Chapter 27 #2
Hattie took her chance. She raced across the floor on her tiptoes, wishing she hadn’t taken the time to put her boots on so that she could be quieter. She’d already been on the run with nothing on her feet before, however, and she wasn’t eager to repeat the process.
She flew across the mouth of the hall and through another doorway. Hattie was in a small mudroom, or at least it’d probably been one at one time. It was so cluttered with coats and boots that it was difficult to get through. Hattie opened the door that led out onto the porch. The hinges squeaked.
Hattie gulped, but nothing happened. Nobody had shouted at her, and nobody came running. Getting out of the house was just the first part of the challenge, though.
She passed through the maze of old washtubs and drying racks on the porch, following the blood to the steps and down into the snow. Hattie didn’t want to, but she stayed in the compressed snow where Cutter had already passed through, trying to keep the noise of her footsteps to a minimum.
Hattie carried the rifle out in front of her, expecting Cutter to come flying out through the barn door. What was he doing to Ben in there? Why hadn’t he just killed him on the spot.
If she opened the door, she’d be visible against the pale snow behind her. Her eyes wouldn’t have a chance to adjust to the dim interior, and she’d be dead before she could even get off a shot.
Maybe this was a terrible idea.
Hattie looked down. Red slush encased the bottoms of her boots. Ben’s blood. She’d been walking through it the whole way, treading on the sacrifice that he’d made for her.
The instinctive will to live told her to run as far and as fast as she could, to disappear before the remaining Kincaids had any idea she was there. Ben would never have told them, not even to save his own life. She could find someplace to hide, just as she’d done before.
But who was there to preserve herself for? She had no home or family. There was nobody left on earth who would miss her if she was killed out here in the middle of nowhere. Her home would never be safe, nor could she ever set foot on that property without thinking of all that had happened there.
Hattie moved to the left. The snow was soft and powdery, and it muffled her steps. She went around the corner of the barn and spotted an open half-door. It was the sort of place where a horse might put out its head to get some fresh air.
Crouching low, she approached just to the side of the half-door and pressed her ear to the wood.
“…people who want to pretend their life has just happened to them,” Cutter complained. “You sound just like that stupid bitch Hattie.”
The sound of her own name made her stomach stick to her spine. Hattie waited. This was Ben’s chance to divert Cutter, to tell him the truth about who’d he’d been bunking with all night.
But he didn’t. Even though there was a chance that it might save his life, he didn’t.
Hattie straightened. She carefully rested the tip of the rifle on the little wooden sill that topped the half-door. With such slowness that it made her skin crawl, she moved forward until she could see inside.
The barn was old and run-down, just like everything else at Traveler’s Rest. There was no livestock inside. Considering the broken-down stalls, there hadn’t been for a long time. A thick layer of dust covered everything, and ancient spiderwebs radiated in the corners.
Ben hung suspended from a rope, his hands tied above him and his feet dangling only inches from the floor. He was bruised and bloody, beaten so badly that she might not have recognized him if it hadn’t been for his hair. Strands of it were stained with his blood.
Cutter stood before him, brandishing a knife. More weapons were arrayed on the wooden table behind him, knives and other things she couldn’t identify, but no guns.
The scene made Hattie want to vomit, but it also made her thirsty for Cutter’s blood. Yes, she’d been the one to kill Oscar, but hadn’t Cutter been the reason it’d happened? He was the one who’d killed her father and started the whole cascade of awful events.
Now, in her darkest hour, he was about to take away the only other person who mattered to her, the only other person in the world who knew or cared where she was.
Hattie bent down just enough so that she could line up her sights on Cutter.
She hadn’t lied to Ben when she said her father had taught her how to shoot.
That whole story was real. Papa had taken her out to that field in the beginning, and she’d brought home her trophies once she’d started hunting.
Mama had frowned on the practice, but the fresh meat in the stew pot had pleased her.
Her prey wasn’t a rabbit or a squirrel. It was a man, a man who deserved to die. Every breath changed the aim of the rifle slightly. Hattie had to do this right. She lined up the side of Cutter’s face in her sights.
Cutter ran the tip of his knife over Ben’s body. “Where should I start?”
She squeezed the trigger just as footsteps sounded in the snow behind her. Hattie had no idea what she might’ve hit as she turned from the half-door to see who was coming for her.
Mama had recovered from her grief. She ran at Hattie full speed, the dirty skirt of her dress tracking through the snow as she wielded a meat cleaver over her head.
A snarl distorted her wrinkled face, and her eyes burned with the intensity of a woman bent on revenge.
She let out a cry that made Hattie suddenly remember just how cold it was outside.
Hattie ducked to the side as Mama swung the meat cleaver down. It thunked into the side of the barn. Hattie scrambled to get out of the way, but the ground under the snow was uneven and her stolen boots were too big.
The old woman’s knuckles went white as she gripped the handle and pulled the knife free. She bared her crooked teeth as she came after Hattie a second time, her scream echoing off the snowy hills.
Hattie lurched toward the old woman, shoving her head into her stomach. The air rushed out of Mama’s lungs. A bright sting of pain sliced across the back of Hattie’s arm as the cleaver chopped through her coat and bit into her skin.
Hattie landed on her knees. She gripped the rifle hard and slammed it into the old woman’s face. It impacted with a sickening crunch that shuddered up Hattie’s arm. Blood gushed from Mama’s nose. A few of her teeth flew from her mouth and spun off somewhere into the snow. She didn’t move again.
But Hattie still had a problem. From around the front of the barn, she heard the barn door slam open. “I’m coming, Mama!” Cutter called.