Alone Again
by Klick
PART II
Rich Keller got his flannel-lined jacket off as he crossed the creek and
in one swoop wrapped it and his arms around the shivering girl kneeling at his
feet. "Hey now, everything's going to be ok, you're safe, nothing's going to
hurt you." He knew that she must have been freezing cold. The air was still
cool under the shade of the heavy foliage and after her headfirst fall into the
water she was obviously uncomfortable. He produced a two-toned whistle
and spoke loud enough for the horse to hear. "Ned, come here!" as he raised
his hand and watched as the former rodeo performer started walking across
the stream toward him dragging his reins off to one side so as not to step on
them. When the animal was near enough Keller stood and removed the
bedroll blanket that was attached to the rear of his saddle by two leather
straps. He unfurled the soft wool and draped it over the girl's shoulders
covering her and his jacket before kneeling next to her and began rubbing her
arms and body to get some warmth back into her.
Melissa's handcuffs were visible to her rescuer as he sat next to her and
he noticed the hinged joint between them. "I've never seen anything like
those." he thought to himself, "I thought handcuffs were connected by a
chain." He didn't speak for several minutes but kept up his rubbing and finally
she broke the silence. "Thank you," she turned her tear stained face up to his,
"Thanks for finding me, I was afraid I might starve to death out here." she
said softly, sniffing back more moisture from her emotions. "That’s
alright little lady, just relax now, you're going to be fine. Would you mind
telling me how you got out here and who did this to you?" he asked as he
reached and put his hand around her left cuff.
Melissa didn't answer at first but raised her head and looked around at
the dense overgrowth of trees above them then down at her hands finally
turning her face to his again and spoke in a quaking voice, "I was in a plane
crash, I survived."
Keller opened his mouth, closed it while he digested what she had just
told him then opened it again to ask, "A plane crash? When? Where?" The
helpless girl wrapped in his blanket looked around as if to get her bearings
then moved her index finger of her right hand and pointed in the direction she
thought she had come from before encountering the stream.
"Up there somewhere, last night" she managed to guess. Keller looked
at the direction she was indicating and asked, "Up Nursery valley? Your
plane crashed, up there?" She nodded and said in a voice a little steadier,
"There's a big rock sticking out of the hill just above where we crashed."
Keller was fairly certain she was describing Anvil Rock. It's name derived
from the fact that from most angles the outcropping looked like a giant
blacksmith's anvil. Actually a huge crest of granite that had been thrust
upward by some prehistoric seismic activity and marked the entrance to
Nursery Valley at it's north end. Reaching skyward, Anvil Rock topped out at
six hundred feet above the valley floor at that point and dominated the
surrounding area with it's black, omnipresent shape.
The man doubted that this young woman was making up her story.
There was really no other explanation as to how she had come to be in this
part of the country, unescorted, wearing handcuffs and high heels and trying
to drink from a stream on her knees. "You’re somebody's prisoner, where are
they?" he asked, still massaging her arms.
"Dead... Her and the pilot of the plane, they were burned in the
wreckage." she said with a shudder as she remembered the sight of the
blackened body in the plane's seat. Melissa began to cry again with the
memories of the last few hours still haunting her mind.
"It's ok, it's ok, you're safe now, don't cry. I'm Richard, Richard Keller,
what's your name?" he was curious but he also wanted to get her mind on
something other than the horrors that she must have witnessed in the time
after the crash. She sniffed and made a small effort to wipe her eyes, her
cuffed hand couldn't reach high enough and her tears streamed down her
cheek as she looked up at him and answered.
"Melissa... Melissa Croft."
"Well, glad to meet you Melissa," he touched the fingers of her right
hand and offered, " I'll bet you're thirsty, I've got some safe water to drink, let
me get it, I'll be right back."
Keller went to the saddle and brought back one of the canteens, opened
it and held it for her to drink. Water dribbled down her chin after she had
taken her first swallows of cool liquid. She looked up at him and grinned,
"Thank you. I was so thirsty, I haven't had a drink of anything since yesterday
morning." He held the canteen to her lips again and she drank from it until he
pulled it away.
"That's enough right now, you don't want to over do it." Melissa licked
her lips and tossed her hair back out of her eyes.
