Blood Games

    Abilene flinched as something - probably the butt of the shotgun - crashed against the door.

    ‘Whatcha doin’ in there?’ called a high, scratchy voice. It sounded as if it came from someone old, but Abilene couldn’t tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman.

    ‘We aren’t doing anything,’ Cora answered. ‘We were just looking around.’

    ‘ Snoopin’!’ He - or she - struck the door again. ‘I don’t abide no snoopers!’

    ‘We’re sorry,’ Cora said. ‘We didn’t mean any harm. We’re looking for someone.’

    ‘Y’found someone. Me!’

    Abilene turned around slowly to look at the door. She stepped on an eye. It popped and squished under the soft sole of her moccasin. She groaned.

    ‘Who are you?’ Finley asked.

    ‘Who y’lookin for?’

    ‘A friend of ours,’ Cora said. ‘Her name’s Helen.’

    ‘Ain’t me.’

    ‘She’s twenty-five,’ Cora said. ‘Dark-haired, pretty husky.’

    ‘A fatty?’

    ‘Have you seen her?’

    ‘Ain’t in there.’

    ‘Do you know where she is?’

    Silence.

    ‘Gonna letcha out. I got my over-’n-under here, so come out easy ’r I’ll blow y’innards out her backside.’

    ‘For Godsake,’ Vivian whispered, ‘drop the ax, Fin.’

    ‘We’d better all empty our hands,’ Cora said.

    Abilene let her rock fall. It clinked against some glass in the darkness. She heard soft thuds as the others discarded their weapons.

    The door swung wide. Abilene squinted into the brightness. Standing just outside the shed, aiming a shotgun at her belly, was a short, skinny man - or woman. Abilene still couldn’t tell which. The person had wild gray hair. The wrinkled, leathery face bristled with stubble, but Abilene had seen old women who had similar whiskers.

    ‘C’mon out.’

    Finley raised her hands overhead and stepped through the doorway. Abilene did the same, followed by Vivian and Cora. Just in front of the shed, they spread out. They stood abreast, their arms high.

    A quick look around satisfied Abilene that their captor was alone.

    One is all it takes, she thought. One lunatic with a shotgun. And the person in front of her did look like a lunatic.

    Both earlobes were adorned with small tufts of bright red and yellow feathers. Not earrings, but fishing jigs. Flies. Fixed to the ears by tiny, barbed hooks. From a rawhide thong around the stranger’s neck dangled a pendant of dry, white bone. It looked like the skull of a rodent. The leather strip passed through the skull’s earholes. The jaw hung open, showing a snout packed with sharp little teeth.

    The skull rested against tawny skin between the edges of a rawhide vest. The vest, loosely tied with a couple of thongs, was open a couple of inches all the way down its front but revealed no hint of cleavage. Low on the stranger’s hips hung ragged jeans with their legs cut off, their sides slit nearly to the waistband. Cinched around the waist of the jeans was a belt that held a hunting knife in a wide leather scabbard. The knife had a staghom handle. Its blade reached halfway down the side of the stranger’s thigh.

    Both feet were bare and filthy. The small toe of one foot was missing.

    While Abilene inspected this peculiar person, he or she slowly swept the shotgun down the line, pale blue eyes studying all of them.

    ‘Yer a handsome pack, gals.’

    ‘Do you know where Helen is?’ Cora asked.

    A smile. Brown teeth and gaps. Then the pale eyes fixed on Vivian. ‘What kinda shoes y’ got there?’

    ‘They’re Reeboks.’

    ‘Land, ain’t they somethin’? Give ’em t’old Batty.’

    Bending down slightly, Vivian lifted a foot off the ground. She crossed it over her knee. Cora grabbed her shoulder and held her steady while she pulled off the shoe, tossed it toward Batty, then switched legs and removed the other. An underhand throw landed it on the ground in front of Batty’s feet.

    ‘I getta keep ’em.’

    Vivian said nothing.

    Cora said, ‘You’re the one with the shotgun.’

    ‘Ain’t no thief.’ Batty braced the shotgun with one arm, crouched and picked up the shoes. ‘I don’t work free. Got my pay here. Y’lookin’ for Helen, old Batty’s gonna point y’where to-look.’

    ‘You know where she is?’ Cora asked.

    Batty answered with a wink, then shouldered the shotgun, turned around, and strode toward the back door of the cabin. Nobody else moved.

    They looked at each other. Abilene saw surprise and confusion on their faces.

    She looked again toward Batty. Without so much as a glance back, the old weirdo climbed the stairs and swung open the screen door and vanished into the cabin.

    ‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Finley muttered. ‘What was that?’

    ‘Batty,’ Abilene said.

    ‘Appropriately named.’

    Vivian stayed on her feet, but sagged as if she’d lost the strength to hold herself upright. ‘God,’ she said. She bent over and grabbed her knees.

    ‘I guess we’re free to leave,’ Cora said. ‘But maybe we’d better go inside and see what he has to say.’

    ‘He?’ Abilene asked.

    ‘Whatever.’

    ‘I don’t think he’s got Helen,’ Vivian said, still holding her knees.

    ‘But he’s got your shoes,’ Cora told her.

    ‘He’s welcome to them.’

    ‘She,’ Finley said. ‘It.’

    ‘Sounded like Batty considered them payment for services,’ Abilene said. ‘I think he’s planning to help us find her.’