From Pharaoh's Hand Page 4

  “An Amber alert has just been issued for the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. The missing child is 17-year-old Elizabeth Morgan Merriweather, from Jackson, Tennessee, last seen on her job at Wal-Mart on Vann Drive yesterday evening around 7 p.m. She is 5’5, blonde-haired, blue eyed, and was believed to be wearing blue jeans, a blue top, and white Nike tennis shoes. Police believe she may be a runaway as no sign of foul play has been found at this time.”

  So she was a runaway. She didn’t run far. Spent the night in Memphis. Not too smart a cookie is she. This should be easy enough. But the cops are looking for her. It does draw some attention away from the robbery, though. Two hours from now, we’ll be in the clear. They will never find her.

  Elizabeth had not come out of Waffle House. He was parked right in front of the building. She had not even returned from the restrooms. He would act quickly, corner her in the little hallway, and have a little discussion about her predicament. She would go with him, he was sure of it. He would promise her safe harbor. He would promise her whatever she wanted. But she would go with him.

  Catfish left the engine running and went inside. He made his way back to the restrooms unnoticed by the busy waitress. Beth was exiting when he grabbed her arm, pushed her against a wall, and blocked her passage. The restrooms were around a corner. No one could see. He would just have to back off if someone rounded the corner. Beth gasped in surprise, then fear overtook her.

  “What do you want?”

  “You’re that runaway from Jackson aren’t you? I just heard it on my radio,” he spoke in low tones.

  “What? How...”

  “They are looking for you. Weren’t too smart to stay this close to home last night. They’ll find you for sure.”

  “But...how...I mean…no one knows I’m gone.”

  “They do now. And everyone’s looking for you. You’re in a heap o’ trouble, missy. What you gone and done?”

  “Nothing...I… they’re going to kill me.” Beth was hyperventilating now what he was said sank in. “My parents must be worried sick. I have to get home.”

  “If you go to the bus station, they will recognize you. They will call the police. Even if you’re going home, you’re going to cause everyone a lot of trouble. The police won’t be happy with you for wasting their time. Why don’t you let me drop you off in Jackson? I’ll drop you at the mall. You can then explain to your parents without having to have the police haul you in, in front of all the news and camera crews.”

  “You’re right. My parents will just die. I am so stupid.” She was crying now, grieving at what she knew the plan had cost her. She had taken a fast track to hell, and it just kept getting worse.

  “Now straighten your face up, Missy. I’ll get you home where you belong. Just walk out like me and you’s is buddies. No one will know the wiser, especially since you’ve changed outfits.”

  Elizabeth dried the tears on the sleeve of her navy sweat suit. She wished she had a hat, or some sort of jacket with a hood. But the weather was too warm, so she had left her coat in the car, along with her Wal-Mart vest and her purse. She took only her wallet and cell phone and had put both of them in the backpack she now carried, which she was thinking now, was way too conspicuous. Together they walked out casually and got in the truck, which was still idling,

  Beth had to slam the door of the truck twice to get it to stay shut. The floorboard was littered with beer cans and trash, the ashtray loaded with old butts, the seats were ripped and torn. She looked out the dirty windows and sighed.

  “What will we do if we get stopped between here and home?” she asked.

  “Well, I sorta doubt they will be looking for traffic coming into Jackson. They probably will be checking the traffic leaving town. If you kinda get down in the floor there, we’re not likely to be stopped.” Catfish answered.

  He, too, had already wondered what the plan was. If he could just make it the Law Road exit outside of Jackson, he could hit Highway 412 to Lexington, go through Parsons, and be well on his way to Perry County in no time. The most dangerous leg of the journey would be on the Interstate from the Jackson city limits to the outer limits, about a twelve-mile stretch.

  “You get down in the floorboard there. Put all that junk up in the seat. We only have to go about an hour. If we get stopped, we just get stopped.” He looked over his shoulder. “Keep your fingers crossed Missy. Catch you a nap. It’ll all be all right. Old Catfish gonna see to it.”