"Thanks Mr. Keller, that's the best water I've ever had."
" Oh please, don't call me that, you'll just make me feel older than I am.
Richard or Rich will do just fine." he smiled at the young woman wrapped in
his jacket and blanket.
"Ok, thanks, Richard." she said, returning his smile, but shivering
again. Keller knelt next to her and continued rubbing her arms and back, he
reached and smoothed a long strand of hair from the side of her face. He had
no problem seeing, despite her disheveled condition, that she was in fact a
very beautiful girl. Her eyes, large and brown looked at him and then down at
her captive hands as she allowed him to massage some warmth back into her
chilled body.
"Is there any way you can get me out of these?" She asked him in a
voice that made her sound like a small child begging for a treat.
Keller reached around her and touched the cuff on her left wrist,
examining it's polished surface and the odd hinged feature between it and its
mate. "I can't do anything for you out here Melissa, I'll need to get you back
to my place and see what I can find that I might be able to use, but maybe I
can get this belt off. " He offered, as he raised the blanket away from her
back to inspect the buckle he expected to find there. "Whoa!" then whistled
softly. "Whoever put theses things on you sure didn't want you getting loose
did they?" He said as he saw that the big roller buckle was locked closed by
a steel hasp that folded down over it and the padlock keeping it from being
loosened. "What, can't you just unbuckle it?" She asked, looking back at him
" I could if it wasn't locked." he told her.
"The belt is locked too?" she asked, trying to look back at what he was
seeing. "Yeah, it's locked, but the belt is just leather, I should be able to
cut it off of you, at least that will give you a little more freedom with your
hands." he said, pulling a bone handled Buck knife from it's holster on his
belt. She looked back at the long gleaming blade and made a concerned little
gasp as he lifted the blanket to give him access to the side of the thick
transport belt. "Don't worry, I'm not going to cut you. I've just got to get the
blade between you and the belt, they sure put this thing on tight didn't they?"
he said as he selected the best place to accomplish the task. The girl nodded.
"Hello, what's this?" he said.
"What's what?" she wanted to know.
"There's a metal tag riveted to your belt here, let me see what it says."
He twisted the belt away from her side to give him a better angle to read the
engraved message on the tag.
WARNING
PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
UNAUTHORIZED TAMPERING OR REMOVAL IS
PUNISHABLE BY FINE OR IMPRISONMENT
"This is government stuff," he said looking into those big eyes as they
met his. "Were you being held on a federal warrant?" he wanted to know.
She hesitated before she nodded slightly, "But you're still going to help
me aren't you, I mean you'll still get me out of these things?"
Keller smiled at her, "I'll do my best Missy, the government and I are
not the best of friends." he said as he slid his knife blade under the leather
confining her and sliced upward being very careful not to come close to her
flesh. The blade was sharp, nearly as sharp as a razor from hours of honing
on a stone that Keller used to pass the time as he and Zeke sat on the deck of
the cabin in the evenings. The thick russet cowhide gave way immediately to
the knife but there was a metallic, scraping noise as the leather parted and the
blade encountered something inside it.
"Ah oh!" he said, looking at the sliced leather.
"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.
"Well, I'll say one thing for those Feds, when they lock a girl up they
mean for her to stay that way. There's a metal band inside this belt, the leather
is just a covering over a steel one that even this old Buck won't cut through."
"Oh no, shit, God damn it, I want loose, I've been chained up like this
for over twenty-four hours!" she said in frustration. "Why did they have to put
me like this, it's not like I killed someone?" the tears started again and her
shoulders shook as she tugged ineffectively at her cuffed hands and began to
cry.
Keller's heart went out to the helpless girl sitting next to him. "Ok, take
it easy Melissa, we'll get you out of those things somehow but we're going to
have to get back to my cabin first. I don't have any way to get this stuff off of
you out here. He looked at her leg shackles and up at Ned. "Did you ever ride
a horse side saddle?"
She sniffed and shook her head, "I've never ridden a horse." she
confessed, looking up at the animal.
