Shelter Mountain

“Hey, Preacher,” Mike said. “What if it’s not good news?”

“Would it be the truth?” Preacher asked. “Because I think that might be important here.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “Might be.”

Preacher swallowed hard and hoped it would be okay. “Thanks,” he said. “Go ahead and hurry, huh?”

Paige had gone with Mel to Grace Valley where Dr. John Stone examined her and performed an ultrasound, showing her a small, beating heart in a little mass that didn’t look anything like a baby. But it gave her hope. She had gotten out in time. Barely in time.

The pregnancy was an accident, of course. Wes didn’t want children. He hadn’t wanted Christopher—it interfered with his focus, which was his job and his possessions, Paige being chief among them. Perhaps this new baby precipitated the beating; she’d only told him a couple of days before. In fact, she’d been terrified to tell him. But then, if he didn’t want it, why put her through so much? Why not just suggest termination?

The larger question was how could Paige be so relieved to learn the baby had survived when Wes’s merest touch repelled her? She was, that’s all. But then, she’d come to think of her son as the one good thing that could come out of the biggest mistake of her life. Have you been raped? Mel had asked. Oh, no—not rape. She wouldn’t dare tell Wes no…

When she got back to Virgin River, she found Chris making bread with John, kneading and punching the dough, laughing.

Such an uncomplicated scene, she thought. So many times when Wes was stressing out and getting himself all worked up about his job, the financial pressures of their lifestyle, she had told him that simplifying things would actually appeal to her. No, she didn’t want to be dirt poor and worked to death, but she could be so content in a smaller house with a happier husband. Not long before Chris had been born, Wes bought the big house in an exclusive, guarded, gated L.A. community—more house than they could ever need, and hanging on to it was killing him. Killing her.

So, here she was. The baby had made it. She had to get going, to that address in Spokane, to the first step in her underground escape. The dresser had not been pulled against the door since the first night and she thought she’d give herself another twenty-four hours to rest, then leave in the quiet of night. If there was no rain, the roads wouldn’t be so difficult and it would be easier to travel at night while Chris slept.

There was a soft tapping at the door. It was her instinct to ask who was there, but there was only one possibility. She pulled the door open and there stood John, looking nervous. Looking, in spite of his height and girth, like a teenager. He might’ve had a flush on his cheeks.

“I closed up the bar. I was thinking about a short drink before calling it a night. How about you? Wanna come down for a little while?”

“For a drink?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you want.” He peered past her. “He asleep?”

“Out like a light, despite an overdose of cookies.”

“Yeah, I probably gave him too many. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry—he loves making them. If he makes them, he has to eat them. It’s fun—sometimes that’s more important than nutrition.”

“I’ll do whatever you say,” Preacher said. “I could cut him back. He likes ‘em though. He especially likes burning his mouth on them. He doesn’t wait so good.”

“I know,” she said, smiling. “You have anything like… tea?”

“Sure. Aside from sportsmen, I serve mostly little old ladies.” He took on a shocked look. “I didn’t mean.”

“A cup of tea would be nice. Good.”

“Great,” he said, turning and preceding her down the stairs, looking almost grateful to get away.

He got busy brewing tea in the kitchen, so Paige went into the bar and sat at the table where she saw his drink by the fire. When he finally brought her that cup of tea, he said, “You have a good time with Mel today?”

“Yes. Was Christopher a lot of trouble?”

He shook his head with a chuckle. “Nah, he’s a kick. He wants to know everything. Every detail. ‘Why is it a quarter teaspoon of that?’ ‘What does the Crisco on the tray do?’ And man, yeast blows him away. I think he has a little scientist in him.”

Paige thought, he couldn’t ask his father questions. Wes didn’t have the patience to answer them. “John, do you have family?”

“Not anymore. I was an only child. And my folks were older, anyway—they didn’t think they were going to have kids. Then I surprised ‘em. Boy, did I surprise ‘em. My dad died when I was about six—a construction accident. And then my mom when I was seventeen, right before my senior year.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, thanks. It’s okay. I’ve had a good life.”

“What did you do when you lost your mother? Go live with aunts or something?”

