Obsessed Page 37

  And if he did, then what?

  Yes, then what?

  He pointed the knife up and dug at the tape. Missed. Stuck his wrist instead. He ignored the pain and sliced upwards again.

  Roth dropped to his knees by the box. He clawed at the lid.

  Come on, Stephen.

  The lid flew open. Roth stared into the box.

  Thrust his hand inside. Pulled out bundled cloth. Stephen recognized it as one of the old shirts issued to prisoners in the camp. Martha had wrapped the Stones in a shirt.

  Stephen felt something cutting, but he couldn’t tell how much progress he was making. Come on, Stephen, cut!

  Roth stood slowly to his feet, kneading the cloth, feeling for the Stones.

  He turned to Ruth, eyes frenzied. Or delighted?

  He let one end of the shirt fall. The cloth unraveled.

  Empty.

  Ruth was right; the box was empty.

  Their tormentor began to moan. He faced them all, eyes darting, arms spread like a gunslinger. A white ghost in the moonlight, living on rage now.

  “Where are they?”

  Ruth said nothing.

  Stephen prayed the German wouldn’t see his shaking as he sawed at the tape. But he had no choice. He had to cut himself free now.

  “Where are they?” Roth screamed. “Tell me, you filthy Jew!”

  Ruth stared at him defiantly. “Now it is you who are in anguish. You’ve lost all of your power.”

  Roth rushed forward with surprising speed. He rounded the table, headed straight for Ruth. But he didn’t go to Ruth.

  He veered toward Esther at the last moment, grabbed the stool with both hands, and yanked it out, just as Stephen felt the tape give way behind his back.

  Esther fell a foot before reaching the end of the rope. She bounced and swung three feet off the ground.

  He’d hung her!

  WHEN ESTHER saw Roth veer toward her, she knew the worst was about to happen. She instinctively took a huge gulp of air, tensed her muscles, and clenched her eyes.

  Then she was airborne. She hit the bottom and bounced. Pain flashed down her spine. She swung like a piñata.

  It took a moment for her to realize that she was alive. Not only was she alive, but her neck, though stretched, wasn’t broken. And she could breathe. Barely.

  She opened her eyes. She was dangling from the rope above the ground, but fully conscious and fully alive. Was this what it felt like to be hanged? Others’ necks were broken by the snap, but hers wasn’t. How long would she swing here before dying?

  Stephen was swinging too! Had he been hanged as well?

  She moved her legs but immediately felt pain stab at her neck. At any minute her neck could break. She wondered if it might be easier to just relax and let the noose take her life quickly. A buzzing began in her ears.

  Her vision began to cloud.

  ROTH LIFTED the stool and smashed it on the ground. It splintered into a heap of sticks.

  Stephen wrenched his wrists free from the tape and grabbed the rope above his head for support. He threw his weight forward, lifted both legs as high as he could, and struck out with as much force as he could gather.

  Roth spun, stunned by the sudden movement.

  Stephen’s heel caught him square in the temple. Any smaller of a man and he might have broken his skull. The impact sent a sharp shaft of pain clear up to his hip.

  Roth staggered back several steps, fell heavily to his seat, then fell on his side, unconscious.

  STEPHEN WAS only halfway out of his noose when Roth moved.

  Already?

  Stephen ripped the noose from his head and dropped to his feet, facing the German, who was now pushing himself up.

  Behind Stephen, Esther hung on the end of the rope.

  Roth stood, blinking. His eyes darted to the left, and Stephen followed them to a black lump on the earth, behind the table.

  His pistol.

  Esther began to rasp.

  You have time to save her. Not much, but enough.

  Stephen spun and grabbed Esther before realizing his mistake. He couldn’t turn his back! The snake could easily have a second gun and put a bullet into both of their heads.

  He whirled back, Esther in his arms.

  Roth was withdrawing a small, snub-nosed revolver from his pocket. The man was still dazed, which slowed him down.

  Stephen let Esther go, tore for Roth, and swung his hand, open palmed, for the man’s face. The night crackled with a loud snap, like a firecracker.

