The Devil's Punchbowl

CHAPTER 56

“I told you it wouldn’t work,” Linda says through the plywood wall. “He doesn’t miss anything. He took one look in there and knew what you were thinking. That’s why he took the cats.”

Caitlin balls her bloody fists in frustration and tries to keep her voice level. “It doesn’t matter. I can get into the storeroom now.”

“So what? You can’t get away without the cats to distract them.”

“I’m going to use the puppy chow.”

Linda laughs without mirth. “You think those dogs want puppy chow? They eat meat, and nothing but. You’re crazy if you try it.”

“Have you got the bars off your window yet?”

Linda says nothing.

“Linda?”

“I got two of them loose. What does it matter? You can’t get this chain off, and even if you do, I can’t run. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“You can tell me a thousand times and I won’t listen.”

There’s another long silence, during which Caitlin hears the trainers outside working the Bully Kuttas. From what she’s seen through her window, any man who would climb into a pit with one of them with only a knife would have to be certifiably insane, no matter how much armor he wore. Still, Daniel Kelly managed to kill one on the riverbank, so it’s not impossible. But Kelly is an elite commando; she can’t have any illusions about what would happen if one of the dogs caught hold of an ankle as she climbed the fence. They would literally eat her alive.

“I’m not leaving without you,” Caitlin says again. “But we have to go as soon as those trainers leave. Quinn’s going to be furious after what Sands did to him today. He’s going to want to take it out on you. As soon as the trainers leave, you get those other bars off.”

“I know what they’re going to do,” she says. “They’re going to take you away, and then they’ll put that armor suit on me and throw me to the dogs.”

“No!” Caitlin shouts, but she suspects Linda is right.

“You saw how they acted. They can’t afford to kill you. That’s why they came and asked who popped your cherry. The mayor’s working some kind of deal for you. But I won’t get that. I’ve seen too much.”

“If they are letting me go, then they can’t kill you. I’ve seen you. I could tell people you were alive. You see?”

A shout with a ring of finality echoes across the yard beneath the great shed, and Caitlin hears the lid of a pickup’s toolbox clang down.

“They’re getting ready to leave,” she says, feeling her heart pound with anticipation. “Get ready to get those bars down. The second they’re gone, I’m getting up on the roof.”

“Caitlin?”

“Yes?”

“You shouldn’t try it. They’re going to let you go, if you’ll just wait for the trade. But if you go out there with those dogs, you’re going to die. Puppy chow won’t hold them for five seconds. They’ll smell you coming, and they’ll rip you to pieces.”

“I’m not waiting.”

“I’ll pray for you, then.”

“I don’t want a prayer. I want you with me.”

“I can’t run no more!”

Caitlin can’t sustain the deception any longer. “Linda, if you don’t run, you’re going to die. You’re right. Quinn means to kill you. It’s only twenty feet to that fence. I’ll help you across the space, and I’ll boost you up.”

There’s a long silence. “I can’t let you do that,” Linda says finally. “It wasn’t meant to be. This is my time, that’s all. If you’re really going to do it, just go.”

“I won’t. Not without you.”

“Yes, you will. Don’t feel bad about it either. You’re a good person, Caitlin. Not stuck-up like I would have thought. I wish we could’ve been friends. I haven’t had a good girlfriend since grade school.”

“We can be friends. We are friends. You’re a good person too, and you deserve a long, happy life!”

This time the silence drags. “I done some bad things in my life,” Linda says. “Stuff I wouldn’t want my mama to know about.”

“We all have, Linda. Trust me on that.”

“Maybe. I don’t imagine you’ve seen the world from some of the places I have. But at least I can say this. I never took money for it.”

Outside, the truck engine rumbles to life, and two doors slam.

“That’s it,” Caitlin says, jumping to her feet. “Get those bars off your windows. I’m going to the storeroom. When Quinn gets back, he’s not going to find anything but empty stalls!”

She grabs her window bars and starts her skin-the-cat inversion, but stops before pushing up the tin sheet above her. “Linda?” she says. “Linda?”

She hears nothing but the receding truck at first, then the rattle of the chain next door.

“Are you working on them?” she calls, as the blood pools in her head.

“Uh-huh. It hurts.”

“No pain, no gain. Get them off!”

“Caitlin?”

“What?”

“Thanks for getting my clothes back.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you in a few minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

“No more Quinn, right?”

“Right. No more.”

Caitlin almost rejoices in the pain as she kicks the tin sheet upward, then drops to the floor and climbs onto the windowsill, bent nearly double. In one smooth motion she straightens her legs and catches hold of the outside roof, then raises herself through the hole by main strength. When the cool breeze hits her face, it feels like freedom, and when the four Bully Kuttas gather below her, their upturned faces watching her with unmistakable malice, she leans out just a little and speaks softly.

“Let’s see who’s smarter, eh? Dogs or women?”