Mountain Captive (Eagle Mountain: Criminal History #4)

Chapter Ten

Fifteen years ago

Chris, drowsing under the covers in her bunk bed in her family’s trailer at the Vine’s camp, woke to raised voices. She pulled back the curtain over the bunk and peered toward the glow of light from the other end of the small trailer. Her father sounded angry about something.

“I’m going to talk to him. This isn’t right.”

“He’s made up his mind,” her mother said. “You’ll never get anywhere arguing with him.”

“There must be some misunderstanding. Jedediah got the message wrong. The Exalted has children—daughters. Would he want one of them married off when she’s only twelve? Not to mention he already has a wife his age. It’s just sick.”

“Lower your voice.” Mom sounded afraid. “You don’t want to let anyone hear you say that.”

“It’s not right, you know that.”

“I know. But what are we going to do? He owns this trailer. He owns everything we have.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” her father said. “I was the one foolish enough to turn everything over to him.”

“You weren’t foolish. You believed in the message. We’re supposed to share with each other. No one has more than anyone else.”

“I still believe that. But not if it means giving him my daughter. I’ll talk to him. I’m sure I can make him understand.”

“What if he won’t listen to you?” her mother asked.

“He will. He has to.”

More conversation, but too soft for Chris to hear. A few moments later, the door to the trailer opened and closed. Chris waited but heard nothing more. Finally, she slipped out of bed and padded on bare feet to the front of the trailer. Her mother sat on the edge of the sofa, head in her hands. Was she crying?

Chris hurried to her. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Where is Daddy?” She didn’t call him Daddy much anymore. It sounded too babyish. But she was too scared to worry about that now.

Her mother pulled her close, arms squeezing her tight. “It’s okay,” she said, and wiped her eyes with her fingers.

“Where did Daddy go?” Chris asked.

Her mother sniffed. “He went to talk to the Exalted.”

“About me?”

Her mother hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.” She pulled Chris into her lap even though Chris was too big for that; her feet almost touched the floor when she sat on her mother’s lap.

“Helen says there’s going to be a wedding soon,” Chris said. “That I’ll be a bride and wear a white dress and have a big party just for me.”

Her mother studied her, deep lines across her forehead. “Do you know what it means to be a bride?” she asked.

Chris thought for a moment. “Helen says I have to live with the Exalted and do what he tells me.” Then she said something she had never dared say before: “I don’t want to live with him.”

Her mother hugged her tightly again. “Maybe your father can talk him into waiting until you’re a little older,” she said.

Chris didn’t think that when she was older she would want to marry the Exalted, either, but she didn’t say anything. “You should go back to bed,” her mother said. “It’s not even six o’clock yet.”

“I’m awake,” Chris said. “And hungry. Can I have breakfast?”

Her mother made breakfast; then they both dressed and Chris helped her mother clean house, which didn’t take long because the trailer was small and they didn’t have much stuff. Mom tried to be extra cheerful, but she kept glancing out the window. “Shouldn’t Dad be back by now?” Chris asked after a couple of hours.

“The Exalted probably sent him to do some work,” Mom said. Everyone in the Vine was expected to pitch in. For the men, that often meant building things, cutting trees, or digging ditches, latrines or garden beds.

Chris did her lessons. Children in the Vine didn’t go to school. Instead, the parents taught them. Some children didn’t have to learn anything at all, but Chris’s parents made her read and study math, reading, geography, history and science every day. She didn’t mind so much. Most of the time the lessons were interesting, and she usually found them easy.

Her mother got out a quilt she was working on, but often, when Chris looked up from her schoolwork, she found her mother staring out the front window, her hands idle.

They ate lunch without Dad. By three o’clock, her mother could hardly sit still. She put away her quilting. “I’m going to look for your father,” she said. “Lock the door behind me, and don’t let anyone in unless it’s me or your dad. Do you understand?”

Chris nodded. “What am I supposed to tell anyone who comes by?”

“Don’t tell them anything,” Mom said. “Stay quiet and let them think no one is home.”

Chris wanted to ask what her mother was afraid of, but she didn’t. Instead, she turned the lock after her mother was gone and sat on the sofa to wait.