  Stephen’s hand flashed with pain.

  He formed a fist and drove it into Roth’s nose. Crack!

  Roth grunted and fell back to his seat.

  “Stephen!” Ruth was crying out for him. “Esther . . . you have to get Esther.”

  Esther’s rasping had intensified. He grabbed the fallen gun, smashed its butt into Roth’s head, and hurled the weapon into the grass as Roth slumped to the ground.

  He should have kept the gun, he thought. No time now. He had to get to Esther.

  “Stephen!” Ruth cried.

  He leaped for Esther and grabbed her legs and shoved her up to ease the pressure on her neck.

  “Are you okay?”

  She coughed and gasped.

  “Are you okay?” he demanded.

  “Down!”

  Stephen glanced around, suddenly struck with the slight problem of getting her down. Ruth stared at them helplessly. He wasn’t quite sure what to do. So he asked her again, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m hung!” she barely croaked.

  “Are . . . are you hurt somewhere?”

  “Everywhere!”

  “But not bad?” Surely not a broken neck!

  “Bad!” she said.

  “Is your neck broken?” he cried in alarm.

  She looked down at him and held his gaze. She let out a breath and her face wrinkled, but it was relief, not pain in her eyes.

  Stephen’s vision blurred with gratitude. “Thank God.”

  “Stephen?”

  “Yes?”

  “Free my hands.”

  “How?”

  “Stephen!”

  He twisted at Ruth’s cry and saw that Braun was struggling to lift his head. Ten yards from him lay the pistol that had fallen free during the confusion.

  This was not good. He couldn’t let go of Esther. Couldn’t get to Braun. Couldn’t reach to untie the tape around Esther’s wrists. He saw it all, and he knew in a single, dreadful moment what he must do.

  Roth slowly pushed himself to his knees.

  “Esther, please—”

  “Yes!”

  “Hold on!” He eased her down, felt the rope take up her weight, felt nauseated. He took two long steps, snatched his fallen knife from the ground, and hurried back. If he thought she could withstand the pressure, he would have gone after Roth before returning to support her.

  But the risk of her neck breaking was too high.

  He grabbed her legs and shoved her back up. She gasped.

  Braun got one leg under himself. Started to rise. Settled back down and tried again.

  “Hurry!”

  “I’m hurrying!” He held her up with one arm and searched for the tape with a shaking hand. He pressed the blade against it, afraid he might cut her skin.

  Braun faltered, then staggered toward the gun.

  Esther wheezed a cry.

  Stephen sawed, wincing. The tape came apart.

  She struggled above him, gripped the noose under her chin, and wrestled with the rope. “Go!”

  He ran for Braun like a place-kicker running for a kickoff. His foot landed in the man’s rear.

  Braun grunted and sprawled to his face.

  Stephen flew over him and scooped up the handgun. “Ha!” He spun around, knelt by the killer, and hit him on the head with the butt of the gun.

  “Ha!”

  This was the third major blow to the man’s head. Surely it would keep him out.

  In his p
eripheral vision he saw that Esther was falling.

  She’d freed her neck and dropped cleanly to the ground, where she tried to hold her balance and then sank to her seat. She tried to stand, but fell back.

  Stephen scrambled to his feet. “Are you okay?”

  Esther touched her neck. The bleeding from her wrist had stopped.

  Stephen jumped over Braun’s prone body and rushed to them. He grabbed the knife and attacked Ruth’s bonds. Freed her from the noose.

  Dropped the knife.

  Faced Esther. They were free.

  Stephen sat and took Esther in his arms. She clung to him and began to cry softly.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

  He wanted to wash away her tears and squeeze her forever. Instead, he took her face in both hands and kissed her.

  “I love you.”

  She couldn’t respond for her tears. She didn’t need to.

  Stephen held her tight, her face planted in his neck as she wept. His eyes swept the camp behind her.

  Roth Braun lay still.

  This is where we were born. This is where our mothers’ lives were once stolen.

  He’d never felt so full of life as he did at this moment.