  Beth began pulling all the trash up onto the seat beside her, piling it on top of the Commercial Appeal that Catfish had been reading. She made her way to the floorboard and laid her head over on the seat. Catfish almost felt sorry for the girl; she looked so scared. He took his old camouflage jacket from off the back of the seat and covered her with it, making sure her head was covered so that no passing traffic could see her. He would stay in the outside lane making it harder for the big semis to look down inside. Then he put the pedal down and tried not to speed as headed east making his way back toward home.

  The truck pulling to a stop awakened Beth. Startled, she poked her head out from under the jacket.

  “What is it? Is it a State Trooper? Are we there yet?”

  Catfish was reaching for her backpack. He did not answer her. She kept asking.

  “What is it?” She scrambled up to her seat. They were sitting in a narrow gravel drive, a boat slip at the water’s edge. The Tennessee River was spread out before her. There were no boats or barges in sight, just a few ducks flying overhead as foaming white caps made their way ashore. Her eyes widened in fear.

  “Where are we? This isn’t Jackson. You’ve passed Jackson. Where are you taking me?”

  “Hush, child,” he hissed. I had to bring you. I passed too many cops on the way down. No good place to drop you off. Besides, you was running away anyhow. What have you got to go back to? I got a cabin in the hills. You can live with me. Keep me company. No one has to know where ya went.”

  “But I want to go home. What are you doing...” Catfish was taking the clothes out of her backpack by now. He emptied the wallet of its remaining cash and stuck it in his pocket. He put the wallet back, along with the cell phone. “What are you doing!”

  “I’m ditching your backpack in the river. Now hush before I ditch you there. And don’t think I won’t do it. You’re becoming more of a problem for me than I expected.”

  “Just let me go. I’ll hitch back to town. I won’t say anything. I promise. I promise I won’t.”

  “Now, Missy, don’t you think they are gonna wonder where you been all this time?”

  “I won’t tell them I promise. Let me go or I’ll scream.”

  “No use screaming. Ain’t no one for miles around. Might as well settle down. I’d hate to have to use this.” Catfish pulled a long knife from the crevice of the seat, and Beth almost wet her pants. Sweat was forming on her upper lip. She felt like retching. He’s going to hurt me. He’s going to kill me. Oh God. What have I done? Oh Lord, please, please don’t let him kill me.

  He went around to the back of the truck and pulled out a heavy brick he kept back there to brace his tires on steep inclines. He put it inside the backpack and gave it a hard fling out into the water and watched it sink. If anyone did find it, he and the girl would be long gone. They would think she was dead--a victim of suicide or foul play. It didn’t matter. No one gave much thought to the fate of runaways anymore. They would think she had ended up in an overseas brothel more than likely. He got back into the truck and started it.

  “Where are you taking me?” Beth asked.

  “So far out in the sticks, no one will ever find you. Just ‘til the heat is off. Then, if you still want to go home, you can leave. I can’t risk being in the public eye. Not right now. I promise, if you behave, I won’t hurt ya none.”

  She slumped against the seat. Her mouth was dry.

  “I need something to drink. I’m going to be sick.” He passed her a Dr. Peppe
r that had been lying in the seat, half drunk and hot.

  “That’ll have to do, I reckon.”

  Catfish put the truck in gear and hauled it back up the hill to the main road. He took a right at the top of the hill and headed back to the entrance of Mousetail Landing State Park. Then he made a left onto Highway 412, and sighed a breath of relief as he entered his vast wooded kingdom. It was good to be home.

  Chapter 5

  Life in Pharaoh’s Kingdom

  “And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage.”

  Back on the main highway, Catfish and Beth passed an old church on the left, Howard’s United Methodist Church. They made a couple of hair-raising turns away from the river. Beth could see the charred impressions on the guardrail where someone had met their fate on the dangerous curve. She held her breath as they maneuvered the bend, but Catfish seemed oblivious to any danger. He was on home turf now. All urgency was gone. He even let her sit up in the seat as long as she ducked down when they met the occasional car.

