Coyote Blues

by Karen F. Williams

  The trick was learning to think like a psychopath, a serial killer, for the next two days. They didn’t experience negative emotions when they killed. For them, killing was ego-syntonic, a highly pleasurable and soothing activity that absolutely agreed with their nature—sort of like a tiger pouncing on prey. Tigers didn’t feel anger when they killed. The sensation of sinking teeth into their dinner’s neck was comparable to the flood of endorphins people feel when food in a restaurant is served at the table.

  Not that tigers were psychopaths, but both were predators, and predation was always a source of pleasure.

  Riley left Van Gogh hanging there and pulled down the three coyotes pelts, which she respectfully placed one on top of the other. From the bottom cabinets she took out six bags of Poly-fil, plus a heavy needle and spool of thread, then turned on the Bose music system she’d had down here all month. Climbing up on a stool, she put on her wireless headphones and listened to Sophie B. Hawkins’s “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover.” Recently had it come to her attention that Sophie was singing to a woman in an abusive relationship with a man. She decided it should be her anthem, although Muse’s “Psycho Killer” was a strong contender.

  Riley put the song on repeat while she absently stroked Luna. Think like a psychopath, she reminded herself as she calmly enjoyed her hot chocolate. When she achieved a mental state of balance and emotion felt far away, she started stuffing and sewing the pelts. One more trip to Jim’s traps tomorrow, and there would be nothing left to do but monitor the impending storm and wait for the snow that was on its way.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jim Barret tied the laces of his new Timberland boots, put on a baseball cap, then grabbed a flashlight and slipped a snub-nosed revolver into the pocket of his jacket. He should have checked the traps before dinner, before he took a nap. Hell, he shouldn’t have left them unchecked for three days. That would have been the humane thing to do. But fuck that. That animal deserved an extra forty-eight hours of pain and panic before he dispatched it. And he wouldn’t dispatch it quickly. He’d shoot it in the legs, let it suffer a little more before putting a bullet in its head. Fucking coyote. Fucking varmint. He was pretty sure he’d trapped it. He hadn’t received any footage of it running around the property while he was away.

  All the Nest alerts on his phone were videos of Fiona and Edy going in and out of the house, which meant he’d caught the little fucker. Maybe more than one. Hopefully all five of the ones he’d recorded on his trail cam. And hopefully none had tried chewing off an arm and hit an artery. The fun part was finding them alive. There was something about seeing their eyes, glassy and glazed over with pain, suddenly become bright with fear at his approach. There was something about having absolute power over them and knowing that they knew it.

  Oof! Just thinking about it got him hard. He pulled at the crotch of his jeans, adjusting his balls as he walked through the few inches of snow. After he shot and dragged that smart-ass into the barn, he’d wash up and go bang his wife. She’d taken Edy to a Halloween party at the school and left him dinner. But she’d be back soon. After three days and eight hundred miles on the road, and trying to get home before the storm, he needed to get laid. So did Fiona, whether she wanted it or not. It kept her in line, reminded her who was boss.

  A sharp gust of wind whipped up just then, spraying snow into his face with such force it blew down the collar of his lightweight jacket, the sensation of it melting down his neck and back as sobering as a cold shower. When he’d first gotten home, it hadn’t felt this cold. The air was still, the snow so fine you couldn’t even hear it falling. Now it was blustery and bitter cold, whirling like a snow globe. He thought about turning back for his parka, but he was already halfway through the pasture. Once he was out of the open field, the woods would buffer the wind. He pulled his collar up, holding his jacket tight around his throat with a gloved hand as he leaned into the squall and quickened his pace. He didn’t need a flashlight. It was seven o’clock, but between the white ground and the white sky that seemed to be one big cloud stretched out like the ceiling, it seemed like only dusk.

  Jim reached the tree line, making his way through the brush, and stepped across the flat rocks of the narrow creek, the rubber soles of his boots slipping on the third one. The creek didn’t have much water, just a few inches frozen over, but his boot broke through. He caught himself, cursing, the jerk almost wrenching his back. On impulse he almost took out his pistol and shot the fucking rock that made him slip. Why did everything and everyone have to piss him off? Things were never his fault. Even that fucking anger-management group he had to attend made him angrier than he’d been before it started. Fucking assholes.

