The Survivors Read online

  DINAH MCCALL

  THE SURVIVORS

  On June 26, 2005, while I was writing this book, I lost my fiancé, Bobby, who was the love of my life, and whom I had known since we were kids. He died of liver cancer, in our home, and in my arms, and my life is never going to be the same.

  But that’s not all bad.

  When I can think of him without weeping, I remember the energy that was always with him and how alive the house was when he was in it. He made me laugh more in the eight years we were together than I’d ever done before. He had a heart that was so big and encompassing, and to watch him with his beloved animals, especially the horses, was something I will never forget.

  They loved him unconditionally, and the hour before he died, the horses penned up on our property began to nicker—calling back and forth to each other as if they knew. The others that were pastured across the road—approximately eighty of them—stood silently at the gate, clustered together without moving and all looking toward the house. It was eerie to see so many vibrant animals standing sentinel, as if waiting for their master to come.

  And then he died.

  When I looked out again, they were no longer there. They knew, as I did, that someone special was gone from their lives. The man who had lived with one foot in the world of the Indian and the other foot in the world of the white man was no more.

  When the people from the funeral home took Bobby out to the hearse, the big black stud horse, whose name is Lvmhe—which means eagle in the Muscogee language, and which was Bobby’s Indian name, as well—reared up on his hind legs in a most majestic salute to his master, then literally screamed, as if in pain.

  I knew how he felt.

  I’m not sorry to be sharing this sad tale, because truthfully, I could do nothing less. Like the horses he so loved, this is my salute to the man who helped my heart.

  Fall is coming. Winter won’t be far behind. It is a time for harvesting memories.

  In the cold days to come, those images I have in my head and my heart will be what keeps me warm.

  To Bobby

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Destry Poindexter was beating the hell out of his wife, Lucy. It wasn’t something he thought about. It was simply a reaction to the fact that he’d been fired today. It was the third job he’d lost this year. That it was December, and only a couple of weeks or so until Christmas, made it worse.

  Carlisle, Kentucky, was a nice town, but with little industry. If you didn’t know how to be a mechanic or work a computer, you were shit out of luck, which was exactly where Destry found himself now. Lucy hadn’t berated him. She’d just been there when he’d walked in the door and was suffering the consequences of his bad fortune.

  “Stop, Destry! Stop! Please, God, you have to stop.”

  Destry doubled up his fist and hit her again—this time so hard that he lifted her off her feet. His voice was calm, his demeanor that of a parent punishing a child.

  “Shut up. Just shut up,” he said. “You’re whining again. You know how I hate it when you whine.”

  Slap.

  Lucy hit the floor, falling first on her hip, then hitting her head.

  “It’s your own fault this is happening. I’m sorry, but you give me no choice,” he said.

  Lucy rolled over, curling herself into as small a target as possible.

  It didn’t deter Destry. He just drew back his booted foot and kicked.

  The blow was so vicious that Lucy heard her bones breaking.

  “Oh God, help me,” she moaned.

  Deborah Sanborn was coming up from the root cellar between the barn and her house when she felt the first blow. The pain in her head was so sudden and excruciating that she dropped the quart of peaches she’d been carrying. She didn’t even have time to be grateful that the glass jar didn’t break as she grabbed her head and rolled on the ground.

  Within seconds of the pain came the pictures, flashing through her head like a slide show with no sound.

  Lord have mercy—Destry Poindexter was beating Lucy again.

  As she lay there, she saw blood coming out of Lucy’s ear and witnessed Destry deliver another blow to his wife’s belly with his boot.

  From out of nowhere, her dog, Puppy, appeared and began licking at Deborah’s ear and whining as she nosed at Deborah’s chin, urging her to get up.

  “I know, I know,” she said, as she pushed the dog back.

  Gritting her teeth and closing her mind to any further visions, she picked up the peaches and staggered into her house.

  Once inside, the warmth of her home against the bitter cold of an Appalachian winter was welcome. She set the peaches on the counter and shrugged out of her coat, dropping it on the back of a chair as she ran to the phone.

  She knew the number to the sheriff’s office by heart and dialed it quickly.

  Frances Littlejohn was the day dispatcher for Wally Hacker, the sheriff who served Carlisle, Kentucky, as well as all the other unincorporated land in the county. Frances answered absently, trying to ignore a sore throat and the sniffles.

  “Sheriff’s office.”

  “Frances…this is Deborah Sanborn. Is Wally in?”

  “He’s outside in the parking lot changing a flat on the cruiser.”

  “Lord,” Deborah muttered. “Tell him that Destry Poindexter is beating Lucy to a pulp. Tell him he’s got her down on the floor and is kicking her. Dispatch an ambulance to their house, as well.”

  “Oh my,” Frances muttered. “I don’t know how you stand it…seeing all this awful stuff all the time.”

  “Me neither,” Deborah said. “Just tell Wally to hurry.”