  Beth noticed there was little traffic on this highway. She wondered where they were going as she tried to burn the route into her memory. Every edifice, every bridge, every creek’s name they passed, she repeated silently to herself. She dared not break the silence after his threats to dispose of her.

  Unlike West Tennessee, once they had crossed the Tennessee River, the landscape transformed into rolling hills reminiscent of the Smokies farther east. The road twisted and curved, ascending and descending in its winding path. The trees were all bare allowing her to see straight through them and view hilltop homes. It amazed her that people were able to get their vehicles up such steep inclines. A few homesteads dotted the roadside, simple frame houses or mobile homes with peculiar homemade shelters built over them. Beth wondered if this was to protect the trailer from falling trees and limbs.

  They passed another church, The Church of Latter Day Saints on the left, and Beth assumed they were coming into a more populated area, but her hopes were squashed with the passing miles. A few more homes with grazing horses, a few more mobile homes, and a few home businesses popped up, but nothing that appeared to be a city. They passed a sign that indicated a home for troubled teens on the left. She had been to Nashville before, so she assumed that everything between Jackson and Nashville was well populated and thriving. The only thing she could see thriving out the window was wildlife. Yet, there seemed to flow a simple serenity that she assumed most of the people who lived in this area enjoyed. That would be its only plus, she imagined.

  After about fifteen miles, they began another steep ascent and at the top of the hill made yet another sharp s-curve. Beth looked down in the vast gully below. It was a long way to the bottom. A sawmill was in operation right on the curve. At last, some form of life presented itself. Once they navigated the curves, what lay in the valley before them was the idyllic little town of Linden. Beth began to see more houses, a few more businesses, a couple more churches. Soon they were at a red light. She could see the court square on her left. A couple of old trucks were parked on the square, but there was not a person in sight.

  “You best be ducking down now I suppose. And don’t you raise up til I tell you to. I don’t need no questions about who I’m cartin’ around, ya hear?”

  “Ok,” Beth answered meekly as she got back down to her hiding place in the floorboard. Could she reach the door handle? She could jump out and escape. What if she hurt the baby? Did she have a chance of surviving if she stayed in the truck? She was wondering what to do when she felt the truck make a right and go down a hill. Mentally she tried to keep track of the turns and hills, so that she could find her way back. They had gone maybe a half a mile in this direction when she felt the truck stop and idle, a stop sign or traffic light, she guessed. Then, the truck roared back into life as it crossed the intersection. Catfish blew his horn in a short greeting as he passed, not seeming to fear the attention. Beth did not realize that not to have blown or waved would have created more attention in this friendly county where everyone was related.

  The whole county’s population was only about 8,000 people, almost all of them kin. There was a grand total of one grocery store in a town that boasted two banks, one post office, and six churches. This county had one high school, one middle school, and two elementary schools, which was not much civilization for a county that covered four hundred and eleven square miles. She could not know that there wasn’t even a Wal-Mart or a McDonald’s or that the county had one, fifty-bed hospital and two clinics, for a total of seven doctors and one dentist. Teachers and nurses held the high paying jobs in this county, along with a few factory workers and loggers of the major timberlands.

  The Buffalo River ran along the eastern edge of the county and meandered its way through both Linden and Lobelville, the two major towns in the county. Sometimes it flooded with spring rains as it swelled from the overflow of all the creeks that fed into it, but generally in the summer months, it was a quiet, lazy river where tourists flocked to float canoes along certain tamer parts of its scenic route past rocky ledges and campsites. The Buffalo River had a channel depth of about five feet normally, making it ideal for swimming, wading, and fishing. Some spots along its way were so shallow that canoers would have to get out and pull their canoes along the gravel bottom toward deeper water. There were side pools perfect for swimming where adults and children alike could dive from rocky ledges into the cool green water below. Picture- perfect post card views could be had by land and by air. It was no wonder that Perry County was favored for its wild game and fishing. Being situated between two rivers, the wildlife and atmosphere were inviting, and the people as down-to-earth and decent as they come--for the most part.

