Blood Wedding

“Why did you come charging up to Wesley’s house like that?” Fargo asked. “You’re lucky you didn’t get killed right then and there.”

“I was just so damn mad,” Molly said. “I thought that by the time I got there, everybody from all around would have come to help Alf out. But there was nobody. Well, except for you, and I didn’t know you were around. It made me mad that nobody cared about Alf, and I guess I just lost my head. Now I’ll probably lose it anyhow.”

“Maybe not. Maybe we can get out of here.”

“Sure. Any minute now Angel will come in and cut you loose because she likes you so much. Let me set you straight, Fargo. You’re good, but you’re not that good. Besides, even if she cut the ropes, you’d never get past Murray.”

“I wasn’t thinking about Angel. I thought maybe you could cut these ropes. If you don’t, I’m going to lose my hands.”

“I don’t have a knife, and I don’t think I can chew these ropes in two. If there was a rat around, maybe he could do it for you.”

Fargo didn’t much like rats, and he’d just as soon Molly hadn’t mentioned them. But there weren’t likely to be any rats in a cave. He said, “I carry a knife in my boot. If we can get it out, and if you can get hold of it, we can at least get loose. After that, we can see about getting away from here.”

“A knife? Why didn’t you say so sooner? How can we get to it?”

“Can you get over here?”

“I can sure as hell try.”

Fargo heard a muffled flop as Molly fell over and then a scratchy scraping sound as she snaked her way across the floor on her stomach. Within a minute or two, he felt her head bump his leg.

“I’m here,” she said. “Now what?”

“Now we see if we can get to the knife.”

Fargo wasn’t actually sure the knife was there. Whoever tied his feet together might have noticed it and taken it. But Fargo didn’t think that would have happened. The knife had been overlooked before and had gotten him out of more than one scrape. He slid down the wall until he was lying on his back with his arms and hands beneath him. It was just as well he couldn’t feel anything back there, he thought. He’d probably be screaming if he could.

He managed somehow to raise his legs until they were pointing just about straight up at the ceiling. The knife didn’t fall out of the boot. There were two possible reasons: either someone had removed it, as he’d feared, or the ropes that held his feet were tied so tightly that the knife was stuck.

“Damn,” Fargo said, and then he explained the problem to Molly.

“Kick your feet around,” she said. “Maybe you can shake it loose. If it’s there, which I wouldn’t count on.”

Fargo bent his knees and kicked straight up. Nothing happened. He tried it again, and he thought he felt something move inside the boot. He couldn’t be sure because by now he couldn’t feel his lower legs and feet much better than he could feel his hands. Whoever had tied him had certainly done a good job of it. Or a had job, depending on your point of view.

Fargo kicked again. The knife fell out of the boot, but its scabbard stayed inside. The hilt of the knife hit Fargo squarely on the breastbone, sending a sharp pain through his chest. He clamped his teeth shut and didn’t cry out. He thought it was a good thing he’d been struck by the hilt and not the point of the blade. The knife bounced off his chest and hit Molly’s head before falling to the floor.

“Now all you have to do is get your hands on it,” Fargo said. “I’d do it myself, but I can’t feel a thing.”

“My fingers feel like pieces of cordwood,” Molly said. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

She got into a sitting position and fumbled around for the knife. While she was groping, Fargo squirmed back up against the wall to wait until Molly got hold of the knife, if she ever managed it.

It took a while, but finally Molly said, “I think I have it. Scoot over here, and let’s see what I can do.”

Fargo dug in with his heels and pulled himself across the floor. When his feet encountered something soft, Molly said, “That’s me. Turn around and back up to me.”

Fargo did his best, and eventually they were back to back.

“Now’s the hard part,” Molly said. “I think I have the knife with the sharp edge of the blade facing you. I can hold onto it, maybe, if you can move your arms up and down.”

Fargo didn’t know of any other way to do it. Not being able to feel his hands, he was probably going to get cut pretty badly, but it wouldn’t matter if the ropes got cut as well.

“Can you feel where I am?” he asked.

“You’re about right. Get to moving.”

Fargo moved. It was slow work because the knife occasionally slipped from Molly’s hands, and then she was forced to pick it up and get it back into position. Fargo didn’t ask why the knife slipped away. It could have happened because Molly’s fingers were too numb to hold it. Or it could have been that her hands were slick with his blood. If it was the latter, he didn’t want to know about it.