Page 36 (1/2)

Author: Robyn Carr

Devon followed first, still pulling on a jacket she’d pulled out of the pile She found Rawley digging around in the tool storage bin in the bed of his old truck He re knife in a leather holster of soasp but she did say, "If I had known you had these things, I would’ve been afraid to stay with you"

"Always locked up tight, chickadee Wouldn’t leave nothing like this around a child You sit in back with me--tell ht" She touched his aret her back, won’t I?"

"You think I’d do this for the fun of it? You wanna help? Do what I say to do and don’t argue What I sure the hell don’t need right now is the Keystone Kops following le"

"Rawley, it’s a forest"

"It is what it is Cooper!" he shouted

Theout of the bar, Spencer behind hi a jacket and pair of Cooper’s boots Once Cooper was behind the wheel Rawley said, "Get us over to Highway 5 and head south Be quiet and listen to Devon--she’s the only intel we got"

Spencer sat in the front beside Cooper and listened to Rawley question Devon; he listened to Devon answer She had told hireat deal about her experience in this commune, but he’d never really created a visual before now He never really put his in the front, by the gate?" Rawley asked

"A long driveway, a long yard, a very big house, kind of an old country farmhouse, almost like an inn--two stories with a wraparound porch A barn and south of the barn, a chicken coop Between the barn and house, a large dirt patch, a place we played, a place theSUVs Behind the barn is a corral Pastures and our produce gardens back up to the river"

"Fence around all that land?"

"No, just around the compound--they let the stock out of the co They don’t worry about the cows or horses getting away There aren’t that many animals It’s the people who are fenced in who are at risk"

"How far to the river froate?"

"At least a half e--the e because over there was Jacob’s house, right between two big barns They’re not barns--that’s where Jacob was growing marijuana"

"Is there any other road inside except for that front road?"

"I don’t think so, but I don’t know We never went over there Jacob would take women to his house one at a time I think there are only four women left there--Lorna, Laine, Pilly and Charlotte And four children When I got there four years ago or so, there were eighteen women and six men and a bunch of kids In the past couple of years, people started leaving and Jacob started getting strange Angry and paranoid and weird I think he kne enforceet out?"

"There was a hole in the fence behind the chicken coop and Laine told me to carry Mercy and to run down the road--there was a truck waiting to giveat a Farmers’ Market"

"Why didn’t people just walk away at that market?" Rawley asked "That market’s a busy place"

"Because, Rawley--the kids were houns?"

"With them, I think There’s a bunkhouse back by the uns in our house"

Spencer listened as she described the property, a beautiful big farm on a lovely river in a valley where food and shelter and friendship was plentiful And where they were surreptitiously guarded by uns, men ere there to serve the master, the man who took them one at a ti happy family

"I think ere part of Jacob’s fantasy or delusion," she told Rawley "He wanted to be the grand pooh-bah, the big daddy, the king of his little kingdom, served by women, loved by his many children He hardly ever left the farm The men came and went pretty freely, but Jacob only left occasionally He liked his aniardens, his fae to the house, sit at the head of the table with one of the children on his knee, ask us about our day, then lecture a little or talk about hiovernment He wrote volus would one day be legendary There were times it seemed so lovely Then there were ti--once you were there, there was no leaving And they didn’t let people inside He used the excuse that ere a private religious order But there wasn’ton there Reese, the oldest of us, called it a tribe A militant tribe"

Rawley asked the saain Devon answered, and her ansere consistent Spencer

Spencer was beginning to understand what she had been through in a way he hadn’t before, even though she’d told him about her experience This was completely different and for the first time he was ie it must have taken for her to flee And, to his shame, he realized how much trust she must have churned up to be able to trust someone like him

Had he really done what he’d done? Chased her, seduced her and then rejected her because of sudden terror that he’d soain? He felt the fool and he wanted to stop everything right now so he could explain, beg her to understand and forgive hiot Mercy and got through this, he would never let her down again

Ahead were the flashing lights of a patrol car

"Do not turn around," Rawley said sharply "Pull up to the copper Ask hi a shortcut to Canyonville where your folks have a farm Let the copper turn you around You turn yourself around they’ll be after you that fast"

And Cooper did just that, pulled right up to the officer and put down his"What’s happening? Accident?"

"Where you headed, sir?"

"My folks have a spread near Canyonville I been taking this shortcut for years Can I get through?"