  On any given day, a customer could park his boots beneath a booth at The Dinner Bell restaurant down behind the high school and be treated to the finest catfish dinner for miles around, including homemade chocolate pie with mounds of meringue. The locals would gather there daily to catch up on the gossip and catch a cup of coffee or unwind after their day. Most Saturdays, old Poke would be seated at a far table, chewing a wad of tobacco and reading old news from The Buffalo River Review, the weekly newspaper, while drinking his coffee and waiting for his poker buddies to join him. They would sit around and jaw about that week’s news or sporting events. Basketball was the favored sport. The Perry County Vikings had for years been top contenders in the region. They had finally gotten a football team to boot, as well as a new high school. Of these accomplishments they were most proud.

  Today Poke and his buddies would just have to wonder what Catfish Bones was up to when he hadn’t shown up for dinner, which is what people around these parts called lunch. They might wonder if he was sick, or think maybe it was Inetha, who rarely ventured into town due to her lupus. The men had a standing poker night on Thursday nights, and Catfish had left the table a winner this week; so it was also possible Catfish had made a casino run with his winnings. He always came back loaded. Bones had the best luck of anyone Poke knew.

  He also knew that Catfish ran shipments of Mary Jane down Memphis way every now and then for extra cash. He hoped that Catfish had not gotten caught. It was unlikely, being as lucky as old Cat was. Still, Poke had to wonder.

  He was just about out of his private stash himself. Maybe tonight he would crank up the boat and head down river to Catfish’s place and just see what was going on and replenish his stock. Usually Catfish would hear him coming down the river and meet him riverside out of sight of the house, so Inetha would not find out that he was selling pot. He was fairly certain she had no idea about the crop Catfish was growing on the backside of his property, or she would not have stood for it. Inetha was of the opinion that just because a person was poor, it did not make him white trash or dirty. How she and Catfish, or Phineas, as was his given name, fell in love he would never know.

  Catfish had told him that he met Inetha at a church box supper. He had bid on Inetha’s box because the whole town knew she made the b
est fried pies in Perry County. That was back when both of them were younger, back before Inetha’s health gave out, and Phineas quit attending church--back before he became the river rat drug runner that he was now. Poke remembered a time when Phineas Jones was a decent and honest farmer. But he guessed the claws of poverty had sunk in too deep. The lack of necessities and medical care and a solid roof that did not leak had turned Catfish cynical. He knew Cat had wanted a family and a real home. Hadn’t Cat made the remark that he hadn’t counted on Inetha letting him down this way? That was pretty cold, even for Catfish.

  But Poke didn’t realize that Catfish had other friends outside of Perry County. Catfish had never told him about meeting up with Frankie Carnel at the slots one night, and that Frankie, after learning that Catfish was from the stick, had eventually propositioned him about growing the weed and making a little spending money on the side. What it seemed like at the time was the perfect opportunity to get out from under the bondage of poverty. He could get Inetha the medicine she needed. They could build a real home, drive decent vehicles, and retire comfortably. He would claim he had hit it big at Fitzgerald’s, and no one would be the wiser. He had not counted on getting involved in a robbery that would lead to murder and kidnapping a teenage runaway. At this point, Catfish was all-in, and the river card was anybody’s guess.

  The old truck rattled as it hit a pothole here and there. They had traveled on the gravel side road for maybe ten minutes. Once they had cleared town, Catfish had allowed Beth back into her seat. She had finally summoned the courage to ask where they were headed, but he had ignored her request. She could not wait to get wherever it was; she had needed go the restroom ever since they had stopped at the river. Her head ached, and the nausea was still threatening to turn into vomiting. By this time she did not care where he was taking her; she was just thankful to be alive. She had a notion that if he really intended to kill her, he would have done so back at the river. So maybe she still had a chance to get away. She hoped and prayed that she did. Whatever was awaiting her back home would be a picnic compared to this.