Lynn laid Mother on the floor, looking upward through the hole she’d been cutting in the ceiling the day before. Thanks to Mother, Lynn knew what poetic justice was, and a sad smile tugged at her mouth as she used a match taken from the body of a man Mother had shot. The old wood of the outbuilding caught without hesitation, and the plume of smoke that reached into the sky would be visible to the south, Lynn knew. She sat in the tall grass with her injured ankle folded beneath her, and the rifle across her knees, almost hoping that someone would come.
The fire burned hot and fast, bringing down the building in a shower of sparks and leaving behind a pile of coals with no hint of bone among them. Once the last red ember had winked out, Lynn lurched down the stairs and to her cot in misery. She curled into the fetal position and faced the wall, her throbbing ankle resting on top of her healthy foot. The puffy flesh that rose from the top of her makeshift bandage pulsed against the fabric, fighting for the freedom to swell further. She would find no peace in sleep while it throbbed, but she pulled her pillow over her face to muffle her sobs.
She did not gather water for ten days.
Fear drove her from the tomb of the basement. A nightmare, rampant with images of men filing out of the fields and dipping their buckets into her pond had brought her up from her well of grief and pain. Her ankle was not broken; she could put more weight on it. She fashioned a splint for herself by snapping a wooden yardstick in half and binding the two strips to either side of her foot. It wasn’t a cure, but she could hobble well enough to take care of herself.
She needed to get wood downstairs, the tiny pile next to the stove that had kept her alive while she mourned was gone, the level of water in the purified basement tank lower than what she cared for. The mental list of chores assembled in her head made Lynn feel better. The weight of purpose and responsibility helped to erase the feel of Mother’s frozen hand glancing against her hair as Lynn pulled her into the smokehouse.
“‘Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live.’ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” Lynn said to herself as she tightened her bootlaces around the homemade splint.
The sight of trampled ground around the perimeter of the pond brought her rifle to the ready, safety off. Large coyote prints crisscrossed freely, brave and confident. Smaller tracks littered the shallower bank, where raccoons had been. Among them all, standing out sharply, was a pair of boot prints. Lynn stared at them, fear rising in her throat. By the depth of the print, he’d stood there a while.
Anger joined the fear as she imagined him surveying the property, dragging his eyes over her house while she lay injured and grieving in the basement. She heard something behind her and whirled, frightening a rabbit that had come to drink. The wildlife had become bold with no one to defend the pond, no shots ringing out over its placid surface.
Lynn made the trek to the barn and retrieved her buckets. Pain shot through her foot at the extra weight of ten gallons of water but she struggled up the bank in spite of it, teeth gritted. There was no one to cover her, so she strapped her rifle to her back and hoped that she could be quick if the man returned.
Water seen to, she went back to the basement, unhooked the hinged window, and tossed wood through the hole until her arms couldn’t take it anymore. With two people, the job had never felt hard. But Lynn was alone and injured.
She gathered blankets, extra ammunition, and a pillow. While the weather was warm, she would stay on the roof. Keeping a continuous watch would be impossible, but she could at least make her presence known. The man had been alone, of that she was sure. Whether he was only a traveler come to fill his bucket, or a scout sent by the party that had tried to overwhelm her and Mother, she did not know. Whoever he was, she would be ready if he returned.
Instead of men she saw dogs, and she blew the head off the first coyote that came to the pond for a drink. Boredom had taken a toll as she waited for the return of the mysterious man, but the still-kicking corpse of the coyote filled her with satisfaction. The second coyote came to investigate hours later, and she took him in the rear leg. He made it nearly a mile from the house before collapsing, which brought others out to him. She made short work of two and picked off the slowest ones as the pack bolted away.
It became an obsession, a twisted revenge for the needless death of Mother. The body that had fallen near the pond she dragged out into the field. None ventured any closer. The stink of surprise and death that it had sprayed in its dying throes was too powerful for animals to ignore. When the coyotes learned to skirt the western field, she picked them off in the east, and the buzzards swarmed.