Chapter 20 #2
Panic pooled in Fern’s stomach as she looked in the direction of the three cars, parked at the edge of the cornfield.
The flashlight beam to her right had originated from that direction, but she had to try to get close to the farmhouse to warn Cal.
Fern backtracked through the cornstalks, praying the men with the flashlights wouldn’t hear or see her.
There. The Roadster’s silver bumper gleamed in the light of the moon.
Stalks of corn had been bent and snapped near the back tires and the driver’s side door.
Her pulse pounded in the base of her throat as she reached for the rubber bulb on the end of the bugle horn, attached to the outside of the driver’s door—and squeezed.
The shrill, wheezing sound blared through the quiet night.
She squeezed the bulb again and again and again as shouts rang from all around her.
The men in the cornfield ditched their cautious approach, and in the farmhouse, a curtain twitched.
A man filled the window and then disappeared again.
The last grating blare of the horn faded as the first gunshots rang out.
Fern pressed against the side of the car, momentarily stunned, but then whipped around and started running through the corn again.
Shouts and single pops of gunfire morphed into a rapid fire of bullets from a machine gun.
She ran, arms stretched out before her, plowing her way through the stalks.
She didn’t know if she was running toward the road or deeper into the fields, but she was too close to the farmhouse. Too close to the exchange of gunfire.
A small, dark figure leaped in front of her, and Fern slammed her heels into the ground, barking a scream.
“This way!” Billy. His small hand reached for her arm and tugged. Fern’s heart sank but also swelled. He’d been waiting for her.
She followed him through the stalks as gunfire devoured the night.
Her lungs screamed, and her legs burned, but she didn’t stop.
Self-preservation drove her on faster. Billy’s ragged breathing cut through the unsteady hiccups of gunfire.
The sounds got farther and farther away as they ran, her chest aching, her pounding feet reverberating in her skull.
Headlights cut through the stalks around them, and Fern realized with a start that they’d nearly reached the road.
A car whizzed by, and she and Billy jammed their feet to a halt before they could tumble out onto the pavement.
They bent over, hands on knees, sucking air into their lungs as the red taillights disappeared.
Sweat bathed Fern’s skin, and yet she was shivering. Shouts and bursts of gunfire still blazed behind them at the farmhouse. She tried to see through the stalks, but there was nothing but darkness.
Fern turned to Billy. “I’m heading back toward town,” she said, her throat raw. “Do you have anyone that can help you there?”
“The Thompsons. Our neighbors, up the road a bit.”
She’d feared that he’d have no one, so she breathed a little easier as they continued through the stalks, parallel to the road.
The horror of what he’d heard, tucked away in that crawl space would stay with him forever.
It wasn’t fair, and the cruelty of it was also too much.
Too heavy and too complicated. She didn’t know how to help him or even what to say.
Ten minutes or so later, the cornstalks ended, and a grassy field began.
A small house could be seen with lights on inside. She felt only a slight reprieve.
“They’ll help you too,” Billy assured her as he picked up speed. Fern hung back.
“You’ve helped me—tremendously,” she said. “But I can’t stay here. I…have somewhere I need to be.”
Worry for Cal nearly stole her concentration again.
They hadn’t heard any gunfire for several minutes.
A few cars had streaked by, headed away from the farmhouse.
They might have had nothing to do with the shoot-out.
Perhaps just travelers, driving by, oblivious to the danger through which they passed.
Billy hesitated. He didn’t thank Fern or say anything more before finally turning and jogging toward the Thompsons’ house. They’d helped each other, but his parents were dead, and he had to be confused over why she and Cal had protected him.
Fern continued to follow the road for a little while, but when flashing red lights strobed on the horizon, she lay down flat in the fallow field until the police car had rushed by.
Dirt caked the front of her dress and her hands after a few more police cars appeared, rushing toward the farmhouse.
Where there was corn, she walked through the rows.
When she passed a farm that had a shed or barn, and she hid from view behind that.
But after another half hour or so, there were no more screaming police sirens.
No more passing cars on the road at all.
Fern came upon the Coca-Cola barn and broke into a run.
Her legs were so tired, and they nearly folded under her a few times, but she couldn’t stop picturing Cal inside, waiting for her.
His Roadster might have been one of the cars racing by earlier.
But when she entered the barn through the open back doors, that hope dissipated.
It was dark and cold and musty inside. The roof had come down in one spot, so the moon shone on some of the forgotten debris.
Collapsed timber beams, a sawhorse, a few barrels, a collection of gallon pails, and rusted farming tools.
Exhaustion swept over her. How many more hours until sunrise?
Cal had said if he wasn’t there by then, he wasn’t coming.
Hours. She still had hours.
Fern sat in the patch of moonlight, too afraid of the pitch-black corners.
As she leaned against a barrel and stretched out her legs, she realized how much they hurt.
How much everything hurt. One yawn turned into three, and Fern couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer.
She let them slip shut, but her ears stayed tuned to the road.
At the sound of every nearing car, she held her breath.
A handful of them passed the barn, and with each one that drove away, the hollow sensation of being alone deepened.
She checked her pocket. Her fingers brushed the crisp edges of Cal’s money. Through the gap in the roof, she saw that the sky wasn’t as dark as it had been before.
He should be here. It had been hours.
Unless something had happened. Unless he’d been shot. Arrested. The police had been headed there after all. And wouldn’t that be justified? Cal wasn’t innocent. He wasn’t a good man.