  Epilogue

  THE AMMUNITION BOX WAS EMPTY FOR GOOD REASON, RUTH told them. Martha had buried two boxes in the event that the treasure’s location was forced from them. She would confess taking one Stone and burying an empty canister. When they dug it up and confirmed her story, they would assume someone else had stolen the other four Stones at the end of the war.

  But Ruth knew the location of both boxes. Now the second ammunition box sat on the ground—green, dirty, and latched shut. Martha had buried it five paces from the other, directly under the same beam.

  They knelt before it in silence.

  They’d wrapped their wrists in cloth and then strapped them tight with gray tape. Stephen had gagged and bound Roth like a hog, lowered Gerhard to the ground, and dragged them both around the fence, where the authorities would find them once the call was made. He’d then dug in the spot Ruth had indicated as her best guess.

  She’d been right. What thirty years of mystery had covered, five minutes of digging had uncovered.

  Ruth unceremoniously reached out, flipped the latch, and pulled open the lid.

  On one hand, Stephen wasn’t sure he wanted to see what was inside. Considering all the impossible directions the road had taken them these last two weeks, nothing would surprise him. The box might contain the Stones of David. It might just as easily contain a letter. He wasn’t sure which he preferred any longer. He had Esther. Didn’t he? They had Ruth. Martha’s plan had succeeded. In the end they had beaten the diabolical plan to steal their hope, their love, their very lives.

  On the other hand, he was desperate to see what was inside this box.

  “It’s . . . it’s full,” Ruth said.

  “Full?” Stephen leaned forward.

  Gold coins.

  His heart pounded.

  “Coins?” Esther reached her hand in and pulled out one of the coins.

  “It’s . . . it’s Roman,” Stephen said. He was staring at a single coin worth at least a hundred thousand dollars.

  He pulled the canister closer and tipped it to one side. Gold clattered from the tin box, the unmistakable sound of priceless metals. The treasure rushed out all at once, gold coins, emeralds, rubies, diamonds, others he couldn’t immediately name. There had to be a hundred!

  Stephen dropped the box and gawked in silence. There on top of the pile rested a round lump of gold. Imprinted with a six-pointed star. And another . . . three more similar . . .

  The Stones of David.

  Esther touched one, then lifted it up. “The Stones of David?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. He cleared his throat and said it again. “Yes.”

  Her eyes were round and bright, like the diamonds.

  “Is this worth very much?”

  They both looked back at Ruth. She gazed at them, smiling. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. Her eyes were on her treasure.

  “A . . .” Stephen cleared his throat. “A hundred . . .” He didn’t know how much. “Yes.”

  She set the Stone back on the top of the mound. “Wow,” she said.

  “Ha.”

  They looked at each other. A mischievous smile slowly lifted her cheeks. Stephen felt like hollering, like yelling, like screaming for joy. Not simply for the treasure on the ground, but for the treasure before him. For all of it. For the reward that had been bought and paid for by his mother. By Ruth. By Esther. And now by him.

  This was their inheritance.

  “You are my Stone of David,” Esther said.

  “You are my Stone of David.”

  “I was born for you,” she said.

  “I was born for you.”

  She leaned forward slowly, then kissed him on the lips.

  Beside them, Ruth began to cry.

  THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE A TREASURE HIDDEN IN a field. A certain man learned that the treasure existed and he developed a terrible obsession to possess it. He wasted all of his wealth and secretely sold everything he had to purchase the field so that he could own the treasure.

  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great price. When a man found it, he sold all that he had and purchased the pearl.

  Unless you, too, obsess after God’s kingdom, like this man did over his treasure, you will not find it.

  Knock and keep on knocking. Seek and keep on seeking. When they send you away again and again, come back and seek still again. Then you will find the treasure you seek.

  Parables of Jesus

  Paraphrased and expanded

  Found in the book of Saint Matthew

  AN EXCERPT

  FROM SHOWDOWN

  * * *

  THE SOUND of boots crunching into gravel carried across the blacktop while the man who wore them was still a shimmering black figure approaching the sign that read Welcome to Paradise, Colorado. Population 450.