“No aunts,” he said, shaking his head. “My football coach took me in. It was good—he had a nice wife, good bunch of little kids. Might as well have lived with him. He acted like he owned me during football, anyway,” he said with a laugh. “Nah, kidding aside, that was a good thing he did. Good guy. We used to write—now we e-mail.”

“What happened to your mom?”

“Heart attack.” After a moment of respectful silence, looking into his lap, he laughed softly. “You won’t believe this—she died at confession. That really tore me up at first. I thought maybe she had some deep, dark secret that threw her into a heart attack—but I was tight with the priest—I was his altar boy. And it was hard for him, but finally he leveled with me. See, my mom was the parish secretary and real… how should I say this? Kind of a church lady. Father Damien finally told me, my mom’s confessions were so boring, he used to nod off. He thought they’d both just fallen asleep, but she was dead.” He lifted his eyebrows. “My mom, good woman, not a lot of excitement going on there. She lived for that job, loved the clergy, loved the church. She’d have made a great nun. But you know what? She was happy. I don’t think she had any idea she was boring and straitlaced.”

“You must miss her so much,” Paige said, sipping her tea in front of the fire, trying to remember when she last had a conversation like this. Unhurried, nonthreatening, warm in front of a friendly fire.

“I do. This is going to sound stupid, especially since I’m no kid—sometimes I pretend she’s back there, in that little house we lived in, and that I’m just getting my stuff together to go see her.”

“That doesn’t sound stupid….”

“There anybody you really miss?” he asked her.

The question caused her to suddenly go still, her cup frozen in midair. Not her dad, so scrappy and short-tempered. Not her mom who, without knowing or meaning to, had trained her to be a battered wife. Not Bud, her brother, a mean little bastard who had failed to help her in her darkest hour. “I had a couple of really close girlfriends. Roommates. We lost touch. I miss them sometimes.”

“You know where they are?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “Both got married and moved,” she said. “I wrote a couple of times… Then my letters came back.” They didn’t want to be in touch with her; they knew things were bad. They hated Wes; Wes hated them. They had tried to help, briefly, but he ran them off and she rejected their help out of pure shame. What were they supposed to do? “How’d you get so close to Jack?” she asked him.

“Marines,” he said with a shrug.

“Did you go into the military together?”

“Nah.” He laughed. “Jack’s older than me—by about eight years. I’ve always looked older than I was—even when I was twelve. And Jack—I bet he’s always looked younger. He was my first sergeant in combat, back in Desert Storm.” And for a split second he was back there. Changing a tire on a truck when the tire exploded and the rim knocked him back six feet and he couldn’t get up. He remembered it like it was yesterday—he had always been so huge, so rock hard, so strong, and he couldn’t move. He might’ve been unconscious for a little while because he saw his mother leaning over him, looking right into his eyes and saying, “John, get up. Get up, John.” Right there in that paisley, high-collared dress, graying hair pulled back.

But he couldn’t move, so he started to cry. And cry. Mom! he’d cried out.

Yeah, you have a lot of pain, buddy? Jack asked, leaning over him.

And Preacher said, It’s my mom. I want my mom. I miss my mom.

We’re gonna get you back to her, pal. Take a few deep breaths.

She’s dead, Preacher said. She died.

She’s been dead a couple years at least, one of his squad members told Jack.

I’m sorry, Sarge, I couldn’t help it. I’ve never done this before. Cried like this. We ‘re not supposed to cry…. I never did before, I swear. But he cried helplessly even as he said that.

We cry over people we lose, buddy. It’s okay.

Father Damien said, remember she’s with God and she’s happy and don’t soil her memory with crying about it.

Priests are usually smarter than that, Jack had said with a disapproving snort. You don’t cry over something like that and the tears turn into snakes that eat you from the inside out. The crying part—it’s required.

I’m sorry….

You get it out, buddy, or you’ll be worse off. Call her, call out to your mom, get her attention, cry for her. It’s damn past time!