But he wasn’t an entirely bad man either.
Fern closed her eyes. They were dry and hot, and sleep tugged at her again. If Cal didn’t come, she would have to walk into town alone at dawn. She was a mess. She could buy some new clothes, though, and then a bus ticket to Chicago.
Or she could go back to Young Acres.
Fern’s soul shrunk at the mere thought of that. But it cowered at the thought of boarding a bus for Chicago by herself. She’d do it, though. She’d go, and she’d try, and she’d imagine what Cal might say every time she doubted herself.
The sound of an engine woke her. She was lying on the barn floor, her hands tucked under her cheek.
She sat up, suddenly panicked. What time was it?
The sky had turned a dusky gray while she’d slept.
Headlights lit the front of the barn where the doors had been left rolled half open.
A man stepped in, his fedora and trench coat silhouetted by the car’s headlamps.
“Fern?”
A strangled cry filled her throat as she scrambled to her feet. Warmth and relief—and pure wonder—numbed her legs as Cal met her halfway to the doors. He caught Fern in his arms, and she clung to him.
“You’re okay,” she gasped.
“I’m okay.” Lips touched her forehead, and his breaths combed over her scalp. Too soon, he held her away from him by the shoulders. Fern could tell he was inspecting her for injuries.
“I’m fine.”
“The kid?”
“With a neighbor.”
The headlamps brightened the barn enough for Fern to see his face now that her vision had stopped spinning. A gash bloodied his cheek.
“We have to go,” he said, and with her hand in his, they ran to the car. He opened the driver’s side door, and she slid inside, across the bench seat.
As Cal pulled out onto the road, Fern looked behind them.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I skimmed out of Tom’s place before the police came and hid my wheels in another field behind a hay truck. I’ve been waiting for things to calm down before coming to meet you.”
“Where is everyone else?”
All she cared about was Cal, but she still wanted to know.
He didn’t answer right away. A yearning started to grow inside her that something had happened to Rodney. She hated herself for wishing that on Cal, but his brother was evil.
“They got Tink right off the bat,” he said. “But we pushed the Jacky Boys back into the fields. They scattered fast.”
“How did they know to come to the farmhouse last night?”
Tom had told them about the planned gin pickup, but he couldn’t have had time or opportunity to also warn his Jacky contact about Rodney’s unexpected presence there.
“Rod’s gonna want to know the same thing,” Cal replied.
It sounded as though they had a traitor in their midst.
Fern stared out the window as he drove in silence, the only sound that of his tires on the pavement. He kept his speed low, probably not wanting to draw attention to himself in case a police car passed by. He turned onto another route, though she didn’t know where they were going. She felt lost.
“Hey.” Cal’s hand covered hers where she’d laid it flat on the bench seat between them.
His fingers closed around hers, and he gave her a small tug toward him.
Fern slid over, and when he draped his arm around her shoulders and tucked her in close to his side, she melted into his warmth.
She let go of everything that was coiled and tense and agonized inside her, and leaned her head against him.
His mouth nuzzled the top of her head. “That was you with the horn, wasn’t it?”
She closed her eyes, savoring his affection. “I saw them coming through the field. I had to warn you.”
“You could’ve been shot.”
“I know.” But she’d do it again in an instant if it meant protecting him.
Fern fell asleep on his shoulder. A few times, she opened her eyes, once to purple dawn, then to pink sky, but she was content to stay right where she was and closed them again.
When hunger wouldn’t let her sleep any longer, she finally sat up. It was now bright enough outside to see the sorry state of her dress. Brushing at the dirt didn’t dislodge it but only made it worse, working it further into the fabric.
Her suitcase was still on the backseat, at least. “I should change my clothes.”
The last road sign had announced Chicago was just twenty miles away. Cal’s eyes were dark as he stared, unblinking, out at the road. He rubbed at his jaw, which was in desperate need of a shave. He had to be as exhausted as she was.
He pulled into the lot of a roadside motel with a posted sign that read: Hazel’s.
The single-story, wood clapboard building had five rooms, each one fronted by a faded green door, the paint in various stages of peeling, and a single window.
Two other cars sat in the lot. The motel’s office door was propped open by a white ceramic chamber pot repurposed into a planter full of pansies.
Cal cut the engine. They listened to it tick and sigh.
“I need some shut-eye.” He arched his back and stretched as far as the constraints of the car would allow. “I’ll get us rooms.”
A bed sounded lovely. So did a bath if this place offered one.
Fern waited in the car while Cal went into the office, but when he came out, she could tell from his expression that something was wrong.
He opened the back door and grabbed her suitcase and a small leather bag—his own, Fern presumed.
She followed him to a green door numbered with a painted black 4.
He inserted the key in the lock just as the door to No.
3 opened. Cal put a hand on her lower back and urged her inside.
The room smelled of lemon cleaner and, underneath that, cigarette smoke.
He came in behind her and shut the door, then tossed the two bags onto the bed and went to the window. Voices outside on the concrete walk carried through the thin walls. A man, a woman and two small children passed by.
“Cal, what is it?”
He tugged the curtain closed. “The manager had the radio on,” he said, turning toward her and taking off his hat. He tossed it onto the bed too. Fern followed it with her eyes. Was he not getting his own room?
“The city news bureau says the police are asking the public to be on the lookout for a girl with a scarred face.” Fern spun around to face him, her jaw slack. “She’s reported to have been kidnapped from a Zionsville institution for the disabled.”