Lila Jean and her three squadmates moved through the woods as discreetly as they could. Hepzibelle and Junie Grievance were the two cheerleaders taking point. They were on high alert (the freshman Hepzibelle's being much a much more jittery high alert), guns constantly levelled and ready to fire. Louise, bringing up the rear with Lila Jean, was ready as well, one hand fingering the trigger of a rifle and the other hand cradling the barrel. Lila Jean, however, had an air of unassuming fearlessness about her. Her gun was still slung on her shoulder. As she walked, calmly observing her surroundings and picking at her teeth with a toothpick, the weapon bumped up against her backpack.
“Thaink the other group got her yet?” asked Louise.
“Reckon not,” said Lila Jean peaceably. “We did hear that gunshot, but one shot don't make a fight. Prob'ly just Jefra Mae and Mynah Bird goofin' off.”
“Mighty odd neither of us come across'd her yet.”
Lila Jean didn't say anything. She craned her neck to look up in the branches of a tree, continuing to pick away at her teeth.
It was pretty odd. This Campbell kid was a city gal, wasn't she? She shouldn't know Dick Christmas about hunting or being in the woods. So why hadn't they been able to track her down yet?
She spat.
Then, as she was looking at the ground, she noticed something. She whistled to call the two point girls back.
“What's up?” asked Junie Grievance. The gun she had brought along was a double-barreled shotgun.
“We gettin' closer? We gettin' closer?” asked Hepzibelle eagerly, eyes shining with excitement over her eye black. “Ah'm gettin' bored! You tole me we was gonna be a-killin' people an' puttin' em in holes! You tole me that di-reckly, Lila Jean! Ah got so excited when you tole me that! Mah first people hunt! Is you a-renegin' on your word?!”
Lila Jean nodded at the ground. “On contraire. Seems as though we're on the raht track.” The other three looked. There was a spattering of blood on the leaves of a small weed.
“Reckon she's been through here,” observed Lila Jean. She looked around, then zeroed in on the root of a tree that was protruding from the ground. Another few droplets of blood glistened on it, still wet.
Junie Grievance grabbed her cowboy hat by the brim and adjusted it. “Well heckfire, looks as though we got us a trail.”
Lila Jean sniffled, then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Sure as hell,” she said blankly.
She ordered the group to fan out, and they proceeded on their way, Lila Jean adamantly following the trail.
The Campbell girl was losing a lot of blood. Lila Jean hoped when she reached the end of this trail there'd be a living person waiting for her. It would have been disappointing if she finished off the last of the Campbell clan with some pathetic little flesh wound.
The group followed the trail to the mouth of a gorge. The cliffs on either side were at least one-hundred feet tall and the bottom was dry, with mossy rocks poking up through the pine needles and patches of scrub grass. Splattered across one of the rocks was a splash of bright crimson.
Louise wasted no time in stooping down to swab some of the blood onto her fingers. “Still warm,” she commented. She brought her fingers to her mouth.
“Hey now, don't do that,” interrupted Lila Jean. “Campbells gots venom in their veins. That's what mah pappy tole me.”
Louise laughed. “Yore pappy was tellin' you stories.” She licked the blood off her fingers, then her eyes widened. “Gol-lee. Does she ever got good, strong blood. This'un's a fighter, Lila Jean. This'un's a fighter.”
“You reckon?” asked Lila Jean, looking at the blood. The sense of doubt, the vague unease she felt earlier, began to return.
“Oh yeah. She's a fighter. Maybe even a kicker,” gushed Louise hungrily. “Ah cain't wait ta hold her so you can shoot her, Lila Jean. Ah simply cain't wait.”
“Me either!” squealed Hepzibelle. “Let's rush on in there an' do what we do best! Yeehaw!”
Lila Jean spat. “Ah reckon we oughtn't not to,” she said dully. “Ah don't know much about traps, but somethin' about this here sitchyation seems migh-tee fishy ta me.”
