

  The boy’s straw-colored thatch of hair was cut in short bangs at the top of his forehead as if the job had been self-inflicted by a four-year-old. Like Franklin, Cappy was only slightly taller than Sara and spindly. He began to jitter on his toes, dancing and touching the front of his filthy trousers with his free hand, as if he needed to pee, soon.

  Sara hurried to obey Cappy’s wordless bidding as he pulled on the rope. She would do anything to get away from the vicious, leering Franklin.

  Leash in hand, the youngster, without uttering a word, turned, brushed by Sara, and plodded toward a path which appeared to go directly into the woods. He tugged her along behind him like a toddler with a pull toy. She stepped briskly to keep up.

  Franklin took one stride as if he planned to follow, but Queenie’s deep voice resonated again. “Franklin, I brung you into this world. It’s only right I be the one to see you out. I expect I’ll be the one to do it, when the time comes.”

  “Ah, Ma...”

  * * *

  Maybe a quarter of a mile into the woods, Cappy squared himself with a blackjack tree and undid his pants. Sara turned her head rather than witness the event.

  They had walked probably a mile, the tether slack between them, before Sara spoke. “Cappy, I can cook.”

  “You c-c-can?” He stopped in the middle of the narrow path and turned all the way around to study her. His clouded eyes were rimmed with red. She nodded, looking directly at him with her most respectful expression, a look usually reserved for dignitaries and annoyed bosses.

  “And I can clean. I’m a real hard worker. I could do your chores for you.”

  He looked puzzled. “You c-c-could? What ch-ch-chores?”

  “Whatever chores they make you do.”

  “Oh.” He nodded but obviously didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “I work on newspapers, Cappy. I write stories about interesting people. I’m on my way to a new job, on the Gazette, down at Overt. When I get there, Cappy, I’ll write a wonderful story all about you.”

  “Yeah? C-c-can you type-a-write on one of them elec-tronic ma-ch-ch-chines?”

  “Yes I can.”

  He swallowed hard. Sara supposed he was trying to slow his words to avoid the stutter. “I bet y-y-you even learnt to run one of them com-com-puter outfits. Am I r-r-right?”

  “You’re right, Cappy. Absolutely right.” She wanted to keep him talking. If he liked her, maybe she could find a way out of this. It was a chance.

  He stared at the ground. “It’s a sh-sh-shame to kill someone with so much l-l-learning.” He gazed woefully at an ant hill, staring, standing absolutely still in the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees.

  Watching his movements, his expressions, Sara saw his indecision. “Yes, you’re right again, Cappy. I’d say it’s a terrible waste. You’re pretty smart, for a kid.”

  He bit his lower lip and squinted at her face. “I ain’t smart and I’m nineteen, if I’m a day. I ain’t l-l-lying neither.” He thought another long moment. “Yes, ma’am, seems like it s-s-sure would be...wasteful, I mean.”


  A glimmer of something sparked his eyes and they darted to Sara’s face. “You’re not th-th-thinking I’m so s-s-stupid as to turn you l-l-loose, are you?”

  She shook her head studying him with feigned concentration. “No.” She hesitated. “But maybe you could think of something else, some way we could get me out of this, something besides killing me, I mean. I’m depending on you, Cappy.” That’s right, she told herself, let him be your hero. “Can you figure out any way you could save me?”

  He studied the path and shook his head periodically, as if considering and rejecting ideas. With each shake of his head, his narrow shoulders curled forward and down a little more. Then, suddenly, he straightened.

  “I know.” He grinned at her a moment before his expression wilted and he slouched again. “No. Wouldn’t be r-r-right. Be b-b-better if I kilt you myself.”

  “We could talk about your idea.” She bobbed her head affirmatively to encourage him.

  He sighed. “Th-Th-This one’s n-n-not hardly worth the t-t-talk.”

  “Come on, let me hear it. What are you thinking?”

  “I c-c-can’t do it. You’d be better off with Fr-Fr-Franklin."

  “That big mouth guy back at the clearing?”

  “Yeah, the one who w-w-wanted to do you hisself.”

  “Cappy, no matter what you’re thinking, it couldn’t be worse than him?”

  Cappy rolled his eyes and spread his mouth in a broad grimace. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I was th-th-thinking I might could j-j-just carry you to Bo. He’s cr-cr-crazy. Bo’ll kill ya q-q-quick, th-th-that’s for sure.”

  Mountain terminology, carry, meaning take, Sara mused. “Is Bo a friend of yours?” Cappy shook his head. “You are talking about a human being, aren’t you?”

  Again Cappy looked dubious. Sara waited. “N-N-Not for certain. The p-p-pumas and the b-b-bears is scared sh-sh-shitless of Bo. S-S-Snakes don’t even go ‘crost his path.”

  The boy obviously was delusional.

  “Cappy, maybe you could just leave me here in the woods. I’ve got no sense of direction. I’ll probably die in a day or two, without even a sweater. How cold does it get nights in the mountains this time of year? Down in the twenties, I’ll bet.”