Chapter 8

8

Present Day

Wylie pounded up the steps and did a cursory search of each of the rooms. As she threw back the shower curtain, a horrible thought hit her. "Shit," she hissed and rushed back down the stairs. She threw open the front door and cold air and a swirl of snow swept in. She squinted into the wall of white. The storm had increased its fury. She couldn't see beyond the front step. "Oh, Jesus," she whispered. The child would never survive out there for very long.

Wylie took a deep breath and tried to get her wits about her. He had to be somewhere around here. She started over and retraced her steps, rechecking the closets and behind doors. Finally, she peered behind the sofa and wedged next to the wall was the boy. Dressed in the sweatshirt she had given him, he was fast asleep, thumb in his mouth. On the floor next to him was his pile of wet clothes.

Wylie strode over to the front door and flipped the dead bolt. She pulled the sofa a few feet away from the wall, giving the boy a little more space, and knelt down next to him.

His head rested at an awkward angle on the hardwood floor. Wylie reached for a throw pillow and slid it beneath his head. He barely stirred. His skin was alarmingly pale, and a strange, angry red rash encircled his mouth and crept toward his cheeks. The cut at his temple had stopped bleeding but was a bit bruised and swollen. The tips of his toes that peeked out from beneath the blanket looked waxy and hard. Small blisters had erupted on the curved edges of his ears. Frostbite.

He shivered in his sleep, and Wylie pulled the comforter from the sofa and tucked it around his small body. He was thin. Too thin.

Wylie still had so many questions. How did he end up here? Who did he belong to? She had to wait for those answers. At any rate it looked like she was going to have an overnight guest.

Wylie gathered up the boy's wet clothing. She winced at the musty, moldy smell that emanated from them. She checked his pockets in hopes of finding something that might help identify him. There was nothing but a small figure of an action hero. She set the toy on the kitchen counter and then tossed the clothes into the washing machine.

Wylie added a few more logs to the fireplace. The wood crackled and popped and the flames danced. The wind howled and buffeted the house; the lights dimmed and then brightened again.

Wylie sat down next to Tas on the sofa. She was exhausted but the thought of how the boy got there nagged at her. In this weather, it seemed impossible that a child, dressed as he was, could walk a mile from the nearest house to the front yard of the farmhouse. He had to have come from the road. Maybe there had been a car accident.

Wylie went upstairs to a window that overlooked the front yard. She wanted to see if she could spot any hint of what might have happened. The hackberry trees were other-worldly, their sharp limbs shimmering, bending beneath a heavy glaze of ice. The lane that led to the gravel road beyond the property disappeared into white mist.

How far did the boy have to walk before collapsing in front of the house? It couldn't have been that great of a distance. Visibility was terrible, and he was such a small boy; he couldn't have walked that far on his own. Perhaps a vehicle went off the road somewhat nearby.

Wylie returned downstairs and pulled on her down parka and boots with cleats that would hopefully anchor her to the icy ground and keep her from falling.

She looked down at the sleeping child and considered waking him to let him know she was going outside. He was sleeping so soundly, she decided to just let him rest. Hopefully, he wouldn't wake up while she was out and panic.

Wylie grabbed a flashlight and her hiking sticks with sharp points that could penetrate the ice. Once outside, the frigid air instantly took her breath away but at least the wind had died down a bit.

The ice was an inch thick and Wylie took a tentative step out the door and let out a breath of relief when her feet didn't fly out from beneath her. It was only half a football field to the top of the lane, but it would be slow going, hopefully with the help of the ice cleats and the hiking sticks, she would be able to stay upright.

She moved methodically; the tap, tap of her pole tips sinking through the snow and striking the ice was like a drumbeat urging her forward. Holding both a flashlight and the hiking sticks was awkward. The light's beam dizzily bobbed up and down with each step. She passed the spot where she found the boy. It was as if he was never there. The tracks and body-shaped indentation were already covered with fresh snow.

By the time Wylie was halfway up the lane, she was breathing hard and sweating beneath her coat. She resisted the urge to remove her stocking cap and turned back to look at the barn and the house through the gauzy veil of snow.

From this vantage point, they looked almost magical. The eaves were dripping with silvery icicles and a frosting of snow covered the roofs. Smoke puffed from the chimney and the windows glowed with warm light—no wonder he had tried to make it there.