  “Will do,” Frances said, and disconnected.

  Deborah hung up the phone, then sank slowly downward until she was sitting on the floor. For a few minutes she just stared out the window blindly, unaware of the tears pouring down her cheeks or the fists she’d made of her hands.

  She would have fought back, but Lucy Poindexter wouldn’t. All Deborah could do was tell the sheriff what she’d seen and pray that Lucy survived this beating, just as she’d survived the countless others she’d endured.

  Finally she remembered the peaches and that she’d been going to make a cobbler, and she pushed herself up from the floor and went to the sink to wash her hands.

  A short while later she was cutting slits in the top crust to let out the steam as the cobbler baked. She put it in the oven, set the timer and went to the laundry room to change loads.

  Even though Lucy Poindexter was enduring a life-threatening trauma, it was just another day for Deborah Sanborn.

  Phoenix, Arizona

  Forty-something Mike O’Ryan eyed the placement of the balls left on the pool table, lined up what would be the last shot, then popped the cue stick against the ball so quickly that his neighbor Howie never saw what happened. However, as soon as the ball dropped into the pocket, Mike looked up at Howie and grinned.

  Howie Louglin looked back at him and frowned. “Wipe that grin off your sorry-ass face before I wipe it for you.”

  As usual, Mike’s go-to-hell attitude shifted a gear higher.

  “You know what, Howie? We do this at least once a month, and every time,
I beat you. You know it’s going to happen before we start, yet you persist in repeating this. You’re a grown man…or at least you’re supposed to be. Suck it up or go home.”

  “Yeah. Whatever,” Howie muttered.

  Still, he put the cue stick in the rack, then brushed the chalk off his fingers and onto the seat of his pants.

  “Have a beer, Howie,” Mike said.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Howie said, and circled the pool table in Mike’s garage to get to the fridge. “Want one?”

  “Sure, why not,” Mike said, and took the long-neck that Howie handed him as he, too, hung up his stick.

  They took a couple of drinks, then glanced out the garage door to the street beyond. The pretty widow who lived across the street was outside watering her shrubs—barefoot and in a pair of shorts and a sports bra.

  It was ten minutes after eleven at night.

  Howie eyed her shapely form as she bent and posed while dragging the hose around the yard.

  “Reckon them plants have had enough water?”

  Mike grinned. “Walk over and find out.”

  Howie sighed.

  “Sure I won’t be steppin’ on your toes? I don’t wanna step on your toes or anythin’.”

  Mike eyed the woman, then shook his head.

  “You won’t be stepping on anything of mine,” he said. “Feel free.”

  Howie downed what was left of his beer, handed the empty bottle to Mike, sucked in his belly and started across the street.

  Mike dropped the empty bottle into the trash, punched the button to shut the garage door and went into the house without waiting to see if Howie was going to get lucky.

  Knowing his pretty neighbor, he figured the chances were good that he would. And also knowing his neighbor, he was never going to be one of the losers standing in line at her door.

  He locked up as he went through the house, absently checking doors and windows to make sure they were locked. He finished his beer in short shrift, set the empty bottle on the sideboard in his dining room and headed for his bedroom.

  It was late. He was tired.

  But even after he’d showered and was stretched out in bed with the television blaring and the remote in his hand, he was unaware of what was showing. He kept thinking about his son, Evan, wondering how he was faring, worrying about his state of mind.

  Like every other O’Ryan, Evan was ex-military, but in his instance, he was ex only because of the life-threatening wounds he’d suffered in Iraq. He’d been stateside less than two weeks and had refused visits from his dad or any of the other men in the family ever since his return.

  Mike had seen him once, more than two months ago, in Germany, where they’d flown Evan to heal after he’d been wounded and evacuated, but he hadn’t seen him since.

  He would have been pissed at Evan, but he couldn’t bring himself to go there, because if the situation had been reversed, he suspected he would have acted the same way.

  So he lay there in bed, thinking of the rut his life was in and how truly lonely he’d become.

  And while he was soaking in a stew of his own making, he fell asleep.

  1

  “Senator, you need to hurry or you’re going to miss your flight.”

  Patrick Finn waved at his assistant to indicate he understood, then moved his cell phone from his right ear to his left.

  “Look, Wilson, I just can’t do that and keep my constituents happy come next election. I’m in this for the long haul. If I vote for your bill, I’ll be selling out over half the population of my state. We make our living in cotton and tobacco, you know. I can’t in good conscience cast my vote to keep your people happy and destroy the tobacco industry at the same time. I know you understand.”

  The knot in Senator Darren Wilson’s gut pulled a little bit tighter. He stacked notepads in stacks of threes as he listened, unaware that his OCD had kicked in again. This couldn’t be happening. If he didn’t get this bill through Congress as he’d promised, his life wouldn’t be worth a nickel. He was in this mess because of gambling. Passing this bill had been his way out of a quarter-million-dollar gambling note, and welshing on the people he owed was not an option. Neither was backing out of his word.

