Chapter Fifty-Six

Cleg waited as long as he dared before hollering for help. Getting into his role as a stabbing victim, he flopped around on the floor, dabbing spots of blood here and there. By the time Margo and Toby rushed into the house, he’d worked himself into a lather of pseudo-outrage.

“She stabbed me then took off. Threatened to finish me off if I so much as peeped before she got away.”

Margo stooped, studied Cleg’s wound. “I’ve cut myself worse with my toenail clippers.” She snorted and sneered into her husband’s face. “Could you possibly be more of a wimp?”

“I could’ve been killed—” Cleg whined.

Margo lifted her foot and stepped down on her husband’s wounded arm. “But you weren’t, were you?” She smiled at Cleg’s pain-filled yelp, then spoke over her shoulder. “Toby, you go get the kid. Mort and I’ll catch Granny; she can’t have gone far.” She turned back to her husband. “Get up. We’ve got work to do.”

Puffing, grunting, and groaning, Cleg made several attempts to get up, but flopped back onto the floor after each effort. “I can’t get up, Cream Puff. I gotta have some help.”

“Oh my Lord. Mort, help your father.”

Mort stooped and grabbed Cleg under his arms. “You gotta put some weight on your own feet. I can’t lift you by myself.”

After a spate of cursing and flailing, Cleg stood upright.

“Let’s go.” Margo grabbed her husband’s arm. Ignoring his groans, she pulled him toward the door. “Where’s Toby?” she asked Mort.

“He took off after the old lady, I think,” Mort said.

“And where’s the girl?” Margo raised her fist toward Mort. “You just run in here and leave her alone?”

“Same as you,” Mort snarled.

“You search every inch of this place. Start with the barn.” Margo pulled on Cleg’s arm. “We’re going to drive up and down every road between here and Wyoming, if we have to.”

“The old lady took my keys, Honeydew. We’ll have to take Mort’s truck.”

“How am I supposed to get home?” Mort said.

“Call Toby to pick you up.” Margo-The-Shrike shoved Cleg out the door and onto the back porch. With her hand clamped on his upper arm, she pulled him across the yard toward Mort’s pickup. “If we lose out because of you, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

Suddenly, like a slide show run amok, memories of his mistreatment tumbled through Cleg’s head. Margo hitting and berating him, pulling his hair and slapping his face. Taunting him, questioning his manhood. He ran his fingers over a scar on his forearm—a bite mark, barely dimmed, even after all these years.

Thirty years of his life gone, vanished into a black hole.

He couldn’t do it any longer. Not for one more day. Even if he had to get another mortgage on the house to pay for a divorce, he’d do it.

As Margo dragged him near a thick sumac bush, he jerked free from her grip, pretending to lose his balance. When she automatically made a grab for him, he shoved her, hard as he could, toward the bush. He giggled as Margo’s subsequent fighting-to-stay-upright jig failed, and she fell headlong into the sumac. A few pokes and scratches from the sharp twigs would serve her right. As rebellion went, it wasn’t much, but it made him feel ten feet tall.

“You pig, I’ll rip your—” But Margo never finished her threat.

To Cleg’s surprise, the bush came alive. Leaves rustled, and branches moved at the same instant a dozen or so rattlesnakes of all sizes covered Margo’s upper body. She screamed and thrashed as what appeared to be a startled mama snake and her writhing new-born babies repeatedly plunged their poison-filled fangs into the woman’s face, neck, and shoulders.

Margo’s screams brought Mort rushing back from the barn. Standing side by side, he and Cleg stared in shocked silence at the macabre dance playing out in front of them.

“We have to get her out of there,” Mort said. He made a move to grab Margo’s ankles and pull her out of the den.

But Cleg knocked Mort’s arms aside. “If you get too close, they’ll come after you, too. You’ll be no use to anyone then. It’s best to wait a bit.”

Mort nodded. “Right, you’re right.”

Father and son stood spellbound until Margo stopped screaming and lay limp on the ground. As if on cue, the snakes pulled their fangs free and slithered away in different directions.

Cleg squelched a chuckle and wondered if the snakes had any idea how lucky they were to escape before Margo could bite them back. At Mort’s shocked expression, he regained his composure.

He’d heard about that thing called Karma, but never really believed in it, at least, not until then.

“We ought to call an ambulance,” Mort said. “We should do it now, before she comes to and starts moving around. If she starts moving, it’ll make the venom move through her body faster.” He pulled his cellphone out of his hip pocket and punched the screen.

Cleg nodded. “That’s the thing to do, Boy, you go ahead and call for help.” He breathed in the clean desert air and looked around the farm.

It was a nice place. People had been happy there. At least, they had before Digger managed to mess it up. That was just one of many unhappy outcomes to be laid at The Shrike’s feet.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Margo’s face had begun to swell, and her breathing was rapid and labored. She’d vomited a couple of times.

Unable to look away from her swollen, nearly unrecognizable face and soundlessly moving lips, Cleg whistled a golden oldie and mentally sang the only lyrics he could remember: Now I’m free…

Cleg’s dad once told him about a man who was bitten by a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. The guy hadn’t realized how bad it was for several hours, so he didn’t get to the hospital for the antivenin that would have cleared it up. When the skin around the bite swelled and started turning black, he realized he was in trouble. By the time he got help, irreversible damage had already been done. At some point, his kidneys shut down. Of course, that was before the time of dialysis machines. Though it had become rare for anyone to die of snakebite, without immediate help, damage to vital organs could send a person into his endgame.

Endgame.

Unable to hide the joy erupting from every pore, Cleg’s face creased in a huge grin. Even if Margo survived, she’d never be the same. She’d be weak, vulnerable, unable to care for herself. She might even need round the clock attention, the kind of attention found in a convalescent home. And by the time she got out, he’d be long gone.

Reflecting that he should have been feeling guilty, angry, worried, or some other heavy emotion, Cleg tried to gin up a smidgen of sadness. Instead, like an unstoppable tidal wave brought on by an undersea earthquake, he felt only relief.

Life was suddenly worth living.