And he had. Sobbed like a baby, Jack’s arms under his shoulders, holding him up a little. Jack rocked him and said, Yeah, there you go. There you go…

Jack sat with him for a while, talking to him about his mother, and Preacher told him that he made it through that last year of school, tough and silent. Then, with no idea where to go or what to do, he joined up. So he could have brothers, which he had now, but it wasn’t enough to take away the need for his mother. And that goddamn tire rim almost cut him in half and it was like the pain of losing her came pouring out. It was humiliating, to be six four and two-fifty, sobbing for your five-foot, three-inch mommy. Jack said, Nah, it’s just what you need. Get it out.

After a little while, Jack pulled him up, hoisted him over his shoulder and carried him about a mile down the road to meet their convoy. And Jack had said, Let it out, buddy. After you get it all out, you stick to me like duct tape—I’m your mother now.

“It’s no good to lose touch with people who mean a lot,” Preacher said to Paige. “Ever think of trying to find those girlfriends again?”

“I haven’t thought about that in a while,” she told him.

“If you ever want to try, I could maybe help.”

“How could you do that?”

“On the computer. I like to look things up. It’s kind of slow, but it works. Think about it.”

She said she would. Then she said she was awful tired and had to get some sleep, so they said good-night. She went up the stairs and he went to his apartment out back.

That’s when she decided she’d better get moving. She couldn’t afford to get comfortable here. No more cozy little chats, no more late-night questions. Attachments were completely out of the question.

Four

Paige got the suitcase ready. She pulled the covers back from her sleeping son to search for Bear, but he wasn’t there. She nearly stripped the bed around him, looking. Then down on her knees to look under the bed, in the bathroom, in every empty drawer of the bureau—nowhere. She’d check in the kitchen before leaving, but if Bear was lost, he would have to be left behind.

She pulled two hundred dollars out of her billfold and put it on the bureau, then sat, still as stone, on the edge of the bed next to Christopher. Palms together, hands pressed between her knees, she waited. At midnight, she put on her jacket and crept quietly down the stairs. The cabin was so solid, not even a board squeaked.

He’d left a light on in the kitchen for her. This was the only time she’d come down after bedtime since that first night, but she suspected John left that light on for her every night. She tiptoed stealthily toward the door to his apartment and listened. No sound, no light under the door.

She’d located a flashlight in the kitchen when she’d been helping John clean up, a stroke of luck. Up to that point, the best idea she could come up with was a book of matches to light the night while she dealt with the license plates. Once the plates were switched, she’d fetch the suit-case, then Chris. She took a butter knife from the drawer and slipped quietly out the back kitchen door.

Once behind the bar, she was relieved to see no lights on in John’s little apartment. She crouched to the task of removing her plates, easily done even though her hands were shaking. Then she got to work on John’s, taking the license plate off his truck and replacing it with hers. Then back to the Honda, bending down to fix the new plate in place.

“Getting back on the road again, Paige?” Preacher asked.

She jumped, dropped the plate, flashlight and knife, straightening, her breath cut off and her heart hammering. The flashlight lit a path along the ground that illuminated his feet. Then he took a couple of steps toward her and came into complete view.

“That isn’t going to do the trick,” he said, nodding toward her car. “They’re truck plates, Paige. Anyone, like the sheriff or CHP sees your little car with truck plates—they’re gonna know right off.”

She felt her eyes well up with tears. Something like that would never have occurred to her. She shivered in the cold night, her hands shaking worse. Inside, her stomach was gripped in a tight, hard knot.

“Don’t panic,” he said. “I don’t think you need different plates, not yet, but we can get it done. Connie’s got a little car right across the street. She’d never miss ‘em.”

A tear rolled down her cheek and she stooped to pick up the flashlight. “I… Ah… I left some money. Upstairs. For the room. The food. Not much, but…”

“Aw, Paige. You do something like that, it makes me look so bad. You gotta know I never thought about money.”

She hiccuped tears back and said, “What did you think about?”

“Come on,” he said, reaching a hand out toward her. “It’s cold out here. Come back inside, I’ll make you some coffee so you don’t fall asleep on the road, then I’ll switch the plates for you. If that’ll make you feel safer on the drive, even if you don’t really need ‘em.”