She was back in half an hour. “Jedediah told me your father left the Exalted’s home this morning with some other men. They went into the woods to pick mushrooms.”

“Isn’t it the wrong time of year for mushrooms?” Chris asked. Always before, they had looked for mushrooms in the spring and fall, when they would pop up after wet weather. Now it was midsummer, warm and dry.

“Maybe this was a different kind of mushroom,” her mother said. “Or someone found some by a spring or something. Come, help me peel potatoes. We’ll make a special dinner. Maybe we’ll even make a cake.”

Making the cake, and the potatoes and vegetables and meat loaf, took a while, but six o’clock—the hour they usually ate supper—passed with no sign of her father. Her mother filled a plate and told Chris to sit down at the table and eat it, but Chris only stared at the food, her stomach too queasy for her to even think of putting anything into her mouth.

A little before nine o’clock, they heard voices outside. Mom rushed to the door, then, with a cry, opened it to admit Jedediah and a man Chris didn’t know. Between them, they carried her father, his face gray, his hair and clothes wet. “He ate some of the mushrooms he found,” Jedediah said. “I think they must have been poisonous.”

They carried her father past Chris to her parents’ bed at the back of the trailer. Mom hurried after them. Chris tried to follow, but Jedediah shut the door in her face.

A few minutes later, the door opened again and the two men emerged. “What’s going on?” Chris asked.

“We’re going to fetch the healing woman,” the man she didn’t know said. Jedediah only scowled at her.

When they were gone, Chris went to the bedroom door and knocked. “Mom?” she called.

“You can’t come in,” her mother called. “Go to your room and wait for me.”

Chris didn’t really have a room, just a bunk bed with a curtain to separate it from the rest of the trailer. Not knowing what else to do, she went there and sat. She switched on the light her father had fixed up for her and took her sketchbook from the lidded box at the end of the bed that he had made for her art supplies. She turned to a fresh page and began to draw. When she started, she had no idea what she would sketch, but after a few moments, the figure of a man took shape. The Exalted, but not the beautiful, caring figure people often praised. This was the Exalted with his mouth twisted in a sneer, his eyes glaring, deep lines marring his forehead and running alongside his mouth. Instead of an angel, this man was a demon.

After a while, Chris began to get sleepy. She drifted off and woke up much later to an old woman shaking her—Elizabeth, one of the healers. “Come and say goodbye to your father,” she said.

“Where is he going?” Chris asked. She glanced over at the sketchbook and was relieved to see she had remembered to close it before she fell asleep.

“He is going to his reward,” Elizabeth said. “He ate poison, and there is nothing I can do for him.”

Chris began to cry, then to wail. Elizabeth shook her. “Quiet!” she ordered. “He’s going to a better place. There’s no reason for you to be sad.”

Even at twelve, Chris knew that was one of the most ridiculous things anyone had ever said. He was her father. He belonged here with her. There was no better place.

But she fell silent and allowed Elizabeth to lead her into her parents’ bedroom. Her mother held out her hand. Chris took it, and her mother pulled her close. She stared at her father, who lay with his eyes closed, his skin that awful gray, his face all hollows. He didn’t even look like himself. “Give him a kiss,” Elizabeth commanded.

Chris shook her head and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. “It’s all right,” her mother murmured. “You’re safe here with me.”

No one said anything else. Chris heard movement, and when she looked up again, she and her mother were alone with her father. “Where did they all go?” Chris whispered.

Her mother had to try a couple of times before she could speak. “They went to prepare for...for the funeral,” she said.

Chris looked at her father. He didn’t look any different to her. “Is he...dead?” she asked.

“Yes,” her mother said. “He’s gone.” Then she started to cry. Chris cried, too, grateful there was no one to tell them it was wrong to do so.

Everything about the next few days was a blur. They buried her father in the woods the next morning, his body wrapped in a bedsheet and lowered into a deep hole, far away from camp. Everyone came and gathered around the little grave, and when they were all assembled, the Exalted arrived. The crowd parted to allow him to draw close. He was dressed all in white, his hair and face shining. He smiled as if this was a happy occasion, and he talked about what a good man her father was and how he had moved on to a better place than this.

