“Left!” she yelled and he jerked the wheel. “I know. But why did everyone lie to me?”
“Self-protection. I haven’t been too happy about being back here.”
“Roan says you’re a monster. Or thereabouts.”
“Roan would betray his own mother to get near you.”
“He’s been nothing but a gentleman.”
“A gentleman, yes, but did he tell you about his book yet? It’s really boring.”
“No,” Sophie said, her eyes straight ahead. “But he did give me a restaurant free for four months, and he’s going to pay my employees’ salaries for three months.” She couldn’t help how pleased she was at the look Reede cut her. Good. Let him be jealous.
Reede drove down the narrow gravel road at what seemed to be the speed of light and skidded to a halt just as another Jeep came from another direction. Out jumped a big man Sophie recognized as Colin Frazier, the town sheriff. She’d met him at the Halloween party when he’d been costumed as an Old West sheriff. Everyone had teased him that he hadn’t actually worn a costume but had come as the way everyone saw him. Colin had taken it all so good-naturedly that Sophie had liked him.
Reede grabbed his medical bag from the back, jumped out of the vehicle, and started running. Sophie didn’t at first see where he was going, but then she stared in horror. Behind a picnic table spread with food was a man pinned to a tree by an arrow going through his shoulder. Before him was a gray-haired woman, her hands on his shoulder as she stopped the blood from flowing out of his body.
As Reede ran to the man, Colin went to the back of his vehicle to get out a big toolbox. He slung huge metal cutters over his shoulder and ran toward the man and the tree.
Sophie got out of the Jeep, but she didn’t know what to do. She watched as Colin cut the arrow that held the man and Reede caught him as he fell. The woman still had her hands on the man’s shoulder.
As Sophie went to the table she heard Reede quietly giving orders to Colin and the woman. It seemed she was a retired nurse and Reede was using her expertise.
Sophie was wondering how the man had been shot. Was it an accident? Someone playing with a bow and arrow? Or had it been with malicious intent?
She looked at the table for a bow. Instead she saw a stack of paper plates and three packages of hot dogs. There were paper cups with cartoon characters on them. Kids! she thought and spun around. Under some trees was a green minibus with the name of a Williamsburg church on the side of it. It looked like they’d taken advantage of the warm day to have one last picnic before cold weather set in.
She walked around the table to stand behind Reede. “How many children are here and where are they?”
Reede looked at the nurse.
“Eight,” she said. “They were really scared when Jim was hit and they were screaming, but I couldn’t leave him. I told them to hide until I came and got them. But I can’t . . . ”
“Sophie, could you—” Reede said but she cut him off.
“I’m on it.” She was genuinely pleased to have something to do. Turning, she looked back at the woods. They began just a few feet away and the pine trees were so dense she couldn’t see but a few feet into them. There were no children in sight.
She wanted to ask their ages but the adults were so busy that she didn’t. How could she round them up when she was a stranger? In the center of the table was a bag of potatoes and beside it was an old paring knife, the blade worn down, the handle rough from many washings. There was also a metal spoon with a narrow tip, and she took that. On the ground was Colin’s open toolbox. “Could I borrow these?” she asked as she held up a rattail file and a couple of small screwdrivers.
“Sure,” Colin said as he looked at Reede, but he just shrugged. He had no idea what Sophie was up to.
She took some potatoes and the tools into the woods. It was cool in there, certainly too cold for the children to be in there alone. There wasn’t a sign of any of them. No doubt they’d been traumatized by seeing an arrow that had to have flown across the table, hit the man, and pinned him to the tree. That their other guide, the woman, couldn’t get him down must have further frightened them.
Part of her thought she should call out to the children, but then what? Chase them down? Just her and eight kids? It would never work. It would either frighten them more or entertain them so much that they’d make her chase them up the trees.
Instead, she was going to do what she’d done when Lisa was little and would run away and hide.
Sophie found a clearing in the woods, close to the campsite, sat down on the cold ground, and leaned back against a fallen log. She moved slowly, listening, but she heard nothing. She put the potatoes and tools beside her and picked up one of each.
“I’m a sculptor,” she said loudly into the silence, and the word gave her a feeling of purpose. It had been a long time since she’d called herself that.
“Do you know what that means? I was given a gift when I was born. I see shapes and I can form clay or stone or in this case potatoes to look just like them.”
As she spoke she was cutting the potato by chunks, her hands working quickly.
“I have a sister who is much younger than I am and when she was little I made her laugh by cutting all her food into funny shapes.” Sophie held the potato up so if the children were near they could see it. “This is going to be a rabbit. My sister Lisa loves rabbits and she had one when she was little. She called it Annie and she wanted me to make all her food into rabbits.”
Behind her, Sophie heard leaves rustling and to her right she thought she saw movement. But she didn’t look. She just kept carving as fast as she could. And thinking.