Ishmael sat at the table counting his gold, his face lit up like a bandit’s lantern. He weighed the heavy metal in the palm of his dirty hands and proceeded to make several piles, chuckling to himself.
“Do you realize how much more gold we can make with the healing powder?” he asked Adiva, his eyebrows wiggling with glee.
“No,” she said, running warm water over Ali in her bath. The little girl squealed at the sensation of the liquid tickling her skin.
“Far more than we did during the plague.” He chuckled again. “And do you realize that if we slaughtered the rest of the unicorns in the pen, we could be rich beyond our wildest dreams?” His eyes narrowed in delight and his lips curved up in a nasty grin as he envisioned himself parading into town wearing rich linens and shoes made of the finest leather.
“What are you talking about?” Adiva stopped washing the child and flung around to face her husband, her wet hands dripping on her hips. “You’re not going to kill those animals?”
“Why not? I can’t wait around for another plague, and I don’t want to be dragging those wild unicorns all over town so people can touch their horns. It’s easier this way.”
Adiva took two heated steps toward her husband, her shoes scuffling against the floor. “But you’ll kill them all and there won’t be any left afterward.”
“There’s always the spring,” he said. “There’ll be more foals.”
“But you’ll slaughter them just as fast as they’re born. How can you? Those animals were born to run free. You have to leave them be,” she argued, her face locked in a frown.
Ishmael rolled his eyes and gave his usual answer. “They’re just animals, Adiva.”
“Mama, I’m cold,” whimpered Ali, shivering in the bath water.
Their voices rose as the argument grew more intense.
“Mama! I’m cold!” Ali cried again.
“Can’t you keep her quiet?” growled Ishmael, his temper mounting.
“But you musn’t kill the unicorns!” Adiva shouted.
“I’ll do as I please,” he roared back.
“Mama!”
Ishmael threw his hands to his ears and left, slamming the door behind him.
There’s nothing I hate worse than the wailing of a child, except the nagging of my wife.
Walking off his anger, he headed to town, searching for men whose hungry eyes spoke of desperation, men who would do anything he asked for a few coins and a supper. Finding several drifters whose dirty clothes hung in rags, he gathered them together and brought them to his home.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” he explained. “We’ll tie all the unicorns separately so that they can’t reach each other. Then when I give the signal, we’ll all shoot our bows at exactly the same moment and kill them all off. We must be sure they can’t reach each other with their horns or they’ll survive. It’s the only way.”
The hungry, ill-clad men nodded, stealing eager glances at Adiva while she prepared food for them. Ishmael noted the hard jabs of her spoon as she cooked, and how she slammed the plates with a thud, but ignored her.
After the men filled their empty stomachs, he sent them with their bedrolls to the small shed a short walk from the house for the night.
“I’ll get you up just before sunrise,” he said before turning down the path to the house.
The next morning, the sun had already risen when Ishmael awoke.
“What?” he mumbled. “Why did I wake up so late?” He rolled over and sat up. The house was cold and the morning fire hadn’t been lit. All was quiet. Not even Ali’s little voice could be heard.
“Where’s the child?” he said aloud. “Adiva? Adiva, where are you?” He paced around the house searching each room, confused. “She must be outside.”
Ishmael swung the door open. He squinted, his eyes adjusting to the daylight. Then he rubbed them and looked about. Something was wrong. The holding pen ... it was ...
“What?” he shouted. “Where did they go?” His feet pounding, he ran to the shed where the men were bedded down and threw the door open. “What did you do with them?” he hollered. “I give you food and you steal my unicorns?” He aimed a swift kick at one of the men. Missing, Ishmael grabbed him by the shoulders.
The man gave a helpless look at the others. “We didn’t steal your unicorns. Look, we’re all here. No one’s gone. We’ve been here all night.”
“Yeah, besides, where would we put them?” asked another, coming to the first man’s side.
Ishmael did a quick count of the men. Reality struck him full force.
“Adiva!” he shouted, his voice thundering. “Where are you? I give you all the riches you could ever want and this is how you repay me? Adiva?”
The sound of the wind mocked him.
He tore into the house and stopped, seeing what he had failed to notice before. All his wife’s things were gone, and Ali’s too. On the table, lay a laurel wreath like the ones he found beside the unicorn skeletons.
“It was her! She’s the one who’s been leaving the wreaths. She’s been against me all this time!”
Ishmael threw over the table and chairs and pounded his fists on the wall.
“How could my wife deceive me like that? My wife!”
He covered his eyes with his rough hands, backed into a corner, and slid to the ground. He sat there for a time, clenching and unclenching his fists, and then slowly rose, his face transforming to a nasty scowl as his thoughts took shape.
“You want to make a fool of me in front of the whole town, woman? Well, I still have my men, and I’ll hunt every one of those scrawny unicorns down and kill them. And you can’t stop me.”