Safe from Harm (9781101619629) (25 page)

My blood was roaring in my ears. I didn't see a doorbell. I knocked on the trailer door. Nothing.

I knocked again and said, “Hello? This is Walker Wells, I'm going to come in and get my daughter and then we'll leave, okay?” I tried the handle. Locked.

The soft voice said, “He's gonna be drunk.”

The trailer had an open window next to the front door. From inside I heard a whimper. It was Jo's whimper. I put my shoulder against the door and shoved until I heard the latch pop and the door fell open. I stepped inside. As I did, from behind me I heard the slap of a Remington 1100's bolt slamming home. That, I knew, would be Alex's Remington. Alex, who had not stayed on the truck floor with the doors locked. I didn't have time to think about Alex, except to say a quick prayer that he wouldn't go all Texas Ranger on me.

The trailer was dark and stank of cheap liquor and unwashed body.

My daughter was sitting in front of a small kitchen table, her back to me. Leaning against the kitchen sink was the dark shape of a man pointing a rifle at her.

Might have been a shotgun. It was dark. I didn't care. I didn't want it pointed at my kid.

I stepped forward and Mitch DeWitt said, “You stop right there.”

I did. I was close enough to put my hand on Jo's neck. Her warm fingers reached up and twined around my thumb. Mitch gestured toward Jo with the rifle.

“That girl, right there”—the muzzle of the gun wavered between Jo's forehead and her breastbone—“broke into my house.” He spoke carefully, overenunciating each word. “To rob me.”

“She shouldn't have done that, sir. I apologize for her behavior. You'll get a written note of apology.” I got a good grip on the neck of her jacket.

Jo said, “No, he—” I put some pressure on her and she shut up.

I put my other hand under her arm, her bones small and fine under my big hand, even through her jacket, and pulled her up. “I'm going to take her home and ground her. I promise you, she'll be punished, okay?” In one move, I yanked Jo the rest of the way out of the booth and over its back. She stumbled to her feet. I grabbed the back of her jacket and thrust her behind me, but held on because Jo does not obey and she did not yet understand, as I did, that she could die. We could both die.

From a distance there was the howl of a siren.

Mitch was slow, but not that slow. He lifted his rifle to my face.

“I will just tell you what. You broke into my house, too,” Mitch said. And behind him the window exploded.

Jo screamed and I threw myself at the gun. I had to wrestle him for the gun. He was a drunk old man and he stank of body odor and decayed teeth and alcohol. But he was strong and desperate and he didn't fight fair. I had to have at least twenty pounds on the guy, but I wasn't making them count. I wasn't trying to hurt Mitch—all I was trying to do was get that gun away from him. But Mitch, now, he was trying to do me serious bodily damage.

I heard the snap of teeth near my ear—the guy had tried to Tysonize me. DeWitt was sitting on my belly with his arms stretched out over my head, trying to free the stock of the rifle from underneath a kitchen drawer that had come open, trapping it. I got an arm free, drew it back and punched him in the stomach, hard. There was a gasp of fetid air near my face and he grabbed his stomach. I rocked forward enough to tumble him over backward but before I could get my legs out from under him, he twisted over and reached into the drawer. He drew out a kitchen knife, the kind you can get for a dollar at the discount stores. Maybe you can't make radish roses with a knife like that but it would work just fine for the job he had in mind. My right hand was patting the floor behind me, trying to lay hold of that gun. With my left hand, I grabbed for his wrist and got the blade. I felt a searing pain and then suddenly Mitch DeWitt was off me.

Alex had the stock of his shotgun in both hands—he'd put it under Mitch's chin and pulled him clear. Thank God in Heaven I had managed to keep hold of the knife, or Alex might have fared worse than I did. I pulled DeWitt's gun out from under the drawer, scraping the skin off my knuckles on the metal runners that supported the drawer bottom. DeWitt finally struck home with a kick and Alex loosed his grip. DeWitt twisted free, elbowed Alex in the face, and ran out the door, screaming for help, into the twirling red and blue lights of a police car.

•   •   •

At least the way it all played out this time, I didn't get shot.

Not by the drunk guy and not by the cops, either, who were pointing their guns indiscriminately until they could figure out what was going on, which took some time.