She stayed out of his reach, but walked alongside. “Why do you say that? That I don’t need them?”

“No one’s looking for you,” he said. “At least not officially. You’re still okay.”

“How do you know that?” she asked, ready to fall apart and sink into helpless sobs.

“I’ll explain,” he said. “I’ll throw a log on the fire, get you warmed up and we’ll talk. Then I’ll switch the plates for you if you want. But after we talk about it, you’ll probably want to go back upstairs and sleep till morning, drive in daylight. Besides,” he said, holding open the back kitchen door for her, “I got the bear. I’ll get it for you—you can’t leave without the bear.”

She started to cry as she walked into the kitchen, pressing her fingers against her lips. She felt like a caught felon. It made her feel even worse that he was being so nice to her. “I looked everywhere for that damn bear,” she said softly with a whimper.

Preacher turned toward her. Hand pressed against her mouth, eyes overflowing, she seemed to jerk with the effort not to add sound to her crying. Then slowly and carefully, he pulled her by her shoulders toward him, against his big chest, gently circling her with his arms. And she collapsed from inside, sobbing against him. No holding back the sound now, she was racked with tears. “Aw, you been holding that in too long, haven’t you? I been there, all right. It’s okay, Paige. I know you’re scared and worried, but it’s going to be okay.”

She doubted it, but she was helpless in the moment. All she could do was cry and shake her head. She tried to remember when someone had pulled her sweetly into strong arms and tried to make her feel safe. Long ago. So long ago, she couldn’t remember the last time. Not even Wes in the early days, at his most manipulative. No, he would cry. He’d hit her, beat her, then he would cry and she’d comfort him.

Preacher rocked her back and forth in the dimly lit kitchen for a long time until she quieted down, then with a hand on her back, pushed her through the kitchen into the bar. He directed her to that same chair near the fire, stirred up the flame and threw on a new log, and went behind the bar to fix her a brandy. When he put it in front of her, she said, “I have to be ready to drive.”

“You won’t be any good to drive unless you calm down. Just a sip, then if you want coffee, we’ll make some.” He sat down in the chair next to hers and, with elbows on his knees, leaned toward her. “When you came in here, I had no idea what happened to you, but I knew it wasn’t good and I knew it wasn’t a car door. You have California plates. So, I called a good friend of mine—someone I knew I could trust. He checked out the plates, registered to your husband. He’s been booked for battery domestic before.” Preacher shrugged. “I didn’t need to know much more than that, did I?”

Paige’s eyes closed, then slowly opened again, focused on his face. She lifted the brandy to her lips and took a tiny sip, not confirming or denying anything.

Preacher went on, “He hasn’t reported you missing, so no law enforcement’s looking for you. I don’t know what your plan is, Paige, but if you take Christopher out of state, you’d be breaking the law—that could go hard on you trying to keep him. I figure you must be thinking that way, ‘cause you came all the way from L.A. and you’re almost out of state now. If you’re thinking of running off on your own and disappearing, whew, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You just don’t know what you’re doing—you’ll get tripped up. You don’t know the difference between truck and car plates. There isn’t much devious going on in that head of yours.”

A huff of rueful laughter escaped her. Maybe that had been her problem; she wasn’t sneaky enough.

“Maybe you have someplace to go where they’ll keep you hidden and safe—that’s a better idea. I just hope wherever that is, there’s a bunch of big, mean, angry guys like me and Jack around, ready, on the off chance the son of a bitch hunts you down and finds you.”

“I don’t have a lot of choices,” she whispered. “I have to get away.”

“’Course you do,” he said. “Do you know there’s one more way to go? You wouldn’t have any trouble getting custody of Chris, at least temporary custody, given the father’s record, even if they weren’t felony charges. You don’t need his okay to get a divorce. Not in this state. It’s no fault.” She was shaking her head, closing her eyes again, another tear spilling down her cheek. But Preacher went on. “There’s restraining orders, and even if he ignores ‘em, it keeps the law on your side. You ever think of these things, Paige?”

“How do you know all this? Did your friend tell you?”

“I wanna find out something, I look it up,” he said.

