Elusive Autumn

"I'm telling you the truth. They'll be home any minute."

With an effort he turned to look at her. There was no emotion in his voice. "Then if I leave the key to the cuffs on the table on my way out, they'll set you free sometime in the next hour?"

She didn't answer.

"It's your choice."

For the first time since moving into her father's cabin, Karla wished there was a family coming home tonight. But she knew, and she suspected Johnston did, too--that there was no family. If he left, she would lie here for more than an hour.

She would lie here until some member of the Mason clan recollected that they hadn’t seen Robert’s girl in town for weeks. Saylor Mason from the next farm over would be appointed to investigate. And what he would find would not be pretty.

"I live here alone," she admitted. "No one's coming home."

"What about the men's clothes in that closet?"

"They belonged to my father. He died almost a year ago."

"Why are they still here?"

Karla wasn't about to share the story of her life with the embezzler-murderer sitting beside her. She hadn't gotten rid of anything of Robert's yet. She was still trying to figure out who he had been, and she needed all the clues she had.

"I haven't lived here long," she answered instead. "And Winona doesn’t have a Goodwill Store."

He shrugged with an effort. "If someone did come home, it would be a simple matter for me to shoot them before they got inside."

"No one is coming."

Johnston tried to read her expression. He already knew a lot about the young woman he had cuffed to the bed. She was a survivor, just like he was, with unusual courage and a trace of foolhardiness. She was slender, but she was also strong. By anyone's standards but his, she was a good liar.

She was pretty too, he noted dispassionately. The light was dim but he could tell that her hair was red, shoulder length and with delicately arched brows and widely spaced gray-green eyes. Her face was framed with curls; her nose was straight and narrow, her lips enticingly lush and her chin the focal point of a heart-shaped face.

"You're not from here," he said.

"Why do you think not?"

"No southern accent."

"I'm not from anywhere."

He felt a curious twinge at the words. Apparently his physical weakness was weakening him in other ways. But he wasn't from anywhere either, and despite himself he felt a reluctant bond between them.

He turned away sharply. The movement made the room whirl again. The woman was no longer a threat, and he believed her latest story, although he could be making a mistake. Now he had to decide what to do.

Decisions floated around him. All of them seemed to hinge on one fact. "Where's your telephone?"

Karla was surprised. She had been expecting almost anything from the man beside her, but that question seemed so normal. ‘Where's Your Telephone Miss? I've Got To Call My Mother And Tell Her I Am All Right. Where's Your Telephone? The Warden Will Be Worried About Me’.

"There's no telephone," she said, hoping the news wasn't going to send him into a rage. "No telephone, no electricity and no plumbing."

He didn't believe her. "You live here without a phone?"

"Why would I lie? You could find out the truth easily enough."

He let the news settle into all the corners of his mind. No family. No phone. No neighbors--

The moon had cleared the treetops before Johnston came to. He was disoriented at first, believing himself to be back at Gateway. But the woman leaning over him, assessing him was nothing like the wild-eyed gorilla that had been his cellmate. Memory layered memory until he knew who she was. "Let me guess," he licked his parched lips. "You got my gun."

"You dropped it on the floor when you passed out."

He swallowed, and then lifted his head. She was still securely cuffed to the bed. "You didn't find the keys."

"Not for lack of trying," she said coldly.

He managed a dry laugh. "I've been out for an hour?"

"More like two." Karla moved as far away from him as the cuffs would allow. "My arm is getting numb."

"Then sit up." He didn't wait to see if she took his advice. He began the arduous process of trying to manage sitting up under his own strength. The room was still whirling. And he was hot enough to set the cabin on fire, "I...need water."

"Uncuff me and I'll get you some."

He didn't bother to answer. The cabin seemed impossibly huge, the kitchen miles away. Still, he had no choice. He slid to his feet, holding on to the post at the foot of the bed. His leg throbbed unmercifully. He had to clean and care for it.

Karla watched him stumble toward the door. She felt a peculiar flash of pity. "There's water in the icebox."

He made it halfway across the cabin before he collapsed again.

The strange moon had risen so high it was no longer visible from the bedroom window. Karla had watched its climb as if her life depended on it. There had been nothing else to do. The bed was wide enough, the cuff short enough, that she could only dangle her toes against the floor to the side of the bed. She had thoroughly examined the bed frame.

The headboard was bolted to it with four rusted bolts that wouldn't budge under the mere pressure of twisting fingers. After an hour of concentrated effort she had given up the hope of marching her body, headboard and all, out of the cabin and over to Cousin Saylor's.

The cuffs themselves gave none at all. Larry Johnston had snapped them on like a pro. They were just tight enough to keep her trapped, just loose enough to keep her blood circulating. And if the cabin had been warm enough, her blood probably would have moved right along like it was supposed to. Unfortunately though, the cabin wasn't warm. The temperature was dropping quickly. And even under the quilt, she was shivering.

"Johnston," she yelled. She was beginning to get hoarse. She had been shouting for him since the moment she had admitted that, escape from the bed was hopeless. She had heard him fall; then there had been silence. Her worst fear was that he had died. If that were true she envied him the ease of it. Her death, chained to the bed frame wouldn't be as quick or as painless.

"Johnston."

Karla thought she heard a moan. It was the first positive sign since he had fallen. "Johnston!"

She heard a series of thumps and what sounded like something being dragged across the floor. There was silence, then more thumps. Silence. Then came the swishing of something being dragged across the cabin floor. Then again there was nothing but silence.

Just as s