I staggered out of the trailer after Alex, holding Mitch DeWitt's gun. The cops didn't like that. They ordered me to the ground and cuffed my hands behind my back. I lifted my head and saw Alex, also belly down and handcuffed, but before I could say anything to him a hand the size of a catcher's mitt pushed my face into the gravel drive.

“Jo!” I hollered. “You okay?”

“She won't let me go!” Jo's voice.

“Honey, do not struggle with the police, that's a bad idea, okay? Don't do it. You hear me? Listen, tell Cara to call your mom and Uncle Chester, okay?”

Someone standing over me said, “No talking.”

“She's not a cop, Dad!” Jo wailed.

“This is Lacey Corinda, sir,” said the same soft voice that had spoken to me earlier from next door, “and I was keeping your child from running right back into that trailer full of guns and badness. But I'm going to turn her loose now.”

I turned my head toward Lacey, trying to get a look. “No! Listen, don't let her go. Could you call my wife—”

A broad face bent down to me and said, “Sir, don't talk any more. I'm asking you nicely this time. This time, hear?”

A crowd had gathered. This was a better show than anything Thursday night television had to offer. I heard the distinctive click of cell phone cameras. I put my face back in the ground, visions of YouTube dancing behind my eyes.

Mitch DeWitt was helped into a squad car, protesting all the while that he was the victim here, of home invasion and assault. He didn't get cuffed and if he hadn't been as drunk as a grackle in mulberry season, I'm not sure he would even have been put in a squad car.

I
was
arrested.

What was I being arrested
for
? I wanted to know.

Had I broken in the trailer's front door? Uh-hunh? That would do to start, the officer told me. He'd get around to the gun and the assault and battery later. He pushed my head down and shoved me into a black-and-white.

Jo and Cara were not being arrested, thank you God for that, but they would be taken to the station for questioning and safekeeping.

Alex was arrested, too. I was going to be in a lot of trouble with Annie Laurie.

•   •   •

Now, I've seen the inside of a police station before, and not only as a visitor. Back when I was in college, I'd been in a fracas or two. And I'd been hauled off to the station where my buds and I had been invited to cool our heels and our tempers, but they hadn't officially arrested us—they hadn't processed us. We played ball for the University of Texas and back then that meant special treatment. I'm betting it still does though an amazing number of college athletes find themselves on the wrong side of the law nowadays.

This time I was sent to an empty white room with a bank teller's window. There I was invited to slide all my personal belongings through the tray beneath the glass. The unsmiling lady behind the glass printed out an inventory and passed it back to me to sign and date.

1. One black leather bifold wallet.
   
2. One hundred and seventeen dollars and thirty-five cents.
   
3. A MasterCard debit card, a Visa card, a Lowe's cash card (I had returned a tool set without the receipt), my health insurance card, and my proof of insurance. A picture of Merrie and Jo at the beach, circa 2005. A picture of Annie Laurie circa 1987. Four business cards with my name and title (Senior Minister), as well as the church name, address and phone number.
   
4. An iPhone.
   
5. A SONIC Drive-In mint.
   
6. A completely useless pearl-handled pocketknife Annie gave me for our first wedding anniversary.
   
7. My car and house and mailbox keys, a key to the church, all on a silver James Avery key chain in the shape of a shield,
   FEAR NOT, FOR I AM WITH YOU
   engraved on the back.
   
8. A black leather belt, size thirty-eight.
   
9. A pair of black shoelaces.
   
10. My jacket.
    
11. My wedding band.
    

When I left bloody handprints on the forms I had to sign, the officer sighed, asked to see my hand, told me to wash it—I did—and handed me a bandage the size of a nickel. I stuck the bandage in my shirt pocket and clasped a wad of paper towel. That did the job.

Then I was escorted to a holding cell. The sign over the cell said,
MAXIMUM CAPACITY: FOUR
. I joined six other men already inside. Five minutes later, Alex made us eight. His cheek was scraped and an eye was swelling.

“You okay?” I asked Alex.

From the floor, a large black guy who clearly worked out on a regular basis said, “Don't bother the kid, old man.” He said it like he meant it.

