Nevada Barr - The Rope

Slowly, their breathing returned to normal. Twice Bethy struggled, and twice Anna tightened the chain around her neck until she became docile.

With air and rest came thought. Anna’s first was: Like a dog chasing a car. She’d caught Bethy. Now what? If she let loose of her, she didn’t doubt Bethy would try to kill her again. Anna was strong now, but Bethy was bigger and heavier and younger. In a fair fight Bethy would win. So fighting fair was out. Anna’d always thought it was silly anyway, like the rules of war. War was war; the point was to kill and prevail via the use of force. Pretending to do it in a civilized manner was a sop to the conscience of killers.

Continuing to sit stalemated indefinitely, they would die of thirst before anybody came upon them. Already Anna felt she was dying of thirst, though she knew she had many hours of torture to look forward to before she would actually expire.

The rope running between her cuffed wrists inspired her. Gathering a length of it, she began pulling it through her hands, dragging the loop around the rock they leaned against, moving the circle of rope.

“What’re you doing?” Bethy asked.

“Making us more comfortable,” Anna lied.

“You better let me go,” Bethy warned, but she made no effort to escape. “Regis is coming, and he’s going to make you let me go.”

“That so?” Anna wondered if it was true. More rope paid out between her hands. She felt her senses split, the hands working toward one goal, the rest of her alert to any change in her prisoner that might signify imminent danger.

“Yup. It sure is,” Bethy said with a smugness Anna found alarming. “He’s going to kill you,” she announced with satisfaction. “That’s why I didn’t just kill you right away. I was saving you so he could do it.”

“That was nice of you,” Anna said. A clink of metal let her know the carabiners affixed to the ends of the rope were moving closer.

“I’m a nice person,” Bethy said with what sounded like absolute sincerity.

The carabiners were in sight. Bethy reached out and grabbed them.

“Let go.” Anna tightened the chain.

“Bitch,” Bethy gasped and let the interlocked carabiners drop.

Two more pulls and Anna had them in her hands. Fingers thick with dust and aching from dragging the rope, she fumbled the carabiners open with difficulty and broke the loop. Before Bethy could get any ideas, Anna whipped one end of the rope around her neck and clicked the carabiner back on to it. An effective noose created, she jerked it tight.

“What are you doing?” Bethy screeched and reached up to claw at the rope around her neck.

“Shut up,” Anna said. “Hands down.”

Bethy did as she was told. Despite the fact Anna had her in a stranglehold, and had a slip knot around her windpipe, the lack of fight was worrying. Maybe Bethy hadn’t been bluffing, and Regis was coming to murder her. A couple’s bonding experience. Shared interests were important in a marriage.

Shoving that thought aside, Anna lifted her manacled wrists and arms from around Bethy. Too long held above the level of her heart, the hands were beginning to numb. Needles of feeling prickled as blood flowed back in. With the heels of her hands she shoved Bethy off her chest, jackknifing her nose toward her knees while keeping the slip knot around her neck tight.

“Give me the key to the handcuffs,” Anna demanded.

“I don’t—”

Anna jerked on the slip knot she’d made with the carabiner. She hated doing it, hated choking Bethy. The temptation to pull the rope tight enough to kill the horrid woman was too great. Each time Bethy forced her to do it, it was a little harder to back off the pressure when Bethy became compliant. The need to kill wasn’t fueled merely by anger but by exhaustion. Anna wasn’t sure how much longer she could maintain the upper hand.

“Key,” Anna demanded.

Bethy reached into her trouser pocket, contorting her upper body since Anna had no intention of allowing her to sit up straight or lean back against her. As Bethy’s hand began to pull free, Anna tweaked the rope enough to get her attention. “If you even look like you’re thinking of tossing that key into the canyon I will kill you without a qualm.”

“You don’t need a qualm, you’ve got a rope, ” Bethy grumbled.

The key was out; pinched between her fingers, she lifted it toward her shoulder. The instant Anna reached for it Bethy turned her head and popped the tiny silver key into her mouth. Any shred of conscience that remained to Anna burned off like sulfur off a match. Bracing her knuckles against Bethy’s neck, she pulled the rope so hard the other woman’s flesh popped through the carabiner next to her spine.

“Spit it out,” Anna said; venom through clenched teeth.

Bethy spat it out.

“Give it to me.”

Bethy gave it to her. Anna unlocked the cuffs carefully. The lock was easy but the mechanics of the handcuffs unfamiliar. When they were off, she dropped them over Bethy’s shoulder into her lap.

“Put them on.”

Bethy put them on.

Working as quickly as she could, Anna wrapped the long rope around and around her prisoner, trussed her up the way people in cartoons were trussed, with coil after coil pinning her arms to her body. When she was nearly out of rope she wove the other end, with the mate to the carabiner serving as a noose, through several coils on Bethy’s back and clipped it to the rope still circling her throat.

“If you struggle you will slowly strangle yourself,” Anna said. She didn’t know if that was true or not, but Bethy apparently believed her. As Anna backed away on shaking legs, Bethy sat perfectly still.

With a thump, Anna sat in the dirt and shrugged out of her daypack. Hands finally free, she took her water bottle from its canvas pouch on her belt and, never taking her eyes from Bethy, drained it. She had another in her pack.

Immediately a modicum of strength and sanity flowed back. In grade school she’d learned the human body was 60 percent water. Until she’d known extreme thirst she’d never really appreciated that fact.

“Can I have a drink?” Bethy begged.

“Maybe.” Anna eyed her coldly. “If you tell me what is going on with you and Regis.”

“We’re in love,” Bethy said smugly.

Very deliberately Anna rose, crossed to where Bethy’s pack lay, took out her water bottle, uncapped it and took a long swallow.

“Bitch,” Bethy cried. Anna took another.

“You were doing everything you could to make my husband pay attention to you. You were acting like the whore you are,” Bethy snapped. “Then this pimply-faced creep told me that him and his pals threw you guys in that hole. I knew it was you. All that skanky red hair and nasty black clothes.”

“Why would he tell you?” Anna asked suspiciously.

“Because I was the first uniform he saw, stupid. Visitors don’t know law enforcement from interp,” Bethy told her with scorn.

“And you told Regis.”

Bethy smiled a perceptive close-lipped smile. “That’s right, and he hated you and he went to kill you. Now can I have a drink of water?”

The smile bothered Anna, though why, of all the alarming upsetting things about the bad-seed-child in a woman’s body, one sneaky little smile should set off alarm bells, she was unsure.

“In a minute,” Anna said.

“Now!” Bethy screamed.

Anna just watched her. After a few minutes, she rose, walked to the bound woman, and poured a bottle’s cap full of water. Bethy tilted back her head and opened her mouth wide like a baby bird waiting for a bug.

“Don’t choke,” Anna said and tipped the teaspoon of water in.

“More,” Bethy demanded.

Anna ignored her. Sitting down again, sun like molten lead on her head and shoulders, earth nearly as hot beneath her, she studied Bethy. The sneaky smile was what poker players called a “tell.” Anna’d seen it before. Bethy did it before she lied.