  Cecil Marshal shifted his seat on the town’s only public bench, shaded from the hot midsummer sun by the town’s only drinking establishment, and measured the stranger strutting along the road’s shoulder like some kind of black-caped superhero. It wasn’t just the man’s black broad-brimmed hat, or his dark trench coat whipped about by a warm afternoon breeze, but the way he carried himself that made Cecil think, Jiminy Cricket, Zorro’s a-coming.

  The town sat in a small valley with forested mountains that butted up against the buildings on all four sides. One road in and the same road out. The road in descended into the valley around a curve half a mile behind the stranger. The road out was a “snaker” that took to the back country, headed north.

  Paradise was a typical small mountain town, the kind with one of most things and none of many things.

  One convenience store/gas station/video store/grocery store. One bar/ restaurant. One old theater that had closed its doors long ago. One church. One mechanic—Paul Bitters, who fixed broken tractors and cars in his barn a mile north of town. One of a few other establishments that hardly counted as establishments.

  No hospital. No arcade. No real grocery store other than the convenience store—everyone shopped in Delta, twenty miles west. No police station or bowling alley or car dealer or bike shop or choice of cuisine . . .

  The only thing there was more than none or one of was hairdressers. There were three hairdressers, one on Main Street and two who worked out of their homes, which didn’t really count.

  “Looks lost,” Johnny Drake said.

  Cecil turned to the blond boy beside him. Johnny slouched back, legs dangling off the bench, watching the stranger.

  His mother, Sally Drake, had come to town after being abandoned by some worthless husband when Johnny was a baby, thirteen years earlier. Sally’s father, Dillon Drake, had passed away, leaving her the house that she and Johnny now lived in.

  She’d
decided to stay in Paradise for the house, after unsuccessfully trying to sell it. The decision was mighty courageous, considering the scandal Sally suffered shortly after her arrival. The thought of it still made Cecil angry.As far as he was concerned, the town hadn’t found its soul since. They were a sick lot, these Paradise folk. If he could speak, he would stand up in that monstrosity they called a church and say so.

  But Cecil couldn’t speak.He was a mute.Had been since his birth, eighty-one years ago.

  Johnny watched the stranger and rolled a large red marble between his fingers. He was born with a crooked leg, which was one thing that had bonded him to Cecil. The Children’s Hospital in Denver corrected his leg surgically, and even though he still limped now and then, he was pretty much an ordinary boy now.

  No, not ordinary. Extraordinary. A bona fide genius, they would all see that soon enough. Cecil loved the boy as his own. It was probably a good thing Johnny didn’t know about the mess that had followed his birth.

  Cecil turned back to the stranger, who’d left the graveled shoulder and now clacked down the middle of the road in black, steel-toed cowboy boots like a freshly shoed quarter horse. Black boots, black pants, black trench coat, black hat, white shirt. A real city slicker. On foot, three miles from the nearest highway. I’ll bet he’s sporting a black mustache to boot.

  Cecil dropped his eyes to the leather-bound copy of Moby Dick in his lap. Today he would give Johnny the book that had filled his world with wonder when he was fourteen.

  He looked at the boy. Kid was growing up fast. The sweetest, biggest-hearted boy any man could ever want for a son.

  Johnny suddenly gasped. He had those big light brown eyes fixed in the direction of the city slicker, and his mouth lay open as if he’d swallowed a fly.

  Cecil lifted his head and followed the boy’s eyes. The black-cloaked stranger strutted down Main Street’s yellow dashes now, arms swinging under the folds of a calf-length duster, silver-tipped boots stabbing the air with each step. His head turned to face Cecil and Johnny.

  The brief thought that Zorro might be wearing a disguise—a Halloween mask of a skull—flashed through Cecil’s mind. But this was no mask. The head jutting from the stranger’s white shirt was all bone. Not a lick of skin or flesh covered the bleached jaw. It smiled at them with a wide set of pearl teeth. Two eyes stared directly at Cecil, suspended in their deep bone sockets, like the eyes down at the butcher shop in Junction: too big, too round, and never blinking.