She scanned the iron-gray sky above. Soft snowflakes fell in lazy circles to the ground. No rough-legged hawks circled the area in search of rodents in the empty fields. No black-masked horned larks with their high-pitched, delicate song. The air was quiet except for the sound of her own heavy breathing. All the creatures were hunkered in for the next round of storms. Wylie needed to hurry.

Once at the top of the lane and past the windbreak of pines, Wylie spotted the tire tracks, a vehicle had traveled this road recently. Deep ruts that zigzagged back and forth across the field were already filling with new snow. Whoever was driving was having a hard time staying on the road. Wylie swung the flashlight from side to side as she searched the ditches half-filled with snow and ice. No vehicle. The wind lifted, and a piece of dingy, white fabric tumbled toward her and clung to her pant leg.

Wylie peeled the cloth from her pants. It was the size of a hand towel, grimy and frayed and covered in faded bunny rabbits. It reminded her of the blanket she had as a kid. She dragged that thing around until it was as thin as tissue paper. She pressed it to her nose. It smelled musty and like wood smoke. Maybe it belonged to the boy or maybe it was wayward garbage. She shoved it into her pocket.

A flash of red in the snow caught her eye. Her breath quickened. Was it blood? Wylie focused the beam of light on the ground in front of her. More red speckles shining through a thin layer of snow. She bent down to get a closer look, ran her gloved hand through the snow, expecting it to smear pink. It wasn't blood. Shards of what looked like a broken taillight dotted the snow. Next came a trail of unidentifiable pieces of broken plastic and more broken glass.

It had to be a car accident, Wylie thought as she fought against the wind. Every time she tried to catch her breath, a blast of air would snatch it away.

A few steps farther, more detritus. Wylie reached down and picked up the remnants of a side-view mirror. She examined her face, numbed by the cold, in the cracked glass. Her distorted reflection, as frightened as she felt, looked back at her.

The blizzard winds had arranged the newly fallen snow into tall dunes. Wylie picked up her pace, walked a few yards and came to the spot where it looked like a vehicle first left the road: undisturbed snow where it must have gone airborne for a moment after striking a telephone pole, then a violent gash in the ground covered in a mosaic of broken glass.

Ten feet farther, Wylie found what she was looking for. A black truck flipped upside down in a deep furrow next to a field.

Using the hiking sticks to keep her balance, Wylie picked her way down into the ditch and circled the mangled steel and rubber tires now encased in a glaze of ice. She rubbed at the rear window using her gloved fingers, but a lacy film of ice and snow covered it, making it impossible to see inside.

The driver's side door was wedged open. The faint impression of small shoes led away from the truck. Wylie held on to the truck's undercarriage to maneuver around to the other side, and her legs plunged through the icy crust up to her knees.

"Dammit," she muttered and tried to brush away the snow that had fallen into her boot but only made it worse. She waded through the snow and bent down to look through the open door. The front window was shot through with a spiderweb of cracks and what looked like specks of blood.

Wylie twisted her neck to see if anyone was in the back seat. It was vacant except for some empty cans of beer. Had the driver been drinking with a child in the car? Was this why the tire tracks had been all over the road? At first, Wylie thought it was just the icy roads, but it looked like there could be more to the accident.

Wylie finished her search around the truck. The snow must have been able to hold the boy's weight as he made the trek to Wylie's house in his tennis shoes. How cold his feet must have been. If Wylie had stepped outside even an hour later, she surely would have found the boy's dead body.

Where could the driver have gone? Would a parent really leave their son alone in a wrecked car even if it was to go find help? Or had the boy been the one to go for help first?

Wylie looked toward the farmhouse and spotted a soft glow through the gloom. From the child's viewpoint, the lights must have seemed like a welcoming beacon after not knowing where the driver had gone.

She backtracked the way she had come looking for any sign of the truck's driver, this time staying in the ditch and the upturned ground that marked the truck's path. The ditch protected her somewhat from the now rising wind, but still her face tingled with cold. She stepped over more debris half-buried in the ice and snow. A nearly empty package of sunflower seeds, more beer cans, broken glass and fast-food wrappers snagged on frozen prairie sage. Wylie kept walking.

And that's when she glimpsed it, poking out of the snow in the empty field—a red swath of fabric. Wylie struggled through the knee-deep snow, her legs burning with the exertion. She stopped short when the rest of the figure came into view. The truck's driver or another passenger, thrown from the vehicle as it careened off the road.

