clutched the gunwales, pushed herself up, and sat on the narrow bench.
The slate gray lake was choppy, but didn’t look nearly as rough as it had felt when she was lying on the bottom of the boat. The fresh breeze felt good.
Leaning sideways, she looked past Cora’s back. Finley met her eyes and nodded. Vivian was twisted around, gazing toward shore.
The limbs of the willow, hanging out over the lake, blew like green streamers.
We really haven’t gone very far, Abilene thought.
And then she saw Batty come prancing down the slope stark naked. ‘Oh, my God,’ she murmured. The broken arm swung from its elbow like a dead thing. The other arm, bound with a red rag, was upraised and shaking a pale club that had a knob at both ends.
A bone?
Batty’s long gray hair blew like the willow limbs.
Her breasts bounced and flopped like loose sacks of pudding.
His erection was a rigid, jerking spike.
Abilene’s mind reeled.
Vivian pointed, swiveled her head and said something to Finley.
Finley got to her knees and turned around and shouldered the shotgun.
‘Don’t you shoot,’ Cora warned, still rowing.
Batty stopped at the water’s edge. And began to dance. Hopping from foot to foot, shaking the bone at the gray sky then bowing to dip it into the lake before thrusting it again overhead.
Finley looked over her shoulder. Abilene expected a remark about hermaphrodites until she caught the strangeness in her friend’s eyes.
Too freaked out to crack wise.
This was the thing that had grabbed her breast. A lecherous old coot but also a hag, mad and sly, a drinker of blood, a collector of body parts, a conjurer.
Freaks me out, too, Abilene thought, and I’m not the one who got groped.
Finley turned away.
Batty was still dancing, twirling and leaping, sweeping the hone from the water to the sky.
A heavy blast slammed Abilene’s ears. The shotgun leaped beside Vivian’s shoulder. Vivian jumped as if her boat seat had turned into a cattle prod. Then she grabbed the barrels and shoved them up. Her face red and twisted, she glared back at Finley.
She said nothing.
But Cora shouted, ‘Damn it!’
On the shore, Batty shook the bone and hopped with both feet, broken arm and breasts and penis bouncing up and down.
Abilene found herself wishing Finley hadn’t missed.
Finley yanked the barrels from Vivian’s grip, but she didn’t take aim again. Holding the shotgun upright, she scowled back at Cora. ‘The fuck’s putting a curse on us!’ she called.
‘Since when are you scared of shit like that?’ Cora asked.
‘Since today.’
‘Don’t worry. The creep can’t hurt us now.’
‘Should’ve cut its throat when I had the chance.’
Batty still capered about the shore, bobbing and spinning and leaping. But indistinct now. A pale, blurry shape in the distance. In the darkness.
Abilene tipped back her head.
A low, black mass of thunderheads was rushing in from the hills behind Batty. As if it carried winds of its own, the advancing range of clouds roughed up the water in its path.
‘Oh shit!’ Cora yelled, and started rowing faster.
A blinding dagger of light gashed the nearest black cloud, splitting it with a noise like ripping fabric. Then came an explosion that shook the air. Abilene felt the concussion all the way to her heart.
Batty vanished behind a curtain of rain.
Cora rowed furiously as if trying to outrace the approaching storm.
‘Should we head for shore?’ Abilene called.
‘We’ll make it!’ Cora shouted.
Twisting around, Abilene peered forward and saw that they were heading straight for the old dock at the far side of the lake. But they weren’t even halfway there.
Rain suddenly poured down, drenching her.
The boat pitched. She turned back toward the others and grabbed the gunwales. Cora’s hair was matted flat. Raindrops splashed off her bare shoulders, rinsed the blood from her skin, exposed the raw scratches. Finley was facing forward. She’d put down the shotgun. With outstretched arms, she clung to the sides of the tossing boat. Her head and shoulders jerked from side to side. Vivian, abandoning her seat at the stem, lowered herself behind Finley then reached out and held on.
The boat rocked and bounced. Abilene flinched as a wave broke over the bow, slopping her rump with water much colder than the rain.
Lightning cracked the sky. Thunder roared. The rain came down even harder than before.
A sudden lurch nearly threw Abilene overboard. With a gasp of alarm, she hunched down to lower her center of gravity.
The bottom of the boat was awash with water, a puddle erupting with tiny splashes of raindrops as it slopped from side to side, forward and back, sometimes rolling over the white toes of her sneakers. Willow leaves floated on its surface. So did a few dead worms.
Not enough water to worry about, she told herself. It’d take a lot more than this to sink us.
Shouldn’t have taken the boat, damn it.
Stepped right into Batty’s trap.
Come on, give it a break, she thought. Batty didn’t do this. It’s a storm. Storms happen. Even before we got to Batty’s place, Viv had said it was going to rain.
Man, she was right!
But what was that fuckin’ dance Batty was doing? Sure looked like some kind of ritual. A rain dance?
Bull. Batty didn’t do this.
The seat dropped abruptly out from under Abilene. She clenched the gunwales. The bench smacked her rear and she felt as if a bucketful of water had been hurled at her. It splashed high up her back but most of it hit her skirt. Some, spilling beneath her, licked between her buttocks with an icy tongue that made her gasp.
‘We’re taking in an awful lot of water! ’ Finley yelled.
‘Tell me about it! ’ Abilene called to her.
The puddle, now, was ankle deep. She knew it must be worse at the other end of the boat.
Sitting up, she leaned sideways to see past Cora. Finley sat on the bottom, knees up. Vivian had her legs wrapped around Finley’s hips as if they were riding a Matterhorn bobsled at Disneyland. The water surrounding them was high enough to slosh over the tops of Vivian’s thighs.
‘Start bailing!’ Cora shouted.
‘With what?’ Finley called.
‘Try your hands!’
‘Oh, that’ll help a lot!’ In spite of her remark, Finley apparently decided to give it a try. With both hands, she scooped up water from between her legs and hurled it over the side. Much of it blew back into her face.
Thinking that Batty might keep some kind of container aboard, Abilene slid to her knees and managed to turn herself around. Ducking, she peered under the narrow bench. The concrete anchor was there, piled with rope. But nothing that might be helpful for bailing.
It’ll help, she realized, getting rid of the anchor.
She reached under the seat with both hands and started to drag the heavy block toward her. As it skidded closer, a wave dumped water over the back of her head. She blinked her eyes clear and tugged the anchor out against her knees.