“Then do you know while I’m trying to do that, he’s going to kill me? He’s mean, and he’s crazy. He’s going to kill me.”

“Not if you stay here,” Preacher said.

She was stunned silent for a moment. Then she said, “I can’t stay here, John. I’m pregnant.”

Then it was Preacher’s turn to show shock. Silent and dark. It settled into his eyes and over his expression slowly as he sat back in the chair, then stood. He went behind the bar and poured himself a shot, throwing it back. When he returned to the chair by the fire, he asked, “Did he know? When he beat you, did he know you were pregnant?”

She nodded and looked away from him, pursing her lips tight. Intellectually, she knew none of this was her fault, but there was an emotional misfire in her brain that said, you married him, had a child with him, didn’t get out in time, let it happen, screwed up, got pregnant again, never ran in time, never saw it coming and it was plain as day.

“You ever been to a shelter?” he asked her. She nodded.

“Here are your choices,” Preacher said calmly. “You can stay here and try to get your ducks in a row so when you do leave, you’re not breaking the law or hiding for the rest of your life. It’s okay if you stay here—there are medical people across the street if you need them, you can help out in the kitchen if you want to, so you don’t feel like you’re taking advantage, and if you happen to run into that son of a bitch around here, we’re ready for him. You think of it as a shelter, like any other shelter—sometimes people just want to help out. Or you can go if you want—continue on with your plan. Whatever it is. You don’t have to run in the night, anyway. Safer in daylight. Huh?” He stood up. “You sit a minute, think, have a little brandy there—it won’t hurt that baby, a tiny sip of brandy, and I think maybe you need it. I’m going to take care of those plates for you, then I’m going to get you the bear. Whatever you decide to do, you can’t leave without the bear, you know that.”

He left her, going through his apartment. She could hear him go out his back door. He must have found the bear in the kitchen and put it in a safe place. A log in the fireplace dropped and she pulled her jacket tighter around her, taking another tiny sip of brandy that burned its way down her throat and did, miraculously, settle her stomach and her nerves, if slightly. Or maybe it was the news that Wes didn’t have the police after her that calmed her a little. A while later, John came back from his apartment, still wearing the jacket he’d obviously fetched, and holding the bear.

“Connie’ll never know the difference on those plates,” he said, holding the bear out to her. “Besides, if she knew what was going on here, she’d tell you to take ‘em.”

She frowned as she looked at the bear, changed. He had a new leg, sewn out of blue-and-gray plaid. It wasn’t exactly the same shape as the surviving leg; it was just a stuffed flannel tube stuck on the bear, but he was symmetrical now. “What did you do?” she asked, taking the bear.

Preacher shrugged. “I told him I’d give it a try. Looks pretty silly, I guess, but it was a good idea at the time.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Think you can get a little rest tonight? You still feel like you have to go right now? I could brew you up some coffee if you wanna just get out of here. I think I even have a thermos I could—”

She stood up, leaving the brandy on the table, holding Bear close against her. “I’m going back to bed,” she said. “I’ll leave in the morning, after Chris has a little breakfast.”

“If that’s what you want,” he said.

Paige awakened to the dim light of morning streaking through the dormer window and the sound of an ax striking wood. She rolled onto her side to see Christopher still sleeping peacefully, gripping the bear with the blue-and-gray flannel leg and she knew she should think about this for a while. It scared her to take a chance like this. But it didn’t scare her any more than driving on to some address in Spokane and a commitment to a life she knew nothing about, and might not be devious enough to pull off.

She’d like to think she had learned one or two things from her experiences. If anything, in any way, made her feel threatened, caused her radar to go up, she’d be gone in a flash. She wouldn’t bother with license plates or goodbyes.

Then there was that guilt—she didn’t want to put these people in Wes’s path, in danger. But her reality was that wherever she went, whether to family, a shelter, into hiding—the people who helped her were at risk. Sometimes it was unbearable to think about.

She dressed quietly, without waking Chris, and crept down the stairs to the kitchen. Preacher was standing at the counter, slicing and dicing for his morning omelets. When he saw her at the bottom of the stairs, his hand on the knife froze and he waited.