“So what should we do, huh?” asked Junie Grievance. “You're the leader of this here galavantation. Ah cain't sit around here all day, mah daddy still wants me ta milk the cows when ah get home.”
The glasses-wearing girl slowly considered their options. Staring at the bloodstain, she took her trucker cap off, scratched her head, then replaced it. Finally, she suggested, “Reckon we should split up. Louise an' me'll go up top, get us a good high vantage point, take a look around. If thet Campbell gal aims to get the jump on us, maybe we kin get the jump on her afore she's able ta do so.”
To the other two girls, she said, “An' if she is in the gorge...if you two stay here on this end, an' keep your guard up, she cain't come out this way. When we're done searchin' up top, we'll come around the other end, and flush her out towards you.” She was quiet for a moment. She looked as though she had more to say but forgot what it was. Instead, she shrugged. “Least, that's mah perspective. Ah don't pertends ta be an expert.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Nobody else had a better perspective than that though, so the group halved. Lila Jean and Louise headed around to find an easy way up to the top of the gorge, and the other two girls stayed behind.
For a while, Hepzibelle and Junie Grievance were on full alert, but the wait for a signal from Lila Jean and Louise proved to be longer than they expected, and gradually their nerves settled, and their guard relaxed. What did they have to worry about? It was the two of them against one girl, who wasn't even armed. Plus, they had Louise and Lila Jean as their eyes in the sky.
While relaxation suited Junie Grievance just fine, though, Hepzibelle clearly found it sort of unnerving.
“They sure been gone a while,” she simmered, pacing back and forth in the shade of a tree. “Thaink we should go after 'em? Ah thaink so. Do you thaink so?”
Junie Grievance was sitting on the ground with her back against the gorge's rocky cliff face, legs crossed. She had her rifle lying across her lap, while she used her knife to pick a deer tick out of her arm. “Ah don't b'lieve thar's any call fer that. S'pose Lila Jean tried ta flush out that blonde what's-'er-face and we weren't here? We'd ruin the whole plan.” She lifted the knife for a moment to yawn into the back of her hand, then went back to work. “An' knock that off, yer makin' me nervous.”
But Hepzibelle didn't knock it off. Instead, she paced faster. “Dadgum it, ah didn't come along on this trip just to wait around, no ma'am!” the youth rambled. “Ah came ta put people in holes, that's what ah did! It's riddickerlus that you an' mahself, two strong, able-bodied young women, should be sittin' idle instead o' huntin' an' killin'! Yes, it's riddickerlus, that's what it is!”
“Well, it's Lila Jean's feud. Figger we oughta do it how she wants us to,” said Junie Grievance, twisting the knife gently. “When it's yer feud, we'll do it yer way. Ah know yer excited but them bullets'll be flyin' soon enough. A hunter's gotta have patience, kid.” Finally prying the tick from her arm, she brushed it onto a rock and crushed it with the end of the blade's handle. “Now, why don't you just sit yer ass down an' shut-”
A thrown rock struck the cliff face next to her, making her jump. The rock bounced back the way it came and clattered across the stony ground. She sprang up to her feet, holstering her knife and gripping her rifle. “The hell was that for?”
“Weren't me, Junie Grievance. Came from that-a-way,” said Hepzibelle. Her gun was pointed at some bushes a hundred feet or so away from the gorge, so Junie Grievance pointed hers there too. Hepzibelle grinned. “Ya think it's her? Do ya do ya? Huh huh huh? Oh boy!”
Another rock was lobbed at them. The eye-blacked girl ducked out of the way, then shot at the bush. A flash of movement and a glimpse of yellow hair showed Chase running away into the woods.
“Ooh! It's her! It really is her!” hollered Hepzibelle, unable to resist running off after her. “Run all ya want, ya blonde polecat! You got the devil on your trail now! Yeehaw!”
“No, you idjit! Get back here!” ordered Junie Grievance, but it was no use. The freshman fired an exultant shot into the air as she disappeared into the brush.