  He stared down at the handful of photos he’d received in the mail yesterday. One of his ex-wife, one of his daughter, who hadn’t spoken to him in three years, and two of his grandchildren playing outside on the playground of their Dallas grade school. The pictures were numbered from one to four. He got the message. If he failed to come through for the people he owed, they were going to go after his family in the order in which the photos were numbered.

  And God help him, his ex-wife was number one. At this point in his life, she pretty much hated his guts, but he didn’t have it in him to sacrifice her or any of them to get himself out of debt. Besides, he knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. They would still do him in. He would just have the privilege of knowing that he’d wiped every single member of his family off the face of the earth before he died, too.

  He closed his eyes, cleared his throat, then gave Patrick Finn one more push.

  “Finn, you don’t understand. I need your vote to keep my family alive.”

  Finn frowned. He knew that Wilson gambled. Everyone on the Hill knew it. It came as no surprise that he was probably in trouble with a casino owner somewhere, or even some loan shark, but none of that was Finn’s fault or business.

  “I’m sorry, Darren, truly I am. But I can’t sell out my state because you can’t stay away from the poker tables.”

  “No! Wait! You—”

  “No, and that’s my final answer,” Finn said. “Now, I’ve got to go, or I’m going to miss my flight.”

  When the phone line went dead, Darren Wilson felt as if he wasn’t far behind. He stared at the framed photos of his daughters and grandchildren on his desk, then shifted through the ones he’d gotten in the mail. Every aspect of his body mirrored his dejection as he took a small bag from the bottom drawer of his desk, then walked toward a large painting hanging on the opposite wall.

  He pulled it back, revealing the wall safe behind it. A few quick turns of the dial and the safe came open. Inside was his contingency plan: a fake passport and fifty thousand dollars in cash.

  He put the money in the bag and the passport in his pocket, closed the safe and checked it three times before putting the painting back in place. That it had come to this was at best depressing, but he had no option. Damn Patrick Finn all to hell. Leaving wasn’t what Darren wanted to do, but if he wanted to stay alive, it was his only way out.

  He draped his overcoat over the small bag, grabbed his hat from a hook on the wall and headed out of the door, pausing at his secretary’s desk long enough to issue one last order.

  “Connie, please cancel all my appointments for this afternoon. Something has come up.”

  “Yes, sir. Do you want me to reschedule?”

  “Not today. I’ll let you know later.”

  “Yes, sir,” the secretary said again, and picked up the phone to do what she’d been told as Darren Wilson walked out the door.

  A short while later, Patrick Finn was rushing through the D.C. airport, trying to catch his flight to Atlanta, where he lived. He had to swing by his home to pick up some clothes before heading out to Albuquerque, where he would rent a car and drive to Santa Fe, where he would spend Christmas. His wife and kids were already there with his parents, and he was looking forward to getting away for the holidays. He kept glancing at his watch as he ran, and knew it was going to be close. An accident on the freeway had left traffic at a standstill for more than thirty-five minutes. By the time the cab driver had pulled up at the airport, Finn was late.

  He sprinted past stores that smelled of hot coffee and cinnamon buns, as well as pubs serving beer and sandwiches to passengers with time to spare.

  When he finally reached Gate 36, he was just in time to watch the plane pulling away from the ramp.

  “Wait!” he yelle
d. “That’s my plane. I have to be on that plane!”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you’re too late,” the attendant said.

  “I can’t be too late! I’m Senator Patrick Finn.”

  It was nothing the attendant hadn’t heard before, and as the plane taxied toward the runway, she was already calmly booking Patrick Finn on the next plane to Atlanta. Considering it was the Christmas holidays, it was the best she could do for him.

  Finn knew it, too, but it didn’t make him any happier as he waited the two and a half hours for the flight on which he’d now been rebooked.

  It was late evening when the plane landed in Atlanta, and by the time he got off, he’d already decided just to buy some clothes in Santa Fe rather than go home to pack, then try to make it back through evening traffic to catch his next flight. He called his wife, told her what was happening, then settled down to wait at the gate for boarding to begin.

  An hour later, the process began.

  “Welcome aboard, sir,” the attendant said, as he stepped off the ramp and onto the plane.

  “Thank you,” he said, nodding briefly as he scanned the aisles for his seat.

  That it was not in first class was something he was going to have to live with. Holiday travel was hectic at best, and considering it was his fault he’d missed his first flight, he wasn’t about to get picky about this one.

  He thumped and bumped his one carry-on down the aisle until he got to his seat, smiling to himself as he realized it was on the aisle. He nodded to the pretty young woman in the seat behind him as he put his carry-on in the overhead compartment, then folded his coat and laid it on top of the bag.

  “Good evening, miss,” he said cordially, as he closed the door to the compartment.