Alex told the guy, “It's okay, I know him.”

The guy shook his head in disgust. “Dude.”

“His daughter is my girlfriend.”

“She's your friend,” I said before I could stop myself.

“No, she's my girlfriend, Mr. Wells. Cara is my friend. Ashley is my friend. Jo is my girlfriend.”

“Truth,” said a voice from the back.

I saw a tattoo on the protector's biceps—the number seventy-five and the U of H cougar. “You go to U of H?”

A grunt of affirmation. I took in his size. “Play ball?”

“Offense.”

“Hey!” I stuck my hand out. “Offensive line, UT, 1985.”

The guy's huge hand engulfed mine. “Dude.” He nodded sagely.

I looked for a place for Alex to sit, but there was nothing beyond the open metal rim of the toilet in the corner, and I didn't suggest that. The floor space was taken up by five of the six other guys already sitting down.

“What's with the eye?” I asked Alex. “The cops didn't rough you up, did they?”

From the back, “Testify!”

Alex touched the puffy flesh around his eye. “No. That was Mr. DeWitt. I pulled him off when he was trying to knife you. Used my gun to put him in a headlock. He caught me in the face with his elbow. “

There was a soft chorus of “Dude!”

A skinny white guy stood. “Sit your ass down, son. That was some stand-up action.” Alex said no, but hands reached out and pulled him to the open floor and he sat.

“What the gun for, dude?” someone asked.

“This old man had a gun on my girl.”

Everybody in the cell looked at me.

“This one here?” asked a voice that made James Earl Jones sound like Tinkerbell.

“No, man, I told you, that's her dad.”

There was a general shuffle as the men settled back down.

“Tell the tale, bro.”

Alex told the story. He told a good story. Of course, he was the hero of this story, but I'm usually the hero of my stories, too.

Fist bumps all around.

“Righteous!”

“You fight for your lady, bro.”

“You get out, you take your girl on the town. Gotta celebrate.”

Alex, warmed by the approval, and wearing his black eye like a war wound, said, “Can't.” He gave a head toss in my direction. “He won't let me take her out.”

Seven pairs of eyes fastened on me.

“She's barely fifteen,” I explained.

Alex said, “She's been fifteen for a month.”

I made my appeal, “Anyone here have daughters? How am I supposed to keep her safe?”

The offensive lineman rose to his feet and draped an arm over my shoulders. He looked down at me. I'm six foot three. I don't think anyone has looked down on me since I was a child before this night.

“I have a baby sister,” the guy said. “She's four years younger than me and since our dad died, I'm all the daddy she's got. I hear your pain, man. But you can't. You can't keep the girl safe. Because you can't tie her up, and the more you try to, all the more the girl is going to run. You dig? You teach her right, you lay the truth out there for her to see, tell her where wrong acts take a girl. Dig? And you pray, man. I got calluses on my knees praying for my sister.”

I had calluses of my own.

A round man who was dressed like a Mormon missionary in a short-sleeved white business shirt said, “What you have in the boyfriend, here, is an ally.”

The chorus said, “Amen!”

He continued, “This young man earned his stripes today. He didn't tackle the problem on his own. He recognized your rights and your interests. He told you about the situation even though he knew he'd pay a price with the lady in question. And he put his life on the line. A man who will lay down his life for your daughter—”

I leaned my back on the cold bars, and it's different leaning your back on the bars when you're a forty-plus preacher than it was when I was a twenty-year-old lineman with my buds around me singing “Jack and Diane” and Bobby Bee, our running back, doing a nice, but not called for, falsetto. I said, “The old guy was too drunk to hit a wall.”

U of H gave me a gentle squeeze that sent my breath rushing out.

“Is that what you thought when his gun was on your daughter?” My heart got hot and heavy remembering DeWitt's gun pointed at my baby girl.

The short-sleeved business shirt said, “Do you think Alex laid it on the line for your daughter?”

I nodded. Swallowed.

“Sounds like he saved your butt, too. That about right?” It was U of H talking.

The piping voice said, “Alex, that's the glory part, rushing in and saving the chick. But you gotta do right by her, understand? No playing fast and loose, got it?”