The tip of her finger touched something hard and narrow. She tried to remember what was in there but couldn’t. Might be a credit card. She flattened it against the outside of the pocket and tried to work it up. Her finger slipped. She wriggled it back down, pressed against the object, tried again to slide it up.
Bo was elaborating on the tune with riffs of fast notes. She wanted it to last, perhaps his playing was keeping Dale and Eudora and Sylvie away from her. When he stopped, they might return. With Richard.
She managed to get her index finger inside the pocket and to get a tentative grasp on whatever the thing was. She had it, lost it, got it again. Pressing the pad of her middle finger down and the nail of her index finger up, she held onto it long enough to get its top edge over the top seam of her pocket.
She had to stop. Just for a minute. She had no more strength and no more feeling in her hand. She wasn’t even certain that she still held on.
Outside the barn, she could hear people talking, horse hooves passed by, the rev of an ATV engine.
The anthem ended to cheers. They’d be back soon. She had to get whatever it was out of her pocket. She heard herself grunt and thought she might have it in her hand. She felt tingles but nothing that told her for sure. As fast as she could, she raised her shoulder and removed her hand from her pocket, praying that she held whatever it was in her hand.
She explored the shape with her deadened thumb and despair flooded her. It was just a credit card. She remembered sliding it into her pocket when she paid for her ticket.
Her hands had moved a bit in their ties as she struggled to grasp the card. She didn’t know what her bonds were made of, rope or baling twine or wire. She didn’t hear Dale’s voice until he was close by.
“Grab the other handle, okay? Let’s take this out to the trailer.”
There was no answer, but she felt her feet rise higher than her head. Whoever had grabbed that end wasn’t strong enough, and dropped it. Somehow Billie managed not to make a sound when she hit the ground.
“Use two hands,” Dale said.
Whoever they were lifted the tack box with her in it. She felt them half-stagger out the stall door then around to the side of the barn where the trailer was parked. The metal door banged open, and she was heaved inside. Someone grabbed a handle and dragged the box away from the door. Every bump sent jolts of pain through her, but she kept quiet, holding her moans inside.
“Give me the key!” Dale’s breathless voice sounded annoyed. “Hurry.”
She heard the gear bags that hung on the inside of the trailer’s tack room door bump and their contents rattle. She heard the key turn the lock, and they were gone.
She had shifted position. Her hands lay atop a soft cloth lump. She wiggled her fingers into the material, searching for something, anything. Tears choked her, tears she halted as fast as she could. She didn’t want to drown on her own damned snot.
The rags felt greasy, and she tried to imagine what they’d been used for. Then the burn started—slowly at first, then spreading and intensifying over her palms, between her fingers, onto the backs of her hands and up her wrists.
Pain made her want to scream but she couldn’t. She had to think. Maybe there was something else nearby, something useful. She forced her hands deeper into the saturated fabric, intensifying the burn. Nothing. She dug deeper, feeling like she was sticking her arms into flames. She felt something hard and thin, didn’t know what it was but pressed her wrists against it, harder and harder, trying to saw across it. With two short, stabbing jolts, her wrists separated. She wrenched at the blindfold then pulled the gag out of her mouth. In the dark of the tack box, she couldn’t see anything. She patted around, her hand finally touching something hard and curved. She hoped for a hoof pick but quickly realized it was just a useless horseshoe. But maybe not useless.
She wedged it between the lid and body of the box and wiggled it to the lock. There she slammed it as hard as she could with her hand. The lock held, but the top edge of the box gave. She saw light and struck again, then again and again. Finally, she was able to wedge an arm into the space and force it open.
She crawled out and looked around. The door was locked, so she couldn’t exit that way. But the divider between the tack room and the first stall didn’t reach the floor. She dropped down and slid beneath it then crawled underneath the next one. She pushed on the main door to the trailer, the one the horses entered through. She heard the latch rattle. The door didn’t budge. She looked around. Light poured into the space from narrow slats near the top of the trailer’s sidewalls, spaced too closely together for her to get her hand through. But the slats at the top of the back door had a little more room. She crammed her hand between the bottom slat and the solid part of the door, squeezing her knuckles and scraping her skin. She pushed her forearm into the space as far as it would go and felt