When he finished speaking, men with shovels moved forward and began to fill in the grave. The scent of fresh earth filled Chris’s nose, and she began to sob again.

A hand rested on her shoulder, heavy and warm. She looked up and stared into the Exalted’s eyes. “Your father is gone,” he said. “I will be your father now. I will be your brother and uncle. And your husband. Soon.” He smiled, but Chris could only shiver.

Chris knew then that she didn’t like the Exalted, no matter how wonderful people said he was. But she kept that knowledge to herself. She was pretty sure if she said something like that out loud, she would be struck by lightning or something worse. If she was the only one who thought someone was bad when everyone said he was good, there must be something wrong with her.

Her mother was much quieter after that. Sad.

Three days later, Helen came to their trailer. “It’s time to measure Elita for her wedding dress,” she said.

Her mother’s face paled. “So soon?”

“Now that your husband is gone, the Exalted believes it’s even more important that he take Elita under his wing.” Helen pulled out a tape measure. “Fetch a chair for her to stand on.”

Her mother brought a chair from the kitchen table. “Shouldn’t there be a period of mourning?” she asked as she helped Chris to stand on the chair.

“Mourning won’t bring back the dead.” Helen wrapped the tape measure around Chris’s chest, over the gentle swelling her mother had told her would one day be breasts. “Better to focus on the joy of this occasion.”

Neither Chris nor her mother said anything after Helen left. What was there to say? No one disobeyed the Exalted. It would be like disobeying God. The next day, her mother worked at the farmers market stand the Vine operated at the fairgrounds. She came home later than usual. “Something terrible has happened,” she said. “Someone stole the money from our booth. The cash box was there one moment, and then it was gone.”

“Was there a lot of money in it?” Chris asked.

“Several hundred dollars. Jedediah is very upset.” Jedediah was the treasurer for the Vine, in charge of all the money the group earned from selling crafts, produce, firewood and anything else. All the money went to Jedediah, who doled it out as needed.

Not long after Chris’s mother had set supper on the table, someone pounded on the door, hard enough to make the trailer shake. Mom opened it, and Jedediah and a trio of men filled the small front room. “We need to search this place,” Jedediah said.

“What for?” Mom asked.

“We’re looking for the money that was stolen. We’re searching the homes of everyone who worked that booth today.”

Was he accusing her mother of being a thief? Chris expected her mother to be upset about this. Instead, she stepped back and bowed her head. “Of course,” she said. “I have nothing to hide.”

For the next hour, the four men searched every inch of the trailer. They emptied all the clothing from the dresser and dumped all Chris’s art supplies on the bed. She thought of the picture of the Exalted—the devil picture—in her sketchbook. When they found it, would they punish her? But they only flipped through the book, paying no attention to the drawings. They took the food from the refrigerator and opened every jar and bottle as if they expected to find coins and bills instead of mayonnaise and ketchup.

All they found was five dollars and forty-two cents in change in an old pickle jar. Members of the Vine were allowed to keep this change when they sold cans they picked up on the side of the highway, so Jedediah reluctantly set the jar back on the dresser. “There’s nothing here,” he said at last, and the men left.

Mom sank into a chair. She looked very pale, but when she saw Chris watching her, she forced a smile. “That was upsetting, but it’s over now,” she said. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. Why don’t you get ready for bed?”

Chris started to point out that it was an hour before her bedtime but thought better of it. She washed her face and hands, then put on her pajamas and crawled under the covers. Her mother kissed her forehead and pulled the curtain over the bunk. Within minutes, Chris was asleep.

It was still dark when she woke again. Her mother sat on the edge of the bunk. “Get dressed,” Mom said. “We’re going to leave now.” She handed Chris a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. “I packed a bag for us. I put in as many of your art supplies as I could, but we can’t take everything.”

“Where are we going?” Chris asked, pulling off her pajamas and sliding into the jeans.

“We’re leaving the Vine,” her mother said. “And we’re never coming back.”