The Woman. Part 7

And then she does does spring. Maybe a whole six inches before the cable clamps on her wrists stop her dead. He thinks, that's gotta hurt. spring. Maybe a whole six inches before the cable clamps on her wrists stop her dead. He thinks, that's gotta hurt.

He slips the Springfield .45 pistol into the front of his jeans and takes the Peltor hunting earm.u.f.fs out of his back pocket. When he puts them on his voice is coming at him from a distance. He likes the sound of it. His voice like in a dream.

"I've got kids to raise around here, lady, and disobedience is not something I want them to witness. They're very good kids and I would very much like to introduce them to you. But if you're not going to be nice, if you're going to be disobedient, well, I can't do that, now can I."

All he gets is that cold stare. Those scary eyes. But he's not afraid of her now. He's seen what she can do and from where he's standing, it ain't much.

"Plus," he says, "I need to feel better about losing my finger."

He takes out the .45 and shows it to her. Puts it right up in her face. Clicks off the safety.

"Ever see one of these?"

She has. Those hard eyes widen for a moment. Her head rolls away to the side.

"Makes a loud sound, right?"

He jumps at her.

"Boom!"

She doesn't react. Just stares again.

"Makes an even louder sound in a tight s.p.a.ce. I'll show you. But first I need a backstop. No ricochets."

There's a three-foot length of 6x6 raw lumber leaning against the wall. He puts the gun to her cheek so she won't get any more biting ideas and sets the block on the shelf behind her, standing it up lengthwise so that now there's about eight inches of wood in back of her shoulder just next to her left ear.

He takes two steps back, aims, and as the woman closes her eyes against what she thinks is coming, he shifts his aim left to the wood and fires.

Even with the earm.u.f.fs on it's a huge sound in that cellar. Wood splinters and flies. The woman screams. The scream turns into a roar. Her head trembles from the concussion then rocks from side to side. He pulls off the earm.u.f.fs and stuffs them in his pocket.

She's moaning. She opens and closes her mouth over and over like a fish gasping for breath on dry land. Blood seeps over her jaw and trickles down her neck.

He's blown out her eardrum.

And that'll teach you to bite, now won't it, he thinks. he thinks.

The eyes open. He reads both pain and anger there. But mostly pain.

"I feel better about my finger now," he tells her.

He smiles. Actually the pain is not too bad by now. Seven hundred fifty milligrams of Vicodin has helped a lot.

"I'll be back in little a while. With the wife and kids. And you be nice, or..."

He raises the gun, points it at her other ear, meaning to tell her that he can blow out that eardrum too but she misreads him, begins to struggle violently against the clamps and she's howling again, throwing herself back against the shelving and forward against the clamps. All h.e.l.l is breaking loose down here.

He lowers the weapon.

She quiets immediately.

Good girl, he thinks. he thinks. See? You can learn. See? You can learn.

He heads for the stairs but something stops him. The quiet. It seems suddenly unnatural after all that commotion. He glances back over his shoulder. The woman is as still as a statue.

Watching him.

In the dark she tilts her head to let the blood drain out of her ear. The dark is roaring at her like storm-waves against the sh.o.r.e and she thinks of those waves and that sh.o.r.e and wonders how far away they are from where she stands now and if she will ever see them again or if she will simply die trying.

It will be one or the other.

And soon.

TEN.

Sometimes Chris thinks that it's all about food - home and family are.

He works in order to put food on the table. In the mornings Belle will have breakfast ready when the kids get up and an hour after that, their lunches packed for school. When he comes home from work there'll be food by six o'clock. The house always smells of food. Or baking. Belle hasn't inherited much from her parents' freak accident - her father sober, always sober, but the highway slick with icy rain her father sober, always sober, but the highway slick with icy rain - but she's inherited her mother's talent for baking. Cornbread. Banana bread. Cakes and pies. - but she's inherited her mother's talent for baking. Cornbread. Banana bread. Cakes and pies.

She'd come in third in last year's county fair with the blueberry.

Today it's the cornbread. He can smell it riding high over the pot roast as soon as he walks in the door. He loves Belle's cornbread.

Brian is sprawled on the sofa watching some old Clint Eastwood movie on the 42" flat screen. Chris pops the clip in the Springfield and hands it to him.

"One shy," he says.

"I heard. Whatcha shootin' at, Pop?"

"You'll see."

He watches the movie for a minute. Eastwood is preparing a prison break. Brian goes to the cabinet, pulls out the box of sh.e.l.ls and puts a fresh sh.e.l.l in the clip, then hands it back to him. He inserts the clip, safeties the weapon and stuffs it back into his jeans. He walks into the kitchen. And there on the table is the cornbread. He doesn't know how Peggy and Darlin' have resisted it, sitting right there in front of them. Peg is helping her sister with some sort of puzzle. He isn't even about to try to resist. He lifts up a square and bites.

Warm, delicious.

"You'll spoil your dinner," Belle says. She's stirring the gravy in the pot roast.

"Not a chance," he says.

"You say that now."

"I certainly do."

He sees her glance at his finger again, the gauze and pads brown at the tip. He's already been through the questions with her and the kids and told them basically nothing. I had a little accident with a new project of mine. No big deal. I had a little accident with a new project of mine. No big deal. Luckily n.o.body has been around to actually see the d.a.m.n thing while he treated it. They're women after all. He wouldn't have been surprised if one of them had fainted dead away. Luckily n.o.body has been around to actually see the d.a.m.n thing while he treated it. They're women after all. He wouldn't have been surprised if one of them had fainted dead away.

