He marched to the cabin, unlocked the door.
He had stores set by to last a year. Sacks of beans and rice, flour and salt. Cans stacked floor to ceiling.
He had cordwood inside and outside under a tarp.
But he kept his armory in his bedroom.
Three rifles, two shotguns, a half dozen handguns, and an AR-15 that had cost him dearly. He had the tools for making his own shotgun shells, and enough other ammunition to wage a small war.
The day would come, he knew, when there would be one to fight. He’d be ready. Ready when the sovereign citizens of this once-great country rose up to overthrow the corrupt government and take back the country, the land, the rights denied them and given to immigrants and blacks and homosexuals and women.
A government that pissed on the Constitution and the Bible in equal measure.
The war was coming, and he prayed nightly it came soon. But tonight, this night, he had a woman to hunt down, a woman he’d taken as his wife and provided for, a woman to punish.
He chose a good, hefty Colt revolver—made in the U. S. of A. and already fully loaded. Stripped off his coat to don an ammo vest, filling it with bullets and shotgun shells. He strapped a knife and sheath on his belt, hung night-vision goggles around his neck, and slung a shotgun over his shoulder.
He’d been tracking and hunting these woods most of his life, he thought as he headed out again. No ignorant whore of an ungrateful woman would get far once he was on her trail.
A trail pitifully easy to follow, even when some thin snow blew in. Wandering around without any sense at all, he concluded, quickening his pace.
It worried him a little when he saw she’d changed directions and if she’d kept on would come to a ranch road. He had no truck with the people who lived there, and their fancy house was a good mile back. But if she’d taken that road, walked that way …
She hadn’t. Too stupid for that, he thought with grim satisfaction when he saw her tracks heading away from the direction of the ranch house.
He lost them for a while, decided she’d walked on the road some, picked them back up again when she’d either walked or stumbled off into the snow.
With the cloud cover, he put on the goggles, picked his way along. He could follow her on the gravel, too, the way she dragged that one leg.
Stupid bitch, stupid bitch. He used the words like a prayer as he followed the tracks, as his legs began to ache. How had she walked so damn far?
He spotted some blood, crouched down, studied it. Hard to judge with the wet snow, but it was fresh enough, so it was likely hers.
He walked on. A little blood trail, just a drop here, a drop there, but he picked up his pace until he grew winded.
His head began to throb as he realized where those tracks would have taken her. Though his lungs burned, he forced himself into a hard jog, the shotgun slapping against his back, the revolver a weight at his thigh.
He would kill her, and it would be a righteous kill.
Hadn’t he told himself to lock her up, snap those irons back on her, and take another wife? Younger, childbearing age. A wife who’d carry sons instead of useless girls he sold off rather than keep.
He wouldn’t bother to chain her and feed her now. Not after she showed her deceitful heart. He’d gut her like a deer, leave her for the animals to take.
He’d be more discriminating with his next wife. He wouldn’t show the next one such kindness.
But when he reached the road, he knew he’d missed his chance. He could see a quarter mile in either direction, and didn’t see Esther.
He told himself she’d die of exposure or exhaustion, and good riddance. He told himself even if she lived, she’d never lead anybody back to his cabin. He told himself the corruption of local law enforcement would never follow her trail as he had.
But he’d make sure of it, wiping it, backtracking, leaving false tracks.
When the thin snow turned to rain, he smiled. God provided, he thought and said a silent prayer. The rain would wash away the blood trail, help with her tracks through the snow. Still, he worked through the wet, laying other tracks, carefully backtracking, pleased when the rain came down heavy for an hour of the work.
By the time he got back to his own land, his legs trembled with fatigue, and the jeans over them were soaked through wet.
He still found the rage and energy to kick the dog, viciously.
“Why didn’t you stop her? You let her walk off.”
As the dog whimpered, tried to crawl back to its shelter, he yanked the Colt free. Had his finger on the trigger, and in his mind the bullet already in the dog’s brain.
Then he thought better of it. He’d take the useless dog out on a rope in the morning. Let it run through and across any tracks near the cabin. Saddle up the fleabag of a horse, ride around some. A man on his horse, taking his dog out for a run.
That’s what he’d do.
He went back into the cabin, built up the fire. He stripped down to the skin, dragged on some winter underwear to warm his bones.
Hunger gnawed at him, but the cold and exhaustion was worse. With his head throbbing again, he crawled into bed.
In the morning, he told himself, he’d ride out, make sure he’d covered all that needed covering.
Falling into sleep, he wished Esther all the wrath God aimed at the wicked and profane.
While he cursed her, Alice spent her first night of freedom in more than twenty-five years in a drug-cushioned sleep.
In the morning, his skin hot to the touch, his chest tight, his throat raw, he pushed himself to dress, to eat, to saddle the broken-down horse. The dog limped and wheezed, but crossed the faded tracks.
Though the rain had done most of the work, he reminded himself God helped those who helped themselves. He rode more than an hour before bone-rattling chills turned him toward the cabin again.
He didn’t bother to chain the dog—where would it go?—barely managed to unsaddle the horse. Inside he downed cold medicine straight from the bottle. He needed to go out, put an ear to the ground, see if anybody was talking about finding some stupid old woman, see if that deceitful bitch had anything to say.
But that would wait, would have to wait until he’d slept off the cold she’d caused him to catch.
He crawled back into bed, slept fitful between chills and fever.
He didn’t wake enough to take more medicine until about the time Callen ordered his mother a bottle of wine.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
By the third day, Bodine became so familiar with the hospital rhythm she could identify which nurse walked by the waiting room by the sound of the stride.