Jackals Read online

  He wanted to pass it off as a bad joke, ill-timed and tasteless.

  He didn’t know whether he should try to kill her or not.

  It gratified her, the conflict and confusion, and saddened her a little. This was the bogeyman. This was the nightmare. This is what Momma had warned her against. It had never occurred to her he could be anything more.

  A soft sound in his throat, words trying to get out.

  She faced him, half smiling, wind squinting her eyes, tousling her hair.

  “You knew her pretty well,” she told him.

  He only watched her.

  “She was worse than you thought, though. A lot worse.”

  When he shifted, she only glanced at the gun. “I’m not an expert, Jim, not as good as you, but I couldn’t miss from here.”

  He relaxed, just a little, and she watched him furiously, angrily, trying to work it out, where the mistake had come, why he hadn’t known her brothers back there at Cider Dunn’s.

  She felt no inclination to help him.

  She felt nothing at all.

  The wind blew.

  The stars vanished one by one.

  “You know,” she said at last, wriggling deeper into the corner, shifting her weight, “there are Hunters just about all over the country. You know that?”

  He swallowed, but not from nervousness.

  “It seems that sooner or later, someone wakes up and figures it out. For one reason or another, instead of disbelieving, they decide to get on their white horse and do something about it.” The half-smile again. “Nature’s way of keeping balance, wouldn’t you say?”

  He breathed deeply, slowly.

  “Momma used to tell us, before you came along there was this old man down near Macon, had an RV fitted out like a tank and stayed on the road all the time. Every day.” She shook her head. “Momma said he wasn’t much more than a pain in the ass. Bothersome. You know what I mean? He bit sometimes, but nothing she couldn’t handle.” A long look, narrow-eyed. “And she did handle it, Jim. When she got weary of him, she did handle it.”

  He shifted his gaze to the dark of the road.

  The wind turned damp.

  All the stars were gone.

  “She couldn’t handle you.”

  He looked back; no expression.

  It didn’t bother her.

  “You wait. You bide your time. Momma hated that the most. She hated people who had as much as she did. You sure weren’t any fly to Momma, Jim Scott.”

  Nothing; not a flicker.

  She knew what he was, knew what he could do, and knew that for the moment he couldn’t do a damn thing. Later. Later she’d find out if she had been just as wrong as he’d been; right now she realized she needed him out of her sight. She needed time to consider a hundred questions, one of which was the best way to exploit his weakness. Before, in the planning, in the scheming, she hadn’t been sure it would really go this far, and she’d been scared to death; not of the Hunter, but of what Momma would do. When it happened, when he took her in, when she watched and listened, she had almost given up.

  Then he had told her about the jackals, and she’d nearly wept in rage at how right he was; and she’d nearly laughed in relief, right there in his face.

  She cleared her throat. “Where’s Momma now?”

  Flatly: “That’s Peter’s job. Buried somewhere. I don’t much care where.”

  Head and gun shifted at the same time: “Inside.”

  He obeyed without question, and didn’t question her taking him straight to the spare bedroom, didn’t argue when she ordered him to strip and lie down on his stomach.

  The sight of him didn’t move her. When she touched him, felt his skin, felt his flesh, as she used the clothesline found in a bottom cupboard to tie hands and ankles to the bed’s comers, she felt nothing.

  Almost nothing.

  A faint shiver, nothing more.

  Brushing a hand over a corpse.

  Or testing.

  She almost laughed aloud then, and wanted to say, aren’t you glad you bought me dinner? But she didn’t. She doubted he’d think it funny, and she had a feeling the irony would only enrage him. Instead, she hummed tunelessly to herself as she worked, once in a while clicking her teeth together, a habit she had never been able to break while concentrating.

  And when it was done, the wind slamming against the house and shimmering the panes, she cleared everything off the dresser, the table, and brought it all into the living room and dumped it in the farthest corner. The chair she dragged into the kitchen, from which she took all the cutlery and added that to the pile.