  And that Margaret Spencer-bitch diagnosing Fiona with a—what was it called? Narcissistic Victim Syndrome? That’s what he’d seen written in her files. What the fuck did that even mean? If anyone was a victim, it was him. And who the hell was she to talk to the caseworker about convincing his wife and daughter to go a safe house? Fiona and Edy were his. If anyone tried taking his family away, he’d kill them, that cunt of a therapist, too. Why couldn’t people mind their goddamn business and let a man control his own family? He really was a nice guy. If people just did what they were supposed to, Fiona included, he’d never have to lose his temper.

  Jim took off his hat, whacking it against a tree to shake off the snow, then put it back on and jerked off one glove to get inside his breast pocket. He pulled out a flashlight and stuffed the glove in its place. At least the woods offered some shelter from the storm. He could see the snow falling through the trees, hear the ice crystals hitting the tree branches, but at least the wind wasn’t biting his face in here. He turned on the flashlight, pointing it at the snow-covered trail, and his excitement at what he saw next, just twenty feet ahead, made him instantly forget his woes.

  “Woo-hoo! What do we got here? Looky, looky!” Two…no, three coyotes were lying in his traps. He counted three pairs of ears, faces turned away, their fur partially covered in snow. Hopefully they weren’t dead yet, just numb from the cold, passed out from the pain. Now he was sorry he hadn’t come out to check on them earlier, while they were still flipping and flopping around, dancing in place, trying to figure out how to stop the pain and get away.

  “Did you really think you could outsmart me? Wake the fuck up, you little pieces of shit. It’s playtime!” He pointed his flashlight, looking for the rise and fall of their chests, but the beam of light illuminated only the blowing snow.

  He marched forward, focused on their bodies and not watching where he was stepping, until the toe of his left boot jammed up against the hard edge of what must have been a snow-covered rock. He tripped forward, his right leg shooting out to keep from falling, but just as it made contact with the ground, he heard a clanging sound and felt something simultaneously grab hold of his ankle with such force that for a second his mind went blank. The flashlight slipped from his hand. Even through the leather, the pressure on his ankle was unbearable. He shrieked, yanking and yanking his knee wildly to free his leg, but his foot wouldn’t budge.

  He was in a trap. But how could he be? His set was three feet ahead. What was happening? “What the fuck?” Breathing heavily, biting his lip against the pressure, he crouched, his bare hand feeling around in the snow for his flashlight. He fumbled, shaking so violently he could barely hold the light still as he brushed the snow away and saw the vicious steel jaws of a huge leghold around his boot. It was staked to the ground, impossibly heavy, like those old rusted bear traps in the barn.

  No! No, no, no. Oh, fuck! Frantically, he untied his shoelace, thinking to pull his foot out, but the jaws were holding the leather too tight. Growing desperate, he felt the leghold for levers, but this wasn’t a coyote trap you could open by hand. This one needed a set tool.

  The stake. Pulling out the stake was his only hope. Jim tried to get his fingers around it, but it was buried too deep, and the ground was frozen. His own fingers were freezing. He stood, lookin
g around helplessly, patting his pockets for his cell phone. He knew he’d left it in the house, but he felt for it anyway and let out a scream as he reached for the other glove in his breast pocket. Before he could get it on, though, something shoved him from behind, like two hands slamming his back. The force caused him to topple forward, his ankle twisting, arms flying out in front of him to break the fall. There was a simultaneous snap…another snap…as his arm hit the ground, striking the plates of more traps. He didn’t hear the next one, only felt it grab hold of his bare right hand, and he screamed in agony.

  “Well, looky, looky, looky!” said a voice from behind.

  “Who’s there? Help me!” What was going on? Had he gotten caught in another hunter’s traps? The pain and shock were so confusing. He couldn’t talk and think at the same time. “Somebody get me out of here!” With his left foot and right hand caught, he couldn’t even roll onto his back. Whoever had pushed him gave his boot a hard kick.

  “I see you bought a new pair of Timberlands. Nice. Sorry I stole your old pair from the barn, but I couldn’t be out here in the snow walking around and leaving my own prints all over.”

