The skull rested against tawny skin between the edges of a rawhide vest. The vest, loosely tied with a couple of thongs, was open a couple of inches all the way down its front but revealed no hint of cleavage. Low on the stranger’s hips hung ragged jeans with their legs cut off, their sides slit nearly to the waistband. Cinched around the waist of the jeans was a belt that held a hunting knife in a wide leather scabbard. The knife had a staghom handle. Its blade reached halfway down the side of the stranger’s thigh.
Both feet were bare and filthy. The small toe of one foot was missing.
While Abilene inspected this peculiar person, he or she slowly swept the shotgun down the line, pale blue eyes studying all of them.
‘Yer a handsome pack, gals.’
‘Do you know where Helen is?’ Cora asked.
A smile. Brown teeth and gaps. Then the pale eyes fixed on Vivian. ‘What kinda shoes y’ got there?’
‘They’re Reeboks.’
‘Land, ain’t they somethin’? Give ’em t’old Batty.’
Bending down slightly, Vivian lifted a foot off the ground. She crossed it over her knee. Cora grabbed her shoulder and held her steady while she pulled off the shoe, tossed it toward Batty, then switched legs and removed the other. An underhand throw landed it on the ground in front of Batty’s feet.
‘I getta keep ’em.’
Vivian said nothing.
Cora said, ‘You’re the one with the shotgun.’
‘Ain’t no thief.’ Batty braced the shotgun with one arm, crouched and picked up the shoes. ‘I don’t work free. Got my pay here. Y’lookin’ for Helen, old Batty’s gonna point y’where to-look.’
‘You know where she is?’ Cora asked.
Batty answered with a wink, then shouldered the shotgun, turned around, and strode toward the back door of the cabin. Nobody else moved.
They looked at each other. Abilene saw surprise and confusion on their faces.
She looked again toward Batty. Without so much as a glance back, the old weirdo climbed the stairs and swung open the screen door and vanished into the cabin.
‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Finley muttered. ‘What was that?’
‘Batty,’ Abilene said.
‘Appropriately named.’
Vivian stayed on her feet, but sagged as if she’d lost the strength to hold herself upright. ‘God,’ she said. She bent over and grabbed her knees.
‘I guess we’re free to leave,’ Cora said. ‘But maybe we’d better go inside and see what he has to say.’
‘He?’ Abilene asked.
‘Whatever.’
‘I don’t think he’s got Helen,’ Vivian said, still holding her knees.
‘But he’s got your shoes,’ Cora told her.
‘He’s welcome to them.’
‘She,’ Finley said. ‘It.’
‘Sounded like Batty considered them payment for services,’ Abilene said. ‘I think he’s planning to help us find her.’
‘I think Batty’s batty,’ Finley said. ‘Probably doesn’t know shit.’
‘There’s only one way to find out.’
‘What else have we got to go on?’ Cora asked. ‘Hell, he lives here. Even if he hasn’t seen Helen, he might have some ideas about who took her.’
‘Besides,’ Abilene said, ‘if nothing else, this’ll give us a chance to check out the cabin.’
‘Enter the lair,’ Finley said, grinning slightly.
‘It isn’t as if he’s forcing us.’
‘Yeah,’ Cora said. ‘He had us and walked away.’
Vivian stood up straight. She shook her head. She said, ‘Let’s do it. What’s the worst that can happen?’ With that, she walked toward the back of the cabin.
The others followed.
Finley, striding along beside Abilene, said, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? Let’s see. We might all end up in jars.’
At the top of the stairs, Vivian rapped on the door.
‘Come into my parlor,’ whispered Finley.
‘Can it,’ Abilene said.
Vivian pulled open the door. She stepped over the threshold and paused, an arm stretched back to hold the door open for the rest of them.
Entering, Abilene found herself in a long, narrow kitchen. She saw cupboards, a black iron stove, a small pump over the sink that looked like a smaller version of the pump she’d seen outside. No refrigerator, not even an old icebox. A gas lamp hung suspended from the ceiling, and another rested atop a small wooden table in one corner.
‘Batty?’ Vivian called.
‘Waitin’ for ya.’
They stepped through a doorway into the main room of the cabin. It wasn’t as brightly lit as the kitchen, its few windows apparently hidden from the sun by overhanging trees. In the center of the room, Batty was leaning over a table, spreading out a leathery scroll.
Vivian’s Reeboks looked enormous on the lunatic’s small feet.
‘Come over and sit.’
On her way to the table, Abilene took a quick look around. Except for the kitchen, this seemed to be the only room. A bed along the right wall was neatly covered with a quilt. The shotgun was propped against the wall near its head. At the foot of the bed was a steamer trunk, lid shut. In the room’s far corner was a pot-bellied stove. There were a few chairs scattered about: straight cane-backs and one rocker. She spotted a few gas lamps on small tables. Every wall had shelves laden with bulky old tomes and an odd assortment of nicknacks: wax figures, candles, crucifixes, pictures of saints, bones and feathers, stuffed birds and squirrels, bowls, every size and shape of clear glass jar -from which Abilene quickly averted her eyes.
Only to notice a stuffed bat, wings outspread, nailed above the front door.
From the general size and shape of the creature’s ugly head with its stubby snout and pointed teeth, she realized that Batty’s necklace ornament must be the skull of a bat.
Clearly, Helen wasn’t here.
Unless in that trunk…
She glanced again at the trunk beyond the foot of the bed and decided it wasn’t large enough for Helen. Not unless…
‘Are you some kind of a witch?’ Finley asked.
‘Some say so.’ Cackle. ‘Some say I’m batty.’
‘What do you say?’
‘Old Batty sees the unseen, knows the unknown. Sit sit sit.’
They pulled out chairs, and sat around the table. Most of its top was covered by the mat that Batty’d been unrolling when they came in. It looked like tanned animal hide, stained dark brown. A wiggly oval outline about the size of a football was faintly visible near the center.
The wood of the table showed through a hole near one end of the outline.
Coming up behind Abilene, Batty poked the hole with the point of his knife.
‘Batty’s place.’
‘This is a map?’ Cora asked.
‘Oughtabe.’
