Black Feathers

40

They had stripped her and, judging by the welts and raised areas of redness on her skin, they had beaten her. Her head hung back, no strength in her neck. Her eyes stared up. Her hair hung, streaked red and brown. It was clear that they had done the things that, under very different circumstances, men were created to do to women, but they had done this, and worse, to a girl. The order of these acts was unclear, but the worst of them was the nailing of her hands and wrists to the grey body of the beech tree. The nails had been hammered in carelessly, and there were several. In their haste to complete the act they’d mis-hit some of the nails, bending them over before they were fully home. This had not stopped the hammering. Most of Brooke’s fingers were pulped and broken, her left ring finger hanging by torn skin against the back of her hand. Four nails had flattened each of her palms to the bark, and the natural shape of her hands, the hands that had washed and tended him with such delicate surety, were destroyed. Two nails penetrated the backs of each wrist, and it was from these wounds that most of her wasted blood originated. From these twelve nails, Brooke was suspended, her unclothed body pale and elongated like an animal hanging in the slaughterhouse.

Gordon was almost too frightened to approach. Then he saw that her whole body was vibrating. Brooke was shivering.

She was alive.

John Palmer was on his knees, staring up at his daughter’s ruin as though the pain was all his. Gordon was disgusted.

“We have to get her down,” he said.

John Palmer didn’t move. Gordon walked over, placed his boot on the man’s shoulder and sent him sprawling.

“Now!”

John Palmer looked up, crying as though Gordon’s shove was the most painful incident of the day.

“Find something,” said Gordon. “Quickly. Help me get her down.”

John Palmer stood up, dazed. Gordon took his shoulders, pleaded to his face.

“Tools. A crowbar. Anything.”

John Palmer ran into the tiny clearing and upended a small leather bag. He returned with a pair of yellow-handled pliers between his quivering fingers. Their eyes met. Gordon took the implement, his own hand showing no trace of a tremor.