  “What?” It was a woman’s voice. The barn? His shoes? “What the fuck is going on?” Jim struggled, lifting his torso, using his free hand to prop himself up a few inches. It’s all he could manage as she came around holding his flashlight, crouching a few feet in front of him and pushing back the hood of her red jacket.

  “Trick or treat. Or should I say trap or treat? That’s funny, huh? Sometimes I make myself laugh.”

  The snow blew in circles between them, and the bone-crushing pain had him seeing stars, but he remembered her from the powwow…paint on her face…a little on the masculine side with that short, dirty-blond hair. Not that he could see her clearly, but he saw enough to know it was her. The one who refused to give her name. But if she lived in the house that had shown up on his tracking device, he already knew it. He had searched the Department of Buildings online to find out who owned the property. Riley Dawson. The same name he’d seen on one of the office doors when he climbed through the window.

  “Please! Hurry up,” he said, his breaths coming in rasps. “I can’t take it. Get me loose!”

  “I will,” she said and pulled out what looked like a pint of liquor from her pocket. “But first you and I are going to have a drink and an overdue chat about the way you treat your wife and daughter.”

  His wife and daughter? Had she set these traps on purpose? Actually pushed him? “Jesus Christ!” He’d never been in agony like this. It was so bad he could barely breathe. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand either, Jim, why someone would want to abuse a woman like Fiona. I mean, if she were my wife—and she should have been if I hadn’t turned into a werewolf, a werecoyote—I’d only want to love and make her happy, not beat and degrade and humiliate her. And to let your little daughter witness all that? Who do you pray to when you’re in church on Sundays?”

  Marry Fiona? Did she say werewolf? Was she out of her mind, calmly crouched in front of his face and talking so softly? He was freezing, but the pain had his forehead hot and sweating, his face about ready to explode. He couldn’t stand it much longer and let out an angry wail.

  “Shut up,” she said, “before I duct-tape your mouth like you did Fiona’s.”

  Had Fiona told her that? “Fuck you, you fucking cunt.” Jim writhed and wriggled with rage. “What are you, some kind of fucking lesbo?”

  “Shh-shh-shh. No need for name-calling, Jimbo.”

  He looked up at her, panicking, seething, trying not to hyperventilate. He felt like he might pass out. Maybe if he calmed down, apologized for his behavior, she’d let her guard down. If he could just figure out a way to slide his left hand across his stomach and over to the gun in his right pocket without her seeing. He didn’t have a phone, but maybe she did. If he shot her and she fell close enough, he could get to it and call for help. “Okay, okay…I’m sorry. Go on. Let’s talk. I’m listening.”

  “First we drink, then we’ll talk…then I’ll let you go. That’s the dealio, Jimbo.” She unscrewed the top of the pint bottle.

  “I haven’t had a drink in twelve years,” he said, forcing his words out against the pain.

  “That’s good to hear. I mean, look how you treat your wife sober. Imagine what you’d do to her drunk. She’d be dead by now.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Fuck you, too. Now calm down and be nice.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Tonight you will. For my own safety. When I let you go, you’re going to want to chase me. I would, too, if I were you. Having you drunk gives me the advantage. I’ll be able to outrun you. That’s my offer. Take it or leave it,” she said and actually yawned in his face.

  The wind was howling, whipping through the trees, the snow beginning to cover them both. Drunk or not, he would catch this bitch one way or another. And he wouldn’t shoot her. Beating her to death would give him more pleasure. “All right. I’ll drink. Whatever you want. Just hurry the fuck up.”

  She held out the bottle. He could have grabbed her wrist with his one free hand, but what good would that do? He was trapped, at her mercy. He took the bottle, swallowed a slug, and handed it back.

  “All of it,” she said. “It’ll help the pain.”

  It would. He felt the effects right away. It made him want more. Between the alcohol and the snow icing his hand, the throbbing subsided. A tiny bit. Enough to keep him from losing consciousness. His ankle hurt like a motherfucker, though, and his right elbow was getting tired. He couldn’t keep himself propped up any longer. As soon as he drained the bottle, he let it drop from his hand and collapsed, his face coming to rest on the snow-covered rump of a coyote. It felt weird, soft and plump like a pillow, not like a coyote’s bony ass.

