On Emma's Bluff by Sara Elizabeth Rice, edited by davebccanada (comprehension books txt) 📖

woke her up out of a sound sleep. She said that her parents had been away for the night. I saw no reason to upset the child."

"You don't really think Bill is dead do you?"

"Who can say," Barbara Lee is dead. They say they caught her killer."

"Why did you call me, Mr. Wilson?"

"You are her very closest friend."   Roy settled down into the chair that he previously used as a support. "I don't want anything else bad to happen."

"Did you call the police?"

"I called Harvey Johnson." Roy rose again. "He's supposed to call me back.

Right then the doctor emerged from the hall where he had just left Liz's room. "She seems to be resting comfortably, a few bruises, but she'll be fine."

Cindy did not even raise her head to acknowledge the doctor. "Roy," the doctor kept on, "Maybe you should see about getting some professional help for your niece."

"I'll do that," Roy promised.

"She's a very sick child."

"I know and thank you." He led the doctor out the door. Cindy could hear the murmur of their further conversations, but did not bother to try and discern their words. The phone was ringing. She rose to answer it.

"Mr. Wilson, it's Mr. Johnson." she called out. Roy was back in the kitchen taking the phone from her hand before she had a chance to lie it down.

"I see," were the first words out of his mouth after a long silence. "Yes, of course you may come over." His face was colorless as he hung up the phone.

He turned to Cindy, "They found Bill's car on the Hutchinson's road. There was a lot of blood all in it. Cindy did not wait to hear more.

If it had not been her own mother who touched her shoulder, she might have not noticed at all.

"Are you all right, baby? Is Emma all right?" Cindy rose and fell into her mother's arms. "They say there might have been another killing."

"Emma says so." Cindy told her.

"Did she see it?"

"We don't really know."

"I think that you should come on home now." Cindy was ready to do just that when Roy entered the room.

"Cindy, my wife is asking to see you." He stood staring down at the floor, his hands stuffed in his pockets. She turned to look at her mother as if questioning what she should do, she felt tired. It was now going into morning proper and she had had no sleep and little chance to relax. All she really wanted to do was to go home and get in her own bed. Nothing that had happened made any sense to her. Yet she could not resist Roy's pleading face.

"I'll be right back," she promised as she left the room and made her way down the dark hall.

"Mrs. Wilson?" she asked from the doorway.

"Come in Cindy." Liz Wilson sat propped up in her bed, an ice pack against her head. Cindy took only one step into the room and rested against the doorframe for support. There they remained studying each other.

"I just got through speaking to Harvey Johnson." Cindy had seen the big man come and go from the house. She had been a bit curious as to why he had not questioned her. "She killed Barbara Lee, you know, and now I am afraid that she has killed that boy."

"Mrs. Wilson, Emma wouldn't..."

"I know what I am talking about." Liz stopped her. "I have seen the letter. I have seen the signs."

"I'm afraid that you are..."

"I know what I am talking about young lady. You have got to stop her."

"But Emma is just up in her room, totally zoned out."

"I don't care. I know what can happen here. You stop her! You hear me? You stop her!" Liz was now sitting up and yelling at the top of her lunges.

"Mrs. Wilson, it's been a long night and all I want to do is go home and get some rest.

"Now is the time for action! You have got to kill that damned witch!"

Cindy was on the verge of screaming for help when both her mother and Roy Wilson rushed into the room.

"Emma's gone. She's gone!" Roy cried. Cindy sunk to the floor in exhaustion.

 

 

Chapter 32

Cindy woke up still in the gravel by the jeep. Exhaustion had finally caught up with her. She wondered how long she had slept. The sun did seem a bit lower in the sky. Her back ached. Her mouth was dry. And she had to pee. "Well I don' t have to worry about anyone seeing me drop my drawers out here," she thought. But water, cause she was really parched, would be a different matter. She thought she remembered having seen an old pump in the kitchen at Further Back. Who knew if it worked? "Don't look like I got much of a choice," she told herself.