"Well, you're going to ride one today but you'll have to sit in the saddle
sideways cause there's no way you can straddle old Ned there with those leg
irons on your ankles, and, you can't hold on either so we'll have to ride
together. Lets get you on your feet and see how we can get you and me up on
his back, then we'll head for home." He stood and reached down for her
hands, pulling upward ‘tll she stood up next to her new friend.
Getting a handcuffed and shackled girl up on a horse was going to be
something of a challenge. Any horse would have presented a problem but
Ned was a big horse. Standing nearly sixteen hands at the withers, he was
considered very large for his breed and Keller wasn't sure how to proceed. He
considered lifting her onto the saddle but he was concerned that once there
she would not have the ability to balance herself or grab onto anything if she
started to fall off before he could get mounted behind her. Ned was a well-
trained rodeo horse and he had never been ridden sidesaddle. He'd been
taught to lean or move in such a way as to help his rider maintain his balance
when he felt the person's weight move off center. If the horse did as he was
trained to do, Melissa would be at risk of falling from his back and Keller
knew that a fall from Ned's high perch could be a serious one.
The girl stood looking up at the seat of the saddle then at Keller.
"Maybe I should just walk." she said with trepidation in her voice.
"Walk? Honey its two miles to my place from here. Your ankles are
going to get mighty sore. No, you're not going to walk, we'll get you up
there." He looked around for higher ground then spotted the fallen tree
several yards down the stream's bank from where they stood. "Let's go down
here a bit, I think I know how we can do this safely."
The tree was actually a large limb, Keller realized, that had been
broken from the oak tree that stood above where they approached. It lay at an
angle starting at ground level and up to six or eight feet high where it rested
against the trunk of it's previous owner. She stood and watched as he
surveyed the downed limb and the heavy overhanging ones that were still
healthy and attached to the tree. He reached up to Ned's saddle and took
down a coil of rope. "Ok, this is how we're going to do it." He said, looking
up at a particularly thick branch almost directly over the dead one. He was
unfurling the rope that had a loop woven into one end. As he passed the loop
between her arms and body, he explained. "I'm going to put this rope around
you, under your arms. I'll get on Ned and you're going to walk up this limb 'till
you're high enough for me to reach you and pull you up on the saddle with
me. How's that sound?"
"Oh great, first I get chained up now I'm going to get tied up." She
answered in her best effort to add some humor to a situation that had seen
little in the way of levity. She stood passively as Keller ran the other end of
the rope through the loop he had passed around her then began to coil the
rope for throwing. He laughed at her words.
His first effort was unsuccessful, but on the next try the rope sailed up
and over the branch and he gathered the end in his hand. He told her to stand
next to the dead limb and to get ready to walk up it after he was on the horse's
back. "I'll keep the rope snug enough that if you loose your balance you won't
fall. Just take your time and step carefully." He said as he settled into the
saddle." Guess we should have taken those high heels off first."
"I'm pretty good at walking in heels, they're about all I wear." she said
as she took her first careful steps up the inclined surface of the branch. She
found it easier to step sideways and he warned her to not trip on her leg
chains.
"You can't fall as long as I have this rope on you but if you get tangled
in that chain and loose your balance you're going to be hanging there 'till I let
you down."
Several steps later put her high enough for Keller to reach down slide
his arm around her and haul her up onto the saddle. Ned snorted his
disapproval of the whole affair but stood firm as Keller got her into place
actually sitting sideways in his lap. With Melissa now safely where he could
hold her he began getting the rope from around her and was coiling it as he
clicked to the horse and touched his heels to the animal’s sides. "Ok Ned,
let's go home. Zeke, come on guy." Dog, horse, man and girl began their
journey back up the hill to the log cabin two miles away.
There wasn't much conversation as the foursome made their way along.
Ned's hoofs hardly made a sound in the pine needle covered path. Keller held
onto the girl with his left arm, cradling her against him and could feel her
body warmth through the blanket still draped over her shoulders. They had
not gone too far when he felt her weight grow against his chest and her head
settled back under his chin. He could smell her hair and feel her breasts where
his arm wrapped around her under them. He looked down and saw her small
cuffed hands as they rested on the crotch of her jeans and her leg iron chain
jingled softly with the motion of the horse. "My Lord, what am I going to do
with you?" he asked himself as they made their silent way home.
