A fine, steady rain patted at the leaves on the trees, on our bodies as we worked in determined silence; it flattened Simone’s mane until it hung down in long strings nearly grazing the ground where she sat. Using every bit of Dean’s sinewy rope, we lashed her to a tree facing the river. Every so often she’d burst forth with a vicious rant, then go quiet and sullen, a dull seething. Dean ignored her, his eyes glazed as he cinched her wrists tighter together.
With a nod, Pia motioned for us to step a few yards away, toward the river, and we obliged, gathering in a huddle. Bruised, barefoot, she breathed hard, ribs showing with every exhale. Her shoulder wound had reopened and bled profusely; her eyes flashed with something new and terrible. “I’m going to kill her,” she said.
Rachel grabbed her by her elbows and shook her, gazing up at her. “Pia, you have to calm your shit down.”
“She’s got the gun.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“We looked everywhere,” I said. “It’s gone.” I thought of the hunter back at the store; that rapturous flush from his recent kill. Pia looked like that now. Bloodthirsty. Crazy.
“She must have hidden it or something. Fucking bitch. We have to find it.”
“When could she have done that?” Rachel said, her face inches from Pia’s. “She hasn’t been out of our sight.”
Pia wrenched herself from Rachel’s grasp. “We could drown her. Or I could strangle her. It will be on me, okay? On me,” she whispered hotly. “Or I could bash her fucking brains in.” She paced in a tight circle, unable to contain herself.
“So then you’re a murderer,” Rachel said.
“Fuck yeah. But we’re fucking alive.”
I began to taste it. What it would be like to obliterate Simone. Rage came alive in my hands and sent them quaking; my scratched and bloody fingers shuddered by my sides. I saw Sandra in her grave of river stones, so terribly still, so terribly cold.
Rachel read my face. “Wini, seriously? Dean would slaughter us.”
“Win? Are you with me?” Pia said.
I thought of my hands around that mottled, filthy neck as I watched the light dim from her deranged face, how it would feel to choke the life out of her. How it wouldn’t bring Sandra back. Pia’s eyes bored into mine. I could smell her: the salt and copper of her blood, her sweat, the taste of the river fresh on her.
Dean had begun to take notice of us.
“Jesus Christ, Pia, snap out of it,” Rachel said, her face blanched with terror. “Wini? Help me out here!”
She was right. I exhaled all that ugliness. “Let it go, Pia.”
Pia nodded, but kept her eyes on the ground.
“Look at me, Pia.”
“I could do it, you know.” She stared at Simone, a writhing pile of hair and stink.
“We work as a team. Rory said that, remember? That’s how we survive.”
Eyes still downcast, Pia shook her head and wandered to the bank.
Dean finished with the ropes and stood back from his mother. Her fury seemed to leave her. She dropped her head and rested her chin on her chest, big shoulders sagging. Phlegmy sobs bubbled out of her as crocodile tears bloomed on her cheeks and ran down her face in impressive volume.
“You women—well, I don’t think I’d put anything past you,” she said, voice clogged with tears. “But, Dean . . . you? You would leave your own mother out here to die? To—to freeze to death? Die of exposure? Thirst? You want me to starve to death?” She tried to wipe her eyes against her bare shoulder. “Look, I know I’ve made some bad choices, but I don’t think I deserve this.”
Dean looked at me, panic in his eyes.
“We’ll send someone for you,” I said.
Simone ignored me. “Dean, son, it’s not too late to let this whole thing drop. You made a mistake. It’s over. Forgiven. History! Come on, honey, untie me. I won’t be angry.” Her neck corded as she strained at the ropes.
“She’ll be okay, Dean,” I said, my eye on Pia’s rangy profile. She stood a few yards away by the river, watching the water sort itself out midstream.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Rachel said to Dean with uncommon softness. “You’re being brave.”
Disgusted, Simone let her head drop back against the tree and gazed up into the branches above her head. A subtle change washed over her face. A widening of the eyes, lips ever so slightly pulled back. She had seen something. I should have known what it was—so obvious later!—but my concern at the time was Dean and his wavering.
“Are you hungry?” he signed to her.
“Starving!” she whimpered.
Dean loosened his leather sack and pulled out a handful of long, stringy objects, each with a webbed foot on the end. He approached her with them, but she turned her head away in a pout.
“That’s all you have? Dried frog?” She spat into the dirt. “You know that’s not Mom’s favorite. Go catch me a fresh trout. Won’t take you a minute. They’ll be jumping in this rain.”
Dean stuffed the pieces of frog back in his pouch, his face ashen, concentrated. “Let’s go,” he signed to me.