The woman was lying on her stomach at the edge of the snowy field, entangled in a web of barbwire fencing pulled from its post. Her forehead rested on one bent forearm; the other arm was outstretched as if reaching for some sort of lifeline. The woman's long hair, dusted with snow as fine as sugar, spread out like snakes, frozen in midstrike. She was deathly still.

Wylie hurried toward the woman, her breath coming in raspy, white puffs. When she was about thirty feet away, Wylie could see just how ensnared the woman was. The fencing coiled around her legs and the sharp prongs bit deeply through the woman's pants into her skin, leaving bloody skin exposed.

"Shit," Wylie muttered. She had to step down into the ditch, cross the basin filled with snow and climb up the other side to get to the woman. Wylie moved carefully, knowing one wrong step could result in a broken ankle or twisted knee.

By the time Wylie crossed the ditch, the woman still hadn't moved, and Wylie feared the worst. She dropped to her knees and set the flashlight down so it illuminated the injured woman. Wylie lay down next to the prone woman. She gently brushed the newly fallen snow from the woman's face to find a large gash across her forehead and one eye completely swollen shut. She was in bad shape. Wylie had to get her out of there.

Wylie saw no way of turning the woman without inflicting further injury. The best Wylie could do was pull as much snow away from the woman's face as she could.

"Can you hear me?" Wylie asked as she pulled off her gloves and pressed her fingers to the woman's neck in hopes of finding a pulse. "I found the little boy. He's safe." Nothing. "Please," Wylie repeated, "Please don't be dead." Wylie tried to silence the roaring in her ears, to steady her trembling fingers.

Then there it was, a barely perceptible thump beneath her fingertips. "Oh, thank God," Wylie breathed.

The woman gave a soft groan. "I'm here," Wylie said. "My name is Wylie, and I'm going to help you. I found the boy, he's okay. Is there anyone else?"

The woman seemed to hesitate a moment too long before shaking her head no.

So was it just the woman and the child in the accident? Wylie wasn't sure she believed the woman, but why would she lie? Wylie thought again of the strange way the boy had acted when he first regained consciousness at the house. He reminded her of a trapped animal—desperate to escape. Was this woman his mother or someone else?

"Okay, I'm going to help you get out of this," Wylie said as she put her gloves back on, carefully pushed down the razor-sharp fencing and climbed over. She dropped to her knees and began to frantically try and free the woman from the barbwire. The spiked hooks from the fence dug into the woman's pants, tearing her jeans and the skin beneath. Bright red drops of blood marred the newly fallen snow.

The barbs bit through Wylie's gloves, but she couldn't free the woman. The woman cried out weakly in pain. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Wiley said in a rush. "I just have to get you untangled from the fence."

The woman tried to inch away from Wylie and the spikes dug even more deeply into her skin.

"Try not to move just yet," Wylie urged. "You'll just get caught up worse." The woman continued to moan softly, her uninjured eye looking at Wylie with pain and something else. Defiance.

Wylie sat back on her heels, snowflakes catching on her eyelashes and melting against her sweaty face.

"I'm going to go back to the house and get some wire cutters," Wylie told her. The woman reached out and grabbed Wylie's wrist as if begging her not to leave. Wylie easily slipped from the woman's grasp.

"I'll be right back," she assured her. "I promise. It's the only way I'm going to be able to get you untangled." The woman reached for her again, this time holding on to Wylie more tightly. Wylie understood the woman's fear. Once Wylie left, the flashlight would go with her. The woman would be left behind in total darkness. The cold and wind were relentless and it was snowing even harder. The woman was slowly being buried alive.

Wylie unzipped her coat and wriggled out of it. Immediately the cold punched through her clothing and she gasped. Shivering, Wylie tucked the coat around the woman, covering her up as much as possible. Next, Wylie removed her hat and carefully placed it on the woman's head, pulling it gently over her ears. At the last moment she remembered her car keys in her coat, fished them out, and stuffed them into her back pocket.

Wylie knew it was a risk exposing herself to the elements, but she would be able to get another hat and coat back at the house. On the other hand, the woman didn't stand a chance without some kind of protection and wouldn't last much longer.

Wylie unwound the yellow scarf from her neck and wrapped it around the barbwire fence just above the woman's head. Its fringe blew in the wind like a grim flag, but when Wylie returned, it would help her locate the woman more quickly.

Something was completely off about this entire scene. Why would anyone dare to drive in the storm? Neither the woman nor the boy was dressed for the weather. No coats, boots, hats, or gloves. Did they live nearby? Were they trying to get home or trying to get away?

Wylie turned back toward the house. She had to hurry.