Twelve steps. Milo stopped again.
Something jutted out from the rock. Square, bulky, metallic.
Rear end of a vehicle. From the other side of the granite vt&\\,flash, whir.
Mumbles. Laughter.
We edged to the vehicle’s rear tires, squatted, swallowed breath.
Chrome letters: Ford. Explorer. Black or dark blue. Sand spray streaked the rear fender. No license plate. A partially shredded bumper sticker commanded: ENGAGE IN
RANDOM
ACTS OF KINDNESS.
One-third of the vehicle extended past the rock walls, the rest nosed inside. Milo straightened and peered through the rear window. Shook his head: tinted. Crouching again, he secured his grip on the rifle, moved around the Explorer’s driver’s side.
Waited. Pointing his rifle at whatever was in front of him.
I joined him. The two of us remained pressed against the truck.
Partial view of the clearing. Plenty of light now, from a spotlight on a pole. An orange extension cord connected the lamp to a gray battery pack. The bulb was aimed downward, well short of the fifteen-foot walls that created the staging area.
Forty-foot stage, roughly circular, set on flat gray earth rimmed by the high, seamed rock. A few boulders were scattered in the corners, like sprinkles of pebbles where the mountain had given way.
Natural amphitheater. Derrick Crimmins had probably discovered it as a youth, driving out with his brother to stage God knew what.
The good old days, when he’d designed sets for his stepmother, acquired a taste for production.
Tonight, he’d gone minimalist. Nothing in the clearing but the single light, a tackle box, and several videocassettes off to the side. Three white plastic folding chairs.
The chair to the left was off by itself, twenty feet from its neighbors. On it sat a young, brown-skinned, plain-faced girl, arms and legs bound by thick twine, dark hair tied in pigtails. Pink baby-doll pajamas were her sole costume. A pink spot of blush on each cheek, red lipstick on a frozen mouth. A wide leather belt secured her to the chair, cinching her cruelly at the waist, pushing her rib cage forward. Not a belt-a hospital restraint, the same kind they used at Starkweather.
Her head hung to the right. Livid bruises splotched her face and breasts, and dried blood snaked from her nose down to her chin. A shiny red rubber ball was jammed into her mouth, creating a nauseating cartoon of gee-whiz amazement. Her eyes refused to go along with it: open, immobile, mad with terror.
Staring straight ahead. Refusing to look at what was going on to her left.
The center chair held another woman captive: older, middle-aged, wearing a pale green housedress torn down the middle. The rip was fresh, fuzzed by threads, exposing white underwear, loose pale flesh, blue veins. Auburn hair. The same kind of bruises and scratches as the girl’s. One eye purple and swollen shut. Red ball in her mouth, too.
Her other eye undamaged, but also closed.
The gun jammed against her left temple was small and square-edged and chrome-plated.
Next to her, in the right-hand chair, sat Ardis Peake, holding the weapon. From our vantage, only half his body was visible. Long white fingers around the trigger. He had on his Starkweather khakis. White sneakers that looked brand-new. Big sneakers.
Oversized feet.
Tormenting the auburn-haired woman, but showing no sign he enjoyed it. His eyes were closed, too.
Beyond enjoyment into reverie?
The man holding the video camera prodded him. Handheld camera, compact, dull black, not much larger than a hardcover book. It sprayed a beam of creamy-white light.
Peake didn’t budge, and the cameraman gave him a sharper prod. Peake opened his eyes, rolled them, licked his lips. The cameraman got right in front of him, capturing each movement. Whir. Peake slumped again. The cameraman let the camera drop to his side. The lens tilted upward and the beam climbed, hitting the upper edges of the rock and projecting the eye-dot onto the mountainside. The cameraman shifted and the dot-eye died.
Milo’s jaw bunched. He edged around to get a fuller view. I stayed with him.
No one else in the clearing. The cameraman kept his back to us.
Tall, narrow, with a small, white, round, shaved head that glowed with sweat. Black silk shirt, buccaneer sleeves rolled to the elbows, black jeans, dusty black boots with thick rubber soles. Some kind of designer label ran diagonally across the right patch pocket of the jeans. From the left patch dangled the butt of another chrome automatic.