He'll see Doc Richardson tomorrow. Get a shot or whatever.

G.o.d knows what's been in that mouth of hers.

He finishes the cornbread and licks his fingers.

"All right. Everybody want to come on down to the cellar with me?"

"Again?" Peggy says. Peggy says.

"Again at dinner time dinner time?" says his wife.

"It's pot roast, Belle. Put it on simmer. You need to see this."

She looks at him a moment, then sighs and wipes her hands on a dishtowel and gives him a small, tolerant smile.

"Come on, girls. Do as your father says."

They are downstairs. a.s.sembled. Standing at the foot of the stairs. Peggy and Darlin' holding hands. Brian with his mouth agape. Brian has been the first one down, all excited. As they crossed the lawn he asked, watcha got in there, dad? A mountain lion? He was kidding of course and Cleek had acknowledged the fact with a grin. A h.e.l.lova lot more interesting than a mountain lion, son, he said. So now Brian stands there beside him. And his father is right. This is much more interesting than any cat.

Brian sees...

...his first half-naked woman, ever. There is more to his response than that because Brian is a complex young man but that's the first thing and it's primal. His eyes can barely leave her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to take in the rest of her - the b.l.o.o.d.y face, the matted hair. The fact that she is chained and helpless is not lost on him. Nor is the sheer size of her. But he has never seen Peg's b.r.e.a.s.t.s and his mother's he doesn't remember. He feels the beating of his heart. He feels a tremor.

And Peggy sees...

...a woman chained to a wall. Somebody has hurt her and that somebody is probably her father. She's been badly beaten. Her mouth is b.l.o.o.d.y and blood drools out her ear. It occurs to her to wonder how the woman has come to this. She's big and strong-looking and should have resisted. She is impressed by a kind of stillness about her, a silent watchfulness - but the woman also frightens her. Her smell frightens her. Her filth frightens her. What has her father done? How crazy is this? And how can she, Peg, go on living in this f.u.c.king house?

And Belle sees...

...wrongness, evil evil. In the size of her and the wildness in her which she can read plain like her mother used to read the palms of hands at parties and in her stink and her scars she sees what no woman should ever become, what no human should ever become. Chris Cleek doesn't believe in G.o.d or the Devil, only pretends to believe. But she does and she's facing a devil of some kind for sure and she feels an almost pleasant thrill of terror that somehow this will get way out of control, chains or no chains, she can feel control slipping away even as she stands here - and then so sad suddenly for Chris and herself and her family and the life they're living now that she could almost cry. Instead she steels herself. Against whatever is to come.

And Darlin'...Darleen sees... sees...

...a lady out of a picture book, out of a fairy tale where ladies are trapped in towers or given poison apples or like that movie where that lady is tied to two poles to wait for the great big ape, not a nice kind of fairy tale but the kind that make you want to cry at first but then they're okay at the end and the lady comes down from the tower and the prince wakes her up and the ape dies. Except that the ape dying is kind of sad too. And the lady here smells like an ape, or what she thinks an ape would smell like if she ever saw one. The lady makes her nose itch.

And the Woman sees...

...a family. What the man has. And she has not.

ELEVEN.

His children and Belle - at some point they each look at him, the father, for instruction. But it's Peggy who actually asks the question.

"Dad? What the h.e.l.l is going on on here?" here?"

He pardons the swearing.

"G.o.d knows where she's been living, Peg. In the woods. In caves. We're going to help her."

"Help her? By chaining her up in a fruit cellar?"

He sees Belle shoot his daughter a warning glance. Good. Belle's standing by her man. Though he can see she's pretty d.a.m.n puzzled too.

"She needs a big Band-Aid," Darlin' says. Bless her.

He smiles. "That's the first thing we're going to fix. She's been wounded. We'll get right to it. Okay, now listen. We're each going to share in the responsibility of taking care of her."

"The police police should be taking care of her," Peggy says. "Or a hospital." should be taking care of her," Peggy says. "Or a hospital."

"No police. No hospitals."

"She's not some f.u.c.king pet, pet, Dad!" Dad!"

"Peggy," says Belle, "you watch your mouth."

He lets that one pa.s.s too.

"The first rule, ground rule number one," he says, "is no touching."

He holds up his ruined finger, wiggles it. Darlin' giggles.

"I learned that the hard way. Our friend here likes to bite."

" She bit you?" says Belle.

"Took about an inch off my finger. Swallowed it."

"Jeez!" Brian's impressed. Well, he would be. h.e.l.l, he's he's impressed. If not in a good way. impressed. If not in a good way.

"What are we going to do with her?" his son says.

"Train her, Brian. Civilize her. Free her from herself, her baser instincts. What we have here is...well, I've never seen anything quite exactly like it. This woman thinks she's an animal. d.a.m.ned if I know how she got that way. But we can't have people running around in the woods thinking they're animals. It's not right. It's not safe."

He takes a quick survey of his family. Darlin's easy to read - Darlin's fascinated. Brian's probably thinking, awesome. awesome. Peggy is going to be trouble. Her face reads a mix of disbelief and disgust...or is that contempt contempt? It better not be contempt. Belle is wearing that guarded look she has. The jury's still out with Belle. But she'll come around. She always does.

"Belle, why don't you run on up and put together a bowl of cereal or oatmeal or something. Something simple. The woman's got to be hungry. All she's had to eat since I found her is..."