Dorothy Garlock Read Free Page A

rifle.
    “You can’t, Pearl,” Hallie replied. “You just can’t.”
    “Don’t worry, Hallie,” the older woman said, a smile cracking her face. “I won’t if I don’t have to. It ain’t somethin’ I want to do, but I’ve gotta be ready for that snake if he strikes!”
    Hallie wasn’t able to offer any further argument. Even though she couldn’t bring herself to admit it, the gun in Pearl’s hands made her feel safer. Chester Remnick
was
as sneaky as any serpent. There was no telling what he would do. He wouldn’t let them walk in and simply take Mary; Hallie was sure of that.
    Slowly and quietly they made their way to the tiny cabin. Saying a silent prayer, they eased their way inside the crooked door. On the other side, in the room that made up most of the ramshackle home, they had found Chester sprawled on a filthy bed. He was dressed only in his pants and was snoring loudly. The room smelled strongly of the whiskey that had spilled from the bottle at his side.
    “Quickly,” Pearl whispered, leading Hallie farther into the cabin.
    In a lean-to attached to the back of the house, they found Mary asleep on a stained, sagging cot. She looked terribly young as she lay there, temporarily safe. Hallie felt a sudden urge not to wake her, not to bring her back. Pearl did not share the same sentiment and attempted to wake their friend. What happened next was the true nightmare.
    “Mary,” Pearl cooed. “Mary, wake up.”
    As the sleeping woman’s eyes had fluttered once, twice, then opened, the look that filled them wasn’t one of joy at seeing her friends, or even surprise as to why they happened to be standing in her bedroom. Instead, they reflected terror, sheer terror.
    “No, no, get away! Get away from me!” Mary screamed.
    Too stunned to think, both Hallie and Pearl remained frozen in place as Mary sprang up from the bed and made a dash for the door, desperate to escape. Pearl was the first to move and, after what had seemed like forever, Hallie followed.
    “Mary! Stop, Mary! It’s Pearl and Hallie!”
    “Get—get away from me!”
    They passed Chester, still groggy yet quickly awakening from his drunken stupor, and burst back out into the growing daylight, when Mary simply collapsed onto the ground and began to wail. Hallie was about to run to Mary, to offer some comfort, when Chester’s liquor-addled voice burst into the morning.
    “Stay away from her, ya stupid bitches,” he growled.
    From the time that Chester had first spoken to this moment seemed no more than a blink of the eyes to Hallie, punctuated by a gunshot. As she looked down at Mary’s shaking form, she couldn’t help but wonder if Chester’s first question had a logical answer.
What
are
we doing here
? Hallie assumed that Mary would be thrilled at the thought of leaving her squalid life, but she was terrified instead. Now, with Chester alert and threatening, Hallie knew that their chances of leaving without violence were slim.
    “Just stay where you are, you miserable son of a bitch,” Pearl snapped. “She didn’t know who we were, Hallie. She thought we were some of this buzzard’s drunken friends,” she said without turning around.
    “Ya stupid whore.” Chester spat. Anger coursed through him now, the corners of his mouth rising in a sadistic sneer. “Ya think yer just gonna take her? She’s mine, I tell ya!”
    “She’s no more yours than I am!”
    Chester glared at the woman defying him. “There ain’t nowhere ya can go that I ain’t gonna be able to find ya . . . and when I do, I’m gonna kill ya! Both of ya!”
    Hallie understood that Chester believed his own words. Even if they managed to get Mary away, she knew that he would never stop looking, never stop hunting until he had exacted his revenge and retrieved what he felt belonged to him.
    Pearl, however, didn’t seem to share her concerns. “If you ain’t too stupid to know what’s good for you,” she said as calmly as a smooth spring breeze,