Even after relieving her bladder and stretching she hesitated before walking away from the jeep. She had to be certain about what to do. Either way it would be a long walk. Actually maybe even longer back to the main road and then she would just have to hope someone came along to pick her up. There really was no choice because even if she did try to walk out to main road her mother would never let her return and look for Emma. And she had to find Emma.

"Hang on girl, Cindy's coming to rescue you." she said out loud "All your life somebody or another been letting you down." The image of her pale shy friend flooded her mind. "And lordy, you are such a nerdy jerk." She thought back to the Emma who had first showed up in school that year. "Okay," she shook herself away from her nostalgia, "Now is no time to go getting gushy again."

She leaned into the jeep to retrieve her jacket and looked at her purse lying abandoned on the floorboard. She remembered the first time she and Emma had made this trip. Emma had insisted on carrying her silly purse. "Stupid idiot" she muttered out loud as she snapped up her own purse and slung it over her shoulder.

 

 

Chapter 33

Cindy could not remember when her feet had hurt so badly. She had forgotten how impossible to navigate the shifting rocks of the gravel were. The low-slung pumps she wore were not helping the situation. Every now and then a stone would work its way into a shoe. It shifted under her and poked into her instep. When she finally reached the end of the levee and peered down into the swamp she realized that the sun was now just on the horizon. How long had she slept?

The marshy basin was yet another hindrance. "Great," she said, ‘Mississippi gumbo’, a term her daddy had always used when referring to the sticky fertile delta mud. Each step she had to pull her foot back out of the sucking mire, plus it was cold. After she lost a shoe for the third time, having to stick her hand into the ooze to retrieve it, she just removed the shoes and carried them.

Now her right arm was covered in wet mud up to the elbow. "I wanna go home," she whined knowing that she would not dare turn back. There would be no going home, at least not that night. It would surely be dark by the time she reached the old house.

Suddenly her left foot hit something solid under the surface of the water and she found herself falling backwards. Her hands reached up grasping nothing and she landed on her back in the swamp. "Great!" She pushed herself up on her elbow and slowly pulled herself upright. Now she was truly wet and more than a little cold.

"Jesus Christ," she shouted and her voice fell dead under the Cyprus, "Jesus, Christ?" she said a little softer, "Help me."

 

Harvey Johnson leaned on his elbows studying the report in front of him. The phone on his desk had been mute for almost two minutes. The second search up and down the Hutchins road had turned up nothing. Still he knew there had to be something he was missing.

The phone was ringing and he found his hand hovering over the receiver unwilling to pick it up until he could catch his breath.

"Johnson here." he answered. "Hold on Shooter. I am not quite following you." Harvey picked up a pen and began to draw circles on his desk blotter. "So where are you? I see." Harvey listened as Shooter explained that he had found his neighbor lady, Mrs. Wilson, walking barefoot in her gown walking across his field. Harvey pulled back a little from the phone and said, "What was that again? What witch? Wait a minute let me get this down. Do you know how to get there?" Harvey was now writing furiously as he listened.   " Hmmm, Further Back you say?"

 

Cindy literally collapsed against a tree as soon as she reached solid ground. "I feel like kissing you," she told the terra firma under her feet. "What am I doing?" She scraped her arms and legs against the tree bark to clean off so of the mud. "Oh get a grip," she told herself and looked into the face of the darkening woods in front of her. "Piece of cake." She rubbed her nose on her shirttail. "Right?," she answered herself.

 

Hattie was having trouble breathing. She had been sitting in her kitchen for hours watching the night take over the room. She had not gotten up to turn on a lamp, or to stoke the wood fire. The cold had her shivering but she was not even aware of this. A conversation was being played out in her mind. Voices that seemed to come from every corner of the room shouted, cajoled, and scoffed at her. She shook her head as if trying to ward off blows.

A voice said, "You will give in. You have been giving in for years."

"No," she cried back inside her brain.

"Relax. Don't take it so hard." another voice soothed

"The Lord is my shepherd..."

"Don't recite scriptures at me woman."

Hattie could not remember the next words

"Now why don't you just sit still and listen to me for a while. Everything will be fine just like always. This is just the way it is. This is the way the world works. So people have to fight their own battles. So what."

"I have got to think about a way to save those girls," Hattie spoke out loud, "I was wrong to