  All the while, he didn’t move.

  All the while, he didn’t speak.

  She searched his room and found no weapons, closed the door and jammed the lock with a nail she found in the kitchen’s utility drawer. He might be able to get in, assuming he could free himself, but not without making a hell of a lot of noise.

  Not that that mattered.

  She was a very light sleeper.

  If he sneezed in his sleep, she would know it and be on her feet before he could step into the hall.

  She locked all the doors, checked the windows and locked them. Moving through the small house in her bare feet. Pausing at the bedroom door to watch him at each pass.

  Not making a sound.

  And when she heard the rain lash the sideboards, she tucked the gun into her waistband and returned to the porch.

  Lord, it was good, the rain cool and warm on her face, and she paced for a while, letting it drench her, refresh her, before she made a small sound deep in her throat and vaulted over the railing.

  And began to run.

  She had no destination, and she wasn’t worried about the others—either the Hunter’s people or her own—but there was stored, cramped energy to be rid of or she’d be awake all night, and that would be a disaster. She needed to be alert, to be able to outthink him, to be able to hold the reins on her temper so she wouldn’t slip, and kill him.

  She dropped to all fours.

  She ran faster.

  A single stroke of lightning over the mountains turned her silver, then returned her to black as she swerved around a tree and raced across a pasture, around the side of a hill, and into a stand of trees trying to dance away from the storm. A small cabin with a light in the back window blocked sight of the road, and she rushed up to it, slammed a fist against the sill, and rushed away, laughing softly.

  Tag, she thought, grinning, and sprinted to the blacktop, so glad to be out, so glad to be moving, she hardly felt the effort.

  Temptation urged her slyly toward the Junction, to run the streets, laugh aloud, scare every damn one of them half out of their beds and set the dogs to howling.

  But she went the other way instead, and another fence, pickets whitewashed and sharp, was easily taken, the mown grass soft and wet beneath her, the sound of her faint in the thunder rumbling through the valleys that split the mountains into teeth. She leapt onto the front porch and stood at the double doors, glancing up at the underside of the porch roof Then she kicked the doors twice, making them shake, and went from standing to racing as a light flared on overhead.

  You’re asking for trouble, she told herself when she reached the road again; too clever sometimes means stupid.

  She didn’t care.

  Everything had ached from standing still for so long; now everything felt great.

  She slowed but didn’t stop, taking the rise and fall of the road at an easy lope, letting the wind do most of the work until she rounded a sharp double bend—what did he call it, the Snake?—and saw the gas station below her. The pump lights were out, bright lights in the food mart to discourage temptation. On a rise behind and facing it was a two-story brick house with a single lamp in a second-story window. Trees looming above it, trying to protect it.

  A driveway opened onto the road from the side garage whose back was toward the house, and she walked along the rough blacktop for a few yards, co
uldn’t help it any longer, and ran, circled the house, laughed in explosive delight, and took off, back up the road.

  Lightning flared.

  This time, when thunder followed, she lifted her head and laughed loudly, as loudly as she could in the lash of the rain.

  You were right, Jimmy Jim James, she thought.

  Just like a jackal.

  Nola sat up, a thin blanket clutched to her bare chest. Cider grunted and rolled onto his side when she poked at him, hissed at him, demanded he get his sorry ass out of bed and go outside, check around. Another try failed to wake him, and she swung her legs over the side and sat there, staring out the window at the trees in back.

  Nothing moved.

  Only the wind.

  A cool wind on a warm night that made her feel cold.

  There were too many gaps and gouges in the walls, in the roof; over the rain, under the thunder, she thought she could hear giggling, and laughing, and someone whispering beneath the window. It made her colder, and she hugged herself, slipped back under the blanket and lay on her back.

  Watching lightning shadows dart across the ceiling.

  When Cider reached for her in his sleep, she grabbed his hand and held on.

  Watching lightning shadows dart across the ceiling.

