Page 19 of Hide My Heart
The dingy cabin under thetrees is dark under the white coating of new snow. I step around the rotten plank on the porch and wipe the bottoms of my boots on the worn “Welcome” mat. Hunter shoves the stuck door open, and it rebounds on the rough log wall.
I wrinkle my nose and peer into the dark and cramped interior. It smells damp and musty, like dirty socks and wet rat. I’m betting he has a half-dozen frozen carcasses piled in the garage and a line of fur pelts hanging overhead.
Once thawed, the animal has to be skinned quickly to prevent rot, so every evening Hunter picks two or three animals to skin and scrape. He always makes me help with the fleshing part, the removal of fat and muscle, but he doesn’t trust me with a knife to do the actual skinning.
It’s easy to ruin a pelt by cutting in the wrong place. Besides, I’d rather not cut around the animal’s anus where the scent glands are located. They’re valuable and Hunter sells them along with the pelts.
I hate all of this.
Hunter shoves me into the house and locks the door.
My stomach curls with nausea, and I sniff out through my nose, hating the fetid air, knowing that he’s going to make me help. I’m still shaking from him pulling that gun on me, but part of me knew he wouldn’t shoot. Then he wouldn’t have his little puppet to play with.
No, he’s going to make nice and then put me to work. It’s how he stays off the grid, selling pelts to fur traders for cash—ones who won’t ask questions if he goes over the seasonal quota.
Out here, so close to the Canadian border, no one bothers anyone, and it’ll be nearly impossible to find me here.
“I want you to fry up some of that beaver meat I have in the fridge,” he orders. “Then come to the garage. I’ve got a beaver, two foxes, and wolf to skin.”
He acts as if a year hasn’t passed. As if nothing’s changed.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” He glares at me. “If you’re hungry, you have to cook. No stopping at fast food joints and wasting money. Or have you gone lazy after being with him?”
“I ain’t been with no one,” I protest, even as I scurry to the relatively safe haven of the kitchen.
Taking the heavy cast iron frying pan off the hook, I wonder why I’m not brave enough to brain him one. My friends back at the coffee shop, Tammy and Gina, wouldn’t have hesitated. They had been homeless before they got jobs at the coffee shop. Tammy is a big, African-American woman taking classes at the community college, while Gina is also a single mother. Her daughter turned three this year.
If Hunter thinks I’m the same person I was a year ago, he’s underestimating me. I’m no longer the idiot who doesn’t know how to use a computer or cell phone. I miss my friends in California, but right now, I’m starving and my breasts are hard as rocks. I need to squeeze out some of that excess milk while he’s busy in the garage.
I leak when I think about Beck. By now, he should be back in Divine with Nate and his mother. Nate’s the best friend I’ll ever have. He’ll help me, but right now, I better get that beaver fried up with a nice, sweet milk gravy, and I have to pretend I’m going to help Hunter.
Tonight, when he’s asleep, I’m running away.
The freezer is full of butchered meat. Beaver, raccoon, muskrat. He doesn’t eat the coyotes and wolves, but once we had fox and the meat was sweet.
I soak the beaver in salt water to get rid of the gamy taste. I can barely find anything in the mess. It looks like Hunter hasn’t cleaned since I left. The heavy cast iron frying pan is rusty and has to be scrubbed with salt. Trash is piled up on every piece of counter space, and gunk is congealed on the dishes and inside the mugs.
There’s an odor of stale coffee, old grease, mold, and decay. I don’t even want to look at the dead flies and curled up wasps on the windowsills.
It takes me twenty minutes to straighten up enough to find soap and baking powder—buried underneath the sink.
I scrub the rust off the frying pan and put a little bacon grease in it, heating it up.
Meanwhile, I chop whatever vegetables I can find.
The butcher knife’s nice and sharp, and I wonder if I can get him when he’s asleep. Problem is, I don’t want to wait that long, because after he skins those critters, he’s going to want to skin the clothes right off of me and there’s no way I’m going to let him touch me.
My stomach’s growling and my breasts weep at not having Beck here. Soon, the scent of fried meat has my mouth watering and I chow down, not waiting for Hunter.
If I have to get away, I’ll need all the energy I can get.
He’s probably still in the garage struggling with that big, old wolf. While he’s doing that, I go back to our bedroom and dig through the closets. My suitcase is piled in there with all his stuff.
I drag it out and lug it to the back door. He’s still in the garage so I hide my suitcase behind the woodpile, and I’m back in the kitchen just in the nick of time.
Hunter ambles in, peels off his bloody gloves, and sticks his skinning knife into a sheath. “Got all them critters skinned. Serve me up some grub and go get those skins scraped. You should see that big bad wolf I got.”
His face beams like he’s so proud of himself. True, wolf pelts are ten times more valuable than a coyote and five times more than a red fox.
