Inside his tepee, Captain Eli slept on a platform covered by a buffalo hide. A teenage woman and Goshen, their son, were next to him, also sleeping. Quinn and Dom lay on rugs on one side of the bed and Ruby on the other. The prisoners each had a fifty-pound ball-and-chain anchored to one leg and their arms tied behind their back. The ball-and-chains were antebellum relics that Eli stole from the Confederacy museum in Vicksburg.
Snorri glided into the tepee and over to Ruby. Once his eyes adjusted to the dark, he drank in her face, perfectly reposed as if she were marble. According to legend, her skin had been darkened to protect her from sun and her hair shorn as a sign of respect for she was the daughter of a Norn, one of the giantesses who sat at the foot of Yggdrasil. It was the Norn who had carried Snorri’s fate in their hearts since he was born. Without the Norn to guide him, he would have died a violent death long ago.
He squatted beside Ruby. He laid his bow on the canvas floor of the tepee. A watchman cap was pulled over his head and brow. The silver pendant of Thor’s Hammer was tucked inside his shirt. He’d removed his swastika earrings and leather wristbands. He wore long sleeves to cover his tattoos. He didn’t want Ruby to think he was a Nazi fanatic. He was a poet-warrior like his namesake, both gentle and fierce.
“Awake! Awake!” he mutely mouthed the words.
Minutes passed. Ruby’s eyelids fluttered. Her weight shifted. She called faintly for Quinn and shifted again. A minute more, her eyes widened with amazement at the sight of Snorri only inches away.
“Hush!” He motioned with his finger on his lips.
She felt his breath fanning her face. As she started to yell, he slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth, scooped her up, slung the chain with the iron ball over his shoulder, and tucked his bow under his arm-pit. Soundlessly, he tiptoed out of the tepee into the wild rainy night.
Ruby struggled. However, struggle was painful and resistance futile. Her abductor was strong and determined. He was testing his strength, matching it to the expectations of the gods.
“I would never hurt you,” he whispered.
She felt his eyes boring into her, eyes that would eat her if they could.
“I’m taking you away from Patriot bullshit Park.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t wanna go?”
The shaking increased.
“Don’t be afraid of me.”
Tears rolled down Ruby’s face.
“Hush,” he soothed. “You hiding already, I can tell. Hiding from scum, law, your family, I don’t care. You and me, we can hide together from Jesus Jenkins. He won’t ever find us. I swore an oath to Odin.”
Snorri laid her under the Douglas fir where she would stay dry. He examined the chain around Ruby’s ankle. He snuck back inside the tepee and stretched out in her spot. He watched and waited while his eyes adjusted to the cone of darkness. Maybe he could find the key.
Eli Jenkins opened his eyes. Something had disrupted his sleep. Something foreign had come on the premises. He listened closely. Raccoons occasionally wandered around. A moose once pulled down a clothesline. He retrieved the revolver under his pillow. He scanned the interior of the tepee: rugs, clothing, a rocking horse, the sleeping prisoners. Their youth touched him. He was touched by their fear. Like children, it was fear that made them compliant. Of the three, the girl was the least fearful. He especially liked the girl. It was girls who usually got him in trouble. He would try to be sensible. However, he couldn’t promise Jesus or himself to behave. The girl reminded him too much of Lucille.
Eli listened for anything besides the usual noises of the forest and the sleeping restless bodies. He listened and dozed. Finally he slept.
Once Snorri heard Eli’s even breathing, he crawled through the flap of the teepee. He went to Ruby and cut the ties around her hands. Then he picked her up with the ball-and-chain and sprinted through the woods to a fire road that went north away from camp, creek, and river.
After a mile, he rested. He laid Ruby down on a bed of duff. He was wet with rain and sweat, shivering, overheated, chilled. From a rock ledge, he removed a stash of water, crackers, a sweatshirt, sandals, arrows, and a flashlight.
“I’ll take off the tape,” he said, putting his forefinger to his lips. “If you swear. Swear?”
He detected a sparkle of trust in her eyes. He lifted the tape from her mouth. He offered her a drink. She took a swallow of water, then let out a piercing scream which ricocheted through the woods. It awakened both Jenkins brothers. Troy heard it too and groped for the steps in the tank.
“Joab, cocksucker, where the fuck are the steps?” Troy shouted.
Eli rose and walked outside. The rain had turned to light mist. Overhead a fraction of moon glimmered. Clouds danced the tarantella. The storm was nearly spent.
He checked inside Justice’s tepee. “You hear that?”
“Screech owl,” Justice said.
“Screech owl,” Eli repeated and returned to bed.
Snorri replaced the tape. He retied Ruby’s wrists. “When you no longer doubt me,” he said.
She watched him towel his hair and change his shirt. She watched him study the sky. She listened to what sounded like prayers. She wasn’t sure if he was stoned or deranged. When he finished his ritual, he picked her up again and walked purposefully northward, always north.
She looked for markers or signs but nothing stood out. On both sides of the fire road were trees. In the distance, more trees. She thought they’d probably get lost and starve. Snorri’s canteen of water and food wouldn’t last long. In a year or so, their skeletons would be discovered. Hunters or hikers, forest rangers clearing weeds, someone would find them and be horrified, especially by the ball-and-chain. That would make a sensational headline. They’d send out an impression of her teeth to a forensic dentist. Eventually she’d be identified by George Heller, DDS, in Santa Fe. He would verify the teeth belonged to Ruby Ryan from Zamora, New Mexico, who mysteriously disappeared in the Bitterroot Wilderness. Finally her mother would learn what happened to her. That made Ruby happy. “Closure,” they called it. Kate would have closure. At least, there would be something to bury.
Ruby leaned back in Snorri’s arms. She looked at the underside of his jaw, the deep dimple in his chin, the tattooed scroll around his throat. She didn’t recognize the language. She picked out umlauts and letters dotted by rings. Sanskrit? Arabic? He was breathing heavily but his demeanor was calm. Except for an occasional glance at Ruby, he focused straight ahead.
When the road shifted south, his pace slowed. He stopped. He waved his flashlight at the edge of the brush. There was a two-foot cairn made of schist.
As Snorri stepped with Ruby into the rain-drenched forest, she remembered Justice Jenkins’s words: trade the devil for a witch.