  She stood up then, propping his flashlight at an angle in the snow. “I’m sorry, but I need for you to lift your head. These coyotes are coming home with me after we talk.” He wanted to launch forward, grab her throat.

  “I’m warning you,” she said, reading his mind, “if you try anything, I’ll kick you in the face and leave you here to die.”

  He groaned, lifted his chest and rolling back as much as he could while she kneeled, used the palms of her gloved hands to push down on the levers. One by one, she extracted the obviously dead animals from the traps, gathering them by their tails and holding them up in one hand for him to see. The three together would weigh well over a hundred pounds. Unless she was that strong, the carcasses were weightless in her grip.

  “Poly-fil,” she said, as though in answer to this question, then pulled a very long zip tie from her back pocket and tethered their tails together. “These were my friends that your uncle killed,” she said, tossing them aside. “I found their pelts still on stretchers in that heap of junk in the barn. But as they say, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. I decided to repurpose them, let them avenge their own deaths.”

  So, she’d been in his barn. Stolen his shit. And his boots. That was months ago. Had she actually been spying on him since July, planning this for months? Was fucking Fiona in on this? And then it dawned on him. “You’re the one who broke my window.”

  “Yep. That was me, turtle rescuer at large. Gomez is an old friend of mine. We go way back, something like twenty years. I’m just glad I was there to save him from the pot, you evil piece of crap. I’m going to save Fiona and Edy, too.”

  “I won’t hit her ever again. I swear it!” He was fearing for his life now. The pain in his ankle was unbearable. He couldn’t see or feel his hand in the trap. It was numb, probably blue by now. “Come on. Just…” He let out a high-pitched cry and clenched his teeth. “Let’s just talk.”

  “Nah. I changed my mind.” She brushed the snow from her hair and looked around. “You know what? This storm is really bad, and I’m getting cold. I think I’ll head home.”

  “What? Why? Wait!” She wasn’t
going to let him go, was she? Panic set in, and in a sudden fit of rage and desperation he jerked his limbs, jangling the traps, letting out a roar of fear and hatred the blizzard quickly swallowed.

  “Well, Jimbo, now you know how a wild animal feels being caught in a trap. Is the pain worse than the terror? The terror worse than the pain? Hard to say, isn’t it?”

  “You’re a fucking psycho.”

  “No. I just play one on TV.”

  “Crazy bitch. If you kill me, you’ll get caught.”

  “No, you got caught. And guess what? I’m not going to kill you. You’re welcome to go if you can figure out how to open a coyote trap with one hand. Doubtful, though. Oh, and you’ll need a set tool to open the bear trap.” She pointed. “You might have to dig around in the snow for it, but it’s there, somewhere by your foot.”

  “I can’t get to my fucking foot! Jesus, help me!” he hollered.

  “I don’t think Jesus hears you. Personally, I don’t think he even likes you. But if he does, maybe he’ll put it in my heart to come back in the morning. If you’re still alive, I’ll set you free. How’s that for good sportsmanship?”

  He wouldn’t be alive tomorrow. He’d be lucky if he lasted another hour. “You promised to let me go after I drank.”

  “And when you took your wedding vows you promised to love and respect. I guess we both suck at keeping promises.”

  “You’re a fucking psychopath.”

  Her grin was maniacal. “And you’re a sociopath. That makes us even-steven.”

  His lips, although he couldn’t feel them anymore, quivered uncontrollably, and he began to cry, tears warming his frozen cheeks.

  “Aww…you poor thing. What happened to Jim Barrett, the tough guy, the big scary wife beater and animal abuser? You’re nothing but a bully. A pathetic wuss.” She sucked her teeth and shook her head, her lips parting in a contemptuous smile. “We’ve only been here for what? Fifteen minutes? Imagine a coyote enduring this kind of physical and psychological torture for—how many days were you gone? Three days without checking your traps? Shame on you. You’re nothing but a coward and a monster. But you know what? Confession time…I’m a monster, too…but I’m not a coward.” She took a few steps back and unzipped her jacket. “So Happy Halloween, Jimbo. I already tricked you. Now get ready for your treat—a private magic act especially for you.”