  At the crash downstairs, Maurice leapt from his bed and raced into the hallway, not caring that he was naked. His angels moaned sleepily, and he hushed them with a gesture, cocked his head and listened to the last echoes of the knocking settle into the dark corners. Then he hurried down the carpeted staircase, opened the secret closet door, and took out the shotgun he had cleaned and replaced only a few hours ago. From the dining room he carried a chair much too hard for much comfort and set it squarely before the front doors.

  He sat. cradled the weapon, and listened to the storm.

  When lightning flashed, the stained glass looked too bright, almost obscene; when thunder came, the whole house went black.

  He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard laughter. heard someone prowling around outside. But he’d be damned if he’d go out there, just to put his mind at ease.

  A holy thing had been done tonight, and now the Devil had come to haunt him.

  Jonelle woke when she heard Peter throwing up in the bathroom. Disgusted, she closed her eyes, willing the storm to go away, willing her dreams to start again.

  When she heard it out there, heard the laughter above the rain. she threw aside the coverlet and ran to the window, wearing nothing but a T-shirt that barely reached to her waist. From here she could see the back of the station glowing on its tarmac island, the overpass, and the interstate beyond; and the black of Potar Ridge rising on the far side of the long road to town.

  There was nothing out there.

  Rain sheeted and steamed, the wind tried to get through the pane, but there was nothing out there.

  Gooseflesh prickled her buttocks, her thighs; right hand absently rubbed left arm.

  Peter groaned.

  Then something laughed in the yard, first below her, then away.

  She backed away until the bed touched her, ready to call her brother, rolling her eyes when she heard him topple slowly to the floor and begin his snoring again. She reached over to the dresser and picked up knife and whetstone, pushed until she sat in the center of the mattress, and listened as hard as she could, frowning so deeply her brow began to ache.

  She heard the horn of an eighteen-wheeler, and the distant crawl of thunder.

  And her hand was trembling badly as she drew the blade across the stone.

  He had refused to permit himself a show of heroics. Small satisfaction, but it was enough for a while.

  Damaged pride stung, but the anger was worse. Not at being fooled, because there had been no signs, no clues. He wasn’t a god; he didn’t know it all and couldn’t conjure images with a mystic pass over a crystal ball. And not at being humiliated, because he hadn’t been, and he wasn’t. Go up into the Smokies and track a spoor, sometimes the prey left false signs and sent you down instead of up. It was part of the hunt. Fair enough when one of the parties was going to die.

  No.

  It was the ease of It.

  Construct a reliable fortress, develop the plan. set the guards. make the forays, make the kill … and nobody notices the damn crack in the wall. just wide enough to let the enemy take a good look inside.

  And slip in without so much as a ripple or a sigh.

  Every few minutes he stirred to keep from stiffening, and tested the clothesline halfheartedly, knowing it gave him just enough slack to keep his skin from burning, and placed just so to keep him where he was. At one point, he had no idea when. he imagined himself gathering every ounce of strength for a prodigious heave and tug, except that all he did was flip the bed over and smother.

  The image almost made him smile.

  What kept the smile distant was the sheet drawn up to his waist. He hadn’t heard her return, hadn’t heard her in the room. That meant he had dozed. All the anger, all the questions, and eventually the boredom of it, of lying face down, naked, tied to his own bed, had put him to sleep. Not exactly the stuff of gallant warriors.

  The room was warm, almost stifling. After closing the house down, she had turned the air conditioning off, and he could feel the sweat begin to bead along his spine, at the backs of his knees; it wouldn’t be long before the sheet beneath him became clammy.

  He shifted as his shoulders began a subtle nagging ache, the springs creaked, and she was there.

  The door was behind him, but he knew she was there.

  When he raised his head briefly, her shadow was on the wall, not a foot from his brow.

  Watching.

  “I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to keep checking.”

  His voice was rough, his throat dry.

  He sounded helpless.