Junie Grievance stood there nervously, gun trained on the spot where her junior disappeared. On pins and needles, she waited, and listened.
After a few moments, she cast a glance over her shoulder at the gorge, then ran after her squadmate. “Shit,” she cursed.
…............
“Come out, come out, wherever ya are,” cooed Hepzibelle, an excited grin on her face. She made her way through the dense foliage, gun first. While she did, she started singing an ad-libbed tune. “Ah'm gonna shoot you dead, ah'm gonna shoot you dead! An if mah bullet flies straight an' true, ah'll shoot ya dead afore I'm through!”
Hearing a creek flowing up ahead, she made her way toward the sound. As she got closer to it, the amount of deciduous plants as opposed to evergreens increased, although with fall upon them most were hanging it up for the year. Dead leaves littered the ground.
She reached a clearing by the side of the creek, walked out into it, and looked around. The creek was about ten feet wide. It was shallow at this time of the year, perhaps three inches of water battling against and barreling over rocks rounded and smoothed from years of fighting.
She was exposed here. A more experienced hunter might have avoided a place this open in such a situation. But Chase had observed her reckless nature and had planned for it.
A tomahawk twirled out of the trees, burying itself in the girl's upper right arm—the one attached to her trigger finger. She cried out in pain and fell to one knee, letting go of her weapon.
Gritting her teeth, she looked at the tomahawk. It was little more than a rough, pointed stone wedged into a short, heavy stick and tied in place. She recognized the cords used in its cobbling-together: two bracelets, each lifted off one her squadmates.
Chase chose this time to reveal herself. She calmly emerged from her hiding place, walking out of the bushes and standing at the edge of the clearing. Hepzibelle looked up at her and saw she had two more tomahawks hanging on her waist, and a spear longer than Chase was tall on her back.
Clenching her teeth, the Lawman Creek girl tried to raise her gun, but found she couldn't bend her arm without inciting a massive pain to fire through her. She cried out again.
“Not move arm,” said Chase, walking towards her without fear. “Right now, you heal up in time, be good as new. Move too much, with axe in? Not for sure.”
“You li'l...” the girl growled. “This is mah first hunt, ah am s'posed ta put you in the ground...an ah aims to! Ah aims to!”
She tried to stand up, but Chase pushed her back down. She took the girl's gun, popped the cartridge out, and tossed it into the creek, rendering it useless. She dropped the gun, then grabbed the handle of the tomahawk. Putting her foot on the girl's chest for leverage, she wrenched it free. The girl cried out again. Blood gushed from the wound in spurts timed to her heartbeat.
“You know tie up wound, yes?” asked Chase. Hepzibelle gave a slow, angry nod. “Good. You stay here. Hurt, no gun, you not can fight. Just wait till this all over.”
But the girl forced herself up to her feet. “Lahk hell! You is mah first kill! Ah will never let you get away!”
She threw a punch at Chase with her good arm. Chase easily stepped back out of the way. Another punch, and Chase retreated further. She felt cold water around her feet. She was in the creek now.
Hepzibelle pushed her further back, until they were both standing in the creek, the eye-blacked girl throwing punches and kicks and Chase dodging all of them without retaliating.
Chase felt a slick, slime covered rock beneath her foot. She led Hepzibelle there, and as expected, the freshman put her weight on it and slipped, hurling herself forward.
At the same time, Chase brought her knee up, colliding with the underside of the girl's jaw with a loud crack. Her head whipped back and she fell into the water.
And there she stayed. She laid face down, water babbling around her prone body, tousling her hair. Chase had ended the fight with her first blow.
Grabbing the girl's arms, Chase dragged her to shore. Just as she was stooping to set her down, she heard a click and looked up.
There was Junie Grievance at the edge of the clearing, shotgun trained on Chase.
“Fucking bitch,” she spat. “Git yer filthy Sunnycrest hands offa her.”