He said Anthony’s.
Just a drink. Nothing more than that. I didn’t catch it right away. The first few miles made enough sense that I wasn’t paying attention. My body still hadn’t come down from the night before. My hands hurt from chest compressions. Every time I flexed my fingers I could still feel Taylor’s ribs under my palms, hear myself counting, hear somebody in the room yelling to keep going.
Rick didn’t say much. Then, all at once, he couldn’t stop talking.
He drove like someone who’d forgotten the road existed. One hand on the wheel. The other waving through the air while he preached. He’d turn to look at me in the middle of a sentence, eyes off the highway for three, four, five seconds at a time. The truck drifted onto the shoulder, tires humming over the rumble strips before he’d jerk it back.
“You don’t respect my authority.”
Another drift.
“You’ve been insubordinate.”
Another drift.
“You need to submit.”
He wasn’t raising his voice because he was angry. He was raising it because he expected agreement and I wouldn't give it to him. The driving became part of it. Every time he looked away from the road, every time the truck floated toward the ditch before snapping back, it felt deliberate. Like he didn’t have to threaten me outright. The possibility was sitting there between us with every mile.
Outside the windows northwestern Idaho rolled by in long stretches of sagebrush, pine and basalt. No traffic. No houses. Just fence lines disappearing into heat shimmer and telephone poles keeping count of the distance.
I kept thinking about the basement. About Taylor. About Rick walking through the front door after everything was over, acting like saving somebody’s life had been just another inconvenience that happened while he was out.
Hours passed. Eventually he turned off onto a gravel road. Dust climbed behind us until the rear window disappeared. The road narrowed. Then narrowed again. Finally he stopped. There wasn’t another vehicle in sight. No buildings. Just wind moving through trees and hills folding into one another in every direction.
He killed the engine. The silence rushed in. Then he reached across the cab and grabbed for me. Not gently. Not like someone asking. Like someone collecting something he believed already belonged to him.
I shoved him back.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
His face didn’t change.
“You’ve got a choice.”
He said it calmly, almost kindly.
“You can fuck me…”
He nodded toward the empty road behind us.
“…or you can stay here.”
Thirty miles. That’s what he told me. Thirty miles back to pavement. Thirty miles from help. Thirty miles from anywhere. I looked around. Nothing but hills. Wind. Silence.
Then I looked back at him.
“Fuck you.”
His expression hardened for the first time all day.
“This is kidnapping,” I said.
He didn’t argue. “ We’re stuck. I can’t back up along this cliff.”
He climbed out of the truck, as if this was somehow the final move in a negotiation he’d already won, he took off his clothes. Piece by piece. Boots. Shirt. Jeans. Underwear. Jesus.
He was standing there completely naked on the side of that mountain, waiting. I still don’t know what he expected. Maybe he thought I’d suddenly want him. Maybe he thought I’d be too scared to leave. He’d convinced himself that wanting someone and owning them were the same thing. He was wrong. He opened my door grabbed my arm and leg and screamed, “Get the fuck out of my truck”
I kicked him in the chest and face, he lost his balance and I slammed the door, locking it.
I slid across into the driver’s seat. Started the truck. For the first time all day, he looked uncertain. I put it in gear. He shouted something I couldn’t make out over the engine. I drove away. Backwards along a cliff for two miles at about 30 mph. Once I got turned around I never looked back. I left him standing naked on that mountain, thirty miles from anywhere.
After the basement. After Taylor. After months of him telling people he was God. After months of getting away with it.
That was July 8, the last time I saw Rick.