  But her silence was worse.

  “I met him, you know.”

  She didn’t move.

  He stared at the wall. “His name was Bert. Bert Maddock. The man in the RV. You wouldn’t know that. But did you know he was damn near sixty-five? I should be in such shape at that age. He had flyers. Made them up himself, copied them wherever he could, handed them out at shopping malls and post offices, places like that. You know why he hated you? Because you made him look like a senile old fart with nothing better to do while he hung around, waiting to die.”

  He coughed, cleared his throat.

  “I only saw him the one time, some roadhouse in South Carolina. I was still feeling my way around, if you know what I mean. He gave me a couple of ideas and told me he’d keep in touch. Haven’t seen him since, never sent me a card. I figure he’s dead. Right?”

  Rain on the window.

  The wind crying in the hills.

  He wondered if this was when he was supposed to lose control, to beg for his life, beg forgiveness, thrash around and make himself a fool.

  “Why didn’t you do anything?” he asked instead. “You had a gun. You let them die without a fight. Why didn’t you do anything?”

  She was gone.

  His cheek sank a little deeper into the pillow, and he allowed himself a twitch of a knowing smile. She didn’t have to answer; unless he had lost it all in a couple of hours, he already had a pretty fair idea:

  She wanted Ruby’s place.

  A woman like Rachel, as far as he was able to understand her, wasn’t ever going to be content sitting on the side like a good little girl, letting the others do her thinking and all the work. Maybe Ruby knew it; maybe she didn’t.

  The shadow returned.

  A hand touched his shoulder, and he waited a second before turning his head.

  She knelt beside the bed, a glass of water in her hand, clearly disappointed he hadn’t jumped or made a sound.

  It was awkward, the drinking with her holding the glass, and some of the cool liquid dripped to the pillow; but all the while, his gaze didn’t leave her face, those eyes, a gaze as dead as he cou
ld make it.

  When the glass was empty, she sat back, knees pulled to her chest, fingers locked over her shins. Her hair was wet, her shirt still damp and clinging darkly here and there to the turn of her figure.

  are they human?

  He watched her.

  yes, I think so.

  He wasn’t sure.

  “You should get some sleep,” she told him.

  “I would if you’d stop sneaking around.”

  That startled her. “You can hear—” She looked away.

  Well, he thought; score one for the dopes.

  A gust of wind snapped rain pellets against the pane and rattled the gutter. He could hear the thunder lumbering east toward Virginia.

  Her eyes narrowed. “If you think I’m going to respect you, even if—”

  “Honey,” he said dryly, “why the hell should you? I don’t respect you at all.”

  He almost closed his eyes when she rose angrily and slapped him. More than a slap. It was a resounding punch, and it hurt, and his vision swung for a few seconds, blurred by unwanted automatic tears.

  When it cleared, she was gone.

  He closed his eyes, sighing a scold at his big mouth, and opened them again, sighing again when he realized he’d fallen into another doze. The sheet was still at his waist, but his left leg had been cut loose, and he had pulled it up in his sleep. A test proved his wrists still securely bound to the bed, and his other leg was in the warning stages of a cramp.

  Though he could still hear the rain, the wind had eased.

  He supposed he should be thankful she hadn’t killed him yet; but he didn’t think she would. Had that been her idea, she would have done it long ago. On the porch. Her kind didn’t play with their victims. There was the hunt, and the kill, nothing more than that.

  Not, he thought sourly, unlike his own, self-appointed role.

  He frowned.

  On the porch …

  Damn.

  Dope is right.

  Of course Ruby knew what Rachel wanted.

  He had no idea how much of Rachel’s cross-country story was true, but the chase at the end was; he was sure of it now. Over the years he had been here, there had been other pretenders to Ruby’s traveling throne, and they all had been dealt with, one way or another. He knew Maurice believed the incident a trap, Rachel showing up when and where she did. What that didn’t explain was the how—the injuries, the battered car.