The Mulberry Tree

He pushed her against a window, and Bailey was holding on to the sides so her head wouldn’t go through the glass, while at the same time trying to get Rodney’s hands from around her throat.

Suddenly the window opened outward and Bailey fell backward—into the arms of a young man. He staggered backward a few steps with a muffled “Umph!” When Bailey recovered herself enough to open her eyes, she looked up into the blue eyes of a man she’d seen in several photographs: Rodney Yates. Time travel? she thought. I’ve fallen through a window into the 1950s?

But the next second the young man dropped her to her feet, grabbed her hand, and started running. “You have the keys?” he yelled over his shoulder.

It took her a second to know what he meant, then she saw her Toyota at the foot of the hill, and behind her she could hear Rodney’s angry shouting. Just as they reached the car, she heard the sound of a shotgun blast, then the roar of a car engine.

“Let’s go, lady!” the young man shouted as he vaulted into the driver’s seat. “Where the hell are the keys?”

Bailey was still dazed from all that had happened in the last minutes. What had changed lecherous old Rodney into a murderer? Her neck hurt so much she didn’t think she could swallow. “On the floor,” she managed to whisper.

He moved to the passenger side, stuck his head under the dashboard, and within seconds held up the keys. Turning toward the sound of a car engine, Bailey saw a huge black truck with giant wheels coming toward them. She didn’t think about what she did; she just reacted. She grabbed the keys from the young man’s hand, leaped into the driver’s seat, and jammed the key into the ignition.

During the search for the keys, Rodney had driven his black truck down the hill and was now about to block the only way Bailey knew how to get down the mountain. When she saw the truck coming toward her, she knew there was only one way to go: directly toward it. If she took the time to turn around and try to find another way to get down the mountain, he’d be on top of her in a flash. Instead, she put the car in drive and floored it.

“No!” the young man shouted. “Go down the mountain. Over there! That way! Get out of here! When he’s this mad, he’ll kill and ask questions later.”

Bailey glanced at the narrow path between the trees where the young man was pointing, but she’d have to stop, then turn to reach it. Rodney could easily hit her from the rear. She kept going straight at the truck, gaining speed with every second. One of them had to move, or they were going to smash head-on.

“Turn! Turn! Turn!” the boy shouted over and over.

But Bailey didn’t turn. Rodney did. At the last second, he jerked the wheel of his truck to the right and missed hitting her by inches.

“You’re insane, you know that?” the young man shouted at her.

Bailey slowed the car and threw it in reverse while it was still rolling. “No. I’ve just spent a lot of my life with a man who knew how to play hardball.” She glanced at him. “You buckled up?”

The young man grabbed the seat belt and buckled himself in.

“We’re going down now,” Bailey said as she looked ahead and saw that Rodney was still turning around. She knew that he would come back for her, and this time, even if it cost him his life, he wouldn’t turn away. “You can use the element of surprise only once,” Jimmie had told her. “After that, you need to use brains and skill.”

“Okay,” she said aloud. “It’s time for brains.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Bailey hit a bump that made both their heads hit the ceiling. “Somebody I used to know. What’s your name?”

“Alex,” he said. “And where did you learn to drive?”

“I think it was Bermuda.” So far, she’d been going down a meadow, but there was a fence ahead of them, and a boulder in her path. She veered so sharply that they turned on two wheels. “No,” she said. “It was in South Africa. Johannesburg.” There was an old road to her left, and again she turned sharply. “No, that wasn’t it. We were in—” In front of her was a stream with some fairly big rocks in it. If one of them hit the bottom of the car, it could tear out the whole underside, then they’d be stranded.

Bailey turned right, then left, in midstream and missed the two big rocks. When she got to the other side, she said, “Actually, I think it was—”

“Tell me later,” Alex said, holding on to the dashboard with both hands and casting sideways looks at her.

“Do you by any chance know the way down to the highway?”

“I thought you knew—” Alex began, but stopped. “Okay, slow down. There’s an old road along here somewhere, but it hasn’t been used in years. It’s probably covered with logs. Besides, I think you lost my dad a long way back there.”

“Your dad?” Bailey said, looking in her rearview mirror.

“Yeah, he—” Alex’s eyes widened as he glimpsed his father’s truck through the trees. “He knows which way you’re headed, so he’ll cut you off. He’s going to ambush us.”

Suddenly, Bailey stopped the car, then backed up.

“What are you doing now?” Alex yelled.

“I’m going back the way I came. If he’s down there, then I’m going another way.”