Chapter 5: The Phone Call
In the morning, Maggie made coffee, fed Biscuit, and sat down at the kitchen table with the telephone. She had slept little, but her mind was clear. She had spent the night thinking through every step, the way she used to plan a lesson: first, the facts; then, the people who needed to hear them; then, the order in which to tell them. She had two calls to make. The first was to the sheriff. The second was to the Iron Prairie.
She dialed Sheriff Carl Benson's number from memory. He answered on the third ring. "Carl," she said, "this is Maggie Holloway. I need you to listen to me very carefully, and I need you to believe me, because what I am about to tell you is going to sound like something out of a movie."
She told him everything. The sounds from the barn. The four chained men. The chop shop. Roy Beckett. She told it the way she had written it down: plain, orderly, leaving nothing out. When she finished, there was a long silence on the other end of the line.
"Mrs. Holloway," Benson said slowly, "are you telling me there are four men chained up in Roy Beckett's barn?"
"I am telling you exactly that, Carl. I saw them with my own eyes. I fed them. One of them has a head wound. They have been there for two days."
"Mrs. Holloway, I need you to stay away from that barn. Do you hear me? Stay away. I am going to handle this. I will get deputies out there. But I need to do it right, or those men could get hurt. Do you understand?" "Carl, I have been walking past that barn for years," Maggie said. "I know what I saw. Those men are hurt, and they are frightened, and they need help today, not next week." Benson sighed, the way he had as a boy. "All right, Mrs. Holloway. I believe you. I am going to send two deputies out to watch the place, quiet, no sirens, and I am going to get a warrant. But you have to promise me you will stay clear. These are not men to trifle with."
"I understand," Maggie said. "But Carl, there is something else. Those men are members of the Iron Prairie motorcycle club. They have friends. They have a president. And if those friends find out their brothers are chained in a barn, they are going to come here, and there are going to be a lot of them. I think you should know that before it happens."
Benson was quiet for a moment. "Are you saying we should call them?"
"I am saying I am going to call them," Maggie said. "Those men have families. They have a club that looks after its own. And I promised them help. I intend to keep that promise."
After she hung up, Maggie sat for a moment with her hands folded on the table. Then she picked up the telephone again. Tom Reyes had given her the number from memory, reciting it the way a man recites something he has memorized for emergencies. She dialed it carefully, and a man's voice answered, deep and guarded.
"Iron Prairie," the voice said.
"My name is Margaret Holloway," Maggie said. "I live in Millbrook, Kansas. I am calling because four of your men are chained in a barn a mile from my house, and I need to speak to your president."
There was a pause. Then the voice changed, sharper, more alert. "Ma'am, this is Big Jim Callahan. I'm the president. Tell me everything."
Maggie told him. She told him about the barn, the chains, the chop shop, the four men, their names, their injuries. She told him about the promise she had made. Big Jim listened without interrupting. Big Jim Callahan was sixty years old, and he had led the Iron Prairie for twelve of them. The club had started as a handful of veterans who rode on weekends, and it had grown into something more: a brotherhood that showed up for its own. Big Jim's voice was gravel, and his word was good. When he said he would make some calls, Maggie believed him, because his voice sounded like a man who did not make promises he could not keep. When he had heard it all, he said, "Mrs. Holloway, are those men alive?"
"They are alive," Maggie said. "They are hungry and tired and frightened, but they are alive. I have fed them. I have bandaged the medic's head. And I have told the sheriff. But I am calling you because those men need their brothers, and I think you are the man who can bring them."
Big Jim was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "Mrs. Holloway, you are the bravest woman I have ever talked to on a telephone. You stay safe. You hear me? You stay safe, and you stay away from that barn. I am going to make some calls. And then I am coming to Millbrook, and I am bringing the Iron Prairie with me."
Maggie hung up the phone. Before the morning was over, she walked back to the barn with fresh water and sandwiches. She told the four men what she had done: the sheriff knew, and the club knew, and help was coming. Tom closed his eyes, and when he opened them, they were wet. "Ma'am," he said, "you just saved our lives." Maggie shook her head. "I only made two phone calls," she said. "The saving is still to come." Later, Maggie stood at the kitchen window, looking out at Miller Road. Biscuit pressed against her leg. Somewhere down the road, four men waited in a barn, counting on her. Somewhere to the east, a motorcycle club president was making calls that would shake the road. And in a farmhouse in Kansas, a seventy-six-year-old retired schoolteacher poured herself a second cup of coffee and waited for the sound of engines. She had done what she could. She had told the truth. Now the truth was on its way, and Maggie Holloway had a feeling that when it arrived, the whole county would hear it.